Monday, November 17, 2008

Democracy Now: "Naomi Klein on the Bailout Profiteers and the Multi-Trillion Dollar Crime Scene" (audio and video)


Democracy Now with video and audio:
“The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington’s handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal,” says Naomi Klein, author of “The Shock Doctrine.”

World leaders from nearly two dozen countries met in Washington over the weekend to discuss plans to increase regulation of international financial activity. They acknowledged that a failure of market oversight in countries like the United States had precipitated the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, here at home, its been a month into the Bush administration’s $700 billion dollar bank bailout. Last week Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson outlined a new bailout strategy intended to boost consumer borrowing and promote financing for companies that give out loans. President-elect Obama’s transition team is reportedly working on improving the management of the bailout come January 20th.

But that’s two months away and according to the Washington Post, with $290 billion dollars already committed, the Bush administration has taken no action to fill congressionally-mandated independent positions to oversee how the bailout is used.

According to Naomi Klein’s latest article in The Nation, “The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington’s handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal.” The article is called “In Praise of a Rocky Transition.”

Naomi Klein, investigative journalist and author of the bestselling “The Shock Doctrine” joins me now from Toronto, Canada.
Howie P.S.: More advice regarding the incoming administration in The Nation from Frances Fox Piven: "Obama Needs a Protest Movement."

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