Inside Job

Everyone should watch this eye-opening documentary to refresh their memory as to how the 2008 financial meltdown occurred. Unfortunately, and as pointed out by Inside Job, little was done to address the underlining issues that triggered the collapse, and in fact things are arguably even worse today. I am posting this review on top of all the others to assert one thing; this stuff is easy to understand. It is not beyond the layperson to grasp what went wrong with the US economy, in spite of all the fancy terms like CDO and CDS. It is all truly quite easy to understand.The only thing is, there are quite a number of moving parts, and it takes a few passes to soak it all in. For my own edification I penned the 5 steps involved in the 2008 financial crisis. When my memory gets hazy I refer back the notes I made. I am publishing them here, in case a written explanation may help augment this excellent documentary...FIVE STEPS TO UNDERSTANDING THE 2008 FINANCIAL CRISIS1) The Home MortgageIt all starts with the venerable home mortgage. This is the most important piece of the puzzle. Think about how the traditional home loan works. You go to buy a house. You apply for a home loan at the local bank. The bank checks your credit. If you seem credit worthy the bank lends you the bulk of the money to buy the house. However, to insure that the bank doesn't risk suffering a loss it does three things: 1) it asks for a down payment. 2) It requires you to insure the house (fire insurance and what not). 3) the bank places a lien on the property, thus making the property act as collateral for the loan.The down payment insures that there is equity in the home. Equity simply means the house is worth more than the amount owed. This is critical. The bank always needs to be in a position where the property is worth more than what it can be sold for. Ideally, a down payment needs to be sized such that there is sufficient equity to withstand minor fluctuations in the housing market. Positive equity, combined with homeowners insurance has for decades insured that the bank won't suffer a loss on money that is being lent.2) SecuritizationA properly structured home mortgage is a very safe investment, and thus a popular one for banks. The popularity, and sheer number, of mortgages made them attractive to a financial process referred to as "securitization". With securitization, large quantities of mortgages are purchased from the local banks by a financial services company. The loans are grouped together and then re-packaged into a variety of securities (investments) that are then resold to willing buyers. Think of securitization as you would processed foods. An organic vegetable garden in your backyard is analogous to the previously described traditional home loan. A garden produces pure and simple food. A home mortgage from the local bank is pure and simple. But if instead of consuming those vegetables, what if they were instead sold to a food conglomerate, which extracts a portion of the crop, adds some preservatives and cans the vegetables in various configurations and sizes (corn, peas, mixed vegetables, etc.)? That's equivalent to financial securitization. Home loans are processed into a variety of investment vehicles and made available to wide range of consumers.By the way, although the umbrella term "securitization" is used to describe the aforementioned process, the term "derivative" is often used with regards to activities such as repackaging mortgages. The resulting security (investment) is *derived* from the original home loans in this case (there are many types of derivatives employed in the finance and investment world).3) DeregulationSecuritization, in and of itself is not a bad thing. Fresh vegetables can potentially be processed in a manner that retains much of their flavor and nutritional value. For example, organic barley is grown in Oxnard, California and processed into a product called 'Barley Green'. This brings one of the best concentrated super-green foods to consumers who otherwise would not have access to such nutrition. Likewise, mortgages can be repackaged into safe investment vehicles available to those who otherwise could not participate in the mortgage market. But keeping securitized investments safe requires rules (regulations). There are two specific kind of rules (lack of rules, actually) that directly relate to the financial crisis in 2008.First, in 1999 a very important law controlling the behavior of the financial services sector was repealed. It was the Banking Act of 1933, colloquially known as "Glass-Steagall", named after the two senators who proposed the law. Glass-Steagall was a very simple, 37 page law designed to help prevent another depression. It basically said: The bank cannot make risky investments with depositor's money.[Some people will recall that in the 1980s the Savings and Loan industry was deregulated in a similar manner. In short order this led to the failure of hundreds of S&Ls.]The second rule that was repealed was in fact never engaged. Congress tried to regulate the completely unregulated derivatives market. Recall that derivatives are tradable securities derived from real things (home mortgages, other types of secured loans, crops, etc.). In 2000 a movement was underway to regulate the trading of derivatives. Some law makers and people in key government positions fought against such regulation (probably the same people behind the repeal of Glass-Steagall), and Congress failed to pass any legislation on the matter.So, going into the 2000s, banks now had the right to use customer deposits to engage in most any type of investment they wished, and this included derivatives. In the next section we will see how derivatives went wild, and how the whole securitization of home mortgages went very wrong.4) Tail wags dogSo far we are talking about [safe] home loans being purchased en mass and repackaged for sale as collateralized (safe) investment vehicles. We also know that the derivatives being created in this process are unregulated, and we know that banks can use customer deposits to purchase these derivatives and resell them to their customers, but we don't yet know what deregulation shenanigans are about to occur.The specific name given to securitized home loan derivatives is "collateralized debt obligation" or CDO. Don't get intimidated here. A collateralized debt obligation is simply a collection of mortgages! A mortgage is an *obligation* to pay a *debt*, with the *collateral* for the debt being the house and the property it is built on. Collateralized... Debt... Obligation. When you buy a CDO you are buying a portion of one or more home owner's mortgage.CDOs became EXTREMELY POPULAR! Why? Because they were considered safe investments that produced a reasonable rate of return. CDOs came in many sizes to fit an array of portfolios, and, they were plentiful.When a derivate of the nature of a CDO is offered for sale to certain market segments, such as retirement funds, the security must be rated by a third party as to its relative safety. Enter the Big Three rating agencies. Just as there are the Big Three credit reporting agencies, there are the Big Three companies that independently evaluate and rate securitized investments (Inside Job tells us the names). These agencies put their reputation on the line every time they rate a security. Many mortgage based CDOs received a rating of AAA, the highest possible investment grade rating. The venerable AAA rating is equivalent to a US Government Treasury Bill, which is considered the safest place in the world to put your money (the Federal government has never directly defaulted on a T-Bill).As the popularity of the CDO industry grew, income of the ratings agencies skyrocketed because the agencies charge a fee to rate each CDO (nice work if you can get it). The CDO was a windfall for the Big Three credit rating agencies. Thanks to the CDO, mortgage backed securities were suddenly available to a wide array of investors. Institutional investors snapped them up. Demand became so high that there weren't enough home loans to produce the CDOs investors so coveted.And this is where the trouble begins. Demand exceeded supply. This is where greed raises its ugly head and the slippery slope toward financial meltdown really began. This is where the tail started wagging the dog because loan demand began getting generated on the back end (the financial sector), not on the front end (a family seeking to buy a house). The quickest solution to create more CDOs was two-fold; a) make more home loans, and b) include other types of loans in the securitization process. Oh my. Yes, this is where the sub-prime loan comes in. Lowering lending standards was the quickest way to grow the number of mortgages that could then be re-processed into CDOs. It was easy for the loan originators (the banks that granted the loans) to grant sub-prime loans because they were selling the loans to the financial services industry for a fee, thus taking themselves out of the risk loop.But that was not enough. The investment banks that created CDOs went a step further and started to include other types of loans in the CDOs; car loans, school loans, commercial loans, etc.Oh my. So the logical question is: What happened to the ratings on these Frankenstein-esk CDOs? Sub-prime loans, by their very nature, are not the highest quality loans and thus do not deserve the highest quality ratings. The answer is the ratings agencies continued to issue AAA ratings for these CDOs. This is corruption, plain and simple. The ratings agencies were making money hand over fist rating these securities. They knew that if they kept issuing AAA ratings the investment banks would keep submitting freshly minted CDOs for rating. It's plain old greed and corruption folks, nothing complicated here. Inside Job shows clips of the heads of the companies testifying before Congress. It's laughable.5) What's worse than a Frankenstein CDO? Leverage and Credit Default SwapsAt this point in time a lie is in effect. Institutional investors such as state pension funds, county retirement plans, and thousands of other entities seeking a safe place to grow their money are buying AAA derivatives that are in fact far riskier than they appear. The cancer of greed begins to spread further however. Large lending institutions that started to crowd out the proverbial local bank appeared on the scene. The biggest was Countrywide, issuing (as reported in Inside Job) a reported 97 billion dollars in home loans. This new breed of lenders invented additional ways to grow its profits. It lowered lending standards even further. It waved the down payment, relaxed income requirements, and failed to verify the income entered on loan applications... thus creating the liar loan. To add insult to injury the lenders also increased their profits by placing well qualified buyers into sub-prime loans, even if the buyer qualified for a lower interest loan. Sub-prime loans have a higher rate of interest and thus the lender's profits were higher. Is this not essentially stealing?Bear in mind that the only thing that kept this scheme going was ever rising home prices. As long as the economy maintained enough jobs, as long as interest rates stayed low, this process continued. One side effect of the boom in easy home loans was a boom in demand for those loans, which produced the greatest ramp up in real estate prices in memory. Thus we have the "housing bubble".But wait. The slippery slope of greed did not stop there. The engine that supplies mortgages to feed the CDO process was fueled further when the lenders and the investment banks started to BORROW MONEY to in-turn lend it out for more home mortgages. And where did a portion of those borrowed funds come from? From depositors accounts. Made possible by the repeal of a law that had kept the financial