leavin brothers

sooooo who's disturbed that lehman and merrill lynch went under? lehman brothers was a 158 year old bank ... i kinda feel like entrenched power just took a major hit ... in 158 years what have any of the members of the lehman fam done to obliterate poverty? just asking ...

i am disturbed by this 'crisis' mainly because no real poor people are paying attention (i live around lots of poor folks and aint nobody talkin bout this trust me) ... i am disturbed that banks can get bailed out by the fed and no one notices or bats an eyelash ... i am disturbed that no fed agency is going to bail out the average homeowner and yet the WORLD's largest insurance company, AIG, is asking the fed for 'emergency funding' ... you know that funding is in the several billions don't you?

i am disturbed by the american people ... who are not connecting the dots ... not connecting g.w. bush to lenient financial regulation which caused this crisis ... not connecting federal bailouts to their income taxes ... not connecting the price of gas in lebanon to the price of coca cola in brasil and then connecting all of that to the diminishing quality of their 3rd grader's american education ...

hey ... maybe it's not connected ... but isn't it at least worth googling?? just a question ... cuz i loves you and i cares bout yall. and i'd hate to see the chaos in wall street personally connect with your wallet.

lastly, i am - as usual - disturbed by capitalism. it's an illusion. and this 'crisis' is what happens when fake money meets real people. do your research ...

you can read an assoc. press article on this matter as well.

now we payin fannie & freddie's bills too

in case you missed it ... us taxpayers who earn maybe $10 per hour (ok just me?) will be bailing out multi-billion dollar companies, fannie mae and freddie mac ... cuz nobody trusts their word that the loans they made to banks who used the money to lend to homebuyers will ever be re-paid ... or that's what they tell us ... is it coincidence that people who sit on the board of directors for fannie and freddie are second-cousins to g.w. bush? no.

but you are now confronted with a choice. you can find out what's really going on ... why are fannie and freddie so tied to our ENTIRE financial system? why do two companies control almost 50% of all u.s. mortgages? yes, i personally know the answer but ... do you? and now that it effects your pocket will you burry your ass in the sand and add fannie and freddie's bills to your own ... or will you inform yourself about what's really going on? cuz let me tell you ... us taxpayers outnumber congress. we outnumber fannie mae. if we refused to stand for this ... and acted collectively ... of course, something could be done. but what will you do now? ... keep surfing the web or sieze control of your destiny. it is a hard choice. and i love you no matter what but damn ... i'd really love ChANGE.

from cnn: Together, Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee more than half of the U.S. mortgage market - that's more than $5 trillion in loans.

Here's how they work: Banks loan money to home buyers. The banks then sell those mortgages - assuming they meet certain credit standards - to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

But without an "explicit" guarantee from the U.S. government, the stock of both companies continued to drop, and major investors - including the central banks of Russia and China - started selling Fannie and Freddie bonds fast. That made it harder, and more expensive, for Fannie and Freddie to raise money.

That guarantee that investors wanted is now explicit. The U.S. government is now in the business of buying and reselling mortgages, and Paulson and his cohorts hope that sends the message that Fannie and Freddie are safe.

The bad news - taxpayers could get stuck with a $200 billion bill for the bailout.

from bbc:The federal takeover is one of the largest bail-outs in US history.

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would create great turmoil in financial markets here and around the globe."

from the springfield sun-times: "The bailout will give the mortgage industry a stability that we haven't had in a couple of years," said Rich Cosner, president of Prudential California Realty. "But frankly no, it won't help (struggling borrowers) to refinance."

kkk for bam bam!

i came across a funny piece today on the southern poverty law center's hatewatch blog .... it's all about how white supremacist orgs are pro-obama because they think a black president will be the wake-up call white americans need ... you know the "worse-before-it-gets-better" argument ...

they think obama might make things so bad for white people that white people will remember they are white and join the KKK ... riiiiiiiight

what really scared me while reading this is the rigidity of racial division ... it's almost like racism is a play and everyone has their role. as if to say black characters always act this way and white characters always act this way. it struck me that racism - in this case - can be such a seductive CHOICE ... a chance to blame someone else when things aren't going right in your life ... an opportunity to never be accountable for your own failings ...

when the economy continues to slip and joe schmoe in wichita loses his job ... is he going to think it's obama's fault? (even though g.w put the economic policy in motion and it doesn't matter who the president is at the time) well, he just might ... cuz racism teaches us people are motivated by their skin color and when skin colors are different people become automatic enemies ... racism is so ... easy. you already know who has your back and you know who has it against you ... simple.

i do think racism works differently when the power dynamic is switched ... i.e. the process of racism is not the same for marginalized and opressed people ...

i am not saying it's better. and i am saying there is still a choice. but it processes in peoples' minds very differently and much more subconciously. read my earlier blog on how racism works for people of color. if you are a racist and you are reading this you will not be able to distinguish the intellectual nuance in my position.

which leads me to my final point ... racism is lazy thinking ... no matter what color you are. a group of people is never all bad or all good.

we are all fucked up human beings with our perfect imperfections. love me anyway?

the smartest mark in the room (2008 ed.)

the current financial crisis is no accident ... it was deliberately created ... many of the co-conspirators are U.S. senators and other politicians (like the PRESIDENT) ... the fall of bear-stearns, the home foreclosures, & the role of the federal reserve are all linked and were all the direct result of U.S. economic policy ... read this article to begin to inform yourself about the biggest set-up since enron ... and sure, go see 'the smartest guys in the room' for some remedial study on enron ...

more people need to know about this cuz this set-up is real and the only way you get set-up is if you remain ignorant ...

love yourself & love your neighbor by reading up on why you may be losing your house and your neighbor might not be your neighbor anymore.

love yourself enough to become the smartest person in the room.