Bill Moyers with an excellent hour of truth about how and why Wall Street was permitted to destroy the world. It simply comes down to greed. The powerful and wealthy use their power and wealth to gain even more power and wealth until they destroy the world. The repeal of Glass Steagall allowed the 2008 collapse to occur. This was bipartisanship at its best. If you ever needed proof that it doesn’t matter which party is in power, the repeal of this law proves that Wall Street and the Federal Reserve run this country.
John Reed, the former CEO of Citicorp, admits to being guilty of setting the whole disaster in motion. Moyers is too easy on him. Reed’s honesty was refreshing until the segment where he declares that the banks had to be bailed out. He said there was no other choice. There was. The Wall Street banks should have been nationalized (like Sweden did in 1990), all top executives should have been fired, all stockholders and bondholders wiped out, all bad debt should have been liquidated, and good assets should have been sold off to well run banks. It is a Big Lie propagated by the governing elite and the corporate MSM that bailing out the banks saved the country from financial collapse. It saved a few wealthy men from financial collapse.
The most despicable fact is that the very banks that destroyed the world and impoverished the middle class are much bigger today than they were in 2007. And people wonder why the Occupy Movement is growing more violent. Senator Byron Dorgan proves to be one of the few who saw what would happen. He goes on my good guy list.
This is a must watch video.
He said there was no other choice -Admin
Because zombehs are a good thing?
Nationalization.
Hmmmmmmmm…….
Sounds like a good idea for the healthcare “industry”. Which really shouldn’t be an “industry”.
If one posits that this is “what should have been done” w the bankers, isn’t an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure when it comes to healthcare costs?
Aren’t the rising costs of healthcare the real driving force behind our nations insolvency in the long term?
Citicorp Board of Directors
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CONGRESS IN SESSION
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Very interesting. Fascinating really.
My take-away is that Wall Street CEO’s are going down. Reed, who had retired before the meltdown distances himself from current crop of CEO’s who are about to be indicted for MBS fraud.
Sandy was in business to “get rich.” Very interesting tell – see where this meme is going?
Reed also glosses over Citi’s participation in the MBS scheme. He is very adept at blaming others and expects us to believe that Citi, under Sandy Weill’s direction, was just following the herd by “purchasing” mortgages originated by fly-by-night originators.
In fact, the banks, who were being pressured to lower under-writing standards under Clinton’s Community Reinvestment Act purposely exploited a loophole in the legislation big enough to drive a truck thru.
You see, the CRA applied only to banks. The regs did not apply to Wall Street Investment banks or mortgage originators.
So, what did banks like Citi do?
They got out of the mortgage origination business.
Citi’s decision to “purchase” loans originated by these unscrupulous originators – like Countrywide – was a very lucrative way of getting into the MBS game – without violating CRA.
Lower risk – much higher reward.
Somewhere the game went from arbitrage to massive control fraud.
We believe senior executives at Fannie, Freddie, Countrywide, HSBC, BONY, Chase, Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Bear among others – devised the scheme very early on.
The rest were too greedy or stupid to ask questions – they just followed the herd.
Of course, since Wall Street captured The White House, Congress, Media, SEC, Treasury, there was no-body there to put the brakes on the criminals before they took down the global economy.
Bankers like Reed are gonna come out of the woodwork – Bernays would be so proud – to rewrite history – and launder their involvement in the MBS fake securitization scheme.
Most of the World Wants More Bank Regulation
By Barry Ritholtz – January 28th, 2012, 7:29AM More business regulations.
That is what survey after survey around the globe shows that the world’s populations wants. Despite a relentless propaganda campaign of misinformation, fabricated data and false narratives, the public has not been fooled by the 1%. The best efforts of a well funded group of ideologues — Free Market absolutists, anti-Democracy and Randians — these pro-corporate radicals has not yet succeeded in fooling all of the world’s population all of the time.
How do we know this? A 25 country survey last year by Edelman. They asked the question: “When it comes to government regulation of business, do you think that your government regulates business too much, not enough or about the right amount?”
Most of the world thinks there is insufficient regulation across all industries. The United States, where 31% there was too much regulation. Ironic considering we originated the global financial crisis. The next closest country was Germany at 28%.
Mary: wif all due respect, you are delusional. Wall Street and the FED are not going down. They will totally destroy this country first. They own Obongo. They own Mittens and the Newt. They do NOT own Dr. Paul, therefore he would never be given a chance. One of the chosen three will be our next president. Nothing will change. The fix is in. We will have a “war” with Iran, accompanied by $6 or more gasoline. What’s left of our economy will be destroyed, but who gives a shit? Israel will be saved. We will have martial law in the US and our descent to a police state will be complete. Have a nice day!
Freedom is the answer!
“The Wall Street banks should have been nationalized (like Sweden did in 1990), all top executives should have been fired”
I have to disagree with this statement. I think the banks should have been left to fail, have their corporate charters revoked and ceased to exist. The top executives should have been in jail to this day and well beyond.
You cannot cure mistrust by bailouts.
Mary: I hope you are correct, but………..I don’t think so. KaD: not only the top execs, but also Paulson, Grunspan, the Bernank, &tc should be in Federal Prison for life. It ain’t gonna happen!
JESSE’S TAKE:
29 January 2012
Moyers Journal: How Did the Big Banks Get So Powerful? The Corrosive Power of Unbridled Greed
Listen carefully to the rationales provided for taking down Glass-Steagall, which helped to set up the current financial crisis and collapse.
They are being repeated again every time there is a discussion of financial re-regulation, providing reform to curb reckless speculation, and shrinking the TBTF banks and the systemic risks which they provide.
All of them are fallacious, but they are backed by self-interest and more importantly, big money.
Although the great landscape of moral decay covers the widespread fraud in the mortgage markets and the foreclosures, there is fine microcosm of this outcome to be seen in the blatant theft of customer money at MF Global by the broker and his banks, as the courts and the regulators turn a blind eye to the victims.
John Swinton is anecdotally reported to have said this about journalists in The Gilded Age of robber barons, but it aptly describes the economists, politicians, lawyers, accountants, regulators, and the rest of the Wall Street demimonde of our day. Once one sells the integrity of their knowledge, they become tolerant of and even open to soft participation in a much broader set of injustice and crimes.
“The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread.
You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
After the Crash of 1929, in the Congressional hearings a Wall Street ‘publicist,’ A. Newton Plummer, revealed that the majority of financial journalists had been ‘on the take’ from the great stock pools and manipulators of the day. He could not be discredited by the deniers because he had kept a great cache of cancelled checks to prove his allegations. So he was largely ignored, his story buried for the sake of confidence and recovery.
And in our day, now that the music is stopped, the participants and enablers are standing with dirty hands, ashamed but too frightened to acknowledge their part in it, and more cyncially, concerned about losing the benefits they have obtained from it.
And so the nation is caught in a credibility trap that stifles recovery and reform. The descent into hell is easy, but to return to the upper air, is the challenge.
Hmmmm…Where are the comments by Chuck U. Schumer touting the G/S repeal? Where are the opposition comments by the Clinton administration when all this shit was going down? Oh, I know. When the shit finally exploded in 2008 it was all Bushs’ fault, and during the 90’s when all the changes were made that led to the disaster, it was the Republican’s in Congress that were at fault because the President isn’t in charge and that’s why Obama can blame Bush for everything or blame Congress or WHO THE FUCK KNOWS!
DaveL
Did you watch the video?
Schumer was in the video calling for repeal.
Clinton was in the video signing the repeal.
You are fucking losing your mind in the desert.