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!
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| Genre | Politik & Recht, Wirtschaft, Finanzen, Dokumentarfilm |
| Format | Breitbild |
| Beitragsverfasser | Charles Ferguson, Matt Damon |
| Sprache | Englisch, Italienisch |
| Laufzeit | 1 Stunde und 44 Minuten |
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Produktbeschreibungen
Vom Oscar-Gewinner Charles Ferguson stammt "Inside Job", der erste Film, der die schockierende Wahrheit über die Wirtschaftskrise im Jahr 2008 präsentiert. Der globale Finanzcrash, der über $ 20 Billionen verschlang, führte dazu, das Millionen von Menschen ihr Zuhause und ihren Job verloren. Auf der Grundlage von umfassenden Recherchen und Interviews mit einflussreichen Branchenkennern, Politikern und Journalisten zeichnet "Inside Job" den Aufstieg einer skrupellosen Branche nach und enthüllt die korrosiven Beziehungen zwischen korrupten Politikern, Regulierungsbehören und der akademischen Welt.
Bonusmaterial:
Kommentar mit Filmemacher Charles Ferguson und Produzentin Audrey Marrs; Entfallene Szenen; Die Entstehung von "Inside Job";
Produktinformation
- Seitenverhältnis : 16:9 - 2.35:1
- Alterseinstufung : Freigegeben ohne Altersbeschränkung
- Produktabmessungen : 13,9 x 1,5 x 19,4 cm; 73 Gramm
- Regisseur : Charles Ferguson
- Medienformat : Breitbild
- Laufzeit : 1 Stunde und 44 Minuten
- Erscheinungstermin : 5. Mai 2011
- Untertitel: : Deutsch, Schwedisch, Hindi, Französisch, Finnisch, Dänisch, Italienisch, Türkisch, Norwegisch, Niederländisch, Englisch
- Sprache, : Italienisch (Dolby Digital 5.1), Englisch (Dolby Digital 5.1)
- Studio : Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
- ASIN : B004NNUE06
- Anzahl Disks : 1
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 57,923 in DVD & Blu-ray (Siehe Top 100 in DVD & Blu-ray)
- Nr. 10,914 in Thriller (DVD & Blu-ray)
- Kundenrezensionen:
Kundenrezensionen
4,3 von 5 Sternen
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Spitzenrezensionen
Spitzenbewertungen aus Deutschland
Derzeit tritt ein Problem beim Filtern der Rezensionen auf. Bitte versuche es später erneut.
Rezension aus Deutschland vom 27. März 2013
VINE-PRODUKTTESTER
Inside Job bietet einen guten Einblick in die Entwicklung des Finanzwesens, welche schlussendlich zum weltweiten Börsencrash im September 2008 führte. Dabei vermag es die Dokumentation die hohe Komplexität des Handels mit Derivaten und Wertpapieren verständlich darzustellen. Insbesondere werden hier die CDOs (Collateralized Debt Obligation) betrachtet, also jene Wertpapiere die neben relativ sicheren "Standard Konsumenten Krediten" auch unsichere Eigenheimfinanzierungen enthielten.
Unter Reagan und Bush wurde der nach dem Börsencrash in 1929, relativ stark regulierte amerikanische Finanzmarkt, immer weiter gelockert. Neben anderen Bedingungen führte dies zu einem rasanten Wachstum des Finanzmarktes ab Mitte der 80iger Jahre.
Es wurde Geld gemacht, womit sich Geld machen ließ. Je höher verzinst die Produkte waren, um so besser ließen sie sich am Markt verkaufen. Da hochverzinste Wertpapiere, dies aber auch sind, weil sei ein relativ hohes Ausfallrisiko haben, sicherten sich die Banken gegenüber ihren Kunden ab. Die AIG (American International Group) bot entsprechende Ausfallversicherungen an. Die hohen Prämien für die Versicherungen wurden jedoch nicht, wie es zu erwarten gewesen wäre, zu einer Rücklagenbildung verwendet (sollten die Derivate platzen) sondern wurden unteranderem auch in Boni an die Mitarbeiter ausgezahlt. Zu guter letzt verbrieften die Rating Agenturen die CDOs aber auch die AIG mit AAA bzw. sogar AAA+ Bewertungen. Womit alles für den Anleger als sicher erschein.
Hier leistet die Doku meiner Meinung nach sehr gute Aufklärungsarbeit. Wie stark beeinflussen sich in den USA (und nicht nur dort) Finanzwelt und Politik. Und vor allem, ab wann hätten alle Beteiligten wissen müssen, dass diese Entwicklung zu einem riesen Crash führen muss, und ein "too big to fail" nicht mehr gilt.
Und sie stellt dar, wie wenig die Verantwortlichen der Finanzinstitution sich um die weltweiten Konsequenzen des Crash scheren. Dank der Versicherungen durch AIG (die durch den US Staat gerettet werden musste) als auch der Ihnen aus den Anstellungsverträgen zustehenden Tantiemen waren sie finanziell doppelt abgesichert.
Finanziell tragen hingegen mussten die Konsequenzen der Staat und damit die Bürger, bzw. Firmen und deren Mitarbeiter da über viele Jahre kaum noch Kredite von den klammen Banken ausgegeben wurden.
Für all diese Punkte hätte der Film 5 Sterne verdient.
