$(document).ready( function () { talk_rendercallback({"enabled":"0","islive":"0","eid":5579,"total":"24","discussion":[{"nm":"c.Straisfeld","rs":"0","ms":"We live in an ever more complicated world in which knowledge is increasing at such a rate that it becomes impossible for anyone to understand more than what constitutes "their field" . We listen and take advice from the experts ( so defined by their success ) and assume that we are protected by rules and regulations that we seldom check fully . After years of tremendous success in the markets why would anyone listen to "the warning "? \nThe warning came from a government employee , which shows that the means to control were there ; what was missing was the ability and the courage to act .\nWe are looking back now , after stopping at the brink of disaster and you have to ask yourself what have we learned ? The economic advisors in charge now are the former believers in deregulation , the "wonder kids" of Wall Street ended up making more money than ever ( at the public trough ) and Congress and the Administration are playing games .","pt":"Feb 17, 2010 18:50"},{"nm":"CommentingNow","rs":"0","ms":"This shed so much light on Wall Street\'s dirivatives and how this economic crisis unfolded.  What happened on Wall Street should have been criminal.  However, to have government in private books is different than making security laws to expose and curb greed.  We best find leaders in this Country that will have American citizen\'s freedom FROM government as well as freedom from crooks in their interest.  This film also exposes Washington\'s power and greed, do we want to change their power to stand by allow it to trusting them with the power to oversee it?  Does that make sense?  Laws to outlaw certain practices, as well as laws to require transparency to investers are in order.  Stiff prosecution requirements are in order.  And then citizens that demand from their elected officials that those laws are enforced are in order as well.  \nI am so very impressed with the insight of Brooksley Born in spotting Wall Street\'s house of cards; also, for her integrity in confronting a machine and not backing down until she was made powerless.  As well, for a man to admit he wishes he had taken different action, as Clinton\'s group member did here, takes a very rare individual.  \nThis film left me wondering: had they done something about it when Born sounded the warning, would we have suffered a recession and then it would be over by now?  The film points out that by avoiding the house of cards falling at that time, the amount of dirivtatives went from 27 trillion dollars to 595 trillion dollars (if I got that right - seems incredible).  ","pt":"Feb 17, 2010 14:13"},{"nm":"Ex home owner","rs":"0","ms":"thans for taking my home of thirty years. Brooksley Born For President Help save this country from more Greed. Pray","pt":"Feb 17, 2010 12:41"},{"nm":"Christopher Evans","rs":"0","ms":"If the so called free market was applied to this issue, the institutions would have failed, and good riddance. Would the outcome have adversely affected the population? Of course. But it would have recovered because nothing really disappeared other than concept and contract via the legal system. What our government did to "repair" the ill, was to create a pseudo-derivative...forced upon the taxpayer. More oversight? Of course. Ms. Born...you are my newest hero. And, those who accredit the mishaps to Randian theory miss the point of Objectivism. Greenspan\'s recounting of Rand\'s philosophy do not speak ill of her. They speak of his fecklessness and desire to sit responsibility at a seat further from his own. Shame on him.","pt":"Feb 17, 2010 11:30"},{"nm":"Travis Wingard","rs":"0","ms":"Has Rush seen this program.\n","pt":"Feb 17, 2010 00:06"},{"nm":"john malkland","rs":"0","ms":"If the deritatives market had been regulated, would its volume reach over $600 trillion and burst the growth? what would be the level of overall growth? Possibly less but in safer manner. It was some kind of gambling and the big players in the market have not lost for more than 25 years, as in all kinds of gambling, it is time to payback not only for that "players" but also for heads-off governments and, unfortunately, common people.","pt":"Oct 31, 2009 09:44"},{"nm":"Thrsa Boulart","rs":"0","ms":"Derivatives: Financial Terrorism ","pt":"Oct 30, 2009 15:18"},{"nm":"rayoflightinaseaoffog","rs":"0","ms":"Our economy is all of ours, everyone in the world has a part of it. To simply let those who have the biggest combination of greed, intelligence, talent and arrogance run unchecked by regulation or even data collection so the rest of us know what they are up to is insane. Yes a lot of very intelligent people pushed this concept of unregulated markets for the very reason that by doing so they were given wealth power and status for doing so.    There has to be ways to allow people to trade while the rest of us try to raise families and prepare for old age without the dangers of greedy arrogance destroying what we worked for.","pt":"Oct 26, 2009 10:36"},{"nm":"Susan Gordon","rs":"0","ms":"For a second, I thought PBS was slipping from its leftward lean when I watched the opening of “The Warning”.  Then I watched the show.  By first laying the foundation of Alan Greenspan’s background and the influence Ayn Rand had on him, the program showed how evil  capitalism is and how out of touch the egotistical old man was.  I’m sure the producers of this episode didn’t want to confuse the viewer by separating Futures trading with Over the Counter Markets (OTC’s).  Nor did the show want to mention that parts of the makeup of OTC’s are Government Sponsored Enterprises namely, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  No regulation?  No oversight?  Hardly.  Just the failure of Washington elitist politicians to do their job and the job of the investigative reporter and their programs to do theirs.","pt":"Oct 25, 2009 14:32"},{"nm":"Sampath Nathan","rs":"0","ms":"Excellent One","pt":"Oct 23, 2009 15:33"},{"nm":"Dennis Danielson","rs":"0","ms":"So ..... the Guru Greenspan gets to walk off into the sunset with a "Guess my model was bad" mea culpa? Does he realize the lives he has directly affected/ruined? They all (Summers, Greenspan, Rubin, Geitner and Congress) should be tried by average Americans and if found guilty, be forced to live at a level of $1 above the poverty line -- so they cannot be supported by the Government that they so despised.","pt":"Oct 22, 2009 14:57"},{"nm":"Stephen","rs":"0","ms":"Frontline is one of the best series of programs ever made and continues to be at the highest standard.  It sits at that standard very much alone.  Thanks a lot for another in a long line of journalism\'s finest hour on TV.","pt":"Oct 22, 2009 03:38"},{"nm":"Pascale","rs":"0","ms":"Cipherbroadcast: I fail to see how the Mayoral position of New York has anything to do with regulation of OTC derivatives. Granted Bloomberg made a fortune off his terminals, which is basically a market newswire, but that hardly makes him the keystone to economic deregulation, and really has nothing to do with the topic. I also fail to see what your argument against the media is. You laud this program (which I agree is fantastic) seemingly without realizing that it is nearly 3 years too late in warning us. It is elucidating the problem post-mortem. \nHind sight is 20/20, as they say. Having worked in the media, I can assure of certain truths: they are overworked, understaffed and underpaid. Especially now, with the proliferation of new mediums, it is not uncommon for a reporter to be asked to write an article before being sent to the radio sister company and finish it off with a video commentary for online consumption. All in the name of "competing" with the internet and bloggers, most of whom are political hacks (which TV news has been quick to emulate with its Foxes, O\'reillys and Oberkampfs and Maddows) and less than 1% of whom produce actual news reporting, rather than selective commentary and repetition... ","pt":"Oct 22, 2009 02:02"},{"nm":"Peggy Sublett","rs":"0","ms":" Thank you for your excellent show exposing more details of our mutant financial system. My hope is \nthat Mr.Obama and his team watched it and have the guts of Ms. Born to truly do the right thing.\n","pt":"Oct 22, 2009 00:48"},{"nm":"Tired","rs":"0","ms":"There has to be government intervention (regulation) for the protection of the American Consumer.  We need control and protection.","pt":"Oct 21, 2009 22:01"},{"nm":"Lynette Wood","rs":"0","ms":"Superb show and insight into the structure of the recent economic disaster. Credit and respect go to Ms Born who uncovered the risk. Now let\'s make it a priority to take action so that regulation is passed, so that this doesn\'t happen again. With respect, LW","pt":"Oct 21, 2009 20:48"},{"nm":"g","rs":"0","ms":"CipherBroadcast,\n\nDon\'t confuse an objectivist reality with that which helped create this last financial boom/bust. \n\nThe Fed is not an element of any free market scenario. It\'s an insider\'s tool if there ever was one. Without a Fed, make that, with a hard currency, this never would have happened. Nobody makes these types of crazy bets with hard currency.\n\ng","pt":"Oct 21, 2009 20:22"},{"nm":"Jenny Hanniver","rs":"0","ms":"Human experience over a long lifetime should teach us that free will is always  balanced by predetermined limits, that liberty must be restrained by the needs of society (and vice versa), and that the old hack Spencerian notion of "survival by competition" is often outweighed in nature by "survival from cooperation."  But Alan Greenspan had no inkling of this.  Perhaps he was cocooned and never really grew up--or not until 2008.  If so, his tragedy is ours.\n\nIf any good idea is carried beyond reasonable limits it will become a "deadly virtue", including the idea of individual freedom. That\'s why Ayn Rand was one of the most subversively dangerous writers in modern history. Indeed, her narrowness was so profound that she may have been demented. I could never get beyond page 100 in any of her books, which seemed like a lot of cotton candy spun by hot air--but Alan Greenspan could.  