Susan Will, assistant professor of sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a co-editor of the new book How They Got Away With It: White Collar Criminals and the Financial Meltdown, and Saskia Sassen, sociology professor at Columbia University and contributor to the book, discuss what brought about the economic crisis of 2008.
Comments [4]
@Eugenia:
So stipulated.
I just wish we were all a little more alert to deny the "sumptuous life as usual" to the bad actors who arranged and directly intended to profit from these financial frauds. Instead, members of the Bush administration initiated, and members of the Obama Administration completed, policies and disbursements under the banners of "too big to fail" or "too well connected to lose". All programs promoted as being for the greater good.
See and compare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=k3fZc9R8154&feature=endscreen
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/281526-7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyJBZYz858M
It hurts to lose your home.
The only force that can check or limit the greed created by the Ponzi Scheme forces of Finance is the reality of "Failure".
The society's "political" establishment (who were suborned by their personal enrichment to the personal interests of the "financial" establishment) was part of a world view that needed to deny the reality of financial failure and forestall its effects.
An all too wishful portion of the electorate was co-opted into permitting the various "bailouts" (many still on-going) of private and "public" financial institutions.
(BTW: Didn't Goldman Sachs become a "banking" institution just shortly before the terms of the TARP became public? How would your "talismanic" faith in Glass–Steagall prevent that "sting"?)
Until that error is explicitly recognized and repudiated our most severe financial meltdowns and dislocations lie in the future.
[Our second most severe financial dislocation, as well as the beginning of a genuine recovery, may well come the day we make those realizations.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyJBZYz858M
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/281526-7
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/business/sheila-bairs-big-questions-about-bank-bailouts.html?_r=0
This is why science is too important to be for profit. News is too important to be for profit. Elections are too important to be for profit. Medical care is too important to be for profit.
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