Every citizen, eligible to vote is responsible for this financial crisis that the world is gripped by, whether by action or inaction.
No point blaming the greedy banks, corporations, speculators or any other scapegoat for our failings as citizens. Collectively, and regardless of our actual and professed political stripe, we have failed by buying into the arguments that allowed the kinds of de-regulations that led to the financial meltdown that is affecting so very many people not just in our societies here, but also in countries around the world that have seen large scale suffering.
The reason we cannot blame the banks, the corporations, the speculators is due to their openly and honestly stated goal to make as much profit as they possibly could.
They openly and publically said that regulations got in the way of making as profits as they possibly could and we agreed with them and freely elected political parties that promptly got rid of the regulations or red-tape as they would prefer to call it. They said hey, the regular way of making money is not making enough money for us so what say we invent some new ways of making money, so the very next time they had an election going on, we obediently and collectively trotted off to the polls and elected even more radical right-wing governments, who cut even more regulations, er' sorry, red-tape. Whether or not we actually participated in voting or not (and we all have the right to determine which stripe of political party will represent us), we are to blame because large majorities of us voted for the kinds of political parties that used hot-button issues to get into power and implemented policies that de-regulated the business environment to the point of privatizing profits and nationalizing losses.
We ourselves as citizens have bought into the myth that if big corporations and wealthy individuals could make as much profits as they possibly could, society and the economy would be better off.
We and the corporations who sold us these ideas via their media oulets universally known as the corporate media have seen right-wing economic ideas come crashing down, devastatingly and spectacularly, spreading throughout the world like some economic tsunami, causing untold suffering and misery.
Meanwhile, that fringe group, those rabble rousers off in the corner there, the ones no media outlet will ever give fair play to in case their ideas are taken seriously, the ones whose ideas were pooh-poohed during times of financial excess and before, what are they up to these days, when all their warnings and predictions have come sadly and tragically true?
Are they revelling in the fact that they were right? Or gloating that the other side is so devastatingly wrong?
NO! They are busy fighting off attempts by the hedge fund managers, the Executive class, the Private Equity firms, wealthy investors, even wealthier old money individuals to claw concessions from working people in an attempt to balance the books on the workers backs. Sssh! Hush up now you mouthy worker,.. never mind all those millions and yes even billions in profits and bonuses the corporate/wealthy class has made through the decades.
Complicit as usual, the media has obediently attacked one group of workers after another to imprint in the collective public mindset that the only possible outcome to any negotiations had to be concessions from working people.
That said there is a hotbed of discussion taking place out there amongst the leftists about learing from and capititalizing on this financial meldown.
Hopefully some of them will explore the lesson to be learned from the practice of nationalizing corporate losses and what that means for profits down the road.
