For years now, people on the left have declared the US economy a "house of cards" built on debt and by transferring wealth from the middle class and poor to the rich. I include myself in this group, as you can verify by reading back through my blog.
And for those same years, the media and our elected officials bowed down to the so-called leaders of our great nation: Alan Greenspan, Warren Buffet, T. Boone Pickens and the other exorbitantly-paid CEOs who steered the great ship of the greatest example of the wonders of capitalism. They could do no wrong, they could not earn enough money, and they bristled whenever anyone talked about maybe giving the middle class a tax cut. ("Class warfare!" went the cry)
And for those same years, we doubters of the wonders of the "free market" have been vilified and mocked. Naive! Communist! Ignorant!
Now, sadly, it must be said: We were right. We of the left, we of the Naive Class, we Americans who never believed that a CEO was worth 500 times the value of a software developer in his company, we bleeding hearts who could never accept that 40 million Americans must have no health care, that tens of millions must go unemployed, that children should go hungry in this country: we were right.
And our so-called leaders were wrong. And not just wrong. Complicit, greedy, corrupt and arrogant.
These days, it is the arrogance that gets me the most.
They are so used to running everything their way, that no one even feels the need, the sense of human decency, to apologize.
Alan Greenspan, who allowed the economy to drift into this horrible state, is no wise man. He is a smart man who knew how to get his bread well buttered. And he does not apologize for his part in this mess.
William Jefferson Clinton, who signed into law deregulation of the financial industry that made this collapse inevitable, is no friend of the people. He is a brilliant politician who always sided with Wall Street. And he does not apologize for his part in this mess.
All those CEOs (from both failed and failing companies), who filled their boards will yes-men and yes-women who agreed to the most obscene pay packages, are not wise men. They are greedy bastards who will not apologize for their parts in this mess.
Keep it up, Leaders of the Free World. Make no apologies, accept no blame and stuff your pockets with every dollar bill (or euro) in sight. Then build some really big walls.
Because if the collapse continues, and if the bailout mainly bails YOU out, then I predict that the American people will shed their sheeps' disguises. They will come boiling out of their homes, full of anger and desperation, and I wonder if any of the walls you build could be tall enough to stop them.
2 comments:
I have been ready to go get these people and just tell me where and when and I will be there. Again I would like to restate that the problem is most Americans are no willing to do a little investigation on facts and then simple get spoon fed from the TV and accept were the country is at by Deamonizing the otherside.. Isn't it nice that the rich have gotten us so mixed up that we are not looking at them but yelling at the person on the otherside of the fence having the same issues but a different point of view..
You mentioned Warren Buffet, but he is not exorbitantly-paid. According to Wikipedia: "His 2006 annual salary was about $100,000" . Furthermore, Mr. Buffet has said he thought it was wrong that he has to pay a smaller percentage of his income to taxes than his employees.
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