As posted on the liliputing blog . . . and please be sure to read the insightful comment about Chavez’s “bad example.”
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• 12:35 am 0
Bail out Main Street not Wall Street!
From the website of the Ad Hoc Committee to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions:
Tell President Bush, Candidates Obama and McCain, Members of Congress,
Treasury Secretary Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and members of the media:
Bail Out Main Street NOT Wall Street!
Please tell President Bush, Candidates Obama and McCain, Members of Congress, Treasury Secretary Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and members of the media you want them to Bail Out Main Street NOT Wall Street!
To sign the petition go here.
Filed under: Economic crisis
September 26, 2008 • 7:32 am 0
Palin channels Admiral Stockdale
In case you had any doubts about why the McCain campaign had been keeping Palin sheltered from the media since being tagged as his vice-presidential running mate, her interview with Katie Couric should resolve them fully.
In 1992, Ross Perot’s running mate, political unknown Admiral James Stockdale began an embarrassingly incoherent performance at a vice-presidential debate by exclaiming “Who am I? What am I doing here?” Palin’s performance was no less incoherent, and it wasn’t even a debate but a soft-ball interview by quasi-journalist Couric.
Here’s an excerpt . . . and keep in mind that the question was about the proposed $700 billion Wall Street bail out:
” . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh — it’s got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.”
No further comment is necessary.
Filed under: Uncategorized
September 23, 2008 • 11:36 pm 1
Effort to disenfranchise Black voters in Michigan
2008 elections: Will history repeat itself?
Published Sep 21, 2008 9:29 PM
Remember Florida during the 2000 election? What about Ohio during the 2004
election? Massive fraud and manipulation aimed mainly at African-American
voters in those states is widely regarded as having changed the outcome of who
would eventually occupy the White House.
Will it be déjà vu all over again in 2008?
-continued here
Filed under: Fighting oppression
September 21, 2008 • 9:32 am 3
The bailout: an unregulated give-away of $700 billion of our taxes
Remember the last time you had to take out a loan. Whether it was a car loan, a mortgage, money for student aid, or even a credit card you got lots and lots of paperwork along with it. Lots of fine print and legalistic language that – you knew even without looking at it – ensured that whoever was loaning you money had the right to do just about everything except take your firstborn if you didn’t pay it back.
Well it seems that President Bush has asked Congress to approve a $700 BILLION bailout for the mortgage finance industry . . . and the legislation to authorize this massive intervention in the economy is only three pages long. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Uncategorized
September 18, 2008 • 1:20 pm 0
Explaining the meltdown on Wall Street:
Profit system wreaks havoc
CAPITALIST MELTDOWN
Secret deals stick workers with the bill
Wall Street’s speculative binge has led to a truly formidable world crisis. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Uncategorized
September 15, 2008 • 9:26 am 2
Capitalism in crisis: who gets crushed in the rush for the door?
I’m the first to admit it. I’m an economics lightweight. I don’t understand even a fraction of the operations of the stock market or investment banks or the mortgage finance industry.
But last week the feds announced that they would make the largest economic intervention *ever* in the capitalist economy by bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and among the stated intents of the bail out was to stabilize Wall Street. And even I got it . . . the capitalist economy is in crisis and the feds didn’t want it to go from crisis to free-fall.
Maybe the bail out kept stock brokers from jumping out of windows the way they did in 1929, but by the weekend it was apparent that the stabilizing effects were limited and that the feds didn’t intend to carry out another intervention to avert the collapse of Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch.
This morning’s headlines: Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy and its stock falls by 80% and Bank of America buys Merrill Lynch, which was tottering on the brink of failure. Here’s the lead on a story from Reuters:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global markets plummeted on Monday after
investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, rival
Merrill Lynch agreed to be taken over and the Federal Reserve threw a
life line to the battered financial industry.
