ÖVERDOSE – A FILM ABOUT THE NEXT FINANCIAL CRISIS
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00:00:09
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TITLES WITH SHORT IMAGE SEQUENCES
Bush: We're in the mess of a serious financial crisis, the federal government is responding with decisive action.
Speaker
00:00:21
Speaker + Clip Photos
Speaker: Have you taken a large home loan? Or did you put your savings in stocks, mutual funds or bonds? If not, then you can relax, but all of us that did are living on borrowed time. This is the story of the greatest financial crisis of our time. The one that is on its way.
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Clip Photos + sound bites from people in film
David Walker: They spent hundreds of billions of dollars to show that they were doing something but not properly designed and not as effective as it should have been.
00:01:22
Gerald Celente: When they start losing money - hey we got to get back in the game, we got to get those dice rolling again, hey let's create another bubble. You think the dot COM bubble was too big, we got a bigger one for you. We’ll call it the real estate and the credit crisis.
00:01:41 Peter Schiff: Well the problem is, they never actually cure the crisis, they just give alcohol to a drunk. It doesn’t sober them up, it just, you know sets him up for a bigger hangover. And that's all we've done and that's all we are trying to do. And so I know at some point you kill the patient, at some point you can't drink anymore, it's just the end of it. You reach the end of the ability.
00:02:05
Megan McArdle: Congress wanted to believe them. Congress wanted an excuse to bail out the auto workers. And the executives gave them just enough political cover to say "ah well I'm not really doing this because I want auto worker votes, and I'm going to give them a huge amount of money, umm I'm really doing this for the American economy". Woman expert
00:02:45
Vernon L Smith So the solution is the problem, and that's why we had a problem in the first place.
00:02:53
Vernon L.Smith: This is the danger in protecting investors and consumers from the consequences of their own decisions.
00:03:12
David: We can do it. But we need to do it soon, because the clock is ticking and time is not working in our favor.
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Archive images George W. Bush
George W Bush: I know many Americans have questions tonight. How did we reach this point in our economy? And what does this mean for your financial future? These are good questions and they deserve clear answers.
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Graphics: 2001-2007
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GERALD CELENTE TREND ANALYST TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Gerald Celente: They took down the symbols, the financial symbols of America, the twin towers of the world trade
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Archive Photos of World Trade centre 9/11. Man on stretcher
A man on a stretcher: My old company where I used to work, the whole company is missing.
00:04:29
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Speaker + graphics
Speaker: The story of the great financial crisis begins like many other stories of our era, in the United States, on September eleventh two thousand and one. The terrorists knew exactly what they doing- striking at the ultimate symbol of the global economy. And they did it when the US was already slumping into a recession after the dot COM bubble had burst.
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Archive Photos
ALAN GREENSPAN CH OF THE U.S FEDERAL RESERVE 1987-2006
Allan Greenspan: Despite the tragic events of September the eleventh the foundations of our free society remain sound and I'm confident that we will recover and prosper as we have done in the past.
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Speaker + graphics
Speaker: In spring two thousand and one the Federal Reserve started lowering interest rates and now it continued lowering interest rates to save companies on the brink and to keep unemployment down. During two thousand and one the interest rate was lowered from six point five to one point seventy five percent. In two thousand and three it was cut all the way to one percent and it remained there for a full year.
00:05:38
GERALD CELENTE TREND ANALYST TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Gerald Celente: Predicting the panic of 08, the economic nine eleven and the current economic crises that we are still in was probably one of the easiest forecasts that we have ever made in our thirty years of trends forecasting. It was very simple.
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Speaker + Clip Pictures of Gerald Celente
Speaker: Gerald Celente lives in Kingston, a few miles North of New York. He’s one of the top trend analysts in the US. He’s been called a modern Nostradamus, he didn’t just predict the current crisis, he also predicted the dot COM bubble and the stock market collapse of nineteen eight seven.
00:06:16
GERALD CELENTE TREND ANALYST TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Gerald Celente: Immediately after nine eleven the president of the united states George W Bush told the people to be good Americans and go out and shop. But how are they going to do it, they are in a recession. Federal Reserve comes to the rescue.
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Speaker + Clip Images
Speaker: In his memoir Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan writes that he knew that low interest rates might cause a bubble.
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Man’s Voice: It’s party time!
00:06:45
Traditionally central banks remove the punch bowl once the party starts. The interest rate can’t remain low for too long or people will do things that they regret later.
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Archive
Woman on phone: This is one party that just has to turn out right
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Speaker in archival material: Well the purpose of a party is to have fun together. And a successful party needs planning and skill.
