"The documentary god & Washington don't want you to see."

Shylock's history of moneylending.

It's here. The official trailer.

About the Film

Shylock Tells All
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

We've heard it all before. Blame greed. Blame selfishness. Blame Mr. Potter, the evil banker from "It's a Wonderful Life." The pundits and politicians agree. All the usual suspects deserve blame for the 2008 Financial Crisis, housing bubble, and exploding debt: Bankers, corporations, fat cats, and top-hat-wearing mustache twirlers of every sort.

But we've been here before. Many times. (Does the Great Depression ring a bell?) So how do we keep getting into this mess, you ask? Well, obviously, once you come to understand—as almost anyone running for public office will tell you—that financial types are by their very nature, liars, thieves and scum-sucking opportunists (or as one interviewee put it: “evil people quashing humanity”) then you realize how inevitable our dilemma was!

By the time Jesus drove them from the temple, moneychangers had already long been established as scoundrels.

To the Greeks and Romans, they were vultures barbarous & wretched. Their crime? They loaned money…at interest.

Dante consigned them to the seventh level of hell, beneath murderers, suicides, and sodomites.

Shakespeare caricatured them as the reprehensible epitome of selfishness: Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice."

All of this begs the question: Since we’ve been told over and over that making money from money is inherently selfish and immoral, and that those who indulge in the practice are, well, see above, how did all the money grubbing get so far out of hand? Who’s been minding the store? And while we’re on the subject...

- Why has American banking been, traditionally, among the least stable systems in the world?
- Why is the financial sector, despite being the most tightly regulated segment of the American economy, the most prone to crises?
- Who or what really caused the Stock Market Crash, Great Recession, Savings and Loan Crisis, Housing bubble, the 2008 Financial Crisis, and all the other banking crises—nearly one per decade!—that have occurred since the founding of America?
- Who or what is actually to blame for our stagnant economy?
- Why are Americans, and especially students, burdened with more debt than ever before?
- Why, for the first time in history, will America’s children be worse off than their parents?

Perhaps aside from "greed" and "money grubbing," there have been—and currently are—other factors at play...

"The Moneychangers" is a feature-length documentary film that, for the first time, examines the evolution, viability, and morality of America’s financial system. Appropriately, our guide for this sordid tale is none other than the direct descendent of the world’s most experienced (and notorious) loan shark: Shylock. (Yes, *the* Shylock.)

“The Moneychangers or Shylock’s History of Moneylending” includes interviews with leading financial figures, former heads of the FED and FDIC, economists, bankers, Wall Street insiders, economic historians, and the man-on-the-street to provide a provocative, informative, and objective investigation of this controversial, highly charged, largely misunderstood topic. It's guaranteed to shatter your preconceived notions about banks, crises, and regulations—or, at the very least, leave you shaking your head at the insanity of it all.

STARRING

A few of the people interviewed for "The Moneychangers"
John A. Allison
John A. Allison
Retired Chairman & CEO, BB&T Corporation
Chairman, Executive Advisory Council, Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives & member, Cato Institute’s Board of Directors
Howard Bodenhorn
Howard Bodenhorn
Professor of Economics, Clemson University
Ph.D. Economics, Rutgers University
Yaron Brook
Yaron Brook
Executive Director, Ayn Rand Institute
Coauthor, “How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government”
Mark Calabria
Mark Calabria
Former Senior Staff, U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs
Director, Financial Regulation, Cato Institute
Charles Calomiris
Charles Calomiris
Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions, Columbia University
Coauthor, “Fragile By Design”
Nicole Gelinas
Nicole Gelinas
Searle Freedom Trust Fellow, Manhattan Institute
Author, “After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street—and Washington”
Stephen Haber
Stephen Haber
A.A. & Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University
Coauthor, “Fragile By Design”
William M. Isaac
William M. Isaac
Former Chairman, FDIC
Senior Managing Director & Global Head of Financial Institutions, FTI Consulting
Richard M. Kovacevich
Richard M. Kovacevich
Retired Chairman & CEO, Wells Fargo & Company
Director of Cargill, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Theranos, and formerly Target Corporation.
William A. Longbrake
William A. Longbrake
Former Chief Financial Officer, FDIC
Executive-in-Residence, Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland
Cathy O’Neil
Cathy O’Neil
Occupy Wall Street
Former Director of the Lede Program in Data Practices, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
William Poole
William Poole
Former Chief Executive, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute & Senior Advisor, Merk Investments
George Selgin
George Selgin
Senior Fellow & Director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, Cato Institute
Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Georgia
Will Tosh
Will Tosh
Research Fellow and Lecturer, Shakespeare’s Globe
Ph.D. at Queen Mary, University of London
Peter J. Wallison
Peter J. Wallison
Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Former White House Counsel to President Ronald Reagan & Author, “Hidden in Plain Sight”
Christopher Whalen
Christopher Whalen
Head of Research, Kroll Bond Rating Agency in NYC
Author of “Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream” & co-author of “Financial Stability: Fraud, Confidence & the Wealth of Nations”
Todd Zywicki
Todd Zywicki
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law
J.D., University of Virginia

History vs. The Moneychangers

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