Michael Moore asks Wall Streeters for their tales for new film
By John Amato Thursday Feb 12, 2009 6:00pmMichael Moore sets his sights on Wall Street.
I am in the middle of shooting my next movie and I am looking for a few brave people who work on Wall Street or in the financial industry to come forward and share with me what they know. Based on those who have already contacted me, I believe there are a number of you who know "the real deal" about the abuses that have been happening. You have information that the American people need to hear. I am humbly asking you for a moment of courage, to be a hero and help me expose the biggest swindle in American history.
All correspondence with me will be kept confidential. Your identity will be protected and you will decide to what extent you wish to participate in telling the greatest crime story ever told.
If you have any info that would help, please contact me at my private email address: bailout@michaelmoore.com.
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James Galbraith goes so far as to say there is fraud afoot.
That seems like something we already knew but it is important to hear an economist of his stature use the word. It has a much greater ring to it when he says it than when for example someone like me says it.
I have been saying it all along but that is just 'lil ole me.
When Michael Moore says it as I suspect he will, that will automatically set wingnut heads exploding.
are real money. Let's go ahead and get them out in the market.
These are the people that historically have: crucified Jesus, burned witches, believed the earth was flat, believed that the sun revolved around the earth, etc.
In other words, conservatives. You know, those people who think the old fashioned way is always best, and don't like "progress."
is there a link to Mr Galbraith's opinion about this?
Wingnut heads exploding -- good name for a band.
From my last comment here.
Does the Treasury plan on doing a meticulous audit of the bailed out banks?
Because, if not, we are being flim flammed.
Amy Goodman with James Galbraith.
Here is economist James Galbraith: Bailed-Out Banks Should Be Declared Insolvent
Here is economist Joseph Stiglitz: part of Wall Street's strategy is the make sure we lose. 'The Banks are insolvent'.
Here is Nouriel Roubini: 'The Banks are insolvent'.
There is more…
as always.
No problem.
Just give me first option on the band name;
Wingnut Heads Exploding
I can see it all now.
Put me down for 1 copy. Provided it's reasonably priced.
And let me know when WHE has its live debut. I want to be in the front row.
#1 fan,
W
/no, i don't care what kind of music
Ladies and Gentlemen.... Lets hear it for Toe Tappers For Baby Jesus
doesn't have a very high opinion of his fellow economists, including Paul Krugman. LOL. But he sure seems to know his stuff!
How the Economists Got It Wrong
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=h...
Old article, but man, he is magic with his explanations in layman's terms.
Thanks for the heads up Alice! I've never read any of his opinions until now. Seems if you want to hear economists views on anything economical, you have to find them yourself.
He is great.
His thinking and explanations are crystal clear.
I have been waiting for 'Predator State' to come back into the Library. I can't afford to actually buy books.
for the heads up. I now have to get this book myself. It's been very hard finding any books by economists that don't look like they all copy and pasted the exact same lines.
Alice X. Chomsky
David Cay Johnstone is another economist whose enlightened views are seen almost exclusively only on Democracy Now!. His book Free Lunch exposes the greed and corruption that is so rampant in 21st century America.
I have paid attention to him, he is very good. That is another book I want to get from the Library, if their still in business.
How about SCREWING WINGNUTS, with an overlap of the "wing" so it appears to run into one word, with "the" in a very tiny font tucked into one of the letters? I would choose a fairly spiky font with metallic treatment. Edgy.
Since the SEC was intentionally staffed with people who weren't interested, and had no intention of keeping Wallstreet honest, we'll never know whether there was any fraud or not. That was probably the most remarkable achievement of the Bush Administration. They didn't believe in regulating industry (financial or otherwise), but rather than be honest about it, and get rid of the regulations and the regulating agencies, they just staffed the regulating agencies (SEC, FDA, EPA, DOJ) with people who had no intention of enforcing the regulations. So, if you cite deregulation as the problem that got us into this mess, a Republican will always say "what examples of deregulation can you cite for the Bush Administration. There were PLENTY of regulations there, so deregulation couldn't have been the problem." But what we actually had was STEALTH deregulation. Regulations were there, but nobody in the administration ever enforced them.
