The capitalist class hated these restraints and organized to remove them. Reagan came to power and as their point man opened up the struggle to roll back the regulations of the previous forty years and the gains of the 1960's in other areas. All the Presidents and regimes, Republican and Democrat, since Reagan, and especially the last Bush have continued with this process. Regulations have been stripped away or defunded. This unregulated capitalism has been referred to as "capitalist fundamentalism." That is a belief that capitalism is able to solve all the problems without any regulation. Let the market roll, is the idea. Hands off the market.
Well last year showed that this approach was fundamentally mistaken. The world's financial system teetered on the verge of absolute collapse. So what did the capitalists and their politicians do, these people who had been demanding that the government keep its hands off the system, that it take away all regulation, for the past forty years? Ignoring their previous stance they ran screaming for help to the government, that is to us the US tax payers. They did not want more regulation again, no they just wanted hundreds of billions of dollars to bail them out. And they got this. The Obama regime bailed out these profit addicted banks and Wall Street with our taxes. Laws to regulate were unacceptable to the capitalists but laws to hand them billions were acceptable. Ever since they got their billions they have stepped up their lobbying efforts to make sure that there will be no renewal of the old regulations again.
Why did the Obama regime hand them over the hundreds of billions and not regulate them? There were two reasons. One is that this regime is as committed to unregulated capitalism as the capitalists and Wall Street. But secondly with the big banks and Wall Street firms about to collapse Obama saw no alternative policy to deal with this crisis as he is utterly committed to the present capitalist system. Some of the financial institutions were so big that if they had collapsed they would have a triggered what they call a "systemic" failure. That is the whole system would have failed. So using this argument the capitalists blackmailed the government. They did not have much blackmailing to do, to get the Republicans and Democrats to take our taxes and bail out Wall Street and the banks. They said these institutions were too "big too fail." Meaning that if they failed the whole system would fail so they had to be bailed out.
Well look at things now. Has the problem been solved? Obama on TV called the bankers 'fat cats." Then he met with them yesterday to ask them to loan more. He did not call them fat cats at that meeting. The "fat cats" talk was for the masses to pretend he was getting tough with the bankers. At the meeting with the bankers he said he "urged" them to act. It is unbelievable what these bankers do and how they see themselves. After being bailed out they are now paying themselves huge bonuses. Not only that they are paying billions to their bribers and corrupt representatives in Washington, so called lobbyists, to prevent regulations on their activities. But not only that. They also want to rub Obama's face in it. And he is their man. They just want to make sure he does not think he can act against them. They want to make sure he knows that as long as they have the banks and financial institutions they are more powerful than him. He called the top bankers to the White House yesterday. But the heads of the three biggest financial firms did not even come. These were Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. They called him on speaker phone instead. What an incredible insult. And just as incredible Obama took their call on speaker phone.
Since the near collapse last year the big banks then considered too big to fail have got even bigger. For example Bank of America has taken over Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo has taken over Wachovia and JP Morgan Chase has taken over Bears Stearns to name but a few. If part of these were too big to fail last year imagine what will happen when the next collapse arrives as arrive it will. The answer to this is there will be an even bigger bail out demanded.
The central element of the propaganda of the capitalists and their politicians to get away with bailing out the banks with our money is their claim that there is no alternative. This is capitalist propaganda. It is a lie. The alternative is not difficult. All the major banks and financial institutions can be taken out of private hands. They can be taken into public ownership under working class control and management, under the control of the workers in the institutions, the customers of the institutions and the population as a whole. This would avoid any risk of collapse and would make it impossible for the capitalists to blackmail their way to getting our taxes to bail them out. Their dirty greedy paws would no longer be on the levers of financial power. This would end the too big to fail blackmailing business.
It would also create a huge central fund of capital. This could then be used in a productive way instead of being used to speculate and make profit for the already too rich. Instead it could be used to bring clean water and food to the world's population, build houses and schools for all and give free education and health care for all. Instead of their blackmailing slogan: "too big to fail" our slogan has to be: "the problems are too big not be solved take over the banks and the financial institutions."
The world's financial system is too important to be left in the hands of a bunch of profit addicted power mad capitalist sociopaths. The world's capital has to be in the hands of working people and be used to solve the problems of the world's people.
No longer should the world's finances be dominated by capitalism's blackmail: "too big to fail."
The world's finances must be used to solve the problems. The problems are too big not to be solved take over the banks and the financial institutions."
Sean.
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