Amazing candor from a man whose political fortunes are controlled by many a financial power house in Wall Street, many of whom are big election fund contributors.  So what was Obama really intending to say here rather than the point that he could not have been any more blunt.  In the aftermath of the financially toxic events of Wall Street in recent times that almost ignited a global financial collapse and brought the US to the brink of bankruptcy, his statement carries a straight meaning:    I will not give the burglars the keys to my house.

The foreign banks and financial institutions have squeezed the last drop of fresh water from their financial rivers in North America as well as the EU  and have left a toxic sludge in their wake, an environment where these banks themselves are struggling for vital oxygen.  With their policies fueled by greed and recklessness and often based on speculation, manipulation and market rumors, these Wall Street and London institutions have virtually poisoned and paralyzed their environs.  Consequently, the US today seems to be mired in a recession that is gripping its neck like a steel clamp.  The EU economy also has been extremely sluggish for a while and there seems be no new energizing forces in the distant horizon.  The Japanese economy seems to be under hypnosis for a very long time now and the Japanese Govt is doing its best to awaken by pumping insane amounts of money but nothing seems to keep the forces of deflation at bay there.  Australia is the only Western economy that seems to be booming now but that is only because of its coupling to China's insatiable hunger for its copious iron ore buried in the sands of Western Australia. But Australia is a small speck in the world financial firmament and has not much to offer these predatory banks and the situation does look bleak for them.

But events in recent times have come to their rescue: The opening up of verdant financial markets in South Asia and China has come as a godsend to these foreign banks.  By use of their friends in very high places, these banks are increasingly muscling into these new territories where they are establishing deep tentacles clothed under the garb of super-customer-service and all this before they unleash their actual toxic policies and destroy the financial viability of their welcoming hosts in the long term. (Does the term Trojan ring a bell here??).

 While the Chinese are showing circumspection in this regard before handing over their keys to these predators, we in Bhaarath have thrown all caution to the wind, thanks to PM Mad Mohan's virtual crawling of a  foreign policy towards the US and its EU allies.

The foreign banks have wasted no time in unleashing their glib while setting shop here.  And one of the strongest weapons in their armor is their outward commitment and execution of consistent super-customer-service.  For the aam-janatha used to the lugubriousness and apathy of the staffs of the Nationalized banks, this super-customer-service comes across as financial ambrosia.  Easy money, easy credit, loans for homes, loans for cars, loans for this, loans for that, and other sweeteners are swiftly reeling in their customers hook, line and sinker.  The nationalized banks blindsided by this toxic sludge dole out of the foreign banks are now forced to compete and issue their own plastic money schemes.  That this will usher irreparable harm to the centuries old and consistent Bhaarateeya economy and will bring in long term chronic toxicity to our financial system is completely ignored.  But who cares and the foreign banks are indeed making merry  by enticing the young and the impressionable ambitious (bordering on greedy) into easy credit with all the glib and slickness of used cars salesmen.  

Just the other day, one of the local foreign bank staff had called my work colleagues that they are ready to give loans up to 30 Lakhs depending on their salary.  Vaanga-saar , onga paNam eduttittu ponga, (come and take your money in Tamil now) the bank salesman urged sweetly on their mobiles and some of our younger staff members were instantly over the moon and made an beeline to the bank.  That easy cash will enslave generations of young people in no-hope loans and make the country a prisoner to these banks is not at all  in the calculation of these instant-happiness-generation, thanks to the mindless consumerist culture propagated by the west worshiping media today.  That this has already happened in the West where these banks are HQed is also conveniently overlooked.  

