"Hey Dad, Why Does This Country Protect Billionaires, and Not Teachers?"

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Les Leopold

"Hey Dad, Why Does This Country Protect Billionaires, and Not Teachers?"
Something is really screwed up when we award billions to Wall Street elites for doing things we don’t comprehend, even as we lay off teachers by the thousands.

May 5, 2010 |


Last week, thousands of New Jersey public school students walked out of class to protest draconian school budget cuts. “Save my teacher,” their signs read. In a state that is home to a bevy of high finance billionaires, with the highest per capita income in the nation, teachers are being sacked left and right. In our town half the student body protested outside the high school. Perhaps the protesters should turn their eyes towards the twenty-five top hedge fund honchos who took in $25 billion in 2009. Their “earnings” alone could fund 658,000 entry level teachers.

It’s ironic that the battlefield in this war over resources is public education. Because the public remains entirely uneducated about the connection between those billionaires and school budget cuts. We are clueless about what the Wall Street billionaires do to earn their riches and whether it’s of any value. We might be able to understand “weapons of mass destruction,” but financial weapons of mass destruction are way beyond us.

The new earning reports are good, we read. The giant financial institutions are back to making billions through “trading.” So are these bankers grown-up versions of kids trading baseball cards–or are they robber barons? Are they enriching our society or siphoning off its wealth? Maybe the marching students of New Jersey could ask Governor Christie to explain.

Here’s what we do know for sure. Our modern financial honchos are very different from the robber barons of old. Everybody knew that Rockefeller meant oil, Ford meant cars and Carnegie meant steel.

Yes, today, we know that Gates and Jobs mean computers. But who the hell is David Tepper, and what does he produce with his Appaloosa hedge fund? He must have done something pretty impressive to earn $4 billion (not million) in 2009, the worst financial year since the Great Depression, with 29 million Americans unemployed or forced into part-time work. Then again, how much would he have “earned” had we not provided more than $8 trillion in bailout funds, loans and guarantees to the collapsed financial sector? ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/146738/%22hey_dad%2C_why_does_this_country_protect_billionaires%2C_and_not_teachers%22

[fasttense]

1. Yup,

Our kids will be stupid for the rest of their lives but our damn billionaires will still be rich.

[Demeter]

2. They Can't Take It With Them

nor can they tie it up beyond the long arm of the law. Or the lawless.

[SharonAnn]

3. These people don't "earn" the money. They "receive" the money.

They are not being paid for the "work" they do. They're receiving a share of a gamble that paid off.

I have a real problem with the word "earn" in this context. It is not possible for one person to "earn" that much. They may "win" it, They may "steal" it, they may "receive" it, etc. But they don't "earn" it.

[whattheidonot]

5. will not last

the present system will not last. It cannot in a large democracy. the things that make a large democracy work are in peril. the system will crack to the left or right but it will not go on as is much longer. The national security within, education, health, living conditions, stress of living, etc is crumbling. Terrorism is a definite big problem and we have to find ways to fight it on a budget. The present military spending and the direction of our economy will not work. As living standards crumble here the terrorist win. as we divide the terrorist win. once there is not consent for our system the terrorist win.

[readmoreoften]

6. +1

No they do not.

[Renegades of Funk]

4. And people thought Corzine was bad!

Christie is going to get destroyed in his next election. SO much for Republicans retaking over control.