democracyforcalifornia.com

ROBBERY IN PROGRESS

A trusty friend of mine—let's call him Alias—has been on board with Democracy for California for some time now. Alias and I go way back, and he has a lot to add to the discussion. Let's hear what this “longtime listener, first time caller” has to say........Richard
 

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning ...... Henry Ford

“Voodoo economics” looks like it is here to stay.  Not the Reagan Revolution era supply-side variety, mind you, but a much more toxic strain found in the proliferation of occult securities and regulatory arbitrage that cast a spell on Wall Street, turning a bull market into a catastrophe.

Lest we forget, it was supply-side theory - give more tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations, and wait for the money to trickle down – that provided the ethical underpinning for the incompetence and greed that drove the banking system to insolvency and the economy over a cliff.  Now, with the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes into its second year, the culprits still are not being held accountable.  Rather, they are living large on Uncle Sam's dime while the rest of us lose our jobs, our homes and our savings.

To solve the crisis governments around the world have taken on mountains of private sector debt.  Since September 2008, as author Ted Rall points out, the US Treasury and Federal Reserve have “racked up $12.2 trillion in commitments and spent $2.5 trillion in bailouts:  AIG, Bank of America, Bear Sterns, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, TARP, purchases of debt and derivatives issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack, discounted overnight lending to banks, purchases of toxic assets and all manner of other fiscal shenanigans that you paid for when you could least afford it.” 

Worse, in their headlong rush to contain the damage to the very institutions that created the mess, officials in Washington are not playing it straight.  There is no excuse for the complete lack of accountability for a disaster that ruined the lives of millions of Americans—and millions more around the world.  Nor is it right that as the crisis continues to fester, its dimensions and implications are being kept from the public. 
 
Politicians, pundits and financiers tell us we need to bail out the institutions responsible for the mess in order to finance business.  At the same time, industry lobbyists are lining the pockets of the invertebrates on both sides of the aisle in Congress in a cynical effort to derail new regulatory legislation requiring banks to bolster their capital reserves (along with other mostly slap-on-the-wrist proposals for reform) by threatening that it would use up precious capital and force them to cut back their lending.  And when push comes to shove, you can make book that despite the voluptuous rhetoric about protecting Main Street from the criminals on Wall Street our elected officials will once again answer the siren song of big money, rather than stand up for the interests of those they are supposed to represent.

In the current environment of moral ambiguity, it is very discouraging to see That One lose his nerve just when we need him the most. 
 
Perhaps he should stand aside while we grab the pitchforks and torches.

Alias
 

Posted by Richard at June 30, 2009 09:41 AM