As a deepening crisis took new, bigger victims, The U.S. Federal
Reserve said for the first time it would accept stocks in exchange for
cash loans and 10 of the world’s top banks agreed to establish a $70
billion emergency fund, with any one of them able to tap up to a third
of that.
What does this mean for working people? Like I said, I don’t know much about economics but I’m guessing it means a shockwave through the economy, major job losses, the feds spending billions to save corporations, and the feds (and the states and the cities) cutting billions from everything else. So that means more foreclosures and evictions, more joblessness, more poverty. Not a little more. A LOT more.
As my headline suggests, there is a fire in the building and the rich are panicking and rushing for the door. Working class activists who see what is happening (sadly, not everyone gets it yet . . . isn’t the economic crisis just a talking point for Obama to challenge McCan?) have an obligation to make sure that the corporations don’t just crush our people to death on their way to the nearest exit. I believe we have to seriously re-focus our work and recognize that there is a life and death struggle unfolding . . . it is in corporate boardrooms today but it will be our neighborhoods tomorrow.
Filed under: Uncategorized
• 7:07 am 0
Take action to stop foreclosures and evictions!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION!
TELL THE NEW CONSERVATOR OF FANNY MAE AND FREDDIE MAC, THE TREASURY SECRETARY AND THE HOUSE AND SENATE BANKING AND FINANCE COMMITTEES:
MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS NOW!
The government has just taken over Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, which control over half of the mortgages in the U.S.!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION demanding the Feds implement an IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS, NOW!
 |
Filed under: Uncategorized
September 11, 2008 • 12:12 pm 0
“The Other September 11″ – 35 years since the U.S.-sponsored coup against the democratically elected socialist government of Chile
Salvador Allende’s last speech / Última alocución de Salvador Allende
In English
My friends,
Surely this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes.
My
words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they be a moral
punishment for those who have betrayed their oath: soldiers of Chile,
titular commanders in chief, Admiral Merino, who has designated himself
Commander of the Navy, and Mr. Mendoza, the despicable general who only
yesterday pledged his fidelity and loyalty to the Government, and who
also has appointed himself Chief of the Carabineros [paramilitary
police].
Given these facts, the only thing left for me is to say
to workers: I am not going to resign! Placed in a historic transition,
I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them
that I am certain that the seeds which we have planted in the good
conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled
forever.
They have force and will be able to dominate us, but
social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is
ours, and people make history. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Uncategorized
• 10:48 am 1
On the gov’t bailout of the mortgage finance industry
Seems to me that our weakness as a left wing
opposition in the U.S. is reflected in the absence of serious political
discussion about the Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac bailout, its implications
for working people, and the demand for a “government bailout” of the
hundreds of thousands of people (250,000 in the first six months of
this year) who are losing their homes due to the economic crisis.
What I particularly like about the following piece on the bailout is the focus on the bailout as an example of the capitalist state protecting the interests of that class . . . and the corollary that the working class has to organize to protect its own interests.
Activists in Michigan and California are organizing to demand that states declare moratoriums on foreclosures, yet many progressives are so imbued with the “common sense” of capitalist politics that it wouldn’t occur to us to make such a demand on the government on behalf of our class.
—————————————————————————-
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/mortgage_0918/
Instead of saving people’s homes
Gov’t gives away billions to big mortgage bankers
Federal law needed to stop foreclosures now!
Published Sep 10, 2008 10:23 PM
Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson announced on Sept. 7 the government
bailout of the two largest financial institutions in the world, Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac.
Combined, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own or insure almost half the $12 trillion
in mortgage loans in the U.S. The government takeover of management is the
largest intervention in the affairs of a private company in history.
Paulson’s announcement capped a tumultuous past few months at Fannie and
Freddie, as mounting losses on mortgage-backed securities, coupled with an
inability to raise new capital from investors, brought the financial giants to
the brink of insolvency. Fannie and Freddie shares have plunged in value over
the past year, falling from over $60 a share to less than $5 a share.