Speaker
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Speaker + graphics
Speaker: Greenspan argued that the feds should never remove the punch bowl. But rather keep refilling it, when the party started to peter out. And if things went bad, the fed would clean up the mess and tend to the hangover. Banks and speculators loved it, now they could take greater risks then ever before. If they were successful they could keep the profits and if they were unlucky, Greenspan would rescue them.
00:07:43
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Archive Photos
Speaker in Archival Images: Mama was that way. Let me come home and cry over something and she give me candy every time.
00:07:54
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Archive Photos Peter Schiff in TV debate
Peter Schiff: When you see the stock market come down and the real estate bubble burst, all that phoney wealth is going to evaporate, and all that is going to be left is all the debt that we accumulated to foreigners
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Speaker + photos of Peter Schiff
Speaker: Peter Schiff is another analyst who was roundly mocked when he predicted crisis for the US economy in the midst of the boom.
00:08:20
PETER P. SCHIFF PRESIDENT EURO PACIFIC CAPITAL
Peter Schiff: We went on an unprecedented global spending binge. American citizens borrowed and spent trillions of dollars to buy stuff. And that is why we are in so much trouble. It was because we got drunk on all that fed alcohol. Fed alcohol.
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Speaker + Clip Images
Speaker: In a world that was suddenly uncertain, with a country under attack, nothing felt safer then investing in your own home, in the American dream.
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Archive Photos George W. Bush
George W. Bush: I do believe in the American dream. I believe there is such a thing as the American dream. Owning a home is a part of that dream. Just here. It's right here in America if you own you're own home then you are realizing the American dream.
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Speaker + Clip Picture of Vernon Smith
Speaker: Vernon Smith was awarded the Nobel price in economics in two thousand and two. He received it for his research in experimental economics. In his experiments he puts economic theories to the test. Smith is an expert on bubbles.
SYNC
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SYNC
VERNON L. SMITH NOBEL LAUREATE CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY
Vernon Smith: If you are can buy a home with almost nothing down. Then you do well if the prices continue to go up. If it goes down, well then you have an incentive to walk away from it and let the bank have it.
00:09:37
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Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: Low interest rates caused a housing bubble. Cheap loans encouraged people to buy more and bigger homes. Housing prices began to rise by ten percent a year. So many took out a second mortgage on their old house to fund consumption.
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GERALD CELENTE TRENDANALYTIKER TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Gerald Celente: You want to go on a vacation? Buy some new clothes? How about putting an addition on your house? You don't have the money? How about a home equity loan – that’s for you. Let’s use your house as a piggy bank.
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Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: The banks granted loans to almost anyone. Why would you need a decent income to buy a home, if you can get rich just living in it! The market even coined the term Nina loans. No Income. No Assets. No problem! You’ll get a loan anyway.
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VERNON L. SMITH NOBEL LAUREATE CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY
Vernon Smith: The legislation was more aggressively pushing lenders to lend to people with modest means - people whose incomes were eighty percent of the median income or below.
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Speaker + Clip Images + Graphics
Speaker: Politicians encouraged this. For a long time both the left and the right have been encouraging home ownership. So they’ve created deductions, subsidies and insurances, and they created two huge mortgage-financing companies, Fannie May and Freddie Mac. Their job was to use thousands of billions of dollars to insure loans for people who couldn’t get them on the open market. They were Government Sponsored Enterprises. They had private owners, but they had been created by congress,and their transactions were guaranteed by the government.
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ROBERT VAN ORDER FORMER CHIEF ECONOMIC FREDDIE MAC
Robert Van Order: So particularly Fannie May and Freddy Mac are government sponsored enterprises. And what it means is… they are private, not now maybe. But they are private companies that have special charters from the government. And the thing about government-sponsored enterprises which is the main thing people are talking about is a sense that they are guaranteed by the government.
00:11:40
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Archive Photos George W. Bush
George W. Bush: First of all government sponsored corporations that help create our mortgage system, I introduced two of the leaders here today. They call those people Fannie May and Freddy Mac, as well as the federal home loan banks will increase their commitment to minority markets by more than four hundred and forty billion dollars.
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Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: In the last decade Fannie May and Freddy Mac have donated more then two hundred million dollars to politicians in Washington. Enterprise Sponsored Government. I asked the Former Freddie Mac Chief Economist, what they got for their money?
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ROBERT VAN ORDER FORMER CHIEF ECONOMIST FREDDIE MAC
Robert Van Order: I don't know. I mean… that's a tougher question. You know they had a pretty good charter. They were regulated in a spotty way. In many ways the regulatory structure wasn't that bad. But it was the case that the regulatory structure was a compromise. It wasn't a treasury, it wasn't a housing really, it was somewhere in between.
