The Inside Man on the Great Bank Heist | Black Agenda Report

The Inside Man on the Great Bank Heist

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor

05 Aug 2009

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Click the flash player below to listen to or the mic to download an mp3 copy of this BA Radio commentary.

The bankster class, awash in billions in bonus money, flaunts its unearned wealth, oblivious to the political harm their antics are inflicting on the “Indispensable Man” in the bank bailout, President Obama. The author believes “the president's intimate entanglements with the criminal banking class will be his undoing.”

The Inside Man on the Great Bank Heist

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Obama's bankster friends can be counted on to repeatedly embarrass the president.”

Detroit Congressman John Conyers worries that President Obama might be brought down by his failure to put forward and fight for a decent health care plan. Conyers may be right, but I think the president's intimate entanglements with the criminal banking class will be his undoing. No matter how many times Obama puts a scowl on his face and pretends to threaten the banksters for their latest transgressions against everyone else's economic security, the public will remember who got bailed out first and most under the outgoing George Bush and the incoming Barack Obama.

The bankers have no shame, and even less regard for how much their behavior harms the political fortunes of their friends in the White House and Congress. It seemed like only yesterday that we were told life as we know it would cease to exist if Wall Street was not gifted with the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. At the time most of the public, Democrats and Republicans, initially opposed the bailout, sensing it was a scam. George Bush could never have pulled it off – this, the greatest boondogle in human history. Republicans were screaming that a bailout meant instant socialism. Up stepped presidential candidate Obama, who sweet-talked the Democrats into pushing the bailout through Congress. For the banksters, Obama was the Indispensable Man.

“George Bush could never have pulled it off.”

So, how do they reward him? In uncivilized haste, nine banks that received $175 billion of the people's money turned around and gave more than $32 billion to their executives and high roller employees, as bonuses. It was left to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to cry foul, in a report entitled, “No Rhyme or Reason: The 'Heads I Win, Tails You Lose' Bank Bonus Culture.” Essentially, the report outlined how bank managers divvy up bilions of dollars among themselves and their top-gun dealmakers, whether the institutions are doing well or not – not to mention how well or badly the real economy is performing for real people.

Banking in 21^st century America is, in the end, exactly what most people suspected: a racket rigged for the benefit of the bankers, themselves. They had taken the people to the cleaners, fleeced the public, stolen them blind, and were now cashing in their billions in plain view of 300 million suckers.

Nobody can pull off that big a heist without an Inside Man. The guy who vouched for the thieves back in October of last year, who convinced all those Democrats in Congress that he'd make sure the banks were made accountable to the people once he was sworn in as president.

Obama's bankster friends, fearing nothing and no one, can be counted on to repeatedly embarrass the president with their felonious, anti-social behavior, in the depths of everybody else's economic crisis. At some point, it will become Obama's political crisis. The first black president will be even more widely perceived as the bankers president. Which is what he has always been.

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.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories

Abayomi Azikiwe
Cultural Renaissance, Economic Crises and the Struggle Against Fascism, 1919-1945
06 Mar 2024
In the time between the two imperialist wars, the spirit and politics of Pan-Africanism grew. African Americans continued to organize and built movements to resist rising fascism.
Tanupriya Singh
ECOWAS Lifts Sanctions on Niger Weeks After Sahel States Announce Withdrawal From Bloc
06 Mar 2024
The West African trade bloc has lifted a majority of the sweeping sanctions it had imposed on Niger, including border closures and a freezing of state assets. The move followed soon after Niger, Mali…
Bryce Greene
Shielding US Public From Israeli Reports of Friendly Fire on October 7
06 Mar 2024
Following the Al-Aqsa flood, media reports blamed the Palestinian resistance for well over one thousand deaths. As the dust settles, reports have since emerged indicating that the IDF killed…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio March 1, 2024
01 Mar 2024
This week we hear about Haiti - the 20th anniversary of the US coup against President Aristide, and the impending U.S. occupation. But first, the Abandon Biden campaign created in the…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
The Abandon Biden Campaign
01 Mar 2024
Jaylani Husseini joins us to discuss the Abandon Biden campaign, the results of the Michigan primary uncommitted campaign, and Israeli war crimes in Gaza