Counter or co-opt...
This is a curious site I ran into on an online message board.
Showdown in Chicago - Put People First!
The home page has this to say:
"The same financial institutions that caused the economic crisis and took billions in taxpayer bailouts are back to earning incredible profits. Meanwhile, Americans face shrinking pensions, rising foreclosures and unemployment, state budget cuts, predatory lending, outrageous overdraft fees, and sky-high credit card interest rates.
"The American people want oversight, accountability and common-sense financial reform NOW. This is the classic David vs. Goliath fight, with Wall Street spending millions and millions on lobbying to defeat reforms that would protect the American people and our economy.
"JOIN US on October 25-27 for a series of demonstrations when thousands of Americans - retirees, farmers, workers, homeowners, renters, students, clergy, and small business owners - come together on the streets of Chicago to demand a banking system that puts the American people first and a Congress that makes it happen! Take a look at the Showdown schedule of events, stay informed about event details and join our mailing list, and fill out the Showdown inquiry form to tell us when and where you want to plug into the fight!"
It sort of sounds like it has borrowed a page from Tea Party movement that the left-leaning sites and blogs have attacked. So I clicked on "About Us" page, and I found this list as their "allies":
My eyes were drawn to AFL-CIO and SEIU. Hmmm.
Then I looked at "Our Solution" page. Top of the list is "Modernize the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)". They have now removed the link to their detailed solution proposal, but when I first looked at the page it had such a link and I copied it:
http://www.ntic-us.org/images/cra%20policy%20paper%20ii.pdf
The paper has this as the title:
The site turns out to be National Training and Information Center (NTIC), based in Chicago. It is "a national organizing, policy, research, and training center for grassroots community organizations dedicated to building power to reclaim our democracy and advance racial and economic justice." In other words, a community organizer.
Among their "Successes", they proudly list:
- Spearheaded efforts to pass the Community Reinvestment Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act in the 1970s – often referred to as the most important economic justice public policy for neighborhoods.
- Lead a successful and productive partnership with Fannie Mae to develop mortgage products to meet the home mortgage needs of underserved neighborhoods. To date, this 8-city partnership has resulted in $4 billion in loans to families.
In other words, they are responsible, along with the government regulators/agencies and banks, for the subprime debackle that triggered the worldwide financial crisis that tanked the stock markets and economies into recession.
And "National People's Action (NPA)" turns out to be another community organizer.
Hmmmm.
Showdown in Chicago "Our Solution" page had another link, which they later removed. It was about "Modernize Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA)", and it had the same red header with red stars. I suspect that "Solution" was also a NPA paper.
Then I saw Michael Moore as one of their "Allies".
Hmmmm.
My tentative conclusion: This may be an answer from the administration's supporters - labor unions, community organizers (if not the administration itself) to "right-wing" "racist" people of all ages who descended on Washington DC in September to hold a gigantic "Tea Party", protesting all sorts of government policies from healthcare reform to gun control to war in Afganistan.
I don't know whether all these "Allies" of Showdown in Chicago are aware of their affiliation.
Lastly, why October 25-27 for "series of demonstrations"? That's when the American Bankers Association holds its annual meeting in Chicago Sheraton Hotel. So this organization (Showdown in Chicago) could be just a one-time setup for the occasion.
But when I saw that paper's header in red, with words like "People's Action" and two red stars, and recalling one of the White House communication director's favorite philosophers (Mao Zedong), I have to say it made me feel uneasy.
30-Day free trial by following the link.
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3 comments:
You may appreciate the article I have written about the Showdown in Chicago for daily puma. SHOWDOWN IN CHICAGO examined.
You know something is both good, and bad, about the Showdown in Chicago, the link above may help explain both sides.
I also wouldn't necessarily blame people who took the subprime mortgage deals as causing our economic woes. Many were enticed and even challenged to take out a mortgage that would put them in a home for almost identical monthly payments to renting from someone else.
The banks would then also tell the prospective client, even if it doesn't work out, you sell the home in a few years and pocket some nice profit.
When banks are enticing first time homeowners with the above tactics, of course the renter is going to go for it.
What fails to get mentioned was that all of those loans, as they came due, could have been modified to prevent an overnight shock to the economic system.
Instead of someone's payment jumping from 1,200 a month to 3,500 a month overnight, rework the deal and have it go up slowly. This buys everybody time.
Everybody except the derivative dealers, they are the ones that created a falsely accelerated upward economy. I don't think it is accurate to blame someone for getting into a home at a similar price to what they paying on rent.
Also blame that there is no rent deduction for income tax. I find that just crazy and inane. Rent is rent, and should be deductable. Even if the income tax savings that get created go into a fund for a first time homeowners home, and they can only apply it to the purchase of a first time home, that would at least let people feel like they are not throwing out their rent money every month with no future benefit attached to it, and that would slow the desire to have to get a home as soon as possible.
suggestion, it is almost impossible to post a comment on your blog.
I hit the postcomment button and it said I had to answer the word verfication, but there was no scroll down method to find the box to fill in the word verification. I don't know what I did to be able to scroll down farther. You might want to try posting a comment yourself to see if you have the same problem.
I'm asking Blogger about the comment problem. It started about a month ago but it doesn't happen all the time. Sorry about that.
Thanks for the link to your blog. (Die Fledermaus is my favorite operetta.) I don't necessarily fault people who took out the subprime loans either. Or so-called liar loans. Or alt-A prime. It is the securitization of these loans, then squared and cubed beyond recognition, with "insurance" slapped on, that was, and is, the problem.
But I don't blame the "greedy" bankers alone. The incentives for them to do what they did were put in place by politicians and activists.
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