Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, April 16, 2021

• Vaccine Passports in a Failed State by Margaret Kimberley from Black Agenda Report.
  

• 💥The CIA Used To Infiltrate The Media. Now The CIA Is The Media. By Australian independent blogger Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog. This is a best post.
  

Back in the good old days, when things were more innocent and simple, the psychopathic Central Intelligence Agency had to covertly infiltrate the news media to manipulate the information Americans were consuming about their nation and the world. Nowadays, there is no meaningful separation between the news media and the CIA at all.

 

They not only have taken over media corporations, but they and other agents of the ruling capitalist class have set up fake left media organizations and websites (Spectre is a recent prime example) posing as left-wing organizations critical of US interests but really serving as issue gatekeepers to the ruling class. Amy Goodman and her weblog "Democracy Now!" is a prime example. Goodman does not allow anyone on her show that is critical of the government's narrative on 9/11 or the major assassinations (John or Robert Kennedy or ML King). As I've reported in 2015 Goodman and her show along with others has been generously funded by "philanthropic" organizations. Wikipedia is another example (See this, this, this, this, and this.) Also, The Intercept, owned by billionaire Pierre Omidyar, is another similar project. But probably worst of all, they've revised history books, history as portrayed in films, etc. to reflect their self-serving propaganda.

• The Hawks Who Want War With Iran Are Working Overtime by Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold from Jacobin. My reaction: The hawks are working overtime to stave off defeat everywhere that threatens their US/Anglo/Zionist Empire--and they are threatened everywhere. Remember "America is back!" As the transnational capitalist directors of the Empire are seeing their empire go into decline, their actions speak of desperation. Because we as families enjoyed some of the stolen wealth because of residing in an empire, we citizens of the Empire are destined to go down to defeat with them.

• Contrary to What Biden Said, U.S. Warfare in Afghanistan is Set to Continue by Norman Solomon from CounterPunch. (Note: You may also be interested in an article entitled "White House Won’t Say If Special Forces Will Leave Afghanistan Under Biden’s Withdrawal Plan"). My brief commentary follows: 

The Empire's appointed leaders cannot ever tell the truth because if they told the truth we would immediately rebel. So, they continue to lie to us and we continue to believe them ... as long as enough of their goodies pour in. Ah, but there is the catch! The Covid-19 pandemic is the perfect excuse that the ruling class has for the deterioration of the economy.

 

💥If you want to hear an important, but longer analysis and related matters by a well-known socialist, Brian Becker, you should listen to his 33 minute interview on Lee Camp's show Redacted Tonight via a YouTube video. This is a best post.

• Biden Re-Hires Trump's Ambassador to RUSSIA! featuring Jimmy Dore and company (Aaron Maté and Ron Placone) using Biden's inconsistent policy to comedic effect, but also Maté offers a serious interpretation.

• Addressing America’s Homelessness and Squalor: What We Could Do If Cared by Eleanor Goldfield from Mint Press News (based in Minneapolis).
  

• Just Like in the US, Policing in Israel is Rooted in Racist Violence by Jessica Buxbaum from Mint Press News.
  

• Australia Buries Afghan War Crimes, Toes U.S. Hostile Line on China by Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation. My reaction: Of course, Australia being an integral part of the former British Empire, they are now an integral part of the existing US/Anglo/Zionist Empire and they follow the diktats of the transnational capitalist directors of the Empire.

• The CIA Armed Libyan Terrorists with Carlton Meyer narrating a 10:53m report from a YouTube channel "Tales of the Empire" about Edwin Wilson, a former CIA agent, who was caught supplying Libyan terrorists with explosives.
  

• Free Trade Is Code For Forced Trade by Rod Driver from his weblog Elephants in the Room.
  

• Iran & Russia set to sign comprehensive strategic agreement: TV Report from Middle East Observer.
  

• How a US-led Un-Holly Alliance is Preventing Syria’s Normalisation by Salman Rafi Sheikh from New Eastern Outlook. 

• The Silencing of the Lambs by Andrea Halewood from Off-Guardian.
  

