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Does Wall Street Bailout Doom New Orleans Recovery?
A New President, a New Depression: The Moment of
Truth
By J.B. Borders
It's almost here.
D-Day 21. The real beginning of the 21st century, the
2008 U.S. presidential election. The day the game
changes for good.
After all the slimy stunts some Democrats pulled to try
and block Barack Obama from winning their party's
nomination, I expected even worse shenanigans from the
Republicans in the run-up to November 4.
I have not been disappointed.
This election will be held in the midst of what many
experts now call "the worst financial crisis since the
Great Depression"—possibly the worst economic meltdown
of all times. It's a debacle triggered by the avarice
and greed of millions of Americans, but it was wealthy
Republicans who led the charge.
I suspected all along that they would fight like the
devil to stay in power and use every dirty trick at
their disposal to remain Masters of the Looniverse. I
even assumed that there was a strong possibility
Condoleeza Rice would be picked for the vice
presidential slot as a last ditch effort to counter the
Obama momentum.
Black for black. Brainiac for brainiac. And a female to
boot. That move could have put a lot of sisters and some
of their Latina and Caucasian girlfriends in an awkward
position. But the Republican brain trust decided the
situation wasn't that desperate. Or maybe they just
weren't that bright.
At any rate, the McCain campaign opted to play to their
party's base and stay behind the color line. Though they
did indeed pull a woman out of the hat to run for vice
president, they went trailer park instead of Park
Avenue. Seems it was crucial to find a running mate who
wouldn't make McCain look dumb by comparison. They
succeeded. (Remember how much "irrational exuberance"
there was over her selection—at first?)
Earlier in the year, I also thought there was a strong
possibility the Republicans might engineer an invasion
of Iran in an effort to create a crisis that would help
keep the presidency in their fold.
I was wrong again. The scamps didn't invade Iran. They
blew up Wall Street instead— and, in the process, tried
to raid the federal treasury for an amount equal to the
cost of the Iraq war.
There are, of course, right-wingers who blame the
country's financial troubles on "minorities and risky
folks" who were granted subprime mortgages by
"respectable" lending institutions. But these nut cases
conveniently forget that those loans were made under the
guise of creating an "Ownership Society," as Bush the
Younger termed it. In fact, he sold it as a cornerstone
of his compassionate conservatism agenda—let's give our
less fortunate black and brown brethren and sistren
their chance to own a piece of the American Dream, a
home of their own. Meanwhile, his handlers were all
giggling about it behind his back. They knew it was
strictly a hustle. They were following the numbers. They
knew those rip-off predatory loans had mushroomed from
8.6 percent of all mortgages in 2001 to more than 20
percent by 2006—or more than $600 billion in overpriced
long-term deals packaged and sold as sure-fire,
high-profit securities to other suckers.
It's no wonder that also in 2006 Wall Street firms
reportedly paid out $62 billion in bonuses to executives
and other staffers. Much of it was fed by the Ownership
Society bonanza. You know nearly everyone who pocketed
the bonus money had to realize they were scamming the
system somehow. They had to know it. They were the best
minds of their generation. And now all they offer in
defense of their actions is a bromide like "Don't hate
the playa, hate the game."
Worse, instead of offering to pay back any of their
fraudulent gains, the Wall Street crew now wants Uncle
Sam - the lender of last resort - and the folks on Main
Street to give them even more money or else, they claim,
the whole world's economic system will go down the
drain.
Of course, many in the rest of the world say such talk
is pure hyperbole. "We must not allow the burden of the
boundless greed of a few to be shouldered by all,"
Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, told the
United Nations General Assembly a day or two after U.S.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former Wall Street
tycoon at Goldman Sachs, demanded the $700 billion
ransom and the unfettered authority to spend it on his
cronies as he sees fit.
Many Chinese experts also think the American doomsday
scenario is a bunch of malarkey. They say everyone knows
the U.S. economy is on the decline and that China's is
on the rise and that it was just a question of when
China would claim the top spot. They say the U.S.
sissies need to stop all the whining and start accepting
their place as beta, not alpha, dog. Or in the words of
that classic Motown tune, "Things just ain't the
same/Any time the hunter gets captured by the game."
And so, barely 40 days and 40 nights before the
presidential election, the chief ideologues of Free
Market Rugged Individual Uber-Capitalism have turned the
United States of America into a semi-socialist state.
They have folded up faster than the former Soviet Union.
If there is any justice in this world, Bush, McCain and
their cohorts will continue to flip, flop and flounder
until Election Day, when they will be put out of their
misery and Obama will be elected president. Given the
circumstances, however, that will be cause for muted
celebration at best.
The realists among us knew a black man wouldn't get a
chance to run this country and be leader of the free
world until it was on the brink of collapse. And we do
know some racists will blame him for the collapse even
though it was not of his making.
Today, more than 75 percent of the homeowners in the
U.S. are saddled with upside down mortgages—they owe
more than their houses are worth on the open market.
That gap is only going to keep growing unless something
is done either to reverse the declines in home values or
to restructure those loans. As things stand now, the
Center for Responsible Lending estimates an additional
two million homeowners will be forced out of their
houses in the next few years. A large number of those
families will be black. And putting a sensible black man
in the White House may be the best opportunity to save
their skins.
As for New Orleans, what does this national financial
meltdown and bankrupt banking system portend for us?
Though Hurricane Katrina slowed the growth of predatory
lending in our city, we're screwed anyway—in the short
term, at least. Bye-bye 100-year levee protection
system. Bye-bye new schools, roads, hospitals, jobs.
Bye-bye volunteers and crazy fat grants from national
foundations. Everybody else is going to be too broke to
give away any more money or time to us. We're on our
own—until we can get some foreign aid from China, India,
Brazil or one of the Arab kingdoms.
But let's party anyway. Decision-Day 21 will be
momentous, historic and uplifting. It won't mark the end
of our troubles, but we've been in tight spots before
and have prevailed. We'll do it again. We're made that
way.
The moment of truth is almost here. Our time has come.
Let's not get distracted, deluded or discouraged. Even
if we're only able to afford red beans and rice for the
next four years, the neo-redneck-policy alternative
would have been far worse.
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J.B. Borders is a social commentator
and cultural critic. He is also president of J.B. Borders &
Associates, a management consulting firm specializing in
strategic planning, fund development, and program implementation
and evaluation for nonprofit organizations. Borders was the
founding editor of the New Orleans Tribune and an erstwhile
editor of The Black Collegian Magazine. He has also served as
managing director of the National Black Arts Festival and
executive director of the Louisiana Division of the Arts.
Borders earned a bachelor's and a master's degree at Brown
University, where he co-founded Rites & Reason Theatre in
1969.
James B. Borders IV /
J.B. Borders & Associates /
3655 Piedmont Drive /
New Orleans, LA 70122-4775 /
504 945-7015, voice & fax
504 442-1645, mobile / jamesbborders4@cs.com
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posted 1 October 2008 |
