One Utah

I spent whatever free time I have had today sifting through the coverage of the financial mess. Despite the way the Masters of the Universe are running around with their hair on fire (or maybe because of it), most Americans seem to be regarding the situation with a somewhat cold eye.

Public opposition to the bailout plan was based on the accurate perception that it did not hold accountable those responsible for setting and pursuing the disastrous policies that created the crisis. The idea that executives at failing companies are nevertheless walking away from the mess with multi-million dollar severance packages is offensive at every level. If anyone of us did our jobs as badly as these executives did them, we’d get fired and be lucky to get unemployment benefits; but these yahoos run their companies into the ground and still get $50 million in stock options? And now we’re supposed to bail out these companies? How does that work?
Americans get that there is a problem; we also get that the people who made the mess want a Get Out of Jail Free card at taxpayer expense. Uh, no.
You want our tax dollars, you’ll get them with our conditions.

The Wall Street Versus Main Street story line resonates with people. The average American has experienced a long period of economic hard times - for most Americans the years since 2000 have been a period of increasing economic distress. Real incomes have declined. Prices for commodities have increased. Health care costs have increased. Economically, the average American is feeling under pressure. Fueled by credit and the promise of better times soon, Americans have been willing to shoulder high levels of debt to keep up their lifestyles - something that has become increasingly impossible over the last year. It’s barely been a blip.
The high flying finance idiots whose cupidity and stupidity fueled the crash get barrels of ink and a proposed government bailout to the tune of billions upon billions.
It touches a nerve. A nation that watched one of its great cities drown in Katrina is wondering why we have cash for Iraq and millionaires but no money for education, health care and infrastructure projects that the we actually, you know, want.

In a weird turn of events, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi completely bumbled the politics of the bailout but were rescued from looking bad by the House Republicans who managed to come off as insane, whiny ass titty babies, so manifestly unsuited for public office that everyone else looked good by comparison. Note to Boehner: When George W. Bush looks serious compared to you and your colleagues, you’ve gone seriously awry. Barney Frank, who has been on fire for several weeks, openly mocked them so effectively it created the frame in which people understood the bill’s failure.
I think Americans support the concept of a bailout. Most of us get that collapse of the financial industry is a bad thing. I think most of us get that we’ve got to spend some time to get the right kind of bill - it’s obvious that the financial industry can’t function without regulation.
At the end of the day, Americans anger is directed at our failed leaders. Business leaders who should have known better - who did know better - and who nevertheless made incredibly stupid, short-sighted opinions. Elected leaders who first deregulated industries with the bland assurance that industries would regulate themselves, and who then, as evidence mounted that industries weren’t self-regulating, did nothing to head off the crisis. Elected officials who have spent the last few years pursuing the wrong war against the wrong enemy and the wrong time for all the wrong reasons. Americans anger at our failed leaders is very real and very justified.
Since at least the mid 1990s, we’ve experienced a shocking decline in America’s leadership class. Whether its the panty-sniffing moral scolds led by Newt Gingrich who lead the impeachment, the ruthless and amoral Tom Delay, the amoral and implacable Dick Cheney, or the cheer-leading religious fanatic George W. Bush, the ineffectual, drifting Tom Daschle, or the feckless Dick Gephardt, America’s leaders in recent years have been uniquely pathetic, a series of people woefully unsuited to the challenges of their times, married to the battles and struggles of the past and blind to the opportunities. FWIW, I think Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will come out of the Bailout fiasco looking okay; they’ve treated the situation as serious, approached it seriously, and done their best to craft legislation that would work. (One of these days I need to write a longer post about Bill Clinton as a leader since he is an infuriating combination of the best and worst.)
Americans are angry. We have a right to be. Our leaders have failed us - on almost every front, in almost every possible way. And then, they had the nerve to expect the that people who spent years facing minor economic meltdowns of their own would gladly pony up the cash to save them from their own bad choices.

This entry was posted Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 3:03 pm and is filed under American People, Barack Obama, Economic Exploitation, Economy, This Blog. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.