00:12:51
PETER P. SCHIFF PRESIDENT EURO PACIFIC CAPITAL
Peter: There was a huge moral hazard courtesy of the government in the mortgage market. When the government through Fannie and Freddy started to guarantee mortgages, then the lenders were no longer worried about getting their money back because the government said "we guarantee it".
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Archive Photos George W. Bush
George W. Bush: And so that's why I have proposed and encouraged the congress to fully fund the American Dream down payment fund. This will use money, taxpayer’s money, to help a qualified low-income buyer make a down payment.
00:13:25
VERNON L. SMITH NOBEL LAUREATE CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY
Vernon Smith: Well greed has to be balanced with a certain amount of fear, and that's what down payment rules are all about and amortization rules is to keep people from get carried away by as you say, the greed…of expecting to become rich, by buying a home and reselling at higher price.
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Archive Photos George W. Bush
George W. Bush: And that’s important. If one of the barriers to home ownership is the inability to make a down payment, and if one of the goals is to increase home ownership, it makes sense to help people pay that down payment.
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PETER SCHIFF INVESTERARE VD EURO PACIFIC CAPITAL
Peter Schiff: This is the problem, the moral hazard. We gave a moral hazard to homebuyers. Once you say that you can buy a home with no down payment, all of a sudden there is no risk to the borrower. He doesn't care if he over pays. Because if the house keeps going up he makes money, and if it stops going up, the bank loses the money. We have moral hazards in our banking system. The US government guarantees all bank deposits. Well what does that mean? That means that the depositors don't care what the banks do with their money once they deposit it, because they know the government guarantees it.
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Archive Photos George W. Bush
George W. Bush: The federal government obviously has to play an important role. And we will, we will. When I lay out a goal I mean it.
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PETER P. SCHIFF PRESIDENT EURO PACIFIC CAPITAL
Peter Schiff: Why are they doing that? Why can't we let mortgages be financed in the private sector? The reason is because the private sector would not finance these crazy mortgages and real estate prices would have to come down to levels that people actually can afford.
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Archive Photos George W. Bush
George W. Bush: How can you promote home ownership if people can't afford a home?
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Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: The big banks dared to make riskier loans because they had started repackaging loans and selling them to others as securities. They sold them to each other, to Fannie May and Freddy Mac, and they sold them to Norway, to Germany, and to China. If the loans turned bad, someone else would end up with a hot potato.
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Archive Photos from a film
Kvinna: I guess we are a little early. What do you want to do?
Man: Anything but inspect this temple of capitalism.
Kvinna: Oh Nick.
Man: look at them, their eyes popping out of their heads, drooling over the very things that are taking away their jobs.
Kvinna: Now Nick, don't get all excited, my family think that America is a pretty swell place and I don't want you to disillusion them.
Man: I know
00:15:46
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Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: Everybody wanted to buy because the rating agencies that rate securities gave the mortgage-backed bonds their highest rating. They promised huge payoffs at near zero risk. The rating agencies thought that house prices would just keep rising and then there was that minor detail that the rating agencies were being paid by the sellers of the securities.
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PETER P. SCHIFF PRESIDENT EURO PACIFIC CAPITAL
Peter Schiff: I think the process was corrupted. First of all the government licenses, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. So there are only a few companies authorized to rate these bonds, so it wasn't really a free market. The government was in bed with Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. But also you had this perverse relationship between Wall Street and the rating agencies where they were paying the rating agencies to rate the products that they were structuring. And so there was, you know, this was an incestuous relationship where they knew that if they put bad ratings on them, they wouldn't sell and if they didn't sell, they wouldn't be making all this money constantly rating them.
00:16:52
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Speaker + Clip Images
Speaker: They were great days, but it was all based on a market on steroids. Loans were cheap enough to keep driving housing prices up, but when interest rates returned to normal levels in two thousand and six, the spell was broken. But for one person the future was still bright, Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan’s successor as federal research chairman.
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Images from Archive News. Interview with Bernanke
Reporter: Tell me, what is the worst -case scenario if we in fact see prices actually come down substantially across the country?
00:17:23
Bernanke Centralbankchef USA: Well I guess I don't buy your premise. It's a pretty unlikely possibility; we have never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis.
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Speaker + Clip Images+ Graphics
Speaker: People could no longer get new loans to pay off the old ones. Those who had been given a mortgage despite a very low income couldn’t afford to stay. The prices started falling making the mortgage-backed securities increasingly worthless.
