Arianna Discusses Wall Street's Failure to Learn From Its Mistakes on Morning Meeting (VIDEO)

Arianna appeared on Dylan Ratigan's MSNBC show "Morning Meeting" today to discuss the one-year anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the financial crisis, and how Wall Street has steadfastly refused to learn from its brush with disaster. The major banks remain "too big to fail," which means the whole system is constantly in peril, and they have returned to the risky practices that created the crisis in the first place.

Arianna says: "We are still being held hostage. If we don't fundamentally change this corrupt system, we are basically going to be held hostage again."

She also discussed how this issue transcends the traditional political division of left and right: "This is not about left and right. In fact, on 'Morning Joe' you have Robert Reich agreeing with Pat Buchanan that something has to be done about Wall Street. So this is really something that is about the status quo versus the American public. And that's how we need to refocus the debate."

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Comments

[Lloyd Cata]

Anyone remember the proposal for a "bad bank" where the banks were supposed to turn over a portion of their "non-performing" assets, which purportedly were worth less than 25 cents on the dollar? Remember how "we the people" were going to pay 100 percent for something that might be worthless?
The bad bank idea suddenly fizzled, not because of the protest against it or the fear that the taxpayers were buying worthless assets. The idea that the banks would turn over these assets frightened the hell out of the internal bank auditors. It would show directly how the banks structured their portfolios to accommodate deposits and transactions without reporting or regulatory oversight.
So, there could be no scrubbing of the books for "toxic assets". Neither the government nor the banks are willing to disclose that hundreds of billions of dollars in drug profits was going right back into the banking system in the guise of real estate transactions. Even at the losses suffered by the drug barons on their real estate investments those investments still outweigh the cost of laundering the money on the black market.

[Jannsmoor]

One year after the Wall Street Profiteers crashed the world's economy "too big to fail" is looking like "too rich and powerful to regulate."

We do need a public bank. We actually already have 'kind of' one in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They need to force owner occupied home mortgages down to 3%. That would jump start the economy in a huge way.

[research]

NATIONALIZE.

[peaches49]

Historically this type of fight has been going on since the beginning of our country.
I am reading "The Age of Jackson" and it is uncanny how similar some of the bank and corporation problems he dealt with are still problems today.

[gconners]

There can be no capitalism if any entity, other than the government itself, becomes "too big to fail." Where are the patriotic, pro-capitalist protesters on this issue? "Too big to fail" is a euphemism for "socialism".

[FormerReaganite]

So why is "socialism" the demon here? The question is, would you rather be be dealing with criminal capitalists, or doing business with the good citizens of our country themselves, in all fairness? After all, the government IS "the people," is it not?

The "capitalists" are just in it for the money, at YOUR expense. WAKE UP, PEOPLE!

[hockmasm]

check out this book on the topic. its a great read from Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081570304X?ie=UTF8&tag=bodybudiets-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=081570304X

[greyhound2]

It is impossible to do justice to the public business with a system which operates on bribes.

[FormerReaganite]

Those are capitalist bribes.

[spinns17]

i say we take over every bank till they get things right on wall street

[FormerReaganite]

I say we establish a *public bank* to compete. It should be non-profit, and will undercut the private banks to the point of ultimately driving them out of business. Just think: 2% interest on credit cards, 0% interest on student loans. PUBLIC OPTION BANKING NOW!!!

[Peter007]

Here is the argument for keeping the policy of too big to Fail.

The Federal government needs to keep unemployment low. If a large institution goes under, it will have a large effect upon unemployment as the company and its vendors loose jobs. Its much easier to keep one large company afloat than it is for the government to help thousands of small companies. The federal government can only act in BIG ways. It only passes sweeping reform bills. It can't do things on a small scale. Thats the nature of the beast.

[ChiefDog]

"The Beast" - more like Beasts
At some point these unsustainable beasts will need to be brought under control. I think it's still possible to tame them via legislation, but if not, changes will still inevitably come.

[Peter007]

The beast is the system. The industrial -military complex, the election finance system. The pay to play system.

[gconners]

So, what does "capitalism" mean to you? Just curious.

[arlandbaee]

Where are the criminals and when will they be held accountable? Until someone or group of people are charged with criminal conduct, nothing will change. You can't just wag your finger at these people and say stop it. Why would they? They can just keep doing what they are doing with full knowledge that a verbal reprimand is the cost of reaping million dollar salaries and bonuses, most of the guilty probably never have to work another day in their life! Get the money back!

[turkeywrld]

AMEN.. there has been a lot of rhetoric about transparency and accountability... lots of taxpayers loot has been doled out with NO changes .. integrity begins at the TOP .. off subject, but the same applies to the barbarism of torture... scapegoating those following orders is little more than a band aid... in short;- avoidance .

[FormerReaganite]

We can solve this problem once and for all, with a NON-PROFIT PUBLIC BANKING OPTION.

2% interest credit cards
1% interest car and home loans
0% interest student loans

Will these low rates help the economy grow? You bet they would!

[FormerReaganite]

And we can restore savings accounts' rate of return to a reasonable level, as it was in the past, until banks figured out that they could reap tremendous profits by simultaneously lowering interest payments while raising charged interest rates.. (what suckers we have been...)

[Rapier]

Too big to fail banks implies a government warranty giving them an unfair advantage over other banks and thus letting them get even bigger.

[josephXY]

A rather sad and tragic role in all that was played by the experts and many media. They
hyped and frenzied all up, apart from all too often withholding crucial information, one of the
perfect crimes or media - sins. And who are now themselves in financial problems, victims of
what they helped to bring about.
Pretty popular is for instance the Peter Schiff video, a flashback of what the experts said in 06/07
and therefore so surprising, wow-ing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

[tlawyer56]

I voted for change. I know that the President was aware of the challanges facing ordinary Americans. Caught between a rock and a hard place, I understand the need to try to maintain some semblence of an economy. Faced with those challanges the Bush Administration pushed TARP through congress. The wall street bailout for the top 1%. Obama faced with the need to do something about the tanking economy and realizing that unemployment would rise requested that congress pass the stimulus bill. The right fought but, passed the bill. Now the worry of long term deficits has reached the pinnacle and the American people are fearful and upset. Obama's stimulus was directed at the middle class with tax cuts and money to stem the rising tide of unemployme­nt....sort of a safety net for average Americans. Now Americans are directing their anger at the President calling him Nazi and Socialist. Remember the redistribution of wealth thing? Well wealth has been redistributed alright , with the top 1% holding 50% of the nations wealth, by corruption, greed and outright theft. This has been decades in the making. The President didn't create this problem. The anger is misdirected. America wake up. We need to lobby our congress and tell them to fix this mess.

[ImissBush]

& now theyre even bigger

[vippy]

What is most upsetting to me is that our dear politicians have not addressed the issues yet that got us into this mess? Why? If you had a leaking faucet at home would you go and buy another faucet,
take time to think about your options or go and shut of the main water valve? The fact that they have not addressed any of the issues is very suspect to me. Are they still making money, like with the oil/gas and refuse to address the Commodities Futures Modernization Act so it could be reigned in?
There has to be a greedy reason for this. All other countries already done their share and addressed those issues with hedge funds, derivatives and CEO Pay, etc. except the USA, ruled by the MAFIA it seems.

[porsche996]

At what level of consumer citizen debt default would the government have to bail out everyone and not just their friends?