You may also like… 🔴 Chris Hedges | American Empire is FINISHED: https://youtu.be/OW52qqlQiJQChristopher Lynn Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Presbyterian minister, author and television host. His books include War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction; Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009); Death of the Liberal Class (2010); Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (2012), written with cartoonist Joe Sacco, which was a New York Times best-seller; Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt (2015); and his most recent, America: The Farewell Tour (2018). Obey, a documentary by British filmmaker Temujin Doran, is based on his book Death of the Liberal Class. Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, West Asia, Africa, the Middle East (he is fluent in Arabic), and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times, where he was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years (1990–2005) serving as the paper’s Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief during the war in the former Yugoslavia. In 2001, Hedges contributed to The New York Times staff entry that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism. He also received the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism in 2002. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, the University of Toronto and Princeton University. Hedges, who wrote a weekly column for the progressive news website Truthdig for 14 years, was fired along with all of the editorial staff in March 2020. Hedges and the staff had gone on strike earlier in the month to protest the publisher’s attempt to fire the Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer, demand an end to a series of unfair labor practices and the right to form a union. He hosts the Emmy-nominated program On Contact for the RT (formerly Russia Today) television network. Hedges has also taught college credit courses for several years in New Jersey prisons as part of the B.A. program offered by Rutgers University. He has described himself as a socialist, specifically an anarchist, identifying with Dorothy Day in particular. -From Wikipedia #chrishedges #politics #war #religion Dislaimer: This channel does not represent any person or entity and all content belongs to and links to their respective owners. Please contact chfanclub@protonmail.com for any takedown requests.
The Future Of The Global Monetary System Revealed
A Multipolar Reserve Currrency: US Dollar Alternatives
14:58if you’re looking ahead of the elections15:00do you think that the outcome of the15:01elections either way15:03would influence foreign policy going15:05forward and as a result15:07foreign countries decisions to hold more15:09or less gold15:11absolutely i mean we’re working on a15:13report right now15:15on the implications of the election for15:17for gold and precious metals15:19uh and you have like four different15:22scenarios on how things15:23shake out but definitely i mean you know15:26this15:27administration has um15:30excelled in its ability to reduce the us15:34stature around the world15:36and to create hostile relationships with15:39countries around the world15:41it’s had a negative effect on cpm group15:43because15:44there are people who don’t want to deal15:46with u.s companies15:49and and so i think a change in the15:51administration15:53while it wouldn’t be a 180 degrees turn15:55because15:56there are people in the democratic party15:58including joe biden15:59who will probably retake retain would16:02retain16:03some sort of hostile posture toward16:06china16:06it may be less hostile than the current16:09one and it may be less hostile toward16:11canada16:12and and other countries around the world16:15so you should see16:17if you saw a change in the16:18administration and a change in the16:20senate16:20you should see some improvement in the16:23u.s relations with16:25the rest of the world but there’s been a16:27tremendous amount of damage16:30done to the u.s stature globally16:34and it’s probably not going to get16:36changed by one16:37by a change of government for four years16:40do you think the us dollar then going16:42forward could lose its status as a de16:45facto reserve currency of the world16:47because you see another currency16:49challenging that status16:51as i said the part of the problem is16:53that the u.s owes the world so much16:55it owns it we have 62 percent of16:58monetary reserves17:01the u.s dollar will lose its stature17:04as the reserve currency in the future17:08the future may be 50 years from now and17:12it is it not it is reversible17:15this could not happen if the u.s17:18government got its act together but i17:19have17:20no hopes for that well if the u.s if the17:23u.s loses that status17:24who’s what’s going to take over who or17:26what well i was getting to that17:28as i said earlier most central banks in17:31the world17:32see as an ideal a multi-polar17:36international currency regime they17:38understand that it will take17:40decades to get there because of the17:42imbalance and liquidity between the17:44dollar and17:44all of the other currencies in the world17:47yeah17:4862 percent of their money of their forex17:51is in dollars that means that there’s17:53only 38 percent and everything else17:55they have to slowly make that transition17:58away17:59no government wants to see18:02its currency replace the dollar as the18:05reserve currency18:06what they’d like to see is a multi-polar18:09international currency regime18:11where people are free and companies and18:14governments are free18:15and there’s sufficient liquidity in18:17non-dollar currencies18:19that you can own and hold a portion of18:22your wealth18:24in those other currencies a greater18:26proportion of it18:27no one like if you talk to the chinese18:29central bankers if you talk to18:31other central bankers in around the18:34world18:34no one expects the dollar to disappear18:37as a18:38quote de facto reserve currency18:41but they‘d like to see it disappear as18:43the de facto current18:45reserve currency but they’re fully aware18:48that this is something that’s going to18:50take decades to execute18:52if it can be done okay you brought up18:55china i’m surprised to see that china18:57was relatively low on the list18:59when you’re talking about their19:00percentage of foreign reserves19:02in gold holdings it’s only four percent19:04of the foreign reserves in gold19:06are you surprised at how low that number19:08is19:09no um i’m not surprised i19:12i should ask you why you’re surprised19:14that it’s high19:15but you know china that should the19:18people’s bank of china for19:20decades had a view that gold was a small19:22and insignificant portion of its19:24monetary reserves19:26it changed that view in 2015 at a time19:29when it rolled out19:30a massive acceleration of19:33its efforts to make the rmb19:37more of an international currency it’s19:39still not you know fully convertible19:41but they expanded the daily trading19:43ranges and they expanded the longer term19:45trading ranges that they found19:47acceptable on the rmb19:49they started encouraging rmb19:52bonds offshore being issued offshore19:56and they said okay we’re adding some19:59gold to our reserves and we’re going to20:01continue to buy gold because20:02we see gold as a small but significant20:05part of our monetary reserve policy20:08going forward20:08now this was in 2015 and it’s very20:11important to understand that that was20:13after 2008 and 2009 when the u.s20:16treasury20:17basically stuffed everybody else and20:20protected20:21the bankers or the executives at the20:23banks uh20:24in the us and and so this was a direct20:27reaction20:28to the inappropriate behavior that the20:31us20:32treasury had during the financial the20:34global financial crisis20:36uh and and the chinese central bank20:39basically said we have to accelerate our20:41effort20:42to help move toward that multi-polar20:45currency20:46regime that we all would like to see in20:48the long run20:50uh and so they started adding their goal20:52if you go back to 201520:54they probably had about 1.1 1.3 percent20:58of their reserves in gold so the fact21:01that it’s up to four percent21:02and the fact that they have like three21:04trillion dollars of dollar reserve21:06of of foreign exchange reserves means21:08that it’s going to be a slow transition21:10as they add gold to it and as i said21:12they’re very price sensitive21:14they pulled out of buying gold for about21:1615 months a few years ago21:18then they came back and they were buying21:20but then they pulled back at the end of21:22201921:23and they haven’t reappeared they said21:25you know in the past they said21:27we’ll buy gold below a thousand when21:29gold went over a thousand they21:31didn’t buy any gold for several years21:33then they increased their threshold21:35and they knew they were buying uh and21:37then when the price started rising this21:39year they said no21:40you know we’re going to wait finally21:41jeff with everything that’s happened21:43this year and in particular with the um21:46central bank activity or slowdown of21:48central bank buying activity21:49do you think the run-up of gold prices21:52to two thousand dollars21:53all-time highs has made sense to you do21:55you think valuations are21:57correct as they should be right now yeah22:00i think they are22:01uh you know obviously the trend of the22:04next year or two is going to depend on22:06several things the outcome of the us22:08elections for the senate as well as the22:10presidency22:11brexit is coming up the pandemic which22:14is getting worse in europe now and is22:16expected to get much worse in the united22:18states22:18there are a lot of negative factors22:20there uh that fully support the idea of22:23a two thousand dollar22:24gold price now i wouldn’t be surprised22:27to see the price of gold22:28spike up higher on a short-term basis uh22:31then maybe plateau depending on what22:33happens politically22:35uh but we expect higher prices later22:37like22:382023 2025 because22:41none of these things are being solved22:43would you have a long-term price target22:45in mind22:47we’re looking at a gold price that is22:50very significantly higher than it is22:53today22:54all right perfect jeff jeff i want to22:57thank you so much for uh speaking with22:58me today that was a fascinating talk23:00thank you for your time thank you for23:02your time23:03and thank you for watching kiko news23:05we’ll have much more coverage for you23:06at the denver gold form stay tuned23:34you
Steve Eisman | Wall Street Debate | Opposition (4/8)
The Motion: This House Regrets Blaming Wall Street For The Global Financial Crisis.
Steve Eisman continues the case for the opposition, as the fourth speaker of eight in the debate.
Motion Defeated.
