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jeudi 30 décembre 2010

Gang Wars 2 - Oakland Latino Gangs (5 of 5) in HD



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Salinas Valley State Prison "Gang War"



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Gang Wars Oakland PART1 (1 of 5 in HD)



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Prison Gangs - Nuestra Familia (1 of 5) in HD



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Gang Wars 2 - Oakland Latino Gangs (2 of 5) in HD



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dimanche 26 décembre 2010

Heidegger: Thinking the Unthinkable


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German philosopher Martin Heidegger addressed the central question of human existence full on, by examining how human self-awareness depends on concepts of time and death. His preoccupation with ontology – the form of metaphysical inquiry concerned with the study of existence itself – dominated his work. The central idea of his complex Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) (1927) could be summed up in the phrase ‘being is’.

Man had to ask himself ‘what is it to be?’ and only by doing this, and standing back from absorption into objects and other distractions, could he actually exist. For Heidegger, the constant fear of death and the anxieties of life helped man to ask this central question – the mystery of life was intimately linked to the individual’s confrontation and consideration of the temporary nature of their own existence.

Heidegger also felt that art, like language, was important evidence of existence, something which was a real existence rather than a mere recreation of reality. He opposed technology, which he believed caused alienation, and advocated a return to an agrarian economy in which the individual had a greater role. For many Heidegger’s reputation is tainted by his association with Nazism in 1930’s Germany; he actively supported Adolf Hitler during the dictator’s first years in power and after World War II he was banned by the Allies from teaching and publishing for five years.

Despite this, his work has been widely influential, especially on the thought of twentieth century philosophical giants such as Sartre, Lacan and Derrida

Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil



A brilliant young man, he was appointed professor at the University of Basel aged 24 having not even finished his degree. His evanescent philosophical life ended 20 years later when he went insane and died shortly afterwards.

Nietzsche’s argued that the Christian system of faith and worship was not only incorrect, but harmful to society because it allowed the weak to rule the strong – it suppressed the will to power which was the driving force of human character. Nietzsche wanted people to throw of the shackles of our misguided Christian morality and become supermen – free and titanic.

However, without God he felt that the future of man might spiral into a society of nihilism, devoid of any meaning; his aim was for man to realise the lack of divine purpose and create his own values. The core of Nietzsche’s work, including Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-92), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was to find a meaning and morality in the absence of God.

Examined Life


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In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas.

Peter Singer’s thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s posh boutiques. Slavoj Zizek questions current beliefs about the environment while sifting through a garbage dump. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure.

Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture’s fixation on individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West—perhaps America’s best-known public intellectual—compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be.

Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy’s power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it.

The Great Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy



Beginning with the death of Socrates in 399 BC, and following the story through the centuries to recent figures such as Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein, Bryan Magee’s conversations with fifteen contemporary writers and philosophers provide an accessible and exciting account of Western philosophy and its greatest thinkers.

The contributors include A.J. Ayer, Bernard Williams, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Singer, and John Searle, so that the documentary is not only an introduction to the philosophers of the past, but gives an invaluable insight into the view and personalities of some of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century.

The series are little bit dated but I think they’re real treasure and food for thought.

Living in the End Times (According to Slavoj Zizek)



Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, akaThe Elvis of cultural theory, is given the floor to show of his polemic style and whirlwind-like performance.

The Giant of Ljubljana is bombarded with clips of popular media images and quotes by modern-day thinkers revolving around four major issues: the economical crisis, environment, Afghanistan and the end of democracy.

Zizek grabs the opportunity to ruthlessly criticize modern capitalism and to give his view on our common future. We communists are back! is the closing remark of Slavoj Zizeks provocative performance.

Our current capitalist system, that everyone believed would be smoothly spread around the globe, is untenable. We find ourselves on the brink of big problems that call for big solutions.

Whatever is left of the left, has been hedged in by western liberal democracy and seems to lack the energy to come up with radical solutions. Not Zizek.

The Money Masters



The Money Masters is a 3 1/2 hour non-fiction, historical documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure that rules our nation and the world today.

The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money.

The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication the secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths fraudulently to accumulate wealth.

With the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, the yoke of economic slavery to a privately-owned “central” bank was first forced upon the backs of an entire nation, not removed but only made heavier with the passing of the three centuries to our day.

Nation after nation, including America, has fallen prey to this cabal of international central bankers.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price



Wal-Mart has become one of America’s most successful retail chains by offering everyday goods at low prices for working families.

But just how is Wal-Mart able to charge less than many of their rivals, and what has their success done for their employees?

Documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald takes a look inside the discount retailer’s empire in Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, and discovers a company short on scruples and long on shabby treatment of the people who work for them.

