I've already discussed Ireland, where people are fleeing in search of jobs elsewhere. Here, success is being defined by the 1%.
When Communism collapsed in Russia, Yeltsin made things safe for the Oligarchs (the 17 people who because sudden billionaires), then turned the government over to Putin. But for the average Russian, things were much better under Communism. Most people are so desperate to survive they can't spare any effort to see how their neighbor is doing and the sense of community has collapsed. We can do nothing is true because "we" no longer exists.
That's why, when Russians protested the recent election, the chant was "We exist!"
Iceland was hit hard by the financial collapse in 2008. But they took a different route. The let the banks fail. They bailed out the citizens. They kept the social contract intact. They severed ties between corporations and the government, rewriting the constitution to do so. And they are doing just fine today. Success was defined by the 99%.
Hunter of DailyKos discusses austerity.
The current fad is to declare that austerity, in the form of slashed budgets, slashed jobs, a slashed tax based and so on will magically produce the opposite of all those things, as wealthy benefactors rush in to spend all the new money you have given them, create jobs creating new products nobody can afford to buy, and, I don’t know, start rebuilding infrastructure out of the goodness of their hearts. It is never clear, and nor is it honest: it is predicated on the danger of the Scary Deficit Monster, who was not at all scary during the time he was being fed by these same politicians and think-tank prophets, but who, like any false god, just happens to hate all the same things that his worshippers do.As long as "we" -- a vibrant community -- exists there is a way out.
The Occupy movement is about to make a big splash -- they will enter a "human float" in the Rose Parade and might get 1-4 thousand participants. Why Occupy the Rose Parade? 50 million viewers in America, 200 million worldwide. In addition, the parade has become too corporatized (note how many corporations sponsor floats) and militarized (this year's Grand Marshall is an Iraq vet).
Critics have said the Occupy movement had no goals or demands. The Occupy the Rose Parade spells out 5 specific demands.
* Ban corporate cash from the election process.
* Separate investment and commercial banking functions (restore "Glass-Steagal").
* Punish the CEOs and banks that caused the dot-com bust and the 2008 economic collapse.
* Restore the Capital Gains Tax to 30% as it was before Bush II.
* Foreclosure relief.
A reminder -- because New Year's Day is a Sunday the parade will be on Monday.
A big settlement with Bank of America has been announced. It says that Countrywide, now a subsidiary of BofA, discriminated against blacks and Latinos by pushing them into costlier mortgages. Richard Eskow of Campaign for America's Future pulls it apart.
* Yes, the deal requires that a third-party settlement administrator distribute the money to those affected. That's good. Alas, BofA gets to choose the administrator.
* The pot of money $335 million isn't big enough. Countrywide made millions of loans and sucked perhaps an extra $10,000 out of each one. The pot may reimburse 35,000 victims, not millions.
* The deal doesn't require admitting wrongdoing and shields the bank from investigation.
* The deal requires Countrywide to not discriminate in its lending practices -- for 4 years. It does not require BofA to change its practices.
* This is only one small type of fraud committed by Countrywide and BofA.
* The settlement amount is peanuts to BofA. In the bailout BofA made $1.5 billion from the loans from the government. The settlement pot is 1/5 of that.
* The bank is still too big to fail -- or to prosecute. There are six such banks and BofA is reportedly the worst of the bunch, still run by the perpetrators and still able to bring down the economy.
No comments:
Post a Comment