The Great American Bubble Machine - The Planned Implosion

I usually don't post short videos, but this is important, and I haven't found a longer one yet...
In Rolling Stone Matt Taibbi takes on "the Wall Street Bubble Mafia". Investment bank Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression. "Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it." 10 min.

In Debt We Trust

IN DEBT WE TRUST is the latest film from Danny Schechter. The Emmy-winning former ABC News and CNN producer's new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with "Financialization"--the "powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex." While many Americans are "maxing out" on credit cards, there is a deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands.....with frightening consequences. IN DEBT WE TRUST shows how the mall replaced the factory as America's dominant economic engine and how big banks and credit card companies buy our Congress and drive us into modern serfdom. Americans and our government owe trillions in consumer debt and the national debt, a large amount of it to big banks and billions to Communist China

Catherine Austin Fitts speaks at the IRTA 08 Barter convention

Catherine Austin Fitts is a former Wall St. consultant and Asst. Sec. of HUD under G.H.W. Bush. She presents a unique insiders view of the scale and depth of corrupton of the U.S. financial system. She sees the current financial crisis as the largest transfer of assets in world history: the systematic draining of value from the entire U.S. economy. Her recommndation for our future survival is to create a new form of "financial permaculture" focused on self sustaining communities and local life support. 84 min. Download here.

Market Meltdown: The Bailout, the Economics of Inequality and the Election

With all the nonsense being spouted by politicians and TV news shills about the bailout, I thought this was a rare example of a clear and reasonable examination of the current financial crisis.

Presented by the Institute for Policy Studies Sept. 30, 2008. Featuring:

Barbara Ehrenreich, author of "Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream" and "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America";

Dean Baker, author of "The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer"; and

Jared Bernstein, author of "Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (And Other Unsolved Economic Mysteries)" and "All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy".

A discussion of economic inequality, market instability and the 2008 presidential race. With the meltdown on Wall Street, will the growing polarization of wealth and income become part of the election debate? The last time nequality was this extreme was 1928, on the eve of the Great Depression. What are ways that inequality contributes to economic instability? What practical political program to reverse these inequalities can expect from the Presidential candidates? 51 min.

The Mortage Loan Melt Down

- 44 min - Feb 11, 2008
This Austrailian news program was recorded back in Sept. 2007 and it gives detailed picture of the Subprime Mortage crisis that the U.S. media is only just starting to wake up to now. This program begins to touch on the criminal nature of the subprime scandal. 44 min. Download here.