“Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’…” was the title of our Vol. XVIII, Art. 25 commentary, wherein we reprinted an article authored by Glen Ford, the executive editor of the Black Agenda Report. He’s a writer who pulls no punches and his latest offering is also worth a reprint. Even his headline is a haymaker:

“U.S. Economy: The Cancer is Still There”

“May 19, 2009 — Obama will be remembered more for his massive transfers of national wealth to the finance capitalist class, than as the first Black president of the United States.

“How does one restore the Lords of Capital to their former positions as dictators of the U.S. and global economies, while keeping their seats warm as de facto political rulers of the American state? Saving the finance capital oligarchy has emerged as President Obama’s central mission – the guiding focus of his young administration. Obama has found new and myriad ways to go where no American president has ever gone before, in funneling somewhere around $ 13 trillion of national treasure to the parasitical class that goes by the shorthand, Wall Street.

“By March of this year, the federal government and the Federal Reserve had ‘spent, lent or committed’ $ 12.8 trillion to the banksters, according to the Bloomberg financial news service. That amounts to 90 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of the entire United States economy last year. Let us put it another way: Mostly under the auspices of Barack Obama’s administration, the value of every good and service produced in the United States in 2008 has been, in one way or another, put at the disposal of a tiny financial oligarchy.

“This is the kind of overarching reality that defines, not just presidencies, but eras. In the cold assessment of history, Barack Obama will be remembered more for his massive transfers of national wealth to the finance capitalist class, than as the first Black president of the United States.

“President Obama has chosen to use the limited resources of the current and future United States – $ 13 trillion so far – to prop up a criminal class.

“The primary beneficiaries of this history-shaking generosity are the same banksters that brought about the economic meltdown through their monstrous invention, the derivative. This fictitious capital – derivatives – created to facilitate gambling on a scale that far exceeds the productive capacity of the entire planet Earth, is a cancer that Barack Obama has chosen to feed, rather than cut out. As F. William Engdahl points out in a recent article, five U.S. banks are the biggest repositories of toxic derivatives: JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo-Wachovia Bank. Together, these five Banksters of the Apocalypse hold derivatives with the notional [sic] value of $ 193 trillion. That is more than three times the value of the real economy of the whole world – which is about $ 60 trillion.

“These deadly derivatives continue to sit there, immovable, in these five fatally stricken institutions. There are not enough trillions existent in the national or world economies to absorb these fatal instruments. There is nothing rational to do but wipe the obligations, and their holders, off the face of the Earth, in order to save the real economy. Instead of feeding the cancer, a rational government would use the people’s wealth to create public institutions to dispense credit and guide economic development. The bankster gamblers would be consigned to the dustbin of history – and good riddance. But President Obama has chosen to use the limited resources of the current and future United States – $ 13 trillion so far – to prop up a criminal class. All the manufactured hoopla about stock market rallies and phony stress tests is intended to mask the central truth of our time: the derivatives cancer will eat away at the real economy until the class that spawned it is cut away, and flushed out of existence.”

Amen.

But what if “the class that spawned it” is not “cut away, and flushed out of existence”? How long can that other class – the class that “only know what they read in the newspapers” – be able to shoulder the intolerable burdens of poverty?

Not for very long.

On May 24th, from Madrid, came a warning that should have been carried by the U.S. news media. It wasn’t, of course.

“MADRID (Reuters) – World economy recovery will be slow and rising unemployment could bring the threat of social crisis and protectionism, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in an interview with Spanish Sunday newspaper El Pais.

“‘What began as a great financial crisis and became a great economic crisis is now becoming a great crisis of unemployment, and if we don’t take measures there is a risk of a great human and social crisis, with major political implications,’ he said …

“‘Maybe the key thing that has to be cleaned up is the financial system … there are still banks with serious difficulties related to consumer finance, credit cards and real estate’ he said …

“‘There are risks in Africa, parts of Latin America and in Eastern Europe … and for countries like Mexico and Brazil, the main threat is losing access to finance,’ Zoellick said.”

It’s becoming obvious that the bankster elite has cut the legs out from under billions of the world’s inhabitants, and that doesn’t bode well for any of us. The greedy elite have destroyed the world’s economies and created armies of unemployed and desperate human beings. Self-preservation is a terrible driving force, and needy armies can be revolutionary and destructive. If the desperate masses could be united instead, and if the broken international supply chain could be mended, an unbloodied world would soon be on an even keel. But for that to happen an army of U.S. consumer/buyers must first be created. Employed Americans are the master link in the international chain, and only an emergency U.S. shipbuilding program can provide the millions of jobs needed by U.S. consumers.