With official unemployment at 9%, many estimate a more realistic number at @16 if not double the number of people out of work that gov. estimates under-report. Among the historically marginalized the numbers run from a third to higher than 60% for our young men and women born into these troubled communities with a heritage of hardship and discrimination.
Meanwhile people in communities all across the nation are losing their homes to the big moneyed banks now under siege from the Occupy Movement, a movement that may have sprung up on Wall Street, New York's new ground zero, for what has become a global revolt against the unrestrained greed and reckless abandonment of the common good by the wealthiest .01%
The people want a shot at their dreams again but need to gather every one of their remaining coins together to fight America's Almighty Dollar Bill. For a wonderful life folks will need to move their money before the next Margin Call (someone get the lights, before they do...)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
In the past month, more than 650,000 new accounts have been opened at credit unions alone, according to the Credit Union National Association, a trade group representing credit unions. That compares to 600,000 new accounts in all of 2010. The People are moving their money and today, Nov. 5th, Guy Fawkes Day is Teh day.
During the financial meltdown of 2008, big banks were bailed out by American taxpayer dollars to the tune of around 27 TRILLION bucks according to Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC and other reliable sources. Thought it was only 750 billion? That was the TARP money approved by Congress, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC sent the rest to banks and corporations around the world. We have no way of knowing how much has been paid back since the FED, whose governing board is largely made up of current or former CEOs and Presidents from the US financial sector's largest corporations, wont disclose that information. They make up essentially a private bank. Banks across the world continue to steal trillions in bonuses and dividends even in Europe where they are on the verge of collapse and melt down again.
Using derivatives and Credit Default Swaps they have rigged the markets in such a way that these bankers and traders were able to defraud the public by selling financial products that they knew were worthless, presented as assets leaving the common people and consumers to deal with the damage and debris from the market's inevitable implosion.
"It's what we do," quips Jeremy Irons in his role as the head of the investment firm loosely modeled on Lehman Brothers in the recent release, Margin Call, as he flips through a litany of market melt downs over the history of American market capitalism.
Margin Call
It is a tale of greed, vanity, myopia and expediency that is all the more damning for its refusal to moralize. NY Times
This inhumane culture of greed goes beyond banks and investment firms on Wall Street to corporations using the practice of lobbying to bribe politicians into passing legislation that, in some cases, is written by them, into law. This legislation then allows them to out source jobs benefiting from tax loop-holes, off-shoring and generally bringing down wages and benefits while limiting competition. Even though the people still vote in elections, they are not represented by the vast majority of politicians.
The common people have been sleeping for too long as this process has been building up, stronger and stronger, as a force against them for the passed thirty years when real wealth for the middle class began its now accelerated shrinkage absorbed by the richest 1% in our hierarchy of wealth. At this point only an estimated 4% of the 15 million poorest Americans have any likelihood of breaking into the upper middle class according to some estimates, pinning their hopes instead mostly on winning a state run lottery as hard work and talent becomes less and less a factor.
"The rich don't need to kill you with hatred. They kill you with envy." -
Piri Tomas.
End Credits / Closing Remarks:
Given that the greater part of our site's purpose here on the Street of Prophets is to provide a place where people who might describe themselves as faithful progressives can come together to explore not only faith but the larger questions that revolve around it and our hopes of impacting the world in a positive, progressive way, I am providing these sometime weekly film reviews (whenever). I thought that submitting reviews of controversial or off-the-beaten-track films that often nudge this kind of thought and discussion might be a plus. I'll be offering this each week on Fridays (as the Spirit moves me) and would happily entertain recommendations for future reviews. Feel free to post comments about the films reviewed here today as well as your own recommendations of films you feel may fall along these lines.
My religion is to seek for truth in life and for life in truth, even knowing that I shall not find them while I live. Miguel de Unamuno
Love one another. Invest in one another...
Peace.