"The wealthy, not only by private fraud but also by common laws, do every day pluck and snatch away from the people some part of their daily living. Therefore, when I consider and weigh in my mind these commonwealths which nowadays do flourish, I perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men in procuring their own commodities under the name and authority of the commonwealth.

They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely without fear of losing that which they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labor of the people for as little money and effort as possible."

Thomas More, Utopia

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Pssst! Can you spare a dime?

Isn't it refreshing to know that the eagle eyes over at the Wall Street Journal, in fact, the US financial media in general is looking out for those of us who rely on our banking system? The collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market and its attendant ill effects have negatively impacted US banks to such an extent that they were recently forced to secretly borrow money from the Fed, as much as 50 billion dollars to date. That's Fed as in taxpayer. This disturbing fact was a "secret" because it wasn't published in the US. Unless you were a subscriber to the London Financial Times you missed it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heard on news today home mortgage defaults are up 52 per cent!! Don't see that on SCC. Nope, no siree, Bob.

It's only going to get worse too. The next president, no matter who or what party, is in for some bad times.

leftisthebest

Coldtype said...

What's worst is that Washington's "solutions" don't address any of the core defects in the financial industry at all. I think I'll post a piece I read on Counter-punch the other day about this very subject.