PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Wall Street plunders Detroit while pensioners take blame
by Systemic Disorder Wednesday, Aug. 07, 2013 at 8:41 PM

In North America, Detroit fulfills the same function as Greece does for Europe: A scapegoat. Larger economic and social forces, disinvestment and financial industry legerdemain are the major factors in Detroit’s financial struggles as Wall Street used complex, and poorly understood, derivatives to extract money through “heads I win, tails you lose” tactics.

The Detroit bankruptcy has been portrayed as a simple morality tale of city mismanagement, but the crucial role of financial industry chicanery has been conveniently ignored. Municipal debt is a largely unknown but very lucrative field — lucrative, that is, for speculators.

There are so many questions that can be asked about Detroit’s bankruptcy filing. What is Wall Street’s role in municipal debt? How is it that almost $300 million is available for a new ice hockey arena when there is no money for pensions? How is that business taxes can be cut by 80 percent at a time of fiscal crisis? Why did the total of pension liabilities suddenly increase fivefold from earlier this year?

These are questions that are rarely raised in the corporate media. Asking such questions disarms the narrative of public-employee retirees bleeding taxpayers dry and masks larger systemic issues. It is quite difficult to believe the same folks who brought you the economic crash of 2008, and five years and counting of hard times, are completely innocent of fleecing local governments. Indeed, they are not.

Municipal bonds are big business — $3.7 trillion. Yes, you read that correctly — trillions of dollars. That is one big pot of money to tap, and tap it financiers do.

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