Saturday, April 02, 2011

Inside job & the state of our society



This is must see movie about the causes and the state of affairs of the financial crisis, focusing on the US.
The key points of this movie are as follows.
* the financial crisis was largely due to very risky investments made by banks (on bad loans)
* the banks/financial organisations also made it so that they bet against themselves as well so that they make money when the loans defaulted
* the government institutions (assessment institutions and regulation institutions) that were set up to restrict the risky business transactions and secure private investors/loaners are "owned" by the banks and thus there were in fact no regulatory systems to hold the powers of capital back
* the government is largely "owned" by the banks due to that most of the people working for the government that advise on or make the policies are former chiefs of these banks and firms and/or still have interest in them
* even the economists in universities are bought out by the fact that they receive large sums of money for writing papers/analysis that favour the risky deals made by bankers and they serve and receive money for being in board members of the most fraudulent banks
* the bankers gained incredible amounts of money while the rest of society had to pay for it
* even now not a single one of these bankers have been prosecuted concerning the fraudulent deals that they made

....

This movie is down right scary. It shows how in this society when we deregulate so that capital can actually unleash its power how dangerous it could be. These bankers made billions of dollars while making risky deals which they knew could fail but would not affect their gains. One thing we must admit is that these are not horrible people - although I sometimes wonder how they could do such things and sleep at night or live without feeling utter guilt. I believe that once in that position, once in the race for more money and it is possible to do so, since there are not any bodies to regulate this behaviour, it becomes a matter of if I do not do it, the other guy would anyhow - why should I not make money out of this when they let the other guy do so.

The problem is that since capital indeed holds power to a incomprehensible amount, there is really no power that can regulate it. Capital holds power not only in politics(congress/lobbyists etc), but also information(news networks/economists in universities and research centres etc). Since everyone needs money and since it is rather necessary and helpful to do anything, such as run for congress...(especially due to that politics is now a PR game more than anything else)... banks literally own the world.

What the rest of the population is left with is one of the largest public cuts since the last Deregulation period in the 80s with Regan and Thather - only because they had to bail out these banks which made money through these deals.

let's just get more in detail and calculate this abit more.

UK 2007 bank bonuses was announced be 11 billion pounds. even in 2009 this was 7.3billion and 2010 7 billion.
For me, I think regardless of what you've actually done- even if you found cure for cancer- NOTHING can justify a 10 million euro bonus/year on top of your 1million salary. Seriously WHAT COULD YOU HAVE POSSIBLY DONE mr.banker? no you do not deserve it. Here is someone else's take on the problem with this.
Anyhow, many of these banks had to be bailed out with a 400billion pound injection
to save the deficit that came from these injections and bankruptcies, the national health service- the free health national health insurance system of the UK will have to cut 20 billion - which means cuts in staff and supply - which means that many will not be able to get the proper treatment they need.
This would essentially mean that many will eventually die and suffer tremendously- because they are cutting down a health system which already has problems of not being able to address the illness of individuals fast enough.
And let's not forget about the dramatic increase in inequality or the decrease in real wages of workers in the past few decades...

But wait. It doesn't stop there. In the most recent elections in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany which all took after the recession- ALL countries have had the conservatives win.
All of whom had announced massive budget cuts while not regulating banking systems nor excessive incomes which are not based on real production of anything.
Why are people voting for these conservatives?? I absolutely have no idea.

However, people are acting more directly as well..
Its good to hear there are things being done to stop this in some countries. But in general, not much is being done.

And in recent times there has been movement to think that perhaps we are at the end of a capitalist society perhaps as Marx predicted it, and capital has been let loose out of its reins and due to it, accordingly there will be an uprising by the people (proletariat)- such as the one we saw in Egypt, Libya, London...
Perhaps not, perhaps we are in the mist of being completely owned by big capital and the middle class will essentially collapse totally.

The catch also is that through this financial crisis everyone is put at a situation where one has to be working like crazy to save one's ass - thus does not have time to think about the true problems of society. For this reason, this movie really hits the spot that really needs to be hit in current society.

Here is something more just to get you thinking abit harder