Dr. Peter Whybrow in conversation with David Milch

Published on Jul 1, 2015

Dr. Peter Peter Whybrow in conversation with David Milch at Live Talks Los Angeles discussing his book, "The Well Tuned Brain: Neuroscience and the Life Well Lived." For more about Live Talks Los Angeles, visit: www.livetalksla.org

Peter C. Whybrow, MD, is director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of, among other books, A Mood Apart and the award-winning American Mania: When More Is Not Enough. David Milch is an Emmy-Award-winning writer and producer (Deadwood, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues). Milch, who won the Tinker Prize for highest achievement in English at Yale University and earned an M.F.A.from the Writers’ Workshop at The University of Iowa, left a teaching career at Yale to write for Hill Street Blues.

People are not Savings Accounts for Bankers

Whenever someone says money is the problem, someone else will invariably say, no it's not money, it's the way people deal with money. It's the people who abuse money. Wrong. It is money. If there were no money people wouldn't have an option to deal with it, right or wrong. It's not about people. I mean just look at all the upstanding (mostly white, mostly male) people on Wall Street.  They can't help it if the system works the way it does. They're just trying to survive on a minimum mid six figures. They're just giving their clients what they want. So right there we know it can't be the people who deal with the money. It's the money!

In this clip from Margin Call, Jeremy Irons, perched in his ivory tower, says that without money we'd kill each other for food. Bullshit.  The second I heard that line I suspected this film was Wall Street propaganda. But I haven't seen the whole thing yet so I'll limit my criticism to Iron's dialog here.


As long as money exists as a universal exchange for almost anything you need, even your own health, there will always be people who exploit it and hoard it. Money has only been around for a few thousand years. Humanity got along just fine with out it for many more thousands of years before that. You might look back at bartering and say, 'so am I supposed to trade cows for a living now?' No. People traded livestock because that's what they owned. People own many more things now; computers, cell phones, TVs, cameras, art, music. Barter today might not be so bad an idea. In fact EBay is just one step away from modern day barter, and Amazon and others have simialr operations were people sell all kinds of possessions on the open market.

Is it really so absurd to live without money? What would happen? Would people resort to crime to just take whatever they want, like how we see Wall Street taking people's lives at the rate of 45,000 annually for health insurance profits? Or how the military industry takes millions of innocent lives, devastates millions of American and foreign families, and proliferates and perturbs more wars just to make exorbitant profits?



I think we need to guarantee all people a minimum standard of living, even regardless of citizenship. If war profiteers didn't need to spend hundreds of trillions on useless wars, sucking up over half the federal budget, we could easily afford this. But without money, there would be no affording things. Everything would be resourced based. Do we have the resources to house, feed, educate, and maintain people's health? Of course we do. Do we have the resources to build war machinery and award padded contracts? Without money there is no padding. You provide your services in exchange for comforts and necessities of life. Maybe there could be incentives for more resources for people who earn them. But what would be eliminated is the making of money just for the sake of accumulating money.

Money is not wealth. Money is simply a medium of exchange. If we can't limit money to being only a medium and not a commodity in itself, then it no longer works as a medium, because it is hoarded. A phone line is a medium. If phones were commodities then they could be hoarded and only a very few could have a phone. People try to hoard phone lines by having monopoles. But it hasn't worked yet. There are still many competitive ways to have a phone line. A phone line also has limited value, while money has universal value as long as everyone accepts it.

There's no easy answer. I've heard about individual based currencies where people issue their own money in exchange for someone's goods or services. That currency would have limited value. If the person has a good reputation their money becomes valuable. But they control it. Not the government. And there is no making money on the exchange of money.

Another idea might be to remove interest charges, or at least to limit them to a flat rate and not an annuity. You borrow money for college, you pay it back when you can at a flat 5% interest rate that doesn't increase year after year. If you borrow $10,000 you pay back $10,500 forever. No interest accumulations. People are not savings accounts for bankers.

Chase: The Evil that Banks Do

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The following is an email from ShowDown in America.

Meet Virginia Holwell. Virginia paid her taxes this year. She worked for the state of Illinois for 30 years but was laid off last summer. Like many of us, she fell victim to the economic downturn caused by Wall Street and Big Banks. She’s getting on a bus from Peoria Illinois to JP Morgan Chase’s shareholder meeting in Columbus OH on May 16th.

She thought she would have another 10 years of work to pay off her mortgage.  Instead, she is out of work, hasn't been able to find another job and is struggling to make payments on her modest Peoria home with a pension that is one-third her former income.    

Virginia, like many of us, is an ideal candidate for a mortgage modification. But Virginia's bank, JP Morgan Chase, denies the modification.  Virginia is getting on the bus with other members of  Illinois People’s Action to go to the Showdown in Ohio and JP Morgan Chase’s annual shareholder meeting because, like many of us, she wants to save her home.

