The best short characterization of the current banking/foreclosure mess that now threatens us with another episode of “shock doctrine” capitalism is Randy Wray’s. Here it is:

Mike Konczal is writing a terrific series on the foreclosure crisis. The other day I read Parts 1-3 of it at New Deal 2.0. I recommend it as providing a very clear explanation with some diagrams about what’s behind the crisis, and a discussion of some possible ways in which could represent big trouble for the broader economy. The Administration is responding to the crisis with noises about its concerns that the big banks might again be damaged and also with its hope that the banks can clear up the foreclosure paperwork problems in a fairly brief time.

Tom Hickey, a frequent and excellent commenter at Warren Mosler’s and Bill Mitchell’s blogs offered this comment to Mike:

Last Sunday, my son asked me what I thought about the WaPo article “Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tackles five myths about TARP.” Here’s my reply.

There’s a lot of truth to the specifics, but his overall evaluation is way off because he looks at it by cherry-picking specific points, and also restricting his evaluation to the bank situation alone, and assuming that the proper goal was to save the big banks at low cost rather than to save the economy. So here are things the Administration and Geithner could have done if they had ended TARP and taken a different course.

China illegally subsidizes its export industries and unlawfully manipulates its currency. That kills U.S. industry and destroys U.S. jobs. On June 19, China announced it would allow its currency value to rise on international markets. And then it didn’t. That’s flipping the bird at America. Before China’s June 19 promise, U.S. Senators and Congressmen proposed legislation that would force the U.S. Treasury Department to even the score with China. Pass the legislation. It’s time for America to flip the bird back.

The Lord’s Resistance Army has terrified Northern Uganda and created a virtual hell-on-earth for anyone who stands in their way. The Obama Administration has passed legislation to combat these evils, but are they doing enough? Is it too much to ask during a collapsing economy and 9%+ Unemployment rate? My personal encounters with Ugandan citizens and other issues addressed.

The anger and courage of Americans who have been expressing opposition to the coal industry and expending energy to chip away at the power coal companies have to destroy America’s environment is paying off.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that administration officials are “alarmed” by the military commission case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen seized as a 15-year-old by U.S. forces in Afghanistan who’s now spent a third of his life in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Trying an alleged child soldier based largely on confessions he made after being threatened with gang-rape and murder is not the case the Obama administration had hoped to showcase in its first military commission trial.

But the argument in a new paper published today by Loyola Law School professor David Glazier should give the administration even more cause for alarm. Glazier, an expert on international law and the laws of armed conflict, argues that the military commission trial of Omar Khadr is itself a war crime.

Despite at least $3 trillion in government spending aimed at stimulating the economy, a multitude of economic indicators now show that the economy is poised to slip into a double dip recession. In order to stave off another dip into further recession Congress and the Obama Administration need to direct federal funds to small businesses.

The boom-and-bust cycle rears its ugly head, this time potentially in the form of another bust. Just when we as a nation are starting to see the light at the end of the recession tunnel, concern over a double-dip recession looms.

What is most disturbing about the meeting with Treasury and the things that were said, or more accurately admitted, is that an argument could easily be made that this was an overt act by the administration to mislead and trick the American homeowner. That our government has been complicit in the bank’s ravaging of the bank accounts, retirement, and investments of nearly five million people.