OT --Movie Inside Job free on line

This award winning documentary will scare the heck out of you. Explains how the same wall street group has run the finances of our country thru the last 30 years, regardless of party in power. If you are still trying to understand how the economy could have gotten so bad, so fast, you need to see this. If the movie is even 50% correct, we need a real change in what we let our leaders do in the name of politics and in order to stay in power.

(quoted from post at 06:00:57 12/27/11) This award winning documentary will scare the heck out of you. Explains how the same wall street group has run the finances of our country thru the last 30 years, regardless of party in power. If you are still trying to understand how the economy could have gotten so bad, so fast, you need to see this. If the movie is even 50% correct, we need a real change in what we let our leaders do in the name of politics and in order to stay in power.

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Problem with documentaries is that the maker can put whatever they want in it with little care or concern if it's true or not. Most of the people making them are trying to push their ideas on you and know that when a person sees the word documentary they just know it's true. Look at some of the stuff that Micheal Moore has done. And that man has a stated political agenda.

RIck

That's the best thing about statistics. You can use them to prove anything you want to.
Had a guy come in to Board of Review last March spouting off about how Public Employee Unions were totally to blame for the ruin of the economy and he could absolutely prove THAT! Wasn't any point arguing with him. He told us that we didn't spend 3 hours a day researching this stuff like he does. He was right. I stopped listening to Sean Hannity after the 04 election.

I used to work in the movie industry. When they make a film about a certain subject. They are not always telling you the truth. I have seen things in films that were completely false. Worked on one about a company here in Texas. When the film came out. The company lost a lot of sales because of what the film said. All lies. I never worked with that group again.

ALOT of Wall Street's problems came with the computer age. In times past they bought and sold actual paper shares of stock. In other words there was an actual object moving back and forth wirth every buy. With the computer age all of those shares became nothing but electrons floating around in the 'ether'. Once that happened, and with several lax regulations, it became way to easy to sell shares that simply did not exist. I read about the practice several years back but can't remember what it was called when they did it. Basically though you could ask to 'borrow' a share from another company to speculate with. If they didn't respond back in time for you to make your sell you could still sell it even though it didn't belong to you. Further because of the same thing being practiced by the company you were borrowing from, the share never existed in the first place. Heck, there was even a special code on the shares indicating that they were actually nonexistant/speculative shares.

In the end all it did was provide an artificial boost to the value of the shares. When that artificial value eventually collapsed it was very instrumental in causing many of our current economic problems. So, does Wall Street 'control everything', probably not, but I think they hold WAY, WAY more control over things than ought to be allowed.

The only aggressive act God did was throw the money traders out of the temple but they're back in more than ever. The latest criminal being John Corzine of M.F.Global who stole two billion of protected client funds and stating that he didn't know where it went.The government is in the bankers pocket.
The PEOPLE are going to have to rise up and get these criminals locked up. Goldman,J.P. Morgan et all.They are sucking the wealth out of the entire world and the people of the greatest country in the world mostly don't have a clue as you can see by these other posts.

Agreed, movie makers can slant the facts, but there are many points in this film that are of value....like securities rating agencies that are paid more to highly rate bonds, and ecomomists that give advice to the government about regulations, at the same time they are under contract to the banks.

Watch it, then let me know if you see it as terribly slanted. I am interested in your assessment.

(quoted from post at 09:50:23 12/27/11) The only aggressive act God did was throw the money traders out of the temple but they're back in more than ever. The latest criminal being John Corzine of M.F.Global who stole two billion of protected client funds and stating that he didn't know where it went.The government is in the bankers pocket.
The PEOPLE are going to have to rise up and get these criminals locked up. Goldman,J.P. Morgan et all.They are sucking the wealth out of the entire world and the people of the greatest country in the world mostly don't have a clue as you can see by these other posts.

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And just how much of the Constitution and Bill of Rights are you suggesting we toss out in this process?

By what right are the people going to rise up? Most of what is going on did not affect the mass, with exception of the 401K plans that I never thought were a good idea in the first place. Lot of the stuff with the home mortgage failures were the buyers fault buying more than they could afford [b:8f8c016781]speculating[/b:8f8c016781] that they would have received raises/promotions of have found a better job before the balloon payments kicked in, plus the fact that many also had to have 2 new cars, a boat and everything else all at the same time. They are investigating and prosecuting outright fraud. So what is this justification for revolution? Just becasue some guy made millions in the markets? That's not justification, that's jealousy!

We have become a society of the blameless. I haven't seem many people who are willing to stand up and say "I lost my home and car because I made bad decisions". No it's the banks fault and Wall Streets fault and whoever else they can blame. I'ts not my fault I'm a criminal, it's societies fault!

Rick

That's all true abouit movie makers....but the Fed needs to be much more accountable. The "audit the Fed" campaign was pretty well squashe by the politico a few years ago. I'm assuming because they don't want anyone digging into past deals.

Without watching it,just let me refer you to a story from the news last night if you think it's all one way. It was a story calling for the investigation of AARP's tax exempt status because of their undo influence on insurance companies and the appearance of how they've profited by supporting healthcare reform.
If you think you can trust ANYBODY in the media,just look at how farming,food production,agriculture in general is covered. All the way from the extreme right,to the mainstream media,to the extreme left. Nobody does any real research before reporting in a slanted opinionated way. And if you think that agriculture is unique in that it's the only topic where no research is done before reporting or giving an opinion,use your head. Those dolts don't look in to anything before they slant the news.

