It always amazes me how things can get started on the right foot and then later get morphed into an absolute disaster. I really don’t know how to describe it. In a recent controversial speech, Michael Moore (hated by conservatives and loved by progressives or liberals — whatever), made a statement that the non rich people in the USA are being herded and manipulated by the right wing conservatives under the false assumption that the USA is broke and that there is plenty of money for social programs. You can be sure that his speech caused quite a stir and caused Limbaugh, Hannity, Levine, Beck and others to head for the outhouse with severe stomach pains.
To fully and correctly understand what is happening, it is important to know all sides of the argument or you will not be able to protect yourself from what is surely coming this way. The pressure cooker called the U.S. debt driven economy has been building up steam for a very long time, about as long as I can remember and I am approaching 70 years of age (for me, a blessing or a curse?). Like the people of old Rome, England and Spain with their far away colonies, eventually the U.S. corporations and people for the most part, became fat, wealthy and very lazy. By comparison, the old world colonies became stronger (like our own USA world economic alliances) and broke away from the mother countries. The USA never officially set up colonies, but you better believe that they did so economically by making the poorer countries dependent on U.S. trade. For example, the U.S. corporations extracted massive amounts of Aluminum bauxite from Jamaica, copper from Chile and oil from Venezuela and the middle east (and raw materials from all over the world) for decades before these countries nationalized their raw materials and started charging market rates instead of substantially below market rates that U.S. company’s were paying them. These examples are the tip of the iceberg and everything from produce to raw materials was theirs for the U.S. companies to take and profit from. Then one by one, these countries grew up and reclaimed their assets and joined the world market. Combined with the internet, the fall of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe together with the new totalitarian brand of capitalism now being used by China, the good life shifted to the former poor countries. At the same time, the costs began to rise and profit margins began falling for those U.S. companies who enjoyed the former benefits of cheap raw materials and labor, and the U.S.A. began to borrow and inflate the money supply in order to keep up the living standard enjoyed by most Americans – this all happened between 1970 through the present.
So what did the corporations and captains of industry in the U.S.A. do? They closed many of the factories in the U.S.A. beginning in the latter 20th century and used foreign labor and manufacturing to temporarily regain their lost profitability. In the late 1990’s the economists boasted that the USA was becoming a “service economy” and did not need manufacturing. Years ago, when I heard these statements, I thought to myself “what load of c-r-a-p are these idiots trying to feed us. Don’t they realize that our factories are the backbone of the US economy and in WWII these factories were immediately converted to supply our war effort and the reason why we overcame Japan and Germany in the long run. Then to make matters worse, corporations across the board began converting service jobs from the USA to places like Indonesia and India. The result of all this outsourcing of jobs contributed greatly to the decline of the U.S. economy in the early 21st century which was dramatically undermined by the bank sponsored U.S. Housing bust (the death blow – et tu Brute – as Julius Ceaser cried as the knife pierced his heart).
All of this outsourcing has further weakened the American middle class and the irony now is that when a homeowner falls into default with the BANK OF AMERICA and phones BofA to discuss the problem, they reach the “Bank of American Home Retention Department” and they will have a merry conversation with the new typical Bank of America employees: Mohammed, Gunga Din or Muhat (all living and working for the BANK OF AMERICA in prosperous INDIA) about what American homeowners can do to avoid or stop a foreclosure (Bank of America really shows its loyalty to Americans, Right?). Then a few weeks later, the INDIA reps send you a HAMP application, courtesy of our always understanding and unaware President Barack Obama. Despite all the the rhetoric, I believe that President Obama and his advisors really do not fully understand the causes, effects or injustices of the U.S. foreclosure crisis. If you have never read a HAMP application, you should and it will immediately make you realize why HAMP has been a total failure. By signing HAMP, the troubled homeowner must agree to recognize the Bank and the Federal Treasury (IRS) as partners and now after paying your mortgage on time for years and years, you have to prove to them that you are WORTHY (can you say WAYNE’S WORLD?) of getting a modification. By the government teaming up with the banks under HAMP, If a troubled homeowner is jobless or has lost income due to the recession, that homeowner will not get help or a modification as they like to call it and the defaulted homeowner will get foreclosed because of the income requirements. Here we have a homeowner in trouble because of a recession which in part was caused by his lender, losses his means of support and then cannot get help because of it…Hmmmm? By the way, when a troubled homeowner signs the HAMP application, that homeowner has to disclose and bare all, so the banks don’t have to worry about discovery and in foreclosure the bank will just bulldoze its way to the home. But wait? Does HAMP take into consideration that the BANK may have sold their interest in that home years ago through Wall Street securitization? HAMP allows the Banks to escape that key hurdle “does the lender or service company have the legal ownership right to foreclose on a homeowner? Especially if it was sold several times to unknown investors. Did your bank assign their mortgage rights to the MERS corporation (look it up in Wikipedia) to avoid county transfer taxes? Did the new owners of that mortgage loan in Europe, the Mid East or Far East contract with the Bank’s service company giving them the right to collect and deposit your mortgage payment? Since the original lender sold the original mortgage, where is money going that homeowners not in default are paying? Are mortgage payments being paid each month to the rightful owner(s), possibly an overseas investor? If not paid to the rightful owner(s), will that owner demand payment from you in the future if they discover that the bank who does not own the mortgage illegally pocketed their money? All these questions and no answers from President Obama’s inadequately structured HAMP program, since with HAMP the bank does NOT have to answer these questions. The banks love HAMP because HAMP gives the the power to control, squeeze and destruct the homeowners all backed by the power of the U.S. Government.
