Democracy for California

DRIVING THE GETAWAY CAR

“The banks own the place.” Senator Dick Durbin, commenting on Congress’s failure to pass a bankruptcy reform measure that would have allowed home mortgages to be modified.

If the best way to rob a bank is to own one, then the best way to profit from a financial crisis is to create one – and for the bankers and investment firms who've been the main beneficiaries of the government's rescue plan to clean up their mess, it doesn't get much better than this. 

Truckloads of virtually free money to chase the latest speculative fad, fancy accounting tricks that allow them to record profits on assets that actually decline in value, obscene bonuses for turning a quick profit with taxpayer dollars, and (as if it would ever come to this) full pardons to those responsible for perpetrating the biggest financial fraud in history, Bernie Madoff notwithstanding.

How did they get away with it? The way bullies always have, through threats and scare tactics.

According to the Financial Times, "Throughout this crisis the authorities have had to intervene without knowing exactly what hidden traps might emerge if a bank were to be closed down.  The bankers know this and can exploit the fear of the unknown to press for bail-outs."

It takes teamwork to pull off a heist this big; a handful of mediocre, self-serving CEOs couldn't have done it alone. They had help: an ideologically accommodating Fed, a White House hooked on making the supply-side dream come true, politicians who never met a lobbyist they didn't love, regulators who constantly looked the other way – all were willing accomplices of the Wall Street gang that couldn't shoot straight.

But if you want to know who was driving the getaway car during the crime of the century, take a look in the mirror.

Unlike the millions in Venezuela and Iran, who took to the streets when their rights were being trampled-on; unlike Aung San Suu Kyi who continues to risk everything in her struggle to topple the Burmese junta; unlike Ken Saro Wiwa who was hanged for standing up to the oil companies responsible for raping the Niger Delta – to cite just a few examples of brave citizens around the world who had the courage to challenge overwhelming power in the pursuit of freedom – we borrowed and spent our way to irrelevance as the Wall Street crime family proceeded to sink the economy and tighten their grip on the country.

Before it is too late we need to take action, build an economic system that rewards honesty and hard work as opposed to one based on money, greed and political connections. We need to adopt a bottom-up approach, a do-it-yourself business model that benefits everyone, not just the few at the top.

So before you smash open the kids' piggyback in order to pay this month's bills, call/text/email/tweet your friends and scream at the top of your lungs: "I'm mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!"

Then check out Yes Magazine, where you will find a blueprint for The New Economy, based on “financial stability, environmental sustainability, economic justice and peace.”

The global economic crisis provides the best chance for a revolution against the small class of self-dealing insiders who are staging a coup d’état in America.

As a first step, we should ditch the car keys.

Alias

Posted by Richard at July 4, 2009 11:27 AM