11 August 2011

Dylan Ratigan channels Peter Finch

Dylan Ratigan is a television host on MSNBC with rather better-than-typical credentials for reporting on financial news:
Ratigan served as the Global Managing Editor for Corporate Finance at Bloomberg News Service, and before that had covered Mergers and Acquisitions, the U.S. Stock Market and IPOs. At Bloomberg, he co-created and hosted Morning Call for Bloomberg's cable network and the USA Network.  He has served as a contributor to ABC News and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald and Chicago Tribune.
In this 5-minute rant he expresses in no uncertain terms what he considers to be going on with the American economy:
We’ve got a real problem…this is a mathematical fact. Tens of trillions of dollars are being extracted from the United States of America. Democrats aren’t doing it, republicans aren’t doing it, an entire integrated system, banking, trade and taxation, created by both parties over a period of two decades is at work on our entire country right now.
It's worth a listen.  I'm not the first to compare it to the classic rant by Peter Finch in the movie Network (posted below this post).

9 comments:

  1. I think he disregards the effect of constant warfare.

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  2. He seems to have left out the defense industry, the oil & gas industry, big ag... I do, however, think that "extraction" is the perfect word - we're all being treated as resources for extraction - of money - rather than as human beings and the owners of our society.

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  3. Jim, Barney Frank hasn't disregarded it -

    http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/08/barney-frank-military-spending-to-blame-for-u-s-credit-downgrade/

    I may blog this later today; need to weed the yard now.

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  4. I don't hes disregarded the war and oil machines
    I think it is assumed to be a large part of the "bought" congress problem.

    Fanatstic video!

    Puts the rest of financial journalism to shame in not speaking the truth of the situation. Frustrates me enormously to listen to these so called financial experts laying the blame with the ratings agencies or market sentiment/panic.

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  5. Oh dear. He wants "grownups" to speak the truth and tackle the problem. Unfortunately it has been abundantly clear for at least a decade there are no grownups left in the US political, financial or military systems.

    We can't tackle the "bought Congress" issue until we find us some grownups. Perhaps we could import a few from New Zealand or Sweden?

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  6. We'll vote grownups into office when we get the reasonable majority motivated to participate in primaries.

    I do think the two-party system is a major force creating the "bought" congress (and presidency, witness O'bama's Wall Street cabinet).

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  7. This may not be the best idea, but I'm not hearing anything else, let alone anything better.

    http://www.paulbeard.org/wordpress/ideas-various/simple-campaign-finance-reform/

    Public financing is a dead letter: that doesn't get money out of elections, it just replaces one kind — corporate dollars — with another — ours. This country managed to hold elections and run things reasonably well without the power of mass media advertising. Think about it: the first election where TV was a factor was 1960: how crappy have things been since then? Make your own list but even if it differs from mine, no one can argue that the past 50 years have been our finest hour, from a democratic standpoint.

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  8. Ummmmm - bought Congress? Turnover in Congress is miniscule, most of them can't get unelected without texting naked photographs of themselves to underage nymphs.

    Corrupt banking system? Well, sure, maybe - but just because he says it with conviction doesn't make it true (I, however, am the world's greatest lover).

    I forget what his other unsubstantiated talking point was (it was either the yellow peril or murdering Belgian babies) but once again, saying it without offering up so much as an example of an exorbitant credit card fee don't make it so.

    MSNBC is Fox for the Birkenstock crowd. Listen to NPR.

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