Anybody who has not seen this movie should watch it tonight!

[nostrum]

Yes, the deregulation caused the problem.  The solution is not more regulation, though, but rather abolishing the monopoly on money.  Let banks run competing currencies, or least put the United States back on the gold standard. 

Wouldn't putting the USD back to the gold standard be more regulation?
And what makes you trust the banks under no regulations?

[1715639655]

1715639655

[TheGer]

You can't put the US back on the Gold Standard.  There's no Gold.  Fort Knox had most/all of its Gold removed decades ago.  There's not enough precious metals to back all the currency out there.  Kennedy tried but because of that and other reason he got whacked. 

The best solution for the US is to take money creation out of the Federal Reserve's hands completely, stop bankrupting our farmers who grow actual food instead of needless biofuels, open up our massive oil fields for use at home, stop regulating small businesses out of business with made up fees and bullshit that destroy all profit and are selectively enforced to kill American business owners employing American workers.

Down the road when the US reaches a stable economy again with our manufacturing base restored, and self sufficiency regained we can look at phasing in a new currency backed by (XXXX).  Until the nation is restored though that can't happen because no one will have faith in the new currency.

Yes, the deregulation caused the problem.  The solution is not more regulation, though, but rather abolishing the monopoly on money.  Let banks run competing currencies, or least put the United States back on the gold standard. 

Wouldn't putting the USD back to the gold standard be more regulation?
And what makes you trust the banks under no regulations?

[protokol]

I just watched this and I think it answered a lot of questions I had about how and why this crisis actually happened. It is maybe a bit biased but does seem to concentrate mostly on the facts with sources etc, and is a well put together documentary. Very entertaining watching the big bankers squirm after being asked difficult (yet totally legit) questions.

A lot of people are associating the government regulation talked about in this film (or the lack of which caused the crisis) with the government regulation that Bitcoin may soon be subject to.

Now I think they are two totally different forms of regulation. The film explains how the lack of government regulation allowed mortgage lenders to sell loans to investment banks, who then sold them on to investors in the form of highly leveraged derivatives. So the investment banks were basically selling money they didn't own to investors.

What's more, the investment banks were paying ratings agencies to evaluate the derivatives as AAA investments, making it look like they were sound investments when in fact there was little chance that many of the loans would be repaid.

Then when the boards of these investment banks realized that there was a huge bubble forming, many sold their stocks in their own companies, knowing full well that shit was about to hit the fan, and profiting even more as a result.

So it basically came down to massive fraud on an industrial scale, which the deregulation allowed to happen, making a very small amount of people at the top very rich.

This sort of regulation is totally different from what is happening with Bitcoin right now. For a start, this type of regulation is not needed in the Bitcoin economy as fractional reserve banking is basically pointless with Bitcoin - people can't lend out more than they have as people will always want actual Bitcoin, not IOUs. I think people are mistaking this type of deregulation (which makes corporate fraud much easier) than the regulation Bitcoin is subject to, namely: Reducing anonymity with legitimate business transactions to stop money laundering, and generally making sure people don't get Bitcoin stolen and that it is taxed appropriately.

Now I'm not saying that I agree with any sort of Bitcoin regulation (tbh I'm not sure about this, Bitcoin seems good the way it is, however some regulation might encourage more investment and Bitcoin-related businesses to flourish).

I'm just saying that they are two totally different beasts - if the rich investment banks had been properly regulated during the early 2000's this crisis would not have occurred - such a problem is irrelevant with Bitcoin as such a crisis cannot occur, by it's nature banks can't loan out more Bitcoin than they own.

Am I right?

[knight22]

Good documentary indeed.
For those who want to learn more and didn't watched "money as debt" yet, take a look at those in my signature.