• When We Go Extinct by Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist who has focused on the climate crisis, from his YouTube channel. 

Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, November 29, 2020

• 75% of the $454 Billion CARES Act Money Never Went to the Fed; It Was Invested by a Mnuchin Slush Fund Called the ESF by Pam and Russ Martens from their weblog Wall Street on Parade. 

• Mad Dog Mattis not so mad with Globalist agenda, says America First is over (from The Duran) featuring Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris discussing Mattis's statement reported by RT: "General James Mattis wants to replace ‘America First’…with alliances that see ‘America equal, but more equal than others’" I don't think it is necessary to listen to more than eight minutes of this video. My criticism follows: 

They lampoon Mattis for making these statements which he obviously made to please the incoming administration of neoliberalists ("globalists", transnational interests of global corporations and finance organizations). What these two discussants don't understand is that the transnational capitalist class of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire function in so many countries, and they don't like business dealings with so many countries which have different tariffs and regulations. For their convenience, they want them all to be the same. 

These capitalists (financiers, CEOs of corporations, etc.) have homes in many countries in which they travel to by private jets (without the necessity of wearing masks, social distancing, etc.), and they naturally see the world differently. They have no allegiance to any one nation, but they hold allegiance to the Empire which largely controls most of these more peripheral countries. The Empire controls most of these countries because they furnish them loans to them to buy their products. Most of the nations controlled by the Empire are indebted up to their necks in international finance organizations like the IMF, World Bank, and all the Western banks. These finance people of the Empire largely control the foreign and many domestic policies of these peripheral nations, and they are quintessentially neoliberals or "globalists".

• No Longer Trust ‘Elections’ in ‘Democracies’ by Eric Zuesse and posted on Paul Craig Roberts. 

• A Short Comment on a Big Danger [surveillance] by Jack Rasmus from his weblog. [My insertion.]
  

• Fascism - America's DNA featuring Prof. Gabriel Rockhil explaining fascism to host Chris Hodges on the latter's RT channel of YouTube. This is a best post. Although Hedges, according to his training in American academia, likes to present fascism as being exemplified by Trump and racist organizations (which tend to divide workers), Rockhill makes clear the ideological necessity of fascist-capitalism to ally itself with anti-worker organizations and ideologies influenced by socialist and communist parties who vigorously oppose private ownership of the economy or any government that serves the needs of the general public rather than the needs of capitalists. Hence, fascism is in the DNA of American capitalism.
  

• COVID DATA: Suppress the data that does not fit the narrative! posted and commentary by "FreeSpeechFan" from The Duran using a YouTube post from the Toronto Sun.

• COVID-19 Has A 99.95% Survival Rate For People Under 70 – Stanford Professor of Medicine by Arjun Walia from Collective Evolution.

• Biggest HYPOCRITE Award: Andrew CUOMO! by Jimmy Dore (of the Jimmy Dore Show using his YouTube channel) satirizing Cuomo as a hypocrite because he was caught lying to his TV audience just days before Thanksgiving.

• “Dark Winter”: Millions of Americans Are Expected to Lose Their Homes by AJ Nelson from We Are Change.

• The Planet Cannot Begin to Heal Until We Rip the Mask off the West’s War Machine by Jonathan Cook from Dissident Voice.
  

• Blinded by a Blizzard of Data by Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan from American Institute for Economic Research.

... in May and June, although the number of new Covid cases steadily rose, the percentage of tests coming back positive declined, indicating that the rising case numbers were due less to increased cases than to increased testing. And while the media says (correctly) that the number of daily cases in November is setting records, they do not report that this is largely due to increased testing. The fraction of tests that are coming back positive, while rising, is on par with what the US experienced in mid May. 

We can blame this persistent lack of context on a perfect storm of politicians seeking to be “doing something,” media seeking to sell advertising, and people paying enough attention to be scared, but not enough to understand.