Ok, sorry for the in depth explanation of the ill-fated HAMP(which has already been voted by the House of Representatives to repeal and end) but it is a great set of examples of how U.S. Corporate actions combined with infantile political decisions from a President who should know better works to punish the average American citizen in trouble because of job and income loss caused directly from the banks crazy lending and gambling on Wall Street. As I have stated in other articles I’ve written: What is happening to the USA is no longer an issue of race or political affiliation, this is about MONEY. Who has it will have the right to survive and those who don’t have it will be cast into a living hell regardless of education or past experience, and guess what? Nobody will help and nobody will care because you will be considered by those in power as useless vermin and can die for all the privileged moneyholders care. Harsh statements? not really because these statements are simply a reflection of the truth as now unfolding before your very eyes.
The biggest problem this country is now facing is that they are caught between idiots on the left and idiots on the right. Question is, WHICH GROUP OF IDIOTS IS WORSE? If President Obama was a thinking gracious man, he would step down from the Presidency and allow a more middle of the road person to run for the top office. Nancy Pelosi, Bawny Fwank and that guy Hairy Reed should also resign from office because they failed miserably to understand the true plight of America and the middle class and are lucky that they haven’t been sent to jail. The Republican conservative’s road into town this past November 2010, aided by the “fed up with Obama” tea party with promises to save the government from Obama. End the stupid health care bill, curb the union waste, stop the government spend excesses which are destroying the country and balance the budget–all noble words and not easy. Well, it’s turned from a rescue mission to an out and out witch hunt and nothing is sacred with the conservatives. Hey, wait until they decide to end medicare and social security – COMING SOON. Will it matter to these people ….Hell no! cause they have enough money to survive. Check out Rush Limbaugh’s annual net income, syndication contracts and endorsements. Hey this is capitalism, right? Rush is working hard, sweating for long hard hours in the sun earning his hundreds of millions of dollars and has the right to crush anybody who doesn’t have that kind of money. Taxes you say? Rush says that taxing the rich (people like Rush) hurts incentive and causes joblessness. Hmmmmm. consider that taxes for the rich have been at historical lows for nearly ten years now and joblessness has never been higher. The goal of the Republican conservatives is to create a country fit only for a privileged few to live. Yes, it will be messy but if the Republicans control the government, they control the military (shades of Gadaffi or Ghadafi …how the hell do you spell his name anyway?). Armed insurrections by dissident liberals…NO PROBLEM, we’ll just crush the buggers with all this modern technology we’ve been using for years in Iraq and Afganistan. In fact, the conservatives will privatize prisons and make a business of it complete with prison farms to produce crops to feed the privileged. Gun control, a liberal passion will reverse roles and the conservatives will want gun control….my prediction.
SUMMARY: Like a forest fire which claims all life over hundreds of acres and clears the land, perhaps this is what it will take to eventually straighten out the USA. Like a landscape architect, who knows that a beautiful landscape must be weeded, trimmed and controlled to prevent it from turning into a jungle, I believe in capitalism because it’s like that landscape and that it can survive positively if properly balanced by use of carefully thought out regulation. Without regulations, a capitalist society becomes an elimination contest until the last man and or richest company is left standing, for that is the nature of pure unregulated conservative style competition. However, before that time gets close we could possibly have a civil war that will set a precedent for unbridled violence in all the history books. The goals in this country should always be directed at the betterment and well being of the MAJORITY and not just for a PRIVILEGED FEW. This country will never survive as long as we are divided, and a fight between the rich and poor will decide nothing but mutual destruction and sadness for all. There has to be a middle ground to all this madness. Perhaps we should stop, think and pray to God to give us all wisdom, understanding and strength to work together towards a better, stronger America.