EDITORIAL: Bailout Main Street

[IndianaGreen]

EDITORIAL: Bailout Main Street

Author: PWW Editorial Board

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 09/19/08 12:40

The largest crisis in U.S. financial history shook the foundations of Wall Street this week. The aftershocks of the earthquake that toppled the 158-year-old Lehman Brothers investment bank, Merrill Lynch and the AIG insurance giant — all within a 24-hour span — shook capitalist markets around the globe.

At one time in capitalist development, financiers “greased the wheels” of industry, turning out real goods, infrastructure and services.

But in the era of deindustrialization, mega-mergers, deregulation and privatization of public institutions, the “industry” that finance capital greased — in its global search for the highest rates of profit — was a house of cards built on subprime loans, speculation and other financial devices. A rickety, greed-based structure that created nothing of use.

This led not only to the biggest financial crisis in U.S. history, but also to the largest global income gap in history with a few at the top enjoying trillions while 95 percent of us struggle.

Today 3 billion people in the world live on less than $2 per day. In the U.S., workers are earning less and have a declining standard of living even though they are more productive than ever. The average U.S. household is $9,000 in debt.

The government is injecting billions to bail out failed financial companies. Don’t the nation’s communities and working families deserve the same so they don’t “fail?”

So what to do?

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/13726/