markets intact for decades since the Great Depression. Borrowing money to fund the granting of additional mortgages was a highly significant event for another reason as well. When you borrow money to make an investment (in this case to lend money to home buyers) you add "leverage".Leverage was the straw that broke the back of the financial system in 2008, so it's helpful to understand how it works. Financial leverage works like any other form of leverage. A physical lever that you press down, say, one inch, might lift an object on the other end by 1 foot. Conversely, if you let up on that lever by, say, 1/2" the object lowers 6". Leverage works going up as well as coming down. The effect is multiplied in either direction.In finance, if you have one million dollars to finance mortgages, and then borrow an additional million, you double your income. That's 2:1 leverage. All you have to do is pay a small loan payment once a month to service the loan on that second million dollars. If the income from securitizing the extra million dollars is greater than the interest rate on the loan, you're ahead. Inside Job asserts that investment banks leveraged as high as 33:1. This meant MASSIVE profits in the billions of dollars, but it also meant that the real estate market -which provided the collateral for these loans, had to keep rising, or at least tread water. If property values were to drop, the equity of the loan could become less than the amount owed. This is bad. It could in turn generate a margin call from the entity that lent you the million dollars, requiring you to come up with additional funds to make up for the loss. Also, if for some reason home owners started defaulting on their mortgages -say because they lost their jobs, or because the interest rate on their adjustable loan rose to fast- then you might not be able to even make the minimum payment on the money you borrowed, let alone pay back the principal. You would end up defaulting. It's like dominoes.Now be sure to multiply all that by 33. With such extreme leverage, even if the homeowners kept up their payments, if the value of the home decreased by say, 25% in a caving real estate market you would still be on the hook for the full amount borrowed, and the losses could add up to more then the entire net worth of your bank. Whoops.We know of course that the real estate market did indeed contract. But believe it or not, there is one more piece to this puzzle to cover first. And believe it or not, it is arguably the most insidious component of what lead to the collapse. Just to recap, we have safe AAA rated CDOs that have been Frankensteinized by folding in sub-prime and other lower rated loans. Borrowed money, including consumer bank deposits, has been used to make more CDOs. Now enters the "credit default swap", or CDS. This is another easy to explain term. A CDS is essentially an insurance policy on the default of a CDO. Recall that private investors and institutions were buying CDOs - which are just mortgage backed securities- for safety and income. The CDOs paid periodic dividends, and the capitol was returned to the investor when the CDO expired. The investment banks started to get worried about all those CDOs! They were so levered up that the slightest drop in real estate prices, or a rise in interest rates, or a contraction of the economy leading to increased unemployment... would lead to defaults on home mortgages, which in turn would lead to the failure of the CDO they were backing. So the banks took out insurance against this eventuality from yet another institution. They bought credit default swaps from insurance provider AIG (American International Group). With a CDS, the holder of the CDO paid a recurring fee to AIG. AIG in turn promised to make good on the CDO if goes bad (they swapped the risk to another party). What's not to love?CDS insurance doesn't seem like too bad an idea until you start to see (as explained in Inside Job) that the investment banks were recommending supposedly safe CDOs to their clients while at the same time the banks were effectively betting the CDOs would fail by taking out credit default swaps with AIG. It should be underscored here that a CDS paid out to the INVESTMENT BANK in the event of a default... NOT to the customers buying the CDOs, not to the owners of the deposit accounts, and certainly NOT to the homeowners. Moreover, you didn't even have to own a CDO to buy a CDS for it! Meaning, anyone at all could take out an insurance policy against a CDO. Or multiple CDOs. There was no limit because THERE WAS NO REGULATION. AIG issued multitudes of CDSs. When the real estate market collapsed, AIG was on the hook for the full value of every single CDS taken out on each CDO! Huge-o leverage. This is where the government stepped in to bail out AIG and other institutions on the verge of bankruptcy.EpilogSo add it up. Lack of regulation gives the nod to the financial services community to behave as they wish. Demand for safe mortgage backed securities in investment portfolios gives rise to relaxed lending standards (spawning the sub-prime loan, the no down payment loan, and the liar loan). The temptation to create more CDOs prompts the inclusion of non-AAA rated loans to the security and bribing the Big Three ratings agencies to rate all CDOs as AAA. The use of leverage multiplies the losses if the economy stumbles or interest rates rise. And finally the creation of a vehicles to insure against the failure of CDOs transfers so much risk to a single entity that it can not possibly pay out when the claims start rolling in. Most troubling is that politicians and holder of Federal Cabinet positions fought hard to make the system so vulnerable. And many of those people are still in office today.Now you know why these instruments are termed `financial weapons of mass destruction'. Inside Job goes on to explain how very little has been done to address the underlying problem...

