Generation Zero Zeros in on Cultural Roots of Financial Crisis
September 18, 2008 — the day the market lost $550 billion in little over an hour, costing Americans $14 trillion — was the tipping point for deeply indebted, over-obligated America.
Candidates on the stump are finding voters deeply attuned to and worried about America’s precarious financial condition, thus the impending electoral tsunami on November 2.
Generation Zero – conservatives’ answer to Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story — zeros in on the causes of this crisis.
The film, made by Stephen K. Bannon (Victory Productions) and David Bossie (Citizens United) — taking about two years and $5 million less than Moore’s love story — makes a convincing case, very artfully, that, in the words of Bulls & Bears’ Tobin Smith, this meltdown was a “failure of culture not of capitalism.”
It opens with Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) dramatically recounting the cliff we nearly drove over two years ago.
“We were having an electronic run on the banks” Kanjorski said the Fed concluded after immediately pumping $105 billion into the system to no effect. The only solution was to “close the operation, close down the money accounts….”
“If they had not done that,” Kanjorksi intoned, “their estimation was that by two o’clock that afternoon, five and 1/2 trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed (which would have meant) … the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.”
“Someone,” Kanjorski concluded, “threw us in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a life raft. And we’re trying to determine which is the closest shore and whether there’s any chance in the world to swim that far. We don’t know.”
Generation Zero compellingly argues that only by attacking the causes of this still-bubbling crisis will we make it to shore. And far from being a mystery, the bevy of experts interviewed, including Roger Kimball and Victor Davis Hanson, assert the causes are very clear.
Is this on youtube? Where can I see this documentary at? Is it free or does one have to pay? Will it show up on on-demand like michael moores movie did?
See http://www.generationzeromovie.com/ for information about purchasing the DVD… and hopefully it will come out in theaters, but no word on if/when that will happen…
I can agree with the premise of the article. But I think we literally gave the keys to a bunch of drug laced adolecants–the hippie radical left of the 60′s that is just 18% of the population. Like suburbanite parents, we ignored or were too busy to notice all the signs that the adolecants were totally out of control. We let em’ have the keys to the Caddy and now we have to pay the bill to have it restored, and pay for their projects (soical spending) accumulated on the Credit cards to boot.
Nobody’s fault but our own. There were those who trumpeted the warnings, but they were poopoo’d as the extreme right….how can a desired for Constitutional principles be exteme right, but the Left has been able to plant that idea.
“Adolecants”?
Is that a living fossil like the coelocanth? Come to think of it, that works either way!
Looks interesting. But the trailer comes across as positioning the movie more as a conspiracy theory about the meltdown than as a serious cultural analysis. If it wasn’t for the presence of RK and VDH, I’d be inclined to assume it was trash…and there are a lot of potential viewers who don’t know who RK and VDH *are*.
A tremendous effort and worthy of the nation’s attention.
Then, do an expose on the nature of fiat reserve banking. You must.
Either is simply complete without the other.
This was written in 2005.
I think you are making this more complicated then it is.
the collapse is nothing more then a bunch of people (very very corrupt and very very dishonest people) in government and wall street playing ponzy schemes.
there are laws against what is going on …unfortunately the ones that can do something about it are those same very very corrupt and dishonest people.
there is no time limit on capitalism (true free market works if allowed too).
General, I couldn’t agree moare and now these same jerks are fighting to retain their positions against those that want a good change. In a way I guess that’s understandable since they’ll be losing their multimillion dollar boondoggle.
“…as debt is created through loan origination, an obligation above and beyond this sum is also created in the form of interest. As a result, there can never be enough money to repay principal and pay interest unless debt is continually expanded.”
Your Fiat Reserver Banking article is kook nonsense and just plain wrong. Dept ends when loans are paid. No new debt is required to pay off existing debt.
Money, not debt, is created when this occurs. With 30 year mortgages for example, most of that newly created money absolutely must be created because of inflation. That is because by the time the money is repaid, it is worth that much less.
