Obama Has Spoken, The System Is Broken: It Is Time To Break Up Banks & Combat Financial Crime Or The Banksters Go Free
The Great Hall at Cooper Union. Photo: Bobojazz (CC)
The President has spoken, but the system is still broken. The SEC has come down on Goldman Sachs but the company is now mounting a no-expense spared defense.. Shocking disclosures of greed and fraud continue to trickle out from the Mammon factory and Babylonian leviathan that is Wall Street.
What is, and isn’t, being done by “da people” to fight back?
The major issue on the agenda for activists is not just the Administration’s tepid financial reform package due for a Senate vote this week but supporting new legislation to break up the banks, a proposal that challenges the “TOO BIG TO FAIL” understanding between government and the banks. Thousands of activists are calling on their representatives to back the bill, and MoveOn.org is planning ads.
There is an ad already out there to fight fraud. Check it out.
If you support this call, sign this…
Danny Schechter Blasts Wall Street On Coast To Coast AM
George Knapp was joined by filmmaker and veteran journalist Danny Schechter, who discussed the fraud perpetrated on the nation by Wall Street and the factors which played a role in the current financial crisis. While the media has portrayed the meltdown as the result of a series of blunders by the banking industry, Schechter said that it was really a calculated effort to take advantage of a flawed system. Calling it “the greatest theft in history,” he observed that “you have a situation where a small group of people enriched themselves in ways that were never thought possible.”
[listen to the remaining parts of the interview here]
Schechter explained that the economic crisis is really…
The Financial Crisis As Crime Story
Plunder director Danny Schechter writing for the Nation:
The case has not even been heard in court and the company denies all the allegations. Almost every business publication has carried commentaries by insiders who say the government may have a hard time prevailing, and dismissing all the Sturm and Drang.
And yet the public seems to be delighted if not outraged by the SEC’s charges against Goldman Sachs, the opulent investment bank that many Americans see as the poster child of those causing the financial crisis. Even in the world of business where dislike of government crackdowns is dominant, a new poll shows that a majority believe Goldman is getting what it deserves.
Argyle Executive Forum conducted the survey electronically among its senior corporate leadership community.
The precise wording of the survey question was:
As Goldman Sachs Group is currently at the center of a legal maelstrom triggered by the SEC’s fraud charge last week, we…
Goldman Sucks!
News Dissector Danny Schechter explains why Goldman Sachs deserves criminal, not just civil fraud charges. As he says, “Goldman has not been sacked”:
Going After Goldman: A Crackdown On Financial Crime Or A Kabuki Play Maneuver To Avoid Bringing Criminal Charges?
Fox Business News was engrossed in interviewing a blonder than thou reality TV bimbo when the news that the Securities And Exchange Commission was filing fraud charges against Goldman Sachs broke on Friday afternoon.
The breaking news bulletins were already flying through cyberspace before the Fox Means Business network got around to moving from a snickering interview with a starlet confessing to commodifying and monetizing her appeal to the biggest story in months on the Street beat. Corporate fraud allegations seem to make free market boosters nervous.
At last, the mightiest of investment bank, described as a “giant squid on the face of humanity” by Matt Taibbi in a much-read diatribe, appeared to be in deep trouble. Taibbi himself was not convinced that the Government has the goods on Goldman.
He commented, “…What’s interesting is that I heard whiffs of this story going back as far as a year and you know I’m…
The Wall Street Crime Narrative
In politics, it’s always all about the narrative, about how issues are framed.
We ask ourselves how we can be experiencing the largest economic meltdown in decades with millions out of work and millions more losing their homes, yet with no real mass mobilization or ongoing response from the progressive world.
To understand this paradox, we need to reflect on how most of us define the problem.
To this day, there has not been an aggressive investigation of who and what brought down the system à la the Pecora Commission appointed by FDR. Instead we have a wimpy ineffectual body that can’t get its act together. The New York Times, which hailed its appointment, now buries its de facto obit way back in the business section, noting it has “been hobbled by delays and internal disagreements and a lack of focus.”
At the same time, the bookshelves are filling up with volumes of complicated treatises…
Promoting Plunder
My efforts to promote my new film PLUNDER are underway with a little help from our Globalvision team and the good folks at Disinformation, who have managed to get it on iTunes and various cable TV VOD systems, as well as DVD. I was happy to see that the Wall Street Journal ran a shorter version of their story saying the film is “not just for Michael Moore fans” on their Deal Blog in the weekend edition of the newspaper. Here are some of the comments on the WSJ blog:
shaun wrote:
Why hasn’t anyone been successfully prosecuted for committing the crime Schechter speaks of? Because it’s too big. It’s too big of a problem for those culpable and those currently in charge (Wall Street and Washington) to deal with. Officials would much rather make the crisis a blip in our economic history, rather than a decade-defining moment (e.g. Depression of the 1930s)–this from Lawrence…
This Anti-Wall Street Film Isn’t Just for Michael Moore Fans
Wall Street eats itself as its namesake newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, talks up Danny Schechter’s damning documentary Plunder: The Crime of our Time:
Independent filmmaker Danny Schecter would like to remind Wall Street that the disdain for bankers “is not coming from a bunch of lefties in some basement in the East Village. It is coming from mainstream America.”
