Unbridled Greed at Goldman-Sachs

If there is an issue the American people should become informed about, regardless of political party affiliation or philosophy, it is the extent to which the greedy money managers at the nation’s big banks are destroying the middle class “American dream.”

More from Rolling Stone magazine:
The Great American Bubble Machine

In Debt We Trust is the latest film from Danny Schechter, the Emmy-winning former ABC News and CNN producer. This new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with what former Reagan adviser Kevin Phillips calls “Financialization” — the “powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex.” While many Americans may be “maxing out” on credit cards, there is a deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands. And with frightening consequences.

There is a scene in this film where Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, was to hold a hearing questioning the big bank managers on what went wrong that led to the need for massive government bailouts with taxpayer money. But he only gives each of them four minutes to make an opening statement, does not allow other senators to ask questions, and adjourns the hearing.

If this happened in Europe, or even Iran, the people would be out in the streets protesting en masse. But not in the U.S., where the people here just seem quite willing to take it up the butt…

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