Plunder: The First Reactions To The New Film; Wall Street Is Not Too Big To Jail

April 8th, 2010 - by: danny

The DVD release of my film, Plunder the Crime of Our Time, has been low key. The good news is that it is now available on iTunes.

Can the iPad be far behind?

FIRST REVIEWS:

“With mind-numbing phraseology such as “collateralized debt obligation,” and “credit default swaps,” it’s little wonder so many homeowners remain incredulous as to why their properties are upside down in value and facing foreclosure – linchpins to the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.

The new documentary Plunder showcases the dark side of greed in the housing market and how the effects of bilateral government deregulation of the banking industry helped bring about what one pundit characterized as the “greatest nonviolent crime against humanity in history.”

Filmmaker Danny Schechter unravels the sordid schemes and regulations that allowed banks and hedge fund managers to create and fuel a high-stakes game of monopoly using “mortgage-backed securities.” Schechter showcases in layman terms how the media frenzy toward the arrest of Ponzi king Bernie Madoff diverted attention away from the actions of the nation’s largest financial institutions, many of which were engaging in predatory lending practices that duped millions of unsuspecting and unqualified people – via sub-prime mortgages – into owning a piece of the American dream they could not afford.

The unscrupulous nadir reached with the so-called “NINJA” loan that required no income, job or assets to qualify. Fueled by a white-hot housing market – unprecedented in history – mortgages were grouped and resold as commodities to investors at multiples up to 30 times their value. Institutions such as the American International Group (AIG) then sold insurance on these investments as commodities. When the housing bubble burst, economic Armageddon followed.

In all, Plunder is a gritty thriller that’s unfortunately ripped from today’s headlines.”

For the most part, the media has done a lousy job of explaining the recent U. S. economic collapse. How many of us even know what “derivatives” are — or the crucial role they played in Wall Street’s casino-style looting of the economy.

That’s why this new movie by Danny Schechter, a journalist and documentarian (In Debt We Trust) who specializes in economic issues, is so welcome and valuable. Schechter’s In Debt predicted the crisis and showed how our economy was being strangled by massive debt and reckless, unregulated speculation (with many of the laws put in place after the Great Depression, unwisely junked by both Clinton and G. W. Bush. In Plunder there’s a telling shot of some very well-dressed, so-called experts on Forbes on Fox laughing scornfully (and idiotically) at Schechter’s dead-on predictions of the trouble that lay imminently ahead.

The Emmy-winning Schechter, whose beguilingly shaggy, populist demeanor suggests a less hungry Michael Moore, argues that the recent Wall Street crash was not just the product of stupid deregulation, designed to line the pockets of Wall Street insiders, but partly part of a criminal conspiracy, and that Bernie Madoff’s huge and massively destructive Ponzi Scheme was just the tip of a malevolent iceberg. It’s hard to argue. Schechter talks with numerous insiders, including one convicted econo-criminal, Sam Entar (who shows us how it was done), executives of the bankrupted and destroyed Bear Sterns, and ace journalist Paul Krugman.

What we hear is truly sobering and important. Schechter’s suggestion that the fall of investment giant Bear Stearns was deliberately manipulated by speculators who made giant profits from the fall, needs to be followed up, preferably by both journalists and law enforcement officials. And the greed-crazed, money-mad criminals responsible for this mess, largely misidentified by politicized “news” peddlers like Fox, need to be tossed in the hoosegow or their hands kept off the nation’s dough from now on. If they are punished, and the much-needed economic regulatory reforms are adopted (probably over the dead bodies of equally money-mad Republicans bent on torpedoing Obama at any cost), honest journalists like Schechter will be one of the main reasons. See this.

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I will take it!

LETTERS

Rick Sterling wrote:

Hi Danny -

I heard the KPFA interview this morning and was intrigued by the somewhat contentious style. Maybe Brian got up on wrong side of bed. But it was a good and informative interview anyways, and in some ways it was good that he played devil’s advocate. It brought forth your perspective and thecontrast with “The Big Short” was especially useful since that will be a best seller and Michael Lewis lives in Berkeley. I share your viewpoint and am glad to hear about the forthcoming “Plunder” DVD. “In Debt We Trust” was excellent and I am sure this one will be also. Just 20 miles east of Berkeley is Antioch – one of housing crash epicenters of the US. I will be talking with some activists from out there and will tell them about your movie. Hopefully we can organize some screenings.

I first heard of you in 1972 ….. when an anthropologist named Don Barnett came back to Vancouver after visiting New York. He talked about the FTA event and meeting “the news dissector”. Glad you are fighting and helping to kick start the progressive movement.”

Lloyd Scott writes:

Danny –

Cherie screened PLUNDER for me. Dang! You helped me wrap my head around the idea of the meltdown as a crime rather than just passively accepting that this is the way business is always done and I can’t do anything about it. I will be showing this at my church, my office, and my neighborhood, encouraging one and all to buy their own copy. Good luck with your film and thanks for the lesson.

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While in Dallas, I did get to screen some of the film for a production class at Southern Methodist University. Big Hand. I spoke at SMU on a panel about media and human rights. Before I left the campus, I had a quick tour of the site of empty field that is the site of the new George W. Bush Presidential library, to be built, no doubt, on the bones of dead Iraqis. I wanted to donate a copy of my new book, ‘The Crime Of My Time,’ but there weren’t even workmen, much less secret service agents to turn it down. It is right near Mockingbird Station. Perhaps we can all do some mocking and sing along: