General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Dark Age of Money: Milton Friedman and the Rise of Monetary Fascism [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)As a newspaper reporter during the early 90s, I helped document how one Michigan Savings & Loan was hijacked by crooks connected to the GOP, the DEMs, and the Mafia. The Houston journalist-author Pete Brewton chronicled the time, nationally. People would show up for a "commercial" loan and all they'd have to do for collateral was show a deed to a high-rise as theirs. The fact that the actual owner's name was hidden by White-Out still visible on the photocopy really was no problem. In this example, a guy got $6.5 million to start a business he had no intention of starting. After cashing the check, he distributed the cash to his hidden partners who disappeared the dough to the Caymans and beyond. When the original guy couldn't pay the loan back, he declared bankruptcy. No problem for the S&L, though, as the money would be put back into the S&L's accounts, thanks to the U.S. taxpayer backing the FSLIC. It was legalized bank robbery and it went on across the country, costing taxpayers about a trillion bucks. At the time, it was the biggest bank heist in history.
Background from the 1980s:
Know your BFEE: They Looted Your Nation s S&Ls for Power and Profit
Modern version 2008:
Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.
Here's a good summary of why I still try:
Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich
They have gotten away with lying America into war; made fortunes unimagined in scale and scope from laws they helped write and enact; created an economic system based on finance rather than production of material wealth in which those of us still able and qualified for indentured servitude will march into their new world as submissive serfs.