Schecter hopes such mainstream angst can propel his latest film, “Plunder: The Crime Story of Our Time,” into the big leagues. Filmed on a budget of less than $50,000 and based on his book of the same title, the movie traces the roots of the financial crisis from the home owners who defaulted on their mortgages to the Wall Street banks loading up on mortgage investments.
The film sounds like the many books and made-for-television movies about the crisis. But Schecter, who has worked at ABC News and CNN, promises that his narrative…
A Sad Story Of Two Financial Investigations Gone Awry
A Tale of Then and Now, FDR vs Obama: A Story of Shame, Co-option, Partisan Bickering and Industry Lobbying To Undermine Financial Reform
2009, The Intent: Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “What I want to initiate is the equivalent of what happened in the 30’s. They had something that was called the Pecora Commission. This was the commission that was formed when Franklin Roosevelt took office and they investigated what happened with the markets… We need to know. Some people can tell you one piece of it. Others can tell you another piece of it. But really it’s very hard – do you understand it? – for the American people and the rest of us as we try to make policy as we go forward to see the ramifications of any of the changes we’re being asked to make.”
THEN: Robert Kuttner: In 1932 through 1934 the Senate Banking Committee, led by its Chief Counsel Ferdinand…
Join Us for the Premiere of Danny Schechter’s ‘Plunder’
If you’re in the New York metro area for this event (details below), join us by RSVPing to plunder [at] disinfo.com. Otherwise, please help us spread the word on Danny Schechter’s new film, Plunder: The Crime of our Time, now available on iTunes and DVD.
Aldon O. James, Jr., The President of The National Arts Club, Globalvision Inc. and The Disinformation Company cordially invite
You and a Guest To The Premiere Screening Of Danny Schechter’s New Investigative Film Exposing the Financial Crisis as A Crime Story
PLUNDER: THE CRIME OF OUR TIME (APRIL 29, 2010)
In March of this year, a national poll found that despite all the partisan political polarization, 82% of the American people want a “crackdown on Wall Street.”
Yet to date, a handful of white collar criminals have been prosecuted and jailed for causing the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression.
The film, Plunder: The Crime of our Time is being released in April by The Disinformation Company and will be available on cable systems’ Video-On-Demand, on DVD and via iTunes. It is the first documentary feature to treat the financial crisis as a crime story.
The hard-hitting film features testimony by Wall Street bankers, economists, a convicted white collar criminal, real estate brokers and victims of mortgage scams. It explains how an estimated $197 trillion disappeared because of elaborate and sophisticated financial frauds. Plunder also indicts the media for not warning us or investigating the crisis in a timely way.
As The Crisis Deepens, More Attention is Being Paid To Financial Fraud
The “F Word” (for fraud) is back in polite conversation on Wall Street. Fraud and financial crime are slowly becoming part of the debate over what must be done to restore confidence in what has so plainly been a confidence game.
Drilling for oil has knocked financial reform out of the headlines but among commentators, a concern with crime and the absence of punishment is being raised again.
First there was Robert Reich, the former Clinton Labor Secretary, a small man with a large and insistent voice. He’s practically spitting because he’s so pissed off with the inaction, asking where has the SEC been—not the Bush SEC which blew the Madoff probe but the Obama appointees:
“It’s now clear Lehman Brothers’ balance sheet was bogus before the bank collapsed in 2008, catapulting the Street and the world into the worse financial crisis since 1929. The Lehman bankruptcy examiner’s recent report details what just…
Fears of A Second Crash Are Real: Congress Lacks The Appetite for Action…
What will it take? What are they waiting for? What part of the reality of a systemic crisis that will get worse don’t they get?
How is it possible that after near three years of economic turmoil, with possibly hundreds of TRILLIONs down the rabbit hole — not that anyone is counting or apparently can count — that the geniuses who run our economy still don’t “get” that the sh*t has already hit the fan? How many more jobs and homes have to be lost?
Michael Moore is not the only one predicting a second crash. Paul Krugman is all out words excoriating the Administration for its tepidness. Nouriel Roubini, who forecast the first meltdown, now says we are in serious danger of a “double-dip,” a lethal combo of rising inflation and deeper recession.
