"Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Wall Street has hardly been making champagne these past 28 years, unfortunately for all of us.
The financial crisis is urgent, as both Democratic and Republican politicians have said. But not at all in the way they mean. Taxpayers should not bail out the shortsighted banking system and the car manufacturers and every other industry which has taken advantage of the deregulations and mindset established by the Reagan era of greed and social, economic and moral irresponsibility. They knowingly made bad choices. Horrible choices for short term profits: extending credit to those they knew couldn't afford it, jacking credit card rates to 20%+, building massive old-tech, gas sucking trucks dolled-up with fake wood trim and chromed plastic and peddling them as "luxury SUVs" [the ultimate example of a "pig in lipstick",] etc. Fanny, Freddie, General Motors and the like knew exactly what they were doing. Are we going to bail out Exxon-Mobil next when all the oil dries up and they claim they had no idea it was coming?
Let them die. Let them drown in their own shit like yeast.
The banking system is little more than an elaborate game of fantasy football and Detroit seems incapable of responding to market demand. [Don't get me started about the fugly abortion which is the Chevrolet Volt - which apparently is not even really electric, but a standard hybrid... WTF? The concept car was GORGEOUS, but the the production model is just a crappy Prius knock-off - and the Prius is a bloody toad to drive as it is.]
The situation is urgent. Instead of a $700 billion bail out for the people who screwed this all up in the first place [and that $25 billion loan for the auto industry we haven't heard much about,] how about we take that $950 billion and help pay off the debts of individual Americans, or give it to small businesses who've proven both fiscal and social responsibility? Give it to people with the intelligence and ethics to actually lead this country.
We need a force restart. We need to not patch a broken system, but to rethink everything.
Let the banks fail. Let industry fail. The honest, hard working people who gave their trust to these corporations should be the #1 priority of the government. Wipe clean personal debts first. Put a moratorium on all forms of credit. Let people live or die by the responsibility of their own decisions in a cash only world.
This of course means the end of the finance world as we know it. Good. It's all fantasy and speculation anyway. Let's have an economy based solely on real money. We've been talking about trickle-down economics since 1980. It has failed. I don't think Obama has the balls to go as far as I'm proposing [*nor should he be taking advice from a wacko like me,] but I do love this quote of his:
"Instead of prosperity tricking down, the pain has trickled up. We need to change direction. Now."
He gets it! Whether he can act on it or not has yet to be seen. We know the alternative. We've been living with it for too long.
With that, please enjoy some music.
Nine Inch Nails - Burn [1994, from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack]
Consolidated - America Number One [1990]
Pixies - Where is My Mind? [1988, from the Fight Club soundtrack, 1999]
[Everyone should re-read/re-watch Fight Club as the official manual for living.]
3 comments:
Great post.
I just DO NOT understand the Free Market ideal. It has been shown time and time again that, without regulation, the greedy old men are happy to let the world burn as long as their pockets are lined. Lined with what is essentially blood money from the sweat and tears of the poor, the working class, and middle America.
I do think the major problem with the Conservative movement is that they play the moral card. Too many American people are concerned about homosexuals, abortion and stem cells, and doctor assisted suicide. Its a shame because we're digging our own grave... over and over and over and over...
As much as i'd like to see all the mortgage brokers, securities traders, investment/commercial bank executives, and financial industry lobbiests take the fall, it will be the employees, retirees, and small investors that will be hurt if the most the banks and/or GM go under. So be careful what you wish for.
Consolidated? That takes me back, socialist industrial sounded great when I was 20, now it just seems naive.
Good post.
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