October, 2008 will be long remembered for the bank bailouts. Exactly one year later, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Bill Moyer’s talked in this interview with 14-term Representative Mary Kaptur, the longest-serving Democratic woman in the history of the House and outspoken financial watchdog on three important Congressional Committees: Appropriations, Budget and Oversight and Government Reform, along with Simon Johnson, former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund and professor of Global Economics and Management at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management.
The subject: The lack of economic progress since the bailouts, the pending housing foreclosures with the banksters ignoring individual homeowners’ problems, and the fact that these same banksters are getting away with it at taxpayer expense. Still! And this interview was two years ago; it’s even more relevant today! Nothing’s changed, except that the problem appears to be getting worse, not better.
PBS Journalist Moyers interviews Representative Kaptur and Economist Johnson on the economic crisis.
Did this interview happen just yesterday? These bleak predictions for recovery and the helplessness to find remedy for individual homeowners from the banks is still pervasive three years later! The behavior of Treasury Secretary Geithner, ignoring Members of Congress while sullying up to powerful Wall Street executives from Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs is shocking.
Notice the frustration expressed during this interview by the guests as they describe the Secretary’s former relationships with these same individuals when the head of the New York Fed. Now these same people are getting the ear of the federal government’s top economic decision-maker. Johnson acknowledges the ramifications, alluding to “next time.”. Representative Kaptur says, “That says to me that Wall Street and Washington is a circuit. . . . That gives them special access and special power to influence policy.”
What can we do about it? Here are a few suggestions:
1st. Watch this video: Click Here to understand the big picture,
if you haven”t already.
2nd. Share this video with your social networks and email lists.
3rd. Also bookmark and share Simon Johnson’s website, Click Here to help you and others stay current on what is going on during this worldwide economic and financial crisis.
4th. Join Tools for Justice as a free member and a paid subscriber to have access to the document library and the coming criminal complaints that will bring down the corrupt banks in short order. Keep building the army of legal activists!