The following videos were broadcast on PBS’s Bill Moyers Journal, October 9, 2009.

Top economist: Obama ‘missed opportunity’ to reform financial system | Raw Story.

The Obama administration “refused” to take meaningful steps to reform the banking system in the wake of last year’s financial crisis, and the opportunity to do so has now been missed, says a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund.

Simon Johnson told PBS’s Bill Moyers that he expects an even larger financial crisis to hit the United States in the coming years because the system was not fixed through reform, but rather through a massive injection of taxpayers’ money into the failing banks.

“The short term opportunity was missed,” Johnson said on Bill Moyers Journal Friday night. “There was an opportunity the Obama administration had. President Obama campaigned on a message of change. … The time for change for the financial sector was absolutely upon us, this was abundantly apparent in January of this year.”

Johnson continued: “Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, is known for saying ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’ The crisis for the big banks is substantially over. And it was completely wasted. The administration refused to break the power of the big banks when they had the opportunity earlier this year. And the regulatory reforms they are now pursuing … will turn out to be essentially meaningless.”

Johnson said that the bank bailout would not fix the long-term instability of the financial sector, and “when [the crisis] comes back, it will come back with a vengeance, and it will be I think even more devastating.”

The government’s policy towards the financial crisis amounts to “socialism for the big banks,” US House Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) told Moyers and Johnson. “They’ve basically taken their mistakes and they’ve put it on the taxpayer … that’s socialism, that’s not capitalism.”

Kaptur has become something of a crusader for homeowners’ rights in the wake of the housing crisis, as well as a major critic of US banks. Moyers played a clip of her giving a speech this past January in which she urged homeowners to ignore eviction notices and become “squatters in [their] own homes” if they need to.

So why should any American citizen be kicked out of their homes in this cold weather? … Don’t leave your home. Because you know what? When those companies say they have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his or her finger on that mortgage, you don’t have that mortgage, and you are going to find they can’t find the paper up there on Wall Street. So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don’t you leave. In Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Illinois and all these other places our people are being treated like chattel, and this Congress is stymied.

Kaptur recounted an anecdote about inviting representatives of investment bank JPMorganChase, the largest forecloser of homes in Kaptur’s Ohio district, to a meeting, and then waiting around all day as no one from JPMorganChase showed up — until nearly the end of the day.

“That’s how they treat our people,” Kaptur said.

Asked what she thought of the Obama administration’s decisions to have in place many of the figures associated with the financial collapse — such as former Federal Reserve Bank of New York head Timothy Geithner, who is now treasury secretary, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a Bush administration appointee — Kaptur said: “I don’t think any individuals who had their hands in creating this mess should be in charge of cleaning it up. I honestly don’t think they’re capable of it.”

In May, Johnson penned an article for The Atlantic in which he compared the US’s financial system to that of a corrupt third-world country, and said that, if the IMF had given the US the same advice it gives developing countries, it would have told Washington to break up the banks.

Johnson described a “deep and disturbing” similarity between the US financial crisis and similar crises to have hit developing countries in earlier times:

Elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.

Rep. Kaptur said the only way to reform the political system is to “take the money out” of it. “We have to get rid of the constant fundraising that happens inside the Congress,” she said.

Watch the complete video of Bill Moyers’ discussion with Simon Johnson and Rep. Kaptur here.

Top economist: Obama ‘missed opportunity’ to reform financial system | Raw Story.

Could sorcerers in our government be putting up devices to alter earth’s frequencies? What are the Georgia Guidestones? Is there Kabbalistic meaning to the Bicentennial Mall in Nashville? Freeman explores esoteric sites in the US and talks with Satanist Rex Church and Kabbalist Architect Paul Laffoley to see what they think.

Italy’s Constitutional Court has overturned a law granting Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi immunity from prosecution while in office.

The move opens the possibility that Mr Berlusconi, 73, could stand trial in at least three court cases, including one in which he is accused of corruption.

The judges said immunity violated the principle that all citizens were equal.

Mr Berlusconi said he had expected the ruling as the court was dominated by left-wing judges, and would not resign.

“We have a very organised minority of red [left-wing] magistrates who use justice for a political fight,” he told reporters outside his residence in Rome.

“We must govern for five years with or without the law.”

ANALYSIS Duncan Kennedy BBC News, Rome Mr Berlusconi’s ratings have just dropped below 50% for the first time since coming back to power, confirming a recent downward trend, but they are still far from any danger zone. When it comes to his coalition partners, especially the Northern League, they, too, appear to lack the appetite to face new elections by bringing down the prime minister. The League’s colourful leader, Umberto Bossi, has met Mr Berlusconi and came out saying: “I found him strong, and that pleased me. I found him resolved to fight.” Berlusconi’s shield dented Italian readers’ reaction

“The trials that they will hurl at me in Milan are real farces… but we’ll carry on,” he said, accusing the court, the media and the president of favouring the left.

“I will spend some hours away from taking care of the government and refute them all as liars,” he said. “These things invigorate me, they invigorate Italians. Long live Italy, long live Berlusconi!”

The BBC’s Duncan Kennedy, in Rome, says the news has stunned Italy, where Mr Berlusconi has widespread public support, although it has dipped in recent times.

The opposition has already called on him to step down, although it remains unclear how Mr Berlusconi’s coalition partners will react, our correspondent says.

When Mr Berlusconi came to office he was facing at least three court cases, including one involving the British lawyer David Mills.

In that case Mr Berlusconi was accused of bribing him to give false evidence. Mills, who said he was innocent, was sentenced in February to four years and six months in prison for corruption.

‘Distractions’

Mr Berlusconi and his lawyers had argued that he needed the immunity law to carry out his duties as prime minister, our correspondent says.

The appeal to the Constitutional Court was launched by prosecutors including those from the Mills case.

They contended that immunity put Mr Berlusconi above the law and needed to be reversed.

Mr Berlusconi argued that immunity allowed him to govern without being “distracted” by the judiciary.

This is the second time Italy’s highest court has thrown out Mr Berlusconi’s bid for immunity, after an earlier attempt in 2004 failed.

Of the Constitutional Court’s 15 members, five are selected by the president, five by the judiciary, and five by parliament.

They voted 9-6 to in favour of lifting Mr Berlusconi’s immunity, the BBC’s Duncan Kennedy says from Rome.

The ruling comes at a time when the prime minister’s approval ratings have been eroded by a series of sex scandals and his wife has announced that she is divorcing him.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Berlusconi immunity law overruled.

The legendary Hall-Of-Famer makes use of a little down time on the field to discuss some personal issues with the boys.

All Roads Lead To The Rothschilds

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I kinda expected to see the impact of the rocket.

‘Fall of the Republic’ Unveils Obama’s Agenda for the Destruction of America