Ein Stern Abzug aber, auf Grund der m.M. nach einseitigen Darstellung. Schuld an dem Desaster von 2008 sind nicht nur die Banken, sondern auch die Verbraucher und Anleger.
Zu der Masse an faulen Krediten konnte es auch darum kommen, weil viele Menschen glaubten mit einem kleinen bzw. sehr geringen Einkommen Kredite bedienen zu können, die bei einer genaueren Betrachtung nur bedingt (wenn überhaupt) hätten bedient werden können.
Wer Geld anlegen wollte, griff nach hochverzinsten Wertpapieren ohne in Frage zu stellen, was dieser hohe Zinswert beinhaltet. All dies wird im Film nur indirekt angesprochen, und zu gern wird der Vorwurf den "Bankern" gemacht, die falsch beraten und verkauft hätten. Und es wirkt bitter wenn Soros sagt, sie hätten das verkauft was die Leute haben wollten.
Aber, gibt es nicht auch eine Selbstverantwortung, mich eingehend mit dem zu beschäftigen, worin ich mein gesamtes Kapital und damit all meine Absicherung anlege? Hier greift mir der Film zu kurz, denn gerade hier ist ebenfalls bitter eine Aufklärung nötig.
Unter Reagan und Bush wurde der nach dem Börsencrash in 1929, relativ stark regulierte amerikanische Finanzmarkt, immer weiter gelockert. Neben anderen Bedingungen führte dies zu einem rasanten Wachstum des Finanzmarktes ab Mitte der 80iger Jahre.
Es wurde Geld gemacht, womit sich Geld machen ließ. Je höher verzinst die Produkte waren, um so besser ließen sie sich am Markt verkaufen. Da hochverzinste Wertpapiere, dies aber auch sind, weil sei ein relativ hohes Ausfallrisiko haben, sicherten sich die Banken gegenüber ihren Kunden ab. Die AIG (American International Group) bot entsprechende Ausfallversicherungen an. Die hohen Prämien für die Versicherungen wurden jedoch nicht, wie es zu erwarten gewesen wäre, zu einer Rücklagenbildung verwendet (sollten die Derivate platzen) sondern wurden unteranderem auch in Boni an die Mitarbeiter ausgezahlt. Zu guter letzt verbrieften die Rating Agenturen die CDOs aber auch die AIG mit AAA bzw. sogar AAA+ Bewertungen. Womit alles für den Anleger als sicher erschein.
Hier leistet die Doku meiner Meinung nach sehr gute Aufklärungsarbeit. Wie stark beeinflussen sich in den USA (und nicht nur dort) Finanzwelt und Politik. Und vor allem, ab wann hätten alle Beteiligten wissen müssen, dass diese Entwicklung zu einem riesen Crash führen muss, und ein "too big to fail" nicht mehr gilt.
Und sie stellt dar, wie wenig die Verantwortlichen der Finanzinstitution sich um die weltweiten Konsequenzen des Crash scheren. Dank der Versicherungen durch AIG (die durch den US Staat gerettet werden musste) als auch der Ihnen aus den Anstellungsverträgen zustehenden Tantiemen waren sie finanziell doppelt abgesichert.
Finanziell tragen hingegen mussten die Konsequenzen der Staat und damit die Bürger, bzw. Firmen und deren Mitarbeiter da über viele Jahre kaum noch Kredite von den klammen Banken ausgegeben wurden.
Für all diese Punkte hätte der Film 5 Sterne verdient.
Ein Stern Abzug aber, auf Grund der m.M. nach einseitigen Darstellung. Schuld an dem Desaster von 2008 sind nicht nur die Banken, sondern auch die Verbraucher und Anleger.
Zu der Masse an faulen Krediten konnte es auch darum kommen, weil viele Menschen glaubten mit einem kleinen bzw. sehr geringen Einkommen Kredite bedienen zu können, die bei einer genaueren Betrachtung nur bedingt (wenn überhaupt) hätten bedient werden können.
Wer Geld anlegen wollte, griff nach hochverzinsten Wertpapieren ohne in Frage zu stellen, was dieser hohe Zinswert beinhaltet. All dies wird im Film nur indirekt angesprochen, und zu gern wird der Vorwurf den "Bankern" gemacht, die falsch beraten und verkauft hätten. Und es wirkt bitter wenn Soros sagt, sie hätten das verkauft was die Leute haben wollten.
Aber, gibt es nicht auch eine Selbstverantwortung, mich eingehend mit dem zu beschäftigen, worin ich mein gesamtes Kapital und damit all meine Absicherung anlege? Hier greift mir der Film zu kurz, denn gerade hier ist ebenfalls bitter eine Aufklärung nötig.
Rezension aus Deutschland vom 13. Oktober 2011
Die Dokumentation selbst ist in jeder Hinsicht großartig und zeigt, wie es durch Verfehlungen und Habgier in Politik, Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft zu der Krise kommen konnte. Ein Wunder, dass diese Einblicke nicht schon zu viel heftigeren Reaktionen und Protesten geführt haben, die in Anbetracht der Verstrickungen der Deutschen Bank auch in Deutschland stattfinden sollten. Dies hat wohl auch damit zu tun, dass die Doku trotz des gewonnenen Oskars vermutlich nicht hinreichend viele Menschen erreicht.