Maxed Out



Per its title, James D. Scurlock’s virulently angry muckraking documentary Maxed Out examines the many problems associated with escalating U.S. consumer debt. Scurlock places his weightiest emphasis on the ends of the spectrum rooted in extreme evil (read: abuse) – such as the capital lenders who wheedle poor farm families into assuming unmanageable loans and college students into placing massive amounts on credit cards.

He also touches on the end rooted in extreme tragedy, such as the debtors who sink so far in over their heads that suicide represents the only conceivable out.

The film’s many interviewees include: Harvard University financial analyst Elizabeth Warren (who pontificates on the lucrativeness of high-interest mortgage banking) and born-again Christian radio host Dave Ramsey, who offers difficult, on-air advice to the fiscally burdened by drawing on his own experiences as a debtor.

Money As Debt



Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal, there is no human relation between master and slave. Debt- government, corporate and household has reached astronomical proportions. Where does all this money come from? How could there BE that much money to lend? The answer is…there isn’t. Today, MONEY IS DEBT. If there were NO DEBT there would be NO MONEY.

If this is puzzling to you, you are not alone. Very few people understand, even though all of us are affected. This fast-paced and highly entertaining animated feature by artist & videographer, Paul Grignon explains today’s magically perverse DEBT-MONEY SYSTEM in terms that are easy to understand.

Santa’s Workshop: Inside China’s Slave Labour Toy Factories



Sometimes we have no choice, we work till dawn. When you work all night you become dizzy and your eyes hurt because you can’t take any breaks. SANTA’S WORKSHOP takes you to the real world of China’s toy factories. Workers tell us about long working hours, low wages, and dangerous work places. Those who protest or try to organize trade unions risk imprisonment. Low labor costs attract more and more companies to China. Today more than 75% of our toys are made in China. But this industry takes its toll on the workers and on the environment.

The European (and American) buyers blame bad conditions on the Chinese suppliers. But they say that increasingly hard competition gives them no option. Who should we believe? And what can you do to bring about a fairer and more humane toy trade?

The Take


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We heard rumors of a new kind of economy emerging in Argentina. With hundreds of factories closing, waves of workers were locking themselves inside and running the workplaces on their own, with no bosses. Where we come from, a closed factory is just an inevitable effect of a model, the end of a story. In Argentina today, it’s just the beginning. In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave.

All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act – The Take – has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head. In the wake of Argentina’s dramatic economic collapse in 2001, Latin America’s most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. The Forja auto plant lies dormant until its former employees take action.

They’re part of a daring new movement of workers who are occupying bankrupt businesses and creating jobs in the ruins of the failed system. But Freddy, the president of the new worker’s co-operative, and Lalo, the political powerhouse from the Movement of Recovered Companies, know that their success is far from secure. Like every workplace occupation, they have to run the gauntlet of courts, cops and politicians who can either give their project legal protection or violently evict them from the factory.

The story of the workers’ struggle is set against the dramatic backdrop of a crucial presidential election in Argentina, in which the architect of the economic collapse, Carlos Menem, is the front-runner. His cronies, the former owners, are circling: if he wins, they’ll take back the companies that the movement has worked so hard to revive. Armed only with slingshots and an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy, the workers face off against the bosses, bankers and a whole system that sees their beloved factories as nothing more than scrap metal for sale.

With The Take, director Avi Lewis, one of Canada’s most outspoken journalists, and writer Naomi Klein, author of the international bestseller No Logo, champion a radical economic manifesto for the 21st century. But what shines through in the film is the simple drama of workers’ lives and their struggle: the demand for dignity and the searing injustice of dignity denied.

Fiat Empire – Why the Federal Reserve Violates the U.S. Constitution


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The Congress shall have Power To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; No State shall make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of debts. Find out why some feel the Federal Reserve’s practices are a violation of the U.S. Constitution and others feel it’s simply “a bunch of organized crooks.” Discover why experts agree the Fed is a banking cartel that benefits mainly bankers and their corporate clients as well as a Congress that would rather increase the National Debt to $9 trillion than raise taxes.

Find out how the corporate media facilitates the partnership between the Fed and Congress and why it fails to disclose what’s going on. Lastly, find out how the Federal Reserve Member Banks are owned and controlled by an elite group of insiders. This Telly Award-winning documentary features presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas) and is inspired by The Creature from Jekyll Isalnd a book by well-known author and Freedom Force founder, G. Edward Griffin.

Also featured is Dr. Edwin Vieira, Ph.D., J.D. from Harvard (a foremost authority on the Constitution and the author of Pieces of Eight) who discusses the Fed and various long-term studies which indicate that the Federal Reserve System encourages war, destabilizes the economy, generates inflation (a hidden tax) and is the supreme instrument of unjust enrichment for a select group of insiders. Dr. Theodore Baehr (founder of MovieGuide®) rounds out the show by discussing the relationship between the Media, the Fed and the Government and why you never see these issues discussed on network TV or in the mainstream media.

