Progressive Ponderings: Unbelievable!

Transitioning from a free market economy to welfare for millionaire con artists

by Joe Mayer

Unbelievable! Once again the Bush administration is asking U.S. citizens to put blind faith in their perverse plan to rescue the American economy (and the word economy) but providing $700 billion to salvage a financial system that has self-destructed. Fed Chief Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson have issued panic-stricken warnings demanding immediate and "clean" action to place the whole $700 billion in the hands of Paulson who most of his life participated in and advocated for the kinds of practices that cause this very crisis. Both these men, very recently said that the government and the Federal Reserve were on top of things and that we weren't in a recession much less a depression.

Unbelievable! Once again the solution offered addresses only the symptoms and not the causes. The symptoms include debt – bank debt, mortgage debt, credit card debt, the rarely mentioned national trade debt, and the mushrooming national debt. The cause is systemic rot – a political system based on money, fear, secrecy, deception, and outright lies, a financial system allowing overleveraging and rewarding unconscionable practices for private gain while pushing costs (mostly hidden) onto society and a military deployed to enforce this financial system on the rest of the world.

Unbelievable! Right now the lobbyists are pressuring Congress and the administration to get their piece of the $700 billion. The transfer of the $700 billion financial institution debt to the taxpayer debt is regarded as just another profit-making day ate the office. They helped design the system so that money always flows to the top.

Unbelievable! As politicians in this election season court the middle class, the poor, working men and women, minorities and make promises they never intend to keep, they, as administrators and legislators are seeking to saddle these same citizens with a debt that buys out and pays for corporate malfeasance. As Dean Baker said this week, the politicians plan "to punish the voters who elected them." We should also include the future generations who will be punished by this mountain of debt.

Those who used fear and thus hatred of terrorists, immigrants, gays, etc. to get themselves into positions of powers forgot one of the major responsibilities of governing – protecting its own citizens from those who would steal their government and their means of livelihood. Crises of this proportion are not natural or Acts of God, but human made from acts of selfishness and greed.

Unbelievable! Already some of the free-market mythologists and conservative think tanks are looking to use this increased public debt as a reason to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all programs that help the poor and the silent members of our nation.

This transition of our corporate lords from free-market ideologists to subsidy seeking, millionaire welfare con artists hopefully will awaken the American citizenry to the theft of our government and the false security of corporatized rule. Should such an awakening occur we could call it our New "New Deal."