She also wants to take a stand and turn this country around. And some one has to because Big Banks and Wall Street are trying to run us into the ground. JP Morgan Chase must pay its fair share of taxes just like Virginia and just like the rest of us. Chase must stop foreclosing on families and get small business lending moving again so we can get working and get on our feet.

Join us in Columbus. 

Can’t come? Mark your calendars. On May 17, while we’re at the shareholder’s meeting, join us in the action by calling JP Morgan Chase Senior VP, James Gilliam. Tell him to modify Virginia Holwell’s loan, and keep families in their homes: 312-325-5057.

Rather send him an email? Here you go: James.V.Gilliam@jpmchase.com

The Real America

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PASADENA CA - On Thursdays since, June 25, 2009, a group of protesters gathered at the intersection of Orange and Hill Avenues to hold a protest vigil, shown in this film, and which continues there weekly. Drive by and honk if you care to.

So why after 60 years of Republican blocked attempts at nationalized health care are we finally seeing some movement? It looks like things are so bad that the insurance companies aren't even making out. If things get bad enough for people and people can’t afford to pay their bills, guess who gets screwed? The insurance companies who charged the outrageous premiums to begin with. Once again we see the authoritarian right digging their own grave. Keep up the good work guys. With any luck your kind will soon be extinct. Bailouts can't go on forever. At some point these greedy corporations will die if we refuse their services, whether out of necessity or not. The people have the power and always have. It's ultimately about cutting off the money. Now if only we could do this to Wall Street and The Pentagram.

“Health care reform is no longer just a moral imperative, it is a fiscal imperative. If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of health care this year, in this Administration.” - President Barack Obama, White House Forum on Health Reform, 3/5/09

The following excerpts are from HeathReform.gov:

“With All These People Losing Jobs, A Lot Will Lose Their Health Insurance”
The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, April 23, 2009 - President Obama has said that health reform “cannot wait, must not wait, and will not wait another year.” Today the Wall Street Journal cited evidence that illustrates why so many Americans cannot afford to wait another year for health reform. Layoffs are causing thousands of Americans to lose their health care coverage, and as was reported today, insurance companies are seeing their profits shrink as they lose members.

Insured, but Bankrupted by Health Crises
New York Times, 7/1/09 - It is commonly cited that nearly 50 million Americans go each year without health insurance. What is perhaps less apparent is that millions more are severely under-insured. The unfortunate reality is that even those with insurance are too often brought to financial ruin because of medical expenses.

Medical Bankruptcy
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 6/23/09 - Americans across the country are struggling to keep up with rising costs of medical bills, high deductibles, increasing premiums, and the escalating costs of prescription drugs. For some Americans health care costs result in medical bankruptcy. According to a new Harvard University study, 62% of bankruptcies in 2007 were caused by medical-related debt.

Why have a bank? Vote with your feet. Walk out.

If you're like me you don't hold onto money long enough to warrant keeping a bank account with the liability of bouncing checks when it nears bottom. So don't have one. Use money orders. Why direct deposit all your cash into some crooks' bank? It's your money. Put in in your wallet, or your safe. By the time I pay my bills all I have left is spending cash for food anyway.

If you must have a bank account, just put enough in to cover the bills you must pay by check or your bank card. Why bother going to a money machine every time you need your own cash? Why pay all the associated fees? Banks have a great racket. They hold all your money, fee you when ever they feel like it, post your checks when ever they feel like, and share all your transactions with any government agency or lawyer who comes down the pike.

We have the power to stop banks in their tracks. Vote with your feet. Walk out of your bank.

It's been suggested that credit unions are a great alternative to banks. I don't think people should blindly follow any one strategy or part of the industry. One credit union may be good. Another may be bad. Generally they sound good, but they all still charge the same interest and fees as banks.

Why should people be responsible for propping up an economy based on credit, which profits the bankers, including credit unions? People should learn to live within their means, not on credit. This is the root of the problem. This is what the Japanese discovered when they went through this. They now live more within their means.

The further contraction of the economy without banks that some fear is merely a contraction of credit. People still have the ability to make a living and profit. In fact, without the incredible interest they now pay, up to around 30% on a typical credit card for example, they will have more money and the 'no bank, no credit' strategy will improve their cash position.

The only thing banks are good for is credit, and right now that is even questionable. The root of our problem is credit. It's time to think outside of the vicious credit cycle box. If banks want to attract customers they should compete for the business, reduce their interest rates, cut out all the fees and overdraft penalties that multiply when they hit. That's how a free market will work. Credit unions have those fees and interest charges too. Until they come up with a better alternative, I say walk out on them. Make them earn our trust and our business.

Enough! - Protesters at AIG in LA

Enough! - Protesters at AIG in LA from Jon Raymond on Vimeo.

Los Angeles, March 19, 2009, 5:PM - As part of a nationwide SEIU sponsored protest, LA protesters outside of AIG were just as concerned about the billions of bailout dollars to all Wall Street firms as they were about the $165 million in AIG bonuses. They listed three demands from Congress:

1) Pass the Employee Free Choice Act
2) Affordable Health Care for All (citing that 55 million Americans are uninsured)
3) Strong Banking Reform.

