History Channel Propaganda
Posted By John Moore on December 13, 2008
The history channel has a documentary purporting to teach the history and future of the current financial crisis: “Crash: The Next Great Depression?”
If you want to learn about the crisis, don’t watch this. If you are interested in studying propaganda, check it out.
The two most important factors that caused a normal bubble to mushroom into an international crisis are Credit Default Swaps (CDS) and the Community Reinvestment Act..
The first, treated as illegal gambling until Clinton signed a law deregulating them, were absolutely essential to sub-prime and “liar” loans. CDS’s allowed institutions with low grade loans to balance the risk – CDS’s are a form of insurance.
The second forced banks into loaning in slums (or face lawsuits from community activists), loans likely to fail. This is part of the reason that CDS’s were needed, and that mortgages had to be sold by the issuing institutions in complex derivatives.
Ultimately government pressure to create more and more home loans created a highly profitable business made possible with CDO’s and CDS’s.
The rest is history.
But don’t expect to learn any of this from the History Channel. Instead you can learn how Reagan was at fault, how Bush is like Hoover, and how Obama is like the sainted FDR. You can learn that the US is going to lose its place as the world’s financial leader (never mentioned: the problem is worse overseas).
All in all, a leftist screed.
Sad.
I used to love the history channel.. and a lot of the time it is still terrific. However, as you note, it is becoming more and more of an outlet for “leftist screed.”
Spot on analysis of the History Channel. It is worthless as a learning aid or as a serious source of information. Nowhere was government intervention discussed as the prime mover of this crisis.