Debt & Slavery In Modern America

March 30th, 2011
Courtesy Of "The Lilith eZine"


In ancient times if people had too much debt, they were dragged before the barbaric courts of the time and if they could not pay their debts they were sold into slavery.

In modern America, much the same thing is happening but Americans have had the wool pulled over their eyes so they cannot see how they've been enslaved by a corrupt system.

The Recession of 2007 - 2009 was brought on by greedy bankers seeking bigger and bigger bonuses for the buying and selling of debt. The more debt you sold to investors, the bigger your bonuses were. This system was doomed to fail.

In a nutshell here is what happened:

#1. During the Reagan administration the government began deregulating the financial markets, allowing banks to make riskier investments.

#2. These bankers then went out and gave mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, but at a higher interest rate because this was "in theory" more profitable for the bank.

#3. The bankers then sold the mortgage debts to investors through "derivatives" and classified them as "AAA", meaning they were just as safe as government bonds, even though they were risky mortgages.

#4. Because bankers were now giving mortgages to anyone who asked for one it meant many Americans started bidding on homes with money they didn't actually have. Over the short term this caused a spike in housing prices.

#5. Then during the Bush administration more deregulation led to a massive explosion in Futures trading. Futures is where you basically bet on whether a stock will go up or down, essentially turning the financial markets into a gambling casino where investors and banks could even bet against companies and whole industries, including the real estate market.

#6. The bankers knew their mortgages were risky but in order to maintain the status quo they borrowed more money against themselves in what is known as "leverage". Prior to the Bush administration there was a cap on how much they could borrow, but the bankers convinced the Bush administration to allow them to leverage many times their previous value with guarantees from the American government so that if anything went wrong the American government would pay for it.

#7. Poor economic policies by the Bush Administration led to the American real estate market to collapse when people stopped paying their mortgages. Banks started foreclosing on homebuyers who couldn't pay, the housing market bubble burst.

#8. Because all the American banks had sold their mortgages through derivatives, these "junk mortgages" suddenly became a hefty debt. The big investment banks began declaring bankruptcy and their debts, guaranteed by the American government, was passed on to the American people.

And thus it was that the US government had little choice but to bailout the big investment banks in order to restabilize the system.

In theory the US government should have then brought about more regulation to prevent this from happening again, but the Obama administration's regulatory bills have little or no teeth.

Thus the financial collapse of the 2007-2009 period can and will happen again.

During that period it wasn't just the housing market which was collapsing.

People were also defaulting on car loans, credit cards, personal loans and other methods of credit.

To try and fix the problem the American government borrowed trillions of dollars from China, money which will eventually have to be paid back through taxes.

Stimulus packages by the American and Canadian governments have proved ineffective at getting the American people back to work. Unemployment in North America is still very high because of a lack of manufacturing (manufacturing is the backbone of a stable economy). The stimulus packages were aimed at short term building projects, which help the lumber, steel and concrete industries, but do nothing to help factory workers.

In Canada the stimulus packages were even more corrupt because the Harper government spent the stimulus money in their own political ridings, giving money to their friends, instead of spending it in the hardest hit regions of the country.

We can assume that in the USA how the stimulus money was allocated was probably equally plagued by corruption.

In the wake of the financial crisis what boggles the mind is how we are back to the old system of mortgages, bankers, astronomical bonuses...

But while this means great financial success to anyone with a MBA working in Wall Street, what it means for Americans is slavery.

DELAYING THE CREDIT APOCALYPSE

Americans now live in a society that NEEDS credit.

In order to buy almost anything an American must either whip out their credit card, secure a car loan, or ask for a mortgage from the bank. Very few Americans actually use cash any more.

When they are sent off to college or university the first thing Americans do is get a student loan, the 2nd thing they do is apply for a credit card or some kind of line of credit from their bank.

These debts are then bought and sold as derivatives on the stock market by investment banks, who sell them to investors. The problem however is that when they cannot get enough investors they instead leverage their bank by borrowing money from the American government, who in turn acts as a guarantor should the investments go sour.

The investment bankers then pay their employees huge bonuses (and continue to do so today) based on "projected profits", even if the debts they are selling are junk because they know the government has already guaranteed them anyway. This is commonly known as 'counting your chickens before they've hatched'.

Thus if the average American, lets call them Sam, defaults on their student debt the banks don't actually suffer the burden of that debt. Indeed the investors don't get stuck with the debt either. The investment banks take all of their junk debts and stick them in one set of "assets" which they then sell to a rival bank who is setup to take the fall, which the government will ultimately end up paying for.

But what happens when too many Sams default on all their loans?

Well thanks to the system of leverage the banks can leverage anywhere from 30 to 50 times what they actually have in assets. That means if only 2 to 3% of people default on their loans, the bank will go bankrupt.

Thus lets take for example VISA, Mastercard and American Express, the three biggest credit card companies in America.

Where do they get the money from which they are giving to Americans? Its not coming from the banks, because the banks don't want to be holding the bag. They've sold that debt through derivatives, leveraged their assets and borrowed money from the American government.

The question is how much have they leveraged and when will it finally collapse?

THE DEBT TSUNAMI

In a Ponzi scheme you need to keep finding more and more investors (suckers) to loan you money in order to keep your other investors happy. However there is a zenith point where eventually you run out of investors and the money all starts to disappear. The Ponzi schemer has spent too much of their money living high on the hog and often (for whatever reason) thinks they can try and fix it. Eventually people start pulling out their investments and the Ponzi schemer runs out of money.

This is the case with America's debt, a debt which has crippled America's economy to the point that in the near foreseeable future we will encounter a debt tsunami. Its the zenith point where everything will collapse.

Here's what will happen... the biggest debts will go first. We've already seen this with the collapse of the mortgage industry in 2007.

Next people will start defaulting on their other debts, the ones they don't need as much or can't afford to pay.
ie. If they need their car, they might choose to pay their car loan instead of paying their credit card.
Or they might decide to renege on their car loan. Or both.

Heck, many people might just decide to declare bankruptcy and start over again, going back to the old system of paying for everything with cash...

The problem however is that the American people is not going to support bailing out car loans and credit card companies, even if the government is the guarantor on these debts thanks to the derivatives and securities markets.

What will happen is a cascade effect. One section of the markets will drop suddenly, causing other markets to collapse. Then banks will declare bankruptcy, banks will be shut out so people cannot get their money, millions of Americans will lose all their savings which the banks have gambled away on the stock market and wasted on executive bonuses.

THE CURRENCY IMPLOSION

Which brings us to the problem with America's currency. The American dollar isn't based on anything. Its not tied to the value of any commodity, like gold or silver. Its just a piece of paper.

If the US government takes on too much debt, and that debt cannot be borrowed from China or other countries, America's currency will become worthless.

Indeed we would argue that it already is worthless and that Americans should act "while the getting is good" and try to buy everything they will need for when the Debt Tsunami finally hits.

Judging from the reaction of many Americans during the 2007-2009 period they went and bought tents and camping gear.

The irony is that in cities like Detroit there are thousands of homes sitting there empty and derelict because the local economy has collapsed. Detroit is now a Ghost City, its population is one third of what it was in 2006.

THE SOLUTION?

The solution is probably going to be tough, brutal and Americans aren't going to enjoy it one bit. The American people have already become slaves to their debts and credit cards, debts they cannot afford.

When people become desperate they will resort to crime to find food and a place to live. The US government will react by turning America into a police state (some would argue it already is).

Anarchy, civil war, an uprise in communism... the worst is yet to come. 


Expect crime to rise dramatically, violence during elections, and tight security around politicians and influential bankers... and bankers continuing to be getting away with theft even as the economy plummets.

The Haves and The Have-Nots


We Examine The Occupy Wall Street Movement and Ask What Has Happened To The American Middle Class.

Counting The Cost
Last Modified: 22 Oct 2011 11:04
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

If you believe the protesters on Wall Street, there is a one to 99 per cent split between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.

The 'Occupy Wall Street' protestors chant is: "We are the 99 per cent", as opposed to the one per cent of society who make the big money while everyone else just gets by.

The average American household still has an income somewhere between $30,000 and $80,000, which really has not improved since the Great Depression.

Yet, today there is a top one per cent of earners with an average salary of $380,000 a year.

The spread between the two is quite alarming. So just what has happened to the middle class in the US?

Also on the show, we talk to the head of SAP, the world's biggest business software company, about creating jobs and the Eurozone crisis.

Bill McDermott, co-CEO of SAP, tells Counting the Cost how the German company has kept itself out of trouble and what he thinks about the Eurozone's attempts at recovery.

And not only has the McDonald's Big Mac shrunk in Argentina, you will be lucky to even find it on the menu. So what does that tell us about the country's economy?