I'll Take Wall Street Plus the 3.5 Points

In 2008 the tsunami of economic disaster approached catching the American government with its pants down. While elected and appointed to manage the country’s money supply, these people were still blindsided due to their decades-long love affair with Milton Friedman’s economic theories, which gave enormous power to the capitalist class while privatizing public services and outsourcing labor to oppressed countries.

Faced with a monstrous dilemma, Congress and the president had two choices: spend $200 billion to stabilize crumbling mortgages or give $700 billion to Wall Street to do whatever it is they do with it. Since the $200 billion would only help at-risk households who can contribute a maximum of $4,800 to federal campaigns, guess which plan won?

It’s no surprise that the political establishment would follow its money supply. But it was also a sign of the special treatment we as a society have given to trickle-down economics. We were essentially saying that giving $3.50 to capitalists is more valuable than giving $1.00 to consumers. At times throughout our history, this might have been a reasonable bet, especially when capitalists were making things – back in a time when America actually had a manufacturing base.

But the Wall Street bailout money placed more bets on more derivatives, created no wealth and expanded the bubble. The estimated $200 million would have been used to cover the upside down part of the upside down mortgages, which would have led to some consumer stability and gone a long way in right-sizing U.S. currency.

We would have been out of the woods by now, instead we are going through another round of extreme piss-offery at Wall Street bonuses and corporate whore senators.