The Great Taking – Episode 5
Welcome to episode 5 of my Great Taking deep dive. This episode centers on the many court cases that have affirmed the legal ‘right’ of big, powerful financial firms to take money and stocks and bonds from a failed (or failing) stock brokerage or clearing firm.
They have this right because Congress, in its infinitesimal wisdom, passed laws that banking lobbyists and white shoe law firms wrote for them to pass.
This is the heart of The Great Taking. Once you understand that passing the laws was the installation of the means of executing the taking (the ‘trigger’) the next step is to ask if that trigger has ever been pulled.
Bang! Bang, bang! Bangity-bang-bang!
Yes, it’s already been pulled many times. And the legal frame has been run all the way up to the Supreme Court which has affirmed the protected status of certain types of financial firms and then allowed the taking of assets under that protective umbrella.
It’s all quite shocking. One of the core tenets of bankruptcy is the idea of an ‘automatic stay’ that happens the instant bankruptcy is filed. It prevents creditors from even calling the bankrupt party, let alone demanding or seizing money or property.
But not when it comes to the murky world of ‘high finance’ where the intention of Congress was to create a safer financial system but has instead created a monster. One with even more concentrated banks and vastly larger derivative positions and by carving out more and more types of financial securities and derivatives that are protected and can bypass the usual bankruptcy mechanisms.
I’m sorry if this is all convoluted, complicated, and seemingly boring. It is anything but boring, it’s how ‘they’ plan to seize all of our wealth whenever they themselves face the prospect of losses. Heads they win, tails we lose.
It’s grotesque, completely immoral, and entirely indefensible.