They Love Me, They Really Love Me!
By David Glenn Cox
http://theservantsofpilate.comIn her groundbreaking book, “On Death and Dying,” Elisabeth Kübler-Ross examined the five stages in which people deal with grief and tragedy. On Bloomberg.com today, Caroline Baum in her article, “Congress Misreads Public Anger at Wall Street:” takes the Ross theory and puts it into practice.
“Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- There’s only one thing more revolting than watching Wall Street abuse taxpayer dollars: watching Congress bloviate about it.
"Our elected representatives are gleeful at the opportunity to fan public outrage at bankers for their excesses -- in part because it deflects attention from their own. Whether it’s Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, calling bankers a 'bunch of idiots,' or Rhode Island Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse proposing an 'oversight court' to restrain Wall Street’s 'massive self-indulgences,' Congress is perched on its high horse.”
Baum is upset because Congress is on its high horse about the failures of an industry that has single-handedly trashed the American economy. The amounts of money and struggle necessary to get us out of it are unfathomable, but as of this moment are estimated at several trillion dollars. Americans are losing their jobs in increments of a half a million a month and 8 million more Americans will find themselves homeless before Santa comes a'calling again. Her opinion is that Congress is misreading the public mood, but my opinion, Ms. Baum, is that you are in stage one: denial.
“Yet it would be a mistake for Congress to interpret that anger as a condemnation of capitalism and an endorsement of bigger government. If my e-mail is a reflection of popular sentiment, Americans are angry at Wall Street for gambling with other people’s money (and losing). They are angry at having to pay for the extravagances of others while they lived within their means. And they are angry at a system that privatizes profits and socializes risks.”
Wrong, Caroline, the American public is very angry at capitalism. The young see their chances to go to college dimmed; the middle aged see their jobs disappearing with no opportunity to recover from the loss. The seniors are suffering with crippled retirement earnings. From a life of peaceful, golden years to stress and fear for tomorrow, all courtesy of capitalism.
“They like President Barack Obama and want him to succeed. They want increased regulation of the financial sector, especially since they’re on the hook for past mistakes.”
You’re damn right there, but it’s not Obama they like near as much as the Bush administration, which they hated. They would accept anyone, including Homer Simpson, if he promised to rescue us from this quagmire of capitalist crime and corruption.
“That said, the public doesn’t want government calling the shots. They understand -- at least they should -- that prices are a better way of allocating the economy’s scarce resources than government diktat. (If government was good at it, the Soviet Union would be flourishing.)"
The public doesn’t want the government calling the shots? You mean after the bang-up job Wall Street has done? What are you smoking, Caroline? And prices? You mean the $5.00 dollar a gallon fuel and 26% interest rates on credit cards, the adjustable rate mortgages that helped us into this mess? Or the rising food prices in the face of a collapsing economy? Have you been to the grocery store lately? Food price are up on grain items as much as 30%. Then, Caroline, you fall back on the worst reason to continue doing anything, “We’re no worse than those guys!” The Soviet Union’s economy failed once while this capitalist utopia fails again and again and again.
“Government is nothing more than a collection of individuals acting in their own -- yes, their own -- self-interest, in much the same way that Wall Street does. The only difference, according to advocates of public choice theory, is that governments make public, not private, choices: They choose for us, in other words."
“And we aren’t free to reject those choices. Whereas transactions in the private sector are voluntary, the government coerces us (threat of imprisonment) to pay for goods and services via taxes.”
Caroline, you’re going to get saddle burns from riding that Trojan horse. You compare Washington to Wall Street while forgetting that if we don’t like Washington we can throw them out, but if we don’t like Wall Street, that’s too bad. We forfeit our jobs, our futures, and then pay their bills to boot, while you preach about free choice. Don’t be absurd.
Been to the doctor lately? “Sorry, your doctor is not in today. Would you like to come back in two weeks?” or, “If this is a Workman’s Comp injury you’ll have to go to the clinic across town. I’m sorry, we don’t accept that brand of insurance.”
But there is a simpler answer, Caroline, for what you are trying to convince us of. You are in stage two: anger.
“It is not my intention to exonerate Wall Street for its role in sinking the financial system. Nor do I wish to excuse the behavior of banks on the dole."
“Wall Street has always had a deaf ear when it comes to what passes for acceptable behavior. In bad times, the deafness is even more glaring. Client retreats at high-end resorts, million-dollar office renovations, corporate jets shuttling board members across the country: Even before these activities were a matter of public interest (and taxpayer dollars), they were a manifestation of bad taste."
