Showing posts with label Documentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Documentary. Show all posts

Monday, January 10, 2011

"The Diamond Empire: Artificial Scarcity (1994)"

Summary/Overview:

"1:20:57
De Beers is able to create an artificial scarcity of diamonds through its wholly-owned Central Selling Organization (CSO), thus keeping prices high. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartels A cartel is a group of formally independent producers whose goal is to increase their collective profits by means of price fixing, limiting supply, or other restrictive practices. The US oil and gasoline markets work the same way seeking to restrict the flow of IRAQI oil for example. http://www.gregpalast.com/the-best-thing-in-the-world-for-big-oil/#more-1468 Now hold on a minute: Why is our government in a “difficult” position if Iraq is a “swing producer” of oil? The answer was that Saddam was jerking the oil market up and down. One week, without notice, the man in the moustache suddenly announces he’s going to “support the Palestinian intifada” and cuts off all oil shipments. The result: Worldwide oil prices jump up. The next week, Saddam forgets about the Palestinians and pumps to the maximum allowed under the Oil-for-Food Program. The result: Oil prices suddenly dive-bomb. Up, down, up, down. Saddam was out of control. “Control is what it’s all about,” one oilman told me. “It’s not about getting the oil, it’s about controlling oil’s price.” De Beers is able to create an artificial scarcity of diamonds through its wholly-owned Central Selling Organization (CSO), thus keeping prices high. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartels A cartel is a group of formally independent producers whose goal is to increase their collective profits by means of price fixing, limiting supply, or other restrictive practices. The US oil and gasoline markets work the same way seeking to restrict the flow of IRAQI oil for example. http://www.gregpalast.com/the-best-thing-in-the-world-for-big-oil/#more-1468 Now hold on a minute: Why is our government in a “difficult” position if Iraq is a “swing producer” of oil? The answer was that Saddam was jerking the oil market up and down. One week, without notice, the man in the moustache suddenly announces he’s going to “support the Palestinian intifada” and cuts off all oil shipments. The result: Worldwide oil prices jump up. The next week, Saddam forgets about the Palestinians and pumps to the maximum ...all » De Beers is able to create an artificial scarcity of diamonds through its wholly-owned Central Selling Organization (CSO), thus keeping prices high. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartels A cartel is a group of formally independent producers whose goal is to increase their collective profits by means of price fixing, limiting supply, or other restrictive practices. The US oil and gasoline markets work the same way seeking to restrict the flow of IRAQI oil for example. http://www.gregpalast.com/the-best-thing-in-the-world-for-big-oil/#more-1468 Now hold on a minute: Why is our government in a “difficult” position if Iraq is a “swing producer” of oil? The answer was that Saddam was jerking the oil market up and down. One week, without notice, the man in the moustache suddenly announces he’s going to “support the Palestinian intifada” and cuts off all oil shipments. The result: Worldwide oil prices jump up. The next week, Saddam forgets about the Palestinians and pumps to the maximum allowed under the Oil-for-Food Program. The result: Oil prices suddenly dive-bomb. Up, down, up, down. Saddam was out of control. “Control is what it’s all about,” one oilman told me. “It’s not about getting the oil, it’s about controlling oil’s price.”

2006 Documentary Which Covers Part Of How We Got Here: "In Debt We Trust"

Overview/Summary:
"1:29:19
In America's earliest days, there were barn-raising parties in which neighbors helped each other build up their farms. Today, in some churches, there are debt liquidation revivals in which parishioners chip in to free each other from growing credit card debts that are driving American families to bankruptcy and desperation. IN DEBT WE TRUST is the latest film from Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector," director of the internationally distributed and award-winning WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception), an expose of the media's role in the Iraq War. The Emmy-winning former ABC News and CNN producer's new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with what former Reagan advisor Kevin Phillips calls "Financialization"--the "powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex." While many Americans may be "maxing out" on credit cards, there is a deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands.....with frightening consequences. IN DEBT WE TRUST shows how the mall replaced the factory as America's dominant economic engine and how big banks and credit card companies buy our Congress and drive us into what a former major bank economist calls modern serfdom. Americans and our government owe trillions in consumer debt and the national debt, a large amount of it to big banks and billions to Communist China. In America's earliest days, there were barn-raising parties in which neighbors helped each other build up their farms. Today, in some churches, there are debt liquidation revivals in which parishioners chip in to free each other from growing credit card debts that are driving American families to bankruptcy and desperation. IN DEBT WE TRUST is the latest film from Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector," director of the internationally distributed and award-winning WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception), an expose of the media's role in the Iraq War. The Emmy-winning former ABC News and CNN producer's new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with what former Reagan advisor Kevin Phillips calls "Financialization"--the "powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex." While many Americans may be "maxing out" on credit cards, there is a deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands.....with frightening consequence...all » In America's earliest days, there were barn-raising parties in which neighbors helped each other build up their farms. Today, in some churches, there are debt liquidation revivals in which parishioners chip in to free each other from growing credit card debts that are driving American families to bankruptcy and desperation. IN DEBT WE TRUST is the latest film from Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector," director of the internationally distributed and award-winning WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception), an expose of the media's role in the Iraq War. The Emmy-winning former ABC News and CNN producer's new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with what former Reagan advisor Kevin Phillips calls "Financialization"--the "powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex." While many Americans may be "maxing out" on credit cards, there is a deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands.....with frightening consequences. IN DEBT WE TRUST shows how the mall replaced the factory as America's dominant economic engine and how big banks and credit card companies buy our Congress and drive us into what a former major bank economist calls modern serfdom. Americans and our government owe trillions in consumer debt and the national debt, a large amount of it to big banks and billions to Communist China."

IMDB Listing: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0829429/