Watching the Frontline melt down program. Oh My God

[NRaleighLiberal]

This is simply unspeakable. One thing for sure - the obstructionist Republicans sure have big balls. They pretty much drove the big truck right off of the cliff. And still they obstruct.

This is a very important show to watch. See the greed. See the corruption. See the complete and utter contempt that the Bush administration and the very rich, in general, have for the vast majority of the people in this country.

Anyone else think that we are in for a very, very rocky, paradigm-shifting ride whose end will be very, very depressing and sobering for a shit load of people???

[Bolo Boffin]

1. Got it on the DVR. Looking forward to watching it.

I guess....

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. Be sure you are armed with something good and strong to imbibe.

[Bolo Boffin]

12. My job is captioning live television. One of our accounts is Bloomberg.

I might not learn anything I don't know, but it's going to be a shock seeing it put all together, I'm sure.

[snappyturtle]

3. WOW! Can't wait....doesn't come on here 'til nine cst. Unfortunately,

the ones who should watch, won't.

[Pavulon]

4. Similar to documentary on chernobyl

cascading chain of events.

[Atman]

5. The only trouble is, LOTS of us were screaming about this years ago...

...and the most important people NOT listening were in the media. THE MEDIA. Once considered the Fourth Estate, now forever compromised as lackeys to the corporatocracy. No one would question anything which might harm their parent company's bottom line.

While we talk about economic stimuli and "change," I'd like to see one fundamental change in our system. I'd like to see giant media companies split up, so that giant defense contractors who directly profit from ongoing war are not also allowed to own the media outlets through which they promote the same fucking wars!

But that's just me. I'm crazy that way.

.

[NRaleighLiberal]

6. big second to your idea. The media is poison...and a huge enabler of the problem.

I only find out about it here, since we've got nothing but basic cable and watch very very little TV anyway...

[ellie]

7. It is even more depressing

than it was watching it in real-time. Regulate these assholes.

[Captain Hilts]

8. Just watched it. When do we put the US Dept. of Treas. logo on Man U's jersies instead of AIG?

[BeatleBoot]

9. I golfed last fall with my friend

who is a licensed stock broker for a national bank.

He's not on Wall Street or anything, just works locally as an investment guy, MBA yadda, yadda, yadda.

I asked him before teeing off (at our annual high school alumni outing)what the hell just happened on Wall Street.

And he told me that after speaking to one of his firm's economists that he almost shit his pants.

If the bailout hadn't have happened, everything would have frozen up - not just banks not loaning to each other, but even credit cards for consumers, et cetera too.

I believed him because I've known him and his family since I was like 3 years old. Our families have been friends for decades.

This PBS program basically brought into focus everything he told me that crisp fall day on the links.

I've told this story, at the time, here on DU and got chastised for it.

But back then the freaks were in full force stating it was all fake and that everything was alright.

It's going to be messed up for a decade.

[girl gone mad]

14. No one claimed the crisis was fake. TARP, however, was a scam.

The bailout didn't happen. Paulson didn't do what he said he would do with the money. He didn't even do anything with the money for weeks.

How you can get from this documentary that TARP was the right solution is beyond me.

[stillcool]

18. the TARP money was taking advantage...

of a situation, which everyone could have predicted would happen. That doesn't mean it wasn't necessary at the time. I'd love to see a comparison on how different countries handled the crisis.

[closeupready]

21. On 9/16, Paulson and Bernanke said the economy would vanish over the weekend,

according to Frontline, without a bailout. Well, as we know, a bailout didn't happen and neither did the economy vanish. And then they voted on a bailout, it was turned down, and guess what the economy didn't vanish. So what can I say. Sorry if I don't believe Paulson or Geithner or people on Wall Street with vested interests in protecting their lucrative careers in finance.

[Roland99]

10. It was a rather high-level summary. Not much detail on the creation of CDSs, SIVs, etc.

But a good summary of last year's events.

[Ichingcarpenter]

23. Yeah, I'm still watching it on line and think it so far has

has been pretty tame and was not a hard hitting documentary of the greed and real facts
of wallstreet meltdown. It was OK.....for general consumption.



Paulsen bailed out investors
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/opinion/10krugman.html

[Kingofalldems]

11. But wait, freepers and a few mole freepers on DU

claim Barney Frank responsible for meltdown. Frontline must be commie propaganda. :sarcasm:

[progressoid]

17. Well duh, it's PBS.

:sarcasm:

[Bluebear]

13. Now watch this drive!

[Oilwellian]

15. Did you notice in the beginning...

when Bear Sterns approached Geitner at the NY Federal Reserve and asked for emergency bailout help, they said Geitner went armed with a team that studied their books overnight and discovered the toxic debt they owed. Over fucking night. WHO audited these people and WHY wasn't that discovered long ago?

[Ichingcarpenter]

16. I started tracking Fed added in temporary reserves to the banking system-2007

I knew something was wrong then........
and so did others, the link I gave shows 275 listings
and you are looking at page 275. They act like this started in the fall of 2008


http://search.us.reuters.com/query/?q=Fed+added++in+temporary+reserves+to+the+banking+system+&st=260&s=US


CORRECTED - UPDATE 1-Fed adds reserves via 2-day repurchases
... Federal Reserve on Monday said that it added $5.25 billion in temporary reserves to the banking system through two-day repurchase agreements. Fed funds traded ...
May 14, 2007

Fed adds reserves via 2-day repurchases
... Federal Reserve on Monday said that it added $5.75 billion in temporary reserves to the banking system through two-day repurchase agreements. Fed funds traded ...
May 14, 2007

Fed adds reserves via $9.5 bln overnight repos
... Reserve on Tuesday said that it added temporary reserves to the banking system through $9.5 billion in overnight repurchase agreements. Fed funds traded at ...
Apr 03, 2007

[Ichingcarpenter]

19. Well, so far its generally a whitewash on what really was going on.

Still interesting from the CNBC crowd point of view. I haven't heard anything
revealing. I've read a hell of a lot more that tells the real story.

[Gin]

20. Paulson was at GS during the years they were making these bad investments...

then he gets a cabinet position....wasn't he part of those decisions GS was making that drove the company into the ground?

[closeupready]

22. Actually, GS got out of these products - they did a little bit of it

but then decided they were too risky.

[Danascot]

24. For those who didn't see it

It's being rebroadcast locally on PBS cable stations at odd times over the next couple of days. You might check your schedule..

It's also available for viewing online:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/

[bertman]

25. Seemed to me they tried to make Paulson look like the fall guy when he was in on the

feeding frenzy just like the rest of those sharks.

At one point, a narrator says something like "this was something no one could have predicted", referring to the meltdown of those big firms due to their bad debt. What a crock of shit!! Lots of people were saying it was coming, but the big money Republicans and Democrats were so busy filling their coffers with loot they couldn't bother with regulating the financial industry.

Poor free-market capitalist Hank Paulson had to be exposed for the shameless, rich, motherfucking thief that he is.

All those bastards should be lined up and shot for what they did to this country and a lot of other countries.

Oh, by the way, how many of them have offered to give any of their ill-gotten luchre back to help pay off this crushing national debt?? Right. Not one. And they are all multi-multi millionairres and some are worth billions.

This was an accurate timeline but a pitiful explanation of how this all went down.