Great Meltdown Followed by Great Theft

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

"Even an honest government could never find, much less
reclaim, the national wealth that has already vanished."

When the bottom fell out of the U.S. economy, folks who once
thought all was fair in love, war and business were suddenly demanding
punishment for the high-rollers who had brought on the catastrophe through an
orgy of unregulated behavior. "Unregulated" is another word for "lawless."
Scared out of their wits, like townsfolk in the Old West after a raid by the
Jesse James-Cole Younger Gang, even conservative voices cried out for an
economic recovery rooted in the rule of law. Never again should the
"marketplace" be allowed to run amok, said the good citizens. That was back in
September.

In the brief space of three months, the Bush regime's
response to the disaster, with Barack Obama's blessing, has been at least as
lawless, chaotic and secretive as the decades of Wall Street debaucheries that
created the crisis in the first place. The U.S. Congress was essentially
terrorized into forking over $700 billion to George Bush's extortionist
Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, on pain of imminent socio-economic collapse
and martial law. Paulson immediately pulled a switch, sending the money
directly to his banking and insurance friends instead of buying up toxic
securities, as the Congress intended. Simultaneously, the Federal Reserve
seized full overlordship of the nation's current and future wealth, creating
trillions of dollars in new money at will with no accountability to anyone.
More than $8 trillion of the people's money has been set in motion - into whose
pockets, nobody knows.

"The Bush regime's response to the disaster has been at
least as lawless, chaotic and secretive as the decades of Wall Street
debaucheries that created the crisis in the first place."

The lawlessness that led to financial meltdown threatens to
be eclipsed by the lawlessness of attempted "recovery." The only thing
transparent about the entire fiasco is that it is transparently crooked - a
frenzy of looting on a scale so massive, even an honest government could never
find, much less reclaim, the national wealth that has already vanished. And the
lame duck Bush administration is the antithesis of an honest government.

Simply staunching the flow of the people's treasure would
require an army of forensic financial investigators armed with irresistible
subpoena powers and backed by the combined authority of the executive and
legislative branches, plus a cooperative judiciary. Instead, a four-person,
congressionally-appointed panel stands between the most voracious thieves ever
assembled, and the wealth of a nation.

The Congressional Oversight
Panel set up a web site on December 16, and expects to publish its first
report on January 9. The panel is comprised of a Harvard consumer advocate, a
Republican congressman, the superintendent of New York banks, and an a labor
lawyer. The tiny crew has no subpoena power, but gets numbers-crunching backup
from the General Accounting Office. Their mandate is to trace what's been spent
of the $700 billion Secretary Paulson bamboozled from the Congress: "Who got
the money, what have they done with it, how has it helped the country and how
has it helped ordinary people?"

Secretary Paulsen has made the panel's job nearly
impossible, by outsourcing the management of the bailout money to a host of
private companies, including the same firms that are being bailed out. The
money's whereabouts is shrouded in secrecy, with contracts blacked out. But who
ya gonna call? Barack Obama? Remember, he co-signed for the bailout.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted
at [email protected].

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