Moyers: Six Banks Control 60% of Gross National Product -- Is the U.S. at the Mercy of an Unstoppable Oligarchy?Moyers and economists James Kwak and Simon Johnson wonder whether the financial powers are more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever.
April 23, 2010
So even if the Tea Party folks saw the light, what can ordinary Americans do?
That's the question I want to put to my guests, Simon Johnson and James Kwak. They have written this new book, 13 Bankers: The Wall St. Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown. It's a must read - already a best seller -- and it couldn't have come at a better time. This book could change the debate over financial reform by tipping it in favor of the public.
Simon Johnson is a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. He now teaches at MIT's Sloan School of Management and is a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
James Kwak is studying law at Yale Law School - a career he decided to pursue after working as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and co-founding the successful software company, Guidewire. Together James Kwak and Simon Johnson run the indispensable economic website BaselineScenario.com
Welcome to you both.
Let me get to the blunt conclusion you reach in your book. You say that two years after the devastating financial crisis of '08 our country is still at the mercy of an oligarchy that is bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever. Correct?
Simon Johnson: Absolutely correct, Bill. The big banks became stronger as a result of the bailout. That may seem extraordinary, but it's really true. They're turning that increased economic clout into more political power. And they're using that political power to go out and take the same sort of risks that got us into disaster in September 2008.
Bill Moyers: And your definition of oligarchy is?
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http://www.alternet.org/story/146528/moyers%3A_six_banks_control_60%25_of_gross_national_product_--_is_the_u.s._at_the_mercy_of_an_unstoppable_oligarchy