Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

International bankers are estimated to have lost between $3 to $4 billion.  Foreign bankers who bought these insecure securities are victims of a massive fraud.

Unethical bankers admit that they encouraged loan officers to make these sub-standard loans.

People with poor credit histories and no jobs that could pay both interest and principal were given interest-only loans (in California alone 30% of housing loans were interest only).

Once their interest-only loan contracts demanded payment on both principal and interest, they didn't have sufficient funds.  

Many greedy borrowers of course were fully aware of their terrible credit histories.  They were also aware that they had no income source which could cover both interest and principal on the loans for which they were signing.  Nevertheless, they were hoping to wiggle in on the housing boom generated by absurdly low interest rates.

House prices were skyrocketing, destroying the stability in the U.S. housing market that should reflect sound economic strategy.

Of course, when the inflationary housing bubble burst, many borrowers declared it was the banks' fault for providing them with the loans on their dwellings.

The housing melt-down ended their get-rich-quick fantasies.  Now it was time for these housing market gamblers to howl, declaring they were housing mortgage victims.

The fraud-oriented bankers who made all those risk-laden loans as well as the greedy housing market speculators deserved each other.

But tragically the economic hardship is sweeping through the U.S. economy.  It is causing hardships for almost every sector of U.S. society.

The housing melt-down due to those sub-standard loans reminds everyone of Ronald Reagan's mantra "Get the government off people's backs" and how a permissive attitude toward business applies to the current cheating bank officers' scenario.

What about all the bankers world-wide who were conned into buying these "bundled up" packages of mortgage "securities" (securities being the key con-trick word).  Are they going to accept $3 to $4 billion dollar losses without trying to obtain justice?

Of course they want justice - they want the investment money their clients depend on for their livings.  There will be repercussions.  It has cost the U.S.A. tremendous respect.

The U.S. global insight chief Ian Shepherdson in an Associated Press article on the U.S. dollar had this viewpoint:

"Thank goodness for the weak dollar.  It helps exporters by making U.S. goods cheaper overseas and boosting overseas earnings, when converted to dollars."

Did Ian Shepherdson think it helps the U.S.A. to have a dollar decline drastically to where some of the major U.S. businesses are being bought out cheap?  

Foreign investors delight when the British pound is more than twice as strong as the U.S. dollar and the Euro is over 55% stronger.

With a weak dollar U.S. businesses are hastily being snapped up by foreign investors.  G.M. stock dropped to less than $10 a share, the lowest in over 50 years.  

G.M. chief Nick Wagoner is defending creating so many gas-guzzling SUV's that are now a decided drag on the market.  Wagoner claimed that Detroit's Japanese rivals spent a decade trying to match GM's leadership in SUV's and pick-up trucks.  

That's all history now if GM sales don't pick up.  Ford Sales dropped 26% in the last quarter.  Thousands of auto workers are being laid off.

The U.S. airline industry is losing billions in 2008, laying off 50,000 workers as the cost of living goes up while salaries are not keeping pace.

A series of stock market bubbles are sending the stock market down to new depths.

Bush's Iraq War has stolen funding from such needs as Universal Health Care as 45 million U.S. citizens are without health care.

Banks provide CD's for those fixed income seniors.  Rates are around 3.5% to 3.75% for interest income, which does not even match inflation, meaning senior citizens relying on bank CD's are being legally robbed.

All the while Medicare doctors are being cut 10% on their payments.

Now - What next?