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TechnoratiIt was at a large wedding reception in New York City that I saw Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, sitting down to dinner one spring evening in 2000. Having heard on the grapevine that the Federal Reserve was finally going to do something about predatory lending-an area of enforcement under their jurisdiction-I went over to his table and asked him this question:"Mr. Chairman, I hear that you are going to crack down on predatory lending practices." He nodded and said quite firmly, "Yes, Enough is Enough."
Since it was, after all, a social occasion, those words were enough for me and I returned to my table with the good news. For years, my associates, Jon Brown and Jake Lewis, had been working to document the prevalence of predatory lending and communicate our concern to the federal banking agencies and members of Congress.
Jon Brown developed detailed computerized maps of bank redlining in low-income areas, city by city, which were geographic guides to places where there were plenty of predatory lending practices.
As it turned out, Chairman Greenspan's Federal Reserve did nothing about either traditional predatory lending or the rise of the latest version of that abusive pattern-the now notorious sub-prime mortgage scandals and mega-losses that are shaking the financial industry to its foundations
Actually, Mr. Greenspan often lauded leveraged, collateralized sub-prime lending as helping lower-income people to get home mortgages. He did not give much weight to the deception and imprudence and gouging of the lenders lurking in the fine print and flowing from the silver tongues of the salespeople.
The Federal Reserve touts itself as the agency where lots of smart people work - economists, statisticians, forecasters-and, of course, the often-described very smart Chairman. Yet as the speculative greed that developed, sold and resold ever more abstract and risky financial instruments comprised of bundled home mortgages went toward its final orbit of collapse, these "best and the brightest," failed to act. They failed to regulate.
The business assault on regulation and its drumbeat demands for de-regulation over the past quarter century have now caused a burgeoning sub-prime mortgage collapse that is producing hundreds of thousands of home foreclosures. The housing market is plummeting. Giant banks are desperate for infusions of capital from abroad to save them from insolvency. Huge mortgage lenders are teetering on bankruptcy, looking desperately to be taken over by other financial companies.
Foreign banks and municipalities around the world that assumed these risks are marking down big losses.
All this has been caused by a combination of speculative greed, taking on huge risks for higher returns and the refusal to apply financial law and order-i.e. regulation-by the Bush regime. All this was preventable by institutional prudence and a vigilant Federal Reserve.
So what are all these giant financial corporations on their knees begging for these grim days? They are begging the Federal Reserve to use every bit of its authority to save them through lower interest rates and by using a variety of other more abstruse tools the Fed has to rescue the very banks that help fund its budget and dominate the regional Boards of the Federal Reserve.
It is true that corporate heads have rolled-most notably the CEOs of Citigroup and Merrill Lynch. By and large, however, the remaining top culprits who got their banks and mortgage lending firms into such deep losses for investor-share holders are staying put with their enormous compensation packages.
When the big boys get into trouble, they expect Uncle Sam to bail them out. Who pays the ultimate bill? You guessed it. The small taxpayer and the consumer.
So next time your hear the words--deregulation or over-regulation-by the thoughtless think tanks, heavily funded by business money, remind yourself that you believe in tough law and order for big business and your demand that politicians weigh in with a strong enforcement crackdown on corporate crime and fraud.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions.
41 Comments so far
Show Allhttp://www.trafford.com/07-2440
Dear Sirs and Mesdames,
This subject, in my mind, is the most immediate most urgent and serious matter confronting the Human Race. Despite the fact that many great minds, philosophers, politicians, academics and economists, have all created eminent careers based on their knowledge and understanding of how free enterprise, national economies and the human race interact, they have all failed to admit the obvious. It is glaringly obvious that we have large swathes of the human race that do not have access to money; it is that simple.
Therefore we need a system of economy that literally accommodates the needs and aspirations of every human being. A system that will not rely on taxing others' in order to provide all the multifarious forms of infrastructures, as well as our human and social obligations. A system of taxation in which the haves are continually being pressured to claw back those taxes from the have-nots. We must face the fact, once and for all; this system can never provide all human needs and infrastructures.