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Archive photos Bernanke
Bernanke: There is not much indication at this point that subprime mortgage issues have spread into the broader mortgage market which still seems to be healthy
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Speaker + Clip Images
Speaker: The rating agencies removed the higher ratings from the securities. Investors, who never looked beyond the ratings, suddenly didn’t know what they had brought. They didn’t know how risky those loans were.
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Archive Photos BEN BERNANKE CHAIRMAN OF THE U.S FEDERAL SERVICE 2006
Ben Bernanke: Overall the US economy appears likely to expand at a moderate pace over the second half of two thousand and seven with growth and strengthening a bit in two thousand and eight to a rate close to the economy’s underline trend.
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Speaker + Graphics + Archive Images
Speaker: The dominoes started falling. Investors stopped buying mortgage-backed securities and refused to lend to those who depended on them. Investment banks like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers suddenly couldn’t get new loans to stay in business. Fannie May and Freddy Mac could no longer hide the disaster.
The financial crisis started in a way that is eerily similar to today’s situation. It started with an economic crisis in the U.S and a government that responded decisively. After nine eleven and the dot COM collapse the US government decided to save the economy by inflating a new bubble. Today the world is trying to get out of the financial crisis by inflating a new bubble. The difference is that this bubble is much bigger.
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Graphics: 2008 – 2009
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SYNC
GERALD CELENTE TREND ANALYST TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Gerald Celente: After they did the dot COM bubble and that burst and they re-inflated it with the real estate credit crisis bubble and then that burst. Now they have created the bubble of all bubbles and it's not only in the United States this is a global bubble, they are all in to it. It's called the bail-out bubble. Hey the economy is going down, recession’s setting in, sales don’t look good, exports soft, need more money? How about we call it stimulus packages. From Australia to the United States, from the UK to China, they are dumping funny money into the system to keep it going.
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Speaker + Archive Images
Speaker: In September of two thousand and eight the US economy is near collapse. Fannie May and Freddy Mac have been taken over by the government. On September 15th giant investment bank, Lehman brothers goes bankrupt after monumental bets on real estate. AIG the largest insurance company in the world collapses the next day. Fear sets in. It seems like anyone can fail. Suddenly, banks no longer dare make loans to companies or each other.
Experts warn that the economy is about to collapse.
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Archive Photos from CBS med George W. Bush
The CBS News, a special report, a presidential address to the nation. From CBS headquarters in New York here is Katie Couric.
00:21:14
Katie: Good evening everyone. President Bush asked the Network for this television time so that he could speak directly to you about a national crisis. Some of this country's major financial institutions are in danger of collapsing under the weight of bad mortgages, and that would be devastating for the entire economy.
00:21:29
George W. Bush: We are in the midst of a serious financial crisis. And the federal government is responding with decisive action.
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Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: In a televised speech Bush scares the market even more whilst still claiming that they can trust him, he has a solution.
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Archive Photos George W. Bush
George W. Bush: Under our proposal the federal government would put up to seven hundred billion tax payers dollar on the line to purchase trouble assets that are clogging the financial system.
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Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: The US government wants to spend huge amounts on Wall Street banks to cover their bad deals. Even banks who don’t want the money will be forced to take it, so that the public won’t know which banks are on the brink of collapse.
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Archive Photos few seconds video
Talman: All in those in favor say I. Opposed say no. The Ais have it.
00:22:34
George W. Bush: I want to thank the secretary of treasure for working hard with the members. And thank the members for working long hours like they have been doing to come up with this solution.... and that will solve the problem.
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Speaker + Archive Photos
Speaker: On October third Congress approves the biggest financial bailout in history. Seven hundred billion dollars.
Around the world in Germany, Italy, Canada, South Korea and Great Britain, other politicians do the same to save their banks.
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Archive Photos few seconds video. GORDON BROWN PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNTIED KINGDOM
Gordon Brown: We have taken the right, the decisive, and the tough decision that was necessary to protect the stability of the financial system, and to protect the depositors.
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Speaker + Cut Pictures of David Walker
Speaker: David Walker was US Comptroller General from nineteen ninety-eight to two thousand and eight. He quit because he was so worried about the US economy that he wanted to have the freedom to warn about what might happen.
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SYNC
DAVID M. WALKER FORMER COMPTROLLER US COMPTROLLER GENERAL THE PETER G. PETERSON FOUNDATION
David Walker: In my view the bail out was necessary in certain regards but in many cases we wasted a lot of money.
