Friday, September 26, 2008

Bail Out!

[pdf leaflet]

So Wall Street has their cake and gets to eat it too. No surprise. And the politicians of all stripes wring their hands and make grandiloquent sound-bites of how they should be listened to.

It’s just so much noise. Both Democrats and Republicans are shocked. SHOCKED! So much for the reputation of Ivy League education being excellent. Most of us could have seen it coming.

Most pathetic are the various leftist groups coming up with more and more ludicrous slogans and demands. They call themselves “socialist” but advocate for the government to administer capitalism, an option which can only fail.

We’ll make no such pretense. The WSP can only speak some truths and watch as the chips fall. Or more accurately, watch as the chips are raked in.

The bail out of the US investment banking industry illustrates one of the major lies which justifies the whole of capitalism. The capitalists - stock and bond holders - deserve their money because they “take risks”. What risks do they take when the government comes to their rescue? How does the “risk” of massive stock incentives and tens of millions of dollars of CEO severance packages compare to workers’ losing their pensions and their homes?

Capitalists take no risk. Workers do. Workers create the wealth of society through real work. Capitalists amass wealth through legal con games. For their failings, the capitalists will receive $4750 in public wealth from each worker in the US. The money working people invested in their foreclosed houses also go to the same capitalists. As do the homes.

Capitalism is a racket, a confidence game. That’s why we are socialists. Once you see how the game is rigged it’s pretty simple to make new choices. As more people accept socialism, it becomes possible to create new movements to stop the capitalist game once and for all. Check it out.

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