The Great Black Hole of Casino Capitalism
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A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford 
If all the talk of economic “recovery” sound insane to the growing ranks of the unemployed and dispossessed, they're right. “The great investment banks are through, dead and gone, no longer willing or able to gather trillions in capital for any enterprise vaguely resembling national economic development.” All that's left is The Casino.
The Great Black Hole of Casino Capitalism
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“It now sucks all remaining and potential national wealth into its infinite darkness.”
Ruling circles in the United States have decreed that the Great Recession is over. These are the same circles that waited through half of 2008 to announce that the nation had been in recession since December of 2007. They now declare the worst is behind us even as unemployment climbs, smaller banks go under and a new wage of foreclosures looms. But there is not time in a 4-minute commentary to quibble about technical definitions of recession. In the larger scheme of things, such conversations are diversions that obscure what actually happened to the capitalist system over the past year. It has been broken beyond repair.
There is nothing left of finance capitalism but The Casino, which is only kept whirring along through the fiscal resources of The State. When the ruling circles, which of course includes the finance capital-infested Obama administration, announce that the economy is on the “road to recovery,” they are speaking of The Casino – Greater Wall Street and its speculations. But the once-dynamic heart of Wall Street, the great investment banks, are through, dead and gone, no longer willing or able to gather trillions in capital for any enterprise vaguely resembling national economic development. That stage of capitalism definitively ended in the Great Crash of last year. With the final collapse – decades in the making and historically inevitable – finance capital became irrevocably dependent on The State's capacity to subsidize its activities. It could not save itself, much less contribute to national economic reconstruction.
“With the final collapse, finance capital became irrevocably dependent on The State's capacity to subsidize its activities.”
Instead, The State – meaning, the people of the United States – have so far gone into hock for $23.7 trillion to bail out finance capital, 1.7 times the U.S. gross domestic product for 2008. The relationship between finance capital and U.S. society has devolved to pure parasitism. Such is the nature of post-2008 capitalism in America.
Greater Wall Street has become a Black Hole of its own creation. It now sucks all remaining and potential national wealth into its infinite darkness. Medicare and Social Security and every seizable public asset are pulled ever closer to its event horizon, to be lost in the Black Hole: The Casino. Meanwhile, the ever-expanding military acts as its own Black Hole, in order to safeguard the imperial domain on behalf of The Casino.
Strange phenomenon occur in the presence of economic Black Holes. Unemployment in Detroit nears 30 percent, while Wall Street experiences 12-month highs. State and local governments disintegrate, safety nets unravel, as the rich clink champagne glasses in celebration of their mega-trillion salvation, financed through the full faith and credit of the people. Like Atlantic City, New Jersey, all is despair and devastation – except on the boardwalk at The Casino.
Post-2008 America has a Black Hole in its soul. The political project could not be clearer: We've got to shut down The Casino, before it sucks up everything of value around us.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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photo credit: how will people know there are/have been photo-act
ivists? That there are social activist artists now? As an artist, I feel very strongly that photo credits, artist credit be given on websites, with articles.
I knew this photo was familiar - today, the photographer ID with the photo is on the Guardian website's home page link: www.guardian.co.uk "Photos of Journalism:a hundred years..." The photo is by Margaret Bourke-White, 1937, Kentucky. She became disabled by Parkinsons.
There was recently comment by Enlightened Cynic, I think, that there were more activists with art/cameras years ago. In my replies, I forgot to mention that some, such as WPA artists were paid to record their time.
While many great photos were not in the few selected by the Guardian today, of the many in the show (and always some get left out - always depends on who is chosing; sad to me, are the ones "in" but as "anonymous"), this one used for this commentary as visual is by Margaret Bourke-White. Weegee has a photo in the batch online and he was paid by a newspaper (possibly NYDaily News - my memory is so-so). Artists are our own "Medici" sponsors, mostly, these days, working outside jobs as/if can, to pay for our art, as well as rent, food, health insurance (I had health insurance from an art group and now have Medigap from same place.). There are major near-monopolies of news photos today.
The global elite have abandoned the masses - even in the US
I wrote a post on a related subject titled "David Rockefeller, China, Free Trade, the WTO and the New World Order". Here's an excerpt.
"I believe that we have seen a shift in strategy by the global elite. At one time people like John D. Rockefeller actually believed that there was some good in supporting the masses. Basically he believed that the masses could be trained to be civilized.
[...]
But sometime in the 20th century, this strategy was abandoned. The new model is one of a very small elite class separated by a huge gulf from the unfortunate masses."
http://futurenewstoday.blogspot.com/2009/09/david-rockefeller-china-free...
Regulations and "transparency" don't mean crap..
when the banking institutions, heretofore too big to fail, are now BIGGER THAN EVER! Amazing how this get's lost in the pablum of banking reform discussion. Also, how many persons realize that before the "crash" Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan were INVESTMENT BANKS, not COMMERICAL BANKS? Why didn't the media talk about or discuss the validity or morality of their charter changes that made them eligible for bailout monies? Why were stories about bonues monopolizing the airwaves but not the transfer of taxpayer monies from AIG to Wall St. banksters, and European big banks like USB?
Now that the Wall St = Main St. propaganda has succeeded, the corporate media censors the story that FDIC is struggling with REAL commerical bank failures. Failures that will no doubt hasten as the arms reset in Jan 2010, as the commercial real estate market flattens, and as Holiday consumerism tanks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR200908...
And what is truly scathingly obscene, is that the FDIC is considering borrowing from these big banks to stabilize mom and pop deposits? Talk about rubbing salt in the wound. Borrow OUR money given to big banks to prop up our deposits. A brother can't win for losing in the world of Obama/Bush Banksterism.
http://blog.taragana.com/n/fdic-considers-borrowing-from-banks-to-replen...
The Historic Wealth Transfer otherwise known as the Bank Bailout will have lasting effects, not just economic but political ones. As the economy continues to struggle, layoffs slow but hiring becomes nonexistent, and pressures mount on real commercial "Main Street" bank failures: "What will Obama and the Dems do when the well has run dry?"
How much more money can they print before the dollar is worth a 1950s ruble?
TOO BIG TO EXIST
In our current system of winners and LOSERS big, unaccountable, banking institutions win while small, accountable, banking institutions lose.
Black agenda Report
On the public funding section, I take issue with cap-and-trade. The big polluters will still have more money and will still be able to pollute anyway. As for private funding, the taxpayer will be footing larger bills in the end. The article even admits that so far, neither our current administration nor Congress cares to put money towards funding public transportation but is instead focused on bailing out the auto giants who caused the transportation and polluting mess to begin with. If we're going to keep spending money like that in addition to wars, where are we going to get the money to fund those "Green Projects" we keep hearing about? We might as well change our policies and allow people and especially farmers the rights to grow their bushels of hemp and non-processed food and quit subsidizing agri-business if we're really serious about the economy and going green at this point.
Sherone
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