TheMillerCircle.org

In the past few months, we have witnessed an unparalleled commitment by the Federal Government in bailing out a major Wall Street Investment Bank (Bear Stearns), something never before on the radar screen of the Federal Reserve and, in the last few days, the Federal Government has initiated a formal support mechanism to shore up the two giants of the home mortgage industry, Fannie May and Freddie Mac. Not surprisingly, this Federal guarantee caused investors to flock to the stocks rather than continue to shy away. Wouldn’t you prefer to invest in a stock in which the Federal government was the guarantor? In essence, these moves have affirmed what the free market government has achieved in our name. The entire free market enterprise has been nothing more than a giant colossal failure, one that has required Our Federal Government to endorse the privatization of profit , while assuming public liability for risk , This must stop! It’s crazy to do this, especially since we appear to get nothing in return. Believe me, this trend is not over, not by a long shot. Right now there are investment firms lining up, through acquisitions, to properly position themselves so that they will be among the few dozen (one dozen, two, three or more?) of firms that our government decides they will have to prop up in one way or another. Yet, all of this has taken place without the public receiving any benefit whatsoever. This is an outrage in desparate need of a transition. It is probably true that we shouldn’t allow such big firms to go under. But, the cost to Fannie May, Freddie Mac and Bear Stearns should be public ownership of these institutions, with a return to sensible policies that stop the plundering of the poor to further enhance the wealthy, a clear violation of Biblical usury laws. How many foreclosures have been created by people who are saddled with debt at such high interest rates, attended by excessive penalties, such that they cannot pay their bills and cannot make a dent in their debt. Some neighborhoods, such as the Slavic Village in Cleveland are so decimated by foreclosures that they will never recover. But those in the same neighborhoods that have kept up their payments and worked hard to keep their homes in shape, have suffered too because the boarded homes around them have cost them their dream and their life savings through dramatic losses in housing values. We should never have allowed this to happen. IT IS THE FREE MARKET ECONOMY IN THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY THAT DID THIS! It was Wall Street telling us that free market mechanisms would be self-correcting. This is and always was snake oil salesmen at work. What a farce!

No one knows the extent of our liability as taxpayers for these deals, for no one has a crystal ball with sufficient clarity to gaze into our hazy future. Are we at the beginning of this disaster, in the middle or near the end? How much further will it go? But, what we should be angry about is that we didn’t get anything in return for this largess of benefits and support, a level of which has never before been granted by our government, without controls that are put in place to benefit the nation, not the wealthy. Why weren’t those houses in Cleveland returned to ownership as part of this new deal? So far, the resources of the government that have gone into the sub-prime housing scandal have largely wound up in the hands of the bankers, not the homeowners. When will the homeowners get a benefit? When will the government step in and penalize the mortgage financiers that have made millions in profits from these complex mortgage deals? They should share in the responsibility to fix the neighborhoods they have helped destroy and the cost of their slovenly and selfish behavior should be lost private control of their institutions. Maybe they should even go help reconstruct Slavic Village! They could get their training in the 9th Ward of New Orleans.

Usury laws were established in Biblical times and have been an inherent component within the cultures of the three great Abrahamic religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. This Biblical principal was adopted by these cultures to insure a stable society by embellishing the principal that the wealthy should not profit from the poor. In practice, this meant that, through usury laws, interest rates were restricted and regulated so that those with money to lend didn’t impoverish those that needed to borrow. Every country has or had usury laws with modern representations of this principal to avoid excessive interest rates, which served as a positive factor for economic expansion, cultural stability and sensible levels of private debt. In the United States, we had usury laws regulating banks until 1980 , when a Democratic Congress, ruling with a Democratic President, eliminated them, freeing banks from restrictions on lending practices. The result of the single "free market economy" move gave us the outrageous interest rates on credit cards we have today, which for example, can get as hight as 22.5% or more, plus penalties. The lack of these regulatory laws have also freed loan agencies to concoct interest escalation schemes through baloon mortgages that were often promoted under false pretenses and shady marketing. These loans had hidden costs and penalties and you know which end of our society was most likely the experience these problems. Invariably, these higher interest rates fell on the shoulders of those who can least afford them. If Americans don’t respond with outrage to these recent preposterous give-aways to Wall Street, and demand a return for their guarantees, including a return to usury laws, there is virtually no hope for turning this aristocracy around. So, poke a finger in the chest of your banker, or, better yet, insist that your congressman get something in return for the largess of giving away our hard-earned treasure–it is not theirs to spend in that way. Not without something in return! We can turn this country around. But the first thing we need to do is get pissed off.