In Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, she enumerates the process wherein Big Business uses disasters, both man-made (like Iraq) and naturally occurring (like the East Indian tsunami disaster) to capitalize on human pain and suffering. The thought-line of these organized neo-feudal (aka neo-con) thefts is pretty easy to follow once you understand that disaster means profit for purveyors of pain. Reading Klein's book is like putting on a pair of red/blue glasses at a 3D movie. A bit shocking at first, but quite revealing!
Let's put on a pair of those 3D shades and look at the banking sector's latest catastrophe: Bradford & Bingley
This disaster banking incident will make bankers (UBS and Citi) rich, but make the British economy poorer. This follows on the heels of the Northern Rock disaster and it's coming a little ahead of the soon to be Alliance and Leicester disaster.
As we read in this piece from the Telegraph, UK predatory loan terrorist Bradford & Bingley, who only last year was making "120%" mortgage loans guaranteeing borrowers that they would be in negative equity or "upside down" even before the ink dried on their contracts, is being recapitalized after the planned-disaster that was its comeuppance.
Insiders, the ones who, in part, are responsible for the mess, are about to pick up a massive pay day: a 14% fee for putting back together what they broke including a guaranteed £9m fee for just taking the meeting about what to do about the bank's collapse that they helped ensure by participating in a massive ponzi-scheme mortgage loan fraud.
It's not capitalism, it's disaster capitalism and it's paving the way toward neo-feudalism as the bankers at the top carve out 100% of society's equity built up over the past two hundred years and replace it with debt.
In a related story, here's me talking about the global credit markets and the current food crisis on Al Jazeera today, I come in at 5:50 minutes into video.
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Re-capitalized?
With what?
More debt that some private central bankers are making available to keep the scheme going just a little bit longer.
I know it's just me, but I think we're going to need a Nurenberg-type international court trial of the world's financial capitalist leaders that have ridden the global FINANCIAL economy into the pits, really, ever since Bretton Woods, as far as I am concerned.
To me, all capitalism is a form of disaster capitalism.
What we need is a government that believes in free enterprise, which must include real limits on both personal and corporate wealth.
Otherwise, turn the page.
I wanted to call your attention to this story in the Guardian today, where they say that Citigroup "acted disgracefully" and 'ran a mile' from their obligation to underwrite the Bradford and Bingley rights offering. They, however, did not return their $18 million fee.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/05/citigroup.bradfordbingleybusiness
It sounds like it is going to be under investigation by the UK financial authority.
Not that they will do anything . . .
We're not there by a long shot, but it's coming.
Take Starbucks at market capitalization, really? The background music is "ship of fools" and the philosophical enjoinder is " a fool and his money go separate ways".
401(k) plans...the upcoming crisis? Money is an abstraction and value is conditional, and interest rates...well, let's say that all depends.