If Capital Goes on Strike….Nationalize the Banks

McCamy Taylor

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Wed Sep-22-10 01:44 PM
Original message

If Capital Goes on Strike….Nationalize the Banks

Edited on Wed Sep-22-10 01:50 PM by McCamy Taylor

If the recession is now over and the economy is growing again, why isn’t it making more jobs? A number of economists have recently predicted/noted a “capital strike”. The phrase was coined during the Great Depression to describe the way that banks and others with lots of money refused to invest in ventures that would create jobs. The capitalists justified their behavior by claiming that FDR had offended them by treating them like children. They wanted respect, damn it! And they were prepared to hold their breath (and withhold their---strike that--- our money) until the whole nation was blue in the face.

History just keeps repeating itself.

First, we have Senator Phil Gramm, who succeeded in rolling back Depression era banking regulations designed to prevent dangerous market speculation with our money. Then, we have the Bush administration which protected the Banksters from state and local regulation as they speculated with our money. The Banksters were so greedy that they even invested our money foolishly---then made bets that our investments would go sour. The Banks wrote bad loans to folks who hired the homeless to “buy” houses at inflated prices. They also tricked ordinary homebuyers into signing mortgages that they could never pay off. The result? The real estate price bubble, which is now causing folks all across the country to lose their homes, which the Banksters and their buddies are snatching up at bargain prices. They denied money to small businesses, which went under, costing folks their jobs. They became loan sharks, replacing ordinary (federally regulated) lending for folks in financial trouble with credit card “loans” that carried sky high interest rates---and they got Congress to agree that such “loans” could never be nullified through bankruptcy. Their right wing think tanks worked hard to defeat universal health care, because sickness is a huge cause of debt in this country right now----and if Americans are uninsured, the Banksters can reap a windfall profit of 20-30% interest (via credit card debt) on all that medical care---

If you still are not convinced that the Banksters are engaged in racketeering and a conspiracy to take over our country, then consider this. In the waning days of the Bush administration, the banking community (which claims to want to be treated like an adult) came whining to the Republican commander-in-chief demanding a federal bailout. Gimme, gimme, gimme! And Bush, whose family once conspired with JP Morgan to fund Hitler’s military rise, got on national television and swore that the sky would fall if we did not give even more of our money to the Banksters.

The country was divided. But no one wanted to be responsible for another Great Depression. And so, our piggy banks were emptied and the Banksters got their money. They swore that they would use it to free up credit. They swore that American small business would get the capital infusion it needed to compete with the big multinational corporations. They swore that they would help homeowners refinance their mortgages so that they could stay in their houses---

They lied. The money was spent on executive bonuses and the rest is being used as a slush fund to reward the party of the man who gave them all the money. I expect that Karl Rove was the go between---his specialty is raising money for the GOP.

According to fairly reputable economists, the economy is now growing again. There is no reason for the banks to be scared to invest our money in the future of our country. But, as their counterparts did in the 1930s, the nations Banksters have decided to stage a capital strike. Their demands?

From the WSJ, just days after Obama was sworn into office last year:

Americans don't want to stay on strike. They want to take risks, to start companies, to invest for their futures. The political class can help by repairing the damage to the financial system, but it will only delay a recovery if it attempts to dominate ever larger parts of the economy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123336321034435421.html

If that does not make much sense, I will make it a little more clear:

Banksters don't want to stay on strike. They want to take risks, to start companies, to invest for their futures. The hard working people of the United States can help by repairing the damage to the financial system, but they will only delay a recovery if they attempt to dominate ever larger parts of the economy.

In other words, the banks---the biggest capital holders in the country---declared a strike in the pages of the WSJ just days after Obama took office. They vowed to hold onto our money, stiffling the effort to create jobs, until we, the American people agreed to give up our protections. You know, like the right to strike for better wages. Cold blooded sons of bitches, aren’t they?

Candidate Obama said that he admired President Ronald Reagan. The Gipper-in-chief is remembered for the mass firing of the nation’s air traffic controllers when they went on strike. Reagan claimed that their behavior was greedy and selfish. He said that national security was at stake.

The same can be said for the Banksters, who are sitting on billions of dollars of our bailout money and billions of dollars of our savings. They have staged a wild cat strike. They have made their demands clear. Either get rid of unions, get rid of worker protections, get rid of antidiscrimination laws, get rid of taxes on the wealthy, get rid of the public education system, get rid of the idea that the average American worker has any right to life, liberty and happiness---

And then they will toss us a few crumbs.

If Obama really wants to do the “Reagan” thing, he will respond by nationalizing the banks, so that we can start putting our money to work helping our economy.