bill moyers journal

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June 29, 2007

ANNOUNCER: This week on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL.

In Washington, big business and big money are writing the rules on trade....

LORI WALLACH: I'm an internationalist. I believe there are enormous benefits totrade. Question is, who writes the rules? Who do they benefit? And who's incontrol of them?

ANNOUNCER: And, America's housing crisis reaches from main street to wall

street...we go to the heart of it...

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: The lender in the old days kept the loan on the

balance sheet...Now this lender sells it to someone else. Not his problem anymore.Gets the money back to make another loan....And they have no credit risk becausethey have pawned off the loan on somebody else; it's somebody else's problem.

ANNOUNCER: And a conservative Republican wants his party back...

VICTOR GOLD: If you had told me and if you had told Barry Goldwater that wewould one day have and office in the White House called the Office of Faith-Basedinitiative, what kind of Orwellian language is that? Faith Based initiative? That'sthe office of religion.

ANNOUNCER: And Bi ll Moyers on Rupert Murdoch. On this edition of Bill MoyersJournal. From our studio in New York...Bill Moyers.

Our posts and your comments

March 18, 2011

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship: Just aCouple of More Things about NPR...

"That's the really important thing about"free speech"...you can figure out theHUGE DAMAGE th..." - Anna D

Bill Moyers Journal . Transcripts | PBS http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06292007/transcript5.html

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regulation? What?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: I'm not really a fan of more regulation when theexisting one didn't work. I think smart regulation is the answer here. I think whatyou alluded to earlier is a really important point. In the securities industry, in WallStreet, when you buy a stock, you are supposed to-- your stock broker's supposedto say, "Bill, is that an appropriate stock for someone of your income? Your age?Your needs? Your-- you know, what are you looking for?"

You're not supposed to buy a sketchy stock if you're a person who only wantssafety. Why can't we have that same kind of an idea with a mortgage? Is thismortgage product appropriate for you? In the securities laws it's called "know yourcustomer." It's called-- you know-- is it appropriate for you? I think we needsomething like that--

BILL MOYERS: Because it--

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: --in lending.

BILL MOYERS: --doesn't the government have to ask it?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: No.

BILL MOYERS: Who does?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: It's left up to the bank, to the lender, to the mortgagebroker, and that--

BILL MOYERS: Bear Stearns?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: To the hedge funds that Bear--

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: But I mean, look what they've been doing. Their past experienceis no indication that they will respond to what you're saying.

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Only if they're held accountable.

BILL MOYERS: By?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: And if they have to pay the bill that comes a cropper.Let's not make it a bail out where the taxpayer bails out Wall Street, please.

BILL MOYERS: Then Wall Street would be the winner and--

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Then Wall Street would say, "Fine. I'll go do thatagain. I'll go throw money at a problem and let it blow up, and I don't mind."

BILL MOYERS: Does this contribute to what you and I both know are-- is growinginequality in the country? The gap between the rich and the poor? The greatest

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oil."

Of course he wasn't the only media mogul to c lamor for war. And he's not the firstto use journalism to promote his own interests. His worst offense with Fox news isnot even its baldly partisan agenda. Far worse is the travesty he's made of its

journalism. Fox news huffs and puffs, pontificates and proclaims, but does littleserious original reporting. His tabloids sell babes and breasts, gossip and

celebrities. Now he's about to bring under the same thumb one of the few nationalnewsrooms remaining in the country.

But the problem isn't just Rupert Murdoch. His pursuit of THE WALL STREETJOURNAL is the latest in a cascading series of mergers, buy-outs, and otherfinancial legerdemain that are making a shipwreck of journalism. Public mindednewspapers are being dumped by their owners for wads of cash or crippled by costcutting while their broadcasting cousins race to the bottom. Murdoch is just thepredator of the hour. The modern maestro of a financial marketplace ruled bymoney and moguls. Instead of checking the excesses of private and public power,these 21st century barons of the first amendment revel in them; the public bedamned.

That's it for this JOURNAL. We'll be back next week unless we've been bought out.I'm Bill Moyers.

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