Economist Simon Johnson Interviewed In-Studio by TYT

[JImmy4336]

Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican. God how far we've gone off track.

[reyhighet]

nice interview.

[bonfirejovi]

Who provided the leverage to the system Cenk? The Federal Reserve. Add the words "excessive credit growth", "greenspan put" and "low interest rates" to your vocabulary Cenk.

It is also interesting to note that while Wall Street was leveraged 30:1, Freddie and Fannie were leveraged 70:1 under the eyes of Congress!

Fuck capital requirements, we need FULL reserve banking. There are other ways to invest.

[ASRIBEIRIO]

Why is Johnson advocating derivatives to be on exchanges? Pre-trade price transparency is almost certainly a bad thing in a market as thinly traded as OTC derivatives. All that would do is drain liquidity from the market. The only reason you don't see this problem in stock exchanges is that stocks are extremely liquid, derivatives are not. They should be traded on clearinghouses - not exchanges. Unless he is one of those idiots that doesn't know the difference, which is certainly possible.

[KKDragonLord]

@ASRIBEIRIO Almost certainly huh? Very convincing... Transparency a bad thing huh? i see, so as long as thinly veiled trades keep happening nothing bad will happen eh?

[ASRIBEIRIO]

If you cap it at $100 billion and a $99 billion bank goes under, in order to unwind it's assets you have to sell it to another institution - pushing it above the $100 billion cap. If you don't, you have a disorderly liquidation - which is what you wanted to avoid in the first place. And I guarantee you no regulator can handle a conservatorship over $50 billion so that's off the table. And look out if more than 1 bank fails in a recession (which it will)! Size caps are logically indefensible.

[BlackhaloZ]

Great interview Cenk. Great get too. Although I'm sure Simon was in town for Real-Time...

[BlackhaloZ]

Great interview Cenk. Great get too. Although I'm sure Simon was in town for Real-Time...

[TheBlueConch]

What do the Rothschild's think,..... Bahahahahaha ........Watch em squirm...Baaaahahahahaha.

[atenschnplies]

cenk is such a politics nerd is so funny

he asked whether he could call him simon he never does that normally he just calls his guests by their first name and doesnt think about it

that seemed like he was a bit starstruck there

so the only guy he admires so much that he is starstruck is an economist

thats awesome

[APR301789MAR41797]

Great interview Cenk!!! Thanks!!!

[benympls]

i love TYTINTERVIEWS channel!!!

Great Stuff!!!

[IllegalAlien1]

im abandoning ship

[Reggis420]

What an enlightening interview. I thouroughly enjoyed this conversation.

[jgordon707]

lol, free market.

[MrBigwong]

Great interview.

[TheSpiritOfTheTimes]

Dude has a very interesting accent, a strange mixture of English and American. Anyway, he's a dead ringer for Dr. Wilson from House.

[xdir]

Excellant interview, Cenk knowledge of the market implosion allowed Simon to really get into the details, something you don't really see on other shows. E.G Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill got confused as soon as Simon started explaining and just moved the topic.

[Mazsimiliian]

Always good to hear from smart people who are on the Right side.

[TheGiantRobot]

I think the shrinking of banks is essential. But, I think there's something more important. Remove all their special powers and backing. It's not capitalism.

.

What he have here is soft fascism - we tax payers give these private banks license to loan money they don't have. Then we insure them so they get customers and have zero personal risk. Absolute insanity.

.

We are all subsidizing gamblers and loan sharks. I don't want to. Does anyone else?

[dEdGrimley]

@TheGiantRobot

What I think might've been a good idea during the bailouts might've been to split the banks that got bailed out up into smaller banks.

[marsCubed]

@dEdGrimley Breaking up the banks would have been brilliant.

However republicans removed legislation which makes that possible.

Fact is that Regan took away that lever from Govt.. so we are all (I am in the UK, Thatcher did the same) all in poo. The banks can say. it is illegal for you to touch us.

We need strong regulations to keep banking sane.

Most banks loans and mortgages are fine, It is the big hyped conservative structures which corrupt Govt for the right.

They need to be scaled down.

[dEdGrimley]

@marsCubed

It's odd that in America, we constantly look back to "our founding fathers" for wisdom, as they deities and flawless...

And we love to speak of Thomas Jefferson whenever we can and he's not inconvenient to religious domination of the political scene. Now, Thomas Jefferson once said that he thought that banks were more dangerous and powerful than any standing army. If we didn't put checks and regulations in place to stop them, they'd rule the world. Oops.

[marsCubed]

@dEdGrimley Jefferson obviously knew it would be a temptation.

There is more to it these days though IMO.

Capital itself tends to monopoly, corps try to win - so levels of investment keep increasing to enhance competitive advantage.

Politicians need money for elections.

Put those together and a house of cards gets built.

The only way to take a house of cards apart safely is from the top.

ppl need to Tax the hyper-rich back to Earth orbit. sane debate for sustainable growth onto the agenda again.