In Debt We Trust


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In Debt We Trust shows how the mall replaced the factory as America’s dominant economic engine and how big banks and credit card companies buy our Congress and drive us into what a former major bank economist calls modern serfdom.

Americans and our government owe trillions in consumer debt and the national debt, a large amount of it to big banks and billions to Communist China. EXPERTS AGREE: A top government official compares the US today to Rome before its fall and warns that the bubble could burst.

A former prosecutor says that many of these loans are worst than mafia loan-sharking practices. An ex-credit card executive explains how advertising campaigns are deliberately deceptive and misleading.

ROBIN HOOD OR ROBBING THE HOOD: A real estate expert reports that tens of billions of dollars, are being transferred from the pockets of the poor into the vaults of big banks which use front groups and subsidiaries to camouflage their association with rip-off loans charging exorbitant interest rates.

Banking With Hitler



371 Swiss banks stand accused of collaborating with the Nazis during World War II. This was suspected at the time by by U.S. Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, who began investigating this collaboration. He found the Swiss were not alone. His archives reveal that both British and American bankers continued to do business with Hitler, even as Germany was invading Europe and bombing London.

This investigative film shows in detail the roles played by the Anglo-German banking clique. Key members of the Bank of England together with their German counterparts established the BIS, the Bank for International Settlement, which laundered the plundered gold of Europe. On its board were key Nazis such as Walther Funk and Hjalamar Schact The president of BIS was an American, Thomas McKittrick, who readily socialized with leading Nazis. Not only the BIS, but other allied banks worked hand in hand with the Nazis. One of the biggest American banks kept a branch open in Occupied Paris and, with full knowledge of the managers in the U.S., froze the accounts of French Jews. Deprived of money to escape France, many ended up in death camps.

When Pres. Roosevelt died in April 1945, Morganthau lost his protector and his crusade against the banks came to an end. He was further weakened when men in his department were accused of being Communists during the McCarthy era. This incredible story contains interviews with surviving members of banking families and Morganthaus investigative team as well as newly found archive material.

The Diamond Empire


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What we think about diamonds, is in fact, a myth. At the center of that myth is an illusion, that diamonds are valuable because they are rare. When writer Edward Epstein set out to investigate the diamond trade, he discovered that diamonds aren’t rare at all. Second only to Christmas, Valentine’s Day is the holiday when diamonds are most often given as the ultimate token of love. Central to the diamond’s role as a romantic symbol is the belief that diamonds are one of the rarest, most precious gifts for a loved one. But it’s only a myth–diamonds are found in plentiful supply.

FRONTLINE examines how the great myth about the scarcity of diamonds and their inflated value was created and maintained over the decades by the diamond cartel. This report chronicles how one family, the Oppenheimers of South Africa, gained control of the supply, marketing, and pricing of the world’s diamonds.

Merchants of Cool


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They spend their days sifting through reams of market research data. They conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools, and the malls, hot on the trail of the “next big thing” that will snare the attention of their prey–a market segment worth an estimated $150 billion a year. They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts–and wallets–of America’s youth?

FRONTLINE correspondent Douglas Rushkoff examines the tactics, techniques, and cultural ramifications of these marketing moguls in “The Merchants of Cool.” Produced by Barak Goodman and Rachel Dretzin, the program talks with top marketers, media executives and cultural/media critics, and explores the symbiotic relationship between the media and today’s teens, as each looks to the other for their identity.

Teenagers are the hottest consumer demographic in America. At 33 million strong, they comprise the largest generation of teens America has ever seen–larger, even, than the much-ballyhooed Baby Boom generation. Last year, America’s teens spent $100 billion, while influencing their parents’ spending to the tune of another $50 billion.

Argentina’s Economic Collapse


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After many years of apathy in the country, the insurrection exploded. The spontaneous revolt of “faceless” people meant saucepans were being banged in every neighborhood, all the way to the city’s vital centers.

What happened to Argentina? How was it possible that in so rich a country so many people were hungry? The country had been ransacked by a new form of aggression, committed in time of peace and in a democracy. A daily and silent violence that caused greater social disruption, more emigration and death than the terrorism of the dictatorship and the Falkland Islands war.

Ever since independence, almost 200 years ago, Argentina’s foreign debt has been a source of impoverishment and corruption and the biggest scandals. Since the first loan negotiated by Rivadavia in 1824 with the British Bank Baring Brothers, the debt was used to enrich Argentinean financiers, to control the finances and empty the country of its wealth.

This foreign debt always went hand in hand with big business, and with the complicity of nearly every government, from Miter and Quintana to Menem and De la Rua. The policy of indebtedness gave rise in Argentina to generations of technocrats and bureaucrats, who favored banks and international corporations over their own country. Educated at Harvard, Chicago, Oxford or Buenos Aires, their portraits hang in the official galleries.

Big Sugar


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Part 1



Part 2


Big Sugar explores the dark history and modern power of the world’s reigning sugar cartels.

