Danny Schechter - ColdType

INTRODuCTION
oUr tIMe anD
fInanCIaL CrIMe
1. In Wall Street We Trust
xxxi
The daily grind of the financial industry is masked with
a secret language of exotic financial instruments and
magical trading regimes designed to be understood only
by its creators, the cognoscenti of insiders. As with journalism,
it pretends at a higher objectivity, with terms like strategic
analysis and due diligence defining its work protocols, yet
transparency is not its strongest suit.
Its outer facade may be cheering, “trust us,” but its inner
logic is hissing “we will do whatever we want until you stop
us.” At the same time, there are rare moments of candor as
when the head of equities of a large bank in the UK told the
Financial Times, “It feels as if we are 15 minutes away from the
end of the world.” Or when President George W. Bush blurted
out: “if money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down.”
Many believed the “credit crunch,” as it was originally
described, would only affect Wall Street players and specula-tors.
They were used to ups and downs – so called business
cycles – and would probably weather the storm, which
was viewed as some sudden onset of turbulence that goes as
quickly as it comes.
Yet just a few years later, mere quarters in economic terms,
a report by the University of Tennessee found millions coping
with what has happened to them in intensely personal terms:
• While the World Bank estimates that globally 90-million
more people could be living in extreme poverty by the end
of next year, bankruptcies, foreclosures, evictions and lay-