Halloween Is Child's Play--the Real Scare Is Right Here, Right Now
Bill Moyers on PBS: BILL MOYERS: That's the progressive Representative from Ohio, Marcy Kaptur, she's with me now. She has a Masters from the University of Michigan, did graduate study at M.I.T. and still lives in the same house in the Toledo working class neighborhood where she grew up. She's in her 14th term in Congress, the longest-serving Democratic woman in the history of the House, and she's an outspoken financial watchdog on three important Committees: Appropriations, Budget and Oversight and Government Reform. Also with me is a familiar face to viewers of this broadcast. Simon Johnson is the former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund. He now teaches Global Economics and Management at M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management.
He's one of the founders of the website Baselinescenario.com. I check it out daily for Simon's take on the economic and financial crisis. It's been a year since the great collapse and both my guests are well equipped to assess what's happened since then. Welcome to you both . . .
Voices of Power: Elizabeth Warren Thursday, October 8, 2009 5:56 AM LOIS ROMANO: Welcome, Elizabeth Warren, Chairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee that is tasked with scrutinizing how the Treasury Department has spent $700 billion to shore up our failing financial institutions. Thanks for joining us today . . . ROMANO: There's a wonderful moment when he (Michael Moore) asks you where the $700 billion is, and you look at him and you say, I don't know. So the question is: why don't you know? WARREN: Well, we don't know where the $700 billion is because the system was initially designed to make sure that we didn't know. When Secretary Paulson first put this money out into the banks, he didn't ask "what are you going to do with it?" He didn't put any restrictions on it. He didn't put any tabs on where it was going to go; in other words, he didn't ask. And if you don't ask, no one tells. And so we have a system that originally put more than $200 billion into the financial institutions basically saying just take it.
_____________________________________ These good people are not conspiracy theorists. Bill Moyers, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Simon Johnson and Elizabeth Warren are all thoughtful people with extensive credentials. I (very nearly) beg you to hear them out. OK, I do beg you. Set aside a few minutes from what is no doubt a busy schedule and begin to understand the un-understandable. It's all here. Bewildered as we are by all the partisan shouting . . . it's all here.