This movie, due out in October, is really going to stir things up... http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810157411/trailer
Inside Job
Sat, 2010-10-02 00:21
#1
Inside Job
Sat, 2010-10-02 00:27
#2
It's a Wall Street government. They still have revolving door access to Washington with five times as many bankster lobbyists as Congress men/women. The whole thing is corrupt as the day is long. It's finished. They're already working on the next blockbuster welfare handout to fat-cat bankers.
Tue, 2010-10-05 12:37
#3
From the clips of the movie I doubt it is going to stir things up. Nothing from what I see in the clips is new and has been reported thousands of times.
Tue, 2010-10-05 12:58
#4
How on Earth then can people possibly just accept this and continue on as if it doesn't really matter. What's it going to take to get people to stand up together and fight back against the financial mob that has overthrown democracy and is terrorising the world. We the people are the engine that supplies them with power. Without our labour and our spending they are helpless. They produce nothing themselves.
Tue, 2010-10-05 13:16
#5
A lot of the blame goes to the common people that made loans they should not have. In the US the bankers made bad loans due to government pressure.
Tue, 2010-10-05 15:14
#6
The bankers have made bad loans due to greed.
Tue, 2010-10-05 15:39
#7
Maysie
Hi Gundere, welcome to babble.
How "common people" (that's a really rude term to describe, you know, most people) are at fault is a mystery of logic. If you ask a bank for a loan, it's not you who has the power, the bank does.
Tue, 2010-10-05 15:59
#8
Snert
If you ask a bank for a loan, it's not you who has the power, the bank does.
Actually, both you and the bank have the power to NOT enter into a business arrangement that's not to your/their benefit. The bank may deny you when you wish they wouldn't, and certainly that's a power they have, but the power to say "No" to a dodgy financial arrangement is both theirs and yours.
And while it may be true that the banks were solely motivated by greed (insert lazy stereotype here) I don't think all the borrowers who could suddenly afford that three car garage in Cardboard Acres were motivated by some kind of altruism either. Which isn't to say it's all the borrowers' fault and not at all the banks' fault. But I don't think the opposite is realistic either.
Tue, 2010-10-05 16:04
#9
Aw Snert, never one for understanding power imbalances are you?
Both equally to blame? Sure Snert....
Tue, 2010-10-05 16:09
#10
Snert
I'm not suggesting that banks and private individuals have equal power in every respect, but with regard to NOT taking part in a bad loan, they certainly do. If I want to borrow more money than I can pay back, or borrow money in such a way that the terms of that loan can change beyond my control, then yes, as an adult I do share the blame.
As I said, both a borrower and the bank have the same power to say "No, sorry, this is a bad deal". Did you want to show otherwise?
Tue, 2010-10-05 16:11
#11
I don't know if it's a question of power imbalances. Sure the banks have all the money, and they are motivated by trying to make a profit and little else. I don't mind seeing them pilloried.
That said, I'm rather ticked off at those who borrow more than they can afford just so they can live in a gaudy, oversized McMansion in a tacky new subdivision that takes up space on what was once productive land. Their homes are a blight on the landscape; these vulgar cretins deserve bankruptcy.
Tue, 2010-10-05 21:47
#12
Yes, there are propagandists on the right who have tried to suggest blame for this bank meltdown is with "greedy" Americans who over borrowed and over spent. And they like to show photos of all those struggling Americans being evicted from their homes or contemplating their next moves in the shitty neoliberalized economy. Dumb Americans who didn't know enough to curb their desire to live in decent homes. This is the propaganda we are supposed to believe. Lots of designated scapegoats in the shitty neoliberal/neofascist/neoconservative nanny state.
Meanwhile real wages for those "greedy" workers haven't risen since something like 1979. Loose credit for mortgage lenders, deregulation, criminal mortgage rates etc were responsible for the voodoo failing not ordinary Americans. It's basically a Wall St. dictatorship running things in the USSA today as is the case with the EU. The fascists are trotting out the old Thatcherism for "TINA", but there are alternatives. They don't have to kick hell out of workers and wages, concessions etc in order to right sinking ships. But they will try and probably succeed. Meanwhile a colder war rages on, and the rich are looking to be about twice as wealthy as they were before the ideology really started falling apart.
Tue, 2010-10-05 22:20
#13
I don't know if it's a question of power imbalances. Sure the banks have all the money, and they are motivated by trying to make a profit and little else. I don't mind seeing them pilloried.
That said, I'm rather ticked off at those who borrow more than they can afford just so they can live in a gaudy, oversized McMansion in a tacky new subdivision that takes up space on what was once productive land. Their homes are a blight on the landscape; these vulgar cretins deserve bankruptcy.
- the terminology suggests a misunderstanding here, one that most people seem to share. The banks do not 'have' all the money, from which they decide to give loans or not - this is what people are encouraged to believe, but like quite a lot of what people are encouraged to believe in capitalistland, it just isn't true. When Mr/Ms consumer (or the government) decides they want to 'borrow' some money, and the bank agrees to 'lend' them money - the bank just bangs a few computer keys and **creates** that money right, as the saying goes, out of thin air. And then on this money they create out of thin air, they demand interest payments, year after year after year. Hell of a racket. Hell of a statement on 'the public' that basically nobody understands this process, or how this charging interest on money created out of thin air has devastated our country and world the last 30 years (well, devastated for 'we the common folk' - been quite a bonanza for those in the financial world and their well-paid flunkies (senior politicians, economists, academics, "journalists", etc) who help keep a lid on the scam - who all would be in jail if a few more people had a bit better understanding of the whole scam). Some more here, if anyone is interested in a bit better understanding of the greatest scam the world has ever known - What Happened? http://www.rudemacedon.ca/what-happened.html . Or you might go to oldDON's page and check out Money as Debt ( http://www.monetaryreform.com/MR/videoPage.htm ), a short but well done video explaining the process.
Tue, 2010-10-05 23:46
#14
A lot of the blame goes to the common people that made loans they should not have.
Teaser low-interest rates were used to attract people who could not afford regular market rates. Owning a home appeared to be more affordable than renting. People on the margins dove in. The loan brokers didn't care if the buyers could afford the regular market rates that kicked in after the teaser rates expired. By then the brokers had collected their fees and the risks were not theirs to worry about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0zEXdDO5JU&list=QL&feature=BF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSjEyOp2dEM&feature=related
In the US the bankers made bad loans due to government pressure.
...and the invisible man has a snowman named Pete.
Wed, 2010-10-06 00:37
#15
It's a case of fascist bankers being too big for jail.