yes it was on in Melb - sbs two - I missed it guide says it is a 4 part series - was today the first part ?
Good well produced video. I just watched episode 1, was it Ep1 on SBS tonight? I thought the treatment of Goldman Sachs' betting against their own products was well explained. I noted a few things however. Note that the documentary is a PBS product, PBS having a target demographic of dedicated US Democrat voters. The documentary eagerly points out who the Democrats are speaking in Congress against credit default swaps. Yet the speeches from Democrats explaining why Glass-Stiegle needed to be repealed, have no notice that this is a democrat speaking, even Carl Levin who is later featured and named as he speaks about the situation many years later. And of course Clinton was surrounded by clapping (mostly) Democrats as he signed the Glass Stiegle repeal act. They weren't pointed out either. A little but of bias there. I'm currently reading a Kiyosaki book, some may scoff but I realised a few things he explains were relevant to the default swap situation: a) It's not a risky investment per se, it's risky investors and investors who do not understand the vehicles they're involved in, that are the problem. b) One of the big causes of the crisis, derivatives evolving into Credit default swaps, is that they are non-SEC products, so no regulation, only available to sophisiticated investors who should understand the risk. However the credit default swaps have been used on mortgage debts, that they were not envisioned or designed for, on subprime mortgages, that had a different level of 'risk', and then packaged to people who did not understand them. Why Kiyosaki is relevant to this is it is ultimately the investor who wears the risk, and this is a situation of investors worldwide not understanding what they were doing, the biggest risk was the investors. Given the words 'subprime mortages' were used so often, I'm keen to see if the other 3 episodes deal with the causes of why all the credit was flying around that created all the subprime mortgages in the first place that were so easilly converted to credit default swaps by people who did not understand them. (sorry long sentance) Namely the government interferance of Democrats pushing to get their voters into home ownership through the Community Reinvestment Act. And the attendant Fannie Mae powers of forcing banks to lend against commercial prudency. Because that didn't really happen did it, it was all caused by 'corporate greed' don't you know.
