The Savings and Loan debacle was a mere trial run
The poor are once more the targets of rabid demonization: "Sub-Prime mortgages have caused the current collapse of the Western economic infrastructure." Failure to repay mortgages on small homes sold to working class families is being blamed for the loss of trillions of dollars worldwide. An upside down logic is insisting now that the poorest five percent of the population has the power to smash the global fiscal system.
Talking heads and media editors chatter endlessly without mentioning the role of predator agents, inflated fees and commissions -- and the definition of "credit default swaps." Repeatedly ignored is the simple truth stated by New York Times reporter, David Leonhardt, on page one of the Times' Week In Review section of the Sunday paper, October 12, 2008: "Debt built up, and then laid low, modern Wall Street, where firms borrowed $30 for every $1 they owned."
The best and the brightest -- from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Wharton, Stanford -- bought and sold ghost assets. Under the cover of a secret calculus and mysterious logarithms they pretended to work and paid themselves monster bonuses. Any reasonable observer of this white-collar orgy must conclude that it was not accidental or spontaneous.
Indeed, the present collapse, which will surely devour more than a trillion taxpayer dollars within the next six months, utilized an earlier model -- the Savings and Loans swindle. Entering Congress in 1983, over the next ten years, I became a spectator watching a bailout drama so thoroughly plotted that there were seldom any close votes and constituents got so little information that mass voter anger was smothered. It was a bi-partisan cover-up implemented in escalating increments and protected by the camouflaging double-speak of Ayn Rand's disciple, the nation's official economic wizard, Alan Greenspan.
Without any participation of Congress it began with the rescue of a big northeastern bank by FDIC Czar Seidman. Millions of taxpayer dollars were provided to cover more than the federally guaranteed deposits. Before this form of fixing was finally finished the monster Arizona financier, friend of John McCain, Charles Keating, acquired billions for the bailout of his bank. In total the Savings and Loans bailout has cost the nation more than a trillion dollars. This well-grounded estimate is the best that can be reported since our superpower government has surrendered to the notion that this debacle was "too big to audit".
An example of further lessons learned from the S&L racket is about to be exhibited as Secretary Paulson's aides commence the sale of the toxic items, the ghost assets. The same fast-buck thugs who have bludgeoned Wall Street into panic will now be recruited to oversee and to execute the rescue mission. As it has been in the case of the overrated and wrongfully praised S&L Resolution Trust Corporation, new million dollar profits will be routed to the partners of the current perpetrators.
A number of wise voices have described the situation bluntly but accurately: "Wall Street wants to privatize the rewards and socialize the risks". In one generation Americans are allowing the same tribe of elite con men to rip us off twice. The present fiscal tsunami is a monster mutation of the S&L seed virus. The Congressional Record will show that only a few congresspersons repeatedly voiced their opposition to the S&L giveaway. As one of the marginalized dissidents I poured some of my frustrations into RAP poetry. On review I find that it is an emotional chronicle illustrating how history sadly repeats itself:
Congressional Record Date - April 19, 1990 - "The S&L Riot"
Congressional Record Date - July 20, 1990 - The S&L RAP
Congressional Record Date - September 13, 1990 - Drug Test After Each S&L Wreck
Congressional Record Date - October 22, 1990 - The Star Gang of Rangers
Congressional Record Date - May 7, 1991 - The FBI Is Living A Lie
Congressional Record Date - November 22, 1991 - The Seventy Billion Dollar Robbery
Congressional Record Date - May 7, 1992 - The Riot at the Mint Up-Dated
The S&L Riot
But you gotta be a gent
To break in here only MBAs
You must comprehend their deregulated ways.
There's a riot at the mint!
Don't just stand there
Kick the treasury door down
You know the auditors promised
That they wouldn't come around.
Despite bright daylight they'll take every cent
There's a riot at the mint!
No cop sirens will wail
No nice gents will they jail.
There's a riot at the mint!
You can't hole up here with a Honda
Bring your Lincoln, Cadillac, Mercedes or Rolls Royce.
Champagne, Caviar - the very best when they rejoice.
Reagan was the host
Who gave them the most
But there's a new chump now
Hurry old boys wherever you are
Push the RTC to give more milk
Wrap your rotten bankruptcy in priceless silk
There's a riot at the mint!
You must comprehend their deregulated ways.
No loot for anybody but MBAs.
There's a riot at the mint!
Don't you wish you were a gent?
Thoroughbreds race to the scene
All of their riders are mean.
When our mint is picked clean
Hear these haughty hogs all scream
That there's no free lunch.
Only this plump bunch
Deserves a national free lunch
There's a riot at the mint!
None of these gents plan to repent
This rape is obscene
These gents are real mean
Keep your children inside
Teach them true national pride.
There's a riot at the mint!
Americans must immediately wake up! Massive, unmitigated, targeted, indignation is needed to stop the Wall Street pillaging. Send a mandate to every congressperson: "You should not vote to increase the national debt except for school construction, bridge and road building, and revenue-sharing with the states and localities. Dollars for the people!"