If you are still interested in understanding the current financial mess I recommend that you view a recent segment of Bill Moyer’s Journal. It’s a half-hour long, but it is a fascinating thirty minutes. His guest is William Black (left), now an economics professor, he was a senior litigator during the savings and loan crisis in the ‘80s. He has just written a book called, "The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One."He pulls no punches, calling the current situation a fraud that was organized, planned and executed from the top of a number of major financial institutions, and with the aid and support of legislators and regulators. He points fingers directly at Larry Summers, Bob Rubin, Phil Graham, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner and a number of other well known people -- including George Bush, who transferred 500 FBI agents out of the financial fraud investigations unit after 9/11, and never replaced them. The net result is that today we have 1/5 as many FBI agents working this beat, while the AIG bleeding alone is greater than the entire S&L debacle.
And while he worked to elected Barack Obama, he has some sharp criticism for the way he is dealing with the problem now that he is in office.
Even if you don’t believe, as I do, that many financial executives and Congressmen are criminals, you may find Black persuasive when describing how intellectually dishonest we are in our attempts to even understand the problem. His comparison of the financial mess with the way we analyze aircraft accidents is very apt.
This is well worth your time.
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And may I recommend you access one of the final segments of Thursday night's Hardball hosted by Mike Barnicle who initiated a discussion of Obama's Commencement address at Notre Dame with Pat Buchanan (Neanderthal) and Lawrence O'Donnell (whose father, if I'm not mistaken, worked in JFK's White House and who was head writer on West Wing). Parochial school educated all (as was I), practicing Catholics all (as am I). It was quite remarkable. O'Donnell almost popped a vein listening to Buchanan try to sell the concept of good killing vs. bad killing and wrapping it all up with Papal infallibility! Happy Easter. don't forget to hide your eggs.
While I agree with Black, I don't think anything will come of this. In order for this to happen, the public will have to be outraged (like they were for the AIG bonuses). Unfortunately, the public can't be outraged over something they don't understand. If the banksters robbed a bank at gunpoint, that would be easy to understand. But inflating profits via securitized debt that was improperly rated AAA by the ratings agencies, thus increasing the value of stock options is hard to understand for the vast majority -- and mainstream media will never give this story the coverage it deserves.
As much as Obama railed against precisely this sort of incestuous, profoundly corrupt control by narrow private interests of government, he has chosen to empower the very individuals who most embody that corruption. Summers, Geithner and Gensler have all been in bed with Goldman Sachs who continues to pull the financial strings -- but in front of the curtain this time.
Sorry as I haven't looked at the link but want to get in a few words on fraud. Corruption undermines the imperfect system that it is. However, it is the only system we have. It ranges from the dead in Italy and China by contractors not following structural regulations to legislative collaboration in the investment vehicles which took down many an American and global dream.
More than damage to individuals, both right and left are using this as a catalyst for their agendas. Public anger will wax as more people get tossed into the economic inferno. Hank Greenberg's bold faced lies in public are red meat to both honestly aggrieved and opportunists alike. The very thought that the bedfellows of bankers and legislators, who drew up the scheme to entrap the public into credit debt, are being bailed out by the public, who is in debt would be a farce if it were not a tragedy.
The public calls out for some semblance of justice. BHO needs to draw his knife.
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