The old story of America or Wall St. sneezes and we're all blown over!
Who was that song by?
Is it not way beyond the time that finance markets, financiers, accountancy without being accountable ceased to be the bread and butter of living?
We're all no doubt too young to know how the 1930's depression years were in detail kick started but a Wall St. crash had something to do with it and it is known that it was not a great time to be living nor with what brought it to an end - apparently WW2.
I've read from time to time that financial gurus, investment geniuses etc. have been reported on saying another Wall St. crash could never happen again or would be more of a hiccup because of the interconnectivity of global markets in modern times brought about by rapid communication but it would ironically seem that it is the interconnectivity of the US financial system and its tentacles that is indeed creating just the opposite.
Somewhere in the far reaches of memory I can also dredge out references to the twenties being party years, years of excess etc., quite possibly driven by the expansionism of industry following WW1 and some euphorism of those terrible years being behind.
Have the multimillion$$ salaries, perks, and share options etc. of last decade or so been symptomatic of the capitalist countries again reaching pinnacles of excess, and the final sympton showing that is unsustainable!
The US I've just read has an annual budgeting deficit closing on 10Trillion$$$, yes, 10 followed by 12 zeros, something like $30,000 for every single one of their 300 million citizens (will have to check our figure)
Reading the following report, it is good to know that some broader perspectives exist.
Quote:
Resentment is growing on both sides of the US political divide over a plan to use US$700 billion of taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street firms with bad mortgage debt.
The disquiet comes from many voters on the left who see hypocrisy in the rush to help some of the world's richest firms when the government says there is insufficient money to spend on other priorities.
It also comes from some on the right, from people who say the bailout violates the principle that government should aim to limit its role in the economic life of the country and citizens, and that corporations should take responsibility for their actions.
Anger over the deal is expressed most sharply by people caught up in the home mortgage crisis and their advocates.
"Hypocritical? Absolutely," said Gabriel Onofrio, who negotiates on behalf of people in North Carolina who face foreclosure.
"When you have the free market and the privatisation of profit but the socialisation of the losses, that doesn't make any sense," said Onofrio, whose organisation, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, argues that lenders should restructure home mortgages to make them more affordable.
Markets cheered last week when President George W. Bush asked Congress to approve a plan to enable the government to acquire up to US$700 billion in home and commercial mortgages to stabilise firms by taking bad assets off their books.
The plan aimed to halt the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, which has seen global credit markets seize up over concerns about the plummeting value of US housing and securities based on home mortgages.
Architects of the bailout have urged Congress to act swiftly or face dire consequences, and it was unclear whether any concerns expressed by voters would hamper its progress.
But lawmakers are sensitive to constituents, particularly in an election year. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch from the conservative state of Utah said reaction to the plan from his constituents was "all negative."
That comment was echoed by numerous callers to conservative talk shows and a new website VoteNoBailout.org also aimed to rally support against the legislation, which it said effectively enabled bankers to take the country hostage.
Money better spent
The bailout should include provisions for people facing foreclosure in the form of long-term, low interest loans, said civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, an authority on the impact of the home mortgage crisis.
"You can't just provide benefits or bonuses for those who engineered the crisis and have a socialized bailout for them and leave the 7 million victims to their own devices," Jackson said in an interview.
Congress had mistakenly bought into a belief in "unleashed capitalism without checks and balances" and was compromised in its ability to oversee Wall Street because lawmakers took financial contributions from corporate donors, Jackson said.
The scale of the bailout also staggered many people who said that, while they understood the potential cost of an economic slump, the money could be better spent.
"We are talking about US$700 billion that could do wonders for all kinds of things that this country and the world needs, like universal health care or health care for lower income kids, or to stop global warming," said Lanya Shapiro, executive director of Traction, a civic engagement and leadership development organisation based in North Carolina.
"Meanwhile people who for decades talk about the ills of regulation now want us to come to the rescue of these large Wall Street corporations," Shapiro said.
One aspect of the bailout likely to incite most resentment is the possibility that Wall Street firms could profit from the plan, said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
"In times of great uncertainty like we're in now, the working class and middle class do begrudge elites sweeping big pots (of money) off the table," he said.
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And so what for Australia? - and so what does Kevin hope to learn from some of the "gurus" who have been involved in driving the US economy so close to the precipice?
It was about the seventies that some of the capital cities first sea changes commenced - alternative living, grow your own vegies, music, drink, smoke some pot, community living etc. - hippie living in the NSW northern rivers
Maybe we should all learn more from that, appreciating the simple life and being more self sufficient.
I know everytime I see the huge numbers of people engaged in financial/stock markets I wonder on what they do actually produce in way of physical products for societies - sure they help drive the economy, but just where are we driving it to?, and how we have driven it is going to derive millions upon millions of people of a great chance of resuming or developing a satisfying life.
Time for Change, a revolution if you like and I do not see that being orchestrated by churning over more deficits courtesy of increasing any nations debt.
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