Princes of the Yen (2014)

Set in 20th Century Japan the documentary explores the role and power of Central Banks and how they can be used to change a country's economic political and social structures A documentary adaption off the book by Professor Richard Werner.

Director:

Michael Oswald

Writer:

Michael Oswald (screenplay)

Stars:

Andrew Piper, Richard Werner, Noriko Yamagiwa

Cast

Credited cast:
Andrew Piper	...	Self (voice)
Richard Werner	...	Self (archive footage)
Noriko Yamagiwa	...	Self

Storyline

Central Banks are some of the most secretive and misunderstood institutions in the world. What powers do they wield? Whose interests do they serve? How do their actions affect our everyday lives? In 2003, Richard Werner released a book by the title of "Princes of the Yen", which cut through the complex jargon of central bankers and for the first time made this obscure world accessible to the public. The book became a number one bestseller in Japan. Yet, over ten years after it was first released, the English version, is still on its first edition! Told within the context of the history of 20th Century Japan, Richard Werner meticulously solves the puzzle of central banks, and explains the social, political and economic impacts their actions have. The documentary provides the viewer with a new understanding of economics and shows how events that may appear disjointed in popular discourse are in reality intimately intertwined. "Princes of the Yen" is an independent, self-funded ...

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Plot Keywords:

central bank | economic crisis | independent film | 

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Taglines:

Only power that is hidden, is power that endures.

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Genres:

Documentary | Crime

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Did You Know?

Soundtracks

Shell Beach
Performed by Buro
Written by Buro

User Reviews

Finally I understand

It always puzzles me why US has been pushing liberal democracy so hard on third world countries. If you don't implement liberal democracy we will bomb you, assassin your leaders, implement coups and economic & trade sanctions and finally direct invasions.

Why would the western leaders, who we can see don't really give a damn about their own people most of the time, give a damn about the people of other countries?

Under that threat Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc. are all forced to change in past 20 years. Their economic growth almost immediately flattened.

After watching this movie I finally understand. It is about shareholder centric free market economic and political system. It is a system built to protect businesses and business owners. Forcing other countries to accept the western system is to make sure the rights of those businesses are protected in those countries as well.

Just think if you are a rich business owner and you need to design a political system to protect your rights as a social class, could you come up with a better system? Because that is what liberal democracy is, it is designed to take power from monarchy and give it to industrialists.

As a rich person you want 2 things: strong rule of law to stop criminals from taking your money. Then strong property rights to prevent governments from taking your money. You are rich, someone always wants to take your money. Strong rule of law requires a strong government, strong property rights require a weak one. So what to do? The answer is division of powers, separate as many functions away from government as possible. The courts and legislative branch are the most obvious. And all branches of government must only lead with corporate consent.

Political parties are built on funding, they represent people funded them, and when money plays the most important role, that will exclude majority of people from political system.

There are usually 2 main parties in most liberal democratic countries: the conservatives represent classic capitalism and progressives represent responsible capitalism, they represent different factions of corporate elites.

It is like there are 2 candidates you can choose from but fundamentally they all represent me, so I always win.

In activist circle there is this "power of one" saying, liberal democracy basically makes sure that is not going to happen. Legislative branch, which is the most fundamental part of liberal democracy usually has about 200 to 500 members, few individuals can not change the system. That is essential to the survival of liberal democracy.

I think the most fundamental part of liberal democracy is free press, against any kind of censorship. That sounds great but there is one thing free press won't tell you, at least won't emphasize, is that free press is almost entirely corporate owned and they are free to censor anything they want, and they have a natural bias towards corporate rule, I mean liberal democracy.

The basic function of free press is to guarantee unlimited corporate propaganda and to protect liberal democracy. The main way of doing that is to influence public opinions and keep governments in check. In most liberal democratic countries there is a fundamental distrust of governments. Why do you think that is? I think that is because we were influenced by corporate media since we were children. That is what corporate media are for, to brainwash people and it has been mostly effective.

People sometimes see corporate media support governments in very obvious and biased ways and they think main stream media must have been controlled by government, CIA, etc. But in most of the cases I can tell you it is not true. That happens mostly because governments and corporate media are controlled by the same corporate elites.

People have votes but majority of them are brainwashed and oblivious, and can only choose between 2 or 3 well funded (read pro business) political parities. Voting process for common people is mainly anger venting mechanism and that usually happens in every 3 to 5 years. The time period is usually not longer than 5 years is because after election you have to give the new government a chance, if by any chance you found out they were crooks as well it is usually few years later and it is not far from another election, people can usually wait a year or two to vent their angers again but probably no longer than that.

It is not all bad. People's votes mean that common people can not be ignored too much. Of course corporate elites will try to get away with it as much as possible.

I think some people already found out no matter who they vote for things hardly ever change. There are plenty of researches show that there is almost zero correlation between legislation passing and whether most people support or not.

The genius part of the system is that even you understand that, there is very little chance you can fundamentally change it.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Website

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 November 2014 (UK)

Filming Locations:

Japan

Box Office

Budget:

GBP500 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Queuepolitely

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Color:

Color (HD)

Aspect Ratio:

16:9 HD