They then proceeded to the front doors to ask that the top AIG executives come down to accept their reality check, where they were held back by numerous AIG security personnel. They chanted: Bring them down, AIG you cant hide. We can see you greedy side, and AIG has got to go. They were then informed that the people in the building left early after hearing of the nationwide protests, and that no one was there to see them. They responded with a chant of Dock their pay, followed again with AIG you cant hide.

This film was made from concept to completion in 16 hours by me alone. I wired two lavs through my long sleeved t-shirt, with the mikes clipped to the wrist ends. This gave great stereo separation for the sound, and control over the wires. The camera was a one chip Cannon Optura Xi. Everything was hand held. The shoot was about an hour of almost non-stop recording, and the editing about 10 hours.

Jon Raymond - Filmmaker
Music - Improvisation by Tony Milosevic / Absynth & Orange

Rally Participants:
SEIU - Los Angeles
CodePinkAlert.com

From Out in the Street Films

How to Fix the Economy: Get Out of Iraq

One of the major economic indicators that the government and Wall Street depend on, especially to tell us whether the country is in a recession or not, is the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). However, there are many who feel this indicator is inaccurate in reporting the real effect of the economy on people, especially people's happiness. The GPI (Genuine progress Indicator) was developed as one better and more accurate alternative, among others.

If you look at these two indicators, assuming that a steady decrease in the GDP for two consecutive quarters indicates a recession as Bush defines it, you'll find that even now, despite the terrible state of this economy with it's massive foreclosures and record unemployment, the GDP does not yet indicate we are in a recession, or even a downturn Looking at the GDP, we are steadily growing our economy at a healthy clip. Two things stand out for me in this distinction.

1. The GDP includes Crime as a indicator of economic growth (as explained in World Changing online magazine)
2. The GDP includes war and defense spending and it's industries

The GPI includes neither of these. Without defense spending, along with a few much lesser expenses like crime, we see the real picture of the downturn our economy is taking while boosting the military laden GDP, shown in this chart from Redefining Progress a public think tank.

Redefining Progress notes that the GPI has been flat since the 70s. Some charts, like The Progress Report, show a downturn in the GDI.

So what does defense have to do with it?

Defense spending goes into weapons that are expendable. When we go to war we take massive stocks of equipment and basically throw them away, or blow them up. What production or constructive result comes out of war that benefits U.S. citizens? Nothing. Certainly not anything that would warrant the massive expense of the Iraq war. Any of this equipment recovered after the war is pretty much beyond it's useful life. Time to order the new models. In fact, the defense industry is notorious for, not only overspending with inflated budgets, but also for having state of the art equipment. All of this expense is more or less for stuff we trash.

That doesn't even get into the extravagance we see in defense spending on contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater who exploit the government for outrageous sums, as documented in a film called Iraq For Sale, which depicts Iraq as a sort of cruise ship like luxury resort for contractors in the middle of the surrounding war.

CBC News examines the relevance of the U.S. GDP compared to Canada, which exposes the use of the term GDP for what it really is. a political tactic:

Even as a measure of economic output, however, GDP has its limitations. Take a look at the first quarter of 2008, when the Canadian economy contracted at an annualized 0.3 per cent that quarter and the U.S. economy grew by 0.9 per cent.

That leaves the impression that the Canadian economy was doing worse than the U.S. economy, which was struggling with rising unemployment, slumping auto sales, and one of the worst housing downturns in decades.

"Without resorting to hyperbole, this understates the relative performance of the Canadian economy by a country mile," said BMO Capital Markets economist Doug Porter in a report he titled "Does GDP Matter?" (He says yes, but not as much as usual.)

The article goes on to note numerous other better indicators like the GPI. It would seem then that the GDP is simply a tool of politicians and not an indicator of any substance.

We don't hear Bush, McCain or any of the other neocons talk about the fallacy of the GDP, or that war spending keeps it on the rise, while our balance sheet minus war spending looks a whole lot more like a recession. But we do hear Obama talking about getting out of Iraq and how this immense expanse is draining our economy. In the second debate at Nashville, Obama said:

....So one of the difficulties with Iraq is that it has put an enormous strain, first of all, on our troops, obviously, and they have performed heroically and honorably and we owe them an extraordinary debt of gratitude.

But it's also put an enormous strain on our budget. We've spent, so far, close to $700 billion and if we continue on the path that we're on, as Senator McCain is suggesting, it's going to go well over $1 trillion.

We're spending $10 billion a month in Iraq at a time when the Iraqis have a $79 billion surplus, $79 billion.

And we need that $10 billion a month here in the United States to put people back to work, to do all these wonderful things that Senator McCain suggested we should be doing, but has not yet explained how he would pay for.

If we want to fix this economy we have to get out of the Iraq war.