November 5, 2007 (LPAC)--With the above headline, and under the byline of Steve Schifferes, "BBC economics reporter, Cleveland, Ohio," the BBC fairly gloats about the financial crisis in the United States, focussing on housing foreclosures. "A wave of foreclosures and evictions," says the lead sentence, "is about to sweep the United States in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage lending crisis."

Mixing cause and effect, the reporter then says, "This could destabilize the U.S. housing market and may also lead to further turmoil in financial institutions, who collectively own $1 trillion (480.6 billion pounds) worth of sub-prime debt."

The article notes that one in ten homes in Cleveland now is vacant; that Deutsche Bank Trust, acting on behalf of mortgage -owning investment pools, is the company making the most foreclosures in the city; that one in eight of all owner/occupiers in Cleveland will face eviction this year; and that there have already been 1.7 million foreclosure proceedings in the country so far this year.

Then, after citing these and other statistics, the reporter hauls out a quote that fits to a tee the British feudal outlook. "There is a natural level of foreclosures that goes on in an economy in good times and bad...it's part of the nature of how our economy works." The words of Robert Steel, the current U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance.