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Bill Moyers interviewing Kevin Black: How did the banks get away with it?
By Prieur du Plessis, on April 6th, 2009 posted in: Economy, Investment, Markets, Money 12 people had their say - chime in!
The financial industry brought the economy to its knees, but how did they get away with it? With the nation wondering how to hold the bankers accountable, Bill Moyers sits down with William Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Black offers his analysis of what went wrong and his critique of the bailout.
This is a must-see interview!
Source: PBS (via YouTube), April 3, 2009.
12 comments to Bill Moyers interviewing Kevin Black: How did the banks get away with it?
How can you feature that tripe? Moyers was bubbling over with delight in hitting Wall Street and the author is just trying to sell books. Wall Street has some blame – so does government, the Fed, the rating agencies, some home purchasers, etc. It is a complicated situation. I think your audience is a bit more knowledgeable to be afforded any info from that interview.
HE SOUNDS LIKE AN HONEST MAN TO ME. HE OFFERS HOPE TO MY SAD COUNTRY.
I saw the show on PBS and thought it was an honest appraisal of how we got into this mess.
Have to agree with Greg. There are many logical inconsistencies in Black’s “analysis”, but worse, this is much more focused on pointing fingers than it is about any real understanding of what happened. Sensationalism should be beyond what you post here. Would appreciate well-reasoned, logical information presented by someone with basic knowledge of what the roles of CEO’s, rating agencies, regulations and regulators, Congress, quants, and the public actually were.
Nice summary, little new information (for me) that wasn’t published elsewhere.
I had a couple of door to door salespeople trying to hit me up for a NINJA loan.
Taxpayer funded banking fraud has happened before, many time, and will happen again, many times. I’ve two years until an early retirement, then I’m switching to the banking industry where I’ll get my bonuses and move somewhere safe.
Thank you so much for this exposé. To say I am disgruntled, sickened, by the fraud perpetrated on the American people, and the world, by these banksters, doesn´t begin to capture the outrage I feel.
Mr Black is spot on. Will the Obama administration act? Unlikely, since the wolf is guarding the hen house.
The quickness of the recovery is imperiled by the lack of action against the delinquents who caused the problems. It is a sad day for capitalism, and a triumph for those who would bring it down.
This is clearly a Democrat interviewing a Democrat, giving no credit to the Bush administration for its efforts to crack down on all of this. He ignores what happened to Franklin Raines in his “leadership” of Fannie Mae. He ignores the “leadership” of Barnie Frank and Chris Dodd, the Community Reinvestment Act, and Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac in ginning up all of this financial crap, which was then fed into the financial system to pollute it as it had never been polluted before. The banks were pressured to increase their loans to those who could not afford “affordable housing”. The problem began in Congress, but Congress has escaped blame by focusing attention on the aftermath of its own actions.
I saw the show and felt that there were facts and insights provided that were new to me. I don’t believe that a subject this complicated, spanning such a long time; and involving so many people can be told without the cries of bias being heard. It reminds me of the Kennedy assassination.
Any “logical” explanation will be based on a set of “facts” that would be disputed. We need all the points of view that we can get to draw our own conclusions. Moyers regularly provides that type of input; so don’t shoot the messenger.
Entertaining, but not very even handed. It’s fun and easy to focus on a few evil bankers, but the reality is much more complex. In fact, we were all drinking the same kool-aid, from the giddy homeowner taking out an equity loan for a vacation to the real estate appraiser taking fees for inflated appraisals.
I do appreciate Black’s bi-partisan bashing of the current and prior Secretaries of the Treasury. . . . Surely the USA can do better!
Someone should write a book or article about the “United States of Goldman Sachs.” If you want one single bad actor to focus on, back to Robert Rubin and his progeny, that is where I would start.
If you want to get the perpetrators who dictated the frauds which were executed by many pawns and underlings, why no mention of Bonny Fwank, Chris Doddered (Crook and son of Tom Doddered, also Crook), Dingy Harry Reid, San Fran Nan, Frankie Raines, and dozens and dozens of other apparent socialist crooks who dictated that every deadbeat jerk was ENTITLED to own a home OR ELSE and no matter what?
And if Madoff is a “piker” Ponzi schemer compared to the bankster, banking collapse crooks, then why are the bankster crooks not pikers compared to the ultimate ponzi scheme of all time anywhere: Social Security, Medicare and Medicade, the great intergenerational Ponzi scheme where everyone, with great pride and whithout mercy or shame, steals from their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren?
These clips are two hardly honest liberal bumpkins holding a nonsensical, sanctimonious chat.
You may be aware that Bill Moyers is extremely left of centre and his interview is biased to say the very least. So the interview where everyone except the liberals are blamed is outrageous.
This, let me emphasize, under Clinton. You don’t here this from the (in my opinion) biased Mr Moyers or the leftish Mr Black. You only hear about bankers and greed.
And worse: Barney Frank who is openly gay was living with a senior official in Fannie Mae for heaven’s sake. Now as far has Fwank’s gayness is concerned good luck to him, but really talk about a conflict of interest when your lover is a senior person in the institution your are charged with regulating.
On these matters, of course, Moyers and Black are silent.