#George #Soros Lecture Series: #Capitalism vs. #Open #Society via @YouTube

"Minorities could be helpful in rebuilding the vanishing middleground" ~ Soros

My comments to come in thread

This video is EXTREMELY interesting and worth a view. I will make comments on it here & this thread will be rather lengthy, on and about this video but I would first like to publish a rather lengthy parenthesis.

I wish I could simply post a link to a document. I will later.

Bail-out 2008: I respectfully differ with what Mr. Soros says in one small part of this video, as financial engineers did not "make a mistake"; the Coup was deliberate! They KNEW the CDOs would collapse and even if they could claim they didn't (evidence shows contrary) as...

Ms. Brooksley Born, one of many people to have REPEATEDLY warned BOTH Clinton and Bush Administrations, only to be ridiculed and silenced, even being professionally discredited, was deliberately ignored as certain people were churning billions in profits...

Rating Agencies KNEW the mortgages in theses CDOs would default, yet they deliberately falsified their validity by issuing AAA Ratings anyway. In fact? Collusion no doubt occurred between them and Goldman & Sachs, et al, whom ALSO knew these CDOs would default...

(having taken care to even insure these), they yet sold these to mutual funds and 401Ks psychopathically, for pure profit, knowing fully well these would collapse.

Banks everywhere were in fact frantically giving hefty bonus to their officers to incite them...

to open up new mortgages with as many clients as possible, REGARDLESS of the later's financial capacities to meet said mortgages' monthly payments.

5 Investment Banks involved:

• Goldman Sachs
• Morgan Stanley
• Lehman Brothers
• Merrill Lynch
• Bear Stearns

2 financial conglomerates involved:

• JP Morgan
• Citigroup

3 Securities Insurance Companies:

• AIG
• MBIA
• AMBAC

3 Rating Agencies:

• Moody's
• Standard & Poor's
• Fitch

Linking all of them together was the "Securitization Food Chain"

HOW IT ALL HAPPENED

1. In the old days, Mortgages were paid back to lenders over a long time so lenders were careful.

2. Then lenders began selling loans to Investment Banks, who combined
these, along with car and student loans to create what are commonly referred to as being complex Derivatives named CDOs or "Collateralized Debt Obligations"

(Now you know what CDOs are)

....

3. Investment Banks then paid Rating Agencies to give these CDOs the highest credit rating (AAA), even though they KNEW these were loans which were going to be written-off for
defaulted payments (were never going to be paid back)

4. The rating Agencies issued AAA ratings (Top rating any loan could have) on said CDOs and

5. The Investment Banks then sold said CDOs to Investors (such as 401Ks, who didn't know what the Investment Banks had done, with the participation of the Rating Agencies).

6. Retirement Funds, due to their nature, do not invest in just any type of Securities. They only ever invest in AAA rated Securities in order to safeguard the funds entrusted to them.

7. Riskiest loans are called "sub-primes" and Retirement Funds would have never touched these Securities had they known these falsely AAA rated Securities were indeed sub-primes.

(Now you know what sub-primes are)

8. Knowing the Securities they sold to Investors were sub-primes and would default, the Investment Banks went as far as to insure these same Securities with the insurance companies mentioned here up above, in this thread.

Why wasn't there blood in the streets when the collapse ensued?

Well, it's mostly because most people, not being financially well-versed, never quite understood WHAT had happened and the language used to describe the event was deliberately obtuse.

oh, there's more!

9. In 1998 (A FULL 10 YEARS BEFORE THE FACT!!!), Clinton deregulated the leverage for Investment Banks, despite the strong warnings of experts like Ms. Brooksley Borne, who fought hard to see these reinstated only to be viciously ridiculed. They KNEW!

Brooksley was professionally discredited [by Alan Greenspan, Reuben (I forget his first name), and Arthur Levitt, FCC Chairman] for having repeatedly attempted to warn both Clinton and Bush Administrations about the unavoidable market Collapse which would ensue.

10. Sub-primes were more attractive to Investment Banks because these carried higher interest fees and so began the 10 year 'era' of "Predatory loans"

11. Predatory Loans are high-interest and highly risky loans, generally issued to people who present a credit risk; people who went bankcrupt, people with a low credit score or bad credit history.

(Now you know what Predatory Loans are)

12. Then being rewarded by hefty bonuses for the amount of sub-prime loans they were able to secure, everyday Banks began issuing loans to everyone and anyone they could!!

It was a free-for-all bonanza!

(there was even talk, at some point, of every day banks issuing 'fictive' loans to meet their required quotas, in order to get a bonus.)

Yup!

There's more!

13. Everyday Banks went about doing this, knowing full well the people contracting these high-interest carrying loans would eventually default, i.e.; be incapable of ever paying these back.

14. Interest rates shot down to an all-time low for just said purpose.

(Can YOU say "rigged"?)

15. Seeing these low interest rates, a lot of people invested in Real-Estate, creating a Bubble (meaning something that is growing/becoming profitable very fast)

16. The unfortunate thing here is that people who should never have been issued any loans found themselves getting offers in the mail about three times a week, getting "We have a pre-approved loan for you" type of mail from all kinds of competing banks in their vicinity.

17. A lot of people, who couldn't afford taking out high-interest loans, signed up for these and, of course, defaulted on these.

18. Meanwhile, Investment Banks were borrowing astronomical amounts of money, increasing their leverage up to 39:1, in order to secure more loans from all these everday Banks, to then create sub-prime CDOs, get the rating Agencies to fraudulently give these an AAA rating and

then selling these to Investment/Retirement Funds, such as the 401K Retirement Funds whom, trusting the Rating Agencies' ratings, invested in these Securities.

"Leverage" is the amount of money a bank is allowed to borrow as opposed to how much it has on hand.

39:1 leverage means for every 1$ you have on you, you are allowed to borrow 39$

Ex: 100$ on you? You could borrow 3900$ without any other collateral as a Bank.

Note: I'm NOT being "condescending" in spelling things out here, as very few - TOO FEW!! - people know how all of these financial machinations work & they don't really teach you this in school, unless you take Securities or Economy courses, unfortunately.

So, to recap...

19. Leverage is explained simply as follows; If I borrow 1$ from you while I have 1$ in my pocket, my leverage is 1:1, If I borrow 2$ from you while I have 1$ in my pocket, my leverage becomes 2:1, and so on.

Leverage, def:

the ratio of a company's loan capital (debt) to the value of its common stock (equity).

20. Investment Banks' leverage, having been deregulated in 1998 (despite the valid concerns and warnings issued by many Experts), shot up to as much as 39:1

21. This meant that as little as a 3% decrease in their assets would leave Investment Banks insolvent, i.e.; Bankcrupt.

22. In the case of Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and
Merrill Lynch, this sub-prime lending alone increased from 30 Billion$ to
over 600 Billion$ in 10 years.

23. Countryside Financial, the largest sub-prime lender, issued 97 Billion$ in loans and made 11 Billion$ profit as a result.

24. Lehman Brothers were the top underwriters of sub-prime lending, at 106 Billion$.

25. Meanwhile... There was another ticking timebomb: AIG was selling huge amounts of Derivatives called Credit Default Swaps (500 billion$ worth!)

26. Look up Credit Default Swaps on Google. I don't want to give you everything cooked in the mouth

27. The CDOs (sub-prime high-interest risky bunch of loans), as expected, defaulted.

28. Investment/Retirement Funds saw their Securities collapse

29. The insurance companies whom had insured the CDOs, found themselves insolvent due to the immense quantity of CDOs which defaulted all at once.

(House of cards, it all came down!)

30. This, Ladies & Gents, was a Ponzi Scheme. One ENABLED & UNABATED by BOTH Clinton & Bush Administrations who were REPEATEDLY WARNED by many people, one of which was Brooksley Born, only for those warning them to be met with ridicule & be professionally discredited

WARNING: Rage Triggers

Who got OBSCENELY rich, aside from

• the Investment Banks,
• the everyday Banks, and
• the Rating Agencies?

Well many people did...

Some profited from the Market bubble honestly (not knowing what was going on behind the scene), via high ROI (Return on Investment) Real-Estate investments, others well... You now know the facts!

You wanna know HOW MUCH some made? You sure? You might blow a retina...

AIG-FP's Head, Joseph Cassano, made 315 million$, from 2000 to 2007. He then was kept as Consultant afterwards, making 1 million$/MONTH!!

Hedgefund Manager, John Paulson, made 12 Billion$

Frederic Mishkin, Governor, Fed Reserve (2006-2008) net worth 6-17M$

more...

Angelo Mozilo, CEO for Countrywide, made 470 Million$ (2003-2008)

Stan O'Neil, CEO Merrill Lynch, 90 Million$ (2006-2007) and the "poor" dear got a 161 Million$ severance!!

Larry Summers, who played a keyrole in deregulation, became president of Harvard in 2001, made millions consulting. Net worth Between 16.5 & 39.5 Million$ (That's all? Loser!)

Hedgefunds Tricadia, Magnetar made billions betting AGAINST CDOs they had designed with Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros & JP Morgan

Moody's (rating agency) quadrupled its profits (2000-2007)

Mar 16, 2008: Bear Stearns ran out of cash and was acquired for 2$/share by JP Morgan

These guys OBSCENELY profited as well. I misplaced those financial statements so I've no amounts

• Goldman Sachs Execs & CEOs:
• Daniel Sparks, Mortgage Dept Head
• Fabrice Tourre, Exec Dir Structured Trading
• Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman & CEO
• David Viniar, exec VP & CFO

Martin Feldstein, prof economics, Harvard, Reagan's Chief Financial Advisor, a major player in deregulation 1988-2009, was on board of BOTH AIG & AIG Financial Products.

(No amount here for you either, my apologies)

Comments from some in the Financial Industry:

Jerome Fons, Former Managing Director (Moody's Rating Agency) said 100s billions of $ were being rated PER YEAR & if rating agencies had refused to play ball we wouldn't have had this monstrous mess but profits were irresistible

Rating Agencies were NOT held liable because they claimed their ratings were "merely" OPINIONS (1st Amendment Rights, was the Defense used by their lawyers) and seeing as everyone's pockets (and possibly our Leaders' as well) were nicely padded, it all...

*wooosh!

Went away!

This is the end of my long-winded parenthesis to comment on Mr. Soros' saying financial engineers "made a mistake".

It was NOT "a mistake"; it was DELIBERATELY and quite PSYCHOPATHICALLY engineered with absolutely NO REGARD for "the sheep"

Yes... "the sheep" is how we ALL are "affectionately" referred to by these minions.

The Source of the information I've just conveyed to you is a documentary produced by Charles Ferguson, entitled "Inside Job"

You may buy or rent said documentary here:

I will now return to continue viewing Mr. Soros' very interesting video on Open Society and will comment here below afterwards.

So far, what Mr Soros speaks of sounds like a beautiful and well thought-out utopic ideology but I'm not done viewing his speech yet.

Back later

I find interesting (and somewhat ironic) when Mr. Soros criticises Market Fundamentalism, he doesn't seem to realise the very things he speaks of are actually the very same things he himself is currently attempting to do to our government, via sub rosa means.

Market fundamentalism, also known as free-market fundamentalism, is a term applied to a strong belief in the ability of unregulated laissez-faire or free-market capitalist policies to solve most economic and social problems.

- (Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_fundamentalism)

Soros' interference in our politics is immoral as he is forcing his own will upon the masses in this way acting in a manner far worse than that of self-interested agencies benefiting from constitutionally divided powers as...

Soros is acting as a lone tyrant, imposing his will whilst having ALL the power, his power being financial. He coerces or purchases individuals to abide by his will. This is dictatorship if not tyrannical. It is an imposition, not a request, not a negotiation, not a discussion

Soros speaks of the manipulation of public opinion, propaganda machines distorting the public's understanding and the influence of money polluting politics. I find it strange he should bring this up and strictly allocate this to market fundalism as...

Soros himself is currently imposing his own views of what our government should be and how it should be run upon our country, whether we like it or not, in a TOTALITARIAN if not DICTATORIAL manner, completely unethically and immorally...

...using cognitively dissonant propaganda machines fed by his "bought and paid for" media, terrorists
and current democratic and socialist political officials, et minions. Worse, he is also using Division as per methods used in Hitler's Germany, methods he admits to...

have studied, in order to indoctrinate our youth.

Avid of social sciences, Soros has thoroughly studied various operants and has also been manipulating the masses recently (about Trump) using a method which is called "False consensus effect" ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consensus_effect)

where people are spoon-fed lies on a daily basis, several times a day, via social media, democratic talking heads, Terrorist outfits to exaggerate some people's natural preponderances to victimhood, to both divide our country and to make sure that...

anyone who claims to appreciate President Trump ends up being ridiculed or find themselves narcissistically DESTROYED or otherwise financially attacked ( #Goya), so people may then "adjust" their thinking, in order to fit in with that of others.

Everyone wants to fit in. Most people don't like standing in the margins of Society. This yearning for belonging is deeply engrained in our psyche and being called stupid or whatever other derogatory term by friends whom are drinking Soros' media Kool-Aid...

or ending up fired because one is a Trump Supporter, by ignorant sheep who couldn't think critically if their very life depended on it, is SURE to be an active deterrent where people would otherwise like to shout out their support for Trump

Soros knows this well, having not only studied sociology and cognitive sciences but also having studied (by his own admission in another video) Hitler's indoctrination methods and THAT knowledge coupled to his money make him a very dangerous man for ANY Democracy.

I find him dangerous not only due to his fine intellect (though he has no insight whatsoever) but due to his capacity to purchase people to do his bidding and his hunger for TOTALITARIAN Control.

I also find it deplorable anyone should ever accept to hence be purchased.

Now, this said, I'm certain Soros is not so much a "bad" man (I believe he actually MEANS well) but he is a very deeply insecure man and this explains his insatiable & VISCERAL need for "Control". This most certainly stems from his extremely (inhuman!) traumatic childhood

The Holocaust and its inhuman atrocities FOREVER CHANGED those who survived or escaped it. George (Soros) might have "escaped" encampment but the poor innocent little boy he once was never escaped the trauma of all he saw unfolding before him. Whom could have, being human??!

So today, this dear man (George Soros) seeks reparations wherever he sees Injustice and thiugh I highly credit him for trying to find solutions, I'm afraid what he is trying to impose upon us all would never work, PRECISELY due to the Principal Agent Problem

Mankind being WHAT it currently is - and he (George Soros) is absolutely right when he speaks of the moral decline afflicting our society - the Principal Agent Problem sadly remains a brute and most stubborn obstacle to his beautiful plans.

Listening to him, I started thinking "What if we replaced said Agent with AI or IoT? Such an Agent would be incorruptible, rational, and provide the perfect equillibrium!!" but visions of the Terminator invaded my thoughts and I shuddered...

This said, I profusely thank George (Soros) for least TRYING to come up with a viable solutions for our world and though I wouldn't want to throw all of his ideas out the window, I would prefer he used proper channels to open up discussions instead of....

trying to impose all of his views on us all, whether we'd want these enacted - or not.

It must be said I find George (Soros) to be bombastically brilliant and look forward to getting to know him (and his many ideas for our world) better, via the many more videos he's recorded.