WHILE
BIG BANKSTERS PROFITS SURGE, SO DOES UNEMPLOYMENT & FORECLOSURES!... and
Obama’s plan to fix it all… AMNESTY!
*
CA
MORTGAGE LICENSE REVOKED FOR WELLS FARGO!
“Wells
Fargo said last month that first-quarter profit jumped 53 percent from a year earlier
as borrowers rushed to refinance mortgages amid record-low interest rates.”
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, November 12, 2007
Mortgage giants Wells Fargo and Countrywide Financial are accused of slapping dubious fees on homeowners struggling to save their homes. With fewer new mortgages being written, these
companies appear to be leaning on these lucrative fees to stay profitable—with devastating consequences for homeowners. We’ll have that report.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Mortgage giants Wells Fargo and Countrywide Financial are accused of slapping dubious fees on homeowners struggling to save their homes. With fewer new mortgages being written, these
companies appear to be leaning on these lucrative fees to stay profitable—with devastating consequences for homeowners. We’ll have that report.
*
“Month after month of mass unemployment, compounded by
sweeping cuts in social services at the state and local level and wage cutting
in both the private and public sectors, have already produced a social disaster
for tens of millions of Americans. One million families are losing their homes
to foreclosure every year. Hunger and homelessness are on the rise.”
*
OBAMA’S
JOBS PLAN IS CALLED LA RAZA AMNESTY!
“The response of the Obama administration and the entire
political establishment to the collapse of the so-called “recovery” is to
reject out of hand any significant spending to generate jobs.”
*
THE ENTIRE REASON THE BORDERS ARE LEFT OPEN IS TO CUT WAGES!
“We could
cut unemployment in half simply by reclaiming the jobs taken by illegal
workers,” said Representative Lamar
Smith of Texas, co-chairman of the Reclaim American
Jobs Caucus. “President Obama is on the wrong side of the American people on
immigration. The president should support policies that help citizens and legal
immigrants find the jobs they need and deserve rather than fail to enforce
immigration laws.”
*
Bailed-out
banks spent big on financial lobbying
By EILEEN AJ CONNELLY
The Associated Press
NEW YORK รข€” The 10 banks that received
the most bailout aid during the financial crisis spent over $16 million on
lobbying efforts in the first half of 2010, as the debate over the
financial-regulatory overhaul reached its height.
Bank of America and Wells Fargo both
also spent more than $2 million in the first half of the year. Spending far
less were PNC Bank, US Bancorp, Capital One Financial and Regions Financial.
The American Bankers Association, the main trade group for the industry, also
lobbied heavily, spending $4.2 million in the first half of 2010.
*
WSWS.org
As
US “recovery” collapses, White House rules out social relief
1
September 2010
Recent weeks have seen a collapse in US
home sales, a weakening of manufacturing activity, an upward trend in jobless
benefit claims and, on Friday, a downward revision of second-quarter gross
domestic product growth from 2.4 percent to 1.6 percent.
The latter figure is far below the rate
of economic expansion needed to bring down unemployment, now at its highest
levels since the Great Depression. On the contrary, the sharp slowdown in
economic growth heralds a further rise in the jobless rate.
Month after month of mass unemployment, compounded by
sweeping cuts in social services at the state and local level and wage cutting
in both the private and public sectors, have already produced a social disaster
for tens of millions of Americans. One million families are losing their homes
to foreclosure every year. Hunger and homelessness are on the rise.
USA Today reported Monday that the recession has resulted in one in
six Americans relying on government assistance to survive. Over 50 million
people are on Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor
and disabled. That is an increase of at least 17 percent since the recession
began in December 2007.
Over 40 million are receiving food
stamps, an increase of nearly 50 percent since the slump began. Close to 10
million are getting unemployment benefits, nearly four times the number in
2007. More than 4.4 million people are on welfare, an 18 percent jump since the
recession began.
While the vast majority of workers are
struggling to make ends meet or are sinking into poverty, the rich are doing
better than ever. Corporate profits are up sharply, driven by downsizing and
cost cutting. The stock market has recovered from its lows in the spring of
2009, and executives are continuing to award themselves seven- and eight-digit
compensation packages.
Two years after the eruption of the
financial crisis, precipitated by the recklessness and criminality of Wall
Street, the chasm separating the financial elite and everyone else has grown
wider than ever. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the rebound on
Wall Street has led to a further polarization between rich and poor in New York
City. While the median pay of managerial workers was up 11 percent from three
years ago, the median weekly pay of non-managers had fallen 10.4 percent, to
$472.
The latter figure is barely above the
official poverty line for a family of four of $22,000 a year, an absurdly low
plateau that, in New York, means something close to destitution.
The response of the Obama administration and the entire
political establishment to the collapse of the so-called “recovery” is to
reject out of hand any significant spending to generate jobs.
Speaking from the White House Rose
Garden on Monday, Obama sought to lay the blame on the Republicans for holding
up his $30 billion small business bill—a token measure consisting mainly of tax
cuts and other incentives for small and large businesses and so-called
“community” banks. Beyond that, he spoke vaguely about more tax cuts for
business and incentives for renewable energy projects, adding that there is no
“silver bullet” to revive the economy.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs
acknowledged there would be no major initiatives, saying, “There’s only so much
that can be done.” He went on to reassure big business that there would be no
use of public funds to hire unemployed workers, saying the administration’s
“targeted initiatives” would aim to “create an environment where the private
sector is not simply investing but also hiring.”
In an op-ed piece on Sunday, the New
York Times wrote: “[I]n the political realm a rare consensus has emerged:
The future is now so colored in red ink that running up the debt seems
politically risky in the months before the congressional elections, even in the
name of creating jobs and generating economic growth. The result is that
Democrats and Republicans have foresworn virtually any course that involves
spending serious money.”
Just one year ago, Obama was emphatic
in declaring that he would do “whatever it takes” to bail out the banks. He did
precisely that, allocating trillions in taxpayer dollars to cover Wall Street’s
gambling debts. At the same time, he opposed any measures to restrict CEO pay
or hold the corporate criminals responsible for the catastrophe they had
created.
He then intervened to force General
Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy and impose a 50 percent pay cut on newly
hired workers. That was the signal for a wave of corporate and government wage
cutting that is intensifying.
Now there is supposedly “no money” for
jobs—or schools, or housing, or relief for the unemployed. This at a time when
US banks and corporations are sitting on a cash hoard of more than $1 trillion.
The media universally asserts that the
administration and congressional Democrats are constrained from pursuing any
serious stimulus measures by public demands for austerity in advance of the
November elections. This is a fraud.
Far from there being a popular
groundswell for austerity, the opposite is the case, as indicated by a Gallop
poll taken in June which found that 60 percent favored more government stimulus
to create jobs, and a poll this month showing that 85 percent opposed to
cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit.
There is no contradiction between
Obama’s $862 billion stimulus package of 2009 and his administration’s overt
shift to austerity today. Both represent the implementation of the ruthless
class policy of the American financial-corporate elite.
Last February’s stimulus
bill—consisting largely of tax cuts and other incentives for business—was a
carefully calibrated measure designed to prevent a collapse in consumer
spending, avert a social explosion by creating the impression that the
government was doing something for “Main Street,” buy time to carry through the
bank bailout and create conditions for a revival of corporate profits and the
stock market.
These goals having been largely
achieved, at least for the present, the ruling class is intent on keeping
unemployment high and using mass joblessness to permanently drive down the
wages and conditions of the American working class to those that existed in the
1930s, and to narrow the labor cost differential between American workers and
super-exploited workers in China and other “emerging economies.”
That, in a nutshell, is the policy of
the Obama administration and, whatever their tactical differences, both big
business parties. They have relied on the trade unions to suppress the mounting
anger and opposition in the working class and block any mass resistance. The
unions completely support the class-war policy of the ruling class, as
demonstrated in the announcement by the AFL-CIO and Service Employees
International Union last week that they were teaming up to raise $80 million
for the Democrats in the midterm elections.
The unions will not be able to prevent
the eruption of mass social struggles. Already the first signs of coming
upheavals are emerging, showing that workers will move into action in
opposition to the corporatist union apparatuses. That is the significance of
last month’s rejection by auto workers at General Motors’ Indianapolis stamping
plant of the United Auto Workers’ attempt to impose a 50 percent wage cut.
The Socialist Equality Party calls on
workers to break with the unions and establish democratic rank-and-file action
committees to organize factory occupations and strikes against layoffs and
plant closures and mobilize the support of the entire working class. This
industrial action must be combined with a political struggle against Obama and
both parties of big business, based on a socialist program to break the
stranglehold of the financial aristocracy.
We call for an emergency public works
program to provide every unemployed worker with a decent-paying job. Millions
should be hired to build schools, affordable housing and hospitals and rebuild
the public infrastructure. The resources for such a program can and should be
obtained by confiscating the wealth of the capitalist class—beginning with the
bankers, hedge fund owners and corporate CEOs—and reorganizing economic life to
serve the needs of the people, not private profit.
Barry Grey
*
Drowning in debt: top 15 states for underwater mortgages
Last week, The Chronicle reported that underwater
mortgages are on the decline: that because of increased foreclosures on distressed properties,
the number of American homes with mortgages that exceed the properties' value
has dropped. But again, foreclosures, rather than rising home prices, accounts
for the drop--not then a positive sign.
For a more detailed look at
this phenomenon, here is a list of the top 15 states in our union for
underwater mortgages.
1. Nevada: 69.9% of all mortgages
2. Arizona: 51.3% of all mortgages
3. Floria: 47.8% of all mortgages
4. Michigan: 38.5% of all mortgages
5. California: 35.1% of all mortgages
6. Georgia: 27.8% of all mortgages
7. Virginia: 24.3% of all mortgages
8.-13. South Dakota, Maine, West Virginia, Wyoming, Louisiana, and Mississippi: 23.8% of all mortgages
14. Maryland: 22.9% of all mortgages
15. Idaho: 22.7% of all mortgages
Though we've heard the term
"bail out" more times than we care to, we might be hard pressed to
see what, if any, real help is being offered to drowning homeowners. Cavan
Hadley, a homeowner and father of two in Morro Bay, California, put the
situation-- sadly-- as follows:
"On the verge of
losing my house in Morro Bay. Been working with Bank of America for over a
year. But apparently the loan modification program wasn't aimed at people, just
press releases."
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