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UPDATE MAY 3, 2009 Senate FAILS PUBLIC on bankruptcy judge options
UPDATE MAY 6, 2009 Let CITI workers eat their own dogfood
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That a financial crisis grips America and the world presently seems to be the consensus view. More importantly is how it effects each and every one of us - American or not. Recent bank failures and bailouts were forced on the public by both Democrats and Republicans alike - taking money from the public to sustain failed banks. The monetary crisis became the basis for occasional cries from the corporate-owned media for a "global" solution required NOW to thwart DISASTER - just like the bailout.
"Without the firing of a gun, without drawing a sword, should they [Northerners] make war upon us [Southerners], we could bring the whole world to our feet. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? . . England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton! No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is King."
Hammond, like most white Southerners, believed that cotton ruled not just in the South but in the United States and the world. Many economists agreed. In 1855, David Christy entitled his influential hook Cotton Is King. Cotton indeed drove the economy of the South, affected its social structure, and, during the Civil War, dominated international relations of the Confederacy through "cotton diplomacy."
Was Hammond correct? It turns out other sources of cotton took over. The point I emphasize is that international trade interdependence is not new. I make that point to illustrate that even for a crisis as great as the American "Civil" War, fought on American soil, the surrender of national sovereignty was unnecessary. Although the greenback provided for the obscene expenses required to finance the bloodbath; the concomitant changes in monetary and tax policy required for implementation of "greenbacks" arguably would have negative consequences for Americans in the long run. I mention these historical debates to provide an alternative perspective when a shill from the corporate-owned media claims a "global currency" will solve our money problems. Who cares? Why should you? That the U.S. Federal government's is derelict in its duty as custodian of public treasure is not a secret. But to what extent are they complicit in assuring the public got the bad deal while the banks escaped with the loot?
A friend recently expressed consternation when she couldn't make her mortgage payment (her first time ever) as slow-paying customers who owed her money didn't have the funds to pay her. Their slow payment was, they said, based on the economic slowdown. Fair enough. Her mortgage company is INDYMAC. Consider the following from (CLICK HERE) this article:
"All that was a memory on Tuesday, however, as Rubin and about 200 other anxious, embittered and sometimes angry customers swarmed an IndyMac bank branch in the San Fernando Valley, creating a Depression Era-like scene as they demanded their money just four days after the failing bank was seized by federal regulators."
Could this be the same bank? She received recurring calls from debt collectors with accents implying that the collection agents tasked with hounding her were from India. The calls were, and may still be, relentless. How is it, she asked me, that this bank, which went belly-up recently and was bailed out by the feds (her, you, and me) was still around to collect on debt? Consider THIS article excerpt which gives numbers:
"The FDIC estimated that its takeover of IndyMac would cost between $4 billion and $8 billion."
On what ground does said bank stand when lecturing the very public they ran to when they ran their (CLICK FOR NAME CHANGE) institution into the ground? How did she benefit from the bailout? What concessions did her public representatives make to help her ease the pain of making mortgage payments during these troubled times? The question arises: Has your bank robbed YOU?
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UPDATE MAY 3, 2009
