These particular foreclosures are owned by the government. Does the whole "robber baron" thing really need explaining? The financial sector creates a crisis by wildly inflating the real estate market through the sale of toxic derivatives and default swaps, the market collapses and the same villains profit from a preposterously enormous bailout that continues to this day. Meanwhile, business and consumer loans nearly evaporate as banks choose to sit on more than 2 trillion in free money from the Fed. Unsurprisingly, faced with plummeting housing values and rising mortgages, among other skyrocketing debt, domestic consumption contracts sharply. This contraction, along with other factors, drives a number of companies to reduce staff or freeze hiring. Millions are thrown out of work and there aren't enough new jobs for new entrants into the market. Now many financial institutions are trying to find a way to snap up many of the distressed properties put on the market by their wanton greed, all for pennies on the dollar, of course. This way they can profit either by driving minorities out of desirable neighborhoods (post Katrina New Orleans being the perfect recent example), or they can re-sell/rent the properties back to many of the same people whose lives they destroyed. So, yeah, robber baron pretty much fits.
And if anyone is wondering which way the Obama administration is likely to tilt, remember that they are already actively looking at such a plan, which may involve subsidizing the 1% who "invest" in such a program (normally the word "invest" implies the possibility of loss, but we know that won't be allowed to happen).
http://www.pe.com/local-news/local-news-headlines/20110803-foreclosures-spawn-investor-subsidized-rental-push.ece
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