Juggling Dynamite

Painful but excellent article by documentary film maker Charles Ferguson. Sadly he is dead-on in his criticism of Obama. Very disappointing to all of us who dared to believe there was still hope for change. Ferguson holds a B.A. in mathematics from U.C. Berkeley, a Ph.D. In political science from MIT, and is the author of four books on various policy issues. “Inside Job” is his second film; his first, “No End in Sight,” analyzed the occupation of Iraq and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2008.

“When I first decided to make a documentary about the financial crisis, in late 2008, my biggest question was how to handle Barack Obama. Alas, the answer rapidly became all too clear, as my film “Inside Job” shows in painful detail.
When Barack Obama was elected, he had an unprecedented opportunity to shape American history by bringing the country's new financial oligarchy under control. Elected on a platform of change and renewal by a nation in crisis and with strong majorities in both houses of Congress, his election celebrated throughout the world, Obama could have done great things. Instead, he gave us more of the same. America will be paying for his decision for a very long time…”

Read the whole article here.

In his new documentary Inside Job, filmmaker Charles Ferguson spoke to some of the biggest names from Wall Street to Washington to academia to get a first hand account of what caused the 2008 financial meltdown and how the financial system reached its breaking point.
Ferguson points to 20 years of deregulation, rampant greed (a la Gordon Gekko) and cronyism. This cronyism is in large part due to a revolving door between not only Wall Street and Washington, but also the incestuous relationship between Wall Street, Washington and academia.
The conflicts of interest that arise when academics take on roles outside of education are largely unspoken, but a very big problem…

When independent thinkers and professionals are privately bought to endorse a sales message, the integrity of the system fails.

“Home prices are declining a little bit,” Shiller says. “It's a worry that the support we've seen [via the tax credit] is not continuing and we're going to resume the downtrend.”
In his estimation, we are stuck in a liquidity trap: Despite rock bottom interest rates, people are still not spending because they are concerned about the future.
Shiller says it is definitely not the time to be bullish on real estate, “I think it is a risky bet. If we have more stress, if house prices continue to go down, as they've started to do just a little smidgen…if they go down another 5% that is going to put a lot of stress on financial institutions.”