Using dramatic reenactments, it reveals how sugar was at the heart of slavery in the West Indies in the 18th century, while showing how present-day consumers are slaves to a sugar-based diet.

Going undercover, Big Sugar witnesses the appalling working conditions on plantations in the Dominican Republic, where Haitian cane cutters live like slaves.

Workers who live on Central Romano, a Fanjul-owned plantation, go hungry while working 12-hour days to earn $2 (US).

The Cost of a Coke


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Coca Cola, we’ve found out, has actually been cooperating with paramilitaries in Colombia to execute workers in their own bottling plants that are trying to form unions and trying to demand better working conditions. So we’ve been able to bring this to the attention of Universities and say ‘if Coca Cola doesn’t stop doing this and if Coca Cola doesn’t adopt different practices, then our University is no longer willing to have anything to do with Coca Cola.

In the world of the Coca-Cola Company, whenever there’s a union there’s always a bust, whenever there’s corruption there’s always the real thing, yeah!! Justice Productions second release, The Cost of a Coke: 2nd Edition is the updated version to Matt Beard’s first documentary, The Cost of a Coke.

The Cost of a Coke: 2nd Edition explores the corruption and moral bankruptcy of the world’s most popular soda, and what you can do to help end a gruesome cycle of murders and environmental degradation.

Bush Family Fortunes


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There were other connections between the Bushs and the Saudis.

Carlyle Group, which hired both George Bush junior and senior, received major funds and worked for Saudi Royals and the Bin Laden family.

This hour long documentary follows the award-winning reporter-sleuth Greg Palast on the trail of the Bush family, from Florida election finagling, to the Saudi connection…

To the Bush team’s spiking the FBI investigation of the bin Laden family and the secret State Department plans for post-war Iraq.

These are the hard-hitting reports that have been seen in films like Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, broadcast internationally on BBC Newsnight television, and are found in Palast’s international bestselling book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

Supermarket Secrets


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Watch the full documentary now (Part 2)


How and what we eat has radically changed over the past few decades with the all-consuming rise of the supermarket. But what price are we paying for the homogenized, cheap and convenient food that supermarkets specialize in? In a two-part programme, journalist Jane Moore investigates how supermarkets have affected the food on our plates and reveals the tell-tale signs that the food we buy may not have been grown in the way we think.

Using a combination of undercover filming and scientific analysis, Supermarket Secrets investigates whether the food on supermarket shelves is really as good as it looks, whether prices are as good as they seem and what happens behind the scenes in the production of supermarket food.

Iraq’s Missing Billions



The British and American coalition which had overthrown Saddam Hussein was given a very special responsibility by the United Nations. It was given trusteeship of more than 20 billion dollars that belonged to the people of Iraq. Over the next 40 months, it spent almost all of it. Yet, no one can account for where it all went. Literally billion of dollars have gone missing.

In this revealing documentary, Dr. Ali Fadhil, a young Iraqi doctor, sets out to learn what has led to the catastrophic results when money was put into the care of the U.S. led coalition. What emerges is a disturbing tale of corruption and fraud. As word spread of the kind of money that could be made in Iraq, foreign contractors negotiated deals fast and furiously.

There was no oversight of projects. “As trustees, we did a very poor job,” admits Frank Willis, a senior member of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). “We should have spent the money on the Iraqi people, rather than putting it in the pockets of foreign business.” According to the United States’ own figures, Iraq’s essential services are worse than before the war, with the country producing less electricity, oil or clean water.

The Supermarket That’s Eating Britain



Tesco is Britain’s favorite supermarket. With 2,000 stores and 15 million customers a week, it’s almost twice as big as its nearest rival. Dispatches shows how Tesco could soon become even bigger, and asks if this retail giant is abusing its power.

In The Supermarket That’s Eating Britain, Ben Laurance pieces together evidence that reveals the true potential of Tesco’s expansion plans. In two thirds of Britain, Tesco is already the dominant supermarket.

Dispatches’ information shows how that dominance could become even greater. The programme examines the ways in which Tesco avoids paying tens of millions of pounds in tax by exploiting legal loopholes and using complex networks of companies and partnerships here and overseas.

And Dispatches chronicles the links Tesco has forged with New Labour: the programme examines how Tesco has used its connections to exert influence both at Westminster and with local councilors.

The Supermarket That’s Eating Britain hears how: councils feel bullied; MPs complain about being put under pressure; and Tesco uses its financial clout to keep its competitors at bay.

Wegmans Cruelty



Wegmans Cruelty is a half hour documentary produced by a small investigative team from the organization Compassionate Consumers. Organization members contacted Wegmans Food Markets to try to hold some meaningful dialogue about the conditions at Wegmans Egg Farm, and were then misled and dismissed by Wegmans representatives. The team set out to capture actual footage inside the farm and create a film based on their experience.

