Okay ... watching a 2 hour video is not even an option for me. I am using a public computer in a public library and you don't get 2 hour blocks of time at a time.
Still, for those who are naive enough to trust me for a synopsis knowing I have not listened to the second hour, read on.
Wolfe is an economics professor and he speaks probably as he lectures --- with the assumption that he has a captive audience. He does not follow a strategy I heard Will Smith articulate perfectly once:
- Tell 'em what you are going to tell 'em.
- Tell 'em.
- Tell 'em what you just told 'em.
Wolfe fails, from the jump, to give you a brief synopsis of what he is going to tell you. Hence, I still haven't heard one thing I did not already know. Most important, he did not start with a promise that, at some point, he will tell 'em how to fix what is broke.
But he does at least keep telling me more and more things which I already knew before I ever started this video.
He told me the current economic crisis is worldwide, which I knew. And, he told me about the wall street crooks who pushed us over the current precipice, which I knew. And, he told me we live in a fundamentally unstable economic system, which I knew.
So, nah, I am not going to wait too much longer for him to tell me something I don't already know.
Oh, but wait ... he asked an extremely relevant question. Where did the banks get the funds to influence [I would have said bribe] Bush's and Obama's stimulus policies?
His answer, well, I already knew it but it is worth repeating. The banks got the funds to bribe our government economic policy from the bailout money our government gave them.
But, hopefully, we all already knew that. Only the politically naive still do not know that our government moved debt from the private sector [banks and wall street] to the public sector [you, me, and our kids, and our descendants who have not yet even been born.
And, he adds, our government came up with all those funds by borrowing super-mega-gigantic money.
And, he adds, when government borrows, there must be lenders. So, who are these lenders? Well, our government could tax the corporate and rich instead of borrowing trillions of dollars. But, of course, our government is not that honorable or sane. So, instead, our government borrowed most of our debt from China.
As I have keep telling ya, Wolfe is not telling 'em anything 'em didn't already know.
Oh, but wait, now Wolfe mentioned something else relevant which, again, I knew and, hopefully, you already knew. As the inevitable result kicked in which is that borrowing trillions can only make a bad situation worse, our government goes to plan B --- wage war. Which, of course, is why Bush and Obama were so addicted to what we now have --- wars which never end because they can never be won.
Okay, next point he made. The people finally get fed up with sending our hard earned tax dollars [in the form of loan interest payments] to communist China. So, we fire up enraged responses such as the unrest in Greece and the Occupy movement in America.
He states, which I agree, that our governments next add to their stimulus policies more policies, this time to reduce or eliminate funding to social services. Which is why the people are more or less rioting in the streets in Greece and, to a lesser extent, in France.
Now up to 48 mins. Wolfe suggests a next possible economic policy --- have the government hire more people. Roosevelt did it. So, Americans are now asking, why isn't Obama doing that now?
Well, Wolfe, goes on, Roosevelt had to respond to a stronger union [yes, even socialist] presence which is completely absent now in the Obama years. And, good politicians which Obama certainly is, don't do jack unless pushed out front by the people.
Time to go. No solution provided yet by Wolfe. So ... why bother wading thru another hour? Well, he seems to be moving toward replacing capitalism with something else. Yet something else I already knew. I would guess some form of socialism, so I do not have another hour to wait for him to get to the point.
Hell, he coulda told 'em that else after the first 15 mins.
... please make yourself at home ... 