Transcript:
[Music] you know to Steve Eisman to continue the case the opposition it’s been my experience that most people even extremely educated people don’t fully understand what the financial why the financial crisis happened so rather than throw Thunderbolts let me spend most of my time trying to explain what happened because I think in the explanation the answer to the question will be fairly clear the financial crisis is due really to four major interlocking factors too much leverage a large asset class known as subprime mortgages that blew up systemically important banks owning the asset class and derivatives tying balance sheets all over the world let me start with the leverage between 1997 and 2007 leveraging the large banks in both Europe and the United States tripled that’s only the stated leverage if you add on top of it the shadow banking system and all the off balance sheets stuff that was really on balance sheet the amount of leverage went up four to five times it’s a lot of leverage now there are a lot of reasons for why this happened I could probably spend the next two hours discussing why let me discuss just one aspect of it that most people don’t have never really read about and that is psychological there is an entire generation of Wall Street executives my age and up who had a very strange experience in the 1990s in the early aughts they made more money every single year now the reason why they made more money every single year was that their firms made more money every single year but their firms made more money every single year because the leverage of their firms was going up every single year and really what was happening was they mistook leverage for genius and the problem that will emerge was that if you had gone to any of the executives of these firms and I did and said to them listen the entire paradigm of your career is wrong the response would have been listen kid I made fifty million dollars last year what did you make it’s very hard to tell someone who thinks he’s God that he’s wrong subprime mortgages you know people today not even remember really what a subprime mortgage was all about it was a mortgage that had a two or three year teaser rate and then was Reese price up for it for the next 27 or 28 years and most mortgages originated between 2002 and August of 2007 had a teaser rate of 3% and a go to rate of 9% 3 % 9% the industry and Wall Street under wrote the loans to the teaser rate which is a fancy term that means that the underwriters knew that the consumer could only afford to pay the 3% for the two to three years he or she could not afford to pay the 9% now why would anyone write a loan a 30-year loan where the customer can only afford to pay the teaser rate for the first two to three years and here’s the second great lesson of the financial crisis incentives Trump ethics almost every time the reason why this happened was that the consumer would take out a loan and would pay three to four points upfront for the privilege of getting the loan and because he or she could not afford to go to rates after two to three years the consumer had to refinance and would pay three to four points for the privilege of doing so which meant that the consumer could not afford the loan and would have to refinance and would never be able to pay off his or her principal from a societal perspective this was a disaster but from an economic perspective for the people who were writing the loans the subprime mortgage companies and for the Wall Street securitization departments that were buying them packaging him and securitizing him and selling him all over planet Earth it was a boondoggle because it meant they got to make they got to redo the loans and re-securitizing every two to three to four years and make their bonuses over and over again as the underwriting deteriorated and the credits began to get worse as was became very obvious in 2006 no one neither the underwriters or Wall Street said there’s something wrong here our underwriting is bad let’s do less securitize less and tighten our standards and the reason for that is no one has ever begun a sentence in the English language where they say I think this year I’ll make less money because it would have meant they would make less money and they didn’t want to make less money they wanted to make more money so they let the underwriting standards deteriorate with full knowledge that they were deteriorating and that’s the story of subprime third systemically important firms owned the asset class this is a bit of an irony the model of Wall Street is to buy it and sell it not buy it and hold it and here Wall Street bought it sold some of it and kept some of it something they never ever did why well over the years between 2002 and 2007 it did become more difficult to find investors to buy all of the product because so much was being generated now if we lived in a rational ethical world and we don’t but if we did then what would have happened is Wall Street and the underwriters would have tightened standards and underwritten less because there was if there was not enough end-users but instead they convinced their firms to hold the paper and invest in it with the rationale of how bad can it be it’s rated triple-a and now derivatives this is one of the more important parts of the story if I own debt and GE and I want to mitigate my risk I can buy a credit default swap from goldman sachs pay a certain fee for that and if GE goes bankrupt goldman sachs pays me so I have now mitigated my risk by owning a credit default swap credit default swaps reduce risk for individual transactions but the problem is that the only works in this example when GE goes bankrupt if Goldman Sachs is not is not not bankrupt and essentially what has happened is my balance sheet has been tied to Goldman Sachs is balance sheet multiply that transaction by trillions and you can see balance sheets all over the world were tied together and that’s the crisis Wall Street created the leverage it securitized and sold subprime mortgages all over the world and it created the derivatives that tied balance sheets together who should be blamed is there anyone else well there are two alternatives that people like to propogate first we should blame the regulators and there there is some blame from the early 1990s the regulatory apparatus of the United States adopted a position that was different from the position that had adopted before which is we were gonna let the large banks manage their own risks because we trust them essentially in the 1990s of the 2000s the US and European financial systems had the trappings of regulation but in reality they were completely unregulated institutions you know there are many good books about the financial crisis but there’s one that I think has the best title that captures the essence of the crisis which is a book by Judge Richard Posner the title of which is a failure of capitalism and that’s what happened in the financial crisis it shouldn’t be a surprise unregulated banking systems fail all the time they go boom and bust the difference this time was the fact that the sheer size of the global banking system and its interconnectedness because of derivatives created a bust that had planet earth burned and the last thesis and is sometimes propagated it’s not Wall Street’s fault it’s not the regulator’s fault its Fannie Mae’s fault Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac you know I have a little history with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac I began analyzing him in 1994 I think I was probably on the next 55 conference calls quarterly conference calls I analyzed them extensively I didn’t like them I thought they took too much risk I thought they manipulated the the political system but I like to blame people for what they actually did Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not cause the financial crisis this is a Shibboleth that is propagated by ideologues who were unwilling to admit that the financial system crashed because of the people who ran it Fannie Mae did buy some subprime mortgages it did cause a partially caused the demise of Fannie Mae but trust me on one thing if Fannie Mae and Freddie back had bought zero subprime mortgages the exact same thing would have happened because there were people lined up all over planet earth to buy them I thank you for your time and there’s a pleasure you