The authors blame the distorted presentation of data on the lack of context. But there are many contributing factors such as the faulty test of PCR (see this, this, and this from the inventor of the PCR test.) I regard the lack of context and all other distortions of data to have been deliberately performed by the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire's transnational (neoliberal) ruling class that has engaged in a new "9/11" project to spread fear among populations in order to prepare the groundwork for the Great Reset. The success that the Empire's ruling class has had with their exaggerated corona crisis is an illustration of their comprehensive power that I've often written about.

• ‘How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship, Hate Journalism’ by Dr. Joseph Mercola from Children's Health Defense.
  

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, October 20, 2020

• Walking Into A Nuclear Nightmare by Christopher Black (Canadian human rights lawyer) from New Eastern Outlook.

• US Seeks to Prolong Terrorism in Syria, Not Defeat It by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook. (Note: I regard Cartalucci, who is living in Thailand, a very reliable source. I have often posted his articles over the last 10+ years because he always backs up his arguments with documentation. If you liked this article and if your interested in Thailand, you may also be interested in the latest article by this author from his website.)

• Palestine – Anniversary of the Death of a Child by Peter Koenig from New Eastern Outlook. (Note: He summarizes the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire's ("west") responsibility for the establishment of Israel and its crimes against Palestinian people.)

• The MAS Victory: An Initial Assessment by Bolivian Socialists from La Izquierda Diario Bolivia (translated and posted on the website of Left Voice). (Note: This is a much more cautious report on the Bolivian elections. See this short video. Meanwhile media corporations are having a hard time explaining this early election outcome to its readers.)

• Twitter, Biden and the New York Post – Social Media Censorship Kicks up a Gear by Kit Knightly from Off-Guardian. 

• “This is an unbelievable failure of journalism.” by Stefania Maurizi from ExBerliner (a German website). (Note: I thank an activist for alerting me to this post.)
  

• Vanessa Beeley Debunks A BBC Hit Piece from The Corbett Report in which James Corbett, the host, interviews Beeley, an honest British journalist who has reported on the Empire's subversive activities in Syria, activities of the White Helmets, her experience with the BBC, and other subjects related to this topic in a 28:51m video interview.

• The Colour of Disenchantment by John Steppling from his weblog. (Note: This is a lengthy, intellectual essay on how the ruling class controls all indoctrination to prevent any discourse harmful to capitalism (aka "liberalism), an ideology that supports the power and wealth of their class whose members own very substantial economic property.)

• First-of-its-kind examination shows how widely pharma showers campaign cash at the state level by Lev Facher and Kaitlyn Bartley from Stat. (Note: The post illustrates only how Big Pharma influences elections, but this is true about every other major industry, the corporations in each industry (view this as another example), and the capitalist ruling class in general.)
  

• World Doctors Alliance: “We Do Not Have A Medical Pandemic.” Fake News? by Arjun Walia from Collective Evolution. 

Why are tens of thousands of doctors and scientists all over the world being ridiculed and in many cases censored for sharing their research and opinions? (This post is the latest example.)

• How Remote Learning Impacts Children’s Health and Well-Being by Katelyn Esmonde and Keshia Pollack Porter from Children's Health Defense.

• Housing Justice Activists Saving People Every Day! featuring Lee Camp engaging in parody to criticize public policies regarding eviction of people who can no longer afford their rent. 

• Large-Scale Permafrost Thawing by Robert Hunziker from CounterPunch.
  

• 'The Last and Most Important Advice I Will Ever Give' Dr. Meyer Hillman from the Extinction Rebellion channel via YouTube. My reaction: I agree with his statement that climate change is now "exponential and irreversible". And I agree that elected officials are not going to do anything. The latter are nearly always supported by capitalists who are not concerned sufficiently about climate destabilization because it will hurt the latter's immediate profits and eventually their power.
  

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020

• The Covid-19 Numbers Game: The “Second Wave” is Based on Fake Statistics by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, founder of, and from, Global Research.
  

• Is a New Wave of Covid-Fascism Invading Europe? by Peter Koenig from Global Research.

• Just Before The Dam Breaks… A video from Computer Forever, a channel of YouTube.
  

