It was with some interest that I finally got around to seeing Michael Moore's latest offering "Capitalism, A Love Story."
I didn't realize that my own private little unemployment and mortgage hell had been translated to the big screen.
So much for that book deal and movie options.
Say what you will about Mr. Moore, but I can tell you with absolute clarity that I'm living a vast majority of that story right now.
On it's face that may seem depressing, but there are a number of things that let me know I wasn't the only one to notice that things were amiss.
Mr. Moore also called attention to those who foresaw the subprime mortgage fallout. He also pointed out that the TARP bailout was passed on the second go round despite the fact it was voted down the first time.
Make no mistake friends---This whole TARP thing sounded extra bootleg the minute it was announced.
It's nice to know I'm not crazy. I wasn't being paranoid.
So the question remains---what's next?
What happens when people's severance or savings disappears and they find out that the safety net that was so generously extended for corporate America isn't large enough for "average" American?
Ladies and gentlemen if you didn't read it when I wrote it the first time, understand it now: We're screwed.
I'm just curious about the course of action the rest of my fellow Americans are going to take when they wake up and smell the coffee.
This may not be pretty.
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This country's Fascist Crony "Capitalism" has turned this country into a failing 3rd world quagmire.
Don't think it can't get worse. I have not yet seen the Moore film, but I have followed this debacle from the time house prices started to divorce themselves from any explicable relationship to incomes and rents, through every stage of the insane house inflation and maniac lending, to the present.
And you know what? Most of our leaders STILL don't understand how it happened, and all the punditocracy is blaming something they laughably refer to as "free market" capitalism.
Say WHAT?? How can a housing market goosed by insane lending cut loose from any kind of lending standard, backed by government guarantees by all the agencies like Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie, and the FHA, who bought the crap loan paper as fast as the sleazeball lenders could generate them, while every house loan was used to collatarolize debt 100X its value because Goldman Sucks and the rest were safe in the knowledge that the taxpayers would backstop them and they would never have to eat the consequences of their risk taking- how on earth can this be called a "free market?"
And nobody's learned a damn thing. The FHA is busy writing the next wave of bad loans, to be guaranteed by the guarantor of the last resort- the American taxpayer.
How's this for government management of the housing market:
In Uptown, the "affordable" income-scaled housing is nearly completed, a large building that cost $447,000 per "moderate-income" family-sized unit to build.
At the same time, large 4 and 5 room condos are falling down from their original ask prices of $159K to $250K, down into the $20,000- $60,000 range. I have viewed several. Some are recent rehabs damaged by neglect, such as pipes freezing after the unit was abandoned by a foreclosed former owner. These are usually nice places, recent rehabs or good older places, that could be made spiffy with about $15,000 worth of work.
These "affordable" apartments will rent higher to poorer tenants than will many lovely apartments in nearby neighborhoods will to other people. The only people to truly benefit from the $52M of TIF money that built this place will be the developer, the contractors, and the politicians.
The economic programs of our government were not designed to benefit you and me, either. They were designed to insulate the big financial houses against their own risks while stripping the general population of the last of its wealth.
Never has our government tossed so much money at the housing market and never have I seen nor heard of so many people living in tents, storage buildings, on the trains, and on the streets.
Yep, we are screwed, and all the more because the $3T plus committed to bailing out this mess (and failing), could have been used to build industries we will need to have a real economy in the years ahead to replace the casino economy of the past 20 years.
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