Money’s a bitch that never sleeps. ibid.
You’re not doing her any favours. And you’re not preventing it from happening again. ibid. her to him
It was one of my co-conspirators who tipped off the Feds. And that pious piranha Bretton James – he had just enough money to sink me. ibid. Gekko to Jacob
This is the greatest bubble story of all time ... They called it Tulipomania. ibid.
Your firm knows subprimes are crap. ibid.
This is too big to fail ... There’s about seventy plus trillion out there in credit default swaps held by roughly seventeen banks, and we do not know where the bottom is. ibid. Bretton to Bill at Federal Reserve
Scare them. Tell them the truth ... In five days we’re all gone. ibid.
You are asking for the biggest bail-out in the history of this country. ibid. Bill to Federal Reserve
You are the worst kind of toxic debt the system is polluted with. ibid. Jacob to Bretton
Talk about an evil empire; it puts me to shame. ibid. Gekko to Jacob
Repeat the insanity till the next bubble blows. And that’ll be the one. The big one. ibid.
It’s not about money; it’s about the game, the game between people. ibid.
Sit down, Mr James. This is only a preliminary preceding but I want you to know you are under investigation on accusations of tax evasion and stock manipulation through among others an entity known as Locust Fund. ibid. investigator
Human beings – we got to give them a break. We’re all mixed bags. ibid. Gekko to Winnie & Jacob
A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. This is the greatest question of all, and to this, statesmen must address themselves with an earnest determination to serve the long future and the true liberties of men. Woodrow Wilson
The bankers insisted that allowing the government to print its own money would be dangerously inflationary. That was their argument, but critics called it humbuggery. Ellen H Brown, The Web of Debt p96
Each time and every time a bank makes a loan, new bank credit is created – new deposits – brand new money. Graham F Towers, Bank of Canada governor 1934-1954
It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. Henry Ford
The Bank hath the benefit of interest on all monies which it creates out of nothing. William Paterson, Bank of England
The banks can and do create money, and they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of government and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people. Richard McKenna
New York 2010 Jon Corzine: M F Global. It’s business was brokerage ... Risk: M F Global would start taking risks itself in the market. Bankers II: Risking It All, BBC 2013
The story of how a London team of J P Morgan traders lost six billion dollars last year shows how even a well-run bank can take ever more complex and risky gambles. ibid.
From the late 1990s banks lent around a trillion dollars to Americans on low incomes to buy houses. ibid.
In 2008 the financial crash hit the world like a natural disaster. ibid.
Nothing on this scale had been predicted by Value at Risk. Nearly three trillion dollars was lost. ibid.
Synthetic derivatives: one of the biggest bets the world has ever seen. ibid.
One of the biggest financial bankruptcies since the crash: M F Global. ibid.
J P Morgan had little choice but to sell off the Whale Trades at a huge loss. ibid.
What Wall Street and credit card companies are doing is really not much different from what gangsters and loan sharks do who make predatory loans. While the bankers wear three-piece suits and don’t break the knee caps of those who can't pay back, they still are destroying people's lives. Bernie Sanders
Every dollar that is printed should not represent a debt to private bankers. It should represent an investment potential in the common good, in the common needs of our country. Cynthia McKinney
The invisible Money Power is working to control and enslave mankind. It financed Communism, Fascism, Marxism, Zionism, Socialism. All of these are directed to making the United States a member of a World Government. American Mercury Magazine December 1957 p92
We economic hitmen really have been responsible for creating this first truly global empire. And we work many different ways. But perhaps the most common is that we will identify a country that has resources our corporations covet, like oil, and then arrange a huge loan to that country from the World Bank or one of its sister organisations. But the money never actually goes to the country. Instead it goes to our big corporations to build infrastructure projects in that country, power plants, industrial parks, ports, things that benefit a few rich people in that country in addition to our corporations ... The whole country is left holding a huge debt; such a big debt it can’t be paid, and that’s part of the plan. John Perkins, author Confessions of an Economic Hitman; economist for Chas T Main Inc
Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign aid organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM. ibid.
We’ve given these people the authority to create money out of thin air. And through that device they control everything ... Why in the world does the American government borrow money from the banks when they have the ability to create it themselves without borrowing it and paying interest on it? Why? And nobody can answer that question. Not one politician ever raises that. Aaron Russo, interview Alex Jones
It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disfranchise the public; and assuming that certain powers by divine right of money-raising or by sheer assumption, have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind. William E B Du Bois
But in 2000 Iceland’s government began a broad policy of deregulation that would have disastrous consequences. Charles H Ferguson, Inside Job, 2010
In a five-year period these three tiny banks which had never operated outside of Iceland borrowed $120 billion – ten times the size of Iceland’s economy. The bankers showered money on themselves, each other and their friends. ibid.
When Iceland’s banks collapsed at the end of 2008 unemployment tripled in six months. ibid.
In September 2008 the bankruptcy of US Investment Bank Lehman Brothers and the collapse of the world’s largest insurance company AIG triggered a global financial crisis. The result was a global recession. ibid.
This crisis was not an accident. It was caused by an out-of-control industry. ibid.
In the 1980s the financial industry exploded; the investment banks went public giving them huge amounts of stockholder money. People on Wall Street started getting rich. ibid.
By the end of the decade hundreds of savings and loans companies had failed ... Thousands of Savings & Loans executives went to jail for looting their companies. One of the most extreme cases was Charles Keating. ibid.
By the late 1990s the financial sector had consolidated into a few gigantic firms; each of them so large their failure could threaten the whole financial sector. ibid.
In December 2002 ten investment banks settled the case for a total of $1.4 billion and promised to mend their ways. ibid.
Since deregulation began the world’s biggest financial firms have been caught laundering money, defrauding customers and cooking their books again and again and again. ibid.
Using derivatives, bankers could bet on virtually anything ... A fifty trillion unregulated market. ibid.
In the early 2000s there was a huge increase in the riskiest loans called subprimes. ibid.