In the midst of the hardest decision Congress as ever been forced to make in recent memory, the House split over the bailout. Perhaps the split (which defeated the president's plan) represents the closest thing to the first public victory in the new millennium. Seemingly for the first time, the wishes of the people trumped the leaders of both parties, and loyalty to constituencies trumped loyalty to party.
This doesn't mean that the Democratic and Republican representatives that broke from their leadership did so out of unity or for the same reasons (they certainly didn't), but they did so in the midst of the most terrifying time in cultural memory. In September of 2001, the people were in shock--but certainly not this kind of fear. Market volatility and banking crises seemed, for the first time, to be linked with the recent past for people. All of a sudden, deregulation and free trade, gas prices and green energy initiatives, executive pay and unemployment seem to be colliding into the moment many have been waiting for: not a depression, recession, or any other condition, but in a great awakening of consciousness. Its as if things are new today and that our understanding has fundamentally changed.
Suddenly the Keating 5 and the Savings & Loan scandal, which has somehow eluded the election process, despite Sen. John McCain's unethical ties and personal experience from the 1980s having an eery similarity to today's conditions, is now coming up. In fact, it is coming up as people are trying to honestly assess the conditions and feverishly hope to find something in the past to inform our current status and have found it in Reagan's first great boondagle. And the fact that McCain (and his favorite economist, former Sen. Gramm) not only failed to learn the lesson of the S&L bailout, but in some twisted way, seemed eager to replicate it with our banks.
More surprising, I actually heard the following argument on the radio: an economist admitted that there isn't anything we can do. That the only thing that could have been done had to be done a decade ago. That nothing can be saved--perhaps only rebuilt.
And most shocking of all is perhaps the former genius, the former rock star of economics (and former Fed chief) Allen Greenspan is now on the hit list, taking a great deal of the heat for his "love of all things bubble" as it was recently described. His chairmanship, taking Reagan's reverse-economics to the extreme, gambling the entire economy on a principle that doesn't generate wealth for the country or for the poor or middle class, but a principle that could only and always, create wealth for the wealthy, these machiavelian economic philosophies are now being scruitinized for seemingly the first time.
And this moment, this time of political fear and economic shock, a time when it is bad to be a homeowner, a stockholder, or an employee, we are having a truly great awakening, a moment where the country can examine its leadership of the last three decades with sober eyes and say this: how did you fail us? You took an oath. You used your position for personal gain, selling out the country (not unlike politicians in the 1880s and 90's) and brought about the very conditions of a new Great Depression. How dare you ask for a second chance.
This doesn't mean that the Democratic and Republican representatives that broke from their leadership did so out of unity or for the same reasons (they certainly didn't), but they did so in the midst of the most terrifying time in cultural memory. In September of 2001, the people were in shock--but certainly not this kind of fear. Market volatility and banking crises seemed, for the first time, to be linked with the recent past for people. All of a sudden, deregulation and free trade, gas prices and green energy initiatives, executive pay and unemployment seem to be colliding into the moment many have been waiting for: not a depression, recession, or any other condition, but in a great awakening of consciousness. Its as if things are new today and that our understanding has fundamentally changed.
Suddenly the Keating 5 and the Savings & Loan scandal, which has somehow eluded the election process, despite Sen. John McCain's unethical ties and personal experience from the 1980s having an eery similarity to today's conditions, is now coming up. In fact, it is coming up as people are trying to honestly assess the conditions and feverishly hope to find something in the past to inform our current status and have found it in Reagan's first great boondagle. And the fact that McCain (and his favorite economist, former Sen. Gramm) not only failed to learn the lesson of the S&L bailout, but in some twisted way, seemed eager to replicate it with our banks.
More surprising, I actually heard the following argument on the radio: an economist admitted that there isn't anything we can do. That the only thing that could have been done had to be done a decade ago. That nothing can be saved--perhaps only rebuilt.
And most shocking of all is perhaps the former genius, the former rock star of economics (and former Fed chief) Allen Greenspan is now on the hit list, taking a great deal of the heat for his "love of all things bubble" as it was recently described. His chairmanship, taking Reagan's reverse-economics to the extreme, gambling the entire economy on a principle that doesn't generate wealth for the country or for the poor or middle class, but a principle that could only and always, create wealth for the wealthy, these machiavelian economic philosophies are now being scruitinized for seemingly the first time.
And this moment, this time of political fear and economic shock, a time when it is bad to be a homeowner, a stockholder, or an employee, we are having a truly great awakening, a moment where the country can examine its leadership of the last three decades with sober eyes and say this: how did you fail us? You took an oath. You used your position for personal gain, selling out the country (not unlike politicians in the 1880s and 90's) and brought about the very conditions of a new Great Depression. How dare you ask for a second chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment