A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Zombie Banks Run the Country, Thanks to Their Grand Protector in the Oval Office
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“The Wall Streeters have been given a license to destroy, not only their own, paper-money gambling enterprises, but the infrastructure of the real economy, as well.”
Although disgraced in the eyes of the American and world publics, nothing is more clear than that the U.S. investment banking class remains in political control of the nation. The zombies run the country, through the agency of their grand protector in the White House. They not only virtually dictate the terms of their own rescue, but shape policy for the attempted recovery of the overall economy. This reality is on stark display in the treatment meted out to the U.S. auto industry, a mainstay of the real economy, a producer of actual products and mass employer of people at decent, union wages, as compared to the open-ended, luxurious life support the Obama administration provides to its walking-dead, parasitical friends on Wall Street. The federal government has initiated a hostile takeover of General Motors, both its management and labor components, and appears ready to write off Chrysler as a lost cause. General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was forced out by the feds, who have also taken on the role of union buster, bearing down like Mafia thugs on the United Auto Workers, whose only crime over last the seven decades has been to provide for its members a health and retirement safety net that the corporate-controlled U.S. government denies to the masses of its people. With the auto industry on the ropes as an immediate consequence of high crimes on Wall Street, who does Barack Obama put in charge of auto task force? A former Wall Street investment banker, Steven Rattner.
“Who does Barack Obama put in charge of auto task force? A former Wall Street investment banker.”
It was Wall Street, finance capital, that engineered the hollowing out of the American manufacturing sector, imposing a casino financial regime on producers of real goods, for the benefit of speculators who create nothing. Barack Obama has allied himself and the federal government on the side of the speculators, and placed one of them in charge of “restructuring” one of the last bastions of good, blue collar jobs in America. The Wall Streeters have been given a license to destroy, not only their own, paper-money gambling enterprises, but the infrastructure of the real economy, as well. Even the bankster’s best buddies in journalism at the Wall Street Journal have noted the blantant double standard in the Obama administration’s treatment of banks versus the auto industry. The coddled mega-failures of the banking racket are scheduled to undergo a so-called “stress test” late this month, to determine which banks are viable enough to make it through these hard times. But virtually nobody expects the feds to flunk any of the big banks, or even to share the results of the stress test with the public. The Obama administration, which takes its cues from Goldman Sachs and other investment bankers, protects the banksters from both the wrath of the public and the challenges of the marketplace that they poisoned. Yet Obama’s people are not concerned in the least about the stress that is felt by literally millions of Americans whose livelihoods are linked to the auto industry. A generation ago, finance capital killed productive, manufacturing capital in the United States, and seized political control of the U.S. government apparatus. Then they killed themselves. But Barack Obama won’t let the banksters die. Instead, he puts them in charge of the everyone else’s destiny. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com. BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Isaac Saney is a Cuba and Black studies specialist and historian at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
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