We have allowed right-wing ideology to dictate the terms and even if or when large swathes of populations may be fed and housed or have health needs addressed. We tolerate the fact that we have millions of working poor who will never earn enough to meet all of life's basic costs. Many of these are struggling to raise families the bedrock of our future. Those who work lead the most precarious of lives.
Precarious, because their work and income has become the plaything of corporate power, which moves production to lower waged economies. This makes the executives and the shareholders richer but at the cost of the misery they leave behind. Wages go down, but not prices, or costs of living, and the formerly free "social wage entitlements" are removed.
This is the "rationalized" world directed by Corporate Power and implemented by our Governments, the world of "user pays".
Take it or suffer the consequences. The Government calls this "work choices". Hear the Corporate applause? The consequences are total destitution for some; they could buy none of life's essential services.
Complete and total destitution for many unless they work, no shelter, no food, no health care, and no education, none of life's necessities.
So we need a system, which provides equal opportunity and care for all, overlaid with free enterprise. At the same time we can put in place a fair and equitable industrial relations system that eliminates employer employee antagonisms.
Our democracy is in serious trouble. Rich people and corporations channel funds into political parties in order to achieve their own commercial or ideological ends cleverly bypassing democratic inputs. It is happening in all democracies but that does not make it "worlds best practice" or "right". We can correct that quite easily. We make so-called free trade agreements under which corporations are exempted from government regulation that control workers rights, pay and working conditions. Is this democracy, is this really necessary, should corporations have such unbridled power, where will it end?
Introduction of The Universal Economy will immediately and substantially impact and improve such questions as Poverty, provision of universal education, health care, pensions, unemployment, housing and all public infrastructure (roads bridges schools hospitals etc). None of this will require the imposition of taxation.
The concept of The Universal Economy will be easy to introduce, because it benefits everyone, everyone will want it to work. It will be hardest to implement in third world nations, not impossible, just slower to implement. It will kick start economies wherever it is introduced.
This is a concept for the twenty-first century. Put to one side traditional thought processes and embedded conventions see only the greater-good and benefit of mankind then you will support this enterprise with the open heart and mind it deserves. Adopt this concept for the good of humanity.
Give your support, not money.
Yours Faithfully, THOMAS W ADAMS.
REBEL FARMER -- Great link to understand the cumulative power of money flowing, to erode the foundations of our democracy.
I believe the author is far to appeasing of the _ b e a s t s _, with his title "FREE LUNCH".
I believe that "There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL)) - Thanks to Robert Heinlein.
When the author explains that all of the profit for sports teams comes from the local communities largess (donations = welfare for rich), I then see that it's not just lunch, but also diner, and breakfast - had hardly free at all for us paying for everything.
Well, we bailed out the well-heeled in the S&L scandal, so, to paraphrase that great mind from Indiana: "Suckers we were; suckers we are; and suckers we will continue to be."
Beforkids, great post buy you:
"thedeed, you're an ignorant fool. Ralph Nader is an American hero. He has tirelessly worked and done more for this country than any single person living. And for much of the citizenry, more than one hundred. I don't think anyone in our history has saved as many lives as he has. But it is always the lot of heroes to be spit on by ignorant fools. Certainly anyone who studies history knows that. And also knows that the world is full of ignorant fools, and people who attack visionaries to protect the status quo however despotic it might be."
My sentiments exactly. If we had a hundred Ralphs in government, what a great society we would live in.
Here's to Dreams of a better world without the iron heel of our useless elite population.
Nader has worked his whole life to try to change the system in DC so that it benefits the average American. Stop with the Nader bashing thedeed. The two party system is actually one party, the money party and you and I aren't in it, time to wake up and take the little red pill.
Please watch this Bill Moyers Journal. Really informs us of how we got here. It ain't a Dimm/Repug issue. And it didn't happen in just the past 7 years. Free Lunch indeed!
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01182008/watch.html
Incorporate We the People, Ralph.
Ralph Nader should really stop calling the Federal Reserve an "agency" and call it what it really is, a secretive private bank. I'm surprised he doesn't attack our monetary system considering its the root of most debt related evils.
That dog won't hunt!
_____________________________________
Indeed. And it won't bite, either. The poor dog actually died of malnutrition when it was but a puppy.
