Freedom Rider: Economic Meltdown
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
"The country will be
wholly unprepared for the coming catastrophe."
How will Americans react when their economy collapses? The
story of the coming crisis is barely being told because the corporate media's
information bubble gets thicker by the day. Very few people know or understand
the depths of the coming crisis. There is talk of recession, and falling home
prices, but there has been little if any explanation of the havoc that will be
played out across the country when the day of reckoning comes.
Banks all over the world are taking "write downs" in the
billions of dollars. In plain English, a write down is a loss. Not only are
international investment banks losing money hand over fist, but the almighty
dollar isn't so mighty anymore. Stores in New York City are accepting
euros along with the greenback.
Humorous anecdotes of Manhattanites using euros are no
longer funny. No nation on earth wants dollars anymore. Tourists can no longer
use them at the Taj
Mahal and oil rich Saudi princes would dump them if they could do so
without hurting themselves. "My feeling is that the mere mention that OPEC
countries are studying the issue of the dollar is itself going to have an
impact that endangers the interests of the countries. There will be journalists
who will seize on this point and we don't want the dollar to collapse instead
of doing something good for OPEC." (*link saud)
"No nation on earth wants
dollars anymore."
So said Prince Saud
al-Faisal when he thought his microphone was turned off at an OPEC meeting.
His words were stunning, so too is the fact that few Americans know he uttered
them. The average American knows about the subprime mortgage crisis and knows
that the neighbors lost their house. They think the problems were created by
greedy banks and gullible home buyers who thought interest-only mortgages
actually made sense. They don't know much else. They don't know that the
subprime mortgage crisis is part of a larger crisis in the derivatives market
that has enveloped the entire world.
Neither the corporate media nor politicians are telling the
country the true extent of our economic troubles. The country will be wholly
unprepared for the coming catastrophe. While foreigners are waiting for an
opportune moment to drop the dollar like a bad habit, the presidential
candidates say nothing and the people won't know what hit them when the hammer
falls.
The three trillion dollar cost of the Iraq occupation, and
giveaways to corporate cronies have sucked the treasury dry. Bush will have won
the day, and left the next president with no money for any new initiatives,
regardless of any campaign promises.
What will be the human cost when the bottom falls out?
Americans have no safety net, no job security, and no health insurance without
the jobs they are about to lose. There will be wide spread human misery among
the people less prepared than any other to cope with the crisis.
"The response to the loss
of domination will be more wars."
As always, black Americans will suffer more. The little
wealth we had, real estate, has
been taken away by the banking industry derivatives schemes that are at the
heart of this crisis. Those who were barely in the middle class won't be any
longer without assets or jobs to sustain them.
Trouble will spread outside of the nation as well. America
produces nothing but warfare with a military budget larger than that of every
other country on earth combined. The very existence of an Iran oil market,
based on Iran's currency, not dollars, may be enough to instigate Uncle Sam to
do the only thing it still can: wage war and kill many human beings. The
response to the loss of domination will be more wars.
The most basic understandings that Americans had of their
country are about to shaken to the very core. Despite all evidence to the
contrary, most still believe they have the best standard of living and the
strongest economy. Those beliefs have not been true for a long time and those
foolish ideas will be put to the test in a painful way.
"The economic upheaval will create crime, family
disruption and untold psychic damage."
The crisis will not just be financial. The economic upheaval
will create crime, family disruption and untold psychic damage. Think
New Orleans on a grand scale. If the corporate media function as they usually
do, they will mislead and misdirect with useless distraction.
What of the new president? In all likelihood that person
will not make any attempt to confront the situation honestly, but instead will
drop bombs in a futile effort to win a losing battle. Americans will be left to
their own devices without knowing what has happened or why. That will be the
true meltdown. A nation that thinks it is on top will quickly be on the bottom
with no way out. Euros in New York City will be the least of our problems.
Margaret Kimberley's
Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York
City, and can be reached via e-Mail at
Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an
edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com.
More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive
page.
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