Und damit kommen wir zum Schwachpunkt: Es gibt keine deutsche Tonspur, sondern lediglich Untertitel. Und das geht in diesem Falle fast gar nicht, denn das Erzähltempo des Filmes ist immens hoch. Es war für mich überhaupt kein Problem, das englische Original anzusehen, doch das setzt entsprechend spezifische Sprachkenntnis voraus, d.h. die dafür relevante Fachsprache. Ich habe den Film dann einmal mit einem Freund gemeinsam mit Untertiteln angesehen und das war enorm anstrengend, funktionierte ob der hohen Geschwindigkeit nur mit häufigen Unterbrechungen.
Dieser Film birgt politischen Sprengstoff und eine deutsche Tonspur ist daher äußerst wünschenswert, um damit deutlich mehr Menschen im deutschen Sprachraum erreichen zu können. Es verwundert und befremdet, dass eine derart hochklassige, mit dem Oskar prämierte und über Sony vertriebene Dokumentation keine deutsche Tonspur hat, während viele wesentlich "kleinere" kritische Dokus dieses Manko nicht aufweisen.
Daher: Bei Sony und den Produzenten die fehlende Tonspur einfordern!
Und damit kommen wir zum Schwachpunkt: Es gibt keine deutsche Tonspur, sondern lediglich Untertitel. Und das geht in diesem Falle fast gar nicht, denn das Erzähltempo des Filmes ist immens hoch. Es war für mich überhaupt kein Problem, das englische Original anzusehen, doch das setzt entsprechend spezifische Sprachkenntnis voraus, d.h. die dafür relevante Fachsprache. Ich habe den Film dann einmal mit einem Freund gemeinsam mit Untertiteln angesehen und das war enorm anstrengend, funktionierte ob der hohen Geschwindigkeit nur mit häufigen Unterbrechungen.
Dieser Film birgt politischen Sprengstoff und eine deutsche Tonspur ist daher äußerst wünschenswert, um damit deutlich mehr Menschen im deutschen Sprachraum erreichen zu können. Es verwundert und befremdet, dass eine derart hochklassige, mit dem Oskar prämierte und über Sony vertriebene Dokumentation keine deutsche Tonspur hat, während viele wesentlich "kleinere" kritische Dokus dieses Manko nicht aufweisen.
Daher: Bei Sony und den Produzenten die fehlende Tonspur einfordern!
Spitzenrezensionen aus anderen Ländern
Stephen Paul Ives-Butterfield
5,0 von 5 Sternen
"Inside Job" and the on-going global Corporatism
Rezension aus den Vereinigten Staaten vom 12. Dezember 2011
"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.
"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.
Merrell Williams
5,0 von 5 Sternen
This is Most Likely The Most Important Work You Will See - Ever
Rezension aus den Vereinigten Staaten vom 6. April 2011
It's not that I am replacing my favorite films, Shane, East of Eden, On the Waterfront, A Place in the Sun....all the great directing of Billy Wilder, and the stunning work of Clint Eastwood, so great in all his works that I cherish and honor; but this is a documentary, and I have to put this especially in the rank and file of the most significant and important film ever to reach out and capture what has happened, not simply to the US, America, but, most important of all, by the worst and most deliberate greedy wealth mongers ever to surpass the menace of Caligula in his quest for self-satisfaction at the sake of his world and in that particular time and place. I am, by my own reasearch, familiar with the vast knowledge of this film which begins with the Glass/Steigal Act, preventing another "great depression" to the greedy lusty core of political/financial America, the whores who swung the deal to pass the killer law, the Graham/Bliley Act. All this, beginning with the destruction of Iceland's economy, then proceeding to the world, often called "global meltdown" is the source of our own selfish destruction and the mind-destroying cult of the Wall Street disaster. Once, in the days of the original WALLSTREET, we thought that "greed is good" is the penultimate mantra, and so it was - but that was in the 80's. What begins with the "Morgan Mafia" (Matt Tiebe's description - I think) 1999 effective betrayal of the Amemrican worker, the retiree, the bastions of Institutional Investors, Phil Graham (who should be offed along with Alan Greenspan) in the most terrible way, the lifting of what Regan's administration starts, and Clinton's administration continues, and then Bush augments, and then - to no surprise - what the Obama Administration keeps moving - we lost our country to the game, to the gangsters, to the generations to come. Aside from the work's brilliant edit, the story is simple. It tells how the Global community has been destroyed, and every blooming hope of every middle-class individual and family has lost, will lose, and will never recover. I knew much of how this worked, and believe me, it's not an easy thing to grasp. I thank the works of Rolling Stone's Matt Tiebe, independent of this, but there have been so very few Judicial and non-judicial States that could grasp how much fraud that has come under the stage, in the wings, and with the grande drap pulled over us all. We have nothing. And they, the few who prosper in the mad, insinsitive, ruthless "advanced Capitalism" (I believe there is a warning that came from Marx and Engles - or perhaps George Bernard Shaw), but that's beside the point, because, what happens in this film, in very consise, very accurate, very perfectly explained items, in terms of comprehensive and beautifully edited and directed documentation - what we find is truth, the devil of the details of a hoard of masked enemies of the State, including the most least likely you could expect to seize the Country - and the world - Geighter, in particular, but Bernake in all respects to the format of the production. This isn't for financial wizzards who are gaming the system. They already know the score and have the money - the Mississipi Retiement Fund, the Virgin Island Retirement Fund, and half the national wealth of Spain, Portugal, Ireland, (and there are more, much more), who are victims of a handful of billionaires - even the so-called and well-known respected one's, including Warren Buffett (clued, the pie filling, but one of the whores who sold the economy out.) To