WHAT A FRIGHTENING REVELATION!  Even without knowing that Rand was the demon who sat on his shoulder, many of us never trusted him.  But the "smart ones" did, and we are the Little People who are being crushed because of their blind worshipfulness.\n\nI pray for the day when Robert Rubin will fade away to tend his garden, the below 100 IQs in Congress will be replaced by intelligent public servants, and analysts like Robert Reich and of course Brooksley Born will be listened to.  I hope we haven\'t passed the point of no return.","pt":"Oct 21, 2009 19:54"},{"nm":"Jon Conrad","rs":"0","ms":"Frontline is perhaps the only news organization left that actually does serious investigative reporting about issues that really matter. I became a fan when they contrasted two presidential candidates George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton. there was no biase!!! great historical review and interviews with friends and business associates. I will continue to support pbs if for no other reason than to keep this show on the air!\nI saw this piece last night and was rivited to the television! this is Journalism at its best!\nfactual and earnest","pt":"Oct 21, 2009 18:05"},{"nm":"Wendi Beane","rs":"0","ms":"It was an excellent show.  I have a better understanding of OTC derivatives and why in theory they can be a good thing.  However if no one is minding the store,  then the ‘black box’ can fill up quickly without anyone really knowing how much is in there.  Oversight is a good thing and it is difficult for me to believe that there can’t be some kind a compromise on how to regulate these kinds of derivatives.  ","pt":"Oct 21, 2009 15:31"},{"nm":"Jeff Kohut","rs":"0","ms":"Excellent show. Hopefully it opened up many Americans eyes (and their politicians) to the risk that derivates pose to a stable U.S. economy. Everyone should write their Senators and Congressperson and tell them that derivatives should get strong regulation. In my opinion, companies that involve themselves in derivative trading should not be included in 401K and pension plans, as the risk to our retirement years is too great. Keep up the good program Frontline, we appreciate your efforts!","pt":"Oct 21, 2009 08:00"},{"nm":"David Crown","rs":"0","ms":"So it boils down to this: If the financial industry is not regulated, we will have a repeat of the disaster wee now face. I say, regulate the industry, ask for cash reserves, protect us against fraud, and make derivatives tightly regulated. Wall Street is gambling with my money as it is.","pt":"Oct 21, 2009 00:32"},{"nm":"Douglas Eads","rs":"0","ms":"I would like to see justice done.  In my view that requires the pursuit of the obvious guilty, the immediate seizure of their guilty gains, with long and harsh prison terms imposed.  Those who lobby against reform and regulation also need to be thrown into the cauldron of justice.  It seems only fair.    ...dke ","pt":"Oct 21, 2009 00:10"},{"nm":"CipherBroadcast","rs":"0","ms":"If you follow the Anyn Rand basis of all of this, it shows that when you eliminate government oversight from the picture, smart self-interested parties who have alot of money to play with, will make more money out of NOTHING.  If they are really smart and rich, they run for Mayoral titles in government and seek to advance this twisted economic theology on everyone else who has less money and time to dissect the spidery nuances of how this all really works.  How it really works is, WE all pay in the end for their excessive, greedy, self-interested behavior.  Mortgage markets collapse, and people go homeless.  And that is just for starters.\n\nWhat is really galling is that media becomes part of the self interest in the deriviative market equation and large parts of it become (because of their self preservation instincts) "disinterested" in taking the time to analyze to the depth that this report does (thankfully), and then INTEGRATE the results of the analysis into effective reporting to make a difference for people enough to inform their votes at election time.\n\nI see a particular and (frustratingly) logical outcome of the current economic crisis as a "choice" to vote for the current billionare Mayor - who can supposedly "help" us all get out of the economic crisis.  Didn\'t Bloomberg help get us into this mess in the first place; his self-interested, paternalistic, philanthropic, methods (buying influence, inundating the media with ads tens or maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars to date?)...isnt that what we are really talking about here?\n\nEveryone trusted Alan Greenspan, even Congress; he was an EXPERT.\n\nWe need to continue to challenge expertise and conventional wisdom to preserve democracy and the ability of democratic institutions to thrive in the world.\n\nChange is good.  Oversight is also good.\n\nWe especially need a change in NYC and some government oversight at the Federal level to prevent this charade from continuing any further.\n\nRespectfully,\n\nCipherBroadcast\n(Props to my mentor Publius)  ","pt":"Oct 20, 2009 23:55"}]}); });