Blaming the Poor

Sasha Abramsky

 

A funny thing has happened on the way to the forum. As the institutions of super-capitalism continue to implode, a number of conservative commentators have started to lay blame for the mess on poor people.

Now that might seem strange given that poor people control approximately no major financial institutions; and it might seem unfair in light of the unprecedented redistribution of wealth away from the working and middle classes and toward the wealthy these past several years. According to the Urban Institute, these days sixty percent of low-income families still don't own homes - despite years of the hard sell designed to get them to buy; more than a third of them don't own cars, which in many instances means they can't get jobs since they have no way of getting to work; and nine out of ten of them have no retirement savings. By contrast, Forbes recently estimated that America's 499 billionaires (a number that has doubled in the past eight years) control $1.4 trillion in assets -- or at least did until the catastrophic market failures of the past month.

It might even seem bizarre given the fact that millions of desperate men and women signed onto utterly manipulative, usurious, "creative" mortgages during the sub-prime gold-rush years, and, as a result, ended up losing what little capital they had accumulated over lifetimes of hard work as well as losing the roofs over their heads. To stretch a point, one could even view such a suggestion as offensive, since so many banks got into trouble by "bundling" mortgage securities that only preserved their value and generated profits so long as enough poor people signed on for the ride and agreed to be screwed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sasha-abramsky/blaming-the-poor_b_133864.html