The
film displays how this pyramid of fraud led to the massive
foreclosures affecting 10 million homeowners, rising unemployment,
economic collapse and increasing hardships worldwide.
It connects the dots identifying who the victims and beneficiaries
are in what "may well turn out to be the greatest
nonviolent crime against humanity in history," according
to an ex investment banker. Graydon Carter, the Editor
of Vanity Fair is quoted as saying, "in other words
never before have so few done so much to so many."
The film details the frustration of homeowners, who have
become the hardest hit victims, as they express their
anger in protest against the CEOs of these institutions.
Plunder:
the Crime of Our Time looks into how the crisis developed,
from the mysterious collapse of Bear Stearns, an 85-year-old
investment firm that disappeared in a week to the shadowy
world of trillion dollar hedge funds. Insiders who work
in the industry, and know it well, tell both of these
stories. Plunder also shows how hastily arranged government
bailouts did not revive the economy and may have lost
billions.
The
film also delves into the complicity of the major media
outlets, which failed to sound the alarm or investigate
wrong doers. A top financial journalist and media analyst
as well as a financier explain how the business media
became embedded in the culture it was covering, similar
to embedded reporters in Iraq.
In
its conclusion, Plunder offers facts and details about
events that have affected billions of people and lost
trillions of dollars. The film travels to Paris to examine
how this crisis has gone global. Ultimately, it calls
for a full investigation and structural reforms of financial
institutions to insure accountability by the white-collar
perpetrators who profited from the misery of their victims.
It's a call to action: if action is not taken real lessons
will not be learned or applied and another crisis may
be looming as the underlying problems are still there.
The
"News Dissector" spent a year and half on this
investigation, following up on his book, "Plunder,"
that predicted the crisis and an earlier film, "In
Debt We Trust," that explored America's rising credit
burden at the time. This former CNN and Emmy award winning
ABC News producer was labeled an "alarmist"
and his initial finding was greeted with denial. This
early work is now seen as prophetic despite understating
the full impact of an ongoing crisis that has not yet
ended.
"This
is a story that must be told if economic justice is to
have any meaning," says Schechter, "Plunder
demands a full investigation into who is responsible for
the crisis and an appropriate punishment - a "jail
out" - for the wrongdoers at a time when the debate
about the crisis and what to do about it is treated so
superficially on every media outlet. This crisis is not
about the unintentional mistakes of a greedy few but a
crime that effects us all.'
Plunder
is directed by Danny Schechter for Globalvision, Inc.,
with Ray Nowosielski, as the producer.
plunderthecrimeofourtime.com
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