DrDank--
How do you have that list? Do you have some sort of source to cite?
I have to disagree at one point with the professor:
He claims at 12:33 that "this is capitalism, Bill." No it isn't. That may be what was previously called "capitalism" has become (what a guy on MSNBC recently called "corporate communism"), but it isn't what capitalism refers to. His definition of capitalism is the appropriateness of CEO's of large banks seeking to shape the regulatory structures that "govern" them in order to maximize shareholder profit. To call a "revolving-door" system of Washington and Wall St "capitalism" is as accurate as calling dog food "dog shit." It's crony capitalism at best.
And that's where I disagree with Congresswoman Kaptur:
Having the government come in and renegotiate contracts, determine salaries and boni, gift by executive fiat billions to a failing automotive company that caused its own ineffectualness and decay -- all of this strengthens the cabal she is swinging at. While she complains of foreclosures it must be painfully obvious that any legislation will have the markings of the banking sector all over it. But like the short comical children trying to swing at an adult, wiffing every .2 seconds while the bigger one laughs, so is a political solution to what amounts to political corruption at the highest of levels: monetary policy. The idea is: if companies corrupt the legislation process and the very existence of these financial regulations are an instrument of business power and protectionism and not a reigning in of their influence, then why not abandon the regulatory leaf and strike at the monopoly lying at the root of the corruption: the Federal Reserve! If Goldman Sachs and the Fed run Treasury, and the Treasury issues real money to the Fed in exchange for dollars = credit => banking-system muliplier*interest = increase of money supply = inflation = easy credit = investment bubbles = appearance of prosperity = economic growth. And then comes time to collect. Market tanks. You pay, they get paid. Little did you know that you were trading your labor for a number in a computer that was created by the raw power of the very banks this woman is ripping on. Your money, and therefore your economic freedom, is their property. And one thinks that you can change this by democratizing it? By giving certain Fed branches more say? The system's corruption is leaking from almost every crevice and Congressman: the corruption has already been democratized. Votes for bills that would benefit their piece of the pie (constituency) get passed all the time, in banking, gov't contracts, pork. And everybody knows it. It's why hardly anyone actually has respect for these people. We have already spread the corruption enough. She doesn't understand that it is the gov't's ability to regulate these institutions that have cemented their fate in the wings of State, and why the people always get crapped on. If we could compete with the dollar on a local/regional level with other currencies, they would be limited in their power. That's the root of the problem, and she's applying a foliar spray, maybe lighting a couple leaves on fire. Now even the plant is laughing...
Let's face it: it's our own ignorance and the corruption of both political parties that explains our current state. We aren't entirely to blame, however, as we are taught economic theories that encourage inflation and the suffering that prompts gov't to transplant wealth from productive to non-productive forces. And causes calamity. There's a song from "Die Ärzte" in Germany:
Es ist nicht deine Schuld, dass die Welt ist wie sie ist,
Es wäre nur deine Schuld, wenn sie so bleibt.
It's not your fault, that the world's the way it is,
But it'd be your fault, if it stays that way.
Happy conversing...