"Inside Job" is the back-story of how the 2008-and-continuing financial meltdown happened. It's a back-story that shows the nation at peril and--with just a little projection from the documentary's material--it shows the nation's masters as completely unconcerned about the nation's continuing existence. Average Americans, the back-story shows, are not just here to pay the bills. We've here to be sucked dry before the suckers move it on down the road. "Inside Job", as you surely know by now, is this year's Oscar-winner for Best Documentary. It was written, directed, and produced by Charles Ferguson, with lots of help from his perceptive friends. Audrey Marrs also gets a producer's nod. The documentary also scored the NYFCC award for the year's Best Non-Fiction Film. The credentials speak for themselves. The film's interviews are legion and revolve around the steady and caring narrative by Matt Damon. Damon's parting shots--as the flying camera pans aound the Statue of Liberty and slowly zooms in on face front--bridge the film's revelations to a seemingly now-remote, future justice: "At enormous cost, we've avoided disaster and are recovering. But the men and insitutions who caused the crisis are still in power, and that needs to change. They will tell us that we need them and what they do is too complicated for us to understand. They will tell us it won't happen again. "They will spend billions fighting reform. "It won't be easy, but some things are worth fighting for." And cue up the sly lyrics and slow honkey-tonk of "Congratulations" (MGMT, courtesy of Columbia Records), the music backing the end credits. It was very easy to watch the "Inside Job" DVD repeatedly over some days. It has many threads that propel the viewer through the bog-free story, not the least of which are four engaging pieces of music. There's the soaring "Big Time" (Peter Gabriel), the piano-on-overdrive and raging harmonies of "Takin' Care of Business" (Bachman-Turner Overdrive), the outrageously smooth and edgy "New York Groove" (Ace Frehley, courtesy of Island Def Jam Music Group), and, of course, the melodic closer, "Congratulations". My notes on the musical pieces drove me to run the DVD again, just to hear the music and see again how the filmmakers integrated the music propellers into their story. Flawless. But Damon's hobbled parting shots are more serious fare. For millions of us, the seeming impossibility of bringing the Ponzi-scheming criminals to justice is just unacceptable. This documentary is a detail-loaded, liar and demagogue over-loaded, fraud-rich envirornment. Double-talk and gibberish bounds out of the fraudsters' mouths right in front of your eyes. And a Corporatist Senator has the unmitigated gall to feed a clearly guilty fraudster CEO the sophistry question confirming that everybody did it, implying that nobody could possibly be guilty. Clearly, this is how Corporatism is done. The laws broken and unenforced are clearly a long list. How does a government not enforce such laws when tens of millions of citizens are so deeply harmed? And--harmed by their own government, by their own for-profit corporations, corporations who owe their existence to the American people's patronage. This is insult beyond comprehension. Retribution and justice should be massive. Our watchwords should be "we will never forget, we will never forgive, expect us". Demagogue Corporatist Obama: "A lack of oversight in Washington and on Wall Street is exactly what got us into this mess." And then his wimpy lip-service to reform goes into the same demagogic nowhere as his administration's unenforcement of the broken laws--and is matched regally by his appointments to high office of many of the fraudsters and engineers of the global crisis. Why? Why? The insulting answer, as choked out in the film by the very authoritative Robert Gnaizda, former directror, Greening Institute: "It's a Wall Street government." Spine-crawling. Obama reappointed Ben Bernanke to the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve, as though the Federal Reserve Act was not unconstitutional in 1913, as though it and its evil twin, the unadopted and unconstitutional 16th Amendment of 1913, and it's unconstitutional federal income tax on wages, were honorable parts of our society. The Fed was unconstitutional in 1913, and it and its evil twin are national disgraces, responsible for the illegal, nazified, upward redistribution of the real wealth produced by ordinary Americans. Wealth stolen by the Corporatists. The 2008 meltdown, and "Inside Job", are all about central banking. Without the Fed, the Corporatists could not have even begun their frauds. It's the one corruption machine that drives all of the other corruption machines. Our Constitution's authors were very knowledgable of England's usurious central bank, the Bank of England, established in 1694. They held it responsible for many of the greivous policies against which the Colonies had rebelled in the 1770s. They were determined and adamant that no central bank ever be perpetrated on their United States of America. (See the sources for the debates