But some embittered Democratic partisans are eternally doomed: compelled to swing the misbegotten critter's clattering skeletal remains, still on its little leash--like Samson swinging the jawbone of an ass at us putative Philistines.
per the deed: "Ralph,
Either come up with something new or shut up. This is so dreary. Why don't you write a column taking responsibility for electing Bush? That would be exciting and it would lift a burden off your soul."
I love it when Democrats blame Ralph Nader for giving the election to Bush. Gore and Kerry rolled over for Bush. They both won their elections, but they both felt that it was better to let Bush have power. Democrats and others should stop blaming Ralph Naders for the Democratic Party's capitulation to Bush. That dog won't hunt!
Ralph Nader ran for President 3 times on a platform to oppose the power of Corporations. The American people 3 times totally ignored him. It isn't that they didn't know about him, they didn't want him and still don't. Today it is Gravel ( under 1%). The problem with the world is the intellectual incapacity and selfishness of the American people.
Ralph, it's not a matter of when the "big boys get into trouble" --- which makes it sound like we're talking about human 'big boys' and that they're accidentally 'getting into trouble'.
First they're not 'big boys' --- they're an inhuman corporatist Empire. (Let's not personify them Ralph)
Second, they're not just 'getting' (IE. falling) 'into trouble' --- they're manufacturing that trouble in the form of negative externalities in order to pump up their faux profits by socializing their costs.
As the saying goes, "there's nothing new under the Sun", and that certainly applied to 'gaming' the economic system with the oldest trick in the book; using the known 'market failure' of dumping/hiding negative externality costs to make money the old fashioned way ---- by cheating.
Yes, the newest crooked financial engineering that Ralph rightly criticizes by banks and banking-like corporations now allowed, because of the political elimination of the Glass-Steagall banking regulations, INTENSIONALLY CREATES the 'trouble' of 'negative externality dumping' to create profits for themselves.
Just as crooked manufacturing corporations knowingly created products with high hidden negative externality costs (like cancer in customers' lungs), now the corporate Empire's financial cheats and oppressors have actively created and promoted dangerous financial products (like CDOs and SIVs) that are designed SPECIFICALLY and WITH POLITICAL HELP to hide even more ethereal 'negative externality costs'; like 'debt bombs' throughout the real human economy.
When the more modern and sophisticated 'debt bomb' negative externalities explode they have the same effect on our whole economic society as the cancer bombs metastasizing in individual smokers' lungs.
As we have hopefully learned in dealing with the industrial wing of the corporatist Empire, the only non-violent (albeit short-term) solution to this kind of planned and premeditated corporatist crime-wave was to pass strong and hard-biting government regulations that made "polluters PAY" for their intentionally hidden 'negative externality costs',
This 'sub-prime mortgage mess', the resulting 'credit crisis', and the all too predictable economic 'depression' (not recession, as the MSM says) that this will cause is certainly not a case of 'big boys' simply 'getting into trouble'.
It is as premeditated and preemptive an intentionally launched economic war as was Bush's imperialist oil-war on Iraq. It was fully designed and planned, as Naomi Kline outlines in "Shock Doctrine", and for precisely the same, sick, underlying reasons ---- this is how a global corporatist Empire confuses, lies to, and battles average people everywhere.
The global corporatist Empire, hiding behind and working through this facade of 'Vichy' American government (and 'Vichy' MSM) has just launched it's second preemptive 'shock and awe' war of the 21st century. But this time the corporatist Empire is launching its 'shock and awe' attack by dropping 'debt bombs' on Americans instead of 'cruise missile bombs' on Iraqis.
Different strokes for different folks.
But if we don't confront, battle, and disarm this inhuman global corporatist Empire here and now the level of "tyranny at home" will escalate to that wrought by the "Empire abroad".
As Hannah Arendt long ago and presciently warned, "Empire abroad (always) entails tyranny at home".
Let's just hope that Ralph, Al Gore, Kucinich, Edwards, and especially the American people start to quickly understand this very real threat as clearly as Arendt, Orwell, Jefferson and many other fighters of past Empires have.
