Pt3 Age of Greed: The 90's and "Finance is Always Good"

[GSNPFL]

they all knew what was happening - they condoned it - they planned it - they wallowed in the profits of it.

Hank Paulson made $485M when leaving WallStreet and going to Bush White House as Secty of Treasury where his $485M he did NOT have to pay taxes due to Pres Bush Sr bill NO Taxes paid if you work with USG.

Get DVD documentary "inside Job" - can get at your local library.

"INSIDE JOB" = good DVD - a MUST see.

[GSNPFL]

they all knew what was happening - they condoned it - they planned it - they wallowed in the profits of it.

Hank Paulson made $485M when leaving WallStreet and going to Bush White House as Secty of Treasury where his $485M he did NOT have to pay taxes due to Pres Bush Sr bill NO Taxes paid if you work with USG.

[GSNPFL]

And STILL 11/30/2011 there is NO regulations on derivatives - Obama signed for NO regulations........ which is also NO surprise.

Corruption still runs corrupt - with thousands of Lobbyists.

And who do we get for 2012 GOP "favored" candidates ... Romney & Gingrich.

Let's get an HONEST man in our White House...

Vote Ron Paul 2012.

[franknblunt]

When anybody announces the economy was booming during the 90's -00's, that claim rings hollow because nothing substantial was produced as trade deficits grew, more production transferred, foreign interests provided money to acquire much more domeistic property, financiers & minions were lying about IPO's while speculating without any collateral to cover their scams. Empty promises. This discussion passed over the S & L disaster but does a decent job elsewhere, should encourage reading the book.

[franknblunt]

Although Scam Diego is quite the mess, past as well as present, I believe Mr Madrick meant Anaheim of Orange County.

[unab84]

Paul Jay and real news are simply the best, a little intellectual light in a world of crap.

[4werr0n3]

Capitalism is capitalism as long as there are financial gains.

Once capitalism go bust it calls for socialism to bail it out.

[carefulcarpenter]

The same deception skills learned in the Big League was used to beat the little guy. You wonder why you find so few honest men wearing a suit? I had some great ideas that had to sit on the shelf-- the Big Boys would have just stolen them, anyway. I turned to a very simple life-- I reduced my demand to almost zero.

My high-end clients saw no benefit in my success-- they just wanted bargains. short-sighted they were.

[ytgv3fc7]

speculation is something everyone is forced into, not just with derivatives, by having paper money.

Hedging is insurance: used properly it allows counter-speculation so you avoid losses, flattening out volatility.

The real abuse of derivatives is basing them on underlying fraud instead of underlying assets. With paper money itself as a fraud can you imagine how this goes? I now am trading options & derivatives in metals but I own the metals outright too.

[BabylonsKing]

I wish to see each and every Banker on this Planet who've Screwed the American Person out of his or her Home With this Shit ...I want to SEE THEM BURNING ALIVE IN THE TOWN SQUARE and let us all watch and VIDEO THE EVENT....He you crooked Cock Suckers out there in Internet Land how would you Pricks like that?

[fahernandezp1]

I think it is not that they don´t care about the bubbles until they burst, it´s that the Alan Greenspans of the world profit from them. That´s why economy has bull and bear cycles, it has been designed that way so that the elite can reap huge benefits.

[ytgv3fc7]

@fahernandezp1 every economy even hard-assets resource-based economies must have bull & bear cycles - these are nature itself. What's wrong is infusing this with fraud, abusing & exploiting. What's sensible is flattening out costs / prices so that losses nature will hand you are balanced with gains from good times. Money-printing can't do it. Hedging can.

[fahernandezp1]

@ytgv3fc7 "must" have bull and bear cycles, I don´t know about that, I am increasingly skeptical about all this. The thing is, today´s business behaviour (which is increasingly fraudulent) has accentuated this cycle. It might well be that these cycles have to exist but with the current cut-throat profit mentality is actually getting worse with the time. I am also against money printing, I am for a sensible and above all honest business approach.

