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Inside Job (New 14 Oct 2010)

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Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

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I read the following article this morning and thought "I'm not the only one who is concerned about the skewed distribution of wealth in America.  The movie "Inside Story" apparently digs into the details of what's been going on in this county since the Regan administration under both Republicans and Democrats, and it's not pretty.

The following quote from the article below pretty well sums up the story told in the movie.

"I’m not one to advance class war­fare, and most Amer­i­cans still want a mar­ket sys­tem that leaves open the pos­si­bil­ity that they, too, can work hard and achieve wealth. But it’s clear from (the movie) Inside Job that the game has been rigged so that only a few were in posi­tions to get rich at the expense of the mid­dle class."

If you get to see the movie, consider how different the results would have been if all of the participants has practiced the golden rule and treated their fellow man as they would want to be treated. 

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Film bites back at economy’s bad actors

Oct. 14, 2010, Kathleen Parker

Published on October 13, 2010 in Columns, Economy and Kathleen Parker. 1 Comment Tags: 20101014-littlepromo3, Economy, wall street.

Kath­leen Parker

NEW YORK — If you haven’t been hum­ming tunes from Les Mis­er­ables, you haven’t seen (the movie) Inside Job, the new doc­u­men­tary about how our eco­nomic cri­sis evolved.

The most for­giv­ing Amer­i­can will want to seize a pitch­fork and march on Wall Street. Or Har­vard Square. Or in front of the White House. There are so many despi­ca­ble par­ties, it’s hard to pick a favorite. Is it time to recon­sider the Axis of Evil?

The film, writ­ten and directed by Charles Fer­gu­son, will be open­ing in select cities this week. Although much of the story is famil­iar, Fer­gu­son man­ages to weave decades of bits and pieces into a dra­matic nar­ra­tive that plays like a who­dunit. Names have faces, and sto­ry­telling com­bined with graphic illus­tra­tions helps explain the com­plex series of events that led to the global meltdown.

Here are a few takeaways:

One, try­ing to assign blame to either Democ­rats or Repub­li­cans is point­less. Every­one is cul­pa­ble. From the early 1980s when Ronald Rea­gan dereg­u­lated banks, through the two Bushes, Clin­ton and now Obama, each admin­is­tra­tion has endorsed — and each Con­gress has helped tweak — laws and rules that made sys­temic abuses and the melt­down not only pos­si­ble but, look­ing back, inevitable.

Two, many invest­ment bankers knew the mort­gage loans they were pack­ag­ing and sell­ing were junk. They knew because their own ana­lysts told them so. Not only that, Wall Street insid­ers were bet­ting against their own customers.

From lend­ing insti­tu­tions to fed­eral reg­u­la­tors to con­gres­sional over­seers, those charged with pro­tect­ing con­sumers averted their eyes.

Three, the cozy rela­tion­ship between Wall Street and Ivy League acad­e­mia, wherein econ­o­mists push poli­cies that ben­e­fit them finan­cially, is eye-opening.

In other instances, we see that the same peo­ple who cre­ated poli­cies that ulti­mately led to these abuses are still run­ning the show. This is not to say that what ben­e­fits Wall Street nec­es­sar­ily hurts aver­age Amer­i­cans or that all bankers are cor­rupt, but the sys­tem clearly enabled the abuses that have led to cur­rent circumstances.

When the big banks failed, of course, tax­pay­ers were left hold­ing the bag. Even though there was wide con­sen­sus that the bailouts were nec­es­sary to get credit mov­ing again, there is sim­ply no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the bonuses and golden para­chutes that went to the very peo­ple who drove their insti­tu­tions — and us — off a cliff.

Although most of what the movie high­lights is famil­iar, there’s some­thing jar­ring about see­ing the cul­prits up close in all their taxpayer-subsidized, sun­tanned splen­dor — their mul­ti­ple estates and pri­vate jets jux­ta­posed against shut­tered homes and unem­ployed Amer­i­cans liv­ing in tents. Obscene is the word that comes to mind.

I’m not one to advance class war­fare, and most Amer­i­cans still want a mar­ket sys­tem that leaves open the pos­si­bil­ity that they, too, can work hard and achieve wealth. But it’s clear from (the movie) Inside Job that the game has been rigged so that only a few were in posi­tions to get rich at the expense of the mid­dle class.

Any­one who sees this movie will be furi­ous. Thus, the only remain­ing ques­tion is why some of these peo­ple aren’t being pros­e­cuted on charges of fraud or at least shirk­ing fidu­ciary duty.

It would seem as never before that the White House should hire a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor. Ferguson’s movie, which the pres­i­dent and his team had best watch — and soon — could use a sequel:
The Perp Walk.

Kath­leen Parker’s e-mail address is kathleenparker@washpost.com.