The Run Upon The Bankers - Poem by Jonathan Swift
The bold encroachers on the deep
Gain by degrees huge tracts of land,
Till Neptune, with one general sweep,
Turns all again to barren strand.
The multitude's capricious pranks
Are said to represent the seas,
Breaking the bankers and the banks,
Resume their own whene'er they please.
Money, the life-blood of the nation,
Corrupts and stagnates in the veins,
Unless a proper circulation
Its motion and its heat maintains.
Because 'tis lordly not to pay,
Quakers and aldermen in state,
Like peers, have levees every day
Of duns attending at their gate.
We want our money on the nail;
The banker's ruin'd if he pays:
They seem to act an ancient tale;
The birds are met to strip the jays.
"Riches," the wisest monarch sings,
"Make pinions for themselves to fly;"[2]
They fly like bats on parchment wings,
And geese their silver plumes supply.
No money left for squandering heirs!
Bills turn the lenders into debtors:
The wish of Nero[3] now is theirs,
"That they had never known their letters."
Conceive the works of midnight hags,
Tormenting fools behind their backs:
Thus bankers, o'er their bills and bags,
Sit squeezing images of wax.
Conceive the whole enchantment broke;
The witches left in open air,
With power no more than other folk,
Exposed with all their magic ware.
So powerful are a banker's bills,
Where creditors demand their due;
They break up counters, doors, and tills,
And leave the empty chests in view.
Thus when an earthquake lets in light
Upon the god of gold and hell,
Unable to endure the sight,
He hides within his darkest cell.
As when a conjurer takes a lease
From Satan for a term of years,
The tenant's in a dismal case,
Whene'er the bloody bond appears.
A baited banker thus desponds,
From his own hand foresees his fall,
They have his soul, who have his bonds;
'Tis like the writing on the wall.[4]
How will the caitiff wretch be scared,
When first he finds himself awake
At the last trumpet, unprepared,
And all his grand account to make!
For in that universal call,
Few bankers will to heaven be mounters;
They'll cry, "Ye shops, upon us fall!
Conceal and cover us, ye counters!"
When other hands the scales shall hold,
And they, in men's and angels' sight
Produced with all their bills and gold,
"Weigh'd in the balance and found light!"
[Footnote 1: This poem was printed some years ago, and it should seem, by the late failure of two bankers, to be somewhat prophetic. It was therefore thought fit to be reprinted.--_Dublin Edition_, 1734.]
[Footnote 2: Solomon, Proverbs, ch. xxiii, v. 5.]
[Footnote 3: Who, in his early days of empire, having to sign the sentence of a condemned criminal, exclaimed: "Quam vellem nescire litteras!" Suetonius, 10; and Seneca, "De Clementia,", cited by Montaigne, "De l'inconstance de nos actions."--_W. E. B._]
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Jul 25, 2011 at 2:50 PM
Reader Comments (6)
If the latter is true, it begs the question of why homeowner made payments to an undeserving third party in the first place. Granted, there are no legal damages to be had by the HO via a breach of contract claim, as the bank had zero consideration. However, does the homeowner not have a cause of action in equity, specifically, for unjust enrichment.
That's just one legal theory I've never read about. There are many others.
It seems odd not to have read anything along these lines in blogosphere. Or did I miss something?
Can anyone here refute or elucidate?
That's just one legal theory I've never read about. There are many others.
It seems odd not to have read anything along these lines in blogosphere. Or did I miss something?
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there are people talking about this that i've posted...adam levitin...the law professor from georgetown...bill black as well...they have both said that if the note isn't there the debt disappears and in those cases you would get the house free and clear...there is something on it in bill black's piece from this morning...seize bank of america part 2...and do a search for adam levitin in my search box...i have posted it...
it's not getting much attention, but they have also talked about houseowners being able to sue the fraudulent note holders to demand a return of their past mortgage payments...the ramifications are huge...that's why sheila bair and others in authority are trying to shut down talk of a foreclousre moratorium...but remember that whalen thinks we'll see state by state moratoria starting next year...i wouldn't be surprised...
Excellent. I'll search for it as you suggest. It's puzzling not to see the banks clamor for or even demand a moratorium, as they are most definitely on the wrong end of this legal stick. As for Bill Black, he puts everyone in the two most recent presidential administrations to shame. You can tell he's absolutely jaded by all the fraud he sees, and yet he tirelessly goes on exposing it. A real hero, IMO.
1) IF the supposed debtee has ho debt, why has he (or she) been paying money to the creditor ??
2) A debtee does not OWN the property until a debt it paid. If the debt has been paid, where is the title ? No tiltle, peoperty can not be sold. If title can not be reproduced, then threoretically property is still in name of creditor (or prior holder it bank can not creditor can not produce either). Title guarantee companies have damn good records however, regardless of the creditors.
3). If the lawyers and the title guarantee companies start getting involved by greedy debtees in a major way, the housing mortgage marketwill freeze and turn the economy to chaos for quite some time.
Think very carefully about recommending mass actions by defaulters based to legal trivialities. There wee frauds and scams, but there were also some stupid people wheo wanted it all and now, without regard to logic