The film features statements from Wegmans representatives, interviews with the investigators, and footage of what life and death is like inside of a battery cage facility. Approximately 98% of all eggs produced in the United States come from hens that are housed in battery cages. Often unknowingly, customers are supporting the practices of modern egg farming by purchasing eggs.

Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. is a 68-store supermarket chain with stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia. The family-owned company, founded in 1916, is recognized as an industry leader and innovator. Wegmans has been named one of the ‘Top 100 Companies to Work For’ by Fortune Magazine for the last several years. In 2005, Wegmans ranked #1 on the list.

Money, Banking, and The Federal Reserve System



Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson understood “The Monster”. But to most Americans today, Federal Reserve is just a name on the dollar bill. They have no idea of what the central bank does to the economy, or to their own economic lives; of how and why it was founded and operates; or of the sound money and banking that could end the statism, inflation, and business cycles that the Fed generates.

Dedicated to Murray N. Rothbard, steeped in American history and Austrian economics, and featuring Ron Paul, Joseph Salerno, Hans Hoppe, and Lew Rockwell, this extraordinary new film is the clearest, most compelling explanation ever offered of the Fed, and why curbing it must be our first priority.

Alan Greenspan is not, we’re told, happy about this 42-minute blockbuster. Watch it, and you’ll understand why. This is economics and history as they are meant to be: fascinating, informative, and motivating. This movie could change America

Monopoly Men: Federal Reserve Fraud



The Federal Reserve, or the Fed as it is lovingly called, may be one of the most mysterious entities in modern American government.
Created during Wilson’s presidency to protect the economy in times of financial turmoil, its real business remains to be discovered.
During the Wilson presidency, the U.S. government sanctions the creation of the Federal Reserve. Thought by many to be a government organization maintained to provide financial accountability in the event of a domestic depression, the actual business of the Fed is shrouded in secrecy.
Many Americans will be shocked to discover that the principle business of the Fed is to print money from nothing, lend it to the U.S. government and charge interest on these loans.
Who keeps the interest? Good question. Find out as the connective tissue between this and other top-secret international organizations is explored and exposed.

Britain’s Bad Housing



Earlier this month, Prime Minister Gordon Brown placed housing firmly at the top of the government’s agenda, unveiling plans to build three million homes by 2020 – possibly the biggest building programme in Britain for 30 years. But in this edition of Dispatches, reporter Andrew Gilligan investigates the private house builders charged with solving Britain’s chronic housing shortage.

Gilligan raises serious concerns about the way in which house-builders currently operate. He exposes the business tactics which are used to manipulate the planning process, questions the quality of houses and shows how public authorities have allowed developers control over housing policy.
Gilligan uncovers the underhand ways in which some developers seek to gain planning permission. He reveals the dirty tricks used by one lobbying company on behalf of a developer in London to influence the local planning committee and discovers cases where developers have made donations to local political parties which control the planning committees – around the same time their applications for profitable developments are being considered.
With housing in three-quarters of the country now too expensive for first-time buyers, Gilligan examines one of the government’s key solutions to the astronomical pricing – building more ‘affordable’ homes. But he discovers that previous attempts to build cheap, good quality homes in the past have failed dismally with prices for flagship schemes inflating by more than three times the original target price

Bigger Than Enron



On June 15, a Houston jury convicted Arthur Andersen — the 89-year-old accounting firm once known as the gold standard of integrity in auditing — for obstruction of justice in the government’s investigation of Enron, Andersen’s biggest client. With the demise of Andersen, the American business landscape was forever altered. But something else was altered as well: the scandal surrounding Enron and Andersen, together with the wave of other major accounting scandals that have come to light in recent months, has dealt America’s markets an unsettling psychological blow. If we can’t trust the auditors, investors wonder, whom can we trust?

The meteoric rise and stunning collapse of Enron caused many to question why the corporate oversight system that was supposed to protect investors failed to sound any alarms about the company’s dubious finances. But Enron and Arthur Andersen turn out to be merely the tip of the iceberg. In the 1990s, more than 700 U.S. companies were forced to correct misleading financial statements as a result of accounting failures, lapses, or outright fraud. Together with Enron — the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history — these failures have cost investors an estimated $200 billion.
Enron’s collapse in late 2001 galvanized Congress and brought urgent calls for reform. The House and Senate held hearings and introduced legislation to reform the accounting industry. But so far no bill has passed both chambers and been signed into law. Instead, after prolonged criticism for moving too slowly and being too soft on the accounting firms, SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt has taken the initiative, announcing on June 20 his proposal for a new Public Accountability Board. Critics, however, still say that his plans are too weak, and question whether he is genuinely prepared to cross his former clients in the accounting industry, which he represented as a top Wall Street lawyer throughout the 1990s.

samedi 25 décembre 2010

Money As Debt II: Promises Unleashed



Bailouts, stimulus packages, debt piled upon debt…Where will it all end?

How did we get into a situation where there has never been more material wealth & productivity and yet everyone is in debt to bankers?

And now, all of a sudden, the bankers have no money and we the taxpayers, have to rescue them by going even further into debt!

Money as debt II explores the baffling, fraudulent and destructive arithmetic of the money system that holds us hostage to a forever growing DEBT… and how we might evolve beyond it into a new era.

Watch the full documentary now (playlist)

The Ascent of Money


Professor Niall Ferguson examines the origins of the pillars of the world’s financial system, and how behind every great historical phenomenon – empires and republics, wars and revolutions – there lies a financial secret.

From Shylock’s pound of flesh to the loan sharks of Glasgow, from the ‘promises to pay’ on Babylonian clay tablets to the Medici banking system, Professor Ferguson explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilization.

Episode 1: Dreams of Avarice



How did finance become the realm of the masters of the universe? Through the rise of the bond market in Renaissance Italy. With the advent of bonds, war finance was transformed and spread to north-west Europe and across the Atlantic. It was the bond market that made the Rothschilds the richest and most powerful family of the 19th century. And today governments are asking it to bail them out.

Episode 2: Human Bondage



The Ascent of Money
Economics 30 Comments

The Ascent of MoneyProfessor Niall Ferguson examines the origins of the pillars of the world’s financial system, and how behind every great historical phenomenon – empires and republics, wars and revolutions – there lies a financial secret.

From Shylock’s pound of flesh to the loan sharks of Glasgow, from the ‘promises to pay’ on Babylonian clay tablets to the Medici banking system, Professor Ferguson explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilization.

Episode 1: Dreams of Avarice

How did finance become the realm of the masters of the universe? Through the rise of the bond market in Renaissance Italy. With the advent of bonds, war finance was transformed and spread to north-west Europe and across the Atlantic. It was the bond market that made the Rothschilds the richest and most powerful family of the 19th century. And today governments are asking it to bail them out.

Episode 2: Human Bondage

Why do stock markets produce bubbles and busts? Professor Ferguson goes back to the origins of the joint stock company in Amsterdam and Paris. He draws telling parallels between the current stock market crash and the 18th-century Mississippi Bubble of Scottish financier John Law and the 2001 Enron bankruptcy. He shows why humans have a herd instinct when it comes to investment, and why no one can accurately predict when the bulls might stampede.

Episode 3: Blowing Bubbles



The Ascent of Money
Economics 30 Comments

The Ascent of MoneyProfessor Niall Ferguson examines the origins of the pillars of the world’s financial system, and how behind every great historical phenomenon – empires and republics, wars and revolutions – there lies a financial secret.

From Shylock’s pound of flesh to the loan sharks of Glasgow, from the ‘promises to pay’ on Babylonian clay tablets to the Medici banking system, Professor Ferguson explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilization.

Episode 1: Dreams of Avarice

How did finance become the realm of the masters of the universe? Through the rise of the bond market in Renaissance Italy. With the advent of bonds, war finance was transformed and spread to north-west Europe and across the Atlantic. It was the bond market that made the Rothschilds the richest and most powerful family of the 19th century. And today governments are asking it to bail them out.

Episode 2: Human Bondage

Why do stock markets produce bubbles and busts? Professor Ferguson goes back to the origins of the joint stock company in Amsterdam and Paris. He draws telling parallels between the current stock market crash and the 18th-century Mississippi Bubble of Scottish financier John Law and the 2001 Enron bankruptcy. He shows why humans have a herd instinct when it comes to investment, and why no one can accurately predict when the bulls might stampede.

Episode 3: Blowing Bubbles

Life is a risky business – which is why people take out insurance. But faced with an unexpected disaster, the state has to step in. Professor Ferguson travels to post-Katrina New Orleans to ask why the free market can’t provide adequate protection against catastrophe. His quest for an answer takes him to the origins of modern insurance in the early 19th century and to the birth of the welfare state in post-war Japan.

Episode 4: Risky Business



It sounded so simple: give state-owned assets to the people. After all, what better foundation for a property-owning democracy than a campaign of privatisation encompassing housing? An economic theory says that markets can’t function without mortgages, because it’s only by borrowing against their assets that entrepreneurs can get their businesses off the ground. But what if mortgages are bundled together and sold off to the highest bidder?

Episode 5: Safe As Houses



The Ascent of Money
Economics 30 Comments

The Ascent of MoneyProfessor Niall Ferguson examines the origins of the pillars of the world’s financial system, and how behind every great historical phenomenon – empires and republics, wars and revolutions – there lies a financial secret.

From Shylock’s pound of flesh to the loan sharks of Glasgow, from the ‘promises to pay’ on Babylonian clay tablets to the Medici banking system, Professor Ferguson explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilization.

