"You control the debt, you control everything." The International
BBC documentary "The Greed Game"
http://video.google.com/...
Naomi Klein interview on The Shock Doctrine
http://video.google.com/...
American Casino
http://www.youtube.com/...
"If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest." Exodus 22:25
The financial system, Friedman and his Chicago School "free market" economics, banks and corporations are part of an economic system based on the profit motive. They would have us believe that greed is good, taxes must be low to promote private investment and government must be small and markets unregulated.
They are also based on the creation of more debt than there is wealth. Because of the system of "leverage" in which a bank loans out several times the capital they have on hand, there will always be more debt than there is wealth. Every dollar in your pocket or bank account is owed to someone. When debts are called in, there will always be people who cannot pay. It's like musical chairs with peoples' jobs, life savings and homes. The people at the top always have nice seats reserved for themselves through money or powerful connections, while the other 90% are left to compete for what's left.
Debt has been used as a weapon for most of the 20th century. It has been refined into a weapon of mass destruction used to engineer misery in countries fighting predominantly American multinationals. Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa owe more in debt and interest than they will ever be able to pay off. Debt manipulation and government sanctions because of corporate lobbying long ago became the new colonialism. These policies produce abject poverty, starvation, human rights and environmental abuses and the creation of obscenely concentrated wealth.
I support Naomi Klein and everyone else spreading this message across the world. It is the only way to combat religious, class and racial divisions that are constantly exploited by these same ruthless corporatists misdirecting peoples' their anger to keep them divided and weak.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, for the most part. But I feel people need constant reminders of exactly what "free market capitalism" means for 90% of the people in the world today.