• OPEN LETTER: Belgian Healthcare Workers Call for End to Lockdown from Docs 4 Open Debate. (Note: Signed by 588 medical doctors, by 1678 medically trained health professionals, and by 11995 citizens in Belgian.)
  

• Gates, Kissinger and Our Dystopian Future by Mike Whitney from The Unz Review. My reaction: Could the pandemic be promoted by the Empire's ruling class of transnational capitalists in order to cope with the looming climate crisis? Whitney persuasively puts together an argument to support the affirmative to this question. I've previously argued that the pandemic serves a variety of purposes to promote the interests of this ruling class. Among them were the sowing of chaos (in addition to stirring up racial hatred) before the election to instill fear about Trump in the electorate, as well as a project to cope with the destabilization of our climate. If the intentional campaign of panic lasts beyond the election of Biden, you can be sure that the latter reason is primary.

• Why the Bill Gates Global Health Empire Promises More Empire and Less Public Health by Jeremy Loffredo from Anti-Empire.

• Wanna Make Cash For Evicting Poor People - There's An App For That (Web Exclusive) featuring Lee Camp of Redacted Tonight (via YouTube) pointing to the future of evictions staring many people in the face, how capitalists are going to profit off of it, and how they will recruit desperate people to do this "vomiting" work.
  

The Gentrification-to-Prison Pipeline

Click here to access article by Lacino Hamilton from TruthOut.

Hamilton explains what people experience as they are removed from their neighborhoods under the policies known as "gentrification" (a very nice sounding word). Usually the people who are being removed are low income and powerless people of color who find it very difficult to fight back to preserve their homes and neighborhoods. The most vulnerable people of our society are targeted by developers and bankers who see the prospects of making loads of money if these people can be removed so that they can develop the property and sell or rent it to higher income people. Hamilton describes the aggressive nature of this removal process and what typically happens to the people who are forced out.

...the city of Detroit's approach to "social development" came to rely so dramatically on the bricks and mortar of prison at the expense of other responses that would have been both more humane and more effective -- such as social development with people in mind, not profit.

If we are willing to take seriously the consequences of a justice system that is the extension of money and power, it should not be difficult to reach the conclusion that enormous numbers of people are in prison simply because someone else's vision for the future did not include them. We were sent to prison not so much because of the crime we may have indeed committed, but largely for the expropriation of land (i.e., gentrification), which requires getting rid of the people who live on the land. Social development, urban renewal and the like are just new words for what sociologists in the past called imperialism, and what we can loosely refer to as colonialism. Gentrification and colonialism are the same processes largely because they share the same goals -- dislocation, expropriation and the pursuit of profit.

Living co-operatively: everyday dissent

Click here to access article by Amy Corcoran from Red Pepper (Britain).

We cannot override the current system overnight; revolution relies on popular will. How can we hope for this to happen without demonstrating that there is an alternative (particularly when we have been indoctrinated to consider neoliberal capitalism the only viable modus operandi)?

To do so, we must be that alternative. In how we treat one another, in how we treat the environment, in how we live and think. This may feel like a daunting, unachievable task, but we can all make changes – and by sharing the responsibility we lighten the load, and can secure achievements far greater than the sum of our parts. 

The Jungle: Thousands of Homeless People Live in Shantytowns at the Epicenter of High-Tech, Super-Rich Silicon Valley

Click here to access article by Evelyn Nieve from AlterNet. 

During the early 1980s I worked for real estate management companies participating in the subsidized housing programs of the government. At some point during this time it became startling clear to me that without subsidized housing there would be no way that many of my clients could afford housing at all. It was only a few years later in the Reagan administration that I began to see and experience the slow strangulation of this government program. 

Now, 30 years later and after an economic collapse, the US is beginning to look like a typical Latin American country with signs of extreme wealth most visible on TV and extreme poverty which is daily visible on the streets. The ruling One Percent try very hard to keep the latter hidden in out of the way places, but they are losing the battle. These developments suggest that unlike what happened in the 1930s, the fascist inclined forces of the nouveau riche are in control (see my commentary to the previous posted article below). 

