Infinite Debt: How unlimited interest rates destroyed the economy

[Hannah Bell]

by Thomas Geoghegan, april 'Harpers'


"Some people think our financial collapse was the result of a technical glitch - a failure, say, to regulate derivatives...In fact, no amount of New Deal regulation or SEC-watching could have stopped what happened...The problem was not that we 'deregulated the New Deal' but that we deregulated a much older, even ancient, set of laws...

First, we removed the possibility of creating real, binding contracts by allowing employers to bust the unions that had been entering into those contracts for millions of people. Second, we allowed those same employers to cancel *existing* contracts by transferring liabilities from one corporate shell to another or letting a subsidiary go into Chapter 11 & then 'cancel' the contract rights - health benefits, pensions...and then we dismantled the most ancient of human laws, the law against usury...

Here's what happens: the financial sector bloats up...capital gushes out of manufacturing & into banking...all this used to be so obvious as not to merit comment. What is history, really, but a turf war between manufacturing, labor, & the banks? We shrank manufacturing. We got rid of labor. Now it's just the banks. Which is why the middle class is shrinking. Basically, we're all waiters now, we're bowing & scraping & working for the banks...directly or indirectly...."

[Skittles]

1. you got a link, Hannah?

thanks

[Hannah Bell]

2. Here's the link, but you need to be a subscribers...i took the text from the hard copy.

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/04/0082450

[leftstreet]

3. "a turf war between manufacturing, labor, & the banks"

He's got that right.