About Moore's new Wallstreet movie. I don't know how many of you remember his old TV show from the late 1990s called The Awful Truth, but it was great. And in one episode he brought the Wallstreet attitude of "soaking the poor" to life by rounding up a bunch of poor people in New York, and putting them above a DUNK TANK, and having rich Wallstreet brokers either hit them with pies, or throw baseballs to dunk them in the tank. In true Michael Moore style, it was both funny and disgusting at the same time. I hope he recycles some of that material in his movie, because it's priceless.
the financial institutions are over leveraged. some regulation laws were changed/modified in 2002. these changes are associated with leveraging amounts.some banks 30-40 times leverage. they wanted "free market". these people blame government for their perceived short financial abilities. the problem is the losses can be SYSTEMIC. that is where we are at. credit markets are froze....commercial paper is just now available to some.
See Joseph Stiglitz here
Also the NY Times here.
The meeting was on April 28, 2004. The five largest investment banks with Henry Paulson in the lead, then the CEO of Goldman Sachs, sought and got an SEC ruling changing debt to capital ratio from 12:1 to 30:1 or higher. Bear Stearns when they incinerated in March of '08 were at 35 to 1.
This allowed banks to sell even more Swaps and synthetic CDOs which were securities based on the swaps and inappropiately rated as AAA, when they were junk.
Two years later Paulson left Sachs with $500 million in his golden parachute and became Secretary of the Treasury.
He knew perfectly well all of the crap on those books and the fraud involved.
That is why I call him Paulson the Plunderer.
Maybe you can help me out here.
I have a question for you.
Did you happen to see that clip on MSNBC the other day.
I wish I could remember the congressman's name.
He said that last Sept, in the span of 1 hr. That over 500 billion dollars was taken out of finacial structure of this country. I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly what he said.
But he said words to that effect.
Now, if that amount of money was taken out in that short of a period of time. I would say that ,that was an attack on this country. I wonder who did this? I would venture to say that, that would be considered domestic terrorism. If the people who did this were in /from this country.
I would also say that since this happened in Sept/08 that boosh failed again.
I know this isn't much. But it struck me as odd. That's all. tanx in advance.
If this doesn't make any sense to you , please ignore it. tx
Feb 06 '09 Rep. Paul Kanjorski D-Pa claimed there had been a $550 billion run on the Money Market accounts. Here
This was erroneous, he was totally wrong. Between Sept 16-17 it was reported that $93.1 billion was withdrawn which prompted a temporary Treasury statement of guaranty. Lehmann Brothers had failed on Sept 15. That was the event was said trigger to the key component of the meltdown which was the equity markets tanking.
Kanjorski was just making it up.
Felix Salmon at Portfolio here
Felix Salmon at Seeking Alpha here
It was a hoax? WTF?
geeezz. fubar.
According to the numbers that Felix Salmon reports it didn't happen.
If it had happened Paulson the Plunderer would have been running up and down the Capital Steps asking for TWO TRILLION.
Maybe Kanjorski thought it was a good cover to voters back home as to why he voted to give the Plundering Banksters more than $700 billion without public hearings or expert testimony.
Michael Moore calls it the greatest swindle in the history of America.
I do him one better. I say it is the greatest swindle in the history of the WORLD.
These people are making stuff up. Except that the trillions of our money is real.
Hey mudshark,
We don't know that was a hoax, so it's incorrect to call it one. Kanjorski and others should be questioned more thoroughly about those statements, as should others. And I would add that that would be a great place for the idiot Michael Moore to start his investigation. Maybe call up his pal George Soros too, to see what moves he was making with his money through the most critical days of that well-timed for Democrats crisis.
I'm in that business, not directly on Wall Street but always worked at regional houses, and I'd have some stories for Mr. Moore that would blow him away. He's such a piece of shit, though, there's no way I'm telling him. I'm sure he'll have no problem in getting the story he's after, as he's always more inclined to take bits and pieces and mold his desired effect around that, and I'd want absolutely no association with his style of muckraking amd mudslinging.
Can't wait to hear this stuff. Will the people that come forward, be marginalized and ridiculed in the media, before or after filming is done?