Thanks Ralph for this timely article. You are right on the spot as usual.
thedeed January 19th, 2008 3:45 pm
Ralph Nader didn't elect Bush, it was rigged voting machines, disappeared ballot boxes, butterfly ballots, weak candidates, disenfranchised blacks in Florida, dirty tricks in Ohio, a rubber stamp Supreme Court (Supremely Corrupt) and most importantly a spineless Democratic party that just rolled over when all this happened and squeezed their eyes shut and refused to do anything about it starting with Al Gore. Okay?
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jan2008/econ-j19.shtml
..."Congressional Democrats immediately declared their willingness to work with the White House in a bipartisan effort to pass a stimulus package, accepting the broad outlines of the Bush plan, particularly its derisory size, without a murmur. They could hardly complain that $140 billion was peanuts, since the two leading Democratic presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, proposed stimulus packages only half as large last week."...
..."The size of the package demonstrates that it is purely a cosmetic gesture. The proposed $140 billion is less than the amount American consumers paid out to the oil companies in increased gasoline prices over the course of last year. It is less than one tenth the estimated losses in home equity suffered by American homeowners during collapse of the housing bubble. And it is utterly insignificant compared to the trillions of dollars at risk as the subprime debacle spreads into wider financial markets, including commercial paper, bank loans and derivatives."...
jsc January 19th, 2008 7:05 pm
Re: S&L debacle
All legislation passed a Democratically controlled Congress and that same Congress held no one to account for that or Iran-Contra.
_________________________________________________________________________
Moreover, Bill Clinton has freely acknowledged that when he was elected, he made a deliberate decision not to pursue abundant loose ends and unresolved legal matters in both the Iran-Contra and Savings & Loan debacles.
He justified this in the seductive, and utterly hollow, name of "bipartisanship" and comity. That is, Clinton argued that he had inherited a political process that was mired in partisan animosity and legislative gridlock. In his view, it was simply illogical and counter-productive to devote energy and resources into pursuing controversial investigation and adjudication on matters that would only inflame old wounds and generate more hard-feelings and contentiousness between the parties.
Ultimately, this view can be boiled down to concluding (correctly) that social justice is Bad for Business, especially the Business of Government. This points to a phenomenon which I've been blathering about for several months now: modern politicians are essentially technocrats-- elite middle-managers in the pseudo-corporation of political governing bodies.
There is still lip service to "human rights" and principle, but in fact any real appreciation of, and commitment to, "principle" has long since leached away in favor of the imperative to keep the bipartisan factory running and churning out dubious legislation. Principles, including Constitutional principles, are at best vestigial and ornamental.
I don't see why the morphing of politics into business, a kind of stealth fascism (corporate statecraft), hasn't been more commonly remarked upon. US politicians are, by definition, wealth junkies who must command literally millions of dollars in campaigns for national office. Money is what creates lobbyists, who constantly work with politicians.
As the Clinton position noted above suggests, once a modern-day politician has grabbed the brass ring of the presidency, there's so much "business" to attend to that the issues of social justice and preserving our Constitutional rule of law indeed seem quaint and troublesome. It once fell to the political class, incredible as it seems, to somehow function as the "conscience" of our nation. Not because pols were swooning idealists, but because the role of the politician was, at least in theory, not that of a technocratic manager.
However reluctantly and imperfectly, Congress and the Executive Branch recognized that it was sometimes necessary to engage in politically unpopular and politically risky action in the name of social justice and principle. That era is gone. Now even seemingly "liberal" Dems like Barney Frank and chairmen like Conyers and Obey are all about the bidness of what the political traffic will bear. And those who seem to stand up and resist the "go along to get along" Prime Directive are marginalized, or tolerated as Judas goats to attract desperate liberals and progressives.
Incidentally, IMO beneath his provocative messianic meta-politics, Obama is just as much of a soulless technocrat as Ms. Clinton. They would equally disdain holding the present criminal maladministration to account if they are elected. Instead, they'll take Bill Clinton's approach-- which frankly stinks, even if it's clothed in obscene faux-Lincolnesque rhetoric of "reconciliation".
What's your point Mealsotoo?