of the Constitutional Convention, 1787.) Their provisions for Congress to coin and value debt-free currency are as watertight and bulletproof as 18th Century language-use could provide. And yes, you can still read them in our Constitution. You know, Corporatist Bush's GD piece of paper. Wherever it rears its slimy head, central banking equates with an unconstitutional, illegal, usurious, and currency counterfeiting system. As laid out in Arron Russo's 2006 documentary, "America--Freedom To Fascism", it took the aristocracratic European central bankers until 1913 to overwhelm the U.S. Constitutional provisions with the inferior and flatly unconstitutional federal statute law that created the Federal Reserve--which is anything but federal and anything but a reserve. The Federal Reserve Act was the beginning of the now-98-year run in which everyone connected to the ruling Corporatism pretends that inferior federal statute law is superior to the Constitution's fundamental law. It's how they get what they want. And don't think that the Federal Reserve Act happened in a vacuum. The Reform Era began in 1898 with South Dakota's citizens force-voting direct democracy into the state's constitution. It was the great voting hope to kick the slats out of corruption wherever it turned up. The people could by-God make their own laws when necessary, veto any law that they didn't like that had been made by a legislature, and recall the election of any rascal demagogue who lied or thieved too much. This is "full-boat" direct democracy--everything the sovereign people need to keep government corruption-minimized. Why don't you know about it? Why not, indeed. The Corporatists have spent a lot of money and violated a lot of laws to keep you ignorant. If the States had been allowed to test direct democracy for all these years, we'd probably have a Nebraska-legislature-style, unicameral, non-partisan, national Congress and all sorts of other corruption-shedding features of government. By 1913, tens of millions of average Americans were organized to force direct democracy provisions into their states' constitutions. There were average-guy heroes all over the place, standing up to the grinding, ever-lying superrich and their ever-lying politician puppets. A total of 12 states had institutionalized "full-boat" direct democracy by 1912. Michigan would make it 13 during 1913. And the total would be 18 by close of business in 1918's swarm of post-WW1 engineered diversions. (See Thomas E. Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, 1999.) It made Corporatism's leaders crazy. Direct democracy could ruin all their plans. They had to get control of the nation's wealth, and they had to do it fast. The charge to overturn the Constitution's provisions against a central bank began at a now-famous secret meeting of central banker advocates in 1910--birthing the Jekyll Island monster. (See G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jekyll Island, 4th Ed., 2002.) To this day, that 1913, inferior-to-the-Constitution, federal statute law that set up the Fed is an unconstitutional anti-law. Each instance of its use under color of law (daily--hundreds of times?) generates a violation of citizen rights under Title 18, US Code, Section 241, and is a felony conspiracy whose co-conspirators number the entire Federal Reserve hierarchy, every private bank and individual paid by the Fed, every sitting member of Congress, the President, and many of the administration's cabinet officers. Anyone whose actions or omissions lead to a use of--and anyone who financially benefits from--that anti-law is a guilty co-conspirator. All by itself, the Federal Reserve Act turns the US Govt into a criminal government, from 1913 to now. And the Federal Reserve Act is only one in a long list of unconstitutional anti-laws that are used to falsely govern the American people. We might have needed the "Inside Job" detailing of the global Ponzi scheme to uncover the horrendous scope of illegality concerning the Fed. Take away the Fed and no part of the Ponzi scheme is possible--not in the US and not in Iceland. We undoubtedly needed "Inside Job" to begin the discussion of the Fed's wide-envelope, anti-law. Apparently, the revelations in Russo's 2006 AFTF were not motivation enough to move John Q into action. If the 2008 meltdown's millions of foreclosed homes, its trillions of lost dollars, and its millions of lost jobs at the hands of the toxic-paper-hanging, Ponzi-scheming bankers and traders is not enough motivation, then justice is just flat lost in this nation. Title 18 USC 241 is one of those federal laws that nobody in the ruling Corporatism wants ordinary Americans to know about. It was used a few times against the Nixon crooks in the early 1970s (see Frank Mankiewicz, U.S. v. Richard M. Nixon: The Final Crisis, 1975, Appendix), and then it pretty much disappeared from use--and not by accident. It's certainly one of the laws least likely to be enforced during today's Black Plague of corporate greed and political corruption spewed by our ruling Corporatism. Every citizen right violated