Episodes
Thursday Jun 17, 2021
It's Our Money with Ellen Brown - The Fed, Native Americans and the Chinese
Thursday Jun 17, 2021
Thursday Jun 17, 2021
As America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve is the hub of our banking world and connects institutional monetary participants and systems to its critical functions and resources. Access to this network is not guaranteed for those wanting to start a new bank, and the process is arduous. But when five Native American nations began exploring the possibility of creating their own bank to keep their money under tribal control, they were surprised to find active Fed support for their pursuit. Our guest Dennis Ortblad, a former diplomat stationed in Germany, discusses his work with these nations and how the Fed seems to know its policies need improvement when it comes to launching minority depositories. Dennis also talks about Germany’s Sparkassen banks, which for the past 200 years have helped drive that country’s economic success and are one of the models inspiring the American public banking movement. We’re also joined by Dr. Robert Hockett of Cornell University, who talks with Ellen about digital currencies and the prospect of China taking over as the host of the world’s reserve currency.
Friday Jun 11, 2021
It’s Our Money With Ellen Brown - Big Corp Moves In
Friday Jun 11, 2021
Friday Jun 11, 2021
Big Corp Moves In
As money systems diversify through new digital systems at all levels of governments internationally, some large corporations are capturing mega-markets through exclusive payment systems. Primarily in developing countries at this point, these corporations have created systems similar to Visa and Mastercard which can take exclusive, competition-free control of national payment processing. This dystopic prospect of corporations being able to turn on and turn off transactional payments is the focus of our guest Nick Brown, who helped set up Visa’s debit card network. We also visit with Dr. Robert Hockett, an expert on all things monetary including the Federal Reserve, who says it’s time for our central bank to focus on funding real production for the national interest rather than being a funder of boundless financial specialization.