Even the wingnuts seem to be recognizing that they can't escape the economic whirlwind -- or is it a hurricane -- on the prowl for its pounds of US flesh. While they are still busy claiming to be blameless, as all Republicans always are for everything, it seems to be dawning on them that they can't run from whatever consequences are on the way. And they can't tax Libruls enough to save their own behinds.
It boils down to a matter of taxation and who will be stuck with the ultimate bill and how. Because we are going into a "socialistic" phase (call it National Socialism, Nazi, if you prefer, since everything is coming from Above, nothing being generated from Below, and to date it is all a matter of fusing government and corporate interests) all these bailouts and all of them yet to come will ultimately be paid for through 1) inflation, 2) taxation, 3) continued seizures of resources domestically and overseas.
If there were any real Socialism involved, of course, the Mighty Rich would be forced to pay a punative level of taxation, basically confiscatory of everything they've gained in the last decade or so. Any income over say a million a year would be taxed at 90% or more. Capital gains over a certain amount likewise. Oh, most of the wealthy would still be wealthy, but they would not be able to profit from the economic conditions immediately preceeding the current mess, and won't be able to profit from what's to come, at least not in the short term.
If there were any real Socialism involved, then the people with mortgages scheduled to "reset" -- ie: increase interest rates -- to an unaffordable level would have their mortgage interest rates frozen until such time as the mortgage could be refinanced through a government program that stabilizes interest rates at a reasonable level (say no more than 6% or 7%) for up to 50 years, and returns up to 50% of any gains in real estate value to the government. That way, at least for the time being, most of the families living in houses which might soon be foreclosed upon will have a reprieve, and those who are able to make reasonable mortgage payments will keep their homes, thus stablilizing the housing market. (Note: It's been claimed that most of the millions of foreclosures so far have been on speculator and investor owned properties and that "real families" haven't been forced out of their homes, at least not in any great number. That's a nice claim. I'd like to see the facts.)
If there were any real Socialism involved, the banks and financial institutions who participated in the gaming of the real estate market would be forced to eat their losses, and yet they would not be allowed to fail without provision of alternative banking/financial institutions. Investors and stockholders would lose their gains over the past decade or so, but that would not necessarily mean they would "reset" to zero.
If there were any real Socialism involved, the services provided by Government (which means through general taxation) would include basics like health care and education, social welfare, utilities, clean water, healthy environment, transportation and communications infrastructure, and so on. It's not rocket science, it's all been worked out in great detail over most of the civilized world long since. Americans need to catch up.
The Masters of the Universe want to make it impossible for Americans to catch up to the rest of the world. Given what they are setting out to do right now -- to save their own asses at the expense of everyone else -- they are likely to succeed in the short term.
Americans show no sign, whatever, of bestirring themselves en masse to interfere with the secret plotting and planning going on now to saddle them with gargantuan debt for many generations to come in order to keep the best off among us in wealth and privilege forever. A permanent aristocracy to rule over them is being established as we speak, about which most Americans are completely oblivious.
What are any of us going to do about it?
Most will do nothing at all.
A few -- very few -- still have their monkeywrenches...
As someone who has done work on the ground in many neighborhoods that have been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis (I work as a field organizer for ACORN), and has worked alongside people who have been personally affected by the rapacious greed and rampant sociopathy of the "financial services" industry, I find the claim that "most of the millions of foreclosures so far have been on speculator and investor owned properties and that 'real families' haven't been forced out of their homes, at least not in any great number" to be more than just highly suspect. It's patently false. The mortgage meltdown has devastated the areas of San Joaquin and eastern Contra Costa counties that I've worked in. I know a gentlemen, a Puerto Rican hailing from Brooklyn, who lost everything to an unscrupulous mortgage broker who forced him into an ARM. The only way in which one could possibly make the claim that "real families" have not been harmed "in any great number" is to define "real families" as those that have not been harmed.
ReplyDeleteIngsoc:
ReplyDeleteAs it happens, I know some of those families too. What's been done to them is criminal. And it was done to them, and through them, to whole communities. While the brokers and servicers and middle men got rich, or at least much much better off, and the ceos walked away with tens upon hundreds of millions of "magically" begotten gains.
It's just assumed by those who were players -- instead of chips -- in this game that those families who moved into houses in the San Joaquin Valley that they couldn't afford and wound up thrown out of were speculating on the rise in value too. Their speculation was built into the deal: don't worry about the higher interest rate in one, two, three years, you can refinance or sell at a profit before then, and everything will be rosy. That's what so many were told. That is how families are turned into "speculators" in the minds of those who insist "real families" aren't suffering.
And still, millions every year are being put out of their homes, and nothing is done. Nothing for them.
The question is, why haven't they risen up? Remember when farms were being foreclosed upon in the '80's? Not only was there constant publicity, there was resistance.
Now? Nothing. Shrug.
Somethin' ain't right.
"Somethin' ain't right."
ReplyDeleteNo kidding. I think it's Stockholm Syndrome writ large.