Because we didn't do three things. First have clearly defined objectives of what we were trying to achieve. Secondly, have criteria established up front as to who would get the money and who wouldn't get the money. And number three, have conditions established up front as to what they could and couldn't do with the money. And as a result of not having those three things, some people got the money that didn't deserve it, other people got the money that didn't make good use of it, and as a result we have a lot of waste with regard to the taxpayers money.
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Archive Images of RICHARD WAGONER CEO GENERAL MOTORS USA 2000 - 2009
Richard Wagoner: What would it mean if the domestic industries were allowed to fail you heard senator...
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Speaker + Archive Images
Speaker: As a result of the crisis the situation for the US Auto industry becomes critical. On November nineteenth their CEO’s fly to Washington to demand money.
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MEGAN McARDLE BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS EDITOR THE ATLANTIC
Megan McArdle: The executives came out and they said, "if you. If you don't do this we are going to see a jobs holocaust". They issued extremely high estimates of how many jobs would be lost, including every single company that supplies them with anything.
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Archive Images RICHARD WAGONER CEO GENERAL MOTORS USA 2000 - 2009
Richard Wagoner: That's why this is about a lot more than just Detroit. It's about saving the US economy from a catastrophic collapse
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Speaker + Archive Images
Speaker: A month later President Bush gives billions of dollars to general motors and Chrysler. The money comes from the bailout package that was really only designed to save the financial industry.
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Archive Image George W. Bush
George W. Bush: now some US auto executives say that their companies are nearing collapse. And that the only way that they can buy time to restructure is with help from the federal government.
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Speaker + Cut Picture of Megan McArdle
Speaker. Megan McArdle is a financial analyst for the Atlantic and has written extensively about the problems of the US Auto industry.
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SYNC
MEGAN McARDLE BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS EDITOR THE ATLANTIC
Megan McArdle: Congress wanted an excuse to bail out the autoworkers. And the executives gave them just enough political cover to say "ah well I'm not really doing this, because I want auto worker votes, and I'm going to give them a huge amount of money… I'm really doing this for the economy". But if you look at how much money we gave them, I mean we are talking about almost a hundred billion dollars, is how much we will end up spending on this. You know even if you were saving millions of jobs it would have been cheaper to give everyone single one of those a hundred thousand dollars to go out an, you know find a new job.
00:26:09
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SYNC
GERALD CELENTE TRENDANALYTIKER TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Gerald Celente: The big guys on Wall Street, they can't take their losses they are crybaby capitalists. Oh they preach Capitalism for everybody but themselves.
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Graphics and images clips - short image sequences
00:26:34
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Archive Photos
The Federal Reserve has cut its key interest rate to the lowest level on record. Ben Sherman, Ben Bernanke and his colleagues also pledge to use all available tools to contain the widening crises and the longest recession in a quarter century.
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Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: December sixteenth, two thousand and eight, it is time again to pour alcohol into the punch bowl. The Federal Reserve reduces interest rates to practically zero, to restore investor confidence. Other central banks do the same.
SYNC
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GERALD CELENTE TRENDANALYTIKER TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Gerald Celente: Hey - have no credit? Don’t worry about it, just sign on the dotted line.
00:27:21
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PETER P. SCHIFF PRESIDENT EURO PACIFIC CAPITAL
Peter Schiff: The housing bubble which they inflated blew up with all the carnage and all the bankruptcies, and now that is their solution, we'll just do the same thing that we did before. Instead of having interest rates at one percent, lets have them at zero. And let's buy everything we can, let's print money and buy mortgages. Let us but credit card dept, student loans, let us buy bonds and let's drop money from helicopters to try to get the same risk taking excessive gambling on wall street, let's convince Americans who are already loaded up on debt to go out and buy more stuff, to go out and get deeper into dept. And if the banks don't want to lend them money we'll make them lend the money. This is economic you know, suicide.
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Speaker: File Photos of Barack Obama
Speaker: While the Fed lowers interest rates, president elect Barack Obama prepares an enormous stimulus package, meant to get the US economy going.
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SYNC
Archive Images of Barack Obama president in USA
Barack Obama: We are running out of the traditional ammunition that's used in a recession, which is to lower interest rates, they’re getting to be about as low as they can go.
Graphics
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Archive images of Barack Obama
Barack Obama: The American recovery and reinvestment act that I will sign today, a plan that meets the principals I laid out in January is the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history.
00:28:48
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Speaker: On February seventh, two thousand and nine Obama approves a stimulus package worth seven hundred and eighty seven billion dollars. With a Bush stimulus package from the year before, US politician have now spent close to one trillion dollars to stimulate the US economy. The money is spent on roads, airports, education, unemployment and other benefits.
