Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Warning: A Must See PBS Documentary

I will have to admit that I'm behind the curve regarding having seen this documentary. Much to my surprise I can't find anybody who has seen it. This appeared in October of 2009 and I caught it a few days ago. Regardless of one's political stripes this is a must see. This is a jaw-dropping documentary that quite frankly may scare you when you see that the same folks are in charge of our financial markets today.

The story is about how one woman, Brooksley Born, who tried to warn Congress and the American people of a financial situation and practices that could possibly cripple our financial institutions. Born, who was Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, tried to regulate what is known as over the counter derivatives. This has to do with things that derive their value from something else like currency or bond rates.

Our financial guru's at the time and at present, Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Arthur Levitt, and Larry Summers set out to stop her and they did. Born's credibility was attacked from every sector from Congress to Wall Street. This documentary offers up her testimony before Congress as well as interviews with all those who now admit she was right and they were wrong. I find it a little frightening that the Lieutenants of Greenspan and Rubin( Summers & Geitner) are now running things in Washington. I was amazed at watching Greenspan admit that everything he spent a lifetime believing about financial markets was wrong. These men freely admit in this segment that they did not like or respect this woman sticking her nose into areas that were reserved for them.

This is worth dedicating an hour to watch if you want to have a better and inside look at how and who put the Nation into this financial mess.

The program is a Frontline Documentary on PBS entitled "The Warning".

www.pbs.org

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