One notices that very soon a powerful vested interests coterie of banks/real-estate brokers-speculators/land and loan sharks/car-manufacturers and dealers/share market traders and other financial speculators begin to take nucleus in the nation and that this nexus expands its economic and political clout with alarming rapidity.  The new generation of youth is fed this mantra of getting a job and then getting a loan for the house and car with no previous credit history.  One may ask as to why a car is needed at this point??? Ask the real-estate brokers for that.  New cheap housing HAS to be farther and farther away from the urban economic zones and hence the car is thrust upon the home-loan customer as an accessory for that new house in the suburbs and it is here that the car manufacturers, dealers and salesmen make a killing.  All the comforts of life are now based on how fast one secures a loan and get chained to the banks for life.  Gone are the days where money was first saved patiently in order to buy/own goods and services in the old days.  But as I said earlier, this poisonous policy of easy credit will ruin generations (it has already in the West) in no time because it emphasizes diminishing fiscal responsibility.  (Already some of our staff members were jokingly discussing whether there was any easy way out of not paying back the loan and escape.)   While easy loans seem good to the particular nation during the euphoria of the initial opening up of its markets, the long term effects of its toxic repercussions take a heavy toll not only on the economics but also on the social fabric of the nation and leads to a point of zero return in coming decades.  Just ask the West again for this.

The unholy nexus of banks/real-estate/financial speculators/car dealers result in a continual downward pressure on the official interest rates of the nation.   How does this happen?  To explain very simply, let us take a scenario where banks are touting easy home loans for anyone that has a job and suddenly you have young and exited people that have huge amounts of cash loaned from the banks to buy that dream home.  And here's where wily real estate brokers capitalize on that excitement and jack up the real estate prices and suddenly the youngsters are forced to borrow more from the banks to buy in their chosen areas or forced to make a compromise and move further away from the city, in which case they are forced to buy a better car through another top-up loan to supplement the change in location.  And as more and more youngsters borrow big loans, a sizable part of the working demography which is also the engine of the economy of the nation, is under big debt right at the start of their working lives.  And if huge loans have to be marketable by the banks, the interest rates need to remain low.  If the current borrowers need to sell their homes in a  couple of years, they certainly need to see some profit and this means that if a newer young buyer has to buy that same property, he has to borrow more than the first buyer thereby keeping a relentless downward pressure on the official fiscal rates.  This harsh reality can been seen today in the west where the economy can be brought to a grinding halt with even a small percentage increase in the official interest rates, placing enormous pressure on the Govt financial institutions like the Reserve Bank to reverse the interest rate hikes or at least put them on hold.  If interest rates have to rise regardless, loans then become more expensive and then nobody starts buying or the sellers have to sell at a loss which is also not good news for the banks. Also, a host of satellite industries connected to the housing and automobile industries come to grinding halt and the whole economy plunges into a deep recession, getting out of which will again entail more drastic cuts in the interest rates and consequently cheaper home loans and consequently escalating real estate values.  And this vicious circle keeps on happening till the official interest rates almost border on zero as has already happened in Japan and now happening in the USA.   It then comes to a point where further interest cuts are not possible anymore as in the case of Japan and consequently massive amounts of cash need  to be injected by the Govt to jump-start the moribund economy and keep deflationary forces at bay, a strategy that has so far misfired in Japan.  And this brings with it a whole lot of catastrophic consequences where the economically vulnerable sections of the society take a big hit.

Very soon, lifetime debts will be a permanent feature of Bhaarateeyas too as is happening in the West. With a 2 crore house becoming 4 and 6 crores in no time as a consequence of  mindless and many times diabolical real-estate speculations, future innocent and wide-eyed entrants into the mortgage market will take on debts that may possibly NEVER GO AWAY FOR THE REST OF THEIR WORKING LIVES.  And even if they would manage to pay a big chunk of the loan off in their working lives or even achieve the miracle of paying it off in full, these mountain mortgages will exact a heavy financial and social toll on their families.  With both spouses forced to enroll their names on the bank-slave roster, daycare centers will take up the role of parenting as is already happening in the West.

Gone are the days in our country where retirees and pensioners could put their hard earned money over their lifetimes into safe national banks that yielded  at least 10% interest returns.  This will not be possible anymore in this climate of low interest rates.  Banks can't afford to dole out high interest rates on fixed deposits when their lending rates are very low.  Consequently, these hapless pensioners will then have to park their funds in high risk private schemes where the danger of losing their entire capital is very very real and thereby they once again rush unwillingly into the arms of the unethical vulture financial hedge fund operators and speculators.  This is exactly the scenario that  Obama meant in his statement above and which he vows he would NOT allow to happen during his tenure in the White House.