00:29:16
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SYNC
FRANK PETRILLI BARBER
Frank Petrilli: There is bureaucracy in everywhere. And in Italy they used to say. Where I'm from. When you have a jar of honey, you lick your fingers.
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Speaker: The town of Union is located a few hours from the Canadian border. This is where the computer company IBM got its start and grew to be the biggest in the world. The factories are now empty, but the town has acquired a small town rhythm, so they were surprised when six hundred thousand dollars from the stimulus package arrived to combat homelessness.
SYNC
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SYNC
DENNIS F. HANNON MAYOR
Dennis Hannon: You know on occasion our police officers may run across someone and they try to, you know take the person to an area where the individual can get some shelter and get something to eat. But it's not a problem here.
00:30:16
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Speaker – Cut pictures of Rodeo Drive
Speaker: This is Rodeo Drive in Beverley Hills; probably the worlds most famous upscale shopping district. It was here for example that Julia Roberts went shopping in Pretty Women. Stimulus money has made its way here as well. These streets are to be repaved to the tune of one million dollars. Sure there are potholes in the asphalt but is this really the economy that needs to be stimulated. ***** You got to here)
00:30:49
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SYNC
DAVID WALKER FORMER COMPTROLLER US COMPTROLLER GENERAL THE PETER G. PETERSON FOUNDATION
David Walker: We had a seven hundred and an eighty seven billion dollar stimulus bill. But only about one third of it was truly stimulus. By that I mean timely, targeted and temporary. The other two thirds were things that people wanted to do, had been wanted to do for a long time, but they didn't want to have to pay for it. They wanted to do it as a part of emergency legislation and charge it to the national credit card.
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Speaker. Graphic Images and Clips
Speaker: The Johnstown Pennsylvania airport has three scheduled flights a day. Other then that it’s quite empty.
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SYNC Airport Employee
Airport Employee: When we have the flights coming, that's when people are here. Other then that it's empty
00:31:36
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Speaker Clip Photos
Speaker: But one face is everywhere; Congressman John Murtha, the airports name sake. He’s been called the King of Pork and has gotten two hundred million dollars for Murtha Airport from Washington. Earlier this year the airport got a new source of revenue, eight hundred thousand dollars from the stimulus package to repave this backup landing strip. The head of the airport insists that the landing strip is safe. So why does it need doing if its not a safety issue?
00:32:12
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Archive Photos of Barack Obama President USA
Barack Obama: Because of the steps we take this plan is about to shift into high gear.
00:32:19
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Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: One of the biggest stimulus programmes was aimed at the auto industry, cash for clunkers. Turn in your old car and get cash towards a new one from the government. It was so popular that its one billion dollar budget ran out in a week; so more money was quickly injected. Many countries offered similar programmes; Germany had the biggest one and handed out almost seven billion dollars to those that scrapped any car more then nine years old, while buying a new one.
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DR. KAREN HORN HEAD OF BERLIN OFFICE IW KOLN
Karen Horn: Our government seems to think that German auto industry is so important that we have to support it in some way. And therefore they created this bonus. They didn’t call it a scrapping bonus, because I think I knew how ridiculous that was. So they called it an environment bonus.
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Speaker + Cut Picture of Karen Horn
Speaker: Karen Horn is a doctor of economics at a German Economics Institute.
00:33:19
Master
DR. KAREN HORN HEAD OF BERLIN OFFICE IW KOLN
Karen Horn: And of course people took advantage of that, it worked as long as it was on, the program worked. But now it's out, it's over and of course numbers are dropping, people are feeling that they ran into additional debt due to that bonus that they wanted to take advantage of and they are having problems they didn't anticipate.
00:33:43
Master
Speaker + clip Images
Speaker: So Germany spent almost seven billion dollars to scrap fully functioning cars and to maintain excessive auto factory output. Once the programme ended the industry was right back in the doldrums.
00:33:59
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DR. KAREN HORN HEAD OF BERLIN OFFICE IW KOLN
Karen Horn: I was just very surprised that the people would accept the idea so readily. That they would accept the money was something else, who wouldn't? But that they would find it a solution that they deemed viable, doesn't give me a very good impression of the rationality of the voter and tax payer I must say.
00:34:21
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PETER P. SCHIFF PRESIDENT EURO PACIFIC CAPITAL
Peter Schiff: And that's where we are. I think at this point, the problem is now so big that government stimulis is not going to you know buy us another five or six years of phoney growth like it did last time. Because we have to accumulate so much more debt now. The bigger the problem gets the more we have to stimulate to get that short-term boost. But now the bigger the bust is now we have a bigger stimulus- to get out of the economy.
