Re: [Marxism] for nationwide pickets at Bank of America to support UE occupation!

[Steve Palmer <spalmer999@xxxxxxxxx>]

There is no shortage of money to keep this business going.

There is, right now, $1,171bn of idle funds just sitting in the banking system 
which could be loaned out - OVER ONE TRILLION DOLLARS. This is enough to bail 
out the auto industry 34 times over.

This is enough to pay for a whole month's production from the entire US economy 
or a year's output from the Canadian economy, or the Brazilian, or the Spanish, 
or the WHOLE of South Asia or the WHOLE of Africa and the non-oil middle 
eastern economies (World Development Report, 2008). 

Last night's statistics from the Fed show that yesterday Commercial Banks had 
$843.7bn in cash and $633.8bn in reserves on deposit at the Fed. In August the 
respective figures were $297.8bn and $8.7bn. So this is far more cash than is 
needed for daily operations and these are excess reserves above the statutory 
requirements. (Releases H.8 and H.4.1)

Hundreds of millions of these dollars are from the handout program. They've 
been sitting there for weeks. Why? Because the monetarist morons who control 
this have decided to pay interest on those reserves. That rate is currently 1%. 
But the effective Fed Funds rate - that's the rate at which banks lend to each 
other - was 0.2% last night. So, by taking handout money and stashing it at the 
Fed, banks are making money risk free with a 0.8% interest rate. And people are 
wondering why the banks aren't lending. Bernanke and company are paying the 
banks not to lend!!!

It's not just BofA - it's the Federal Reserve as well.

This is why so many people lost jobs in the last month. Finance Capital is just 
sitting on the money. THIS is 'systemic risk': risk to the livelihood of tens 
of millions of working people and their families, who are losing their homes 
and jobs and who see prices for food and basics rising month after month.

Steve



----------------------

"Business always appears almost excessively sound right on the eve of a crash" 
Marx

"Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right." Donald Norman


--- On Sat, 12/6/08, Andrew Pollack <acpollack2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Andrew Pollack <acpollack2@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Marxism] for nationwide pickets at Bank of America to support UE 
> occupation!
> To: "Steve Palmer" <spalmer999@xxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Saturday, December 6, 2008, 7:40 AM
> A sister on an autoworkers list said it best:
> "Maybe it's starting!"


      

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