It´s Our Money with Ellen Brown

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown - Bailing Out Wall Street, Sacrificing Main Street

Bailing Out Wall Street, Sacrificing Main Street

 

The bank-owned Federal Reserve has been taking unprecedented actions of late propping up capital markets, corporations and banks in response to the economic impact of the Covid pandemic and the covert collapse of the financial system dating back to mid-2019. Among their recovery mechanisms has been the purchase of grouped market assets called Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) managed under a no-bid contract with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager and ETF manager. Ellen discusses Blackrock’s place in the monetary stratosphere, the glaringly obvious conflict of interest and self-dealing in its arrangement with the Fed, and how this backdoor bailout has served Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. Then she talks with ETF scholar and expert Ryan Clements, who takes us on a deep dive into the mechanics of these super-large and unregulated funds, how they exploded on the scene, and what it means for the real economy. Meanwhile, America’s states and cities are struggling to address significant pandemic-driven budget shortfalls, for which the Fed has not been very helpful.  Walt talks with economist Dr. Robert Hockett about how the Fed’s Municipal Liquidity Facility needs to be revised to enable real Main Street financial support.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown - Rethinking the Fed, Payment Systems and Vaccine Speculation …

Rethinking the Fed, Payment Systems and Vaccine Speculation … 

After 100+ years, it’s high time we give serious thought to how well our central bank is meeting its objectives of stabilizing the banking system, ensuring employment levels and keeping a lid on inflation. The report card is not good.  Today’s guest Graham Steele, Director of Stanford’s Corporations and Society Initiative, talks with Ellen about the many ways the Fed has taken on a much more expansive role of salvaging financial markets while avoiding Main Street economic concerns. Dr. Robert Hockett describes his “Inclusive Value Ledger” (IVL) concept that would create a public payment system and give everyone access to a digital wallet.  And Ellen talks about the speculative rush to get a Covid vaccine to market without proper safety precautions.

 

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown - Covid Coverups

Covid Coverups

 

The axiom “never waste a good crisis” has been a reliable tool for Wall Street interests over decades. Under cover of various national economic phenomena, Wall Street interests via the Federal Reserve have managed to direct trillions of dollars into their own accounts. Ellen describes how the new Fed funding channels intended to relieve the financial stress of citizens are being used to save the investor class under the guise of helping Main Street America. We get a front-line report of how that isn’t working at the street level from Carlos Marroquin, who has been serving the immediate needs of people in Los Angeles left out of the Fed-funding circle.  And we talk with Ameya Pawar, a former Chicago elected official who is now helping lead the Economic Security Project on how this crisis can lead to new economic systems that bring forward a new era of sufficiency and well-being – and how public banks can help make that difference.   

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown - Time to Think Hard About Local Community Investment

Time to Think Hard About Local Community Investment

 

Amid the devastating economic impacts of Corvid-19, Ellen discusses her observations of an evident “War on the States” in which states find themselves fighting for parity in Fed funding for virus recovery. With this forced-refocusing on local financial resources, individuals and communities must reconsider where they’ve been investing their money. Global financial markets have dominated and distorted our systems of economic investment and have done very little for the important concerns of community vitality and public interest, namely local businesses. But security laws have begun to slowly open new opportunities for local investments and our guest, noted author, economist and leading protagonist of crowd-funding Michael Shuman, argues that local investment is key to generating lasting health in local economies, and public banking plays an important role in bringing it forward.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown - Will the Fed Help Rescue Main Street?

Will the Fed Help Rescue Main Street? 

While that notion sounds improbable to most economic observers, recent actions by the Federal Reserve have opened the door for critical direct lending to states and large municipalities. This is a big deal because not having to rely on the Wall Street bond market could both increase the amount of funding available  and decrease the cost of that borrowing. It is an historic breakthrough that could make a critical difference as costs rise for local governments while their revenues drop precipitously due to the current economic collapse. Further, if this lending relationship continues, new prospects open for creating a distributed network of public banks that hold a permanent relationship with the Fed.

Cheers!

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown - Building a Real-World Economy

Building a Real-World Economy

 

How would it be if we changed our economic priorities to the concerns of the real world rather than the giddy greed of fantasy finance?  Renowned futurist and founder of Ethical Markets, Hazel Henderson, discusses a whole new category of thoughtful, real-world economic study that integrates multiple dimensions of life such as the environment, quality of life, politics, social impact.  And speaking of impacts, the Covid-19 pandemic has transformed the nation’s financial centers and the Federal Reserve – Ellen discusses these impacts on our understanding of funding limitations; we may have blown right through them!

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown - Grassroots Government Must Lead

Grassroots Government Must Lead

 

Government “of, by and for the people” is a precept adopted by citizens and politicians alike even though it may just be wishful thinking in terms of public policy. As the political money power of corporations continues to roll over public interest policies and practices, significant new public remonstrance is growing on many fronts. One of them is West Virginia, home to generations of exploitation by out-of-state monopoly powers, where one of the most exciting grassroots uprisings in the nation has deployed a powerful campaign for creating transformational public policy through democratic action. Its economic platform proposes a new public state bank. We talk with the champion of this campaign who is running for governor, Steve Smith, who currently leads in the polls.  And we visit with another populist leader, WA State Senator Bob Hasegawa, that State’s most stalwart proponent of a state bank; he considers it essential for the State’s economy and future. Now it looks like he’s going to find success in his 10-year pursuit after all.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown - Neoliberalism’s Death Knell?

Neoliberalism’s Death Knell?

 

The global economic devastation produced by market-driven profiteering has resulted in distressed and deprived citizens taking to the streets by the hundreds of thousands in cities around the globe and continues its destructive exploitation of our planet’s resources. The culprit is an aging “neo-liberal” economic system which produces historic social inequality while consolidating power in the hands of a few. Our guest, renowned economist Michael Hudson, says this system is more neo-feudal than neo-liberal – and that its inherent excesses are on the verge of bringing it down. Ellen reports that one example of its demise may be in Mexico where its new president is creating new public banks to help address some of its neo-liberal market inequities.

 

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown - Another Look Behind the Curtain

Two recent developments provide another look at how powerful monetary interests play their game. One is the CIA-driven coup to unseat Venezuela’s legitimate government in order to take control of that rich nation’s assets, and the other is a “Laundromat”-styled offshore scam by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase to capture energy markets.  Our guests are attorney-activist Kevin Zeese of Popular Resistance, who is facing threat of jail time for actions defending the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, and Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen, whose recent research exposed 61 fake off-shore companies set-up by Goldman Sachs to circumvent regulators.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown - Resolved for 2020: Come Together

“Divide and Conquer” is a proven method for creating chaos that can diffuse and distract opponents.  Today’s guest, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and renowned global commentator, says that’s how the globe’s financial elite diffuse public challenges to the raw economic deal that citizens around the world contend with.  But things are changing, and people are beginning to band together to challenge the unified media narrative that props up big business and government deceptions. Our other guest, Swami Beyondanonda, offers encouragement to those creating new possibilities for our world, including through new public banks.