Woe to us if we can’t see the handwriting on so many walls.
The people in the know know that nothing has been fixed, know that all the stimuli have barely stimulated, that the new jobs bill will never generate the number of jobs that are needed, and that the banks have obscenely been raking in oodles of money thanks to all the financing taxpayers pumped into their coffers.
Even as the Obamaites finally get around to proposing a measure to break up the big banks and erode the notion of financial institutions being too big to fail, we have the New York Times telling us that Congress does not have the “appetite” — that’s the word they use — to tackle even modest financial reforms.
Danny Schechter: Haiti One Month Later
Danny Schechter, director of the forthcoming disinformation® documentary Plunder: The Crime of our Time, dissects the failure of the Haiti relief efforts, which have been slow and sluggish from the start:
Donate to ‘Plunder’ and Receive Credit on the DVD
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Kickstarter campaign for Danny Schechter’s upcoming documentary taking on Wall Street fraud, Plunder: The Crime of Our Time.
With your help, we were able to reach our Kickstarter goal. I’ve been receiving some questions on whether you can still donate, and the answer is a resounding YES!
If you donate $20 or more by February 3rd, you will receive name credit on the “Plunder” DVD and on the film’s website.
So go here to donate, and if you’re still wondering what this is all about, read this.
Wall Street is NOT too big to JAIL.
— Ralph Bernardo, The Disinformation Company
Danny Schechter: Bungled Aid Hurts More Than It Helps
“Knock, knock journalists? Many of you have done a great and compassionate job of documenting this tragedy and showing the pain of the victims. Now let’s investigate how and why this relief operation imploded and became worse than Katrina. Who is responsible and who should be held accountable? Why can?t we have more international cooperation of the kind the Cubans are asking for? Why is the focus on military security–is France right that the US is acting like an occupying power? If the Haitian government isn’t working, why not allow Aristide to come back and re-energize it? It is sickening to watch all this pain compounded by incompetence. The relief operation needs relief and it needs”–Danny Schechter, director of Plunder: The Crime of our Time.
Danny Schechter: U.S. Has Let Haiti Down
Russia Today interviews “news dissector” Danny Schechter, who slams the United States government for its continuing failure to assist Haitians.
DEADLINE TODAY! — Help Fund ‘PLUNDER: The Crime Of Our Time’
DEADLINE COMING
All of us become weary of the incessant pleas for funding. However, I am sick and tired of being “sick and tired” of the Banksters, the funding of their casinos, the ever increasing subjugation to the banks and Wall Street.
Today, and today only, you can help us finish the film PLUNDER, the story of the financial crisis as a crime story but you have to do it by 5 PM EST TODAY (Jan. 20, 2010). You can be a part of this film for as little as $1.00. [Back This Project]
FAQs:
How do I make a pledge?
First, enter your pledge amount and select a reward. On the next page we’ll ask you to log in or sign up with Kickstarter.com, and then we’ll send you to Amazon Payments to complete your pledge with a major credit card.
Danny Schechter: As the Economy Slides, Time to Rein in the Banksters
Here’s Plunder: The Crime of Our Time filmmaker Danny Schechter’s latest article on the Huffington Post. If you’d like to contribute to Danny’s effort to take down these “banksters” check our KickStarter, thanks for your support by your donation and helping to spread the word on this important film.
It’s a new week, a new year, and some, erroneously believe a new decade. What’s not new is the stranglehold the banks have on our economy, quietly stashing billions for more bonuses, while still restricting the flow of credit. Bad loans have been supplanted by no loans.
Writers on the left continue to go after one bankster — the one we love to hate: Goldman Sachs, which has become the poster child for profiteering and even serving bad coffee in their cafeterias. Most ignore the rest of the avaricious industry which is still volatile with big pockets of insolvency and dependence of government bailout funds.
While the media has recently focused on the terror threat posed in Detroit, the terrifying reality in Detroit is generally ignored. The Associated Press reports…
Danny Schechter Dissects Wall Street Fraud: ‘Plunder: The Crime of Our Time’
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.”
– Political economist Frederic Bastiat, The Law (1850)
“I used to think of Wall Street as a financial center.
I now think of it as a crime scene.”
– Filmmaker Danny Schechter, Plunder (2009)
I am an old-fashioned “follow-the-money” journalist. As I’m writing this, most economists have learned to downplay fear and panic and up-play the “resilience” of the market. It’s a belief that all we need is confidence and then, all will be right with the world. Sadly, journalism has gone along with this charade by first denying the crisis and then avoiding investigating its architects and beneficiaries.
Three years ago, by choosing to be an “investigative” journalist, I made the film In Debt We Trust, with the idea in mind that I…