You’re wrong. Every Federal Reserve note is lent into existence and then expands by a factor of roughly ten. Each reserve note carries interest. How will you repay the principle and the interest when the system is closed?
Also wrong, see above. Money is debt.
And to think you call the article kook nonsense. What is inflation and why does it occur? The answer is the nature of debt-money, which you have yet to grasp.
Observe, Orient, Decide, Act
See, and admit, that something is wrong. Find, and admit, the problem.
A good description of a problem suggests the possible solutions;
Choose the least bad solution, admit that things will get worse
before they get better, and do what one can to help:
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
The current Tax-and-Spend political establishment is still in denial,
punctuated by occasional moments of clarity in which they try to find
a way to survive by establishing an authoritarian emergency regime,
with themselves in control; This guarantees that they will lose
everything when the Hard Times arrive, the people call for help,
and the State fails to deliver.
Great DVD, but sadly we can’t order it here in Bulgaria!
See http://www.generationzeromovie.com/ for information about purchasing the DVD…
A simple timeline:
Summer 2008: Henry Paulsen and Ben Bernacke (both Democrats) publicly proclaimed that the American economy was strong. GDP was normal. Employment was strong. Corporate profits were good. Consumer spending was about normal. Inflation was higher than desirable because of the bubble in oil pricing. Stock market was off Oct 2007 highs, but well within normal fluctuation patterns. But underneath the surface, the housing / credit crisis was looming.
Late summer 2008: Chuck Schumer boldly attempted to create a panic by publicly calling out Indy Mac bank. He failed. A month later, Harry Reid boldly attempted to create a panic by publicly calling out AIG (but not by name). He failed.
Sept 5, 2008: Republic convention ended on a high note. Palin energized conservatives.
Sept 7, 2008: Gallup poll leaked. For the first time in the election cycle, McCain took the lead.
Sept 8, 2008: Lehman Bros (Goldman Sachs primary competitor) came under major attack on the NY Stock Exchange by unknown speculators. Total market volume jumped and remained at 60% above prior volume through the end of the year. That kind of sustained increase had only happened once before since 1945.
Sept 15, 2008: Feds siezed Lehman Bros
Sept 18, 2008, morning: Unprecedented Money Market run described by the author in the article above
Sept 18, 2008, afternoon: Paulsen and Bernacke, the Democrats who 3 months prior had declared the economy strong, went into the White House and declared that civilization would end within hours unless they were given dictatorial control over the American banking system and $700 billion dollars to spend with no controls whatsoever. George W. Bush buckled to those demands.
Nov 3, 2008: The Dow had fallen by about 25%+ in 2 months, following the previous 10%+ decline. The peak decline on the S&P 500 touched 50%. NASDAQ was much worse. The previous largest decline IN ALL OF HISTORY in an election year was about 17%. $10 trillion had been sucked out of country’s wealth. Many senior citizens were crippled economically for life, with no chance of recovery. The march of 10,000,000 mortgage defaults began. The media told the country it was 100% the fault of the Republics. Nobody was told that the root cause was the housing and mortgage problems created by liberal policies. Nobody was told that speculators were controlling the stock markets or that Lehman Bros was the arch-rival of the company of which Henry Paulsen was the CEO.
Nov 3, 2008: The price of gasoline had fallen to under $2 per gallon from a high over $4 per gallon in August, 2008, greater than the previous greatest ANNUAL drop. It was one of the greatest, if not the single greatest, 2-month declines in any major market or commodity in all of history. Energy independence, McCain’s signature issue was totally negated by the sudden price drop.
Nov 4, 2008: The Marxist Obama, the hater of capitalism and the American dream, a man with a past invented by himself and his handlers, walked into the White House.
