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  • Thank you all, good afternoon.

  • My name is Joe Alexopoulos, and it's my pleasure to be here today

  • to speak to you on behalf of The Zeitgeist Movement

  • and to talk about The Evolution of Economics:

  • A present 'MAD' economy

  • versus a Resource-Based Economy.

  • Before I get into that,

  • I want to tell you just a little bit about my background, who I am.

  • I actually went to school here at USC; I got my MBA here.

  • I am a certified financial planner and a certified fraud examiner,

  • and I work in Century City

  • as an investment manager for wealthy individuals,

  • and as their personal financial planner and advisor.

  • As a hobby, I like to ride a bicycle around on long-distance solo trips

  • and on those trips, I like to critically think about

  • our socio-economic system as it is today, and as I see that it can be

  • as I've learned through understanding what the tenets and principles

  • of a Resource-Based Economy are.

  • However, to be able to fully appreciate and comprehend

  • what we have today: a present MAD economy,

  • and to be able to understand and appreciate

  • what the tenets and principles of a Resource-Based Economy are,

  • we kind of need to step back and outside

  • of our comfort zone and our perceptions.

  • So much so, I can kind of illustrate it best

  • if we were to travel in a time machine and go back 500 years ago or so

  • to when people used to think that the earth was flat;

  • and not only that, back then

  • Copernicus had the outrageous theory and idea

  • that wait: Maybe the Earth goes around the Sun

  • and it's not the other way around.

  • You see, perhaps maybe your point-of-view is so narrow,

  • that perhaps maybe it's backwards.

  • The relationship you have with money is a relationship you will have

  • before you're born, throughout your entire life and even after you're dead.

  • But just maybe, the way that you have been perceiving and understanding

  • the socio-economic monetary system today

  • is not quite the way it really is.

  • Just like as if we were all back 500 years ago

  • and I was Copernicus, and I was telling you

  • that the world is round, and it's not flat

  • and maybe the earth goes around the sun,

  • you'd all go "Joe, look, you're crazy, you're nuts!

  • Let's get up really early. We'll go down to the beach.

  • We'll watch that sun come on up on the East.

  • You'll see that the sun goes around the Earth

  • and it settles over in the West.

  • So, you know, end of story. We don't need to talk about this any more.

  • Clearly we can see that the sun goes around the Earth,

  • and if you still don't get it, Joe,

  • then we're going to take you up on top of the mountain,

  • and you can look as far as you want. Look, the Earth is flat, you moron. It's flat!

  • You know, come on! You need to go out on a boat?

  • We'll go for a sail ride. I'll show you. It's flat!"

  • But maybe, just maybe that small fraction,

  • that alternative way of looking at things, using your imagination,

  • perhaps is the correct way to look at

  • the socio-economic model you live in today.

  • So, what I am asking you to do is to go on a bit of a journey.

  • Pretend you were back 500 years ago

  • and pretend that the information that you're going to hear,

  • you're going to judge the information based upon the quality

  • of what it is: Does it make sense,

  • not based upon where it's coming from

  • whether it's MSNBC or something like that?

  • See, information ... your perceptions and values are shaped

  • by the environment you live in and the experiences you have had.

  • Take for instance the way that I am dressed.

  • All of you think a certain way of me

  • and I notice this, depending upon how I'm dressed,

  • on your perceptions. See this thing,

  • it's called a tie, if you will,

  • is really a metaphor for what I consider a social leash.

  • The moment that you put a tie on,

  • you take yourself off, and you put on the behavior,

  • values, beliefs and understandings of the institution

  • that is making you put that on today.

  • So, perhaps the way you're seeing and perceiving things

  • is as if you've got a tie on;

  • and so, let's loosen it up a little bit.

  • Let's even go so far, let's take the tie off, all right?

  • Let's reconnect our minds to our hearts

  • and gather a little bit more of a better understanding

  • of the way this world works.

  • No, we're not going to get that far but I just want to make a point!

  • I just want to make a point that the information I am giving you

  • shouldn't be because I went to school here and have an MBA

  • and studied macro- and micro-economics.

  • It shouldn't be because of what I do. It should be because it's true.

  • Information always goes through three phases.

  • Truth does. At first it's ridiculed

  • like "Joe, the Earth, it's not round, OK?

  • The sun isn't the center. We don't go around that."

  • It was made fun of! OK?

  • But after it's made fun of, and it's violently opposed and hated,

  • eventually it's widely embraced as truth.

  • So, what I'm asking you to do is to put your beliefs aside for a moment.

  • Try and not believe everything you've been told

  • because your beliefs not always are correct.

  • You have to appreciate in the middle of the word 'belief' is a bit of 'a lie'.

  • Your being's on one side, your life's on the other;

  • and in between, well, maybe it's not what you thought.

  • So, with all of that said, what is a MAD economy?

