The Men Who Crashed the World

[Tams 20]

In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne.

 

The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. Wall Street turned back the clock to 1929.

 

But how did it all go so wrong?

 

Lack of government regulation; easy lending in the US housing market meant anyone could qualify for a home loan with no government regulations in place.

 

Also, London was competing with New York as the banking capital of the world. Gordon Brown, the British finance minister at the time, introduced 'light touch regulation' - giving bankers a free hand in the marketplace.

 

All this, and with key players making the wrong financial decisions, saw the world's biggest financial collapse.

 

 

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/meltdown/2011/09/2011914105518615434.html

[zdo 20]

… this is part of and indistinguishable from the huge global ‘story’ being made up…something’s fishy … for example re the mortgage crisis, some say it was “regulation” (in a way the prevailing paradigms won’t permit and prevailing‘story’ doesn’t allow us to categorize as ‘regulation’, of course) that literally forced lenders into making questionable loans…the real story started way before these ‘four men’ were even born. Any ‘story’ that packs this ‘story’ into the actions of a few and into 10 – 20 years is just a misguided ( or worse, a misleading) ‘story’…

[joshdance 10]

Can we please close this thread and file it away under "propaganda"? I'm disappointed that the moderators of this thread would headline the newsletter with this crap. Some of those who "crashed the world" are still in power, and some of those who tried to stop it are blamed. Give me a break.

[Avalon7 10]

This is definitely propaganda.

 

Take a look at coherent government policy over the last 40 years that made individual households so financially weak that people could not pay their mortgages, coupled with a coherent public policy that made sure that "everyone should have a house" whether they could afford it or not, with the full faith and credit backing of yours truly the Federal Gov't, in case people defaulted on their loans. And of course, this is exactly what happened. And then people have the audacity to be surprised when there is a mass default.

 

The problem is both social and systemic. You cannot tear apart the fabric of society without also effecting its financial structure.

 

It is not Wall Street's fault, and is most certainly NOT four sole individuals. This is nothing but leftist propaganda.

[laurus12 10]

Yes, please file this thread under propaganda. The "who's" who did all the poo-poo'ing ought to be pretty clear by all this time. Very sadly they are still allowed to spread their droppings all over the place.

[Tradewinds 12]

Some of those who "crashed the world" are still in power, and some of those who tried to stop it are blamed.

 

First of all, I didn't watch the video, so I'm not commenting on the video. But it's an interesting subject. Do you have any information about those who are still in power? Just curious.

[snowbird 10]

[quote name=Originally Posted by joshdance »

Some of those who "crashed the world" are still in power, and some of those who tried to stop it are blamed.[/quote]

 

I didn't watch the video either... but searches on both Brooksley E. Born and Raghuram Rajan will bring up good info on how they tried to warn of he impending risk prior to 2008 and were shunned by those in the establishment with more power.

[MaxLobster 10]

I watched the video, I enjoyed it. I will parse the information myself by checking it on wikipedia, thank you. Truth and propaganda are two sides of the same coin.

[PiP.Squeak 10]

Can we please close this thread and file it away under "propaganda"? I'm disappointed that the moderators of this thread would headline the newsletter with this crap.

 

I COULDN'T AGREE MORE!

 

Notice the web address, No bias there!

"http://english/.aljazeera.net"

 

4 guys? Really? What about the hundred of thousands of people who lied when they took out those mortgages and said "yea I can afford that" and "absolutely yes I promise to pay you back"? What about the thousands of lenders, developers, real estate agents, brokers and sales people that said "don't worry I'll show you how you can buy it with NO money down" and "don't worry the price of houses always goes up, if you can't afford it you can roll it over in a year or so to one you can afford"

 

Liars lying to people who put profits before ethics and common sense.

 

Or how about Freddy and Fannie's role in guaranteeing those mortgages so that the bankers could bundle them and sell them as "A" rated loans, and then not being able to cover them?

 

I wish it was only FOUR guys that did something unethical. We would just punish them and be done with it.

 

But it's not. Its the millions of people from main street to wall street trying to find a short cut to wealth.

 

This is pure politically biased junk that has NOTHING to do with trading. How about we leave the political BS to a political site!!!!! I want to come here to learn and share about investing and trading not politics. We don't need that bias, America bashing crap here. If I want to read that I'll go to "http://english/.aljazeera.net"

[MightyMouse 12]

I COULDN'T AGREE MORE!

 

Notice the web address, No bias there!

"http://english/.aljazeera.net"

 

4 guys? Really? What about the hundred of thousands of people who lied when they took out those mortgages and said "yea I can afford that" and "absolutely yes I promise to pay you back"? What about the thousands of lenders, developers, real estate agents, brokers and sales people that said "don't worry I'll show you how you can buy it with NO money down" and "don't worry the price of houses always goes up, if you can't afford it you can roll it over in a year or so to one you can afford"

 

Liars lying to people who put profits before ethics and common sense.

 

Or how about Freddy and Fannie's role in guaranteeing those mortgages so that the bankers could bundle them and sell them as "A" rated loans, and then not being able to cover them?

 

I wish it was only FOUR guys that did something unethical. We would just punish them and be done with it.

 

But it's not. Its the millions of people from main street to wall street trying to find a short cut to wealth.

 

This is pure politically biased junk that has NOTHING to do with trading. How about we leave the political BS to a political site!!!!! I want to come here to learn and share about investing and trading not politics. We don't need that bias, America bashing crap here. If I want to read that I'll go to "http://english/.aljazeera.net"

 

 

Do you really think that hundreds of thousands of people walked into mortgage brokerage offices and lied or could it be that mortgage brokers advertized $750,000 loans at $1200 a month in poor neighborhoods? Could it be that when a borrower wondered if he would qualify for the loan, the broker said, don't worry about it, you don't need to show income or assets to get the loan. A lot of these borrowers were people who never owned a home before. Its called predatory lending.

 

Lenders hired unskilled and unqualified brokers to sell mortgages that were unstable to people who could not understand them.

 

By chance during the same time period, a few investment banks were speculating in CDS without understanding them and we, the people of the USA, immediately helped them out. So that they wouldn't lose their banks, jobs, or houses.

[Avarice 10]

I want to come here to learn and share about investing and trading not politics.

 

I haven't watched the video so I'm not endorsing anything.

 

But discussing investment strategies in the current environment without at least a certain degree of consciousness of events that brought us here seems an exercise in futility to me. Maybe you'd be better off trying another venture, riches galore await the bold.

[Tradewinds 12]

What about the hundred of thousands of people who lied when they took out those mortgages and said "yea I can afford that"

 

A lot of people loosing their homes, lost their jobs. They were paying their mortgage when they had a job. There are people who took out mortgages years before all these recent loans got pushed through who are loosing their homes.

[Tams 20]

the financial system needs a re-work.

 

too many unscrupulous people doing the legal robbery. This has to stop.

 

I hope the wall street protest will bring about some changes.

[zdo 20]

:haha: Don’t you just love it when a poster says you can’t blame 4 men and recent history, then comes along a little bit later and turns right around and blames even more recent history and just one 'useful idiot' for bringing us down

11 Reasons Why Occupy Wall Street Protesters Are Hypocrites If They Do Not Call For Barack Obama To Resign

[zdo 20]

I hope the wall street protest will bring about some changes.

 

Biiwii: Zombie Go Home

[Tams 20]

Biiwii: Zombie Go Home

 

good article.

 

he's right... they are 10 years late,

 

but in my opinion, better late than never.