Postscripts: George Soros made about $4 billion in the markets in 2008. He was later convicted of market manipulation for his activities in late 2008 by Hungary. Goldman Sachs (of which Henry Paulsen had been CEO prior to becoming Treasury Secretary) made similar profits, as they had in the 13 previous economic bubbles (the odds of that are millions to one). An SEC investigation was initiated in late 2008, and later squelched without notice or publicity.
That was the October surprise of 20008. Half a dozen completely unprecedented events occurred in the two months prior to the most consequential election of our times – stock market crash, money market run, gasoline price drop, massive market speculation, unprecedented drop in national wealth, $700B Tarp legislation……while the primary liberal money-men made billions in profits.
Nobody says a peep about it. Never have. Never will.
It’s the greatest crime of all time.
indeed it is/was a crime. and I think there are a lot of complicit people.
wasn’t there a run previous to the one you mention?
…. It’s the greatest crime of all time ….
After the world’s greatest Ponzi Scam: “social security;” After Medicare; After the post the Fifteen Trillion Dollar plus looting set in motion by Lyndon Baynes Johnson’s “great society and; Right up there with the Fifteen Trillion Dollar fascist fraud morphed into mass-hysteria morphed into the state-mandated godless religion, called Mann-Made “global warming.”
I still don’t understand why there isn’t a 100% convincing well-known explanation for the electronic run on the banks and why we still have only this comment from an unknown congressman on an obscure C-Span episode. It must occur to every amateur that this “electronic run” looks like an economic attack of some kind – it’s not like a run on the banks with footage of people mobbing Indy Mac branches.
If this is the crux of our current condition – that this event literally caused the structural imbalance we don’t seem to be able to correct – you’d really think someone like the President of the USA or at least Ben Bernanke would have explained this to the American electorate by now. THEY, by now, must have an explanation. Interesting that they are not sharing it.
I realize Lehman collapsed only 3 days before, but frankly the pace and volume of the withdrawal just shocks the mind. Can someone direct me to an explanation I may have missed?
See the post just above you.
There were so many once-in-a-lifetime events going on in a few week period that it’s really hard to imagine that they were all giant coincidences.
The key question is: “why did so many strange things happen just before the election?”. The housing/credit crisis started a decade before, and it was well publicized at least as early as Oct 2007. Speculators like Soros had been driving the stock market down at least since Dec 2007. Somebody caused the oil price bubble in early 2008, Why did the price dive in September and October. Why was Goldman Sachs protected but Soloman Bros and Lehman Bros were not. Why did Democrat politicians appear to publicly instigate panics in the mid-part of 2008. Why did the attack on Lehman Bros start the day McCain took his first lead in the polls. How did Sachs make a fortune in a period when the country saw it’s net worth decline by trillions of dollars. Why did Barney Frank publicly declare that Fannie Mae was a good investment in the summer of 2008, yet the feds took it over a few months later.
Who profited? Who was hurt?
What are the odds that the most extraordinary, multiple financial events since at least since 1929 would occur in a 2-month window…..just in time to elect Barck Obama?
You would think that somebody would at least ask the questions.
the fix is in.
the puppet master(s) have their clown in the white house. he is just a clown …the circus is run from somewhere other then the golf course.
there was a run on the stock market just prior to the government starting to talk about it. Rush Limbaugh made mention of it.
DOES any one know who was behind the run?¿ it was not made public as far as I know ….BUT some one out there must know who was behind it.
I saw nothing in that trailer that’s new. And with all the alarm, explosions and hype, I doubt there’s any depth to it, certainly none beyond what’s available here or on hotair.
I don’t support this kind of cheap sensationalist propaganda. It makes those of us who are educating people on the cause and cures to our financial crisis look like exploitative, fear-mongering kooks (even if it parallels our message.) I’ll spend my 39.95 on something that isn’t counterproductive.
The question to ask is:
“How and why did this happen?”