With absolute-Certainty -- I can inform others-here that the next-President/Admin, and regardless the 'Party' so-utilized, will make you all LONG for the 'good-old-Days' of this seemingly-hated "BushCo" and prior-Decade. [Just as I could have assured/informed the Iraqis who used to bitch about "life under Saddam", or Palestinians who bitched pre-Intifada, or Natives who bitched in pre-Revolutionary America]
If even the 'well-read and Historically-grounded' commenter's in CD can't see the historic-trends/inertias and the all-but-Obvious fashions in which the very-same Interests have manipulated All since at-least the 'Enlightenment'/'Revolutionary-period', what Hope is there for any derailment of those Interests, the 'NWO', or Mankind's future-Enslavement and Reductions?
[My 'best-Hope' (and Yours, whether you know it yet or No) and at this late-stage in my-and-my-country's Life, is that the mad-Ideologues and financial-Interests actually "driving this bus" will Fail, and Disastrously -- due ONLY to their own-Greed/Hubris and the remarkable&recent-'Successes', which have found no real Impediments or Setbacks in this ridiculously-stupid Generation.
"It's true we need to relieve the 31.99% default rate now charged by many banks on credit cards. It is NOT TRUE that this relief must come from Grandma's savings account going from 5% to 4% to 3% to 2%.
The antidote is found only in the election now of politicians from the opposing party. Yes, it matters."
No, it doesn't -- not a Whit.
Those Dems nearly-all voted/enacted everything BushCo has sat before-them, including most-famously that Bankruptcy-'Reform' resulting in credit-dependent Americans now-or-shortly finding 'no loophole/safety-net' will soften their up-coming Fall.
They "protest overmuch", then show themselves "by their Fruits".
As did FDR, btw...
But why all the whine from Progressives re: 'financial-ruin'?
The post-New-Deal 'prosperity', that supposedly 'shared' with a neo-'middle-class', was Illusory to start-with -- and was entirely paid-for by the poor of the planet/hemisphere. Will you so-miss dining on the Flesh of your fellow-Humans? Or will you welcome the inevitable economic-meltdown as forced-means for most too-Fat/Ugly Americans 'finally getting Honest', and getting just a Taste of "how the other-half live"?
I prefer starving/laboring as an Equal to the hypocrisy of benefiting from the Misery of all-Others...and the comeuppance of the average "middle-income American" is LONG overdue, don't you think?
Nationalism,Militarism,and hyperreligiosity, are the nourishment of the corrupt state.
NADER IS A HERO!!
I believe we are speaking of corruption. Corruption is not new, and is widespread in the world. Corruption is the reason for all poverty. In the US corruption manifests itself by diversion of funds toward enterprises, such as war, that allow money to be stolen by overpricing, fictious shipments, etc. It is, in other words, a racket. This again is not new, it has been written about before, in detail.
Corruption is made possible by governments that need the support of the people. To obtain it they appeal to the three most basic instincts, the primary colors of the psyche: Security, Freedom, and Approval or tribal place. Nationalism, especially when militaristic, and Religion, conspire to produce a population ready to believe it is in danger, and more ready to go to war. Religion, as a powerful force, is coopted by the government, which wherever possible, makes its defense the reason for the war. The Muslim versus Christian concocted confrontation, has served and serves this purpose. Nationalism must be surrendered to begin to appreciate the situation of the world, and begin to cooperate meaningfully... Religion must also be surrendered to bring the people of the world together. Buddhism has found an interesting answer. All religions are perceived as fun and worth getting involved in and respected. Believed, is another matter.
To manipulate the people, (Security) is shown to be endangered. (Freedom) is said to be under attack, including religious freedom. A patriot must stand to defend his country and its values(Approval). Power is the ability to make these 3 work for you: safety, freedom to do what you want, and the approval and support of your peers. Justice is when somebody else's power cannot unfairly interfere with yours.
Corruption comes from power that subverts the process (Injustice)for personal gain.
Good governments try to bring security, freedom, and a sense of belonging to all citizens, in an atmosphere where the citizen feels empowered, and treated justly.
thedeed, you're an ignorant fool. Ralph Nader is an American hero. He has tirelessly worked and done more for this country than any single person living. And for much of the citizenry, more than one hundred. I don't think anyone in our history has saved as many lives as he has. But it is always the lot of heroes to be spit on by ignorant fools. Certainly anyone who studies history knows that. And also knows that the world is full of ignorant fools, and people who attack visionaries to protect the status quo however despotic it might be.