by the superrich and their parasite politicians means more money for the right people. Getting public money to the right people is class warfare writ large, but the writing and the warfare is seemingly invisible to John Q. For example, in October 2008--a month ahead of national elections--when about 75 US Senators led by Obama and McCain initiated the $700 Billion Bailout in the Senate, they violated every citizen's right to be governed by law made in accord with the Constitution. The Constitution inconveniently requires all bills for revenue to be initiated in the House. (See Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 7, first sentence: "All bills for revenue shall originate in the house of representatives... .") But the House voted down the $700 Billion Bailout just a couple of days before the big dawgs in the Senate showed them how it's done. Once that House vote was done, all possibility of a House-origination of the bailout was null and void until re-introduction into the House. Didn't slow down the Corporatist Senators for a moment. All they had to do was to lie their institutional butts off, saying that the House had sent them a jabber-%$#!!-wocky-$#@$%-wonker. They then simply modified whatever the hell it was that the House sent them within Constitutional guidelines and other gibberish. The House Corporatists couldn't have fallen all over themselves any faster to scoot the Senate version out the door and past the angry but now thoroughly confused people. Presto-jingo, as fast as Bush could swing the pen, every crooked banker from Wall Street to Fisherman's Wharf had millions or billions of public money to play with. The American people had another unconstitutional anti-law to misgovern them in their glory, and two of the most infamous Constitutional criminals in recent history could face off the next month to see who would become leader of the free world. Two hundred million American citizen-traitors swarmed to the polls to give aid and comfort to men whose violation of their oaths to uphold the Constitution had turned them into domestic enemies of the Constitution. Giving them aid and comfort was flatly treason against the United States of America. Instead of going to federal prison for up to ten years--as stipulated in Title 18 USC 241--as a co-conspirator in violating the citizens' rights to be governed by law made in accord with the Constitution, Obama went to the White House. It's the proverbial barrel of snakes, err, can of worms, well--either one. Every Senator and every Representative who voted yea on the Senate's bill for the $700 Billion Bailout is guilty of felony conspiracy under Title 18 USC 241. There's no legislative immunity to save them because the vote itself is a legally-defined felony conspiracy and all immunities are forfeit in a felony. (See Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 6, 1st paragraph: "...They shall in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged..." with bulletproof immunity.) On conviction, 300 to 400 nationally elected officials will pay fines and go to prison for up to ten years--per Title 18 USC 241. Then, if some sharp lawyer shows that his/her client died as a result of the violation of his/her rights in that felony conspiracy --not beyond the pale--every co-conspirator becomes guilty of felony murder, upping the ante for every co-conspirator to higher fines, possible life imprisonment, or the death penalty--all per Title 18 USC 241. No, no--enforcing Title 18 USC 241 will never, ever do. Well--unless you're a stalwart of the old Latin phrase that means "The law is harsh, but it's the law" (Dura lex, sed lex). Or unless you're a stalwart of the one that says "Let justice be done, even if the heavens fall" (Fiat justitia, rust caelum). There's nothing new under the sun. When the Roman Senate bested the unwanted dictator Sulla in a civil war, their leading general, Pompey, was directed to re-write Sulla's decade of anti-republic, unconstitutional laws. Done. If we attack our Corporatism's criminalities by making every act of illegitimate pretender Bush's presidencies null and void--which would be absolutely correct under Constitutional law--we're on solid ground. About a decade of unconstitutional laws to rip out of the legal fabric. We've been there, done that. Of course, now that Title 18 USC 241 and its dire implications have been spotlighted by an average American, you can expect the Congress and the President to nullify that sillyness, retro to about 1945. There'll be no more of this talk of citizen rights violations, thank you very much. No matter how many times I watch "Inside Job" for its careful progression of the meltdown's details, Matt Damon's last words of the Introduction, just before the Section 1 rips start, sit out on the mind's horizon, reverbing just beyond distinctness. Bothersome. So I wrote out the quote on a 3x5 card which I prop up in front of the monitor whenever I replay the DVD. "This crisis was not an accident. It was caused by an out-of-control industry. Since the 1980s, the rise of the U.S. financial sector has led to a series of increasingly severe financial crises. Each crisis has caused more damage, while the industry has made more and more money." The details of "Inside Job" have informed me of how that happened. Like most viewers to whom I speak, I've a knawing fear that corporatism's greed is beyond stopping by anything short of revolution. To which I have one thing to say: We can get nothing more in a bloody revolution than we can get in a mostly peaceful revolution, and we'll lose too much in a bloody revolution. Now, where do we start? Professor Michael Hudson's web site? The follow-on analysis of global Corporatism's activities after 2008, done in the spirit of "Inside Job"? Little Iceland beats up the global bad guys? Lead on, McDuff.