Black/Horwath

"PoliticsUK would like to welcome Mike Horwath, writer of 97% Owned - Democratise our Money Supply.

Mike, can you tell me a little bit about how 97% Owned - Democratise our Money Supply came to be? What was your inspiration behind your documentary?"

I was looking for information on how the money system, particularly credit creation, worked in the UK and realised there was little to no information available. My initial inspiration was to understand how the system worked to see if there could be another alternative. In December 2010 we set out to meet and interview people who were advocating for monetary reform to see if they understood how it worked so we could go somewhere the main stream media had so far avoided. Early on in the process we met with Ben Dyson from Positive Money who agreed to work with us and it seemed from there on very plausible to make a film about the monetary reform movement. However, things have changed very rapidly this year with the austerity measures, the demonstrations and riots and then the Occupy Movement so we knew we could do a full feature about how the monetary system really works and the implications. Sub consciously it’s probably the one film I've always wanted to make.


2

"Can you explain the concept behind 97% Owned and how it affect the average person on the street?

The best answer I can give is to plagiarise a comment from one of the interviewees. “One day a man was crossing a bridge when he saw a person floating down stream shouting for help, the man reached into the river and pulled the person out, on pulling them out he looked up and saw another person coming down stream in the same situation, so he lent over and pulled that person out also. This went on and on. If the man had just walked 50 yards down stream he would have seen people being thrown in by a gang" Now in this situation you could say that it its easier to rescue people as they come down the river rather than as a single person taking on the gang who are throwing the people in. We all need money to live, it pays the mortgage or rent, buys our food and our clothes but we rarely ask the questions where does it come from? Who creates it? And what are the implications of the system? I think 97% owned is vital for anybody to watch to obtain an insight into how the money system really works. It underpins our society, it effects everybody.


3

" You depict the masses as zombies. Why did you pick this particular horror figure and if the masses are zombies, would it be correct in your opinion to depict the capitalists as vampires and the politicians as werewolves?"

I think this question is referring to our short teaser. This was actually filmed at an event organised by Chris Knight about 'Zombie Bankers' not the masses as zombies. In this particular clip it’s the Bankers who are zombies and they are feeding on the flesh of public sector workers. But to the questions, Capitalist for sure can be depicted as Vampires, in an animation which will feature in the film they are depicted as a Giant Vampire Squid. Further to that if you took Werewolves as doing the Vampires bidding, then they that is a great definition! I would prefer to think of them as parasites however as they extract nourishments from the host but they also take over the hosts brain to make them think they are part of the body, or of the economy, like a child, so the host seeks to protect the parasite even though its doing harm.


4

"Does an ever increasing population come into the equation?"

If you look at the change in population to the change in the money supply then I can’t see that these two have a direct coalition. I'm not an expert in this area however it just isn't an issue that came out of any our interviews or reading on the subject for this film.


5

"Do you believe the internet alone has forced a new awareness on the people of how their money is being spent or has this awareness been growing anyway?"

The current paradigm has existed a long time and monetary reform movements, whether that be OWS or complimentary currency movements, always tends to grow in influence during times of hardship and contract again once the going is good, this happened before the internet came about so it will be interesting to see what effect the internet really has if the good times return. Where the Internet has played a huge part however is in giving those driving change and promoting awareness of the situation can now do it in a way they could not before, now they have instant media through which to do it.. Followers can then pick this up, share and it starts to gain main stream acceptance.. You no longer need to see it in the paper as twitter, youtube and others have given you information way before the 10 O'clock news or the morning paper. This is great for divergent views. It’s whether the momentum can be maintained that will be interesting to follow.


6

"Do you think that even if the banks make themselves transparently accountable, the people will trust them?"

To an extent there is a level of transparency but it’s only high level 'accounting' transparency. My personal objection is that Banks can use your money for any means, you do not have a say. So for example if I objected to RBS using my money to invest in the manufacturing of Cluster Bombs, how I would know they have used my money in this way, so Banks are not transparent nor do they need to seek my permission to use my savings. This I would like to see changed but the emergence of peer-to-peer lending and other ideas such as Bank to the Future will see the Banks attacked on all fronts for business. I would also suggest studying the Positive Money submission to the Independent Commission on Banking as one way in which transparency could be achieved.


7

"Do you believe there should a be more democratic way of appointing head bankers bearing in mind they have the power to affect our lives?"

Simply put yes, but the mechanism or how this should be implemented I couldn’t give an answer. There should be another way considering ex Goldman Sachs employees now sit on the MPC. Ex Goldman Sachs employees run Italy, Greece and they are not democratically appointed either so this does ask some very important questions, the Bankers got us into this mess and now there being asked to run the countries and institutions, that’s not a healthy democracy. Again Positive Money has a good suggestion for this.


8

" What is your opinion of Steve Keen's proposal to use Quantitative Easing to reduce private debt?"

I am familiar with Steve Keen but I’ve not read that particular proposal. I would say I’m not an economist but I’ve listened to interviews with Steve Keen and many people recommended interviewing him for the film so I would take his opinions seriously. We were also hoping to Interview Prof Richard Werner for the film but it did not come off in time. Prof Werner is quite widely accredited with the invention of the Quantative Easing solution, which in the early 90’s was a suggestion for the Japanese banking crisis, but his suggestion was to inject the QE directly into the economy rather than give it to the banks, the Japanese chose instead to give it directly to the Banks, as has happened in the UK, and as a result Japan has had a generation of stalled growth and ‘Zombie Banking’. You could say exactly the same has happened here, so whatever suggestions are out there, the current use of QE is both strange and unproductive.


9

"Who do you want to reach with your film?"

Everyone.




10

"What do you wish to accomplish with 97% Owned and how will you deem if 97% Owned is a success"?

We always strive to make enjoyable films, at the end of the day were filmmakers first not politicians or economist, so as long as its enjoyable, interesting and importantly it provokes debate on the subject that we are happy. 
Mike Horwath
Producer
queuepolitely.com"