00:34:50
Master
Speaker + Clips + Archive Pictures
Speaker: About a year after the worst economic crisis in history, Leyman Bothers is gone, but apart from that, Wall Street looks much the same. Many banks are reporting record profits, the world stock markets have sky rocketed, the market is finally breathing a sigh of relief. But isn’t it somewhat uncomfortable? Haven’t we been here before?
All the measures that we have taken to save the economy, the low interest rates, the massive debt, the safety net for the financial industry, these are the very things that led us into a crisis in the first place. We’ve been saved from the consequences of one burst bubble, by inflating a hundred new ones all over the world.
Graphics: 2010 -
00:35:46
Master
Graphics: Archive Images Barack Obama
Barack Obama: One year ago I took office amid two wars, and an economy rocked by a severe recession. A financial system on the verge of collapse and a government deeply in debt. Experts from across the political spectrum warned that if we did not act we might face a second depression. So we acted. Immediately and aggressively, and one year later the worst of the storm has passed.
Cutting Image
00:36:47
Master
Speaker + Clip Images
Speaker: There are positive signs. This is the Hampton’s outside New York, a classic playground for Manhattan’s elite. A house by the Atlantic, like this one, costs thirty million dollars and a hotdog bun with lobster salad costs eighteen dollars. Fast food Hampton style. The crisis has made its mark here too, there are fewer private jets at the airport. Instead the Porsches jostle the Mercedes on the turn pike to New York.
00:37:26
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SYNC
DAVID M. WALKER FORMER COMPTROLLER US COMPTROLLER GENERAL THE PETER G. PETERSON FOUNDATION
David Walker: New York City, Washington D.C and Los Angeles California don't represent the real world. They also don't represent the real part of America, the so-called main street of America.
00:37:41
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SYNC
FRANK PETRILLI BARBER
Frank Petrilli: My tax money go to Beverly Hill, well there is a lot of money in Beverly Hill. I don't think that they need my money down there. But that's a different world. It’s not reality down there.
00:37:57
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Speaker + Clip Images of Frank Petrilli
Speaker: If you ever visit Union and need a hair cut, you may well end up at Frank Petrilli’s barbershop.
00:38:14
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FRANK PETRILLI BARBER
Frank Petrilli. But unfortunately people lost their homes because they lost their jobs. And it's a... They now live under the line for the one time they were able to do it. And a lot of the young people, specially educated, they try to move, go out of town. But I believe that no matter where they go the situation is the same. Where are they going to go? Detroit!
00:38:40
Master
Archive photos from a film
Man: Now listen son, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but you’re the reason we came here all the way from Indiana. You heard all the talkers. Now I'm going to show you the doers.
00:38:58
Master
Speaker + Clip Images
Speaker: The US government has launched bailouts, stimulus packages and guarantees to the tune of ten thousand billion dollars.
00:39:06
Master
Archive photos from film
Soldat: I caught myself wondering for the hundredth time how the hell I got here, what the hell I'm doing here.
00:39:13
Master
Speaker + Clip Images + Archive Photos + Graphics
Speaker: That’s more then the total cost of the US government for World War One, World War Two, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Invasion of Iraq, the new deal with the Marshall Plan, and the Moon Landing. Bush almost racked up more US debt then all presidents before him combined, from George Washington to Bill Clinton. And Obama is almost creating greater debt then all presidents before him, including George. W Bush.
But it’s not just US that’s increasingly looking like a house of cards. During the crisis many governments went deeply into debt. Estimates say that the average debt in the richest nations will exceed one hundred percent by the year two thousand and eleven. These are loans taken at currently low interest rates. Should the interest rate rise by one percent, the US interest payments will rise by one hundred billion dollars per year, that’s more then the annual cost for the Vietnam War.
00:40:29
Master
Archive Photos from film
Speaker from the film, a soldier: Sometimes it's just an engine failure, other times it's the deadly flat. If the pilot's lucky, the flat kills him. But usually he isn't and he burns to death as he spins in.
00:40:43
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Speaker + Archive Images
Speaker: It sounds absurd to even think that the United States, the world’s economic super power, might crash. After all they get the highest ratings from the credit ratings agencies.
SYNC
00:40:56
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DAVID WALKER FORMER COMPTROLLER US COMPTROLLER GENERAL THE PETER G. PETERSON FOUNDATION
David Walker: One of the lessons we must learn from the mortgage related sub prime is you have to take credit ratings with a big grain of salt. Because as we saw with the mortgage related securities, they went from triple A rating to jump bond pretty fast once people understood the true situation. Today the Untied States is rated triple A but if it doesn’t start taking steps to put it's financial house in order, that triple A will be lost, it's just a matter of when and how quickly.
