Bill Moyers: 6 Banks Control 60% of GDP: An Unstoppable Oligarchy?

[amborin]

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?


snip

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

[ShortnFiery]

1. And these ghouls OWN our three branches of government ... they own US. eom

[Hell Hath No Fury]

2. This is one very important article --

Thank you for posting it.

[grasswire]

3. so Joe Biden is going to speak to the ghouls...

...next week and has the opportunity to shake things up.

"Next week, the Hamilton Project, a project of the Brookings Institution founded by Mr. Rubin, will have a big public event. Probably Mr. Rubin's most prominent Washington appearance since the crisis broke. The headline act at this event will be Vice President Joe Biden. Now, maybe Mr. Biden will be taking on the view of finance that we all should fear greatly. But I'm not so optimistic."

And we will be able to tell whether the Obama administration will take on the oligarchy or let it run free, from what Biden does at that meeting.

God bless Bill Moyers.

[ShortnFiery]

5. I seriously doubt that a stern talking-to is going to help mend their evil ways.

[grasswire]

6. he would have to signal a new direction

...(as if that were going to happen in an administration filled with oligarchs.)

[abelenkpe]

4. Great interview

Please watch the entire thing and pass it on. It is must see TV.
We need to break up the banks.

[Richard Steele]

7. K&R