This is one of the most important articles I've come across in a while.

[WilliamPitt]

Spread this one around, please.

What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral.
By Barry Ritholtz

I have a fairly simple approach to investing: Start with data and objective evidence to determine the dominant elements driving the market action right now. Figure out what objective reality is beneath all of the noise. Use that information to try to make intelligent investing decisions.

But then, I’m an investor focused on preserving capital and managing risk. I’m not out to win the next election or drive the debate. For those who are, facts and data matter much less than a narrative that supports their interests.

One group has been especially vocal about shaping a new narrative of the credit crisis and economic collapse: those whose bad judgment and failed philosophy helped cause the crisis.

Rather than admit the error of their ways — Repent! — these people are engaged in an active campaign to rewrite history. They are not, of course, exonerated in doing so. And beyond that, they damage the process of repairing what was broken. They muddy the waters when it comes to holding guilty parties responsible. They prevent measures from being put into place to prevent another crisis. Here is the surprising takeaway: They are winning. Thanks to the endless repetition of the Big Lie.

The rest: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-caused-the-financial-crisis-the-big-lie-goes-viral/2011/10/31/gIQAXlSOqM_story.html?sub=AR

Read it all.

[rurallib]

1. he who owns the present owns the past; he who owns the past owns the future

I think that is the line from 1984 - rewrite history to fit the narrative.

[lonestarnot]

2. Post.

I'd rather watch The Heist when it comes out.

[dkf]

3. The truth is that it took a whole lot of people to get us in to this mess including banks

Including fed policies, including fly by night mortgage companies, including lack of oversight, including loan officers, real estate agents, homeowners, and on and on.

[Alameda]

43. the point of investing used to be, you believed in the company

product or whatever and wanted to "invest" in it's development and growth. You did some research to see if the concept was good, then invested in it. You then hoped they would succeed, and grow your investment money.

[russspeakeasy]

48. It took thousands and we have prosecuted 4.

Our justice system is stymied by politicians. We will keep repeating these same stupid policies until a thousand of these bastards are perp walked to jail.

[Gregorian]

4. The real problem is that citizens gave up their personal responsibility. They trusted someone else.

You've heard it- Better living through chemistry.

I see the denial all over this forum. Someone please get the corporations to make global warming go away. They may. They may not. They can't. It's an individual change that will make it happen. But no one wants to look inside. Everyone is looking outside for the answers.

It's "We the people". Not "You our government".

I know this comes across as cruel sounding, and even incorrect. After all, those credit default swaps were out of our control. But the majority of what is happening can be changed by us being personally responsible for our own actions. I'm sure this sounds so foreign and wrong to most people. There is no alternative. And this is why Chris Hedges called Moveon a crap organization. Look at all of the petitions that Obama's administration has ignored. "Please help us" doesn't work.

[BlueIris]

5. +1.

Great post.

[Gregorian]

8. Really? Gosh.

I had to read my own post again. It's nice that someone sees something in what I've said. As strongly as I feel about my perception of things, I often wonder if there's truth to what I say. It's lonely out here most of the time.

[dipsydoodle]

16. ditto.

.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. what?

How can I be personally responsible for how five wall street banks created AAA derivative bonds out of piles of absolute crap sub-prime mortgages and then sold them in the trillions to other huge investment institutions? Seriously WTF?

A global bubble of staggering proportions and utter fraud was not created by irresponsible people buying more house than they could afford - it was, at the bottom, created by mortgage issuing businesses - no longer local banks required to actually hold those mortgages but businesses making money solely from the issuance and subsequent sale of mortgage papers. Those institutions had no stake at all in the paper they issued. They in turn were created by the feeding frenzy on wall street that demanded an ever increasing stream of new mortgages to feed into their CDO/CDS business. When the paper writers ran out of good risks, they just moved on to not so good risks, convincing eager to live the american dream families that they could afford to buy into the bubble. The people at the bottom of the heap were just doing what we have all been told since we were old enough to listen that we should do: buy a house, a car, raise your kids in the suburbs.