00:41:38
Master
Speaker + Clip Images + Archive Photos
Speaker: In September 2008 the bankruptcy of one large investment bank brought the world economy to its knees. The fate of Lehman Brothers, raised the question of who was next in line? So everyone avoided doing business with banks. How will the world react if the next entity to declare bankruptcy is a nation? Who is next in line if that were to happen?
Some houses of cards have already started falling. This is Iceland , until recently one of the richest nations in the world. When the crisis hit, the Icelandic banks collapsed, the Icelandic stock market crashed leaving the debt with a small population. For the first time in fifty years, this peaceful country saw riots.
This is Greece, here deficits have hit a record high, the national debt is approaching one hundred and thirty five percent of JDP. The market wants higher interest rates for Greek loans, increasing the pressure on its strained economy, it seems like the Greek government needs a bailout to avoid collapse. Italy, Spain, Portugal and Great Britain are other EU nations with similar problems. What about my country, Sweden? The country’s finances are fairly robust our national debt and deficits are lower then that of most nations. But Sweden is highly dependent on the world economy. More then half of our prosperities are based on exports. When other countries crash, we get hit almost as hard. And Swedish housing prices have risen during the crisis, despite the recession and despite rising unemployment, but because of low interest rates and a government mortgage company, SBAB, making loans easier to get. Swedes have never carried more debt in relation to their income. Doesn’t all of this sound very familiar?
00:43:57
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DR. KAREN HORN HEAD OF BERLIN OFFICE IW KOLN
Karen Horn: We have new bubbles everywhere so I'm pretty worried about what's going to happen
00:00:05:12
00:44:03
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PETER P. SCHIFF PRESIDENT EURO PACIFIC CAPITAL
Peter Schiff: If you don't want bubbles to burst, then don't blow them up in the first place, because all bubbles burst.
00:44:09
Master
Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: If enough things can go wrong some of them probably will. The question is, just which needle will burst this bubble? Will it be new credit loses? As banks take on greater risks knowing that the government considers them too big to fail. Or falling stock prices? As interest rates rise and the steroids wear off. Will it be the Chinese economy overheating. Or will it be a collapse of confidence in the US dollar?
00:44:48
Master
SYNC
DAVID WALKER FORMER COMPTROLLER US COMPTROLLER GENERAL THE PETER G. PETERSON FOUNDATION
David Walker: If we lose the confidence of our foreign lenders, and we must not allow that to happen. But if that were to happen. Then it would be a dramatic decline in the dollar and a dramatic increase in interest rates, significant fuelling of inflation, a very very deep recession and possibly depression that would be felt around the world. We must not allow that to happen.
Speaker
00:45:16
Master
Speaker + Graphics
Speaker: When the next bubble bursts you cannot use the same emergency measures. You can’t lower interest rates that are already at rock bottom. You can’t stimulate the economy with borrowed money if an excess in national debt is the cause of the crisis. The governments could save the banks, but who can save the governments?
00:45:47
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PETER P. SCHIFF PRESIDENT EURO PACIFIC CAPITAL
Peter Schiff: Ultimately there is going to be a price all around the world to be paid for this and the longer it continues the bigger that price is going to be.
00:45:57
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DAVID WALKER FORMER COMPTROLLER US COMPTROLLER GENERAL THE PETER G. PETERSON FOUNDATION
David Walker: You know this really is a moral question. I mean I can give you plenty of big and bad numbers. You know when you talk about tens of trillions of dollars it's just hard to imagine. But you have to put a face on it and to me I put my children’s and my grandchildren’s face on it. It's their future that we are mortgaging.
00:46:20
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GERALD CELENTE TREND ANALYST TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Gerald Celente: When we tell people that there is going to be a bail out bubble and they see the world equity markets up fifty, sixty percent, they don't want to believe it's another bubble. They want to step right up that table and throw their dice and try to win their hand at the wheel of fortune that Wall Street’s spinning. So people still don’t want to believe that the worst is yet to come.
00:46:48
Master
Speaker + Clip Images
Speaker: It’s easy to think of these predictions as much too gloomy, but that is exactly what people said the last time. When these experts predicted the two thousand and eight financial crisis they were laughed at in the media.
00:47:29:07
Master
File Photos of short sequences
DAVID WALKER FORMER COMPTROLLER US COMPTROLLER GENERAL THE PETER G. PETERSON FOUNDATION
David Walker: We can do it, but we need to do it soon because the clock is ticking and time is not working in our favour.
00:48:15
Credits.