The rescue by the Treasury Department has been in the making since July, when
Secretary Paulson quickly convinced Congress to hand the Treasury Department a
blank check with which to cover the massive financial losses at Fannie and
Freddie.
The bailout was made official this past weekend, as the heads of both companies
formally signed over control to the federal government. Technically, the
government has set up a conservatorship that has the option to buy almost 80
percent of the common stock at low prices and manages the business. About 20
percent of the stock is still privately owned, but its value has decreased
drastically in the past year.
Many workers whose pension funds were invested in stocks in these two entities
will have their retirement savings wiped out under the government’s
takeover plan.
Meanwhile, the financial tycoons who ran the companies into the ground appear
to be escaping with golden parachutes. Former Fannie Mae CEO Daniel H. Mudd
stands to receive a $9.3 million severance package on top of the more than
$12.4 million in cash and stock compensation he has received since becoming CEO
in 2004. Former Freddie Mac CEO Richard F. Syron stands to receive a $14.1
million severance deal on top of the $17.1 million he has already banked since
becoming CEO in 2003.
Government for the rich by the rich
In the past two years, millions of working families have lost their homes to
foreclosure and eviction, as the worst housing crisis since the Great
Depression continues to intensify by the day. Entire working-class communities
have been destroyed as the tidal wave of foreclosures continues to surge across
the country, leaving boarded-up windows and “for sale” signs in its
wake. But the federal government has done absolutely nothing of substance to
help the millions of workers affected by foreclosures.
Meanwhile, over the past year, the government has rushed to the aid of nearly
every investment bank and financial institution affected by the housing market
meltdown. The same financial institutions that helped spark the crisis by
underwriting predatory subprime mortgage loans are being bailed out left and
right.
The rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac comes in a year where the federal
government has already stepped in to rescue the fifth largest investment bank,
Bear Sterns, take emergency control of Indy Mac, and provide constant monetary
handouts to banks like Citigroup and Lehman Brothers through the Federal
Reserve’s recently invented Term Auction Facility.
The government tells workers there is no money for universal health care and no
money to improve public education, but when a financial institution runs into
trouble, billions of dollars in bailout funds instantly materialize. Billions
that could have been spent on human needs like housing, healthcare and
education will instead be used to clean up the financial mess created by Fannie
and Freddie.
In his analysis of the state under capitalism, Marx asserted that the
capitalist government is set up to manage the common affairs of the capitalist
class. This fact has been evident over the past year, as the two ruling-class
political parties have quickly come together to rubber-stamp the nonstop
bailouts concocted by the Treasury and the Fed. Indeed, the U.S. Congress
essentially handed over its constitutionally designated power of the purse by
giving the Treasury Department a blank check for Fannie and Freddie.
Developing a movement for workers by workers
During these excruciatingly tough economic times for workers, the federal
government’s handouts to the banks and financial institutions are
blatantly criminal. Despite claims that the U.S. government is a democracy run
by the people for the people, it is painfully clear that the rich and their
hirelings run the government for the benefit of the rich.
Workers cannot afford to wait for another federal “stimulus”
package or other band-aid solutions to lessen the economic suffering. Workers
must unite in their own common class interest and take the fight to the
capitalists and their representatives in the government. The working class must
use this period of capitalist instability to take the offensive and advance
working-class demands.
With the government now assuming the day-to-day management of the two mortgage
giants, working-class and community organizations have the opportunity to call
on that same government to place a moratorium on all foreclosures of mortgages
held by or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Paulson has announced a
bailout of the rich. It is an outrage that there is no government aid for
workers and poor people to keep a roof over their heads.
Coalitions in Michigan and California are holding protests on Sept. 17 (see
articles pages 6-7) to demand such a moratorium on a statewide basis. The
national bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cries for a call for a national
moratorium on foreclosures to protect people’s right to a home.
Articles copyright 1995-2008 Workers World.
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