Bankrupting the Common People

The Devaluation and Fight for Survival of the American Middle Class – How Three Decades has Shifted the Concentration of Financial Wealth to the Top 1 Percent (Excerpt)

February 3, 2010

mybudget360 - ... We do have class in our system, and the biggest misnomer that has been perpetrated is that, somehow, our goals are aligned with those of the banking Wall Street elite. How much longer do people need to realize that both political parties seem to serve one master and it has an address on Wall Street? The debates and battles seem to amount to this charade because, once it comes time for policy, nothing gets done. Even Elizabeth Warren, who is fighting for basic consumer rights, is finding it even hard to get through because of banking lobbyist:

“It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the street — and the mortgage won’t even carry a disclosure of that fact to the homeowner.”

The battle has gotten intense. Credit card companies have been doing criminal activities by jacking fees up and setting up traps for consumers before simple regulations come into effect. Banks have pulled back on lending to average Americans while profits from stock speculation have soared. They don’t call it speculation but label it as hedge funds, proprietary trading, or some other Orwellian language that hides the true nature of the system.

With the underemployment rate at over 17 percent and bankruptcies, foreclosures, and other financial distress rising for average Americans, one small chunk of our population is benefitting on the backs of bailout funding. This has been characterized as it “taking a plunder” to rip off the village.

So what you do is take from the public:

Source: It Takes a Pillage

And give to the people that created this crisis:

I completely agree with Elizabeth Warren who is adamantly arguing that we are at a cross-road in terms of defending the middle class of this country. Instead, Wall Street enjoys the fact that Americans are split down the middle on issues and fighting over petty things while trillions keep rolling into their coffers. Time to wake up and see what is really happening to our nation.