Didn't Congress have something to do with the banks being able to produce and distribute the financial instruments used by lenders, that by design will result in imminent defaults? If so why are they still holding offices where they can do more damage to the people? I don't buy their pretensions of concern. The Federal Reserve, the IRS, the Pentagon, the CIA...they exist to control and or destroy. They have to go. Maybe today's generations can't see that. Eventually, it will become so obvious, even the blindest will see the light. Of course, it will probably be too late to matter.
The big boys keep their profits but always look for ways to pass on their losses.
They're deeply worried, it seems, because they can't pass on their losses quickly enough.
Nader isn't responsible for Bush's election. Diebold, the Supreme Court, and the Republicans are.
ANd you you EVEN think that these Corporate Fat cats even GIVE a d****? no..
They may only be SLIGHLY worried about their heads rolling.... but they have protected themselves pretty nicely... gated communities.. powerful friens(*BLackwater.. private army to the rich and powerful).
I swear....
I wonder how much of this debacle is caused by predatory lending practices? Now I am aware of and guilty of signing all those papers shove at me in escrow without reading and understanding every word-it's impossible to do so.
BUT, every bank I ever talked to about an ARM or other small down-payment schemes verbally told be the downside of that type of loan. One does not have to be very real estate savy to know that there is a gamble in ARMs and no-down loans. I would bet that a majority of these loans that were later bundled and sold were loans made by people who knew they would have to come up with more money later but were betting on a raise or a second job to cover it-in other words they were speculators and the bank or mortgage broker the enabler.
Re: S&L debacle
All legislation passed a Democratically controlled Congress and that same Congress held no one to account for that or Iran-Contra.
Bush Co. managed to pull off the heist of the century. He and his cronies (Republicans and Democrats) managed to bankrupt this country so they could get rich and everyone else suffered (we still are suffering). These people make the film "Ocean's Eleven" look like a high school stunt.
Ralph Nader has nailed it. But he, too, was much too polite in confronting Big Al "Fiat-Currency Junkyard-Dog" Greenspan.
It seems people on the left are constantly stymied by their politeness and empathy towards another human, evan a right-wing criminal like Greenspan (and I mean criminal in the sense of bank robbery - only in reverse, the banks robbing the people.) No such scruples exist in people on the right... in fact, no scruples at all that I perceive, other than 'don't get caught and if you do, blame someone else.' (I have written to Nader's law firm about the Federal Reserve, but I never received a reply.) The 'free' market is a delusion, and Big Al and now Little-B prove it by the setting of interest BY DECREE.
This is, I believe, what really needs to happen NOW, and it demands political action from Progressive politicians:
the Private Bank that controls and prints and issues the currency, the Federal Reserve, must be immediately taken over by the US government. The current bankers and economists must ALL be thrown out. They serve only the NeoCon capitalist-flat world agenda. They bow to corporations and bankers and gold. Money is their god. They created the hydra-headed banking monster, the lifetime-indentured-servitude mortgage, the privatized-government bond market, the hyper-inflation of housing and real goods like oil, and the securitized-paper-mortgage crises that now are doing severe damage to the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans.
Upon seizing control of the people's currency again, the Fed must redeem ALL government bonds IMMEDIATELY. Federal, State, County, Municipal, NGO, government-backed, UN, foreign governmnt, third-world government, etc. This will stop the bleeding of governments by the Rich via tax-free bonds. The bonds will then be owned and paid back to the Fed, with NO interest.
And all future bonds of like nature will be funded by the Fed at NO interest. The government-bond tax-shelter will disappear and thus enable more tax revenues, and the interest-payment welfare-style re-distribution of income upwards to the Rich will disappear. Isn't re-distribution of income what 'conservatives' always rail about? But apparently not if the re-dstribuion goes to them!
So the Taxpayer will NOT have to pay this interest upon interest upon interest, just for government debt. I estimate this will save over One Trillion Dollars Per Year in taxpayer money. And it will add another One Trillion Dollars per year in now-sheltered tax revenues.