The problem with this sort of thing, is people don't ever look at Mr. Moore as unbiased, so a helluva pile of normally smart people, just don't listen to him. The leftwing version of a wingnut seems to be his label in the mainstream world and that is just too bad. He does a tremendous service exposing these frauds.
they've really made a label that stick to Moore. People where I used to work just absolutely hated the guy. I would ask why they hated him, and they would say that he was anti-American and all of that trash that they gab about at Fox and on AM radio. This really showed when Sanjay Gupta at CNN tried to call him a liar. As it turned out, most of the time they had never even seen his work. It's a shame because I think that Moore genuinely cares and is trying to make the world a better place. I can't wait to see this one.
Let the games begin.
I, for one, believe the things Moore says--he's a hell of a lot more credible than most others who "document" things, even if he does clearly present the information with an ideological slant. It's my slant, too, I find.
That said, everything he says will be discredited simply because he's the one saying it.
Sanjay Gupta, anyone?
The masses will look at WHO is providing the info, not what info he is showing. It's too bad. Sicko was an excellent movie, and Fahrenheit 911 was truly an eye opener. But his over the top personality makes alot of people ignore his message completely.
I admire Michael Moore for his tenacity and fearlessness. His b*tch-slapping of Blitzer and Gupta on CNN was one of the best things I've ever seen. I actually stood up and clapped.
Moore is a true American patriot.
b*tch-slapping Blitzer. It was wonderful! I cheered too.
I'd forgotten about that bitchslappin' ordeal! Truly was something to watch! It was right up there, if not higher, with Jon Stewart's bitchslappin' of Tucker Carlson on another CNN show that ultimately got cancelled because Stewart showed the world that neither of the two expert clowns on the show had an ounce of brains between them. We need more people like this.
I actually liked Stewart's best. That was exactly the kind of thing that needs to happen to nuts like Tucker Carlson--and the whole wing-nut fleet. And it happened, IMHO, because Tucker (and who, Begala?) had Stewart there live in the studio with him.
That's why no one who opposes BillO the Clown should be on his show unless they insist on doing it live, in person, in the studio, seated right next to him. Same with Hannity or Beck or anyone else. Those guys wouldn't be brave enough to call someone like Cher a "pinhead" to her face. She'd kick O' Reilly's ass on live television. It would be the best theater money could buy.
Would probably also save Faux's declining ratings. Murdock ought to consider it. Maybe O'Reilly's first guest could be The Rock. Call him a pinhead. Watch the ratings soar!
I went to YouTube and watched it again in all its glory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEi1slrLPuM
I wish that kind of stuff happened every day.
Actually, I had no problem with that. If CNN spent a couple of news cycles combing throught Sicko to see which of Moore's assertions were true, which were half truths, and which were just spin, that was a heck of a lot more publicity than the health care crisis got WITHOUT his movie.
So, if Moore is a lightening rod for controversy, at least he uses it for constructive purposes instead of fuzzification. Generally what happens is Moore will come out and grab a lot of attention by making a controversial movie, and then the wingnut noise machine will flood the zone with bullshit, in an attempt to try and change the subject, or deflet the subject to somethling else. In anticipation of this tactic, Moore usually makes his movies TWICE as controversial as they need to be, in order to make a bigger impact, and keep them in the news cycle longer.
(By the way, did you see Sicko when it came out on DVD with the bunus features. One of the bonus features contained clips from all the FOX News programs, showing all the wingnuts' heads exploding in response to his movie. It was pretty funny.)
i heard about this. i hope moore is able to pull this off. this type of film may further reveal what i suspect maybe the ultimate "ponzi" scheme: ninja mortgages,option pricing, commodities speculation based on bs info., financial instrument rating agencies, SEC members/regulators paid off, hedge funds/naked short selling/buying.
Credit Default Swaps bought by insiders, swaps desks that knew the Cash CDOs were overrated, knew there would be defaults, sold the swaps anyway, created synthetic bbb CDOs rated as AAA marketed at full price paying minimum interest.
Racketeering. RICO 101
Oh and phony balance sheets by the biggest banks. To this very hour, as we speak.
cnbc has a special broadcast/segment tonight called "house of cards" i will check it out. they are bias toward wallStreet but still worth seeing.
...that we might have another Business Plot.
There are other examples of Business Plots" out there, too.
The Financial Aristocracy must first feel threatened.Obama has done nothing to draw their ire.He has made it clear by his choice of advisers that he poses no threat to their power.What are Geithner,Summers et.al,if not handmaidens to these financial aristocrats.