We cannot change this broken system by 'being personally responsible'. The game is rigged. Personal responsibility is right wing turdeology - it is the shit meme for ignoring the obvious facts that we are being bled dry by the wall street plutocrats. Our pensions have all been transformed into 401ks - and we are told to go fish for our retirement down on Wall Street - what they didn't tell us is that we are the fish and we are in a barrel. Personal responsibility my ass.

[Gregorian]

11. I just knew there was something wrong with my logic.

There's a gap I'm trying to bridge. Maybe it's impossible to bridge.


edit-- I guess part of what had me thinking we had a hand in this was that I have been in real estate over the last 20 or so years, and when these loans started being handed out, I was totally in a state of disbelief. More than that. I was distressed. I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes, but I knew something was wrong. There is personal responsibility in there somewhere. I'm not totally off track here. There was behind the scenes crap going on for sure. But so many people should not have been getting these loans.

[TBF]

15. The people did not give themselves the loans. nt

[sad sally]

17. Don't worry - your bridge is there and has merit.

Your analogy re. real estate is spot on - not only with the loans being handed out that shouldn't have been. How about the escalated pricing of real estate that was happening? Somehow there was a disconnect between the inflated value/pricing of real estate and the real value of American currency.

When people buy overpriced stocks or even vehicles, then when the stock is devalued or the car is used, they lose money; but, there's a perception that this inflated value applied to real estate is somehow different and that losing money on the deal is somebody's, anybody's but certainly not the buyer's responsibility to consider, certainly not their fault. Not saying there weren't enablers helping sell the inflated property, but the buyer has some responsibility to remember that betting that real estate would only continue to rise without considering the devalued dollar's role in the deal is, well, taking a chance that may not turn out well.

[WilliamPitt]

18. An excellent argument between two of the best DUers

[AuntPatsy]

32. Agree both have merit

[Hydra]

19. The bridge you are missing is this:

There were a LOT of people profiting from this bubble, and a lot more people who THOUGHT they were profiting from this bubble.

All of those people shut their eyes to what was going on...after all, we were all benefiting, right?

Well...the thing is that people like you in the thick of it knew something was wrong. Hell, I had no horse in the race and I knew something was wrong. When was it going to be too expensive to buy a basic house? $1 million? 2? 5? But what you didn't know is that it was all a fraud, and it was certified legal and necessary by our gov't...and ultimately you were going to pay for all of it.

Neat, huh?

We didn't "allow" this to happen any more than we "allowed" the invasion of Iraq to occur...but they'll sell it to us that way!

[KoKo]

45. +1

[PETRUS]

30. About personal responsibility.

Diffuse individual action is no match for the political and economic elites who have a powerful ability to define and limit one's choices. "Responsible" people need to band together and take collective action. My hope is that the Occupy movement is taking us in that direction.

[sofa king]

36. You were still in the middle.

I was just off the bottom back then, temporarily scratching out of a lifetime of poverty with a bad credit rating and dogged by student loans I had only recently learned that I had (a parent had taken them out in my name).

Already I had come to realize that any time I got a little bit ahead, someone, even the ones I love, would swoop in to take it away from me. That was not the lesson being taught to everyone else at the time.

So when I was looking for an apartment to rent and the real estate agent kept telling me I could rent, or I could own that apartment, I smelled a rat when everyone else heard the siren call of home ownership and prosperity. I refused. I didn't trust myself, and I sure as hell didn't trust anyone pretending to trust me. But most others I knew did not already have the experience of being nickeled and dimed at every turn.

Almost nobody else I knew refused, and now, even though I haven't made over $10K in years, I'm still one of the wealthiest people I know, because even though I have nothing, I owe almost nothing, too. I made other tough choices, too: no marriage, no children, no car, no relentless acquisition of things. I don't regret those choices in light of my sordid lot today, but it's hardly a solution. I can see why others like me would throw themselves headlong into such a situation on the slim chance that that one false opportunity might make all those other things possible. Poverty is all about risk, after all, and those with nothing have nothing to lose.

That was the trick: to get people who had already lost the rat race to fully invest in it, guaranteeing their future selves against a scam of monumental proportions.

