A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The mortgage foreclosure “robo-signing” scandal has morphed into a crisis of credibility and legality that goes to the core of the U.S. banking system. The bankers can handle desperate homeowners and cowardly politicians. However, Wall Street’s denizens will soon “turn on one another like frenzied, fat, white cannibals – just as they did in 2008” – over which pig owes which.
The Banksters’ Last Meal
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“The bankers will be tearing themselves to shreds.”
Nothing stands in the way of Wall Street establishing a dictatorship of the billionaires that will last a thousand years – nothing, that is, except the laws of political economy and the unchangeable imperatives of the banksters, themselves. If it seems that the pace of financial crises is quickening, you’re right, and you best get used to it. Finance capitalism cannot be saved – that’s why it has created an alternative universe in which the Lords of Capital gamble all day and night with phony money notionally worth ten times the value of all the goods and services produced by all the peoples of the world. The very existence of such “derivatives” is proof that finance capitalism some time ago reached the point at which it could not survive on the rates of profit available down here on planet Earth. So Wall Street created its own $600 trillion casino universe, whose main connection with the real world is to use it as collateral for its gambling ventures. Unfortunately, there is not enough real world to cover their wild parties and huge debts – which must ultimately be paid in real money, not derivatives.
Having created an alternative economy fueled by phony money, the banks decided it was perfectly alright to separate themselves from the earthly rule of law – laws written over generations mainly by other bankers, but within whose constraints the current Lords of Capital find it impossible to live. In order to sell toxic mortgages at top prices, the bankers chopped them up and made them into sausages. Then they sold these securitized sausages to each other used them as collateral on those hundreds of trillions of dollar bets they were making with each other in the alternative universe. It seems that every single mortgage originated between 2005 and 2008 was processed illegally, its ownership technically, and perhaps literally, unprovable. And, of course, one cannot foreclose on what one does not own.
“It seems that every single mortgage originated between 2005 and 2008 was processed illegally, its ownership technically, and perhaps literally, unprovable.”
The massive black hole of fraud in the core of the mortgage securities trade was first revealed by homeowners contesting foreclosure. Homeowner suits could pose a serious problem, but not one that bankers worth trillions can't handle. And Wall Street owns both the executive and legislative branches of government. So what if a fraud is at the center of trillions of dollars in transactions, upon which have been built hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives bets in the alternative banking universe? In 21st century America, Wall Street need fear no one.
No one, except itself. The bankers will be tearing themselves to shreds. Normal people like you and me don't own securities made up of illegally processed mortgages – the banks do, and the government that the banks effectively control. The bankers defrauded each other, and as the crisis deepens, they will turn on one another like frenzied, fat, white cannibals – just as they did in 2008. And so it will transpire in each succeeding crisis of a dying finance capitalism. Finance capitalists are carnivorous parasites, who spend most of their lives eating each other. Soon, sooner than you think, they will have their last meal. 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.
Isaac Saney is a Cuba and Black studies specialist and historian at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
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