This article focuses on one area in the US where the extremes are becoming quite visible, and describes the lifestyle of those living in these homeless encampments.

That people live and die on the streets of Silicon Valley is no news to the poor, of course. With more than 6,500 tech companies in all, Santa Clara County is home to the biggest stars in the tech universe, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, eBay and Apple. But the land of high-tech milk and honey is also a prime example of the widening divide between the nation’s haves and have-nots.

Victims no longer: Spain’s anti-eviction movement

Click here to access article by Carlos Delclós from openDemocracy.

People in Spain have been some of the worst victims in Europe of the 2007/2008 capitalist engineered economic collapse. Following large street demonstrations early on, activists there are now engaged in slowly building an opposition movement by helping people to keep their homes (they have stopped over 800 evictions) and to house those who have already lost their homes. I think there is much to be learned here from their strategies.

I would say that our tactics and strategies are mostly short-term and consist of establishing goals that are attainable in terms of their time-frame and the energy they require. These short-term, tangible successes lead people to go from being dejected and demoralized to being empowered and making an impact in their communities, in relatively little time. They also help us keep the movement visible, reach more people and continue to question politicians and bankers about changing the law.

At the same time, our assemblies assure that we are always learning from and training one another, so that we never lose the essence of what makes the PAH so important, which is the people who participate in the movement. Without a doubt, the PAH’s greatest success has been to empower people.

The Empire Strikes Back: How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme - Again

Click here to access article by Laura Gottesdiener from TomDispatch. (Note: if you wish to skip Engelhardt's introduction, you will need to scroll down to the article.)

For the past few years I expected that this was happening, and looked in vain to find much media coverage. It has apparently been a well kept secret hidden mostly from the public because it is far too embarrassing for the One Percent ruling class to reveal.

This class loves their economic busts because they provide splendid opportunities to buy up assets on the cheap. The 2007/2008 featured most prominently a collapse in the housing market set up by the ruling class who induced so many of the 99 Percent to take out easy mortgages. Remember the "ownership society" theme promoted by George Bush back in 2004?  Now they are cashing in on this great profit opportunity by buying  housing on the cheap and renting them back at high rates to people who have been thrown out of their homes by banks.

How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme -- Again

Click here to access article by Laura Gottesdiener from TomDispatch. (Note: if you wish to skip the introduction, you will need to scroll down to the article.)

If you can stomach it, read how capitalists are "making a killing" by buying foreclosed and distressed homes at bargain prices to rent to their former owners, that is, if the latter can afford the rents and not living in tents or under bridges.

Over the last year and a half, Wall Street hedge funds and private equity firms have quietly amassed an unprecedented rental empire, snapping up Queen Anne Victorians in Atlanta, brick-faced bungalows in Chicago, Spanish revivals in Phoenix. In total, these deep-pocketed investors have bought more than 200,000 cheap, mostly foreclosed houses in cities hardest hit by the economic meltdown.

Private Equity’s Foreclosures for Rentals Net 8%: Mortgages

Click here to access article by Edward Robinson from Bloomberg News.

Have I got a hot tip for all sociopathic investors! Get into buying up foreclosed homes! Under the capitalist system, everything becomes a commodity, even homes where people live, raise families, have ties with friends, neighbors, communities, and schools. But, there is an upside--one family's tragedy can make someone else rich. You, too, can make a killing by investing in this widely available commodity!

Wiel says the agency [Federal Housing Finance Agency] may auction pools of properties to investors, perhaps coupled with federally guaranteed financing that lowers their cost of capital significantly. The Resolution Trust Corp. employed a similar policy in the early 1990s to sell off mortgages held by failed savings and loan banks.

 On Feb. 27, the FHFA unveiled a pilot program to sell repossessed houses in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Florida (SPCSMIA) and other hard-hit markets to investors who qualify with the agency. Waypoint submitted an application. “This could be a total game changer for us,” Wiel says.

