[Marxism] Proletarianization and Overaccumulation

[S. Artesian]

Couple of points:

1. I don't know about Stockton California specifically, but nationally, 
mortgage default rates for immigrants were much lower than the national 
averages, with "don't ask, don't tell" mortgages [available to undocumented 
immigrants] having particularly high rates of repayment.  That may have 
changed, but I don't think we can attribute the precipitating force in the 
sub-prime collapse to immigrant mortgage delinquencies.

2. At core, the argument about the "overproduction of paper,"  i.e. excess 
mortgage, and asset backed securitization, as the cause of the current 
predicament is nothing but another variation on the old "speculation is the 
source of the problem"-- and creates a false, but useful separation for the 
bourgeoisie, between bad speculative capital, and good productive capital. 
This speculation argument gets trotted out every time something goes wrong 
with earning money the old fashioned way-- making other people work for it--  
but it is no answer, and no analysis at all.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matthew Russo" <russo.matthew9 at gmail.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 7:18 AM
Subject: [Marxism] Proletarianization and Overaccumulation


>The weak link in the credit
> chain snapped when Mexican immigrant workers began defaulting on their
> mortgages on the south side of Stockton, California back in 2006.  This
> singular event engaged the whole accumulation of financial imbalances 
> built
> up over those same decades and unbelievably, the whole rotten house of 
> cards
> came tumbling done in a debacle of spectacular proportions.