[ytgv3fc7]

@fahernandezp1 OK let's put it another way: to avoid having bull & bear cycles we must a) reformat all of nature to have no cycles at all or b) must have a stocked savings of everything nature provided in boom times because bust times are coming as per normal cycles or c) we must migrate to each and every region of earth to enjoy life where it's good while no one lives where it's bad. This nomadic lifestyle means lots of transport, far fewer people and effectively no long-term cities

[fahernandezp1]

@ytgv3fc7 Sorry I don´t think this argument is valid. I don´t think economy responds to nature, at the moment it responds to greed. And with climate change, the "natural periods" as you call them are all over the place, and the sad thing is, most americans are in denial. Even with the ever increasing violence of the weather events sweeping america every year. As an example we had a serious drought in Australia in a boom period.

[ytgv3fc7]

@fahernandezp1 ya? I think nature is so powerful the economy can't avoid responding to it, like scarcity of food, like competition between species, including within species, including our own, which covers greed. As for climate change, while our driver is not natural it is all of nature doing stuff to us & our economy is being driven by these changes. Can you really disagree with that? Did Australia's "boom" you mention go with someone else's boom & exports?

[choobie12]

America only uses mroality as a tool to further their agenda, at the end of the day the only stuff they like is this derivative stuff.

[MarkoKraguljac]

Interesting question/topic that could be posed to multiple guests : Is economic democracy possible, and if yes, how to move toward it? If its not possible, what does that mean for ordinary people?

For start, we must clearly recognize present underlying reality without left/right, right/wrong, "jooobs" creation and similar useless fluff. What bankers did is important but not more than recognizing where we are now and what is to be done for the benefit of all (if possible).

[ytgv3fc7]

@MarkoKraguljac economic democracy is possible but with 2 caveats: #1 it requires that no central control exist anywhere #2 it requires that we admit the truth that the poorest can not contribute because they have no economic value. Do you wish to proceed, knowing this?

[MarkoKraguljac]

@ytgv3fc7 #1 New type of central control (coordination more likely) is needed for economic democracy. One pillar of that new nexus is universal access to information. #2 Should we also forbid voting to anyone we consider stupid? No one deserves to be poor. Currently, being poor is more likely a symptom of cannibalistic system than flaw in human resource. Everyone has potential to give some contribution. But it must not be tied with bare survival. Many rich today have negative social value also.

[ytgv3fc7]

@MarkoKraguljac all types of central control are dangerous. I propose one which has one action only: suicide. Universal access to information must never be centralized for centralized access to information can never be universal. The two definitions banish each other.

Do some people deserve to be poor? ABSOLUTELY YES. Those who can not provide for themselves HAVE NO RIGHT to take from others by definition they MUST Be poor or we must be robbed and enslaved to them. there is no 3rd option.

[MarkoKraguljac]

@ytgv3fc7 For thousands of years (before modern structures, slavery..) no one was redundant in tribal life. Neither was anyone psychologically deformed by excessive work (as employed are today). Many tribes (as closed units) were completely peaceful and lived harmonious lives as much as nature and its savage laws allowed. We share exact genes. Having excessive misery, poverty and redundant poor indicates our mismanagement of global tribe. We need help of technology to organize for common good.

[ytgv3fc7]

@MarkoKraguljac by all means let's use some technology to help some people but only what's fair to trade, not enslaving the makers of the technologies, and only what's sensible: identifying failures & fraud. We do not all share exact genes, by the way. "psychologically deformed by work" ... I consider the very notion to be a fraud as well.

[MarkoKraguljac]

@ytgv3fc7 Our opinions diverge but we still managed to find some important common ground :) For me, model of this "using technology for true and progressive common good" is to apply and promote varieties of Google's approach to business. Thats our chance for bright future. Apply this to all spheres of socioeconomic life. Its not perfect but its light years ahead of current practices. Call me Google fanboy but I carefully follow their behavior and moves.. and I am amazed.

[ytgv3fc7]

@MarkoKraguljac certainly Google has done a lot. One down side is they are encouraging centralization to their system rather than duplication of their functionality or even expanding it in a way which is not centralized. For example, videos are removed, channels to, which are not guilty of the accused violations. In the end we'll need peer to peer video sharing with no centralized server or we'll have to do with no freedom. It's just at the near edge starting now

[ytgv3fc7]

@MarkoKraguljac in terms of raw searching & meta-searching abilities, Google is definitely at the top. If we can externalize this from the company based on the features we see, maybe one day we can vastly expand education, engineering & various kinds of research to reduce time + energy costs, reduce complexity & truly advance. Mind you where blueprints & programming are needed I'd be advocating open-source all the way

[ytgv3fc7]

@MarkoKraguljac I have a right given ownership of resources and personal ability NOT TO BE POOR and you rob me of my right by forcing me to feed the poor. You turn me INTO the poor which makes me a slave. I must kill anyone who tries to enslave me. Being poor is a result purely of lacking value to one's self and society. Nothing else. LOTS of people have zero potential and this is unchangeable solid fact.

[MarkoKraguljac]

@ytgv3fc7 My view is that you completely miss the bigger picture of how similar we all are but how repressive and unjust is reality we built for ourselves. Technology allows for less and less people to provide for the sum of our needs. Some people would like it otherwise but our needs are finite. That leaves more and more people out of meaningful economic life (if severe degeneration counts as life in this broader sense). Its just my opinion, you obviously have yours.

[ytgv3fc7]

@MarkoKraguljac absolutely not. Technology allows one person to better provide their PERSONAL needs not the needs of others. Until that PERSON has decided they have excess then by their PERSONAL DECREE it is not so. Nothing else in the universe is valid: this means your judgement of the "sum of needs" is a fraud. You can't sum the needs, it isn't possible. You don't have the data to even guess at the individual needs nor the sum.

[MarkoKraguljac]

@ytgv3fc7 You see how our opinions diverge? Thats why I proposed posing this question to a few "experts". It would be interesting to hear.

[ytgv3fc7]

@MarkoKraguljac we don't differ in opinions: I can honestly say that some people are unable to work or think in a way that allows any kind of survival so they are poor, you can not admit this fact. This is NOT an opinion. This is a measured fact. We can measure the work-output of people who are disabled, or who are unable to learn, or who are constantly exhausted and so on. They can't survive without help. I am NOT OBLIGATED to help. Facts only. No opinions.

[mikeoli]

@ytgv3fc7 obligated is the word you chose and I agree, and if people would look to the nearest helping hand as the the one at the end of their own arm I am sure more would be accomplished by them, whatever they choose

[ytgv3fc7]

@mikeoli yes, for some who do have a choice, that would be good. For those who have no choice and can't help but be poor I hope there are enough of the rest of us who might be able to help. We can not promise it for such a promise may entail deadly sacrifice rather than just a little hardship. But we should all at least be mindful. I've tried to help & so far it's been very risky, almost robbed me of everything. That doesn't mean I won't try to help again but it's my nature to try when I can

[ytgv3fc7]

@MarkoKraguljac if I choose to help that's MY BUSINESS and no one has the power to control or order me. If I refuse to help it is because it will kill me and I refuse to be killed to let others live in my place. It is my absolute right more important than all else in the UNIVERSE and my ability to defend my life, resources & free will is how I will enforce this right at all costs.

[Mahoivlich]

Excellent and informative interview.

[workwillfreeyou]

The only thing that matters in the U.S. is the total centralization of wealth and power.

[StraussBR]

Where else you can see this kind if in-depth discussion?

10 bucks a month folks,

You are doing a service to the world

[vNorilor]

@StraussBR There are thousands of lectures, articles long and short, and hundreds of books on the financial crisis. There is no reason to laud this biased outlet's coverage. 

[slobomotion]

Uprated and favorited.

[nilbud]

It's so much easier to bank than to work.

[vNorilor]

@nilbud Says the guy who knows nothing about banking, of course. You're a narcissist by even the left's definition. Grow up now kay? Kay.

[nilbud]

@vNorilor Sorry child your idiocy is impenetrable. Learn to use english before blurting out your big words. You're about 17 or so and you think you know stuff. So what do you imagine you know that I don't?

Stick to your ayn rand books and a lifetime of paranoid shitty stupidity and don't bother your betters again.

[vNorilor]

@nilbud haha! Check out Erich Fromm's work on narcissism. Fromm was a major twentieth century psychologist (also a very political socialist) who had a big impact on me. I made a very clear point and you replied w/ a red herring. The relevant question isn't whether or not you know more about the banking industry and its work than some anonymous stranger - It's whether you know enough about the industry to make the outrageous claim that it isn't work at all. You don't understand, but you do talk.