This piece, from Black Star News, is the only halfway decent review of the incipient crash I’ve seen yet. The real problem with most of the analysis is not that it is particularly wrong, but that the perspectives they find themselves mired in are shortsighted, lacking both realism and moral courage.
You may have noticed that many more Democrats than Republicans voted for the bailout deal. They are correct that failing to bail out wall street can/will result in global economic meltdown, the inability of companies (aka ‘bosses’) to pay their employees, etc.
What they fail (or refuse) to see is that this is an opportunity. A serious one. If employers fail to pay their employees, employees can and should demand increasing levels of control over every aspect of the business operation, including stakes in ownership, to be held communally.
If the mortgage industry, and the shadow economy fails, it should not be mortgage payers who lose their homes, but merely mortgage brokers who lose their shirts.
And if government cannot resolve the situation, which has been brewing for decades, if not since the very dawn of the capitalist era, then we should simply dismiss the predatory politricksters as the irrelevant parasites they are, and use our organized power directly against the bosses who predate even more directly on our labor and time than do the politicians.
Here’s a tantalizing snippet from the piece:
So here they come–all the corporate fascists, hat-in-hand, wanting the American taxpayer to bail them out.
These, the very same arrogant, and compassionless social terrorists who demonized as “socialist” anyone who even implied that maybe a crumb should be set aside for the poor or middle class. “Deregulate. Let the market work. Free us from the nuisance of social protectionism, and we’ll make America great.” But now that their greedy excesses have worked against them, all of a sudden socialism doesn’t look all that bad. In fact, it looks better with every day that passes–as long as we remember to privatize the profit, and only socialize loss.
…
When the average American is in a financial pinch, the banks don’t just give us money, they make us pay for it–dearly. So why shouldn’t we? Maybe we should give them an open-ended loan at the prevailing rate. Then allow them to pay off the loan by setting up a trust fund in which the banking community must contribute a percentage (to be determined) of their annual gross profits (That’s right, gross profits–we want ours off the top).
We could then use that money to help subsidize social security, universal healthcare, and other programs that benefit the American people. And the beauty of it is, since it’s a business transaction, we can both benefit the people, while at the same time, avoid the “evils” socialism. After all, we’ll be taking their money in the very best capitalist tradition.
And we must be sure to use our leveraged position to its full advantage. Therefore, as part of the formula that determines how much of their profits must go into this trust fund, we should take into account the minimum wage, the cost of living, and the level of disparity between the average worker and the compensation of top tier corporate executives (after all, if corporations can afford to pay their CEOs exorbitant salaries and benefits, certainly they should be able to contribute more towards their public debt).
Suddenly Everyone On Wall Street Is A Socialist.
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