Politics is an ugly business, and that was on display for the world to see this evening. Need votes from southern state congress critters? Sweeten the bailout bill with hurricane relief. Need votes from business-friendly congress critters? Sweeten the bailout bill with business tax breaks.
Never mind that we should own the institutions we're bailing out, and benefit from any future profits they make, if they survive. Never mind that we've now seen consolidation of the banking industry to three major banks, which are way too big to fail, and should be operated as public utilities because they've become monopolies. Never mind that the Senators voting on the legislation have major conflicts of interest because they are owned by the financial industry they're bailing out.
Few are saying "let 'em crash." But if we buy them, we own them. If these financial institutions survive, all the future profits accrue to us, the people. Not just until they get stabilized, but for a few generations. We're gonna milk those profits that have been going to the top 1% of the insiders, and we're going to fix our infrastructure, our schools, our healthcare and retirement systems. We're going to spread the wealth to the wider society, because we are now back in charge. And if the Congress doesn't get it, we'll select new representatives who do get it.
We want a new system. We don't want this to happen again, as in the S&L crisis, the dot-com bubble, the Enron et al phony energy deregulation. Never again.
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1 comment:
I like your idea of operating the biggest banks as public utilities. That is really interesting.
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