It’s striking that Washington is looking to Wall Street for answers after investors’ zeal for subprime mortgages helped foment the housing morass, Green says. She says a boom in rentals may encourage mortgage lenders to foreclose on delinquent homeowners instead of reworking their loans to be more affordable.

The US is truly the land of opportunity. Anyone, without a conscience and with insider knowledge, can get rich here. Economic busts as well as booms offer opportunities--for the One Percent. Ain't capitalism wonderful?

Inequality? We Need a New Word

Click here to access article by Saskia Sassen from The Occupied Wall Street Journal. 

Creative financial engineering by financial gurus serving the One Percent resulted in widespread problems for both financial institutions and ordinary people. Only the former were rescued by government intervention.

The brutality of eviction, of losing the little material security one has, did not factor into the calculations of our financially creative class, who many now consider a criminal corporate elite. The fact that neighborhoods and communities would be destroyed, shops shuttered and businesses folded, municipal governments and social programs slashed and literally trillions of dollars wiped from the national books did not—and does not—factor in.

Financial engineers exist to serve capitalists, the One Percent, not the 99 Percent. They did that and created a disaster for our economy. However, the One Percent is richer than ever. If you are going to accept a system that does what it is designed to do, you are a fool if you merely criticize it, and not insist that the system needs to be changed.

Bank’s leaked email admits ‘Occupy’ movement ‘could impact our industry’

Click here to access article by David Edwards from The Raw Story. 

It is the bank’s policy to protect and secure our properties for the investors who own them.

The class war has now moved to the homes of Americans and Bank of America is preparing for this war. No doubt, other institutions of the one percent are doing likewise. It seems to me that this battle is crucial. If we are unable to take back our homes, then we should surrender to the one percent's Empire and prepare to descend further into barbarism and environmental degradation. Yet, there is so much investor money tied up in our homes that we can expect a ferocious battle which, like Stalingrad in WWII, could be the decisive battle in the overall war.

Bobby's Story: Veteran Facing Foreclosure, Fighting Back

Click here to access article from Occupy Our Homes. 



The Occupy movement is beginning to take back people's homes and fighting back against foreclosures all across the US.

Occupy Goes Home on December 6

Click here to access article by Manny Jalonschi from The Indypendent. 

The Occupy movement is moving on to re-occupy foreclosed homes! 

The reclamation of foreclosed homes represents a new stage for the Occupy movement, one that comes in the wake of violent police dispersal of protest camps nationwide. With 1 in 4 mortgages currently in default and, a new Government Accounting Office report showing an increase in vacant residential properties from 7 million in 2007 to 10 million in 2010, it seems more than likely that the movement will continue to find ample support and opportunities to “Occupy our Homes.”

See also this report from The Guardian entitled, "Wall Street protesters to occupy foreclosed homes". 

As police crackdowns on Occupy sites continue, protesters enter 'new frontier.' 

Occupy SF Housing Action Day

Click here to access article by Michael Steinberg from IndyBay.

...an African American woman, said, "I'm a homeowner facing forclosure. Chase is trying to chase me out of my home. By the end of 2012 we expect 10 million foreclosures in the US, with 2 million in California. When they attack our homes, they attack our health, and we're done with them attacking us. People across the country are saying, 'We need our homes more than you need one more.'" 

The Looming Occupy Foreclosures Movement

Click here to access article by David Dayen from FireDogLake.

This article suggests an action whose time may have come.

The Occupy Oakland general assembly, a day before a proposed general strike, ruled that they would encourage the occupation of foreclosed and abandoned properties across the city. This is a natural development, but also a useful one.

Throw Them Out With the Trash

Click here to access article by Barbara Ehrenreich from TomDispatch. (You will need to scroll down to the article.)

...to be homeless in America is to live like a fugitive. The destitute are our own native-born “illegals,” facing prohibitions on the most basic activities of survival. They are not supposed to soil public space with their urine, their feces, or their exhausted bodies. Nor are they supposed to spoil the landscape with their unusual wardrobe choices or body odors. They are, in fact, supposed to die, and preferably to do so without leaving a corpse for the dwindling public sector to transport, process, and burn.

