Tag Archives | Danny Schechter

Let’s Give Goldman Sachs Their Own “Shitty Deal” (On Twitter)

By on April 30, 2010 in News 2

Goldman SucksIn celebration of this paragon of capitalism, Goldman Sachs, on April 30th we’ll be giving away copies of Danny Schechter’s latest documentary on Wall Street fraud, Plunder: The Crime of Our Time (available now on DVD and iTunes) for those who Tweet the following:

Let’s Give Goldman Sachs Their Own “Shitty Deal” #Plunder #GoldmanSucks #FreeFriday http://bit.ly/cuUXky

(If you haven’t heard of the “shitty deal” yet read here.)

As always the more you Tweet the above phrase, the greater your chances of receiving a copy of Plunder on DVD. Here’s the trailer:

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Obama Has Spoken, The System Is Broken: It Is Time To Break Up Banks & Combat Financial Crime Or The Banksters Go Free

By on April 26, 2010 in News 3
The Great Hall at Cooper Union. Photo: Bobojazz (CC)

The Great Hall at Cooper Union. Photo: Bobojazz (CC)

The President has spoken, but the system is still broken. The SEC has come down on Goldman Sachs but the company is now mounting a no-expense spared defense.. Shocking disclosures of greed and fraud continue to trickle out from the Mammon factory and Babylonian leviathan that is Wall Street.

What is, and isn’t, being done by “da people” to fight back?

The major issue on the agenda for activists is not just the Administration’s tepid financial reform package due for a Senate vote this week but supporting new legislation to break up the banks, a proposal that challenges the “TOO BIG TO FAIL” understanding between government and the banks. Thousands of activists are calling on their representatives to back the bill, and MoveOn.org is planning ads.

There is an ad already out there to fight fraud. Check it out.

If you support this call, sign this petition on the A New Way Forward website.… Read the rest

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Danny Schechter Blasts Wall Street On Coast To Coast AM

By on April 24, 2010 in News 2

George Knapp was joined by filmmaker and veteran journalist Danny Schechter, who discussed the fraud perpetrated on the nation by Wall Street and the factors which played a role in the current financial crisis. While the media has portrayed the meltdown as the result of a series of blunders by the banking industry, Schechter said that it was really a calculated effort to take advantage of a flawed system. Calling it “the greatest theft in history,” he observed that “you have a situation where a small group of people enriched themselves in ways that were never thought possible.”

[listen to the remaining parts of the interview here]

Schechter explained that the economic crisis is really…

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The Financial Crisis As Crime Story

By on April 23, 2010 in News 0

SEC.svgPlunder director Danny Schechter writing for the Nation:

The case has not even been heard in court and the company denies all the allegations. Almost every business publication has carried commentaries by insiders who say the government may have a hard time prevailing, and dismissing all the Sturm and Drang.

And yet the public seems to be delighted if not outraged by the SEC’s charges against Goldman Sachs, the opulent investment bank that many Americans see as the poster child of those causing the financial crisis. Even in the world of business where dislike of government crackdowns is dominant, a new poll shows that a majority believe Goldman is getting what it deserves.

Argyle Executive Forum conducted the survey electronically among its senior corporate leadership community.

The precise wording of the survey question was:

As Goldman Sachs Group is currently at the center of a legal maelstrom triggered by the SEC’s fraud charge last week, we want to ask you how you currently feel about the charges.

… Read the rest

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Goldman Sucks!

By on April 20, 2010 in News 2

News Dissector Danny Schechter explains why Goldman Sachs deserves criminal, not just civil fraud charges. As he says, “Goldman has not been sacked”:

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Going After Goldman: A Crackdown On Financial Crime Or A Kabuki Play Maneuver To Avoid Bringing Criminal Charges?

By on April 19, 2010 in News 4

Fox Business News was engrossed in interviewing a blonder than thou reality TV bimbo when the news that the Securities And Exchange Commission was filing fraud charges against Goldman Sachs broke on Friday afternoon.

The breaking news bulletins were already flying through cyberspace before the Fox Means Business network got around to moving from a snickering interview with a starlet confessing to commodifying and monetizing her appeal to the biggest story in months on the Street beat. Corporate fraud allegations seem to make free market boosters nervous.

At last, the mightiest of investment bank, described as a “giant squid on the face of humanity” by Matt Taibbi in a much-read diatribe, appeared to be in deep trouble. Taibbi himself was not convinced that the Government has the goods on Goldman.

He commented, “…What’s interesting is that I heard whiffs of this story going back as far as a year and you know I’m one of the harshest critics of Goldman Sachs and I actually backed off the story because I didn’t really believe it.… Read the rest

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The Wall Street Crime Narrative

By on April 13, 2010 in News 1

Wall StreetIn politics, it’s always all about the narrative, about how issues are framed.

We ask ourselves how we can be experiencing the largest economic meltdown in decades with millions out of work and millions more losing their homes, yet with no real mass mobilization or ongoing response from the progressive world.

To understand this paradox, we need to reflect on how most of us define the problem.

To this day, there has not been an aggressive investigation of who and what brought down the system à la the Pecora Commission appointed by FDR. Instead we have a wimpy ineffectual body that can’t get its act together. The New York Times, which hailed its appointment, now buries its de facto obit way back in the business section, noting it has “been hobbled by delays and internal disagreements and a lack of focus.”

At the same time, the bookshelves are filling up with volumes of complicated treatises on the complexities of derivatives, risky profit models and credit default swaps.… Read the rest

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Promoting Plunder

By on April 12, 2010 in News 0

My efforts to promote my new film PLUNDER are underway with a little help from our Globalvision team and the good folks at Disinformation, who have managed to get it on iTunes and various cable TV VOD systems, as well as DVD. I was happy to see that the Wall Street Journal ran a shorter version of their story saying the film is “not just for Michael Moore fans” on their Deal Blog in the weekend edition of the newspaper. Here are some of the comments on the WSJ blog:

shaun wrote:

Why hasn’t anyone been successfully prosecuted for committing the crime Schechter speaks of? Because it’s too big. It’s too big of a problem for those culpable and those currently in charge (Wall Street and Washington) to deal with. Officials would much rather make the crisis a blip in our economic history, rather than a decade-defining moment (e.g.

… Read the rest

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This Anti-Wall Street Film Isn’t Just for Michael Moore Fans

By on April 9, 2010 in News 0

plunder_art_dvdWall Street eats itself as its namesake newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, talks up Danny Schechter’s damning documentary Plunder: The Crime of our Time:

Independent filmmaker Danny Schecter would like to remind Wall Street that the disdain for bankers “is not coming from a bunch of lefties in some basement in the East Village. It is coming from mainstream America.”

Schecter hopes such mainstream angst can propel his latest film, “Plunder: The Crime Story of Our Time,” into the big leagues. Filmed on a budget of less than $50,000 and based on his book of the same title, the movie traces the roots of the financial crisis from the home owners who defaulted on their mortgages to the Wall Street banks loading up on mortgage investments.

The film sounds like the many books and made-for-television movies about the crisis. But Schecter, who has worked at ABC News and CNN, promises that his narrative is different because it approaches the subject like a crime story, not a mere financial story.

… Read the rest

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