Killing the Goose
Posted on September 29, 2008
Scenario:
A wealthy man opens his office safe and removes the title deeds to your house and those of others. He takes them to the casino to use as collateral and loses everything. He then arrives on your doorstep demanding cash from you to make good the loss — or you will be made homeless. Worse, he plans to reward himself handsomely for setting up such a racket.
In the real world, outwith the quasi-religious cult of the ‘invisible hand’, this behaviour is rightly called ‘extortion’. No, it’s socialism! scream worshippers at the altar of the free market myth, the problem is not enough deregulation.
No. It isn’t socialism. Propping up the bosses and ultra-rich with taxpayer-funded handouts is not socialism, it is capitalism. A deal done between different sections of the ruling class using capital expropriated from the workers. Banks have been playing roulette with the lives of ordinary, working people.
In the USA, where Congress has just voted down Bush’s $700 billion ‘bail-out’ plan 228 - 205, any ‘rescue package’ should be contingent on absolute transparency, complete accountability and the immediate introduction of a universal healthcare system.
Markets are entirely self-regulating, bankers assured us as they stuffed money down the fronts of their trousers. Hands on hearts, they swore they would never be so foolish, or greedy, as to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
There’s nothing left of the goose, save its beak and feet.
Instead of accepting that the current financial mess is a direct consequence of their limitless greed, in classic ‘blame the victim’ fashion, the right are casting about for suitable scapegoats and have settled upon the very people at whom they threw money — ‘we would never have lent poor people money they couldn’t pay back … except it made us fabulously rich’.
Sublimate banking.
