From this extremely well informed article in the NY Review of Books:
This is what the recovery from the 2008 crash looks like. People scrambling to pay rent for decrepit houses, houses that let everyone cash in except the occupants: the company that bought the home, the investors that financed that company, the bank that securitized the home’s debt, the bondholders who bought those securities, and the speculators who make bets on whether the bonds will pay out or not.
The article provides in very complicated (for those not familiar with the details of what went wrong in the housing bubble, and what went further wrong with the Bush II-Obama bailout of the rich), but very enlightening, detail, why I am so angry with Obama and hate it when people venerate this phony. And why I have no doubt Biden will handle the repercussions from this crisis in a similar way. I love the contrast drawn between FDR's approach, which was about saving mostly white people's homes during the Great Depression, and the way in which Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama took care of the investor and other wealthy classes. For years, I said we could have, for $3 trillion, paid off every person's home mortgage, saved people from losing their homes, and probably incentivized people to lower, not raise, rents--with the stick being a national rent control act.* But, no. Failure, and so people more and more fell toward fascism when socialism was not on the political policy menu.
We see this playing out in the coronavirus crisis economic fallout, where we take care of big business and leave small business gasping for air, and the regular folks left behind, unless they are lucky yet to get the unemployment check with the $600 boost, which Republicans are working so hard to end. All we had to do was do what other nations have done, which is have the government pay the payroll departments of businesses and keep the check monies coming while we sheltered in place, and have a truly small business oriented program. But, again, no. And, again, failure. And the people become more and more enamored with hardline fascism.
Joe Biden will never save us. Never.
* You may say, oh my! That is so much money. Well, here is Forbes to tell us the banks and financiers were given up to $16 trillion in support and subsidies. The article helps us understand how risk was underwritten and guaranteed by the government, while profit was privatized. And pray tell, how much would the economy have been boosted if people didn't have pesky mortgages to pay? Think more consumer goods would have been sold? More vacations? More restaurant visits? We know the dark answer, though. This would have restored belief in our democratic/republican institutions, and would have caused people to wonder why there is not public housing in the first place, or other things that would impinge on rich people taking most of the money.
* You may say, oh my! That is so much money. Well, here is Forbes to tell us the banks and financiers were given up to $16 trillion in support and subsidies. The article helps us understand how risk was underwritten and guaranteed by the government, while profit was privatized. And pray tell, how much would the economy have been boosted if people didn't have pesky mortgages to pay? Think more consumer goods would have been sold? More vacations? More restaurant visits? We know the dark answer, though. This would have restored belief in our democratic/republican institutions, and would have caused people to wonder why there is not public housing in the first place, or other things that would impinge on rich people taking most of the money.