The Fed must then issue new bank rules. Banks must once again divest themselves of securities divisions (a racket executed, while it was still against the law, by Greenspan and Sandy Weil of Citibank.) Banks may not securitize mortgages. Banks must not engage, nor mortgage brokers, to devise more and more devious, convoluted schemes to get people into unaffordable mortgages for the up-front fee. Banks must state the REAL cost of the loan, and not tuck it into the loan iteslf to hide this cost. Banks must not charge usurious rates (TBD but probably around maximum 10% per annum) for ANY kind of credit any more (credit card, car loan, etc).
Banks may only charge SIMPLE interest, not Compound interest that balloons to the skies (see the YouTube video ARE HUMANS SMARTER THAN YEAST, to see what compounding does, or remenber the story of the wizard and the king - the wizard saves the king from sickness and in return, the king decrees he may have anything he wants, to which the wizard replies that he 'only' wants one gold coin per day, doubled every day, to the end of a month. At the end of the month, compounding has been so tremendous that the wizard owned more than all the gold in the kingdom and thus everything. Such is compound interest on interest - a never-ending bottomless pit - good for the lender, really bad for the debtor.) Many other such banking regulations need to be issued, to re-draw the political map away from serving the god Money, and to money being once again a social construction in the service of the people.
This action, of taking back the Fed, will greatly help take our country back from the global and corporate financiers that have sucked like vampires on the life-blood of America for far too long now. And America is about to be sucked dry, if something doesn't change soon.
The ballpark is too small 'cause Nader keeps hitting them out of the park. The rich are soaking us, and those among us who are not rich nor brain-dead care.
Bill Moyers just did a piece on this: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html. He interviewed David Cay Johnston who wrote the book, Free Lunch.
thedeed,
I know, booooring. Well, there's always the Simpsons and Big Brother, so never fear - there's plenty of stuff to entertain you.
Plantman 13, you nailed it. There is nothing more dangerous and rapacious than corporate/political crime. It never ceases to amaze me that these thugs' biggest supporters always come out the losers. Always. They fall for the con-job every single time. Like Bush said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." He certainly does, with ease.
Ralph,
Either come up with something new or shut up. This is so dreary. Why don't you write a column taking responsibility for electing Bush? That would be exciting and it would lift a burden off your soul.
It's the only time they seem to like socialism is when it's for them. Let's let the people who made the bad deals be the ones that pay for them. I say liquidate their assets and ban them from doing further damage.
What is the "American Narrative" fpal refers to? The sorry struggle of the people to redeem the promise of a government by and for the people?
This has never been accomplished. The people, whom Alexander Hamilton called the "great beast" have been hoodwinked and defrauded from then till now. Their money has always been controlled by their "betters", the investing class and the bankers.
The American Dream is to join the investing class and the American Narrative is best described as the cyclic growth and collapse of one pyramid scheme after another.
Money-for-nothing is the American Dream. Ralph Nader does not do justice to the people by calling them "tax payers". They are the producers, the only bone fide contributors in this economy of parasitic investors and wannabe investors. They are the peasants in the immortal words of John Lennon: you think you're so clever, so classless and free, but you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.
And, in the end, the real estate that was lost in the sub prime debacle ends up in the hands of the same banks which caused the problem in the first place.
Banks which will then use the Federal bail out money to transfer title to their "Friends" at a penny on the dollar. These "Friends will turn out to be holding companies which will sit on the property for a few years, deducting it from their Taxes as "Bad Investments".
When the tax deductions run out, the real estate will then be sold back to John Q. Public at a nice profit and the whole dance will start all over again.
Same ploy as the Savings & Loan debacle.
As the song said:
"When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?"
When will WE ever learn?
It is fraud. It is corporate crime.
The conservative message of less regulation, less government is duplicitous. It's control of the law, it's disrespect for the rule of law.
The Failure of the American Narrative.
A RISING TIDE SUNK A LOT OF BOATS, BUT THE YACHTS OF THE RICH HELD STEADY, UNTOUCHED BY THE RIPPLES
Nader is too kind to reference that a few corporate heads rolled for this massive theft. Tens of billions of bonuses were paid out in the middle of the melt down. When the bubble was on a roll, they made billions, and when the bubble popped, they still made billions, just fewer.
