The current financial crisis has focused attention on our financial institutions and how they
operate. Over the last few months I have paid a lot of attention to Congressional hearings on
C-Span, financial experts on the National Public Radio, 60 Minutes, CNBC, financial writers
in the Final Call Newspaper and various internet websites. I have even bought and read
such books as America Theocracy and the Tyranny of Oil.

In many cases the language and terms used in these discussions seem to purposely obfuscate the
underlying truth. Economic issues affect our ability to survive in this modern age of interconnected
financial markets. Yet we know so little about this system and lack a basic economic understanding
to be able to even ask the right questions.

It seems that our congressional people had not done their homework or were not paying attention.
Their solution is throwing taxpayer money at the problem. The general public, according to CNN polls
taken during the debate on the bailout plan, voted against the bailout by 94 to 96 percent. But
congress passed the bailout bill anyway. As of November 16^th, although $350 billion has
been given to the banks, the credit markets are still frozen while the big banks are buying smaller
banks with the bailout money.

Will money alone restore "confidence"? When Treasury Secretary Paulson addressed the
committees in congress concerning the administrations proposed $700 billion bailout plan for Wall
Street and more specifically the banking and financial institutions, he kept saying that there was a
lack of confidence in the markets which must be restored. However, further analysis shows that this
lack of confidence is due to mistrust between the individuals involved in the financial industry. It
seems that people in the industry were misled by others of their peers into making risky investments
while the regulators who were supposed to insure fair dealings and proper accounting methods were
either asleep on their watch or looking the other way. We have found that there were at one time
laws on the books which would have prevented this financial crash, but they were taken off the books
by congress over the last eight to nine years while the people slept and their watchdogs were paid
off.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad has taught us something of the nature of the people that call
themselves "white". We must remember that the financial "system" as we have it
today was set up, is owned by and managed by these same people. Now the Honorable Elijah Muhammad
said that white people can do right as long as there is a gun to their head. However, if the gun is
removed then they will revert back to lying and stealing.

Now, these words may seem harsh and cold and labeled as racists. However, let us look at an
analysis of our current problems as described in an October 10, 2008 New York Times article
entitled "The Reckoning-Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt". In this
article Arthur Levitt Jr, who was S.E.C. chairman in the Clinton administration said, "It seems
to me the enforcement effort in recent years has fallen short of what one Supreme Court justice once
called the fear of the shotgun behind the door. With this commission, the shotgun too rarely
came out from behind the door." The public role of the Security and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.)
was to police Wall Street by enforcing the players to operate under rules set by congress.

On October 26th 60 Minutes aired an interview with Eric Dinallo, the insurance
superintendent for New York. In that interview he said that credit default swaps — essentially
private insurance contracts that paid off if the underlying investment went bad — were totally
unregulated, meaning that the banks and investment houses that sold them didn’t have to set aside
any money to cover potential losses. "As the market began to seize up and as the market for the
underlying obligations began to perform poorly, everybody wanted to get paid, had a right to get
paid on those credit default swaps," he said. "And there was no ‘there’ there. There
was no money behind the commitments."

100 years ago these gambling activities were made illegal, explained Dinallo. And then Congress
made it legal gambling with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which removed
derivatives and credit default swaps from federal oversight and preempted the states from
enforcing existing gambling and bucket shop laws against Wall Street.

To make it simple, a derivative is a financial instrument whose value is based on something else.
In other words individuals and companies were making bets that the people who owed mortgages on
their homes would go into default leaving the lenders holding the bag. When the banks and investment
companies did not have enough money to pay out to the winners, they arm twisted the government to
pay off their bad bets for them. However, even if the bets are paid off the distrust for each other
is so great that they can’t trade with each other or issue new loans. This freeze in the credit
markets is choking the very life blood of our credit dependent economy.

Now it seems that Wall Street is looking a lot like the streets in the Black community. As a
whole, Black people spend over $700 billion per year mostly with people from other ethnic groups.
The mistrust and lawlessness which keep Black people from investing in themselves, also makes
outsiders too afraid to help. I have personally sat and watched police observe drug trafficking in
once viable Black neighborhoods and do nothing. Once the drug trafficking and the violence
associated with it has destroyed the value of the houses in those communities and a new set of
people move in, all of a sudden there is no more drug trafficking.

I have personally had the experience of my former business being robbed and the best thing that
the detectives could do was ask me who do I thing did it. Then when I actually found the people that
did it, they would not investigate because I did not have proof that they had my goods. I had to
actually catch them red handed trying to sell my goods at a flea market before the police would move
in and even then they were reluctant. So what type of signal does that give a prospective Black
business person operating in America? It tells him that he is not protected by the law, but is
responsible for all legal obligations even if he is put out of business.

In working with the Black farmers I found out that they had to put up more collateral than their
white counterparts to receive government loans. Then when disasters struck, they did not get the
same disaster relief that saved white farmers during a drought, tornado or flood. Instead, Black
farmers were still required to pay all financial obligations to the government including compounded
interest on the debt. When these Black farmers went under and their land sold at auction, it was the
relatives of the very government agents that were supposed to help them who bought their land for
dimes on the dollar.

Leaders, like the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, for years have accused the government of
conspiring against the economic and moral development of Black people in America. He has been
ridiculed and laughed at for his, what they call, "conspiracy theories". We will not go
into detail over the history of what has been done to Black people. However, the result has been a
people who lack confidence and trust in each other to invest money with each other to establish
businesses and institutions like every other community in America.

Black people should take heart at the financial crisis in America because the chickens have
finally come home to roost in the high perches of Wall Street. Like Wall Street, we must find ways
to trust one another. Like Wall Street, we must develop a new view of the world that gives us faith
in a productive and secure future. Like Wall Street, money by itself can not restore confidence,
only the truth and a set of restrictive laws or codes of behavior with unbiased enforcement can
guarantee our success.