Friday, November 14, 2008

That Funny Feeling

I'm starting to get quesy from all this bailout talk...

As I walked through the City Center in Oakland, I couldn't help but look at the worried faces of all I passed: decent, hard-working people who've agreed, albeit reluctantly, to mortgage the futures of their children and grandchildren in order to keep some nebulous companies afloat somewhere three-thousand miles away. We are told these companies are "too big to fail" and we are warned of the disaster that would be wrought on our livelihoods should their collapse be allowed. To be honest, no one quite understands why this is so, but we go along anyway, because at the end of the day, we trust these folks put in charge of our safety.

But things keep getting worse.

And this week, a whole new group of folks lined up claiming their own imminent demise. They too, they say, are too big to fail and point to middle-class workers on their assembly lines as if to say: "think of the children".

We do.

And in return we are to write these folks more time and money from the mouths of our children and grandchildren. These folks. The people who refused to modernize their products and help to support environmental standards and healthcare reform. These folks whose bad decisions put us in this pathetic situation in the first place.

When does the madness end?

The price tag of the surgery necessary to repair this economy on life support continues to skyrocket and, indeed, it may go to yet unforeseen heights of absurdity. But if, at the end of the day, the concern rests with those who actually deserve it: the middle-class and lower-class families employed by these barbarous and disastrous companies, why are they not the thrust of any bailout package? Why do we continue to support, prop up and fund executives from A.I.G. who continue to use taxpayer money on luxury spas and hotels? Why do we keep writing checks to the people who brought us to the precipice in the first place?

I believe in the free market when properly regulated. I believe that in order to spur ingenuity and creativity, individuals need to be liberated to pursue their own interests. Google could've come from no other place, nor could the iPhone. But if Google makes a crappy search engine, Google needs to shut down in order that someone who can make a better one is allowed to succeed. That's how it works.

As usual, those who will suffer the worst from all this turmoil are the American workers, and as usual they've been left out of the equation. Instead, we have money funnelled to the people least harmed by their destructive and stupid decisions while the weight of all this broken stuff bears down on the rest of us.

That funny feeling is the crushing burden of carrying fatcats on my shoulders.

So sad my children shall also know the sensation.


For more, visit Rants, Raves and Rethoughts.

3 comments:

Oberon said...

......damn straight!.......we need capitalism to grow the economy.....and a social network to support the people.....but capitalism is a money machine that will eat you alive....if you let it......reinstate the regulations and price controls that protect us from the greed of the money machine......you have to keep the beast under control, or it will control you.

Economy is the basis of society. When the economy is stable, society develops. The ideal economy combines the spiritual and the material, and the best commodities to trade in are sincerity and love.............Morihei Ueshiba.

brad4d said...

. . the reaction to capital imbalance means values of trust develop for re:evolution. . do you trust the meter that says my password is strong? . . education for mediating credit . .
for styles of service and information to develop "new" values . .
observing application reflexes . .
credit even for freedom from consuming?

ancient clown said...

Blessings:

If you would be open to reading it, I'd like to share a post with you here.

your humble servant,
ancient clown