The federal deficit is expected to hit the two trillion mark or so over the next couple of years as the political representatives of the capitalist class borrow money on our behalf to rescue capitalism and the so-called free market from itself.
If we take time to think about it, we are lending money to moneylenders (or their politicians who are "guardians" of public funds are lending it to them) at very favorable interest rates so that they can lend it to us (workers) so we can buy the goods that we make and provide the declining the services that help society function. Public services are declining because the money that they borrow has to be paid back and in order to do that government expenditure on services must be cut. Revenue has to be increased also through raising taxes. Mind you, this comes at a time when unemployment is on the increase and there is an increased need for government services.
A bit of a problem that has arisen is that the moneylenders are not always using our money to lend to us and are either investing it in safe havens or use it to buy other companies. One of the safe havens, or more accurately, safer havens, is US government debt. And who pays the (tax free) dividend on this loan? Why, we do. This shift in to US treasuries has temporarily given the dollar some life.
So they are on a strike of capital. But everywhere in the pages of the serious journals of capitalism, the papers where they talk to each other, they boast of the party they've had; they have accumulated massive amounts of capital that "they" own.
A "sumptuous feast" is one term the Financial Times used to describe the last few years (I think it was Lawrence Summers who used this term). The Times' editorial of January 3rd explained that the finance industry "engorged itself, ran up large profits and paid its staff huge bonuses." We've lived "beyond our means" the editorial goes on. They are talking about themselves here mind you, not the single mother living in a slum here in the US constantly harassed and terrorized by landlords, and the people in the former colonial world are no persons also.
A few of the people that "lived beyond their means" would be the 25 top hedge fund managers who earned $15 billion between them in 2006 with two of them earning more than one billion each. Where is all this money? Where is the billions accumulated off the backs of workers and slaves in much of that period, over the centuries
Now as workers we should think of this. Could we do a better job than that? We are not economists we are told and we should leave the complex issues to experts. Well we need experts that is true, but we are economists in the real sense. We pay rent, we manage the house, we raise families.
If we take this capital resource that they are handing out to their friends in order to save a system that is corrupt and rotten, a capital resource that will continue to guarantee them sumptuous feasts, if we take this resource, create a central publicly owned bank to store it and manage this bank through committees dominated by working people elected in the workplaces and communities; wouldn't this work better?
By nationalizing the banks and creating a central bank we do not mean nationalizing deposits. The savings of workers and small business whose means of subsistence is will not be taken from them (why would we take our own money) but the billions that have been plundered and stashed away by speculators, gamblers and corporations, this would be the property of the public.
Obviously financial experts would be involved in such a development but the dominant class interest on these committees would be that of the working class; the vast majority of us. Then how we use this accumulated surplus from our Labor would be determined in a democratic socialist way that benefits society and the environment in which we live. This is the alternative to the Central Banks of the US and Britain which are private institutions that function in this way in the interests of the capitalist class and free of public scrutiny. The US federal reserve head is not elected and is probably the most powerful individual in society.
Now tell me this scenario is not better than the present one and that we aren't capable of making it a reality.
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