end all this is impossible. The reality is this: in the past 12 years (and a bit longer), it's clear that the Banks, the one's that still exist, don't own your mortgaged home. They can't. They don't have anything when it's sold. And that's just one simple reality. The Note, which is burried in god knows where, isn't in the place it has always been - the local jurisdiction. This is vague for starting lawyers. It's vague for those who practice law. But it's the reality of what has gone on. The fact is: the now existing banks don't own your home, they haven't the Note, the securitized Mortgage (MERS), along with MERSCORP, lost the 500 years of land law. And why? Because the Regans, the Clinton, the Bush, the Obama - well, they thought money is politics and they want the money. This next election, Obama will spend one billion or more. And there's nothing that America makes to produce a method of handling the thoughts and basic points that stem from the elemental ingredients of this great, more than great, a complete piece that turns the world on the spin of all we seem to want, but all we'll never have - and so too the unwashed, the poor, the middle-class, those who can never pretend to make what the jewels of corruption, the lawyers, the Judges, the ex-astrophysicists (now pluging in the sockets of counting cards on Wall Street) - this is a story. You must know it. You must be aware what your rights are, how they disappeared, and why George Soros, who doesn't seem to be the bad boy here - but you will see who is. The bottom line on all this monkey business - it started with Graham, the defecation on the protection from the Great Depression (Glass/Steigal), and the rescue of liberal usually Republican "let's just de-regulate". But that's not what CDO's do. That's not what Credit Default Swaps did. That's not why we have hundreds of banking lobbyist for every Congress Representative and Senator in Washington - and that's why you need to know how Bernake can't save his own boys by printing the way out. Summary judgement is over in foreclosure Plaintiff lawyering. It's back to - guess what? And what that is, we won't know for years to come. Fact is, there's 10 million foreclosures out there, and there's not just a handful of Notes to back up what is essential to foreclose. And then, this year, there'll be another 10 million of the same - and nothing for the banks to own to foreclose on. They already had the pie. It went to retirement funds, to Norway, to Ireland, to all the above and more...I'd say we can't "buy our way out," but don't let a fool tell you where to put up your tent. The fact left hanging is, if the banks can't get title insurance, and they can't without owning the Note, the sun is rising in the West from now on...The film is an extraordinary thing. It is not visionary. It is fact. And if we want a revolution, we already are in it. We can see what turned on us, and it's not the old-fashion greed, but the Harvard boys, the one's with Goldman-Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear-Sterns, and AIG - and government buys what it must. It is no longer the people's America. The work speaks for itself. You have lost your Country. And that's not simply a pragmatic sentiment - it's what the film objectively and undeniably states as fact. Goodbye, America, and you took the rest of the world along with you. If you don't believe me, believe the man who won the Oscar for this, and his words ring true, "Not one single person has gone to prison for this..." See the film. Lawyers, don't be smug. You know nothing. You can find why you shouldn't rest your ticket to play the game in Court, as is true with the malfactor, the beast of burden, the courtly Mr.Cool of "foreclosure", hiding out, hiding in, but on the way, hope he's caught, the jig's up, "Top of the World, Ma!" is Stern's boys, Dall (who's that but China), and ya got a lot more from Harvard coming that way. But how can you get the worst offender in lock up? Greenspan doesn't need just a spanking, because he'd enjoy it. Will he live as he did, and, will the future show us anything different? Not if the Minister of Finance of France is right - "they're going to do it all over again." Just how much damage does 7 trillion dollars mean to humanity, to workers, to jobs, to business, to everyone. The fact is simply we are owned, you and you and I, and every living person - we are owned by the United States of the Federal Reserve and the Wall Street few, and that, if you see more of what is in this film, we brighten your CPA test score - because there's no real hope of having a society without wealth at the ruling end of class, which means the Banks run the World. Don't miss this. Buy it. Read me - I don't recommend bad things. This is the best piece of work - in it's category - ever made. Lawyers, put down Chicken Little - because this is the real one, the Chicken is bigger than the imagination can imagine. It is not only the best film to see, it is the worst thing to know - how we killed our self-respect, destroyed our world, and put half the world into poverty. But think of it this way - they'll legislate themselves out, won't they? Won't they? But keep in mind, the banks really don't own your house - my thought. The film is much better than any review can give it - well, at least in my own opinion of my own limitations.
David Kinchen
5,0 von 5 Sternen
'Inside Job': Magnificent Documentary on Worldwide Financial Meltdown
Rezension aus den Vereinigten Staaten vom 14. März 2011
DVD REVIEW: 'Inside Job': Documentary on financial meltdown pulls no punches, blames Obama, Bush 43, Clinton, CEOs, economists, regulators who didn't regulate -- everybody
I have a bone to pick with movie distribution: Why can't we see documentaries on the big screen when they're released? If ever there was a timely documentary, it's "Inside Job" written and directed by Charles Ferguson (Sony Pictures Classics, 2010, 109 minutes, PG-13, released on DVD March 8, 2011) and the winner of the feature documentary category at the recent Academy Awards ceremony.
