Wall Street Against Main Street—Are We Really Going to Do This Again?
Two things are going on at the moment in the economic chaos
kickstarted by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.
1) The
investor class has its pants around its ankles and
2) The
worker class has its knickers in a twist.
One of those classes has profited enormously ever since 2008
at the expense of the other. We both know the investor dudes kicked the teeth
out of the worker dudes over that period and yet we have chosen to shove all
available resources in their direction—once again.
Time to whistle the ball dead and throw some penalty flags. Them
against us doesn’t work any more. Them have been breaking the
rules and us are tired of it. The pandemic was simply a trigger for an
explosion waiting to happen.
So, for starters, how does this
sound?
Let the banks fail. We
bailed them out before and they simply took the money and fucked us all once
again. Let ‘em go, we have a mechanism for that called the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation (FDIC). It declares member banks insolvent when they
fail, takes them over and installs new leadership. Done deal.
They become banks
again instead of casinos.
Let the investor class take
responsibility for their choices and lose their investment. Grow up, children.
It’s a tough world out there. If you make poor judgments, there’s a price
attached. You lose money. No one owes you liquidity. When I lose my
liquidity, I can’t pay my rent and my landlord puts me in the street.
So blow your nose, wipe away those tears and understand that
wrecking the financial car twice in twelve years means daddy will have to take
away the keys until you learn some judgement.
Fair is fair and we’re getting
tired of having you play a protected game, privatizing your wins and socializing
your losses at our expense. And, naughty-naughty, when you do win, you
shove all those winnings into tax havens.
Over the past twelve years while you ‘haves’ ran up
all those successes, we ‘have nots’ were busy as well. Alternative
work became fashionable.
Alternative work is characterized
by being temporary or unsteady—such as work as an independent contractor or
through a temporary help agency. I know that doesn’t sound all that tasty, but
it’s the meal you threw our way. Nearly every one of the 10 million jobs
created between 2005 and 2015 were lo-cal, gig-economy blue-plate specials.
No side-orders, like regular hours,
healthcare, profit-sharing, 401-Ks, paid overtime or vacations come with the
blue-plate special.
But it’s not like there are no perks. If you’re creative,
you can probably work in two gig-economy jobs at one time. Based on earnings
data from tens of thousands of gig-workers, the average among them earned $624
per month.
Wow. If the tires on your bike
don’t wear out, two jobs could earn you nearly $15,000 a year.