The economy didn't get real bad real fast. It was rotten and ready to come crashing down for at least 15 years. A couple of bubbles let people live on borrowed time and money, but most people knew that couldn't last forever.

Banking is one industry that really does need to be highly regulated. Changes made between 1992 and 1998 by both parties deregulated it way too much.

Sorry. Did not mean to suggest something that might cast a new light on your firmly held beliefs.

Edd nothing crashed here. It's just that I'm real tired of some jerk with a cam making a "documentary" telling me how I should think and claiming to honest and above board when they are lying to get thier political agenda across.

Wanna see our econemy come really crashing down? Let the "people" control Wall Street! How can someone who can't control their own budget control something like Wall Street. Guess what, Wall Street didn't really do this. The mortgage companies did. They wrote the mortgages and then sold them to banks. Thats been going on for years. It's just after several presidents from both parties deregulated lending to the point where welfare was counted as income and not a bar to getting a home loan that it became a ticking time bomb.

If anyone noticed they did in fact pass a bunch of new banking regulations in the last few years.

It's kinda like the making "them pay their fair share thing". When the top 48% of the earners are paying 98% of the income taxes collected, with the top 10% paying about half of that makes me think that they are already paying their fair share.

Long before we go jumping on the socialistic band wagon we should take a long hard look at how that worked in Russia.

Rick

I think we are reaping the "rewards" of 30 years of deregulation of the financial industry. Remember the uptick rule? What about Glass - Stegal, the act that kept banks from playing in the stock market? Everybody "knows" that the Fed is the problem. So why did 95% of all subprime mortgages originate from private mortgage brokers? Remember Enron - their motto was Deregulate!! Deregulate!! Deregulate!! See what that got us. I agree with the poster who says it has been rotten for years, the tech bubble gave way to the real estate bubble. And lets don't forget those ratings agencies - Moody's & Co. They rated all those mortgage bonds as AA+ Why didn't they get held accountable?

While some regulation is needed over regulation isn't good.

As long as the government is going to bail out banks and other companies these companies will take high risks. Pass a law that bars the government from bailing out poorly run companies. The rest will take care of itself. They will stop making high risk moves and while maybe not as profitable in the short run they will be far more stable.

If you take a long hard look at most governmental regulations they don't really hurt the big companies and banks anyway. They hurt the little guy who is going to be reliant on the government for grants and or government backed loans. Plus they can't enforce those regs now, how in the heck are they going to enforce more? Have you noticed that sense the crash all the regs that have been put into effect? And just how many companies have been caught on em?

Countries who have a business friendly atmosphere are in general better shape than countries with too much regulation. When companies can be competitive in the markets and have room to grow they create jobs. When companies can't do those things you get high unemployment and a poor econemy. You can look up the facts on this wonderful thing called the internet!

Rick

Yea, changes to the Community Reinvestment Act and the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act were the ones I was thinking of that deregulated the investment banks and made the subprime fiasco happen.

Oldtanker, On second thought, I think you are right. Please do not watch the DVD. Why confuse yourself with facts, data, timelines, names, places, self incriminations, and logic.
Have a nice day.

No Edd you are not quite getting it. I don't believe any of the hype. Not from the folks making documentaries nor from the left or right. Wanna shut down business? Then really put a lot of regulation on business and markets. You can look up facts on that yourself without having someone present it to you with their twist on it. Name me one country that has had a free market system then imposed stiff regulation that still has a good econemy. You lose investment dollars, stop growth and send jobs else where, just look at what EPA and OSHA regs have done here. Now people want to kill the money tree needed for expansion and growth. Sure there needs to be regulation. But it's got to be reasonable and ENFORCEABLE. We can't enforce 1/10 of our current laws......how the heck are we supposed to enforce even more? If I take a risk with my money and invest it in stock I deserve and expect a return on it. It's called an investment not gambling. I'm not playing the Lotto! Should people running scams and illegal trading be punished? YES! Should businesses that fail to perform be bailed out? NO! Do we need additional regs to do this.....maybe a few years ago but so many have passed in 3 short years that I don't think they have the man power to even keep close tabs.

Tell me how these people who are yelling about taking over Wall Street going to run it when they can't even run their own finances?

Thats the whats great about America. You can invent something and reap the rewards! By dent of hard work you can own something. The guy who developed the AK47 assault rifle for the Russians retired on a US currency $60 a month pension. Bill gates became a billionaire. You can find it time and again where we have had better ideas and have the lead in tech fields because of this. There is no incentive to be creative when there is no reward.

I don't need to watch anything to know that the bankers have far more power in Washington than they should have but expecting the very people they are keeping in power to make changes is a child like dream.

I really wish that they would pass something that would not allow the politicians to spend more than they are taking in but as long as the government keeps borrowing money for day to day operations the bankers are going to have undo power.

MN a few years back had a surplus of cash. Enough to pay off it's debt and to pay for the next years budget up front. The politicians voted to give a tax rebate instead because the bankers couldn't make money lending it to the state.

But thats what the PEOPLE wanted....cash in thier pockets. So much for the people running things.

Rick

Didn't GWB give them free reign.rain.rein.

Pass a law that bars the government from bailing out poorly run companies.

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Who defines "poorly run?"

The government is going to make the law, so the government is going to define "poorly run."

Since so many of the politicians OWN and RUN these poorly run companies, they are going to set the bar so low that their company doesn't qualify as "poorly run." They will ensure that the government will bail them out when the time comes. They are not stupid.

What we end up with is a "feel good" law that's worse than no law at all. Now the politicians can LEGALLY run their companies into the ground and GUARANTEE that the government will come bail them out when they get in trouble.