I've read and reviewed several books, maybe even a dozen, about the financial meltdown, the villains, the causes, the failure of the government to regulate, the power of the lobbyists -- who seem to favor and reward with campaign contributions Obama as much as they did Bush and Clinton -- and the guilty people escaping with their fortunes intact while ordinary people around the world were scammed. "Inside Job," narrated by Matt Damon, covers all these topics thoroughly and adds a dimension I haven't seen covered adequately in the books I've read: the co-opting of academic economists by financial institutions that pay them megabucks to shill for their fraudulent products.
If I'm being too harsh on the likes of Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, A.I.G. and the rest of the scummy bunch, so be it. Ferguson interviews several academics and to a man -- and to a woman, counting Professor Laura Dyson of the University of California at Berkeley, a favorite of Bill Clinton -- they saw nothing wrong in touting deregulation and writing articles for financial firms for fees that would support me and a couple of my friends in style for a year.
"Inside Job" focuses on changes lin the financial industry in the decade leading up to the crisis that erupted full blown in 2008. I was especially pleased to see Ferguson mention one of the contributing factors to the meltdown, the repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial and investment banks. Glass-Steagall worked well for almost 70 years and should have been retained.
Glass-Steagall was an impediment to the new financial products the scamsters wanted to foist on the public, so it was repealed in the Clinton Administration, in 1999, with Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, a product of Wall Street, one of the leading cheerleaders. It was replaced with the weak Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (AKA: the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999), which removed the Chinese wall separating relatively safe commercial banking from highly speculative "investment" banking. The Gramm in the bill is Republican Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, now thankfully a former senator, whose wife, Wendy, was a former chair of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission and later a member of the board of Enron, where she picked up gigantic bucks for her efforts at the failed Houston company. Talk about conflicts of interest! This kind of "modernization" we don't need!
In addition to repealing strong legislation like Glass-Steagall, "Inside Job" covers the revolving door conflicts of interest of people like Wendy Gramm, Martin Feldstein and many others -- conflicts of interest that Ferguson says are not properly disclosed. Then there's the matter of the three rating agencies -- Standard & Poor's, Moody, and Fitch -- that gave the highest rating -- AAA -- to subprime derivatives that turned out to be toxic assets, an oxymoron if ever there was one.
Ferguson and his outstanding production and writing and research team makes it possible for the average person to at least get a grasp on the fraud involved in such products as the derivatives, as well as the scamming that went on at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The housing bubble is properly blamed for contributing in a major way to the superheated market, which collapsed so spectacularly in 2008.
"Inside Job" is on target again when it shows how the high risks underlying subprime lending by Countrywide Financial and many other financial institutions were passed hand to hand like a red hot steel ball from investors to other investors, who believed the phony ratings from the Big Three and ended up losing all their money. Institutions like the Mississippi retirement fund ended up the losers, as did the entire country of Iceland, whose financial meltdown is shown in the film's cold open (starting the film before the opening credits).
Ferguson says we're not getting "Change We Can Believe In" -- an Obama campaign slogan, because President Barack Obama not only hasn't unleashed federal agencies on the scamsters, he has ended up appointing or reappointing many of the same people Ferguson says were behind the meltdown in the first place -- among them Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, economic adviser and former treasury secretary Larry Summers and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Ferguson ends his wonderful documentary be saying that Obama's much touted and recently passed "financial reforms" are so weak that we're in the same place we were before the meltdown, with an unchanged underlying system. Countrywide's Angelo Mozillo isn't in prison, nor are his fellow fraudsters, Ferguson points out.
I wish Ferguson had included an interview with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who is highly critical of the opaque Federal Reserve System, but he did have an impressive lineup of people who were interviewed, including NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini, AKA "Doctor Doom." To my knowledge, nobody has hired Roubini for big bucks to tout derivatives or deregulation!
Get a copy of "Inside Job" and look up the study guide that goes with it (Link: [...]). If you thought the meltdown was bad, you ain't heard nothing' yet! The entire system was -- and is -- rotten to the core.
I have a bone to pick with movie distribution: Why can't we see documentaries on the big screen when they're released? If ever there was a timely documentary, it's "Inside Job" written and directed by Charles Ferguson (Sony Pictures Classics, 2010, 109 minutes, PG-13, released on DVD March 8, 2011) and the winner of the feature documentary category at the recent Academy Awards ceremony.
I've read and reviewed several books, maybe even a dozen, about the financial meltdown, the villains, the causes, the failure of the government to regulate, the power of the lobbyists -- who seem to favor and reward with campaign contributions Obama as much as they did Bush and Clinton -- and the guilty people escaping with their fortunes intact while ordinary people around the world were scammed. "Inside Job," narrated by Matt Damon, covers all these topics thoroughly and adds a dimension I haven't seen covered adequately in the books I've read: the co-opting of academic economists by financial institutions that pay them megabucks to shill for their fraudulent products.
If I'm being too harsh on the likes of Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, A.I.G. and the rest of the scummy bunch, so be it. Ferguson interviews several academics and to a man -- and to a woman, counting Professor Laura Dyson of the University of California at Berkeley, a favorite of Bill Clinton -- they saw nothing wrong in touting deregulation and writing articles for financial firms for fees that would support me and a couple of my friends in style for a year.
"Inside Job" focuses on changes lin the financial industry in the decade leading up to the crisis that erupted full blown in 2008. I was especially pleased to see Ferguson mention one of the contributing factors to the meltdown, the repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial and investment banks. Glass-Steagall worked well for almost 70 years and should have been retained.
