Age of greed

Have you been greedy lately? Been looking for more than your
fair share or taking advantage of others? Feeling power hungry?
Well, somebody has.
How else do we explain the fact that more and more wealth and
power continues to pile up in fewer and fewer hands? Wasn’t it pure
greed and hunger for quick profits that dumped all of us into the
Great Recession? And, isn’t that same unchecked greed a chief cause
that our economic recovery is moving so painfully slow?
Economic journalist Jeff Madrick says we are living in the “Age
of Greed,” the title of a thick and thorough investigation he wrote
about the roots of the 2008 global economic collapse.
He blames highly speculative and exotic investments in
over-valued home mortgages by the “too big to fail” Wall Street
banks and investment firms. He says they created, and then burst,
the “housing bubble.” That conspiracy of greed left millions of
homeowners and pension plans with trillions in losses.
To reward this greed, our federal government put billions into
bail-outs on Wall Street. How has Uncle Sam and us taxpayers been
repaid? We haven’t, but the Wall Street CEOs, hedge fund managers
and foreign subsidiaries are reaping some of their biggest
paychecks and bonuses in history.
Meanwhile, we are told not to trust Big Government to save us.
We’re told it would be too restrictive to add new regulations
against this greed. As part of the Congressional debate over our
nation’s debt limit, we are told to trust the open market.
Is this the same “open” market led by the “too big to fail”
investment institutions and corporations? The same de-regulated
market that led to the S&L collapse in the 1980s and the
criminal greed by Enron and Worldcorp?
“I think greed always exists. It rises and falls with the
times,” Madrick, a New York Times reporter has said. “But when it’s
unchecked by government it festers on itself.”
When greed runs amuck, the economic pain tends to trickle down,
not up. Local unemployment, mortgage defaults, shrinking local
government revenues and police, firefighters and teacher layoffs
happen. The average salary for a middle class worker today is less
than it was in 1969, according to studies based on recent U.S.
Census Bureau figures.
What’s the answer? How will we mount a full recovery from the
Recession, gain back jobs and begin to pay for the local government
services we require but can no longer afford?
Are you feeling greedy or needy?
In Congress — the central place of power for our people’s
republic — the search for these answers is AWOL. Republicans and
Democrats are too busy with their own greedy battle for
self-importance and blame-letting.
Republicans want government spending caps and absolutely no new
taxes —anywhere, anyhow. Obama and most Democrats are conceding to
severe budget cuts, but want some tax loopholes taken away from the
very wealthy.
The rest of us are left without answers about our Social
Security and Medicare payments. We fear that more federal program
cuts will be aimed at us and our local schools, cities, student
loans, health programs and our neglected infrastructures.
For almost two decades, our “Open Market” investors such as
Lehman, Bear Stearns, JP Morgan, Chase and Citigroup created highly
speculative securities, subprime mortgages and other risky (greedy)
portfolios. None of these billions and trillions was invested in
new technology, research, energy, transportation, healthcare or
other “bedrock” industries that have always made America strong,
safe and thriving.
We need a powerful force to fight against the greed that is
undermining our economic recovery. That invisible, almighty hand
will not be found on Wall Street or out in the marketplace. It must
come from we, the people. Too bad that no longer means our
Congress.
— Rollie Atkinson