The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLB), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. This bill repealed the Glass-Stegall Act which maintained a firewall between banks and investment banks, as well as insurance companies. How is this important in the context of home foreclosures? Because GLB allowed banks to initiate loans (mostly re-finances) and then bundle them up (large numbers of the loans they originated) and sell them as securities. These securities were traded on the open market, and the purchasers of these securities had no idea the originating banks made loans to anyone regardless of income. These banks didn’t care because they weren’t going to be the institution responsible when the mortgage holders defaulted…..they already made their money from originating the loan and then by selling the loan. Eventually this house of cards fell, destroying our economy but no one seems to understand why. They blame Pelosi or Barney Frank, Obama or whoever, but they have no clue. All their information comes from Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh. They are convinced they know.
By the way, who does Phil Gramm work for now? -A very large Swiss Bank. Nice work if you can get it!
Source(s):
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/2…
The repeal of Glass Stegall is one factor in a long chain that enabled the collapse.
The root cause is obviously the Community Reinvestment Act that encouraged / intimidated financial institutions to lend money to people who couldn’t afford to pay the loans back.
To blame the collapse on Glass Steagall is equivalent to blaming a murder on a bullet.
And btw, they should repeal the new Financial Reform Fantasy and re-instate Glass Steagall. But GS still didn’t cause the meltdown. Insane liberal policies did.
Proreason, I also believe as you do. Without the housing bubble there never would have been a financial crisis at that time. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I have always wondered why the crises happened right before Obama’s election. But that is another subject.
Here’s what Clinton, who signed the repeal into law, and Gramm, who introduced the bill, used as justification.
“In response to criticism of his signing the bill when President, Bill Clinton said in 2008:
“I don’t see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn’t signed that bill…. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I’d be glad to look at the evidence.” [32]
In February 2009, one of the act’s co-authors, former Senator Phil Gramm, wrote in its defense that:
“…if GLB [the repeal] was the problem, the crisis would have been expected to have originated in Europe where they never had Glass-Steagall requirements to begin with. Also, the financial firms that failed in this crisis, like Lehman, were the least diversified and the ones that survived, like J.P. Morgan, were the most diversified.
” Moreover, GLB didn’t deregulate anything. It established the Federal Reserve as a superregulator, overseeing all Financial Services Holding Companies. All activities of financial institutions continued to be regulated on a functional basis by the regulators that had regulated those activities prior to GLB.”
The above is from Wikipedia, for what it’s worth; also, whether or not you believe Slick Willie and Gramm.
David (#3), the video actually posits a combination of human conspiracy and natural seasonal shifts.
According to the video, the conspiracy is hatched by the older Progressives of the 1960′s such as Alensky, Cloward and Pivens, who designed the blueprint for a radical transformation of America. Their foundational ideas were then pursued by younger “revolutionaries” from such radical groups as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) the Weathermen and others of their ilk. In general, the blueprint called on the radicals to lay down their bombs and guns, and instead, infiltrate the power centers of government where they can slowly, but steadily hollow out society by eroding its foundations. Now, older, grayer, these are the “advisors” who surround their disciple who now occupies the White House. Now, rather than a ragtag pack of Lenin “wantabes”, they now possess real political power. So, according to the video, they’ve brought us to the brink of destruction. After the collapse, they will then step forward and offer the fearful masses salvation — some form of “Americanized” communism. Thus they will have transformed America into the perfect socialist state.
Meanwhile, the video posits a natural cycle, comparable to the turning of the seasons. I.E., society, like nature, follows a sequential series of seasons beginning with the Spring-like flowering of a new age, followed by a swelling, summerlike growth and maturation, then a hardening of societal arteries followed by the death of the old order. This death is required in order to clear the decks for the next step in the evolution of society.
So, according to the many commentators in this video, we are now at the crossroads. The ship of state now battered and beaten by the rapids of social unraveling is quickly approaching the great falls. Soon we will be in freefall. Where we end up is anybody’s guess.
Newt Gingrich warns that the die is almost cast. These next two elections will determine the outcome of the turning we are about to confront. Either we will find ourselves living in Alensky’s statist paradise, or we will have summoned the will and courage to return to First Principles and keep the flickering torch of liberty alight.