Glass-Steagall was an impediment to the new financial products the scamsters wanted to foist on the public, so it was repealed in the Clinton Administration, in 1999, with Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, a product of Wall Street, one of the leading cheerleaders. It was replaced with the weak Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (AKA: the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999), which removed the Chinese wall separating relatively safe commercial banking from highly speculative "investment" banking. The Gramm in the bill is Republican Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, now thankfully a former senator, whose wife, Wendy, was a former chair of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission and later a member of the board of Enron, where she picked up gigantic bucks for her efforts at the failed Houston company. Talk about conflicts of interest! This kind of "modernization" we don't need!
In addition to repealing strong legislation like Glass-Steagall, "Inside Job" covers the revolving door conflicts of interest of people like Wendy Gramm, Martin Feldstein and many others -- conflicts of interest that Ferguson says are not properly disclosed. Then there's the matter of the three rating agencies -- Standard & Poor's, Moody, and Fitch -- that gave the highest rating -- AAA -- to subprime derivatives that turned out to be toxic assets, an oxymoron if ever there was one.
Ferguson and his outstanding production and writing and research team makes it possible for the average person to at least get a grasp on the fraud involved in such products as the derivatives, as well as the scamming that went on at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The housing bubble is properly blamed for contributing in a major way to the superheated market, which collapsed so spectacularly in 2008.
"Inside Job" is on target again when it shows how the high risks underlying subprime lending by Countrywide Financial and many other financial institutions were passed hand to hand like a red hot steel ball from investors to other investors, who believed the phony ratings from the Big Three and ended up losing all their money. Institutions like the Mississippi retirement fund ended up the losers, as did the entire country of Iceland, whose financial meltdown is shown in the film's cold open (starting the film before the opening credits).
Ferguson says we're not getting "Change We Can Believe In" -- an Obama campaign slogan, because President Barack Obama not only hasn't unleashed federal agencies on the scamsters, he has ended up appointing or reappointing many of the same people Ferguson says were behind the meltdown in the first place -- among them Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, economic adviser and former treasury secretary Larry Summers and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Ferguson ends his wonderful documentary be saying that Obama's much touted and recently passed "financial reforms" are so weak that we're in the same place we were before the meltdown, with an unchanged underlying system. Countrywide's Angelo Mozillo isn't in prison, nor are his fellow fraudsters, Ferguson points out.
I wish Ferguson had included an interview with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who is highly critical of the opaque Federal Reserve System, but he did have an impressive lineup of people who were interviewed, including NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini, AKA "Doctor Doom." To my knowledge, nobody has hired Roubini for big bucks to tout derivatives or deregulation!
Get a copy of "Inside Job" and look up the study guide that goes with it (Link: [...]). If you thought the meltdown was bad, you ain't heard nothing' yet! The entire system was -- and is -- rotten to the core.
classicalsteve
5,0 von 5 Sternen
Corporate Finance Greed Becomes Washington Policy
Rezension aus den Vereinigten Staaten vom 6. Juli 2011
One interviewee references the crazy investments and deals engaged in by Wall Street which created the 2008 Financial Credit Crisis as "weapons of mass destruction." If there is one underlying point I think being made by "Inside Job", it is that Washington has become beholden to Wall Street executives who write much United States legislation that benefits their own goals, and Wall Street may need to have much less of a voice in legislative decision-making, but that is probably not going to happen any time soon. The argument made since Ronald Reagan has been that easing and in some cases eradicating certain checks and balances in the financial market, i.e. regulation, would cause heightened prosperity for all, and regulation stifles prosperity. But in fact, except for those in the top 1% income bracket and other elites at the top of the heap, wages for average Americans have been generally stagnant for the last 30 years, while earnings at the top have increased exponentially. Top financial executives who used to make a few hundred thousand a year, which still seems like a lot of money, receive pension packages and stock options now worth in the hundreds of millions, while many other Americans barely scrape by and lose their jobs and their homes.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan, in his inaugural address, stated that "Government is the problem." Reagan was blaming the economic woes of the 1970's on government regulation. In the 1970's, the U.S. experienced one of the worst recessions since the 1930's. However, the reason behind the recession really had nothing to do with over-regulation. Because Europe had been devastated by World War II, the US had a short-lived monopoly on exports, particularly because its manufacturing infrastructure was possibly the best-functioning in the world while Europe was rebuilding. America fueled a reputation of having the best products and the best services in a global market from about 1945 to 1970. But by the 1960's, Europe's manufacturing infrastructure had rebuilt itself and no longer had to rely exclusively on American products, and Japan was also entering into a global market. At the same, American companies began to cut corners in terms of quality products, and the combination of new manufacturing competition from Europe and Japan caused a reduction in consumer demand for American products which plunged the United States into a recession.
Ronald Reagan did not blame corporate America for its short-sightedness and its unwillingness to innovate, which is what a lot of economists now feel was partially responsible for the recession. Instead, Reagan and the Republicans blamed the US Government for the recession, and his economic advisers advocated a reduction of government agencies and a significant loosening of regulation in business. The mantra became "regulation stifles business" which therefore "stifles economic growth", even though there was almost no historical evidence to this effect. This anti-regulation rhetoric finally caught up to the financial sector in the late 1990's under Bill Clinton, and significant deregulation of much of the legislation passed during the Depression was enacted.
