Wizards of Money Part 12: The Imperial Budget And The Mythical Lock Box
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

Part Summary: In this the 12th edition of the Wizards of Money we are going to take a look at the biggest budget in the whole wide world in the whole of history – that is, the $2 Trillion USD budget of the US Government.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Wizards of Money Part 11: House Lever-Edge At The Derivatives Casino
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

Part Summary: In this, the 11th edition of Wizards, we are going to take a look at the wild and crazy world of financial derivatives through examining the role and dangers of leverage in our modern society. Our adventure will end with a story called “Because a little Bug with the Asian Flu went Ka-CHOO”. You might have heard a similar story when you were a child, but in this case the star of our story is the Long Term Capital Management Fund or LTCM. LTCM was an unregulated hedge fund, addicted to risk and high on derivatives, that could have easily sent us crashing into the next Great Depression in 1998, but for the intervention of the Federal Reserve.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Wizards of Money Part 10: Back To The Twenties Through The Looking Glass – Steagall
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

Part Summary: In this the 10th edition of Wizards we are going to take a look at the parallels between current times and the late 1920s – the period just before the great stock-market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression. We will see how it is that much of the regulation implemented during the Great Depression to address the wild and unregulated behavior of big business during the twenties has now been dismantled through de-regulation. Despite industry claims that such regulation is out-dated and no longer needed for our fancy modern markets, we will see that, not surprisingly, the dismantling of this regulation has once again given rise to exactly the dangerous market behavior it was designed to stop.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Wizards of Money Part 9: Jack And The Sweatshop
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

Part Summary: In this the Ninth Edition of Wizards we are going to take a look at the “Manager of the 20th Century” – Jack Welch – GE’s CEO for the 20 years up until Fall 2001. In September 2001 Jack’s much awaited autobiography entitled “Jack – Straight from the Gut” was released with much fanfare. Business professionals are besides themselves with praise for the book from Warren Buffett’s comments that “All CEOs want to emulate him” to the Chairman of SONY corporation’s statement “Jack Welch, the brilliant business magician, has finally disclosed his mysteries of management”.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Wizards of Money Part 8: Trading Nature And “Cooking The Books”
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

Part Summary: In this, the eighth edition of Wizards, we are going to take a look at what drives companies to “cook the books” – or lie about their earnings, and we’ll investigate just how widespread this problem might be. How much of the global economy is based on “smoke and mirrors” book-keeping wizardry? Is such fake wizardry a genuine weak spot in the financial system that could ultimately lead to a meltdown? These are interesting questions for people to ask and it is especially useful for activists to identify such weak spots. Book cooking is a topical issue in the wake of the implosion of the amazing disintegrating wizard collection known as Enron.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Wizards of Money Part 7: The Money Cycle Versus The Water Cycle
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

Part Summary: In this seventh edition of Wizards we are going to take a look at the very intimate and certainly, very troubled, relationship between money and water. We will do this by first navigating our way through a simple model of money flows – which we shall call the Money Cycle. Then we’ll circle through the Water Cycle and remind ourselves of all that stuff we learned in elementary school … plus more of the stuff they didn’t tell us about.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Wizards of Money Part 6: Democratizing The Monetary System
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

Part Summary: In this sixth edition of Wizards we are going to take a look at the growing movement to democratize money – that is people creating their own monetary systems and making credit creation and distribution a democratic process, which is a radical change from the US dollar based mainstream monetary system. In this edition we will hear some excerpts from a BBC interview with a reformed currency trader, and we also interview the administrator of a small but democratic version of the Federal Reserve, where a currency called “Bread Hours” is growing in circulation in California.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Wizards of Money Part 5: Monetary Terrorism
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

Part Summary: In this fifth edition of Wizards we are going to take a look at financial terrorism conducted by western financial institutions even as they freeze the assets of a different kind of terrorist. In the previous edition of Wizards we discussed the dual role of the military system and the financial system in modern empires, and how both systems facilitate the appropriation of foreign resources – the lifeblood of any empire. Today we will explore how certain currency regimes have come to dominate in this arena, and take over from where various cold-war era military regimes left off.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Wizards of Money Part 4: Wizards And Warlords
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

Part Summary: In this fourth edition of Wizards we are going to take a look at the special relationship between the Wizard profession and the Warlord profession.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Wizards of Money Part 3: Banking On Poverty
by Smithy/Unwelcome Guests

Part Summary: In this third edition of Wizards we are going to take a look at how banks bet that poverty will pay off for them. We will be taking a close look at predatory lending whereby banks seeking high returns prey on the poor who, as noted in past editions of Wizards, have little to no voice in the financial system. We will also look at banks’ appetites for homes through this predatory lending followed by the foreclosure process.

Series Summary: The Wizards of Money is an educational series that questions the validity of the global monetary system. Listen and discover amazing facts about the world-wide debt system we’ve all been enslaved by, and how this system produces economic disparity and the massive poverty conditions in which most people find themselves today.

About the Host: Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics. She works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions, therefore she does not reveal her real name.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States