A better remedy:
"The proletarians of Paris," said the Central Committee in its manifesto of March 18, "amidst the failures and treasons of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs.... They have understood that it is their imperious duty, and their absolute right, to render themselves masters of their own destinies, by seizing upon the governmental power."
but this is "Where the Streets Have No Shame"
Looks like the biggest part of the crime is the loot Geithner's handing over.It's an inside job,I tell Ya!
are everywhere.
i would like moore to reveal to the public the "shadow bank" system. essentially investors betting on bets
and hedging("insuring those bets"). bets were place on bundled financial instruments/derivatives. some of those financial instruments had mortgages in them. often known by those who sold them down the line. they hoped they would be diluted by other investments. some mortgages weren't paid on. so those that placed bets on bundles they thought would be paid on ......lost. when they placed these bets they hedged
with something like insurance. AIG was in on this. those bets were bad so they have to be paid. AIG insured these bets.......so they pay. in the multi billions......derivatives in the trillions.
...is another person's Highway Robbery!
and I'll say it again.....Michael Moore is an American hero
nuff said
.
will add another amen to that.
I wonder if the big brother loving lefty will ask those on the right..
1. Ron Paul.. the guy who has predicted this mess since the break down of Brenton/Woods in 71. The year Nixon decided we didnt need a pesky tie to commodity and went for a floating fiat, WORTHLESS, currency that the big government folks love. (i.e. you dont have to tax what you can just create to pay for wasteful crap.)
2. Peter Schiff..
3. Alan Greenspan, who created the housing bubble
4. Chris Dodd, who is the biggest piece of crap in DC... and meddled in the free market enough to cause part of the housing bubble.
Hmmmm... get all those low income folks a house, with no money down, that they cant afford. Make sure they have no equity in it, so when they default they can just walk away.
Moore is as much an American hero as Stalin was a Russian one.
Then again, I guess that is Dubya's and the GOP's fault too.
Yes, he makes the world a better place while lining his own pockets. When you guys start applying the same standards to pos's like this guy that you do to everyone on the conservative side, please drop me a line.
If Michael Moore were truly interested in this subject, there are tons of places he can look for documentation. Without documentation, it's all just bullshit 'one guy's word against anothers'-type conjecture.
He could start by reading Michael Lewis' recent 'Panic, the Story of Modern Financial Insanity' or even going back a few years ago to his other expose 'Liar's Poker'. Or even that same time period's 'Predator's Ball' by Connie Bruck, about manipulation by Michael Milken, and he'd find out those same manipulations occur to this very day. Or he could go to the FINRA website and look up court cases and grievances. All kinds of resources he could be and should be accessing if he was serious about this project.
But getting anonymous tips is nothing but bullshit. And that is his style. Because that's what sells. He's really no different than about 100% of the politicians and pundits on the right that everyone here loves to show up here to rail about every day.
fear in your postings? Afraid Moore will expose the complete fraud that so many know, but others won't admit? Anyone working in finance or for/with Wall Street are a bunch of pyramid scheming frauds out to screw over any and everyone for a buck. Moore may be alot of things, but he is the only one with the funding and backers to make some of these films. In a perfect world that wouldn't be necessary.
Michael Moore for Secretary of Commerce ...
...but Michael Moore is doing our country a service when he exposes corruption, and obviously he will never run out of material in Shamerica, thanks to the robber-barons and their complete lack of scruples, morals, and ethics.
If more anger were turned toward the hedge-fund managers who looted the system, it would at least make more sense than blasting a filmmaker because you don't like his personality. Numbers don't lie -- hey that would make a good name for his movie.
I look forward to his next expose! Go Mr. Moore!
my husband says he'll tell Moore enough stories to make "his head spin" about Hedge Funds, market manipulation, preferential treatment, etc., for a cut of the movie profits. A true Capitalist.
Bitch slap anyone? Moore gets it known right into the tiny crack of American society as well as the world. I hope it comes out sooner than later. Once it's in the open it won't thrive so much in the dark like an ugly fungi. speaking of ugly fungi....
It's time the Great American Ponzi Scheme was exposed!
just thought you should know that only the wingnuts that come here take your posts seriously.
So please keep wasting the time you might be spending screwing up your country more than it already is by typing your drivel here.
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