Only the bottom feeders felt the regulatory heat, some from layoffs, and some of those as con artists have moved over into reverse mortgage schemes to bilk the elderly with grossly over-priced annuities, traded for their life savings in home equity - same market, different game.
It was a masterful scheme, like something on eBay, where sellers figure out how to bait the buyers with underpriced products and once snagged, there's no backing out as the real price shows up later in the bill as a series of hidden charges a mile long and deep in fine print.
Like hot property taken in petty robbery and burglary, the thief quickly unloads the mortgage loan upstream to the Consolidation Pawn Shop after skimming off the fees and commissions. The pawn shop kicks it further upstream until it disappears into the fog of financial wizardry.
As long as the bubble sustains itself, everyone in the supply chain plays along, from the homeowner to the investment bank in Europe that bought into the deal many layers removed the orginal sale.
In the middle, the feeding frenzy for bloated fees and commissions continues to fuel the fraudulent eBay storefront on one end and the counterparty suckers on the opposite end where only the most inside of the insiders remain on the edge of the ship's rail, ready to jump at any moment before it sinks.
When the whole thing comes crashing down, it spits out losers on both ends, but in the middle, a small group of ultra-rich rise from wreakage, even more rich than before.
Amazing, admonitions of fault and guilt still emerge from the hard core against the buyers - not the sellers - as fools, gits for being taken in by the eBay scam. For these hypocrites, no market failure is bad enough to justify the best regulation.
Instead, it's all the buyers' fault for not seeing through the reams and reams of fine print, relying instead on the wheelers and dealers, all "experts" who assured them with their "motivational speeches" that all was well, just sign on the dotted line.
And the same hypocrites cry, here comes Nanny State Nader with the commie regulations to save us all from this wonderful free market. You fools, you should be so happy you had a house to live in.
Oh how soon they forget! The Republicans have stolen huge amounts of money every time they have gotten in control of things. During Reagan and Bush I it was BCCI and the savings and loans. They stole billions through de-regulation of the S&L's and we were left holding the bag. Now they have de-regulated mortgage lending to facilitate their unbridled greed. Amazingly, their prime victims are always their biggest supporters! Middle class home-owners who think the Republican's "conservative" values are designed to protect them...HA!!! This is the prime focus of "no child left behind" which is to dumb down education and create a national electorate without the intellectual tools to make informed decisions in the ballot booth...to create an electorate who make choices based on "belief" rather then truth.
An electorate who will continue to return these low dogs to power despite being contrary to their own interests. And they count on the fact nobody can remember past last week.
Watch and see...the next industry they suddenly decide needs de-regulation will be the next sector of the economy they rape for their own gain.
If only we had an opposing party.
It's odd that the most personally "conservative" people we have are those who are too old to be losing their modest amounts of savings, so they keep their money in the FDIC-insured banks. And these are the people who get hurt the worst when their "conservative" president leans on their "conservative" Fed Chairman to cut, cut, cut the interest rates toward -0- for the insured deposits of the elderly--just as inflation is heating up.
It's true we need to relieve the 31.99% default rate now charged by many banks on credit cards. It is NOT TRUE that this relief must come from Grandma's savings account going from 5% to 4% to 3% to 2%.
Ralph has done a good job pointing out above the deficiencies in financial enforcement during the Bush years. The antidote is found only in the election now of politicians from the opposing party. Yes, it matters.
Interesting twist on the "law and order" jingo.
Americans seem to be saying we need change. It will be interesting to see how many of the same old corrupt Congressmen and women will be reelected this time around. Americans for change seem to have a problem with the catchwords electability and experience. The "electable" and "experienced" Congresssmen who are elected time after time are the ones who are responsible for "business as usual". Clinton is electable and experienced, but it is hard to believe that anyone as close to the Bushes as the Clintons would bring about any changes. Of course if you are a bargain hunter, a vote for Hillary will get you two for one because if you vote for Hillary, you get good old Bill too in the bargain, as well as the daughter, now of "electable" age, and the beat goes on! A major overhaul of Congress would be a step in the right direction for change. Will we still have Pelosi and Feinstein and Jeb Bush in ther somewhere, and,and and...?