“How do they get away with it?” Well, no one has asked that question more often than Bill Black, whom Bill Moyers talks with in this stunningly candid and revelatory interview. A must-see for all Americans. Should be required viewing in every civics class.

The financial industry brought the economy to its knees, but how did they get away with it? With the nation wondering how to hold the bankers accountable, Bill Moyers sits down with William K. Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Black offers his analysis of what went wrong and his critique of the bailout plan.

Now Black is focused on an even greater scandal, and he spares no one, not even the President he worked hard to elect, Barack Obama. But his main targets are the Wall Street barons, heirs of an earlier generation whose scandalous rip-offs of wealth back in the 1930s earned them comparison to Al Capone and the mob, and the nickname “banksters.”

Seems that the real capital of America is Wall Street, not Washington (or would that make it ‘das kapital’ of America?). Obama’s administration is starting out on a pretty bad foot as it looks to prop up and protect the very criminals and corrupted institutions that are responsible for this catastrophic mess, rather than hold them to full accountability for their actions, and make the systemic changes necessary to prevent them from happening again.

Watch The Video/Read The Transcript

More on ‘bankster’ Geithner and the fraudulent scheme he’s peddling on the American taxpayer with this piece from Jeffrey Sachs “The Geithner-Summers Plan Is Even Worse Than We Thought”

Thank you President Obama! All hail the era of “hope” and “change”!

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship provide this additional commentary on the whole farcical debacle that is American financial policy as directed by the same thieves that have led us to this sorry state. Read “Changing the Rules of the Blame Game”