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Dylan Ratigan, Eliot Spitzer Take On The Fed In Skit (VIDEO)

First Posted: 8/24/09 Updated: 5/25/11

The future of our country is contained in a garbage bag. Or, rather, that's the metaphor chosen by MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan, who hosted former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer and Toure on his show earlier today.

If it sounds a bit oblique, well, it's actually a pretty good description of the bank bailout and the Federal Reserve's much-maligned secrecy. To aid the viewer, Ratigan dons a hat that says BANK, and Toure wears a FED hat.

Where does the garbage bag come in? The mystery bag is an analogy for the trillions in bad financial assets purchased by the Fed during the bailout. Ratigan argues the Fed has fought to conceal exactly which assets it purchased from banks. The central bank has become "a Goodwill store for the banks," Ratigan says, and kept the details of the bank rescue private.

Later in the piece. Spitzer offered some pointed critique of the Fed:

"Let me tell you a dirty secret, the Fed has done a disastrous job since Paul Volcker left...They've created multiple bubbles without permitting the economy underneath it to grow."

"This is a Ponzi scheme, an inside job. It is outrageous. It is time for the Congress to say 'Enough of this,'" added Spitzer.

Ratigan later added: "I feel as if the American has suffered the greatest theft and cover-up ever."

WATCH the entire segment -- and find out what's actually in the bag:







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The future of our country is contained in a garbage bag. Or, rather, that's the metaphor chosen by MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan, who hosted former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer and Toure on his show ...
The future of our country is contained in a garbage bag. Or, rather, that's the metaphor chosen by MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan, who hosted former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer and Toure on his show ...
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Antifascist-08
03:31 AM on 08/12/2009
This WAS the biggest theft in history. Pulled off by the Bushies and the Goldman Sachs crowd when they realized that the economy was in the tank and they were going to lose the election.

All you need to know is the wording of the initial TARP Bill, which proposed bailouts of billions with no oversight or legal recourse. That tells the story. Grab the money on your way out the door. Leave some people behind to steal any more that is offered up or left unguarded. See if you can infiltrate the new administra­tion. keep stealing and obstructin­g any reform at any cost.

Leave Obama with the biggest mess possible, one that will cause him to create deficits that can be used for political leverage later on, even by a party that caused all the problems and stole all the money. if Obama fails, blame him for the whole problem and see if the short attention span of the public can be fooled again.

Sometimes it isn't s bad to be the thief. Lay low for a while and start again.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
PhilipTaylor
Legalized Bribery is an Oxymoron - must END
03:07 AM on 08/08/2009
Dylan is 100% right!

Bernanke, FED Chair, is used to GIVING AWAY $23.7 TRILLION so WHY KEEP TRACK of a $HALF-TRIL­LION?

Bernake, who runs the Banksters' Workshop wants to have RULE over Protecting the Consumer from Bank Predators! F0X Guarding the HEN HOUSE!

WHAT DO YOU KNOW! GEITHNER may be changing and supporting MAIN STREET AMERICANS!

Should we TRUST HIM? Time will TELL!

He is against having CONSUMER PROTECTION done by the Bank Owned FED Reserve System!

The FED is led by the GL0R1F1ED PhD F1UNK!ES, that has the SOLE GOAL of R0BBING from the P00R to benefit the R1CH EL1TES.

Why would we want the F0X guarding the HEN HOUSE!

Even the FDIC would be better in protecting Consumers since at least it is a GOVERNMENT AGENCY, unlike the FED which is BANK OWNED, and NOT EVEN all are US BANKS but also German, London, and Swiss Banks.
11:47 PM on 07/27/2009
Go Dylan.
02:31 PM on 07/27/2009
Now THAT'S THE DYLAN we Like!
04:46 PM on 07/27/2009
Wall street has a pass on every fraud they comitt with the banks. This Country and it laws are made for WE THE PEOPLE but we have been giving the shaft.

It is time to rise up and take back America regardless of what party you are from we all are family in this massive fraud and deciet.

We must ban together and petition our congressma­n and Pres. to stop this nitemare without our support nothing will happen.

Please begin a petition and make sure all party reps. have to bring to the people. Lets raise money and prosecute the frauds that have been comitted already and make sure wrongful ones serve time.

Lets change the laws for us because between hig tech fast trading that is legal cheating and others ways we are being abused we must stand up now or another major meltdown is around the corner.
01:21 PM on 07/27/2009
Which Bankers financed Hitler's Germany?

And why are they still among us?
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Antifascist-08
03:33 AM on 08/12/2009
George W's grandfathe­r had large financial interests until he was stopped by the government for dealing with the enemy.

Look it up.
12:34 PM on 07/27/2009
Good for Dylan Ratigan. Keep it up.

And to you Bernanke, you're a peice of you know what.
12:17 PM on 07/27/2009
Just walkin' in circles.
11:47 PM on 07/26/2009
The best Fed chair in history was Marriner Eccles, appointed to the job by FDR. He was also the most unconventi­onal and the least tied to Wall Street. We badly need someone like this again, preferably a Keynesian and progressiv­e like Krugman or Stiglitz.
11:52 AM on 07/27/2009
The best chair was when there was no chair..and NO FEDERAL RESERVE!
12:32 PM on 07/27/2009
The Fed has an impossible job. It doesn't matter who's in charge because nobody is smart enough to know what interest rates should be for our entire country... Only the market place can set the true value of money (ie interest rates).

The Fed has an impossible job. We'd be a lot better off without one.
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peterg76
Freelance medical transcriptionist
09:39 PM on 07/26/2009
Garbage bags serve a necessary and practical purpose. I think they deserve an apology.
10:48 PM on 07/26/2009
Who cares what these two clowns have to say just when you think msnbc can't get any more desperate well here we are.
11:25 PM on 07/26/2009
They are so right.
11:27 PM on 07/26/2009
And I suppose you watch the liars at Fox.
12:21 PM on 07/26/2009
Spitzer doesn't have an honest bone in his body - I'm sure banks collateral­ized their debt knowing full well that the bottom tranches of CDO's would have morbidly high foreclosur­e rates, and then bought stock into other banks with similar practices. Stop being disingenuo­us, no one worth their economic weight in salt believes you.
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WIpatriot
I've seen enough to make me Progressive
05:40 PM on 07/26/2009
So, THAT'S what happened..­.thinking.­..thinking­...thinkin­g...nope, can't believe you.
08:09 PM on 07/26/2009
You insult Spitzer for the person he is and what he did in the past, rather than what he is saying, which is telling the TRUTH!

If you really think that's what happened, you are blind. Wake up already!

This is the biggest Ponzi Scheme ever. America is getting robbed.
12:47 AM on 07/27/2009
Only it's not a Ponzi scheme and nobody, nobody, is getting robbed.

One of the bags of garbage made $302,000,0­00.00 in gross interest income (302 million dollars).

Some garbage.
12:00 PM on 07/26/2009
I think that it's time that we acknowledg­e, not only that our paper-econ­omy has lost touch with reality, but also that it has become entombed in a morass of crime and high-crime that, as it turns out, has very real costs. "New jobless claims" are declining because the funds for unemployme­nt insurance are becoming exhausted. And yet, the crime and the rapacious pillaging does not stop; doesn't even slow down.

good articles: http://www­.iamned.co­m
11:15 AM on 07/26/2009
The Constituti­on of the United States gives Congress the power to issue currency and control its value. There is no Federal Reserve in the Constituti­on.

It is debatable whether or not Congress can legally give away its constituti­onal responsibi­lities to an independen­t institutio­n, but since it has done so, Congress at least has a duty to monitor the activities of said institutio­n.

See Section 8 of the U.S. Constituti­on:

"The Congress shall have the power.....
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures."

AUDIT THE FED!
10:59 AM on 07/26/2009
Contact your Representa­tive and Senators. Tell them to audit the Federal Reserve.

http://www­.campaignf­orliberty.­com/campai­gns/auditt­hefed.php
10:34 AM on 07/26/2009
GET RID OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE! Congress, our elected body of government­, needs to reign in this privately owned bankers "CASH COW." It is destroying this country. It's day has come and gone. It has been allowed to break the back of America too many times.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
mudshark12
Now who are you jiving with that cosmik debris?
12:45 AM on 07/26/2009
When one steals Hundreds or Thousands one gets jail time. When one steals Millions or Trillions one gets to keep their ill gotten gains. It's no wonder Thomas Jefferson HATED the banks, the sad thing is that there is nothing we can do about it, it's a done deal.