Humpty Dumpty and all the King's Men

Regulation of the markets? Oh, Lordy, no! The machine must roll on unimpeded and, if there's a problem, it's the fault of everyone but C-Street, er... I mean Wall Street

Mr. Paulson spelled out in step-by-step detail the strategy of “doing God’s work,” as his Goldman Sachs colleague Larry Blankfein sanctimoniously explained Adam Smith’s invisible hand.

[...]

As Mr. Obama’s chief of staff Emanuel Rahm put it, a crisis is too good a thing to waste. It’s a con man’s old trick to pressure the victim to make a decision fast. Having created the crisis, Wall Street wants to use its momentum to knock out any potential checks to its power. “No systemic risk regulator, no matter how powerful, can be relied on to see everything and prevent future problems,” Mr. Paulson explained. “That’s why our regulatory system must reinforce the responsibility of lenders, investors, borrowers and all market participants to analyze risk and make informed decisions,” In other words, blame the victims! The way to protect victims of predatory bank lending (and crooked sales of junk securities) is not new regulations but just the opposite: “to simplify the patchwork quilt of regulatory agencies and improve transparency so that consumers and investors can punish excesses through their own informed investing decisions.” Simplification means the Fed, not a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

www.globalresearch.ca...

Once again it proves that 'Change' is just another meaningless word for talking points.

How much longer before Brooksley Born's warnings are listened to?



A fairly bad vid, but educational:



Ron Paul's view:



PBS's important show, The Warning:



View the entire show here

The push-back against market regulation persists, regardless of the new administration in Washington.

Now, with many of the same men who shut down Born in key positions in the Obama administration, The Warning reveals the complicated politics that led to this crisis and what it may say about current attempts to prevent the next one.

"It'll happen again if we don't take the appropriate steps," Born warns. "There will be significant financial downturns and disasters attributed to this regulatory gap over and over until we learn from experience."

www.pbs.org...

[edit on 18/2/10 by masqua]

Forgive the ignorance. I can't watch your videos right now, but have bookmarked it for later perusal.

I've often thought that the capitalist market will only work if its similar to natural selection.....the weak die off, the strong adapt.

But I don't know much about the economic balancing, so I'm trying to find out more info. Thanks for the post!

This is like taking a habitual drunk driver who, after several wrecks, we reimburse for all the damages he;s done and give him a brand new car. As a caveat we add, "don;t do it again".
Removal of regulation is where this problem began. To ask the banks to regulate themselves is preposterous, particularly since they have been restored thanks to taxpayer largesse.
Is it possible they WANT to rub this in our faces? Just to see how mad we'll get? Are they trying to provoke people into violence? I have to wonder because this was THEFT the first time and will be when it happens again.
Dysfunctional by design is all I can think of so that fat cat bankers can squeeze every dollar of profits out possible even if it means acting in illegal and immoral ways.
If Congress won't stand up and end this chicanery then the people will have no recourse to protect themselves but to overthrow the very government that enables this to continue. If we don't we will nothing left that we have worked for our entire lives and the ultra-rich will have exchanged their dollars for something of value before they implode our financial system leaving US holding a very bad smelling bag of you-know-what. PUT THEIR FEET TO THE FIRE. NOW. and keep it there.

Originally posted by smyleegrl
I've often thought that the capitalist market will only work if its similar to natural selection.....the weak die off, the strong adapt.

That was the premise Alan Greenspan held... that the markets would regulate themselves. The fault in that thinking was the tendency towards secrecy, complicated and confusing contracts and a free-for-all attitude much like what was behind the Enron scandal.

No oversight meant that Ponzi schemes and other scams of that nature could operate without fear. In fact, Alan Greenspan stated that he wasn't concerned about such things. Watching the PBS video (about an hour long) will focus on the Greenspan Ideology and his ultimate admittance that he was wrong.

The fault in that thinking was the tendency towards secrecy, complicated and confusing contracts and a free-for-all attitude much like what was behind the Enron scandal.

reply to post by masqua


Thank you. That does make sense, can't wait to watch the video.