[chervilant]

49. Sigh...

Granted, we have all bellied up to the hedonism trough. There IS personal responsibility for buying the Capitalist 'wealth carrot meme' without question. However, the catastrophic economic reordering we're witnessing is more directly the responsibility of the vile corporate megalomaniacs who own and control the vast majority of this planet's resources. Their hedonism has repercussions exponentially more damaging than any greedy act of any individual member of the Hoi Polloi.

Having been in the mortgage industry for years (I left because I refused to sell sub-primes), I can assure you that most individual home buyers are NOT savvy about reading the massive contracts that the lenders and title companies have created lo these many years.

In fact, banks KNOW that most borrowers are financially illiterate (moreover, better than 40% of this nation's adult population is functionally illiterate), and they USE this information when developing their clever and effective marketing strategies. Then, they deliberately market to gullible individuals whose life experiences within capitalism have molded them into perfect little consuming machines (and, isn't it so much easier to blame these poor, pathetic individuals?).

Furthermore, I challenge you to find me a single title officer who adjures their home buyers to 'take your time and read every page of this 80+ page contract, especially the fine print...we'll wait for you to finish...' I have attended countless closings where the title officer pre-flagged every space where initials or signatures were required and moved fluidly from post-it flag to post-it flag, as clients signed their lives away into thirty-year servitude. After all, a twenty-minute closing means much more business by the end of each day...

I am certain that the big lenders are using their well honed marketing strategies to determine how best to hit us with their disgusting "deficiency judgments" (their latest grasping for ever more money) even as our global economy grinds to a halt. (I believe this will be a Pyhrric victory for those vile hedonists.)

Be that as it may, to ALL of those who are posting herein above about 'personal responsibility,' consider this:

(this should be of concern to everyone watching with bated breath as the global economy teeters on the brink of catastrophic reordering)

{Born} once again warned about the danger of Dark Markets, now grown to $680 trillion of notional value, according to the Bank for International Settlements -- "more than 10 times the amount of the gross national product of all the countries in the world."

(emphasis mine; the quote references Brooksley Born)

Does anyone out there TRULY believe that our global economy has the combined resources to cover this ginormous financial Black Hole, created by an incredibly small number of hedonistic corporate megalomaniacs?! Even the most math-challenged average human being can see that these 'derivatives' and 'CDOs' and other high-risk investment instruments are literally worthless...

I encourage everyone to stop wasting time and energy blaming members of the hoi polloi for the crimes and malfeasance of an infinitesimally small percentage of hedonistic Corporate Megalomaniacs. We will need to help each other get through the economic disaster we're facing.

[xxqqqzme]

56. Excellent post.

Excellent points.

I saw the real estate after market through the failed S&Ls. I was part of a team auditing the terms of the loans, running those terms to see if the loans were being serviced accurately or if they were even workable. I saw hundreds of what I called 'bubba' loans. (One bubba loan officer loaning another bubba an outrageous amount for some certain to fail commercial project w/ terms that were laughable). Loans, marginally workable, were bundled and sold. Some were huge commercial projects - malls, ski resorts, hotel/golf courses - covering thousands of acres. When I bought my house, I read every page. The closing people were drumming their fingers on the table. I was in a unique position and I knew it.

When my daughter bought her house I told her to get a copy of the loan, pre-closing, so I could go over it w/ her. It is not easy but it is essential.

[hue]

52. IMHO the reality is inclusive---> You are both right.

We (99%) are becoming more responsible for our selves. That's what OWS is all about. We are creating a (nonviolent) reality, speaking out and our voices are being heard (to greater & lesser extents at times). Yes change takes a long time & much work especially since the R wing agenda continues to be pushed relentlessly by the Kochs. & those who've signed on to ALEC (practically all Repubs & conservatives: the 1 % and those puppets who work foolishly for them. Also they have rigged the works. They have corrupted the financial & government world, greatly stacking the deck in their favor for > than 40 years while we "slept". So indeed the two forces have worked together to form the highly controlling oligarchy with whom we now confront.
Yet the truth is coming out and it is also a force that is on our side. We cannot give up.