[dEdGrimley]

@marsCubed

Exactly. Amen, brotha.

[marsCubed]

@dEdGrimley I felt strange writing that comment.

Like I was defending something which I knew was too broken.

The system is managed by people who are defending or patching the status quo they won't fix it.

I felt that the part I wanted to amplify was the term 'ppl'; as 'The people'.

Yet there is no organized conscious movement which is filling this role yet.

USA lacks the balancing factors.

TYT know, many union activists know & most regular people sense it.

Our societies need to break the mould.

[Bux7777]

@TheGiantRobot

well spoken

[nilbud]

@TheGiantRobot It IS capitalism, don't be ignorant. Money talks and bullshit takes the bus.

[KKDragonLord]

@TheGiantRobot Capitalism is leaded by the rich and the powerful, if others are allowed to compete with them, such as is the case of subsidiaries, the rich and powerful might lose business, so to keep the "under-development countries" where they are, the First World countries have to appeal to subsidiaries to curb stop their success from damaging their own. Democracy and Capitalism are the management of interest of the minorities in charge (even though its "the best" we got so far, they tell us)

[TheGiantRobot]

@KKDragonLord

I can't quite understand what you're saying. In America, subsidiaries means corporations owned by other corporations.

As far as political and economic systems, I agree that the combination of democracy with capitalism seems the best because it implies two choice-respecting systems with a separation between regulatory powers and commerce. Our problem is that the separation hardly exists, so instead of two complementary systems, we increasingly get one: fascism.

[CmdrTobs]

@TheGiantRobot good points

[behindtheed]

Great interview Cenk.

[NuLLx42]

oh god, we're all going to die ;_;

[Tuathalful]

12:15 "...there is no evidence for economies of scale, scope or/of other benefits to society, of banks bigger then a hundred billion dollars in total assets."

This line was unclear but I like the gist of it. It always seems strange to me that some proponents of Laissez-faire can argue, as they do, for small government, while supporting business enterprises of absolutely massive scale because of some assumed, automatic benefit to society by virtue of "economies of scale"... Where's the evidence?

[MarmaladeINFP]

@Tuathalful Yes! Where's the evidence? I'm always wondering why some people have a religious faith in free markets. Ideals are fine. I like the ideal of a free market, but there are serious flaws to getting rid of or vastly disempowering government.

[Tounushi]

@MarmaladeINFP

How'bout removing human greed? That would work: just lobotomize everyone.

Totally free markets and laissez-faire capitalism are just as successful as centrally-planned economies and socialism: the human condition ruins both extremes.

[MarmaladeINFP]

@Tounushi The socialist tendency as expressed in a democracy is the necessary balance to capitalism. There is no such thing as free market b/c someone has to control it. W/o a strong democratic govt to provide oversight & regulation, a wealthy few will control the market. The problem isn't socialism vs capitalism but that we no longer have a functioning democracy. The more basic problem is that human nature evolved in small tribal lifestyle & so modern society is unnatural.

[Tounushi]

@MarmaladeINFP

I live in finland, so our economic structure is a mixed economy: govt. owns a certain share of the larger companies and there are a few govt. monopolies in the service and transportation sectors.

The system isn't perfect, of course, but it works very well.

But to continue what I meant by the human condition: humans are by no means perfect, and stating that a certain economic or political plan is perfect is not only folly, but inherently dangerous. Greed will always fuck it up.

[MarmaladeINFP]

@Tounushi Ahh... Finland. I'm not familiar with the political & economic system of Finland. Does your country have a functioning democracy? If so, could we borrow it? I promise that it will only be slightly damaged when we return it.

As for human nature, I'm in agreement about the human tendency to fuck it up. To state it another way: Modern civilization is unnatural & out of sync with human nature. So, the system is inherently fucked up which leads to fucked up behavior.

[Tounushi]

@MarmaladeINFP

Parliamentary democracy with a unicameral parliament of 200 representing a population of 5.4 million. Three major parties, none holding absolute power, several smaller parties.

/wiki/Parliament_of_finland

/wiki/Politics_of_finland

[nilbud]

@MarmaladeINFP That's only in the US.

[AnarchoHumanist]

Johnson's accent seems a bit odd to me. Sometimes it seems rhotic, sometimes not. I can hear the 'R' in "quarter" and "worth" and most others, but not in "compare" or "clearly". Does anyone know where in Britain he's from (or if his accent is a mishmash of British and American)?

[alexbwatson]

@AnarchoHumanist He's from London, he speaks classic 'BBC' english but it sounds like he's lived in the US for long enough that some words he says with an American accent. Nothing more complicated than that.

[nicholas9999]

Cenk, you're wrong about the thing you said about the intertwining of 100 buillion dollar banks -- they WON'T be intertwined if the splitting-up specifically forbids interlocking directorates and other means of keeping them tied into networks or groups. The idea is to create a more real competition among them. They should be separate entities!

[superdragoncat]

This was a really good interview.

[bballadante]

@superdragoncat Cenk has been preparing for this for weeks.