Light Bulb Conspiracy

Light Bulb Conspiracy is a pretty good documental about how the industries and it's economies works. The film explains something called "Planned Obsolence" which takes part of the purpose of a product when it is created. Planned Obsolence is the fact that almost everything you buy from a company is programmed to be obsolete in a few years. There's the example of the light bulb. When Thomas Edison created it, it's bulb lasted for almost 2500 hours, so companies as Phoebus sold these bulbs back in 1914, but then they realize something which was one of the first planned obsolences things that we saw in our history. Their bulbs were lasting so much which means that was an economic disadvantage since everyone bought bulbs and never had to replace it constantly as we do now days, so the consequence is that they never came back to buy more since their product will last for a long time. So then Phoebus decided to sell bulbs that lasted less these ones and that meant an economic recovery and the solution to our economy. But it was until 1930's that the companies started to realize this after the Great Depression. There was a book named "A New Prosperity" where the solution to the bad economy was the Planned Obsolence. People need to be consumerism, so the only solution for that was to sell products constantly that will force the people to buy always new and constantly. In the 1950's all companies already where making their products to be obsolete in purpose and always get in the market products better than the ones people used to have.

Another example of this was the women's socks that were used. This example is very similar to a movie called "The Man In The White Suit" where a man that created an everlasting machine lead the people in town without jobs because of this machine. So although he got rich for his invention and was able to buy a white suit. People started to demand him to shut down his machine because that was no good for the economy in town and so he was forced to. But the example of the women's socks is that the socks in the past were so strong that you could even used those socks to attach two cars and made one pulled the other car through the sock. But this meant that women would only buy one pair of socks for their whole life (I'm just being exaggerated to prove a point). So then the companies ordered its engineers to start making these socks four times more fragile than the ones they used to sold, that way the socks would tend to get damaged more often and so women had to came back to market and buy more. So more socks were sold in less amount of time. Clever.

The last example is the apple product, the iPod. Turns out that apple products are designed to not be opened, there's no way you can open your apple product and close it without leaving marks that it got opened. So the fact that you can't open your apple device means that you can't replace your battery. These batteries that apple design are programmed to last 18 months, intentionally. Afterwards your iPod won't work, you can't change your battery, there's no way, it is created with that purpose. But since the product is so good you want to have it again, or keep on having it, you have to buy a new one. There's no other solution than buying a new one. No matter how people complain about it and try suing Apple for it, still it is gonna have support from the government because that is the idea of our economy, our new religion. 

The saddest part of this is not that your products are not everlasting, is that all the things you don't use anymore are thrown away by these companies in countries such as Ghana. These companies don't recycle their own trash to create innovative products but to just deposite it in other countries breaking international laws that are not sanctioned buy the organizations in charge of it. The environmental impact from this is that the people in Ghana burn all these electronical devices to extract metal device, and of course there is a smoke that comes from these burns that it is too dangerous to the air since they are too toxic. So Ghana without knowledge is damaging its air because of other countries that just throw away their own residuals in other people's houses.

Light bulb conspiracy is a pretty good documental which I loved and I will highly recommended it to you since it helps you to understand how this world works through economy and what are the impacts of the planned Obsolence in everyone. 

Four Horsemen

Four Horsemen - The end of an empire.

Photo taken from historyunleashedgroupfour.blogspot.com

Four Horsemen is sort of a documentary I saw this week at my Social Studies class, which is about a suggestion that the developers of this documental suggest to our economy. In the documental they identify the main factors that follows all empires in their cycles. So what the documental is trying to teach is that the US Empire will fall down. But my post here is, will that fallen empire affect directly or indirectly my life here in Colombia?

Before I move on to answer the question I would like to point out what were the factors I learned in class, so first is the luxury, then the years of decay, the huge gap between the poor and the rich which means he economic inequality, and lastly, which I would think could be a major point, is the huge militarism spending. These things have been identified in previous fallen empires like the roman empire. The thing is that we are the evolved human from the 21st century and we have learned a lot about history, we are smarter, and we can still prevent the fall if it is done what it needs to be done. 

Well my answer is yes. The world now days goes around US interest, militarism, etc. All you favorite shows, your favorite people to admire, your way of living, your tv's, your smartphone's, everything that makes your life so comfortable no matter where do you live comes from the US. Also, there are a lot of US companies around the world that produces a lot of jobs in the countries where they intervene, although the biggest companies may not depend that much on the fall of US since they are sort of independent already from the US, but the majority isn't. So, maybe this issue shouldn't just be something for the americans to only worry about but maybe for the world, because if this happens the next empire could be from a communism country and that, to me, means no freedom. I really love my life, my stuff, everything, and you also love yourself and all the things you have and would love to have, but without the US empire, all of those things, bye. 

Colombian Monetary System

Colombia, the most beautiful country in the world. The best landscapes, the best food, the best people, and the happiest country in the world. This is it. But you are not here to read about why Colombia is the best country in the world but to understand its monetary system. "Zeitgeist Addendum Colombiano"

The monetary system works around El Banco de la República which is the one that manages and it is the only central bank in Colombia as the Federal Reserve in the US. This bank was founded in 1923 and since its birth it has been the one in charge national monetary policy, which means they control the inflation, money emission, etc. And its clients are the rest of the banks in the nation, which their function is to give money to the Banco de la República so they keep it as reserve.