[Jenny_92808]

31. Excellent post Warren "The game is rigged"

And what do the republicans want to do....more deregulation and continue to shift all the money to the top at the expense of the 99%. The repub's failed policies are what caused us to go into the ditch and they want to stay that course. Unbelievable!!!

[cui bono]

55. +1

The house always wins.

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. +1 more.

[slipslidingaway]

24. Yes, another element that added to the boom, real estate was going up in value too fast ...

just like the stock market did in the late 90's and it was not sustainable.

The only thing that survived is the debt people owe.

[applegrove]

33. But you go to banks to get a loan and assume they have some expertise in

what makes sense. That is what they are selling after all. The banks abdicated that role.

[fasttense]

37. Some citizens gave up their personal responsibility -- not all.

The biggest avoiders of personal responsibility are CEOs, the idle rich, Wall Street traders, banksters and politicians.

It is just so easy for people to blame the victim in America. It's the poor man's fault he is poor. It's the old lady's fault she got mugged. It's the pedestrian's fault he got run over. It's the unemployed's fault they lost their jobs. It's the homeless people's fault they got foreclosed on. Rush Limpballs takes victim blaming to a fine art. But it's very common among RepubliCONS.

Victim blaming is required if you are going to steal and swindle someone. It's very difficult to have sympathy for your victim AND con them out of their money and legal rights. Con men are quite fond of claiming it's the greed of the mark that leads to the swindle. But the truth is it's the conman who swindles the mark. The personal responsibility for the con on the American people falls squarely on RepubliCONS, politicians, CEOs, Banksters, Wall Street traders and the idle rich.

They were the ones who got rich off the con, they are the ones who should be held accountable.

[KoKo]

46. +1

[bongbong]

47. Fundamental flaw in your argument

There is a fundamental flaw in your argument, and it has been hinted at or posted by others in this thread. It's "Reliance on lies for intelligence"

Why do I put it like that? It's the same as when Dems voted to allow Cheney's spokesman to declare war on Iraq. The Dems were fed lies from the CIA to support Cheney's lies. Granted, some of the hawkish or BlueDog Dems might have anyway, but others wouldn't have.

The lies the MSM & corporations pushed about home ownership were analogous. They convinced a lot of people to think they would do well by buying 3BR fixer uppers for a half million. And the lies came from one, or a few, central sources and percolated down the pipeline.

[Gregorian]

60. It is the same.

I know I stuck my neck out when I posted.

Regarding that situation whereby Congress was fed a line of lies in order to facilitate a resolution to chase down terrorists. I was not fooled. Not even in '92. It's not about me. It's about common sense. The same thing happened when the twin towers were destroyed. It's like physics in that it had to be a reaction to something. I wasn't fooled. And when I saw what was going on in the financial world, I also knew something very fishy was going on.

But the other side of this is that we do have to protect those who don't see. Or can't see. I do not use my original reply as a means of blaming victims. That's what authoritarians do. But in a way I am blaming. Right now I blame people who are driving and flying for their carbon footprints. But many of those people have to drive to work. I saw the problem decades ago. I chose to design my life not around the automobile. I don't have to drive. I can blame, but it doesn't do any good. It hurts me.

I'm hoping the OWS movement can bring awareness to the faults in our society as well as our personal lives.

I still think there is no alternative to personal awareness. I think the key is that we cannot expect people to be bright and vigilant. That is what our government is partially responsible for. We must set up a society where the people are guaranteed a certain level of intelligence. And a certain amount of protection from fraud.

Phew. It's a real subject that I can hardly think straight about.

[bongbong]

65. I don't agree

"still think there is no alternative to personal awareness. "

If you've got dozens of Authority Figures, the banks, the MSM, etc etc etc etc etc all telling you to get in on the "Gold Rush" it's hard to convince yourself otherwise. Especially if voices to the contrary are hard to find, and characterized as "loony birds" or "smelly hippies" or "traitors" or "Saddam appeasers" or whatever. And then you have your personal friends, etc telling you how much dough THEY'RE making.

Yes, maybe 1 or 5% can resist if they are really well informed. But the 1% doesn't care about them anyway. As long as they can shear the wool from a majority.

