Sep 18 2008

The Faces Of The Financial Crisis

“Novus Ordo Seclorum” is Latin for “New Order of the Ages”

Richard Fuld, CEO, Lehman Brothers. John Thain, CEO, Merrill Lynch.

Stan O’Neal, former CEO, Merrill Lynch. James Cayne, CEO , Bear Stearns.

A video essay from ANP’s Nick Penniman and Eric Fritz, about the CEOs who got very rich while their firms crumbled, putting names and faces to the men operating these firms and making the disastrous executive decisions that are now affecting and destroying the lives of so many people.

The U.S. financial system faces a grave crisis as investment giants teeter on the edge of collapse. These institutions aren’t merely made of paper and percentages, though. They’re led by people – people who’ve made some rotten decisions in recent years. Whereas we’ll hear much in the coming weeks about the federal regulators who are scrambling to avert a disaster, we should also hear about the CEOs who got very rich while their firms crumbled.

September 17, 2008 – 3 min 58 sec

via The Real News

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    • Edger on September 18, 2008 at 06:47
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  2. we need to add the faces of everyone who agreed to bail them out, congress included.  Its one thing to ruin a company, its another thing to reward that behavior by giving them  our tax dollars and taking their ‘over-assessed’ equities (stocks) off their hands….(which will result in the ultimate ruin of our economy and country).

  3. What’s so scary is that the national debt just keeps growing and growing — is there no cap on that?  What are these bloodsuckers going to do now — while people are without homes, jobs, even adequate food?  What are they going to do while people struggle to get back on their feet?  It looks like the immigrants are being kicked out of this country, so the Americans, who have no jobs and jobs are not being created in this country, will take on the work that the immigrants once performed.  

    The obscene amounts of monies these CEOs have made, while people were being layed off their jobs is revolting!  

    What a joke this country has become — a very sick joke!  Maybe, this is what the Bildeburgs decide when they meet — how to fuck the people!

  4. …you an e-mail with some intersting stock charts for the big financials.  

  5. Along with the other news about a “consumer credit crunch” and projected possible increased unemployment, there was this report disturbing report yesterday:   “Money Market Funds ‘Break the Buck'”:

    “…The sudden setback at the Reserve Primary Fund caused it to “break the buck” — leaving investors unlikely to get back all the cash they put in because the fund failed to maintain assets of at least $1 for every dollar invested…The Primary Fund’s woes marked just the second instance of breaking the buck in the nearly four decades-long history of money funds…”

    Now just one day later, today, there’s this:   Putnam Investments Close $12 B Money-Market Fund:

    “…Putnam Investments has closed a $12.3 billion money-market fund to limit losses to its investors, the large mutual fund company said today. The highly unusual announcement is the latest sign that tremendous financial pressures are now threatening even some of the safest kinds of investments…”

    Though the Putnam Prime Money Market Fund was “open only to institutional investors”, this news so closely following yesterday’s report of the Reserve primary fund “breaking the buck” could well be an indication of more seriously painful consequences to a whole lot of people in this country:

    “…Putnam said in a statement that its board decided to close the fund last night after receiving a large number of redemption requests. The company said it could honor those requests only by selling assets at a loss, reducing the value of the remaining shares…”

  6. lucid of articles I’ve read concerning this whole financial crisis.

    Fixing Wall Street Won’t Fix Our Economy

    What’s really at play here is persistent poverty and Wall Street seeking to make a dime off the poor, while Washington looks the other way.

    Sure, the CEOs and hedge fund managers were greedy. There’s no question that wealth and the pursuit thereof led to the sub-prime fiasco and the decline of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merrill Lynch and more. But what’s really at play here is persistent poverty and Wall Street seeking to make a dime off the poor, consequences be damned, while Washington looks the other way. . . .

    We could have averted the current financial crisis by creating affordable housing and good jobs, strengthening public education and providing health care and child care for all families, to help hardworking Americans thrive in the middle class instead of being pushed into poverty. We could have averted this crisis if we really cared about all families owning their own homes and created nationwide programs including affordable loans. (Even subsidized loans in the first place would have cost taxpayers less than what we’re now spending bailing out Wall Street.) We could have averted this crisis if we put the needs of the majority of American families ahead of the needs of a small minority of greedy investors.  

    Now, 8,000 American families a day face foreclosure. But instead of prioritizing poor and even middle class families who are increasingly struggling, our government is spending billions and billions to bail out the Wall Street firms that created this crisis. Instead, we should be spending our taxpayer money to help the families who were taken advantage of in the “anything goes” unregulated financial system that years of misguided never-really-did-trickle-down economic policy created. These families need the government to help re-adjust their mortgages and cover bridge payments to avoid foreclosure. . . .

    (emphasis mine)

    Worth reading and I think captures the “guts” of whole disgusting scenario.

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