Danny Schechter - ColdType

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The case made in these pages which sticks more to the financial
crisis may not be strong enough to convict in this format,
but it certainly offers enough information for further investigation.
It makes an indictment and encourages condemnation
and a political response. The indictment is clear, even if I am
not a lawyer, and don’t play one on TV. I am also not a believer
in “mob justice,” but I do think that, when asked, Americans
in large numbers would agree that what’s happened to them,
their lives, families and livelihoods is a crime. Does that make
it a crime? Why don’t we find out?
Economists tend to debate fiscal and monetary policy, the
role of the Federal Reserve Bank and the dynamics of a globalized
world of investment, trade and production. Politicians
disagree on regulatory frameworks and the decisions of elected
officials.
Investigative reporters like myself are inclined to “follow the
money” in more specific ways, all the while realizing that this
is only part of the story but invariably one that tends to be
ignored by weightier eminences.
My learning curve on these issues took off back in 2005 with
research for the film, In Debt We Trust, somewhat prophetically
subtitled, America Before The Bubble Bursts, warning of
what could happen to our economy alongside many far more
enlightened seers than myself.
We saw the growing wall of debt encouraged by massive
predatory lending and mindless consumption.
We worried about the financialization of the commanding
heights of the economy, a concentration of wealth and power
in a wild-west like financial services industry that came to
dominate the economy with 40% of all corporate profits. I was
distressed by the failure of our media to track the – now obvious
– signs that it all could come tumbling down.
The wall I ran up against was also a wall of indifference.
I was asked: How could you be so negative about what was