Episode 1: Dreams of Avarice

How did finance become the realm of the masters of the universe? Through the rise of the bond market in Renaissance Italy. With the advent of bonds, war finance was transformed and spread to north-west Europe and across the Atlantic. It was the bond market that made the Rothschilds the richest and most powerful family of the 19th century. And today governments are asking it to bail them out.

Episode 2: Human Bondage

Why do stock markets produce bubbles and busts? Professor Ferguson goes back to the origins of the joint stock company in Amsterdam and Paris. He draws telling parallels between the current stock market crash and the 18th-century Mississippi Bubble of Scottish financier John Law and the 2001 Enron bankruptcy. He shows why humans have a herd instinct when it comes to investment, and why no one can accurately predict when the bulls might stampede.

Episode 3: Blowing Bubbles

Life is a risky business – which is why people take out insurance. But faced with an unexpected disaster, the state has to step in. Professor Ferguson travels to post-Katrina New Orleans to ask why the free market can’t provide adequate protection against catastrophe. His quest for an answer takes him to the origins of modern insurance in the early 19th century and to the birth of the welfare state in post-war Japan.

Episode 4: Risky Business

It sounded so simple: give state-owned assets to the people. After all, what better foundation for a property-owning democracy than a campaign of privatisation encompassing housing? An economic theory says that markets can’t function without mortgages, because it’s only by borrowing against their assets that entrepreneurs can get their businesses off the ground. But what if mortgages are bundled together and sold off to the highest bidder?

Episode 5: Safe As Houses

Since the 1990s, once risky markets in Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe have become better investments than the UK or US stock market. The explanation is the rise of ‘Chimerica’, the economic marriage of China and the United States. But does it make sense for poor Chinese savers to lend to rich American spenders?

Episode 6: Chimerica

25 Million Pounds



Like many in the 1980′s, Nick Leeson wanted to be rich and successful, but Nick Leeson was also a very strange man, he had an extraordinary ability to manipulate and deceive those around him. This is his story. It is also a story about those he deceived. They willingly entered into a dream he wove, lured by the prospect of vast sums of money and together they lost 830 million pounds.

“It’s very easy for me to get along with people, but I don’t necessarily have to like you or any of the people that I work with to get along with them. So I come in and do my job, do it to the best of my ability, and then at the end of the day if you’re going to ask me out for a drink, I’m not going to go out for a drink with you because I don’t like you, but I’m not going to tell you that, there’s no reason for there to be any animosity during the day. I just didn’t like the people that I worked with and so I would go and do the work, be very very friendly, everybody would probably say that they thought they were my best friend and if they have the knowledge, then I will attempt to get the knowledge through whichever way is best, and if a friendship is that method, then friendship is the method that I would use.” –Nick Leeson

The Day of the Dollar



Do we live on a bubble? Is it possible for the heavily indebted American economy to collapse and take all of us down in a free fall with it? Have the days of the dollar been counted? Is it really unimaginable that we will see the time of the Great Depression repeating itself?

VPRO Backlight and Dutch national newspaper NRC Handelsblad present this ‘what if’ scenario. What if the dollar collapses? Fiction meets facts in this 24 hour scenario. At 9AM a Singapore trader is ordered to sell a large amount of dollars, which sends off the enormous downfall of the dollar.

This film shows the results for the world economy every following hour. It ends in Amsterdam, where the only currency accepted by a taxi driver is cigarettes…

History seems to have caught up with this 2005 film, though in slow-motion… Includes interview with annalist Stephen Roach, Andy Xie, Maarten Schinkel, Cees Maas, Rob de Wijk and Kees Vendrik.

Phantom Shares



There is a large portion of America’s middle class that turns to investments as a means of retirement. A lot of people like to keep tabs on stock they have invested in, or receive as benefits. Some might receive shares of a stock as an incentive to take care of the company they work for insuring they and the company are profitable.

Then one day the moment in the spotlight comes and the company goes public on the market. The glitter quickly fades to gloom as the company you and so many worked so hard for falls in value %15-%35 in the first month continuing the trend over the next year. Someone must be to blame but not who you might think.

Welcome to the realization you have been the target of “naked short sales” of your stock. Small cap companies are at the greatest risk. While there are efforts in place to regulate it, there are still many investors and companies paying the price. To bring you up to speed here is a interesting piece Bloomberg news did on how and why it is happening.

The DTCC, the company behind all wall-street transactions processes $1.4 quadrillion in trades per year and by the way here is what that number looks like $1,400,000,000,000,000! The SEC stated that %1.5 of trades per day are not settled now in small amounts %1.5 might seem like a drop in the bucket but when that much money is changing hands it is a more than substantial sum, $6,000,000,000 in trade do not clear every day. But is that really all that does not clear?

Super Rich: The Greed Game



As the credit crunch bites and a global economic crisis threatens, Robert Peston reveals how the super-rich have made their fortunes, and the rest of us are picking up the bill.

