Whose Recovery, and at Whose Cost?

[Joanne98]

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The bankster class went from comatose to all-powerful in a matter of months, discovering along the way how easy it is to loot trillions from the home-nation. “Taxpayers are committed to buttress the financial sector to the tune of $23.7 trillion – 1.7 times last year's GDP!” With fantastic riches so easily gained through domestic plunder, the banksters will abandon honest work forever.
Whose Recovery, and at Whose Cost?
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“The people have put at the bankers' disposal the equivalent of nearly two years of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product.”
The financial elite last week announced the beginning of the end of the Great Recession, a nonsensical declaration unless one is a member or servant of the overlords of capital. What the finance parasites should have said, and the real reason for the champagne-popping, is that the money-manipulating classes have been temporarily stabilized by a government commitment of the previously unimaginable sum of $23.7 trillion of the people's current and future wealth.
It was appropriate that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke delivered the news, since his agency, a creature of and effectively accountable only to the Wall Street bankers, has been responsible for shoveling much of the mountains of cash, credit and guarantees to the ruling oligarchy.
The people, without knowing it, had given the ruling class a reprieve from well-deserved extinction, by putting at the banker's disposal the equivalent of nearly two years of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the combined value of every good and service produced by every man, woman and child in the country. Considering the scale of the extraction – the largest transfer of wealth in human history by several orders of magnitude – the heist was accomplished with breathtaking speed.
Bloomberg financial news reported on March 31 that the government had “spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion...to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.” The rescue-the-rich package at that time amounted to about 90 percent of the nation's GDP for 2008: $14.2 trillion. Only a small fraction of the money went to “stimulate” the non-financial sector of the economy. Five months later, in July, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the U.S. Treasury, reported that taxpayers had committed to buttress the financial sector to the tune of $23.7 trillion – 1.7 times last year's GDP!
“The banksters have proven that they own the American state and can do with it whatever they wish.”
Administration spokesmen tried to pooh-pooh the special inspector general's figure, claiming only $2 trillion or less had actually been spent, so far. (For that matter, only a fraction of the much smaller “real economy” stimulus has been spent.) But that's beside the point. What we have witnessed in the span of less than a year, is the unfolding of a new chapter in the descent of finance capital. The oligarchy, economically paralyzed by the contradictions inherent in its own decay, nevertheless quickly marshaled the political power to seize every mechanism and prerogative of the state, and invented others along the way. In a seamless display of continuity between Bush and Obama, the oligarchy flaunted its effortless domination of both major political parties. Whatever portion the banksters ultimately consume of the $23.7 trillion unwittingly made available to them by the people of the United States, they have proven – most importantly to themselves, and beyond their own wildest pretensions – that they own the American state and can do with it whatever they wish. It goes without saying that the banksters will soon test the limits of their recently revealed superpowers, with nightmarish consequences.
Bankster Berserkers
Finance capital, having defeated, exported and devoured industrial capital in the United States, ceased to invest in productive enterprise, which could not satisfy its need for faster and ever-increasing rates of return. Finance capital creates nothing. At this stage in its disintegration, it is both a drag and a predator on society, on whose body the beast will feast until society or finance capital is destroyed. There can be only one acceptable outcome, but it is by no means guaranteed.
“For the banksters, there is no going back.”
continued>>>
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/whose-recovery-and-whose-cost

[Demeter]

1. The Poster could and should have replaced the missing line feeds

so that the text was readable. For example:


"The bankster class went from comatose to all-powerful in a matter of months, discovering along the way how easy it is to loot trillions from the home-nation.

“Taxpayers are committed to buttress the financial sector to the tune of $23.7 trillion – 1.7 times last year's GDP!”

With fantastic riches so easily gained through domestic plunder, the banksters will abandon honest work forever.

Whose Recovery, and at Whose Cost?

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“The people have put at the bankers' disposal the equivalent of nearly two years of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product.”

The financial elite last week announced the beginning of the end of the Great Recession, a nonsensical declaration unless one is a member or servant of the overlords of capital.

What the finance parasites should have said, and the real reason for the champagne-popping, is that the money-manipulating classes have been temporarily stabilized by a government commitment of the previously unimaginable sum of $23.7 trillion of the people's current and future wealth.


It was appropriate that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke delivered the news, since his agency, a creature of and effectively accountable only to the Wall Street bankers, has been responsible for shoveling much of the mountains of cash, credit and guarantees to the ruling oligarchy.

The people, without knowing it, had given the ruling class a reprieve from well-deserved extinction, by putting at the banker's disposal the equivalent of nearly two years of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the combined value of every good and service produced by every man, woman and child in the country. Considering the scale of the extraction – the largest transfer of wealth in human history by several orders of magnitude – the heist was accomplished with breathtaking speed.

Bloomberg financial news reported on March 31 that the government had “spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion...to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.” The rescue-the-rich package at that time amounted to about 90 percent of the nation's GDP for 2008: $14.2 trillion. Only a small fraction of the money went to “stimulate” the non-financial sector of the economy. Five months later, in July, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the U.S. Treasury, reported that taxpayers had committed to buttress the financial sector to the tune of $23.7 trillion – 1.7 times last year's GDP!
“The banksters have proven that they own the American state and can do with it whatever they wish.”

Administration spokesmen tried to pooh-pooh the special inspector general's figure, claiming only $2 trillion or less had actually been spent, so far. (For that matter, only a fraction of the much smaller “real economy” stimulus has been spent.) But that's beside the point.

What we have witnessed in the span of less than a year, is the unfolding of a new chapter in the descent of finance capital. The oligarchy, economically paralyzed by the contradictions inherent in its own decay, nevertheless quickly marshaled the political power to seize every mechanism and prerogative of the state, and invented others along the way.

In a seamless display of continuity between Bush and Obama, the oligarchy flaunted its effortless domination of both major political parties. Whatever portion the banksters ultimately consume of the $23.7 trillion unwittingly made available to them by the people of the United States, they have proven – most importantly to themselves, and beyond their own wildest pretensions – that they own the American state and can do with it whatever they wish.

It goes without saying that the banksters will soon test the limits of their recently revealed superpowers, with nightmarish consequences.

Bankster Berserkers

Finance capital, having defeated, exported and devoured industrial capital in the United States, ceased to invest in productive enterprise, which could not satisfy its need for faster and ever-increasing rates of return.

Finance capital creates nothing. At this stage in its disintegration, it is both a drag and a predator on society, on whose body the beast will feast until society or finance capital is destroyed. There can be only one acceptable outcome, but it is by no means guaranteed.

“For the banksters, there is no going back.”

[katty]

2. this says it all....

...Finance capital creates nothing. At this stage in its disintegration, it is both a drag and a predator on society, on whose body the beast will feast until society or finance capital is destroyed. There can be only one acceptable outcome, but it is by no means guaranteed.

“For the banksters, there is no going back.”


(the other article at this site: "Obamaland" is also quite a read)