'American Casino': How The Financial Sector Became a Massive and Unregulated Gambling Operation

[marmar]

'American Casino': How Our Nation's Financial Sector Became a Massive and Unregulated Gambling Operation

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted September 5, 2009.

An incredibly powerful new documentary finally lets those who've lived it tell the story -- from the "creative" financiers to the home buyers duped by brokers.



Video: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/142267/%27american_casino%27%3A_how_our_nation%27s_financial_sector_became_a_massive_and_unregulated_gambling_operation/


The producers of the new documentary, American Casino, don't tell you about the causes of the economic meltdown that's caused so much pain around the world.

They don't tell you how Wall Street, having lobbied furiously to free itself from public-interest regulation, created a furious demand for mortgage-backed junk, which they had laundered into supposedly solid investments with an assist from friendly -- read "bought off" -- ratings agencies. They don't discuss how unscrupulous lenders hawked an array of gimmicky mortgage products to people who weren't qualified to take them out in order to skim off a fat stream of fees.

They let those who lived it tell the story -- from the "creative" financiers who built the house of cards, to the brokers who pushed their products, and finally, to the people living on "Main Street" USA, whose dreams of homeownership were effectively turned into weapons of mass destruction and detonated in the centers of the global economy.

And by opting to not tell a story -- by leaving behind the narrator's voice that's so common to the documentary form -- the story that gets told is incredibly powerful. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/142267/%27american_casino%27%3A_how_our_nation%27s_financial_sector_became_a_massive_and_unregulated_gambling_operation/

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Except in Vegas the janitor and the dealer don't give you money to try again.

The fed needs to be scrutinized ,along with wallstreet.

[Hissyspit]

2. The filmmaker showed a scene from this at the screening room in Pittsburgh

at Netroots Nation. It looked pretty sad.

[marmar]

3. Sad as in the movie is crap? Or sad as in the subject matter is sad?

n/t

[Hissyspit]

4. Subject matter sad.

Movie looked really good.