OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: The Lack of Congressional Outrage and the Dollar Decline

I had to confess that Mr.
Å½iÅ¾ek's comment in the Harpers interview hit home for me and should
hit home to all major media consumers. Most of the planet was, indeed,
caught by surprise by the big bank collapses and financial collapses of
the past year or so. On the other hand, for thousands (or millions) of
individuals and concerned parties, such as those out protesting,
getting tear-gassed in Seattle, Chiapas, London, Pittsburgh, and
elsewhere for over two decades, this sort of crisis was already fully
underway.

The bottom line for Mr. Å½iÅ¾ek says that "this is
my whole thesis, that capitalism always was socialism for those who are
on the top. This is the basic paradox of it, no?"

HOWEVER; EUROPE MAY BE WORSE THAN THE USA ?? I doubt it

Å½iÅ¾ek
says that, in contrast to many Europeans, many Americans do recognize
this fact about the relationship between socialism for the rich.

However,
in Europe , where Å½iÅ¾ek is from, the Left does not get it. He says that
the Left (and the Right) these days are tending to believe that the
forms of choice for their socio-capitalist development are very very
narrow.

Å½iÅ¾ek summarized his thoughts, "I see more hope at
this moment with you in United States than with Europe . Europe is now,
I think, in great decline. I had (had)some hopes about Europe (but not
any more). Why? Because, to put it very simply, it still looks that we
have two models now which are in competition, if I simplify the
analysis very much: (1) the Anglo-Saxon liberal market model and what
we (2) poetically call capitalism with Asian values, which means
authoritarian capitalism. This is what every leftist, as I repeat it,
should worry about, because let's concede to the devil what belongs to
the devil. . . . 'til recently--I'm sorry to tell you again, as a
strange communist, you will say--there was one good argument for
capitalism? . . . . It may have been that capitalism needed
dictatorship for ten, twenty years-- Chile , South Korea --but when
things started to move, capitalism always engendered a push toward some
kind of democracy. No longer. I claim that what is now emerging in the
Far East started--it started in Singapore , this kind of so-called,
again, authoritarian capitalism."

This great narrowing
of choices may be true for Europe in either the near- or the far
future, but in the meantime, Americans poorest and most vulnerable
wander around without health care, property, nor jobs--while humongous
banks with huge lobbies laugh all the way . . . to the bank.

The
only plan now is to sink the US dollars value until American
investment becomes too tantalizing to keep foreigners out of the
market--despite the apparently narrowed-mindedness of USA bankers and
financiers.

William Black explains socialism for the
rich--i.e. paid for with USA tax dollars: "What happened then (in the
Saving and Loan Scandal days) was an epidemic of what we call in
criminology control fraud. And that means what happens when the fraud
is led by the person who controls a seemingly legitimate corporation or
government agency. In this case, they were savings and loans. And these
frauds were growing at an annual rate of over 50 percent. Their weapon
of choice is accounting fraud."

Black explained, "So it's
real easy. It's a three-part optimization. First thing you do is grow
like crazy, Ponzi-like scheme. Second thing you do is deliberately make
really bad loans, because they have a higher interest and higher
expenses associated with them, so you report more profits. And the
third thing you do is have extraordinary leverage. Leverage is simply
lots of debt compared to your equity. And the point of this is, if you
do those three things, you are mathematically guaranteed to report not
just profits, but record profits."

Sadly, Black points out
that his Federal Savings and Loan Investigation group had approached
the problem of growth and had controlled it with good regulation and
oversight.

However, it was this same exemplary oversight
of derivatives etc. that the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama
have refused to use with America 's most powerful financiers in 3 full
decades--or more.

This leaves Americans wide open to abuse more than ever.

Americans
need to demand a completely new Congress and Senate without the banks
money in 2010 or they will be enslaved to Citigroup and friends
forever.

DN notes that currently Congress has already
received 200 million dollars this year from banking and finance
lobbies--paid with by American taxpayer largess. Black responded to this
fact by pointing out, "Barney Frank has proposed legislation on
financial derivatives that essentially exempts what are called
over-the-counter derivatives from most regulation, and it is
over-the-counter derivatives that have been a major cause of this
crisis. So that's utterly insane. There's no conceivable justification
for it. And he stacked the hearing. There were nine witnesses; eight of
them were from the industry and, of course, testified that they were
vital to the world. The ninth witness was the only person who was in
the least bit skeptical, and he was promptly gaveled down, unlike the
others, by the chair. So it's not only a farce; they're willing to have
us see that it's a farce. They are so little afraid of public opinion
and outrage that they're not even taking steps to cover up the
cover-up."

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