That is the choice we face. No more, no less.
I think the author means “artistically,” not “artfully;” artfully implies the film is deceptive or misleading.
I have the DVD. This is a film about culture not economics. It follows the theory of 4 Turnings (High , Awakening, Unraveling, Crisis) based on the book Fourth Turning
It follows history after the last crisis (WW-II) and the childern of the High reject everything about the people who survived the Crisis and cause an “awakening” which then progressively causes an unraveling of the institutions that came out of the Crisis.
As as this unravelling progresses the deferred and poor decision making then provoke the next Crisis
Each period lasts about 20 years for a grand cycle of around 80 years.
The film documents that and then superimposes the specifics of the 60s generation, the Alinksky stuff, the 90s and the bailout culture of Clinton and the mortgage loan hustle of the Alinksy disciples. And how we have a complete failure of leadership and we are now in the next Crisis.
Ummm, so I watch this movie and I’m trying to get this right. A generation that leads us into the biggest depression, which is only solved by the biggest war ever that the same generation led us into, wins this war and then has a bunch of babies. They do such a great job of raising these babies by sending a lot of them to college. The babies grow up, get educated, look around and decide, “you know what?, there is something wrong with this picture. Our parents have industrialized the world kind of in a willy nilly way and we are destroying the environment. In addition some of us are not white and half are not men. It kind of sucks to be these people, because they don’t have equal rights, so maybe we should change some of the rules so everyone has an equal chance.”
All this under the spector of immediate destruction because the generation before leaves us with a nuclear world. Part of the revolt involves dismissing some of the traditional values that have led to a polluted, sexist and racist world. And what do you know some of them decide to smoke some pot and play some rock and roll. All this pot, rock and roll not to metion the sex, leads this genration to be self-absorbed and wanting more than what we were left with. This kind of thinking leads the creation of Fannie and Freddie, derivitives and (hold on folks) Greed! Unbridled these people leverage the country and some old dudes namely Greenspan say “whoa, the empreror isn’t wearing any clothes” and the whole thing falls apart. The best part is that this was planned and laid out by the Liberals who made our moms go to work and everyone smoke pot and listen to that darn rock and roll. (aside: did anyone notice, every time the movie critizes Obama, the civil rights movement or anything racial, they have a black man say the lines?..pretty slick)
The solution, kill the liberals (especially the ones that don’t really look American), get mom back in the kitchen and pray to God and Gingrich. This is an interesting story. It’s about as acurate as the Moore movie. How about telling it like it is.
One, we don’t have a democracy in practice. Why, because we have two powerful parties that decide who we vote for. What percentage of Americans vote in the primaries, where the two possible choices are given to us? By definition we don’t have a democracy. The majority doesn’t rule. The majority of those who vote,especially in the primaries, rule. And if you are in a state that is strong either way and your on the other side, then your vote doesn’t count. Get rid of the electoral college. Get rid of the two party system. Hopefully we can elect a government that will get out of our everyday lives (bedroom, church and school). One that will provide a level playing field and ENFORCE the laws against stealing. Pay these politicans enough money so they are not influenced by the big money. Limit the terms so we don’t have a ruling class who’s vested interest is to get elected and not to run the country.
We don’t have capitalism or socialism. We have a crappy hybrid. Unleash our economy by getting rid of the tax code. Set up some sort of low base tax rate on (pick a number) the top percentage of the earners. Have consumption taxes so EVERYONE pays some taxes, not just the middle class. How rediculous is it that we have a tax code that says, “You owe us money. Figure out how much and pay us. And you better get it right or else.”? How much time and money is wasted in our economy trying to do this exercise? Allow small businesses to compete fairly with the big companies.
There’s more.
PS Mary, did you get the meat out of your teeth last night?
No, than God, we do not have a “democracy.” We have, if we can only restore and keep it, a Constitutional Republic.