You're also dangerously close to playing "blame the victim". That's a Right Wing meme.

[Gregorian]

66. OK, so what we're talkng about here is protection for the uninformed.

I've never had a problem knowing that all wars are bullshit. Or that if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. So I'm fine. But most of the people aren't. I think that's the distinction we're making. And I feel guilty for not making it clearer in my original post. It's fairly obvious that this is part of the function of our society/government. One that it is failing to make, on purpose.

I think we're on the same page. I thank you for being kind in making your point.


edit- It's odd that I missed this thread. It's somewhat along the lines of what we've beeen talking about.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2254035

[Jim_Shorts]

53. Hedge funds were B-E-G-G-I-N-G mortgage originators for risky loans

The markets are pretty much unregulated due to the influence of people like Alan Greenspan, there holes you can drive a truck through to make money. Hedge funds like Magnetar Capital have found some of those holes and we have all paid the price.

Here is podcast that explains how it worked, kind of long but informative.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/inside-job

[Zorra]

54. That's why OWS/99% are going to take control of government.

So We the People can make and enforce our own rules, have control of our own destinies, and to protect ourselves, "ourselves" meaning the overwhelming majority of folks this country, from the predations of the greedy.

No more turning away.

Below are the lyrics to a wonderful song, a song that describes the real heart of OWS.

"On The Turning Away"

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand
"Don't accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others' suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in
The turning away"
It's a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting it's shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we're all alone
In the dream of the proud
On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerised as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night
No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?
(written by Gilmour, Moore)

On The Turning Away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V85g6SBPGOU

[YvonneCa]

6. Thank you for posting this. It's one of the most concise...

...summaries of the crisis I have seen.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Excellent article.

It seems that the chickens are coming home to roost, and one of the places they should be roosting is right in the lap of Alan Greenspan. I hope they poop all over him.

[chervilant]

51. Too bad

they can't poop all over Uncle Miltie...

[AntiFascist]

9. Also listen to this 15 minute audio clip....

it provides a bird's eye view of what's been going on globally and how history is repeating itself...WW3?:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=632318&mesg_id=632318

[nenagh]

12. That is such an understandable summary of the financial crisis..

As someone said it wasn't that they packaged up apples that became rotten.. it's that they packaged up rotten apples.

Great article.. many thanks.

[Cowpunk]

25. You're joking, right?

High yield mortgage backed securities? Lend-to-sell-to-securitizers model? Automated underwriting systems?

It's no wonder the left has been unable to get any traction for serious banking reforms.

Here's what I think is an understandable summary of the financial crisis:

The people who were supposed to be protecting society from the greedy got this crazy notion that we'd all be better off if the greedy policed themselves. They got rid of or simply ignored the laws that protect us from the greedy, and, surprise surprise, the greedy went hog wild and almost blew up the worldwide financial system. Then the greedy demanded the government pay them to keep being greedy but not destroy everything, and the government said OK.

[LuckyLib]

59. This is it. Short, sweet, and we would hope understandable to the Faux anesthetized America.

[WillyT]

13. HUGE K & R !!!

:mad:

:kick:

[edhopper]

14. I read Ritholtz regularly

He is one of the few financial guys who see what is really going on.

[nilram]

21. yup, good guy. k&r.

[KoKo]

42. definitely ...a good guy...K&R!

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. A good article, and good to see the WP is still capable of publishing something decent

since it has put out such a lot of crap lately.

[Cowpunk]

23. HELLO?! This big lie has been the right wing mantra since day fucking one.

Ask any right winger in America what caused the banking crisis and they will tell you it was FFF&D: Fannie,Freddie, Frank and Dodd. Every blowhard on AM radio was spouting this crap almost immediately after the meltdown. Glad to see some progressives have finally gotten around to debunking it.

The progressive response to the banking crisis has been abysmal IMO. Months after the right wing had put forth this simple narrative, most people on the left were still mumbling about structured investment vehicles and credit default swaps. How fucking hard is it to say these people committed fraud and they need to be in fucking jail? It wasn't until March of 2009 that Matt Taibbi started to create a progressive frame which normal people could actually understand.