According to the documentary, the deregulation allowed financial companies to engage in a buffet of risky enterprises which 20 years ago would have been illegal. For example, investments banks, which primarily engage in helping companies find capital for projects, could now buy and sell individual loans in the same way Wall Street bought and sold stock. The industry convinced itself that these loans were the next big investment haven, and these loans would be packaged to investors like stock. Investment banks convinced investors that these loans were low-risk high-yield investments, and therefore demand for these loans, particularly housing mortgages, began to skyrocket. Smaller mortgage companies began giving loans to anyone who would sign their names on the contracts, despite whether or not they could pay the money back, and these were sold to the investment banks who would turn around and sell them to investors.
The inevitable outcome was that when many of these risky mortgage-holders started defaulting on their loans, the housing bubble ceased and prices began to drop. When prices dropped, investors stopped buying these loans and investments. And companies like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers were holding billions of dollars of "toxic mortgages" that they had planned to sell to investors but now couldn't, which caused a ripple affect in the industry and plunged the US into a recession. Essentially, these loans being sold to investors were much riskier than the investment banks characterized them to investors. Many of these investors, including retirement and pension funds, lost billions of dollars.
The moral of the story is that there has to be much more governmental oversight into the operations of these financial companies. Governmental oversight does not mean these companies can't do business, but they have to be held accountable and should have to pay penalties if they engage in fraud. Some have argued the investment banks were defrauding investors, and fraud is a felonious crime which can result in jail time. But the sobering reality is that most of the people who advise our law-makers are not the people who predicted the crash, but Wall Street insiders who are ultimately interested in their own corporate objectives rather than the economic well-being of the nation as a whole. Still, corporate finance, despite having nearly destroyed their own industry is still fighting tooth and nail to prevent the very regulation that has helped the US prevent these recessions. It is interesting that some of the largest advocates for financial deregulation declined to tell their side of the story for this film.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan, in his inaugural address, stated that "Government is the problem." Reagan was blaming the economic woes of the 1970's on government regulation. In the 1970's, the U.S. experienced one of the worst recessions since the 1930's. However, the reason behind the recession really had nothing to do with over-regulation. Because Europe had been devastated by World War II, the US had a short-lived monopoly on exports, particularly because its manufacturing infrastructure was possibly the best-functioning in the world while Europe was rebuilding. America fueled a reputation of having the best products and the best services in a global market from about 1945 to 1970. But by the 1960's, Europe's manufacturing infrastructure had rebuilt itself and no longer had to rely exclusively on American products, and Japan was also entering into a global market. At the same, American companies began to cut corners in terms of quality products, and the combination of new manufacturing competition from Europe and Japan caused a reduction in consumer demand for American products which plunged the United States into a recession.
Ronald Reagan did not blame corporate America for its short-sightedness and its unwillingness to innovate, which is what a lot of economists now feel was partially responsible for the recession. Instead, Reagan and the Republicans blamed the US Government for the recession, and his economic advisers advocated a reduction of government agencies and a significant loosening of regulation in business. The mantra became "regulation stifles business" which therefore "stifles economic growth", even though there was almost no historical evidence to this effect. This anti-regulation rhetoric finally caught up to the financial sector in the late 1990's under Bill Clinton, and significant deregulation of much of the legislation passed during the Depression was enacted.
According to the documentary, the deregulation allowed financial companies to engage in a buffet of risky enterprises which 20 years ago would have been illegal. For example, investments banks, which primarily engage in helping companies find capital for projects, could now buy and sell individual loans in the same way Wall Street bought and sold stock. The industry convinced itself that these loans were the next big investment haven, and these loans would be packaged to investors like stock. Investment banks convinced investors that these loans were low-risk high-yield investments, and therefore demand for these loans, particularly housing mortgages, began to skyrocket. Smaller mortgage companies began giving loans to anyone who would sign their names on the contracts, despite whether or not they could pay the money back, and these were sold to the investment banks who would turn around and sell them to investors.
The inevitable outcome was that when many of these risky mortgage-holders started defaulting on their loans, the housing bubble ceased and prices began to drop. When prices dropped, investors stopped buying these loans and investments. And companies like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers were holding billions of dollars of "toxic mortgages" that they had planned to sell to investors but now couldn't, which caused a ripple affect in the industry and plunged the US into a recession. Essentially, these loans being sold to investors were much riskier than the investment banks characterized them to investors. Many of these investors, including retirement and pension funds, lost billions of dollars.
The moral of the story is that there has to be much more governmental oversight into the operations of these financial companies. Governmental oversight does not mean these companies can't do business, but they have to be held accountable and should have to pay penalties if they engage in fraud. Some have argued the investment banks were defrauding investors, and fraud is a felonious crime which can result in jail time. But the sobering reality is that most of the people who advise our law-makers are not the people who predicted the crash, but Wall Street insiders who are ultimately interested in their own corporate objectives rather than the economic well-being of the nation as a whole. Still, corporate finance, despite having nearly destroyed their own industry is still fighting tooth and nail to prevent the very regulation that has helped the US prevent these recessions. It is interesting that some of the largest advocates for financial deregulation declined to tell their side of the story for this film.
Feelies Fan
5,0 von 5 Sternen
Confronting narrow self-interest does not = propaganda
Rezension aus den Vereinigten Staaten vom 12. April 2011
Inside Job doesn't need another favorable review. It has earned the encomia it has received. What I choose to review are the reviewers, and not merely those who reviewed it unfavorably. Criticism of a film like this, or a book like Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, tends to focus on 'good' or 'bad' based on how closely the film or book aligned with the reviewer's frame of reference and/or biases. I have more patience for those offering positive reviews because they tend to be closer to providing an accurate appraisal based on greater congruence with the values by which they apparently live. Those who tend to review such films and books negatively are inclined to dismiss the quality of the work with pronouncement about it's propagandistic nature or, worse, its socialist leanings! What almost all reviewers lack, though, is a frame of reference that transcends the limits of possessing a point of view that hasn't been put through its paces.
