In the film, someone mentions that Bernie Madoff actually had nothing to do with the financial crisis. How is that possible? The press certainly seemed to think so. And what was that $65 billion Ponzi scheme - chopped liver?
Bernie's Ponzi scheme ran for more than 20 years, unstopped even when detected by the SEC and other agencies. He was a market maker and big macher in that world--head of NASDAQ, etc.---but he was only brought down when he admitted it to his sons and then the Court, where he confessed what he had done was "indeed criminal." But he wasn't involved in the later real estate securitization deals associated with this scandal, as far as I know. He was a scandal in himself. But don't forget: he had collaborators and investors who went to him because they believed he was operating on the edge of legality and wanted the returns he was promising and reporting. It was mostly bogus, of course.
His case exploded just as the crisis was peaking. For a lazy press, he was the perfect poster boy for Wall Street. Remember: they never unmasked him; he unmasked himself. The media loves a bad guy to make an example of, as opposed to an industry that demands careful investigation. They love morality plays and he provided one. Thank you, Mr. Madoff, who was sent away for 150 years for the sins of his industry. They made an example of him, just as they ignored the real rip off--trillions, not mere billions. He wasn't even tried where information could be extracted. Instead, he was shipped away. How many major cases have there been since his? Duh?
In the last several years, we've seen an upswing in economic inequity and an unprecedented concentration of wealth more befitting the Gilded Age or a third-world country. Explain, please.
Wealth has been transferred from the middle class and poor to the upper class. 1 % of the population now controls 70% of the returns to wealth. The system has benefited the rich and fortified the superrich. Not good, writes Clinton's former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who, alone among the Clintonistas, stood up for ordinary people.
[In Confessions of a Class Worrier, his August 10, 2010 op ed piece] Reich says: "Starting in the 1980s - and increasingly since then - the economy has made the rich far richer without doing squat for the vast middle. The median hourly wage has barely grown, if you take inflation into account. Indeed, it dropped in the last so-called "recovery" between 2001 and 2007. And health-care and pension benefits have declined; we've gone from defined-benefit pensions to do-it-yourself pensions, while health insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-payments have skyrocketed.
Meanwhile, the rich have been getting a larger and larger portion of total income."
This itself is one of most serious crimes of our time!
At the conclusion of your film, you say that you can't do it alone. "Now, it's [our] turn." What do you expect from us?à ‚¬ ¨Ã ‚¬ ¨ And, what are your recommendations?
Well, let me go get my magic wand. Hah. How does change happen? It happens when people fight for it, when movements are organized, when people unify behind a program for change. It happens through struggle, not email online petitions. The progressive movement has so far failed to recognize the seriousness of this and mount a battle on many fronts--jobs, housing, education, and loans of all kinds. We have been mesmerized by sniping at Glenn Beck and slipping into the partisan party trenches instead of fighting for change.
The most recent polls show a big disconnect between the economic and political elite and the rest of us. The former say things are getting better but the rest of us know better. There are so many examples to cite besides the unemployment rate. Where are those of us who care? Why aren't we fighting for economic justice? Maybe that's another film which I can't afford to make.
Just recently I wrote to leading websites to ask them to help me out with reviews and running ads for Plunder that I have no budget for. The response was mostly deafening---there was a pathetic response, save a few who still believe in collaboration and solidarity, (If you want more information, visit Plunderthecrimeofourtime.com) The major media is not spotlighting the issues I am raising. I am pleased that OpEdNews and some other sites are. An issue becomes an issue when others pile on and call attention to it.
What's going to happen if we don't rigorously and systemically reform our financial apparatus?
It is happening. It is almost certain that the next crash is coming and will be worse.
We've witnessed the gradual chipping away at financial regulation that led directly to the present crisis. How do we put the genie back in the bottle?
One way you don't do it is with a compromised, watered-down, anemic, bureaucratic bill like the one that was passed which will take YEARS to implement, thanks to the way the bankster boys are shaping the regulations.
We seem to live in an era of symbolic change. Not real change. Can we change that?
So, it's clear that your take on the state of the economy is very different from President Obama's. One speaker says we're headed for an unprecedented class war, different from those of the past. What did he mean?
Bernie's Ponzi scheme ran for more than 20 years, unstopped even when detected by the SEC and other agencies. He was a market maker and big macher in that world--head of NASDAQ, etc.---but he was only brought down when he admitted it to his sons and then the Court, where he confessed what he had done was "indeed criminal." But he wasn't involved in the later real estate securitization deals associated with this scandal, as far as I know. He was a scandal in himself. But don't forget: he had collaborators and investors who went to him because they believed he was operating on the edge of legality and wanted the returns he was promising and reporting. It was mostly bogus, of course.
His case exploded just as the crisis was peaking. For a lazy press, he was the perfect poster boy for Wall Street. Remember: they never unmasked him; he unmasked himself. The media loves a bad guy to make an example of, as opposed to an industry that demands careful investigation. They love morality plays and he provided one. Thank you, Mr. Madoff, who was sent away for 150 years for the sins of his industry. They made an example of him, just as they ignored the real rip off--trillions, not mere billions. He wasn't even tried where information could be extracted. Instead, he was shipped away. How many major cases have there been since his? Duh?
In the last several years, we've seen an upswing in economic inequity and an unprecedented concentration of wealth more befitting the Gilded Age or a third-world country. Explain, please.
Wealth has been transferred from the middle class and poor to the upper class. 1 % of the population now controls 70% of the returns to wealth. The system has benefited the rich and fortified the superrich. Not good, writes Clinton's former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who, alone among the Clintonistas, stood up for ordinary people.
Meanwhile, the rich have been getting a larger and larger portion of total income."
This itself is one of most serious crimes of our time!
At the conclusion of your film, you say that you can't do it alone. "Now, it's [our] turn." What do you expect from us?à ‚¬ ¨Ã ‚¬ ¨ And, what are your recommendations?
Well, let me go get my magic wand. Hah. How does change happen? It happens when people fight for it, when movements are organized, when people unify behind a program for change. It happens through struggle, not email online petitions. The progressive movement has so far failed to recognize the seriousness of this and mount a battle on many fronts--jobs, housing, education, and loans of all kinds. We have been mesmerized by sniping at Glenn Beck and slipping into the partisan party trenches instead of fighting for change.
The most recent polls show a big disconnect between the economic and political elite and the rest of us. The former say things are getting better but the rest of us know better. There are so many examples to cite besides the unemployment rate. Where are those of us who care? Why aren't we fighting for economic justice? Maybe that's another film which I can't afford to make.
Just recently I wrote to leading websites to ask them to help me out with reviews and running ads for Plunder that I have no budget for. The response was mostly deafening---there was a pathetic response, save a few who still believe in collaboration and solidarity, (If you want more information, visit Plunderthecrimeofourtime.com) The major media is not spotlighting the issues I am raising. I am pleased that OpEdNews and some other sites are. An issue becomes an issue when others pile on and call attention to it.
What's going to happen if we don't rigorously and systemically reform our financial apparatus?
It is happening. It is almost certain that the next crash is coming and will be worse.
We've witnessed the gradual chipping away at financial regulation that led directly to the present crisis. How do we put the genie back in the bottle?
One way you don't do it is with a compromised, watered-down, anemic, bureaucratic bill like the one that was passed which will take YEARS to implement, thanks to the way the bankster boys are shaping the regulations.
We seem to live in an era of symbolic change. Not real change. Can we change that?
So, it's clear that your take on the state of the economy is very different from President Obama's. One speaker says we're headed for an unprecedented class war, different from those of the past. What did he mean?
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