Is Anyone at Home?

Click here to access article by David Glenn Cox from OpEd News. 

Throughout mainstream media there are many reports on the recent economic downturn, usually with statistics and broad descriptions, often colored with reassurances that the economy is improving. Even in alternative media one rarely finds descriptions of the suffering people actually experience. When I see and read all these reports, I often wonder how people are actually coping, what it is like to face extended periods of unemployment, about all the tensions that tear at the fabric of families and communities, how it feels to face foreclosure and being homeless. This gifted writer gives us some of the raw human experience behind these sterile mainstream media reports.

These things, these events leave scars and marks that Tide won't wash off. Like a death or a divorce, you carry them with you internally from then on. With upwards of ten million home foreclosures and maybe as many evictions it means that nearly of a third of our population has been displaced and scarred. A huge army of men, women and children whose lives have been disrupted and destabilized, who fear answering the telephone or the arrival of a stranger's car. The mail makes them queasy and the end of the month makes them nervous and jumpy.

Confidential Federal Audits Accuse Five Biggest Mortgage Firms Of Defrauding Taxpayers (with revised commentary)

Click here to access article by Shahien Nasiripour from Huffington Post. 

After only a two month audit that is being kept under raps by the Dept. of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) the results indicate that taxpayers have been defrauded out of at least $30 billion dollars.

The audits conclude that the banks effectively cheated taxpayers by presenting the Federal Housing Administration with false claims: They filed for federal reimbursement on foreclosed homes that sold for less than the outstanding loan balance using defective and faulty documents.

They clearly broke numerous laws, but what do you think the chances are that they will face any legal consequences? The people who run these institutions are in, or serve the interests of, the ruling capitalist class in the US. They make the laws, but only to serve their interests. Their laws don't apply to them. Laws only apply to us.

Rather than punishing banks for misdeeds, the administration is now focused on helping troubled borrowers in the hope that it will stanch the flood of foreclosures and increase consumer confidence, officials involved in the negotiations said.

Levying penalties can't accomplish that goal, an official involved in the foreclosure probe talks argued last week.

Yves Smith, a financial analyst, who has followed this issue closely in the past few years sees a coverup of the crimes. She writes:

This revelation, that HUD audits of the biggest servicers over a mere two-month period, showed extensive fraud, is proof that abuses were extensive. It also establishes that the effort by Tom Miller to settle the 50 state attorneys general investigation quickly and and the recent “see no evil” Federal consent orders are a cover up.

The article hardly mentions all the socially devastating effects that bankster (for my foreign readers, this is a combination slang word joining "banker" with "gangster") and mortgage lender practices have had on falling home prices. the wiping out of equity that ordinary citizens accumulated in their homes, the destruction of the economy, public spending cutbacks, and so on. As everyone knows or should know, the recent collapse of the economy was caused by the mortgage scam: coaxing people, even those with poor credit, to come into real estate offices and sign no-money down mortgages. Many people were in on this project, even George Bush who promoted the practice with celebratory references to an "ownership society". As a result property values took off and the real estate boom was on.

It is well known that economic booms and busts are an inherent part of a capitalist economy. What is less known is that capitalists love it. Volatility whether in the stock markets or in the general economy provides great opportunities to increase their fortunes. With their hands on the levers of finance, credit, mainstream media, and the political system, they can with their piles of money fairly easily create this volatility. During downturns in the stock market or, even better, busts in the economy, the ruling class seizes on these opportunities to pick up properties of all kinds at bargain basement prices to enlarge their holdings. These sociopaths who oversee our economy couldn't care less about the devastating effects of booms and busts on the rest of us.

After the latest economic bust in order to make even bigger bucks, the banksters spread this economic virus even further by wrapping these worthless mortgages in attractive AAA ratings from various agencies (no doubt they were also in on the scam), pedaled them to financial institutions and sovereign wealth funds, etc. all over the world. And the rest, as they say, is history.