[SpiralHawk]

26. True - the Republicons, knowing how guilty they are, have repeated this lie ceaselessly

over and over and over -- as if telling a lie repeatedly could somehow make it true. But in this there is no honor whatsoever, only a deeper web of deception.

Beware the deceivers (R) who will come pretending to be 'holy.' This is some deep deep dark shit.

[tomp]

35. republicons?

bill clinton, glass-steagall?

[cui bono]

57. Seriously, anyone who thinks the Dems are innocent, and that most definitely includes Obama,

is part of the problem.

The whole damn thing government is bought and paid for by these thieves - save for Bernie Sanders and Kucinich and maybe a couple others - but as a whole it is simply another department of the big corporations.

If we think Dems are going to come save us we're in deep trouble.

[Hotler]

27. k&r n/t

[Cowpunk]

28. Yes, spread around another long explanation filled with financial gobbledygook

It's got to work sooner or later, right?

[PETRUS]

29. K&R

A very cogent description.

[Lizzie Poppet]

34. Superb

K&R for cogency and accuracy...fantastic article.

[Major Hogwash]

38. It is a very well-written article.

Easy to read, easy to understand, and 99% of us get it.
Hell, I'm surprised that the GOP didn't try to blame 9/11 on Clinton.
Oh wait, they already did!!

[Electric Monk]

67. Yes (kick) nt

[WilliamPitt]

39. Monday morning kick

[JDPriestly]

40. Great article.

I would like to add that there was a simple rule of thumb that could have saved the banks and investors.

People pay their mortgages out of their monthly paychecks. If those paychecks have not risen commensurate with the cost of housing, there will be a bust in the housing market.

It was quite obvious in the 2000s that, at no time did wages rise at the same pace as housing prices. Ergo ------ the market was way over-heated.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

41. Bookmarking! K&R!!! n/t

[suegeo]

44. Short selling

It's odd that naked short selling is not explicitly mentioned much anymore as a factor in the melt down. Fixing naked short selling was one of the first things done by "our" keystone cop lawmakers. Maybe people file those crimes under the de-regulation category.

[Beavker]

50. The 'dumb' borrowers are the only ones really paying for this.

Forget that they were often misled, and that once they got into their home, bad loan or not, it's value tanked so badly they couldn't get out of it. That wasn't their fault.

But if they did knowingly, given all the correct information, take the risk that professionals who's jobs it is supposed to be to determine that risk failed to see, then so be it. Those people have ruined credit, no house, and likely payed thousands into a loan that they have had to walk away from.

I know people that will blame the borrower first. But the lenders aren't being punished.

Oh, and IF those 'dumb' borrowers happen to have a job now (thanks again to the crisis they didn't cause), they have had their tax dollars bail out the banks that created the loan they defaulted on.

[JuniperLea]

62. The rest of us are suffering too...

I didn't buy a dumb loan... but my property happens to be in a neighborhood that was lousy with them! So now with all the short sales and foreclosures in my neighborhood, my property is underwater by nearly 50%... through no fault of my own, through no fault of my mortgage.

I am among a very, very large group of invisible people in this crisis.

[DaveJ]

58. Bloomberg: "Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp"

Wrong. Nobody forced banks to give those mortgages. They should give mortgages, but not bad ones.

Lenders passed up Good borrowers and Good investments -- they fail to have the intelligence to spot good from bad.

Was it Bloomberg Data Services that made all these bad choices?

[JuniperLea]

61. Now they are trying to double down on the failed philosophy that helped cause the crisis..

As if giving you more arsenic will cure you of arsenic poisoning.

[JuniperLea]

63. I am invisible in this crisis...

I didn't buy a dumb loan... but my property happens to be in a neighborhood that was lousy with them! So now with all the short sales and foreclosures in my neighborhood, my property is underwater by nearly 50%... through no fault of my own, through no fault of my mortgage.

I am among a very, very large group of invisible people in this crisis.

My neighborhood just happens to be one that people "bought up" into with these predatory loans.

[defendandprotect]

64. Also see Catherine Austin Fitts on financial coup -- Google/YouTube --