  • A MAD economy is what we live in today

  • and it's known as 'M'oney 'A's 'D'ebt.

  • All money:I don't care if you use US Dollars, Euros,

  • Shekels, Francs. You pick it, doesn't matter.

  • It all comes from a centralized banking institution.

  • Over here in circle 1 is what we have: the genesis of money today.

  • DIG: Debt, Interest, and with debt and interest,

  • add in a little bit of time, what do you get? It Grows,

  • this circle here, if you will.

  • In order to pay the interest on the DIG, you've got to create profits;

  • but a profit, if you think about it, or creating a profit on something,

  • is very much akin to a debt. When you create a debt

  • and you ask for interest, the interest doesn't exist.

  • The person has to artificially go out and inflate prices

  • or whatever to pay the interest.

  • When you go and you build something or invest, there's a cost.

  • Say you build a building or something, you sell it for a profit.

  • The profit is just as fictional as the interest.

  • While the DIG implies growth and this one keeps growing,

  • then this one has to keep charging more money

  • or inflating its prices to pay for the more interest.

  • It just goes round and round and round,

  • and in order to keep it going over on this side

  • where all of us have to run around,

  • we're actually in the business of creating problems for profit.

  • We're not in the business of solving problems;

  • we actually can't afford to solve problems today.

  • Take for instance, if you're a pharmaceutical company,

  • and you actually cure something, after your patent runs out in 17 years

  • and then your competitors can get in and the price drops. The price drops and you...

  • or even better yet, it's like smallpox and you cure everybody.

  • Guess what? You're out of business! We can't do that.

  • We can't actually employ people in real, full-time, all-meaningful jobs.

  • We have to do a lot of what I call 'needless complexity' in the finance,

  • legal, banking, insurance,

  • because 'fake make-work' jobs work like

  • an economic leech on the actual productivity of goods and services

  • of the actual productive part of the economy.

  • What that does by burdening those systems: with that it inflates the price

  • or it pushes the price up so that the profit can be bigger

  • so it can go back, and it goes 'round and 'round; but the net effect,

  • as this goes 'round and 'round and 'round,

  • it holds the standard of living down.

  • It holds back new technologies

  • because if a new technology destroys an existing profit model,

  • we sweep that under the rug;

  • or if a new technology is too expensive

  • or doesn't make a profit right out of the gate,

  • we don't do it! So, think about it.

  • You've got billions of people entertaining this stuff over here:

  • needless complexity, problems for profit, fake make-work and make it to break

  • and in the middle (it was there earlier, OK,

  • I think some of you saw it; we can play the tape back);

  • but in the middle the real crime here, the real waste,

  • it's not just the pollution and everything else like that,

  • it's the wasted lives. It's the time,

  • and the most profound thing that we lose,

  • and it's this one here in the middle (same as on the other one)

  • the biggest thing we lose are ideas.

  • Ideas are the predecessor of new technology

  • that lifts the standard of living.

  • We're wasting billions of lives, trillions of hours and ideas

  • that would elevate our standard of living

  • to a level that is truly unimaginable today.

  • Just in the same way someone from 500 years ago

  • couldn't even grasp the concept of the Earth being round,

  • imagine trying to explain a cell phone call.

  • All of us are just that primitive today

  • because these billions of ideas are not coming to fruition

  • in the MAD economy that we live in.

  • So, if we can switch gears,

  • if you can go on that mental journey and change your perception,

  • take the tie off

  • and appreciate the tenets and principles of a Resource-Based Economy,

  • you will see that we can turn it around and we can start moving forwards

  • instead of the other way, backwards.

  • As a result, our socio-economic system doesn't hold ideas back

  • and keep the standard of living and technology down.

  • It supports it and lifts it

  • to a higher, unimaginable standard of living;

  • and what's really interesting, if we start this thing up,

  • fire it up like a lawnmower,

  • we begin by surveying, tracking and determining the needs that we have.

  • Then we move on. We set up production, distribution, look at feedback of that;

  • and what's really interesting, is with the technological advancements

  • during the transition... The transition from a monetary

  • or a MAD economy could happen naturally

  • if we actually fully embrace the technological advances we have today.

  • If you come up with an idea which then leads to a new technology

  • which is labor-saving, and it reduces the cost,

  • if we actually had a completely free market

  • that wasn't retarded by having to make profit

  • (which is fictional just like to pay the fictional interest on a fictional debt)

  • it would drive the prices way down to the point where it would be like

  • [deeply inhales] taking a breath of fresh air.

  • Whereas if you could get the cost of something like a breath of fresh air,

  • where it costs absolutely nothing for me to consume it,

  • or procure it to the point of consumption,

  • there's no reason to bother accounting for it with money or prices.

  • You see as technology rises, you can push prices down.

  • If the billions of ideas that are out there

  • were to manifest themselves and become a reality,

  • we would just sweep money right out because it would become irrelevant.

