Frontline - "The Untouchables"

As disappointing a piece of Infotainment for the Underachieving as NPR seems fully to have become in the past few months, PBS is a blissful reassurance.  I'm one of the few non-addicts of Downton Abbey (this may come as a surprise given my histfict-nerdlery - but for those who know my contrarianism, it should be predictable).

Try as I might to keep this blog to the themes I've worked hard to construct, it's a simple fact that fifteen or so years in the financial industry, from the year we cheered when the Dow first topped 10,000 and I helped one of my managers literally write the book on "the Death Tax", to the period of increasingly giddy credit offerings when I worked for the guys saying, "Hey, maybe not?", to working outside the commercial mainstream but at the heart of the economy ... I've experienced the recent history of our greatest crises in ways few people have.

Yeah, yeah.  I'm "just a secretary."  Let it be said:  given that role and responsibility, I have had views pretty rare in this world.  My brain is still perfectly functional (wee and paltry as it may be).  Believe me, chickens.  When, in 2007 and 2008 I was recording secretary for the interdisciplinary Risk committee at one of the largest securities firms in the world, I was listening.  Even if I wasn't talking.  I saw this coming.  And that's only because I had good sense, too.  It hardly took rocket science to see the excesses in lending practices at that time.  Many people I knew who had nothing of the exposure I did knew it.  People aren't stupid, not entirely.

Greed just gets in the way.  For the key few who have the reins.



Al this is to say:  watch this.  Not only the usual magnificent reportage Frontline has traded in for so long, presented excellently - but also about the best editing I have seen in years.  Pay attention to what is said, followed by cuts to facts and findings.

And be outraged.  It's not too late.