Jaw Dropping Bill Moyers April 3 PBS Interview

This is one riveting interview with William K. Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, talking about the financial crisis and all its ins and outs on how it happened and why it will continue to rot if we don't tackle it legitimately.
Don't miss it:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html

I "knew" most of the information... except for the cover up part and why they don't really want to dig into this mess.

I think he is right, it's because the Wall Street ( and now administration people ) are scared that IF the truth came out, we
would all panic and make things worse. And he is correct is saying that this is the wrong direction.

Also, welcome to DU (if a little belated).

WOW:crazy: :grr: :scared:

it really IS a jaw-dropping piece, tho, alas, not TOTALLY surprising. Why the quaint notion of "national security" doesn't include the necessary notion of protecting the rest of us from the bastards of banking is a mystery to this chile..... Ms Bigmack

eom

"The former Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention now teaches Economics and Law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. During the savings and loan crisis, it was Black who accused then-house speaker Jim Wright and five US Senators, including John Glenn and John McCain, of doing favors for the S&L's in exchange for contributions and other perks. The senators got off with a slap on the wrist, but so enraged was one of those bankers, Charles Keating — after whom the senate's so-called "Keating Five" were named — he sent a memo that read, in part, "get Black — kill him dead." Metaphorically, of course. Of course."

So, after reading that blog by a nobody on DKos, I can only assume the Fatwah against Black is still in effect.

the one area of Black's discussion was not completely accurate. Black believes the Prompt Corrective Action Law (PCA), passed after the Savings and Loans scandal, would apply to all the current Wall Street/banker/insurance firms in trouble.

Also Black indicates he believes the PCA law mentioned above applies to the FDIC (or OCC or Federal Reserve) and their ability to take over any Bank Holding Company.

Well you can excuse Black for taking that interpretation because when congress did away with the separation of banks and Wall Street speculators, any rational human being would then assume that banking laws would apply to banks in all their frankenstein distortions developed since.

So Obama is not breaking the law because the law can be interpreted to mean you can only apply the PCA to banking functions themselves, and not to all the monstrosities created since the repeal of Glass-Steagall Act.

Aside from the interpretation of the PCA, Black is pretty spot on.

In an effort to bypass the laws and regulations that came out of the S&L disaster, the "investment bank" was born. In fact, the banking assets of these giant investment firms should be placed into receivership as the law provides. Note that if receivership is not chosen the provision requires written justification for not placing these institutions into receivership. Even in this case nothing has been provided. Laws are about spirit and intent. The spirit and intent here is obvious. Geithner, Summers and Obama are simply wrong in their current approach. These institutions need to be broken down as provided by the spirit and intent of the anti-trust provisions of our legal framework. There is a reason the constitution address issues of anti-trust. It is to prevent the exact problem we are now facing - an entity more powerful than our government.

Check out last week's interview with William Greider.

I'm glad there are experts with enough courage to use the words "fraud" and "coverup" when discussing the No Banker Left Behind Bailouts.

Maybe those crazy survivalists are right.

Mr. Black has just confirmed and laid out in plain English that what we have here is a purposeful conspiracy to defraud the American public. While he tries to soften the blow with the idea that they are doing this to 'prevent panic' - the real truth of the matter is at this point, it is not to prevent panic, but to prevent many of the participants in the fraud from being ventilated. TPTB are 'scared to death' of something alright, but they are less scared of collapse than of people wanting their heads on platters and pikes.

Just think, this concept was considered tinfoil just a few months ago. Anyone who doubts the conspiracy between government and the banking elite is, at this point, refusing to see fact.