  • We would embrace hyper-deflation. That's what we want.

  • We have, because of the old system,

  • a chronic, gross and a horrific case of what I call VD:

  • a Value Disorder, where our values are backwards.

  • We put profit above everything else.

  • We actually have a disorder in our mind in thinking that:

  • Oh my God, the unemployment rate has reached nearly 10%!

  • That's a crazy way to think about things.

  • Shouldn't you actually think that:

  • Wait a minute, the reason to go to work is not to have to do it again!

  • It's to go there and get the job done so I can move on to something else.

  • We should be thinking:

  • We need to get our technology, our processes and our efficiency so high

  • that, oh my God, it's the employment rate that reached 10%!

  • Can you believe the employment rate is up to a voluntary 10%?

  • That's outrageous! We've got to get that employment rate down!

  • We've got to work on our technologies, implement our ideas,

  • save our resources and let's go on vacation

  • to the beach, to see the world the way it really is.

  • So, we're losing ideas and what 'ideas' are (which have vanished again):

  • 'I' is Imagination. Einstein said

  • "Imagination is far more powerful than knowledge."

  • Knowledge is like knowing what temperature it is outside.

  • Imagination is beginning to comprehend the understanding of how weather patterns work

  • and that's inside all of us. Ingenious, Innovation, is part of ideas.

  • 'D' ... excuse me,

  • Deflation is part of Ideas, or a result of ideas.

  • And 'E' to Evolve your thinking.

  • Evolve the economy from a MAD economy

  • to a Resource-Based Economy.

  • And 'A' is Automation and Abundance.

  • And finally 'S': We can get into the business of solutions.

  • So, I beg of you all:

  • You're all going to probably see another movie in a month or so.

  • If you haven't already, make it 'Zeitgeist: Moving Forward'

  • or 'Zeitgeist: Addendum' or both,

  • and please spread this information around.

  • If we can switch gears, we can go from

  • a mad world and a low standard of living to a high standard of living.

  • We can go from financial, employment and security worries, crisis,

  • all that stuff, not applicable, goodbye! [Applause]

  • Ideas are few. They're restricted. In a mad world (which is what we live in),

  • in a mad world an idea is hoarded.

  • It's patented! If you try and copy it, they will sue your ass!

  • What?! But it didn't cost you anything!

  • Yeah, but we don't want to talk about that!

  • Ideas are many and the best thing is that they're shared,

  • and they're transparent. Today, we have things called trade secrets,

  • whereas if you come up with an idea, you make it a secret.

  • How does that benefit society?

  • You got it backwards!

  • Profits are above everything else. That's insane.

  • A profit is as fictional as the interest on a debt,

  • but the environment and fellow human beings are real!

  • Huh? It does not make any sense.

  • Poverty, wars, pollution, those are all part of the 'problems for profit' part

  • of the cycle of a MAD economy.

  • That is going, going, gone! Imagine.

  • High stress, a minority of free time,

  • and as they were saying earlier,

  • that stress is one of the leading degradations of our health,

  • gone! Our health would go up, more free time.

  • You'd have to here submit to a high amount of obligatory employment

  • that we actually are brainwashed into thinking getting the employment rate up is good

  • to a job you don't want to do, for no purpose that's needlessly complex.

  • It's just dumb-stacked on top of stupid and dumber.

  • Low voluntary unemployment, wonderful! More free time!

  • When was the last time you really wished you had less vacation time?

  • That same person that gets upset about the unemployment rate going up

  • should be a person that's upset about having too much vacation time.

  • It's insane!

  • Scarce and inferior quality, Jason was talking about this,

  • we go to abundance, and we only build the best!

  • Imagine just building the best! Why would you build a cheap thing?

  • You build a cheap thing in the MAD economy,

  • so that you can maximize profit, yay!

  • But that's really... well, stupid! You know?

  • Limited access to health care. What?!

  • Isn't health care the very thing we all need to live healthy?

  • Why would you limit that?

  • Depending on what you can afford for your health insurance is the quality you get?

  • That's crazy, that's mad!

  • Don't we all share and need the same things physiologically

  • at the very least?

  • So, there's so many things.

  • I really just implore you to really open your mind,

  • to open your eyes, change your perception, take the tie off

  • and understand that maybe, just maybe,

  • the world is round, the Earth goes around the Sun,

  • and that your perceptions perhaps need a bit of a change of perspective.

  • Thank you very much.

  • [Applause]

  • The Zeitgeist Movement - Zday 2012

  • University of Southern California - Los Angeles, CA

Thank you all, good afternoon.

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"Zeitgeist Day" 2012 ロサンゼルス - "A MAD Economy" ジョー・アレクソプーロス著 ("Zeitgeist Day" 2012 Los Angeles - "A MAD Economy" by Joe Alexopoulos)

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