The financial wizards of the One Percent have so many opaque weapons they use to bilk the public without the public even suspecting what is happening. They are very much like highly skilled pickpockets. This article explores their use of one such weapon--interest rate swaps:
...while local and state governments have been forced to cut back on crucial services, wealthy banks and investment firms are being padded with enormous cash flows sucked directly from the already strained budgets of cities, counties, and public agencies.Well, maybe it was all an unfortunate mistake. After all, the big banks made some bad bets, too, and nearly went bankrupt.
However, because the big banks are owned by the One Percent, the political operatives of the One Percent went promptly to work and claimed that they were too big to fail, and used their control of the government to bail out the banks using tax money from the 99 Percent. Whereas local governments that serve the needs of the 99 Percent apparently are not regarded as too big to fail, therefore nothing is done to relieve them of debts resulting from their bad bets.
