How We Got Here, Vol I

Kevin Phillips, the guy who seems to see into the future, or at least has since his first book in the 70s, gave a very long and informative interview on Bill Moyers that, in small part, covered what is happening to cause the current meltdown. He stated that you have to compete with sleaze (crooks) and that this is partly why we are where we are; he is exactly right......

......because you have to compete with sleaze. Get a little more sleaze in your own operations. And you look at all these lies, these deceptions, these frauds that have been going on. But, I mean, there aren't too many people that would say back two or three years ago that the way to prosper more was to do less of the cheating. You had to do what the others were doing. And that's the way these things — it was true in the Twenties. It's been true in plenty of other bubbles. You have to do it. So just the question of what's been bubbling here and the hugeness of the problem hasn't been revealed to people.

Been there done that and when you compete with crooks you become a bigger crook or lose your job or company. That's the way it is. The most corrupt salesperson in the firm is salesperson of the year, month, week; that person becomes a manager and insists that you do like he did or you're out...."There's a bus leaving for the Hamptons in five minutes; be under it" about covers it.

The movie Boiler Room perfectly, and I mean perfectly down to the last detail, will tell you exactly what has been going on. This movie is so accurate that when I saw it on opening day (the first showing) the audience was composed mostly of "salesmen" taking notes on he lines; they were that good. A perfect movie and one the assholes in Oscarville (not hate Bush enough) ignored. Had this movie received the ink and TV time it deserved, everyone would have been aware of what was going on and it would have been stopped.

For a far too long but thorough POV on the subject you can go here.