--spib, 12 Dec 2011.Adendum --I'm a 10th generation American. I'm authorized to criticize. My first American immigrant ancestor was 8-g grandfather, Edward Spaulding, who arrived at Jamestown, 1619, as an indentured servant. He lost two young families there and gave up on Jamestown. He moved his 3rd young family cross-country and north to Mass Bay Colony by ox-drawn wagon, 1636, where his children married into other of my ancestral families. I've many immigrant ancestors in 1630s Mass Bay Colony. 8-g grandfather, Major Simon Willard--co-founder of Concord, Mass, and 2nd man in Mass Bay for many years--d.24 Apr 1676, Charlestown, Mass. His 3rd wife, 8-g grandmother Mary Dunster, b.15 Dec 1630, was the niece of Henry Dunster, 1st President of Harvard. I've many ordinary American patriot ancestors in the War Of Independence. 5-g grandfather, Jonas Butterfield, b.12 Sep 1742, farmer, marched to the alarm, 19 Apr 1775. 5-g grandfather, John DeWatt Weimer, b.circa 1740, left his wife and 7 small children at the farm to fight with Washington's army. He was at Valley Forge through the bad winter of 1777-1778 and fought at Monmouth, NJ, June 1778. The patriots were drawn into the fight by the throwaway propaganda of the superrich called the 'Declaration Of Independence'. The DOI promised a govt in which ordinary Americans would instruct their legislatures. Govt could be disbanded if it became destructive of citizen wishes and then re-formed in any way that pleased the citizens. Instead, the superrich violated the standing USA Constitution to illegally ram in the current Constitution, which gives them many powers of control forever--tyranny, in short. Ordinary Americans were betrayed by their leaders. 223 years on and the nazified superrich ("nazified", because they love and demand their own rights and liberties while hating and violating the rights and liberties of ordinary Americans) are still violating whatever law gives them increased financial, social, and political power. Moreover, the superrich and their political puppets have near-zero-accountability--they own the "independent judiciary". Tyranny. Never forget. Never forgive. Monied elites with power? Never again. Adapt the Swiss Constitution, modified for American-version direct democracy at all levels of govt. Require it to be taught in all public schools, from middle school, up. And--stop voting yourselves to death. Stop voting into the computer-aided manipulation of political corruption--until justice is done. Stop voting the monsters into power so that they can help other monsters. It's time to stop what's wrong.--spib, 04 Apr 2012.

This should be required viewing for any politics class studying the interrelationships between Business, Government and Society. I'll quote Robert Gnaizda from Greenlineing Institute - "It's a Wall Street government" - Your blood might boil as you see the evidence proving that statement. Facts are presented and people speak for themselves ( sometimes after they've spoken for themselves Mr. Hubbard - you'll get the reference of you watch the film.). This film got the Oscar dirt best documentary on 2010.

Muy claro y el tema es preocupante en este mundo global. ¡Puede repetirse!Lástima que no esté disponible en DVD para México, pues me gustaría proyectárselo a mis alumnos.

Quante volte negli ultimi ti è capitato di incontrare una persona che doveva spiegarti la crisi?Coi parenti, tra gli amici, al bar in strada...è uno dei temi più dibattuti e per cui ciascuno sembra aver costruito una sua verità, da raccontare a tutti appena possibile :)Questo film invece presenta -la verità- documentata come non l'hai mai voluta sentire ;)La proiezione andrebbe fatta almeno una volta in tutti gli istituti scolastici, nei circoli e nei luoghi di lavoro: non tanto per seguire minuziosamente tutte le fasi, quanto per quel retrogusto amaro che questo film trasmette allo spettatore.Perché tutto questo non possa ripetersi.Mai più.(( Se la recensione ti ha aiutato in qualche maniera o se la reputi interessante vota ► Sì ◄. Aiuterai altre persone a trovarla. ))

Elegí esa valoración por que me parece un documental muy bien realizado y aunque parece un tema bastante complejo, desde la óptica que nos presenta, parece sencillo.Me gustaron las declaraciones directas de algunos de los implicados. No hay nada que no me guste. Está todo en su sitio.A todas las personas que conozco.

