The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy was the largest in U.S. history and unleashed a financial meltdown. The Banks were saved but not people’s debt, savings or homes. Michael Hudson looks at the economic instability that we continue to live in
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Excellent Segment!
Now all we need do is get everyone to stop being so greed-driven as to enrich themselves upon the misery of those with less education, less wealth or less whiteness of skin.
Not a word in this video about the moral root cause, the defect in human nature that has since the beginning of civilization that has allowed the more intelligent upper-half of society to hoard all of the land, wealth, political power and healthcare. For bailing out the banks, this bailed out the upper-half and to hell with the 50% working poor.
The decades following the New Deal were going TOO well. The capitalists sensed their irrelevance and decided to impose their "market genius" and economic freedom at the expense of social freedom on the public sector.
Now, just like the bureaucratic spike in healthcare administration, we have a bloated finance sector doing their best to persuade the world of their relevance once again.
"Capitalism did not save the world, the US Government did so by directing all of the labor and materials at the disposal of both the public and private sectors together at the same time in a planned market free social order. So much so, that Robert Dalek comments on JFK’s decision to enter politics. Kennedy saw that the world had changed from the time of his father, where a rich business man would make the important decisions about how the government would be run, who would be in the office to run it, and who would have power in society at large over the population as a whole. John Kennedy wanted to be an elected government official because that is where the power is, and where it would continue to be, not in the business world. If you wanted to be the man who got what he wanted, how he wanted it, and when he wanted it, you ran for office because WWII showed him that is where the power now resided.
The NTC also saw this and mobilized against it and won. And it isn’t some fresh, new ideas that we need, what we need are new young warriors to march off to take power away from the Neo-Liberal Washington consensus. Power is not about better ideas, it is about forcing your ideas. The fact that economics has been debunked by it’s failure to see its own collapse coming and prevent it does not invalidate its power to hold on to its privileged position.
Its power to hold onto its privilege is not based on scientific validity, but the political takeover staged as a reaction to the New Deal and Great Society programs, which was diminishing the power of the wealthy by rendering them irrelevant. If a democratically controlled republic can wage global war and win and then convert that productive capacity to the highest standard of living the world has ever seen for the masses and then begin to wipe out poverty, what the fuck do we need rich people laying around doing nothing for?" ~ Paul Tioxon
Has Paul Krugman Ever been right? Hasn't he been responsible for some pretty pernicious disasters (Russia, anyone? etc). He should be ridiculed for good and never paid any attention again.
Good articles here: http://www.wsws.org
"Although we and other financial regulators did not foresee the crisis, we moved aggressively to stop it." — Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner. A recent opinion piece in the NYT by the same guys who orchestrated the stagnant economy we are in now pats themselves on the back for a job well done. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/opinion/sunday/bernanke-lehman-anniversary-oped.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FPaulson%2C%20Henry%20M.%20Jr.&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection
Rip Eminem
The International Oligarchs of North America have taken over the government. The US, for all practical purposes no longer exists. If you think this has a happy ending you haven’t been paying attention…
Michael Hudson is one of the premier Economist of our time and he is right when he points out that debt (anti-value) has foreclosed on the ability of the circulation of Capital to reproduce itself. He doesn't mention the fact that interest bearing Capital and its ability to create exponential accumulation through the circulation of interest bearing/finance Capital has drove the world mad. Amazon is the poster child of a socialist Co-Op; the Government (Post office, Food Stamp program, Medicaid and tax breaks) subsidize this Enterprise but one person is accumulating massive amounts of Money Capital by owning the Enterprise. He can then invest this money Capital in financial markets that allow for even more accumulation of interest bearing Capital. This is the madness we find ourselves in and to combat this madness we have to create a new paradigm and climate chaos makes this a non-negotiable item. When Capitalism collapsed in the 1920's Roosevelt did what Socialist like Ricardo and Mills recommended and that was heavily tax the rent seekers (some elites got taxed at 100% on some of their earned income) and heavily regulate the Banking sector. This failed in the 1970's because the World's reserve currency wasn't pegged to the World's productivity needs in the circulation of Capital. People don't want to accept that we now have a new and powerful steering current driving our survival as a species which is Climate Chaos. Empire or it's delegates no matter how much they think reality can be molded into whatever they want it to be is not the answer; the sooner we gather the will to confront this predicament the greater the possibility of stalling our extinction a few years.
The big short
10 million people foreclosed upon
Bank cartel made money on both sides
LIAR loans? Who did the lying ? The predatory mortgage industry (telemarketers + collection agencys)
FED lowered the rate
Teased people to refi
Then bait n switch
Sold them a hotdog with a string ! 3 stooges
2008 sub prime mortgage meltdown
Millions of people foreclosed upon
While the "agents" already got commissions
Coming and going
The banks bundled this crap up and collected the insurance , split the winnigs up and left the American people in a pickle , homeless everywhere USA
They fine tuned the "Art of the steal"
Now the banks are basing loans on rental value
Iceland got it right they jailed these banker robins , they sure didn't bail them out with golden umbrellas
Adjustable rate mortgages are criminal
Just like the loan "agents" with their fine print 500 pages long
You need a lawyer to figure out what toxic bullshit they write , with 0
Government regulations
They never missed a beat!
Criminals
This planet has a problem: most of the people [are] unhappy. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
– Douglas Adams (edited)
Love Michael’s resisting here to the idea that Trump is somehow worse on these issues that the Democrats but again this is classic Michael: mostly complaining not explaining. first he is not separating private and public debt. Then he is not explaining what causes the rise in private debt, which is an over reliance on private credit. which then leads him to the statement that somehow deficit spending is just for covering the private debts. mrs. complete non sequitur because deficit spending can be used for some of the most important programs coming from the public sector such as a job guarantee or it could be used to reduce taxes on workers such as payroll tax holiday.
Donald Trump is nothing more than a unquestioning pen. He does not read he’s not intellectually curious he’s a D list New York City mobster he’s been a cook just like his father and grandfather all his life that’s all he knows. He has it extremely short attention span, the major distraction he is causing is the fact that he and he alone has the power of the pen. He writes executive orders that he’s never even Red. The dismantling of each and every one of our major systems such as the Financial district led by Steve Mnuchin EPA Scott Pruitt,Consumer Protection Agency Board of Education Becky DeVos, HUD Ben Carson FCC Ajit Pai etc. all of these Appointees We’re done to destroy these agencies and undermine our country by privatizing the gains and socializing the losses. Both Democrat and Republican voted in the top 1% tax breaks and $717 billion a year to the military blowing a huge hole in the deficit so now they’re taking it from the social safety net. People working at or below the poverty level is now up to 57% of Americans 44% of all working Americans are homeless, the major cause of bankruptcy now is healthcare.These tariffs along with the isolationism and our overreach with 900+ military bases. This has allowed for the 1% to do nothing more than stock buybacks which inflates artificially the stock market which makes the rest of the world who invests in the United States believe that we are stable when we are not. The stock market bubble is going to crash worse than it did in 2008 because of the D regulations this is why they gave the millionaires and billionaires these tax breaks to survive The coming crash and the ensuing wars that we are in now seven illegal unconstitutional wars of aggression against countries that have not done anything to us is against the constitution as well as Congress has not even sanctioned these wars they have given up their oath of office and tacitly have allowed three administrations since 9/11 to go in and destroy oil and mineral rich countries and steal their resources. We are in bed with Saudi Arabia one of the most worst human rights abusers that actually fits on the United Nations board we help them refuel their jets have given them billions of dollars in military aid and bombs we’re assisting in the genocide of the Yemen people we utilize the bombs we create here in America cluster bombs fast response as well as depleted uranium bomb all three are crimes against humanity and the only reason the world is not taking us to the war crimes tribunal is because we have 900 military bases and almost all of them are in every one of these countries and these countries are afraid of the United States bombing them and placing more sanctions on them. We the United States along with Israel and Saudi Arabia and to a certain point the UK have created 820 year long war in Afghanistan Iraq never even bombed us on 911. 15 of the 19 Terrorist that drove those planes into the twin towers were from Saudi Arabia and yet we knew this and did not punish Saudi Arabia we certainly didn’t bump their country we bombed Iraq on behalf of Saudi Arabia in order to steal their oil. Do United States Israel Saudi Arabia UK have become exactly what we fought against in World War I we have become the worlds terrorists. United States support 73% of all the worlds dictatorships we have pulled out of peace agreement with Iran The only country to do so we are backing what are called “moderate rebels“ Al Qaeda and Isys to overthrow Syria let that sink in. We’re supposed to be fighting Isys and Al Qaeda the reason we’re supposed to be in these wars and yet were utilizing them to topple a sovereign nation. And as of three days ago is real downs a plane with 14 Russians as they’re being aggressive towards Iran Who has not retaliated for the months and months and months of is Raley bombing them. When are the American people the UK people the French people going to stand up and say no more this is only going to lead to World War III. Russia has shown some great restraint and not attacking back is real which is amazing. Had Russia shut down one of our airplanes with 14 of our soldiers in it I can guarantee you would be at war right now. The worlds largest genocide is being committed by the United States and Saudi Arabia in Yemen right now at all we hear on television is stormy Daniels and some bullshit Russian narrative about how our elections were meddled with. Where has America been asleep? We have gerrymandering, The Southern strategy, voter suppression, crosscheck, voting machines that will not give paper ballots and are not allowed to be examined even by our government because the owners of the voting machines state that they software is proprietary I am not allowed to be investigated by anyone. Jim Crowe voter ID, massive voter polling stations closed this is been going on for almost 20 years so how do we blame Russia for that? Our elections are being metal didn’t you buy our own government and rather than us fix the problem and just go back to straight paper ballots that cannot be hacked they cannot be called proprietary not one state is pushing to in these electronic voting machines that by the way two weeks A girl in Florida the exact same models of voting machines were given two teenagers to see how fast they could break into it and change voting and an 11-year-old girl did it in 10 minutes. Is that Russia? Russia is a straw man. All it does is hijack the narrative of why do we have low wages that with inflation we are making less than we did in 1964. They play with the number stating we have the lowest unemployment ever but they’re not stating that people are working three jobs in order to cobble together enough money to keep the roof over their head much less a little food on the