Our hero, Luis, and Occupy Wall Street/Movimiento 15-M

NOTE:  We recently posted a new scene from Domino showing our hero Luis at home with his family.  The scene is not intended to be high drama.  It mostly gives us a little more context with respect to Luis, but you will notice that the children are playing with dominoes and there's some hint of problems in his conversation with his wife.  In case you're interested, here's the LINK.

NOW--on to Luis and Occupy Wall Street/Movimiento 15-M.

It´s good to be a thorn in the side of the banks that are evicting people, but what is Movimiento 15-M or Occupy Wall Street doing to STOP evictions?

At one point, in the second half of our film, we see Luis passing by a major march and demonstration organized by the Movimiento 15-M, the Indignados, of Spain.  This Movimiento 15-M pre-dates the Occupy Wall Street movement by several months, and as in Occupy Wall Street, is an expression of unhappiness with the economic crisis, unemployment, home evictions, and the role of banks and politicians.

Luis, as you know, is a middle-aged family man in Spain who lost his job and is trying to find a new one before he becomes totally engulfed in financial disaster.  Luis is played by Antonio de la Malena.

And when he encounters the demonstration and march organized by the Movimiento 15-M, he looks at their placards (including one which says "Libertad"--"Liberty" and another which says to move from protesting to direct action).  Rather than joining in, however, he turns his back and goes on his way.

Why?  Surely he can agree with the movement's unhappiness with the crisis, the unemployment, the role that banks have had in creating the crisis and so forth.  And surely he can sympathize with the plight of people being evicted from their homes.

He turns his back because the movement really doesn't relate to him.  The demonstrations, discussions and protests are not going to get him a job.  They are not going to provide him with a way to support his family.  They are, in a word, irrelevant to his concerns.


[When I return to Jerez, I'll post a photo here of a demonstration....]

Perhaps if they succeed in changing the economic and political structure they WILL be relevant to him and his problems, but that is something likely to take years to achieve, if it ever happens at all.  What Luis and others like him need is a solution NOW.  And the Movimiento 15-M (or Occupy Wall Street) doesn't seem to have the capability of providing it.

OUR NEXT BLOG will be more about one of our supporting actors, Luis de la Tota.

Private greed and the economic crisis-part 2

As a specific example, I'll explain one specific loan package of which I am aware.  This was a loan in which the borrower paid nothing but the interest for 10 years.  Only after the 10 years were over would the borrower get to start paying down the principal...but shortly after starting to pay down the principal, there was a balloon payment.

In other words, for 10 years the bank gained everything and the borrower still owed exactly the same amount of principal.  Then, when the borrower could start paying down the principal, after a very few months s/he had to pay it all--likely a financial impossibility.

"In the old days," such a loan would have been legally impermissible, on the theory that it was "unconscionable," meaning that it wasn't fair.  But "banking reforms" made these loans legal, and thousands if not millions of people thoughtlessly signed on for them.  A large proportion of these people now find themselves losing their homes after having paid many thousands of dollars to their bank or savings and loan without having touched the principal.

At first, the banks foreclosed in these cases.  Now, because of the glut of foreclosed homes and the inability of people to pay back the loans, and with new federal incentives, the banks are putting more of these houses on the market as "short sales"--whereby the borrower loses his/her home, but the debt is wiped out once the house is sold. 

Then, there was also the practice of writing loans without examining the borrowers assets...another way to ensure that people will sign up for more than they can afford.  It also encourages speculation which encourages skyrocketing housing prices which encourages...until the bubble bursts.

And those institutions who thought they would simply take their money and run found themselves having taken a whole lot of money, but then being stuck with homes that, because of the burst bubble, were now worth much less than the principal (which hadn't been touched) and with borrowers who could no longer make their monthly payments.

I recently read that banks now own so much real estate through foreclosure that in some cases, they are finding it in their best interests to simply bulldoze the homes.

In many cases, they acquired these foreclosed homes by handing out loans almost impossible to pay, to people who couldn't afford to pay them.  And these loans were made because of the greed of the lending institutions.

Bad stuff.

We'll talk about private greed in multinational corporations in later blogs.

THE NEXT BLOG WILL BE some THANKS to some of those that have helped us.

Private greed and the economic crisis--part 1

Private greed has certainly played its part in the crisis.  I know more about private greed in the United States than in Spain, so I'll turn to that country for my examples.

And for a start, I'll write about the private greed of mega corporations and the over-rich.  Yes, in addition to private greed on the part of the big and powerful, there is private greed on the part of the little man.  But in my opinion, private greed by the big and powerful has the capacity and the reality of doing much more harm.  It's a question of scale.

An emblematic skyscraper of a multinational..

I do not believe that all large private enterprises are bad.  I do not believe all banks are bad.  I do not believe all rich people are bad.  But when one or all of these allows itself to be motivated by greed, then great harm comes to an awful lot of people.

Take the housing crisis.  In addition to individuals who asked for an obtained loans which they were really not in a position to repay, there are the banks, savings and loans, home mortgage insurers, and all the rest that crafted the loans, that actively promoted the loans, that gave bonuses to employees who signed more loan contracts.  And these loans were in large part the result of the deregulation of the Bush administration (although I understand that it started earlier, under Clinton).

These buildings project-intentionally, I believe-an image of power, might, and money.

But I digress.

THE NEXT BLOG WILL BE ABOUT private greed--specific examples of "unfair" loans

The crisis, or Why "Domino: caught in the crisis," part 2

In addition, March of 2011 saw the birth of something called the Movimiento 15-M (also called "los Indignados") in which thousands of people from all over the country set up protest centers and tent cities around Spain.  Their aim has been to educate the public as to what they believe to be undue influence by banks, etc., leading to a failure of the political and financial systems which can only be restored through true democracy.  By "failure of the financial system," they´re referring to the current economic crisis.

Some of the tents in which members of the Movimiento 15-M camped out in the city center for 3 months.

It is also generally believed that unemployment for people 30 and younger is about 45%.  Total unemployment estimates range from a low of 22% to a high of 50%.  (That´s quite a spread...it  seems the figure is related to  your political viewpoint and to whether or not you´re including the undocumented aliens invited into Spain to work in construction, auto manufacturing, etc., back when the economy was booming.)

In addition, the former city administration is accusing the new administration of failing to pay the social security costs of 900 families, costs for basic necessities such as food.  (Note that there were municipal elections this past April, at which time a left-leaning political party lost power and a right-leaning one gained power in most of Spain´s cities-but not in the national government.)

A small shop about to close.

And due to  mortgage defaults, thousands of people are losing their homes in Jerez, as in all of Spain and also in the United States and elsewhere.

On a more personal level, a friend of mine who runs a theater company has yet to be paid for a major production his group put on for a government organ back in September of 2010.

This is why I came up with the idea of "Domino," and why I think the story is important.  Certainly we need to think globally about how to avoid having countries go bankrupt, but we also need to think of the middle-aged family man (or woman) who has lost his/her job.

OUR NEXT BLOG will give some thanks to some of those who have helped us.