The moneylender's shark fest is beginning to slow.  Every day in the big business press we read articles about the crisis in the home loan industry.  Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times reports on the continuing crisis with New Century, a 10 year old firm that lends money to new homebuyers or refinances exisiting ones.  It is called a subprime lender in the business meaning that it lends to workers with a weak or "bad" credit history.

The firm has had a good time for a while.  The top dogs have whooped it up, one of them getting in to the Nascar racing game.  Patrick Flanagan, whose division even sponsored a race car received $76,000 a month for six months leave of absence to search for "new horizons" (1)  He eventually found them and left the company to compete in car races reports the WSJ.  He very generously pledged $500,000 to a private school that, surely by coincidence, four of his little horrors went to.

The atmosphere at the firm was good say some of the employees.  So it should be, in order to help them forget about what their work actually meant socially, there was plenty of booze and partying. Funny, where I worked we got fired for that. They were even taken on cruises; no wonder they loved the company.

And what were the repurcussions of their efforts?  First off, they may have illegally, even by market standards, conned people in to loans they didn't need or couldn't really qualify for.  Workers create so much wealth that the excess cash can be almost given away, to fine men and women that want to lend it back to us that is. What's the point in spending it on hospitals or schools, you don't make profit that way? But more than that.  The source of all this partying was the "subprime borrower", that working man or woman who has already been preyed upon by these parasites and whose inability to pay them the pound of flesh in the past has made them marked individuals, irresponsible failures.

With all the excess cash about though, the sharks will sucker them in again but with terrible consequences as some of them are older and vuilnerable, but that's good isn't it? The Wall Street Journal describes it perfectly giving one example: "I just wanted to be able to eat and sleep in my house and have a roof over my head", says 89 year old Gertrude Robertson, "Every day at midnight when I go to sleep, I think maybe when I wake in the morning they'll tell me to get out." (2)

This 89 year old is still working with a mortgage payment that rose to $3300 a month due to her relationship with New Century. I feel tremendous anger when I read that.  Don't you?

Many young people will not remember the Savings and Loan debacle.  This was a similar deal where the politicians in congress, (including many of the real liberal ones) passed laws that made it easier for the predators to lend money, especially to senior citizens.  The S&L's went under and millions of people lost their savings. The government then took these billions of dollars of debts and dumped them on the US taxpayer's shoulders, including interest.  It then dumped the failed S%L's but sold the best ones back to the same thugs that caused the problem in the first place; and at bargain basement prices too.

And you can get 25 years in California for stealing a slice of pizza.

Labor's Militant Voice wants to put a stop to this.  If you are interested in helping with that goal contact us, or if you want, just pass this on.

http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.org

(1) WSJ 3-12-07
(2) ibid