Just reading the title of this opinion piece US economics: One big Ponzi scheme made me say 'no shit' under my breath. It comes from Al Jazeera who lately has been putting out first class journalism that puts many Main stream U.S. sources to shame. Author Danny Schechter uses an interview with Bernie Madoff to contrast how the much bigger Wall Street fish were allowed to escape Justice, and continue to plunder the U.S. economy and meddle in government.
US economics: One big Ponzi scheme
While Bernie Madoff languishes in jail, bankers continue to profit as the poor lose their homes and hope.
What is clear is that ripping off the rich is punished far more severely than ripping off the poor. The lengthy sentence you were given spared countless other greedsters and goniffs from facing the music - what music there is.
Schechter recognizes how deficient our U.S. Media is at telling Americans the ugly truths about our financial elites (Banksters)and how our government accords them special treatment with the exception of Matt Taibbi who he quotes; "Financial crooks brought down the world’s economy - but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them,"
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), like the 9/11 and Warren Commissions before it, avoided key issues. The FCIC inquiry did not call for a criminal indictment of wrongdoers. While informative, its report was ultimately a dud - telling us mostly what we knew, although there were some disclosures that our tepid press still missed.
Now the Republicans want to water down the regulations on derivatives in the Dodd-Frank financial 'reform' legislation, claiming they will lead to a loss of jobs. This is predictable: Every effort to defend big business is always couched in terms of helping the public.
Schechter also featured Rep. Stephen Lynch's great quote: "You think regulation is costly? How about the $7trillion we just lost from not regulating the derivatives markets?'"
He continues:
The government supports internet freedom abroad - but restricts it and spies on it at home. Obama has already supported a law allowing him to shut it down here in a national emergency.
The passivity of the public is one result of the inundation by middle-of-the-road media and effective information deprivation.
As Noam Chomsky puts it: "The population in the United States is angry, frustrated and full of fear and irrational hatreds. And the folks not far from you on Wall Street are just doing fine. They're the ones who created the current crisis.They're the ones who were called upon to deal with it. They're coming out stronger and richer than ever. But everything's fine - as long as the population is passive."
Bravo! If only we had more writers and reporters in our main stream media with the clarity and unflinching honesty of Matt Taibbi, and Danny Schechter. Americans wouldn't be so easily mislead into trying to turn the clock backward and dismantle the modest reforms just now being implemented by Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Elizabeth Warren's Battle
The financial services industry and their congressional cronies will continue efforts to thwart Warren and the CFPB every step of the way. Warren will use her bully pulpit, but she will need the people at her back, mobilized, if the agency is to be successful.
That's where we come in. We have to keep up our resistance against Republicans' craven efforts to dismantle financial reforms.