Settling the Debt: Business Week Starts to Point Out the Obvious (X.) by X.

Check out the Business Week article below that lays the blame and responsibility for the massive debt crisis at the feet of the banks and real estate speculators. That the corporate interests that run Business Week decided to run an article that advocates massive debt write-offs at the banks' expense is a significant development. There is dissension in the ranks of capital. Big business wants this crisis to come to a resolution because it is losing untold billions. Some of the big capitalists are losing their patience with the banking industry's stalling tactics and spelling it out: Take your medicine. What is lacking here is bold mass revolutionary democratic organization of the debtors to force the banks to eat ALL of their debt (rather than passing most of it off to the taxpayers) and to use all available means to force a resolution of the looming consumer debt crisis in favor of the producers of wealth (you know, the workers).

This is the kind of information needed on a website hub in a campaign to build Keith's proposed debtors' union, along with articles on available means of resistance to the banks and credit card companies, stories of successful dual power organizing to stop evictions, company closures, etc. and exposures of the sickening decadence of the rich in the midst of this crisis (using government bailout funds to pay for exotic holidays and to give million dollar bonuses to execs).

Here are the first graphs of the Business Week article:

"The bad mortgages that got the current financial crisis started have produced a terrifying wave of home foreclosures. Unless the foreclosure surge eases, even the most extravagant federal stimulus spending won't spur an economic recovery."

"The Obama Administration is expected within the next few weeks to announce an initiative of $50 billion or more to help strapped homeowners. But with 1 million residences having fallen into foreclosure since 2006, and an additional 5.9 million expected over the next four years, the Obama plan -- whatever its details -- can't possibly do the job by itself. Lenders and investors will have to acknowledge huge losses and figure out how to keep recession-wracked borrowers making at least some monthly payments."

"So far the industry hasn't shown that kind of foresight. One reason foreclosures are so rampant is that banks and their advocates in Washington have delayed, diluted, and obstructed attempts to address the problem. Industry lobbyists are still at it today, working overtime to whittle down legislation backed by President Obama that would give bankruptcy courts the authority to shrink mortgage debt. Lobbyists say they will fight to restrict the types of loans the bankruptcy proposal covers and new powers granted to judges."

"The industry strategy all along has been to buy time and thwart regulation, financial-services lobbyists tell BusinessWeek . "We were like the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike," says one business advocate who, like several colleagues, insists on anonymity, fearing career damage. Some admit that, in retrospect, their clients, which include Bank of America (NYSE:BAC - News), Citigroup (NYSE:C - News), and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM - News), would have been better off had they agreed two years ago to address foreclosures systematically rather than pin their hopes on an unlikely housing rebound".

Read the whole article here.

PS: Where is the traditional US Left on this question? In the wilderness of irrelevant protest or pathetic lobbying as always...