Watch PBS hour-long Inside the Meltdown on US economic crash

[mouser]

A great 1hr show on PBS (public broadcasting service in the US), about the recent economic panics in the united states.  You can watch the full thing online now.. very informative, and *infuriating*.

On Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008, the astonished leadership of the U.S. Congress was told in a private session by the chairman of the Federal Reserve that the American economy was in grave danger of a complete meltdown within a matter of days.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/view/

[Deozaan]

Thanks for the link mouser. I'm going to have to refrain from commenting in order to avoid getting into politics.

[zridling]

I've got this taped and will watch it later today. Saw a similar program yesterday titled, "House of Cards" on CNBC. The whole damn country was nothing but a Ponzi scheme. No one interviewed took any responsibility (including Greenspan), just blamed it all on human nature. Bullshit!

[attach]

[Deozaan]

The whole damn country was nothing but a Ponzi scheme.

Was? It still is. And it has been for decades! What do you think Social Security is? You pay now with a promise of later returns. Meanwhile all the money immediately goes to pay people who already made their "investment" in Social Security.

[zridling]

Good point, Deozaan; we are playing the same game with future social payment promises. Aren't you glad that we didn't privatize it so that Wall Street could burn through that money in a couple of years!

I watched this FrontLine special today and it wasn't as good as the 'House of Cards' show on CNBC. They did more interviews with guys who were out in the field hocking loans to anyone (which the banks were competing with each other to buy and resell to the nearest chump with the help of the ratings agencies). The problem with watching a channel like CNBC is that they're all stuck in their sophomore year of college. They read Ayn Rand and thought she was brilliant and all gov. is bad. Hank Paulson and Greenspan both, proved Rand and Friedman wrong forever, and their only solution was to send the gov. in time after time, after every bank/investment house failure.

Greed may be part of human nature, but that's why we have to watch each other so that one is not robbing the other blind. Anyone who thinks otherwise, I'd like to introduce you to Bernie Madoff. He'll love you. (And Bernie has lots of friends doing the same scams.)

[OldElmerFudd]

This situation is going to be with us for years. The fixes are still largely a mystery to every agency/government searching for solutions, so expect a lot of mistakes along with successes. I'm fortunate; my house is paid for and still worth a lot more than I paid for it 32 years ago. And, I never took out a loan against it. Work may be slow, but I can live on what I make. I feel very sad for those who have a lot of debt; this is not going to be an easy time for them.

Too many people just looked the other way while this all happened. Now that it's crashing  down around our ears, I hope we have the patience and wisdom to see and learn.

[redstarnyc]

This is a product of a fundamental belief that if you let the rich get rich enough the money will "trickle down" to everyone else.  It hasn't worked anywhere in the world.  Wealth concentration begets wealth concentration, not dispersal.  Its a failed policy that's left the US with the greatest income disparity in the Western world.

As long as we (meaning Americans) judge our success by how the top 5% of our population lives we'll stay in this trap forever.