Inside Job

[poliphilo]

I watched this yesterday. It explains the ongoing collapse of western civilisation, names the guilty- and points out that most of them are still in positions of power and influence (running the Obama administration for instance).

Comments

[veronikos.livejournal.com]

One of the biggest idiots in this mess was the US Massachusetts Democratic Senator, Barney Frank. A blundering, vice-ridden man (in whose personal company I have twice been) whose banking legislation paved the way for banks to lend money to people who could not afford the loans. Hence the housing crisis. Hence the bundled sale of toxic securities to various financial institutions, the collapse of investment houses and banks and so on.

I am sure the Democratic party thought it was "helping" people...but to give people access to resources and tools that they cannot handle is harming them, not helping them. This, as you probably know from reading my LJ, is what I consider to be the referent in "...lest one good custom corrupt the world".

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I watched it last night too and you could see blame everywhere - the politicians, the regulators and the senior bankers. However only one of those groups got personally rich from their failings. One of the issues was the lack of transparency in these financial instruments, and a massive helping of emperor's new clothes with every bank thinking that if the other guys were taking on subprime debt, then it must be ok, beause they are clever guys, so we would be mad to miss the opportunity to do the same.

Who can get us out of the mess? Well, Christine Lagarde and Dominique Strauss-Kahn came out of the programme looking cool, and maybe economists such as Ken Rogoff and Joe Stiglitz - and that charming beardie guy in the crumpled shirt from Greenlining.

Laura Tyson was the Dean of London Business School when I was there. Tainted!

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

Alas, I cannot watch from here.

However your question puts me in mind of a bit of dialogue from Blackadder Goes Forth: "But the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort not to have a war."

The last three times (wait, it's way more than three, now I think about it,) any major world power has stood in these particular tracks, either revolution, or a world war has followed after.

Maybe an untoward asteroid or pandemic will provide a wakeup call before we get round to sharpening the sticks this time...