Documentary & Lectures watched on Youtube.

When does entertainment become education? Well, anyway..

Buster Keaton movies covered by "Every frame a picture".

Buster Keaton is held to be one of the seminal sources of visual comedy, often referenced. His deadpan character, wears early twentieth century clothing that still looks quite modern. The subjects he covers are probably eternal with human nature.

Buster Keaton

Short-Term politics versus Long-Term Returns - Lessons From History.

The speaker Mark Blyth, Published on the 6th September 2016, chaired by Michael Strachan.

A charismatic speaker, Mark Blyth gets asked his opinion on the outcome for the 2016 American Presidential Election. He gives Donald Trump a 60% chance on the basis of the types of narratives and experiences the two major nominees are appealing to.

Notes : Contemporary issue in a Democracy with sustained deflation, there is creditor loss, value of debt goes up, collection goes down, wages go down. Comments about narratives (power of self understanding & narrative, motivation), definitions of a bubble (income streams cannot support asset values, but income streams can be hidden) and the importance of rule of law and asset security. Comments at end with a query about the stability of an authoritarian government (re China) and its reaction to economic issues.

David Harvey Lecture 6: Bad Infinity and the Madness of Economic Reason.

From David Harvey Lecture 6, Published on the 9th of December 2016, part of a series of lectures presented by the Heyman Centre for the Humanities.

David Harvey provides a narrative to interprete contemporary economic crisis (lack of growth), discussing the way debt finance is used to create value, he provides historical analogies. Of course metanarratives should be typically regarded with suspicion but I find his points interesting.

Notes : Discusses the role of China in the 2007- 2008 recession and the question of debt finance creating increased value. He makes transparent analogies of current economic projects with the public works projects of Louis Bonapart and the financial crisis of 1867 -1868. He then makes another analogy to American Post WWII suburbanisation and the integration of different economic areas through highways to illustrate issues associated with absorbing surpluses of labour and capital.

Issue of consumption vs productive consumption. Compound growth in use value has limits. Only money can increase in compound, capital taking money form, expanding at compound rate, producing an excessive degree of inflation. Discusses a need to transform wants, needs and desires that match real lifestyles. Debt needs to be redeemed to avoid financial crisis, thus the creation of a lifestyle that allows the redeeming of debt,  associated with social control. Social control very tightly bound to redemption of debt. Future already foreclosed upon. This is the world in which we must adapt.