The polls show that Americans are angry at the financial crisis the Bush-Cheney government gave us — but they are not angry at those folks who caused it. Why?
The bailout made Americans hopping mad. So why aren’t they furious at the fat cats who caused it? More than a year later, nobody has been brought to account for crashing our economy. A year after the biggest bailout in U.S. history, Wall Street lobbyists don’t just have influence in Washington. They own it lock, stock and barrel. The bankers own Congress.
Pollsters have been surprised to find that while we are mad about the economy, we often blame not the bankers, but politicians and even ourselves. Why?
Wall Street and its backers in Congress convinced us that deregulating finance was not only safe, but self-evidently good for the entire economy, Wall Street and Main Street alike. Wall Street is back to business as usual. That is, there is no need for re-regulating. Thanks to Congress, derivatives are still unregulated. But who sold us this crock? Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan, Christ Cox, Hank Paulson, the inane stunts of John McCain, devotees of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, among others.
American corporations are amoral entities that continue to build this wealth on the backs of the nation’s low-income workers — and they see their behavior as necessary and moral acts of conscience. “It’s a virtuous cycle” doing “God’s work,” said former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg.
The why? is God’s will. Rubbish!
Bill J. Paschal
Muncie
