"Finance took over and more or less wrecked the place."

[Brigid]

Last edited Wed Aug 14, 2013, 01:03 AM - Edit history (1)

--Gylfi Zoega, Professor of Economics, the University of Iceland, on how the financial crisis of a few years ago played out in his country, in an interview for the movie "Inside Job"

At least the banksters there went to jail. Not here. And now, Larry Summers, who figured prominently in the film, is even being considered for Chairman of the Federal Reserve?

There was a time when, after the Depression, regulation of the financial sector meant that U.S.had 40 years without a single financial crisis. Banks were essentially local businesses, forbidden to speculate with depositors' money. Investment banks were small partnerships. Bond traders sometimes took second jobs to make ends meet. Then, in the '80's, deregulation began -- and the rest is history. But that history still doesn't include anybody going to jail.

[gopiscrap]

1. Greedy fuckers!!!!

[Brigid]

2. Private jets, fancy cars, yachts, penthouses, drugs, call girls, strip clubs . . .

You get the idea. Don't watch this movie without checking your blood pressure meds first.

[raging moderate]

3. We need to take their illicit power, but gently.

They really don't seem to know what they are doing. Everything they say is based on delusion. But they are doing evil, and they must be stopped from doing evil. It is difficult for them to understand what other people are feeling, and they are afraid of it. And they know only one response to fear, and that is to fight. They are afraid of other people, because other people seem so strange to them, impenetrable, incomprehensible, uncontrollable. They know only up and down, and they believe a person is either a winner or a loser. If we don't want them to be the winners, it must be because we want to be the winners ourselves and turn them into the losers. It is a little like that scene from the Council, the Lord of the Rings, in which one of the wise ones (Gandalf?) says, of Sauron, something like this: "He will imagine that we must all be plotting against each other to get hold of the ring of power and become the supreme powerful one. That we might all wish for none of us to reign supreme is a thought that does not occur to him." It is rigid thinking that causes pain to other people, and also to them. You can see it in their faces, angry and vengeful, although they imagine we are causing the pain by opposing them. They are missing so much happiness that comes from sharing, from helping, from enjoying all the myriad dappled permutations of spontaneous experience. Empathy brings so much comfort and happiness to those who practice it.

[Brigid]

4. They have thousands of lobbyists on their side,

And pour billions into campaign contributions to fight efforts to reform the financial sector. It's long past time to get tough.

[avaistheone1]

5. We reward crooks in this country.

However you have to be a big crook like Larry Summers in order to be rewarded.

Crime pays in this country but it has to be really big crime like on the scale of the Wall Street/banking scandals.

Little guys still go to the slamer though. There is no shred of justice anymore.

[newfie11]

6. Corruption rules in politics

An no jail for the political favorites.