Ja, diese Doku bekam 2010 den Oscar für den besten Dokumentarfilm. Geändert hat sich seitdem allerdings sehr wenig!Nach meinen Recherchen ist keiner der Hauptakteure unter den Bankstern je verurteilt worden. Keiner wanderte in den Knast und kaum einer musste etwas von seinem ergaunerten Gewinn bzw. den Boni abgeben.Direkt neben den wichtigsten Investment-Banken haben seinerzeit exklusive Bordelle aufgemacht, in denen viele Investment-Banker Stammkunden wurden. Zur Bezahlung wurden den Huren vorgefertigte Berater-Verträge vorgelegt, in die sie dann beliebige Summen eintragen konnten, die die Banker dann von der Steuer abgesetzt haben.Sehr interessant auch: Es kam erstmalig in diesem Film ein Therapeut zu Wort, der viele der Wall Street Investment-Banker behandelt hat und bestätigt, dass Kokainsucht bei allen wichtigen Investment-Banken - bis hin zu den Spitzenpositionen - enorm verbreitet war (und noch ist?). Kokain ist bekanntlich die Droge, die Aggressivität, Gier und Risikobereitschaft enorm steigert und dabei künstlich das Selbstwertgefühl anhebt (auch wenn es dafür keine reale Grundlage gibt).Hat es jemals irgendwo eine Meldung gegeben, dass eine Drogen-Razzia bei Investment-Bankern stattgefunden hat? Da scheint sich die Justiz nicht zuständig zu fühlen. Die Banker sind auch diesbezüglich offenbar unantastbar. Die sorgten ja auch nur dafür, dass Millionen Bürger ihre Ersparnisse, ihr Zuhause, ihre Zukunft durch die Betrügereien verloren haben.In letzter Zeit hat es auch einige aufschlussreiche Dokumentationen im deutschen Fernsehen auf Arte, Phoenix, etc. zum Bankenunwesen gegeben.Die Bürger hatten also jede Menge Gelegenheit, sich zu informieren, was da seit vielen Jahren - von der Politik weitgehend unbehelligt, wenn nicht sogar gefördert - läuft.Die Zinsen für normale Spareinlagen bei den Banken sind weitestgehend abgeschafft. Damit wird ausschließlich den Banken geholfen! Die Bürger sind dadurch gezwungen, mehr oder weniger riskante Investitionen auf sich zu nehmen, damit ihre Ersparnisse nicht von der Inflation aufgefressen werden.Parallel werden wir inzwischen fast täglich Zeuge des zunehmenden Krampfes um die Euro-Rettung. Die dabei aufgebrachten Milliarden gehen ebenfalls größtenteils an die Banken, damit weiterhin kompensiert wird was da verzockt und von der Politik versäumt wurde.Jetzt - vor den Wahlen - gab und gibt es die ersten zaghaften Ansätze, das Bankenunwesen ein wenig zu regulieren. Ob das ausreichen wird, ist mehr als fraglich.Parlamentarier werden zudem in drastisch gesteigertem Maße von Lobbyisten manipuliert. Nicht selten werden von Lobbyisten erstellte Gesetzentwürfe ungeändert in den Parlamenten durchgewunken, die dann den Firmen nutzen und den Bürgern schaden.Wenn diese und andere Degenerationstendenzen sich in den Demokratien weiter - größtenteils kaum behindert - fortsetzen, muss sich keiner mehr wundern, dass immer mehr Bürger das Vertrauen verlieren, sich Unsicherheit und Angst breit macht. Es ist ja auch bekannt, dass etliche der Personen, bei denen derzeit die Hauptverantwortung für die Euro-Rettung liegt früher gerade die Hauptakteure der Banken-Deregulierung waren. Die Bürger sollen also darauf vertrauen, dass diese Herrschaften sich besonnen und ihren Irrtum erkannt haben und nun voller Überzeugung und mit aller Kraft sich für die Gegenrichtung einsetzen. Das bedeutet schon eine enorme Herausforderung für die verunsicherte Bevölkerung.Man kann nur hoffen, dass der ganze Schlamassel nicht immer mehr Bürger in die Fänge radikaler Gruppierungen treibt!