Money as Debt
Money as Debt is a short animated documentary film by Paul Grignon about the monetary systems practiced through modern banking. The film visually demonstrates the process of money creation by private corporations (banks), illustrates the historical background of this system, and warns of its subsequent unsustainability.
The film was conceived by Grignon in 2002 as an introduction to a 5-hour video commission for United Financial Consumers. He prefaced his video lecture with a re-telling of The Goldsmith’s Tale in animation form titled Money as Debt. Expanded in 2006, it was Grignon's first full animation project.
The basic narrative of the film is that new money is created merely by endebting a "lender", thus not only obligating the public to the self money-issuing private banks but also creating an endless and self-escalating debt that is to eventually outgrow all other forms of wealth generation. This ever-increasing gravitation of money to banks, it is claimed, might eventually impoverish any nation.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- a quotation often attributed to Thomas Jefferson
The film was created within the growing Internet culture that has spurred various high-profile films about the monetary system, such as Zeitgeist, the Movie which came out at 2007.
A second film called Money as Debt II: Promises Unleashed released at 2009 continues the exploration of fraud versus "modern banking". It was given as a partial response to the global economic crisis of 2008
