A Case For Economic Democracy

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:



Published on Monday, May 18, 2009 by Share The World's Resources
A Case For Economic Democracy

Rather than continuing to pay off the very people who created this financial crisis, it's time to bite the bullet and start building an economic democracy featuring public banks and mutual funded holding companies

by Gary Dorrien


Today we are caught in a global economic crash and depression, a calamity affecting every nation connected to the global economy, especially poor nations lacking economic reserves. But this crisis also puts into play new possibilities for a democratic surge, perhaps toward economic democracy.

From the perspective of Economics 101, every bubble mania is basically alike, but from the beginning, this one has been harder to swallow, because it started with people who were just trying to buy a house of their own, who usually had no concept of predatory lending, and who had no say in the securitization boondoggle that spliced up various components of risk to trade them separately.

It seemed a blessing to get a low-rate mortgage. It was a mystery how the banks did it, but this was their business; we trusted they knew what they were doing. Our banks resold the mortgages to aggregators who bunched them up with thousands of other subprime mortgages, chopped the package into pieces and sold them as corporate bonds to parties looking for extra yield. Our mortgage payments paid for the interest on the bonds.

For twenty years securitizations and derivatives were great at concocting extra yield and allowing the banks to hide their debt. Broadly speaking, a derivative is any contract that derives its value from another underlying asset. More narrowly and pertinently, it's an instrument that allows investors to speculate on the future price of something without having to buy it. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/18-3

[Wednesdays]

1. K&R

:kick:

[truedelphi]

2. To do that, we would need a President who is not under the thumb of Wall Street

Not hard to figure out - really.

Look at who contributed to Obama's campaign. And look to his appointments. And look to the decisions made each day of the week by those appointments.

On the bright side - At least, every day, more and more people are catching on about what rotten appointments Obama has made. And how there is no accountabliliy.

(Google "alan grayson" and Coleman, and nine trillion dollars.)

But if it is true that nine trillion dollars has disappeared, are we gonna to see such dire consequences taht our economy gets set up in a long U shaped recovery? Or worse? Remember, economists were pissed off jsut five years ago about Bush's lousy two trillion dollar war in Iraq, citing irrevocable harm ot our economy from just two trillion bucks lost. Now multiple that loss by 4.5 ...

[ShortnFiery]

3. We need strong UNIONS. nt

[earcandle]

4. yes, please....