25 Sept 2008

Not one god-damned red cent for Wall Street

I'm just as deep in the stock market as anyone else is these days. After all, government policy has been urging employers to gut pension plans (remember guaranteed retirement benefits?) in favour of investment plans (with only a set contribution, but no guaranteed returns). So most of my retirement savings is tied up in the stock market, which is a risky gamble. I could lose it, but I wanted the big payoffs that stocks might provide, so I took a chance.

That's how the free market is supposed to work, right? Isn't that what Nobel-prize winner Milton Friedman said? Isn't that the ideology which has been ascendant in the US for the past twenty-eight years? If the banking industry isn't working miracles with all of those fantastic new financial instruments they've cooked up, and are in fact just building an elaborate confection that is collapsing on itself, why should we prop it up? It sounds like a huge proportion of the finance industry is doing things of no real economic value. They need a huge handout (plenty of which they'll pass back as "campaign contributions"), and if we give it they'll demand another huge handout in a year after they waste this one.

So fine, let my portfolio lose seventy-five percent of its value. Even ninety-five percent – we'll work it out. I'd rather spend a trillion dollars helping people in need than wasting it on more empty suits. Recessions are necessary: endlessly trying to apply the juice to extend a boom just makes the crash that much harder, and that's what we're seeing now. So let it go, and then we'll work out a more relevant (and possibly even less corrupt) financial system.

Bush said today the sky is falling so we've got to unlock the US Treasury with no questions asked and no accountability. He's the same guy that wanted to gut Social Security and put it all in the stock market! (Wow, too bad we didn't get to experience all of that great growth, huh?) First, we had to surrender all of our civil liberties because the terrorists were going to kill us all with box cutters. Second, we had to invade another country because they were going to nuke our balls. Now we're supposed to give an enormous birthday present to Wall Street because they blew our money on bear whores and cocaine. The man has no credibility. Fool me thrice: go fuck yourself.

Giving a huge payoff to this gang of crooks won't do a damned bit of good; it just encourages them to do it again. Write your senators and representative and tell them no. Maybe some regulation is in order. Maybe the banks need to be nationalized. Maybe mortgages need to be refinanced en masse. Maybe some depositors are going to lose their money (me included). So be it: when there is hell to pay, I'll pay it, but I won't pay one god-damned red cent in protection money.

5 comments:

Scott said...

Beautifully written. I couldn't agree more.

Adolfo said...

...so yeah, a couple of years ago the USA's law made impossible for individuals to go bankruptcy, but their government is standing for corporations...sad.

Many things come to mind: shrinking middle class, poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer, unbalance, corruption,abuse, controlled media,etc.

Oh, but the majority of people voted for Bush and God speaks for him, so it all should be ok...

It is a bit late but impeachment never happened, so my assumption is that people still love Bush. Media hardly talked about impeachment. No one did anything.

It is even sadder to hear both candidates for the USA presidency to say that they do NOT understand much about economics... Ms Clinton came to the rescue recently saying that the same advisors that her husband had, will help Obama. Sad choices, but there is 'some' light...

Nowadays the hot topic in USA politics has been distracted (moved) from war to economics.

PURA NOVELA ES ESTO! Me pregunto que pasara cuando China empieze a pedir su dinero a Estados Unidos- Este segmento estara interesante....

Seven Star Hand said...

Good article Chuck !,

Time to hold their feet to the fire.

It will soon become painfully obvious, to even the most clueless, that it will be far easier to step away from the deceptions of the past (money, religion, and politics) and finally fix our civilization so it works for everyone, not just for a self-chosen and abominably greedy few. Why should humanity struggle and suffer any longer to repay massive debts and endure great debacles created by amazingly greedy and deceptive monetary and political leaders? Are you familiar with the ancient concept of a Jubilee? It's time has come, and the power of the rich and arrogant is about to be blown away on the winds of long-overdue and irresistible change.

Here is Wisdom...

Peace...

Scott said...

My mom told me this evening that she was going to post this long eloquent reply to your blog about how much she agrees with you that we shouldn't pay off the fat cats on wall street. But she got befuddled by the comment system and lost her post. Politics does make strange bedfellows.

the fool said...

I am so impressed with this piece, Chuck.
It captures the outrage and disbelief that so many of us are feeling right now.
Hope it's ok that I forwarded this post to my friend Larry in NYC, who sent a link to your blog to dozens of his friends.
Rage on, sweetie...