What the nay-sayers say about Inside Job, specifically, is consistent with the above generalization. What they NEVER say is that the film (or the book, etc.) got its facts wrong. They do so because our short-cut culture ensures that appealing to those who would dare to call capitalism into question, or who exercise their right to not believe in the god-myth, or who can prove that socialism is actually more congruent with their Christian dogma guarantees a critical mass of support from a public that values its lazy-but-comfortable intellectual patterns more than it does the stark realities of our world. They think that by calling Inside Job propaganda, we'll be frightened away from its underlying truth, thereby perpetuating the systems that most assuredly benefit the reviewers who espouse such sentiments. And the sad fact of the matter is that they are correct: when accused of propagandizing or espousing socialistic values, we cower in fear of their disapproval. Because, like them, most of us haven't done the hard work to espouse a belief that's balanced between conviction and rationality.
If Inside Job has a weakness, it is that it did not link up with Naomi Klein to place a stake in the heart of the socio-pathological myths about "free-market economics." We have been led to believe that the "free market" is good because it is free. It is not. The price we've paid since adopting Milton Friedman's shock therapy economic insanity is now so abstractly large it no longer has meaning. We've adopted the negative pattern and it's become normal (which must mean that human nature values patterns even when their effects are catastrophic). Inside Job makes that clear, but it could have stood to be 10-15 minutes longer by incorporating Klein's exposure of the folly of the "free" market.
About this reviewer: on an interpersonal level, I rarely if ever think myself better than another. On a systemic level, however, which is to say as a member of communities and of the larger society, I have no hesitation about stating that I have made myself better than those who, for whatever reason, perpetuate the massive and ever-growing inequities that exist between and among people. If you believe that neoliberalism and its offshoots have been good for humanity, then yes, I am emphatically better than you.
Failure to heed messages like Charles Ferguson's film and Naomi Klein's book is to stare into the sun and declare it nighttime. The facts are plain: after World War II and before Ronald Reagan's presidency, there was not a single economic collapse. Since deregulation was unleashed by Reagan and the acolytes who have followed him, there have been many. Deregulation, privatization, globalization, "free" markets do not work. Well, they work for a select few, but they have never worked in the way their proponents proclaim them to--as means of stabilizing markets and ensuring anything approaching equity of wealth-distribution. Am I cynical to believe this? NO. The facts have been staring us in the face for at least 30 years. The cynicism is inherent in the attempts of those who choose blindness to these facts, knowing that they'll get theirs, and to hell with the rest of us.
What the nay-sayers say about Inside Job, specifically, is consistent with the above generalization. What they NEVER say is that the film (or the book, etc.) got its facts wrong. They do so because our short-cut culture ensures that appealing to those who would dare to call capitalism into question, or who exercise their right to not believe in the god-myth, or who can prove that socialism is actually more congruent with their Christian dogma guarantees a critical mass of support from a public that values its lazy-but-comfortable intellectual patterns more than it does the stark realities of our world. They think that by calling Inside Job propaganda, we'll be frightened away from its underlying truth, thereby perpetuating the systems that most assuredly benefit the reviewers who espouse such sentiments. And the sad fact of the matter is that they are correct: when accused of propagandizing or espousing socialistic values, we cower in fear of their disapproval. Because, like them, most of us haven't done the hard work to espouse a belief that's balanced between conviction and rationality.
If Inside Job has a weakness, it is that it did not link up with Naomi Klein to place a stake in the heart of the socio-pathological myths about "free-market economics." We have been led to believe that the "free market" is good because it is free. It is not. The price we've paid since adopting Milton Friedman's shock therapy economic insanity is now so abstractly large it no longer has meaning. We've adopted the negative pattern and it's become normal (which must mean that human nature values patterns even when their effects are catastrophic). Inside Job makes that clear, but it could have stood to be 10-15 minutes longer by incorporating Klein's exposure of the folly of the "free" market.
About this reviewer: on an interpersonal level, I rarely if ever think myself better than another. On a systemic level, however, which is to say as a member of communities and of the larger society, I have no hesitation about stating that I have made myself better than those who, for whatever reason, perpetuate the massive and ever-growing inequities that exist between and among people. If you believe that neoliberalism and its offshoots have been good for humanity, then yes, I am emphatically better than you.
Failure to heed messages like Charles Ferguson's film and Naomi Klein's book is to stare into the sun and declare it nighttime. The facts are plain: after World War II and before Ronald Reagan's presidency, there was not a single economic collapse. Since deregulation was unleashed by Reagan and the acolytes who have followed him, there have been many. Deregulation, privatization, globalization, "free" markets do not work. Well, they work for a select few, but they have never worked in the way their proponents proclaim them to--as means of stabilizing markets and ensuring anything approaching equity of wealth-distribution. Am I cynical to believe this? NO. The facts have been staring us in the face for at least 30 years. The cynicism is inherent in the attempts of those who choose blindness to these facts, knowing that they'll get theirs, and to hell with the rest of us.
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