Mises Wire

Mises Institute’s Abolish the Fed Documentary

In 1996, we produced a documentary titled Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve. For the next ten years, we distributed copies all around the world, to our students, our members, and the public. Thousands of people were introduced to the evils of the Fed and central banking. At that time, not many people or organizations were calling for the abolition of the Federal Reserve. The Mises Institute was. And that hasn’t changed.

Eventually, the documentary was posted on YouTube in February 2006, and it remains one of the Mises Institute’s most popular videos. We’ve had viewers from more than eighty countries. There’s even a Russian version of the film! From the most rural US town to Kathmandu, this documentary has exposed the dangers of central banking.

Of course, a lot has changed since 1996.

The Federal Reserve has seized numerous new powers and prerogatives, and the US economy has endured three more recessions, a major financial crisis, and forty-year highs in inflation. Another recession appears to be on the horizon, and much more inflation, too.

Now is the time to create a new documentary that explains how the Federal Reserve continues to wreak havoc in the modern economy. It’s almost as if Fed economists want to impoverish us.

We’ve interviewed several production companies and found one that believes in the importance of this documentary. That wasn’t an easy find!

Our board has approved this important project, as well.

We have everything in place to offer this film on Amazon. It will be free for all two hundred million Amazon Prime members. Making our film available to this kind of audience will be huge!

We’ll also upload the documentary to streaming services like YouTube, Odysee, and Bitchute. And it will be on mises.org like everything else we create.

The documentary will expose the Federal Reserve for what it really is: an enormous threat to prosperity, peace, and freedom. The Fed steals from the vast majority and gives to the corrupt few. The Fed makes it possible for the regime to wage endless wars. It’s a reason the government has grown to massive proportions. It threatens the livelihood of future generations. And ours, too.

It’s a reason civilization is in decline.

The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet quintupled in size after the 2008 financial crisis. And the Fed caused that crisis. Perhaps intentionally. Since then, the money supply has grown by more than $12 trillion. Half of that was printed in just the last three years.

The Federal Reserve’s reckless money printing was touted as creating financial stability, yet Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank still failed. Many more are on the same path.

The Federal Reserve constantly moves its own goalposts. Remember how Fed economists declared that inflation would be “transitory” but then said we needed to “retire the word ‘transitory’” just a few months later?

We need to retire the whole system, if you ask me.

Politicians tell us that we need more regulation to fix the Fed. What we need is to abolish the Fed.

The “experts” tell us that the Fed is our protector. Ha! It only protects the state, big banks, and their cronies.

This is why we need to set the record straight. We cannot let the Fed be its own judge. We cannot let the financial news media paint a rosy picture of the government’s counterfeiting machine. Our new film will create an informative, watchable, and high-quality documentary approximately thirty-five minutes in length.

I’m pleased to announce that Dr. Ron Paul has agreed to be in this film! There’s no way we would make a film about the Federal Reserve without Ron in it. His efforts to educate the world about the Fed’s manipulation of money are unmatched.

The documentary will also feature several Austrian thinkers:

  • Our friend James Grant, founder of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer and author of The Forgotten Depression
  • Dr. Joseph Salerno, our Academic Vice President and the foremost Austrian scholar on sound money and business cycles
  • Dr. Alex Pollock, Mises Institute Senior Fellow, former principal deputy director of the Office of Financial Research, and coauthor of Surprised Again!—the Covid Crisis and the New Market Bubble
  • Dr. Mark Thornton, Mises Institute Senior Fellow and one of the first economists to write about the housing bubble
  • Dr. Jonathan Newman, the Henry Hazlitt Research Fellow at the Mises Institute, an impressive young scholar researching the role of central banking in expanding the size of government

Their interviews will be combined with spectacular footage to illustrate the evils of the Federal Reserve. A top narrator will tell the story in an understandable fashion.

The film’s goal is to introduce viewers to how the Federal Reserve causes inflation, business cycles, and economic disaster. We want to help people understand the urgent need to abolish the Federal Reserve system, and central banks in general. The more people understand the Fed is evil, the more pressure we build.

Most people aren’t interested in the hundred-year history of the Federal Reserve, but they are interested in why their standard of living is lower, why they can’t afford to buy a house, and why they don’t have any money left over at the end of each month.

As the Fed keeps telling lies, the rest of us know that something is terribly wrong. More and more people want to know what that is.

Here at the Mises Institute, we know people have a lot of questions. We are the place where they can find the answers. This is why our film is so important.

The film will cost $248,876 to produce. The crew will travel to Lake Jackson to film Ron. They will go to New York City to film Jim Grant. The other interviews will take place at the Mises Institute. Equipment, travel, and labor costs are the most expensive pieces of the documentary.

Would you consider supporting this documentary? Every donor who gives $1,000 or more will be listed in the rolling credits at the end of the documentary. Of course, we welcome donations of all amounts.

We want you to be a part of this important documentary.

Join us in telling the truth about the Fed. With your help, millions of people will see the Fed for what it is: the enemy of liberty and prosperity.

The Fed has dominated its own narrative for too long. Help us tell the world about the Fed’s failed record! Donate today.

image/svg+xml
Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.
What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. 

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

Become a Member
Mises Institute