The monetary system of Colombia is essentially single-unit based, with the unit of Colombian money being called the Peso. The money is the tool for this bank to analyze the economic activity in the nation and by this term we are not referring to who is rich or poor but how the money moves. The effects from these are social, political and economical. Money makes transactions easier and represents the economic traffic in relation with the laws and the demand. So basically the Banco de la República controls our Colombian economy and money practically belongs to it.


Sources:

• http://coins.about.com/od/worldcoins/ig/World-Coins-Gallery-Index/Columbia-Money-Coins.html
• http://www.slideshare.net/INOCENCIOMELENDEZJUL/analisis-del-sistema-monetario-en-colombia-inocencio-melendez-julio

Fractional reserve banking system

So what's been up in my SS class? We had recently finished a illuminated video called "Zeitgeist Addendum" and it left me confused so I'll try my best to explain the video.

So a better way to explain how this work I'll use an example shown in the video. The government wants 10 billion so they exchange bonds with the Federal Reserve Bank (their central bank) and there appears the 10 billion. Once this is done the money goes into a bank account where 10 percent of it goes to reserve and 90 percent for loans since it is known as "excessive reserve", so let's suppose someone's ask to loan the 90 percent and then he puts it into his bank account and the 10-90 process repeats. But I don't know how, there are now 19 billion in the government account created out of thin air. That is a point I couldn't understand sorry.

Now, the second part of the video is about debts. Debts is money, literally. So if there are no debts, then there would not be any money. The reason people work is to pay off their debts. But everytime we but with out credit cards things we probably we don't need, we're in debt, so we go to work to pay those debts. And that's life about, about being in debt, we are always going to be in debt. This class and this video have taught me that we all live in debts and that in the future I'll probably shouldn't worry that much for not being in debt since it seems it is a part of life that everyone rejects to know. 

"You will be illuminated with this video"

-Me , in my mind.

Economic Hit Man, Race, and Food INC.

Over the last three weeks, my social studies class has taken a new change in what we were used to. What we did in these past weeks is analyzing and learning about three things:

1. Economic Hit Man - The dark hidden secrets about the US government that we don't know.
2. Race - Is it biological? Are there any privileges? What is race?
3. Food INC - US disgusting food system, better grow your own food, man. 

Photo taken from www.treehugger.com

Photo taken from www.cinemapolis.org

Photo taken from www.lundandcompany.com

But I am not writing this post to explain about each of them exactly, but to relate them into one word: POWER.

POWER

These three things, these three documental, show us how powerful these are. Well, that's what we all agreed on our class, but to me, race isn't something now. We are in the XXI century and race now doesn't have anything related to power because now days the race doesn't define anything. A black men can do the same thing as a white men. So for now I'll just focus on Food INC and Economic Hit Man which to me are the things to focus and these really are the issues that are controlling a huge country as the US. 

Food INC shows how the industry of food is controlling the whole nation, how every meat consumed is the same in McDonalds as in the market. How the food is so modified it kills children because of the antibiotics and all the things the animals have inside thanks to these disgusting system. So for example the cows. Natural cows are the ones in open spaces, that drink water, eat grass and grow fat in a normal amount of time. But US industries can't handle this, they want faster production so in order to do so, they got into some sad methods which appears the difference between a US cow and a Colombian cow (natural cow). The cows in US are raised through corn, corn and nothing but corn. They are in close spaces where they can't move and there has been a point where these cows go so fat they can't even go for a walk and they die because of the fatigue. That food is so intoxicated that in the documental there is a story of a healthy little kid who died for eating this food, this kid died slowly and in pain for a few days, at the end of his days he had to drink water through a sponge. All because the food is made out of a bacteria that killed him. Check this picture also: 

Photo taken from http://3rdeyevisionblog.files.wordpress.com

What have they done to the chicken? This doesn't look tasty and God knows what is the right chicken made of on the inside. But the people in the US doesn't know about this. And in the US there's something so weird I have never seen in Colombia in my life. For the people it is more cheaper to buy 5 hamburgers to feed their family than to buy vegetables, so there is a problem there too that allows these industries to gain power since it is more accesible for people to get to their nasty food than to actually access healthy food.

Also is the power of Economic Hit Man, which is the theoretical empire that the US has. For this I will tell you everything I learned from the book to see how can this be related to power. In my last post I posted what the US did in the nations that didn't follow their interests. But in this post is all about the amazing waste of money that the US uses in this just to gain power, to kill whoever they have to, to control whatever they have to. According to John Perks, half the money the US uses in the Iraq war is what the UN estimated to be the enough money to feed and educate the whole world population. The waste of potential here is so amazing, and all of this is just because the US wants to control the whole world just to benefit their country. And because of this is that we actually recognize that the US has a lot of power and only the suicidal ones dare to mess with them so at the end this US government finish controlling that country too.