table. It keeps us from demanding our government give us universal healthcare which every other nation even the Russians have universal healthcare Canada England Switzerland etc. all they do is talk about how Venezuela is so horrible over socialism. Well it’s so horrible because number one United States is trying to overthrow them to the point where we just got done getting caught trying to kill the president of Venezuela. We are controlling Venezuela economy because they sit on the second largest oil deposits outside of Saudi Arabia. Our country is going to collapse and when it does it’s going to come fast and hard. Taking away all the safety nets from disabled dying elderly and poor people who work very hard for very little is one of the most evil things you can hear from a country. Yet we call these other countries uncivilized we call these other countries terrorists we call these other countries barbaric what do you call a country that renders 57% of its people at or below the poverty level and 44% of those people that work or homeless and 32% of those people are children we’re not even going to get into kidnapping of foreign nationals children and placing them all over the United States while we deport their parents our country is a giant glass house throwing boulders. And when we have Nikki Haley and John Bolton protecting Israel for their slaughter Palestinians and protecting Saudi Arabia from beheading people whipping people in public squares and we called them our allies and yet say Canada is a threat to national security you know everything has gone wrong. It will not take more than another two possibly three years before this country no longer exist as a democracy. Right now it’s an oligarchy on its way to being finally recognized as what it truly is a fascist nation. Fascism look it up in the dictionary is when the government and private corporations utilize their Strank’s to override the will of the people. I never thought I’d live to see the day that my country is now on the world stage for all to see as the enemy of the world and A direct threat to all humanity. As far as the Internet goes the reason why they need to get rid of our Internet is because we hold in our hands little computers that can film and do film terrible atrocities from all over the world and regular human beings are finally able to see in real time the destruction our country is reaping upon the world. Those who control the narrative control the world. And then Internet and we will not be able to do anything to prevent the disaster that is about to be fall not just this country but all countries. Let us not forget that Nixon took us off the gold standard dollar in 1973 and put us on the oil standard dollar once that happened we started down the path to what we are seeing now. Nixon also made a deal with China to buy our debt And gave them US savings bonds that have been accruing interest ever since and of China wants to bring us down all they have to do is sell our US bonds and we’re finished. I have not watched this video for a reason I wanted to state my opinion first. And then I wanted to see if I was that far off of my own assessment of 74 years of living and watching history unfold.
It is so refreshing to hear someone speak the truth and with logic about the financial crisis. It has long be understood that it is the American consumer that feeds the economy. The handling of the financial crisis decimated the already troubled American consumer. One reason for bankruptcy laws is to bailout the American consumer so the economy is not stiffed.
The Obama administration even pressured state attorney generals who would not let banks foreclose without the proper documentation to prove they held the mortgages to let the banks foreclose anyway. That was to speed up foreclosures for the banks. New State attorney general held firm against the administration. We house Wall Street. We know what they can do. These foreclosed properties and their now high rents have led to homelessness.
The Obama administration also bailout the financial industry's insurance companies. They are also banks. Their deposits are called premiums. That bailout was the Affordable Healthcare Act and its mandate for health insurance. Health insurance and healthcare are not the same thing. Insurance companies have nothing to do with healthcare. They are not needed. They just take a cut of the income of the healthcare providers. The Obama administration bailed out the insurance companies to the detriment of our health.
The banks were obviously not big to fail because, they had failed.
The fact is the U.S. Federal government had some of the highest national debt during the Great Depression and World War II and after and what happen? Did the sky fall on us? No. The Middle Class grew like it never had before in the history of our nation. That is until the early 80's when trickle-down neoliberal economics kicked in. For the working class It has been slowly going down hill ever since that time. Now Nancy Pelosi is acting like Paul Ryan and wants to enact PAY GO (pay-as-you-go) austerity measures on the working class, which will only make things worse for the 99%
The lesson here is to ONLY VOTE IN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS who are going to pass policy programs for the working class like, Single Payer Medicare-for-All or a Federal Job Guarantee program and not just for out-of-control spending programs on our military, only.
When people say "but..but..how are we going to pay for Medicare-for-All?" It's simple, we pay for it the same way the CONGRESS paid for the $700-billion defense authorization program—congress VOTED that economic policy/funds into existence–and WITHOUT raising a single dime in new federal taxes.
You've never heard that we need to increase federal taxes in order fund our military budget. It passes every year no matter what.
There are plenty of federal funds available for the working class, if our representatives in congress only had the bold political will and courage–like FDR did–to step up to the plate and make it happen.
A fool us twice scenario and we fall for it yet again, we're not good at learning, are we?
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Thank you again for this, Marc Steiner and Michael Hudson! People need to hear it plainly explained how Wall Street and the financial industry are absolutely parasitical as they continue to loot the American economy and how they are cravenly supported by our corporate media, including the NYT, and by our corporate politicians, including Obama and Clinton.