His biggest single campaign contributor was Goldman, Sachs. He’s in their pocket, like just about every other top Washington elected official.
Uncut diamonds. That’s what really crashed the bubble. It all goes back to the Nazis.
This. People have a strong cognitive bias to think that all we need is a hero on a white horse to rescue us. Fact is, institutions are very, very large, every human (and I generously include politicians in that word) is very, very constrained. A politician has about as much ability to change institutions, public or private, as the Unabomber had to change the direction of scientific research. He can have a tiny initial “shock and awe” effect, but the incentives to keep going are too strong and the number of people too great to really change the world.
It’s not too surprising that we overestimate the power of politicians though. Not too long ago we lived in bands of 50-200 hunter-gatherers where a single strong man could make a big difference in policy. The problem only comes when we’re trying to understand modern, huge polities with the same old monkey brain.
Welcome Hobostew.
More and more are waking up to the insidious relationship between Wall Street, Government and the Mega Corporations. These crooks running the show and those in bed with them need to be exposed and brought to justice.
Here are a couple articles that go into more detail behind the insider trading scams and other dastardly deeds committed by these cockroaches.
Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?
Here is one such example from the article as I had posted before on an older thread about a SEC investigator on the trail of insider trading, who was fired to kill the investigation.
There is also a great thread over at The Something Awful Forums
where people share and flesh out a lot of the corruption in detail, which is about 11 pages long.
Another good read from the Rolling Stones
The Great American Bubble MachineFrom tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression – and they’re about to do it again
A person you should really read up on as well is Brooksley Born. She tried to regulate the derivatives in the 90’s well before the financial collapse, because she saw the dangers these instruments posed. She was cut off immediately from doing anything:
This is a highly recommended video worth watching about Brooksley Born and the battle she lost against these monsters.
The warning
Keep in mind also there are 7 financial lobbyists for every congress member in our government. It is well beyond repair and is sold to the highest bidder. Nor does it represent the will of the majority of the people in this country any longer who do not have the power and control that money brings. There should be freedom of choice and equal power for all citizens in electing potential presidents in this country, and that is no longer the case.
Yep, you nailed it.
There is no reform possible to fix it when to do so would be like asking the mafia and those in bed with them via the rotating door to reduce their control and power.
Exactly!
And they play the left / right game to divide the masses as if it makes any difference. Obama is doing the same things Bush was doing, only he is a puppet for Wall Street, while Bush was a puppet for the Mega Corporations.
They use the left right fight to break up the little man, via unions, outsourcing, offshoring, tax breaks etc, not the politicians or the big players at the top. You don’t see any screams to reduce the wages of politicans or the presidential position, nor have they instituted any policies in this global “free market” to give Visa’s to CEO’s overseas that would dilute and reduce CEO compensation which is 100 times higher than anywhere else.
So the next time something goes wrong… how bad do you guys think it will be?
Do you have a cite for that? Not that I don’t believe you, I am just having a hard time googling the info and I would be curious, not just about this company, but who in general his biggest contributors were.
However saying Goldman Sachs was a major contributor may not be fair. I donated some money to Obama, and I work in the chemical industry (barely). However I donated as an individual, and my donation had nothing to do with my workplace.
According to opensecrets the university of california system was his biggest donor, along with Harvard, Google and Microsoft. But that probably just means employees there like him as a candidate, not that the corporations were trying to get him elected to pass legislation favorable to him. I never donated money hoping Obama would benefit the chemical industry.
I have no idea what % is PAC vs individual donations though. I thought obama said he didn’t take PAC money, but I could be wrong.
I saw Inside Job this weekend. You can watch the whole thing here.
I recommend that anyone who does not really understand what caused the Great Recession to watch it, and then watch it again. And even if you think you understand what caused the crisis, you should still watch it. I thought I understood but quickly realized how really wrong I was.
And as you watch, listen to all the names that keep popping up.
If every American watched just half the documentary, Wall Street would be up in the flames right now, and certain congress critters and political appointees would be hanging out of their office windows by their ankles.
I stand corrected, University of California was the top donor. But given that Goldman Sachs was number two with nearly a million bucks, I think my point stands.
Thanks for the link.
I am spreading it around on the net and emailing it to many people.
There was no run on the banks. There was no run on the stock markets. Nearly every sentence in the quote box is factually incorrect.
Thanks for the link. But I’ve a technical problem and will try asking for help here.
When I play this documentary, the sound is too low for me to hear (without putting my ear almost next to the speaker), even though I’ve every volume control I know of set to maximum.
Do others have this problem? Am I overlooking something? Most audio plays fine for me.
It’s very interesting that those with a conservative bent economically haven’t tried to debate in this thread.
I’m sure there’s a non-zero number of conservative politicians, economists, and reasonably intelligent voters who would genuinely (as opposed to doing so because they’re directly in the pocket of someone important) and vehemently disagree with this film… or at least with the suggestions to fight the problems it presents.
The thing is, yeah, Republicans were major culprits. No doubt about it. But our Democratic president has appointed the thieves to watch over the hen house, and we’re supposed to trust that the same shit is not going to happen again? To that I say, WTF. The dems might talk a good game, but they’re all the mix too.
The documentary is great because it explains what happened, who was behind it, and the history leading up to it. And I thought it was pretty fair as far as laying blame.
It has biased me against unregulated free-market capitalism, I know that.
I sometimes have this problem with content from Hulu. Are you on a laptop? You could go get some cheapie computer speakers to amplify your output. That’s what I do.
Thank you, Monstro. I already had the speakers lying around. Now works fine.
Why couldn’t I think of this myself? Have I ever mentioned I want to start a thread Ask the idiot savant (mostly idiot)!. :smack:
ETA: (This still doesn’t explain why the laptop’s own speakers are good enough for most audios.)
The conservative argument I’ve heard is that Barney Frank didn’t want to regulate the banks, and that the government forcing banks to make loans to irresponsible people who couldn’t afford them (dog whistle term for blacks, latinos and single mothers) caused the collapse.
Paul Krugman recently wrote about this, how he felt the collapse would put to rest the concept of deregulation as a universally good idea but how he is surprised that the ideology is back and stronger than ever.
I am curious about that myself. Part of the reason I started this thread was because I wanted to hear their POV (hence my “talk me off the ledge” line).