Robert Peston, the BBC’s Business Editor, speaks to some of the heavy hitters in hedge-fund and private equity scene. Along with the investment bankers, these are the very people who have been blamed for the current financial woe’s of the world.

The film highlights the fact that these very few people have become super rich, and while the global economy is collapsing around us, they get to sail off into the sunset, with bulging pockets, to lay back, and wait for the next set of opportunities that will come along.

Which, ironically, will probably be the buying, very cheaply, of the many companies that are in trouble, due to the actions of hedge-funds, private equity firms, and investment bankers in the financial markets over recent years.

I.O.U.S.A. – One Nation. Under Debt. In Stress.



As the average American can attest, personal debt is bad enough, but as Thomas Jefferson once cautioned, public debt is “corruptive of the government” and “demoralizing of the nation.” Patrick Creadon’s I.O.U.S.A. documents the efforts of two concerned citizens, former US Comptroller General Dave Walker and Concord Coalition Director Robert Bixby, to explain how America racked up over $9.5 trillion in debt and what we can do to stem the tide.

Based on the book Empire of Debt by William Bonner and Executive Producer Addison Wiggin, Wordplay’s Creadon combines Walker and Bixby’s “Fiscal Wake-Up Tour” with observations from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Paul O’Neill, superstar CEO Warren Buffett, and student activists.

The information flows with ease and the clips from Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show add levity to an undeniably dark and timely topic, but the narrative rests on a long list of facts and figures, leading to a production that feels more like a special news report than a work of cinema.

Unlike Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, on which co-writer/producer Christine O’Malley (Creadon’s wife) assisted, character development takes a backseat to data. Arguably, the director lacks an out-sized personality, like Enron’s Kenneth Lay, around which to assemble his argument, but the subject calls for more of a human face to have the desired effect, i.e. to encourage beleaguered taxpayers to care enough to rise up off their easy-chairs and agitate for greater fiscal responsibility.

PBS Frontline Black Money Pt 1 of 6



In Black Money, Frontline correspondent Lowell Bergman investigates this shadowy side of international business, shedding light on multinational companies that have routinely made secret payments — often referred to as “black money” — to win billions in business. “The thing about black money is you can claim it’s being used for all kinds of things,” the British reporter David Leigh tells Bergman. “You get pots of black money that nobody sees, nobody has to account for, … you can do anything you like with. Mostly what happens with black money is people steal it because they can.”

Leigh knows. In his groundbreaking reporting for The Guardian newspaper, he helped uncover one of the biggest and most complicated cases currently under investigation — a story involving a British aerospace giant, the Saudi royal family, and an $80 billion international arms deal known as Al Yamamah, or “The Dove” in Arabic. “If there was one person who was the main man behind this arms deal, it turned out it was the U.S. ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan,” says Leigh.

It all started back in 1985, when the charismatic Prince Bandar was put in charge of acquiring new fighter jets for the Saudi Arabian air force. The Israeli lobby in Congress reportedly stood in the way of the United States making a deal with the Saudis, so President Ronald Reagan sent Bandar to the British. The prince approached a willing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and they sealed the massive deal between the United Kingdom, BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace) and the Royal Saudi Air Force.
Rumors swirled that billions in bribes had changed hands to secure the deal, but British officials denied wrongdoing. “Of course there is suspicion, and of course people are entitled to be suspicious,” says Lord Timothy Bell, who was involved in the deal from the beginning on behalf of the Thatcher government. “But as far as I’m concerned, if the British government … and the Saudi government reached a sovereign agreement over an arms contract that resulted in a tremendous number of jobs in Britain, a great deal of wealth creation in Britain, … and enabled Saudi Arabians to defend themselves, … I think that’s a jolly good contract.”

Secret History of the Credit Card



The average American family today carries 10 credit cards. Credit card debt and personal bankruptcies are now at an all time high.

With no legal limit on the amount of interest or fees that can be charged, credit cards have become the most profitable sector of the American banking industry: more than $30 billion in profits last year alone.

This film examines how the credit card industry became so pervasive, so lucrative, and so powerful as correspondent Lowell Bergman uncovers the techniques used by the industry to earn record profits and get consumers to take on more debt.

Credit card debt is an example of unsecured consumer debt, accessed through credit cards. Debt results when a client of a credit card company purchases an item or service through the card system. Debt accumulates and increases via interest and penalties when the consumer does not pay the company for the money he or she has spent.

The results of not paying this debt on time are that the company will charge a late payment penalty (generally in the US from $10 to $40) and report the late payment to credit rating agencies. Being late on a payment is sometimes referred to as being in “default”. The late payment penalty itself increases the amount of debt the consumer has.

When a consumer has been late on a payment, it is possible that other creditors, even creditors the consumer was not late in paying, may increase the interest rates the consumer is paying. This practice is called universal default.

Watch the full documentary now