4 Ways Greedy Capitalists Rig the System to Profit Off Our Misery [View all]

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http://www.alternet.org/economy/4-ways-greedy-capitalists-rig-system-profit-our-misery



Water

The city of Detroit, which is positioned next to the greatest supply of fresh water between the polar ice caps, has lost its access to water because of bad financial deals that have left unsuspecting citizens with over a half-billion dollars in interest payments. Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr responded by putting the whole water system up for sale.

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Housing

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It's a perfect business, a well-designed process of predatory equity:

----1. Buy Foreclosures.

----2. Rent Them at Exorbitant Prices. Only one-third of Blackstone's Los Angeles renters are paying affordable rent, according to Department of Housing and Urban Development standards.

----3. Skimp on Maintenance. According to a Homes for All study, 46 percent of residents reported plumbing problems, 39 percent reported roaches or insects, and 90 percent of Los Angeles renters have never met their landlords.

----4. Package the Properties into "Rental-Backed Securities." These sound disturbingly like the mortgage-backed securities that crashed our economy a few years ago. Companies like Blackstone and Goldman Sachs are doing it to America all over again.

Savings

The financial industry indiscriminately targets all struggling Americans, from the impoverished class to the low-income class to the middle class. At the lowest level loom the payday lenders, with about as many locations in the U.S. as all the McDonalds and Starbucks combined, and with annualized interest rates that can reach 1,000 percent or more.

Justice Itself

With the highest incarceration rate in the world, and with imprisonment skewed toward minorities, our business-oriented society has effectively turned our poorest citizens into products, with an emphasis on product volume.