“Still there’s something disconcerting, even comical, about politicians trying to cap compensation while 'making a bunch of people feel better by beating up on rich people,' says Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research in Chicago. 'There’s a mechanism for correcting the excesses. It’s called the stock price and the board of directors.'"
Now you’re just getting sad, Caroline. Millions of people losing jobs and homes, children dying because their parents can’t keep the heat on, families abandoning their pets because they can’t afford to feed them anymore, and you want sympathy because a bunch of people are beating up on the rich. Gee, I’m so sorry, it sucks to be you! Welcome to stage three: bargaining.
“If you want to punish Wall Street, Bianco says, that’s how to do it. Under normal circumstances, when stock prices get too low relative to companies’ expected earnings, investors step in to buy."
“Not now, Bianco says. 'Private money will come back when it knows it can have a say in running a company,' not when there’s a good chance the government will swoop in and take it over.”
Caroline, don’t Bogart that joint, my friend, pass it over to me! Stock prices get too low? Goodyear Tire and Rubber cut their pension benefits to their retirees and their stock prices soared while their earnings declined. All hail capitalism, this is great! Maybe a free market euthanasia program might help to rebuild the economy!
“Here’s where government’s best intentions to make things better have made them worse."
“'A necessary condition to attract private capital back is a consistent and predictable strategy by the government,' writes Luigi Zingales, professor of entrepreneurship and finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, in a commentary for the Center for Economic Policy Research. 'Without it any other effort is in vain.'”
Private money will come back when they are sure that this train wreck is over. You and your free market mouseketeers put your toolbox on the throttle of the locomotive; then you want to blame the track or the weather or anything but what this is. This is a rock star overdose of excess, you have and continue to defend the Bastille with shot and shell as you choke on the vomit of your own excess. You don’t want the doctor called because it will end the party and good times for the roadies and the groupies and the hangers on. You haven’t reached step four yet because you’re not through with a certain part of step three: blaming others.
“'The weakness of the capitalist system is not that it doesn’t work economically but that it’s hard to sustain politically,' Zingales says.
“With ordinary Americans losing their jobs and elite bankers begging for help, political intervention is a given, he says. In spite of good intentions, it may end up impeding the functioning of the market."
“OK, so capitalists screwed up, to borrow a phrase from the new president. So did home buyers who thought there was a free lunch. And mortgage lenders who were slinging the hash.”
“That’s not a reason to implicate the entire system, unless you think the government can do it better.”
“'The capitalist system stumbled and fell,' Bianco says. 'It’s just like teenagers, who do stupid things. Sometimes the solution isn’t putting restrictions on them but letting them pull themselves up.'”
“How’s this for a twist? For the market to begin to function normally, investors need a guarantee that the government won’t do anything, not a promise that it will.”
OK, so capitalists screwed up? That’s all you got? Screwed up again, you mean, and it is a reason to implicate the entire system. The system was in control, the system offered the free lunch, the system made the bad loans, the system advertised and enticed consumers to come in and make them. It was the system's intention to profit from them and then to bundle those loans with good loans to defraud investors and mis-lead insurance companies with the sole intention of profiting from it. But to your way of thinking everyone is to blame except the system.
Just like teenagers. But you, Caroline, resent it when the grown ups, you know, the elected representatives of the people, try to discipline those teenagers. The reason the capitalist system is hard to sustain politically is because it has no soul. It doesn’t care for the people in its charge.
It lives in an academic aura of personal detachment; we the people are expected to accept lost livelihoods and destroyed futures with an, “Oops, we screwed up.” But with this detachment from reality, capitalism becomes the engine of personal aggrandizement with no concern for the wellbeing of the people whatsoever. It is merely medieval feudalism disguised as a global economy. The peasants feed from the crumbs off the king's table while the king offers us protection and assurances that he is far better to us than the Vikings would be.
But, Ms. Baum, you are locked in stage three, bargaining, while we the public have moved on to stage four, depression, and even stage five, acceptance. You are like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard; you’re living in the past, and dreaming it to be the future. The body of the economy is floating face down in your swimming pool of excess. Yet you slowly walk down the stairs to the reporter’s flashbulbs oblivious that you are guilty of killing it saying, "They love me, they really love me!”
No, they hate you, they really hate you, and if President Obama had said yesterday at his Elkhart Indiana town meeting, anyone who kills Caroline Baum will get a good job with full benefits, you’d have been a grease spot before sundown. Congress may misread the anger but you, ma’am, are clueless.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a3omS7KZmthw&refer=home
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