Capitalism -- Under Attack

Capitalism is under attack.  The movement appears to be growing.  Just wait 'til next summer.  Who started this entire hullabaloo?  Well, here is one possible explanation. 

We watched the movie, Capitalism: A Love Story; written, produced and directed by Michael Moore, a kid who had the good fortune to be born in Michigan when Michigan was soaring as a consequence of the good forces of capitalism.  Prosperity was abundant; the factories were job magnets drawing immigrants from states near and far and even from foreign lands.  The Moore family was part of a Catholic parish in a town that GM built.  Things were good back then.  Capitalism was not under attack back then.

This movie is built on the simple theme that unregulated capitalism becomes a tool of the well to do who, motivated by their unbridled greed, amass vast fortunes and live the good life while moving their money around to other places where it can grow regardless of the impact on the local community, state or country.  The message is documented with great tales of heart wrenching woe, particularly from those without employment and those who are having other greedy “capitalists” in the forms of banks foreclose on their homes.

The movie bolsters their case against capitalism with two compelling allies – one, the hierarchy of Michael’s local Catholic parish which has nothing good to say about capitalism.  Think of it this way, “What would Jesus do?”  He’d get rid of capitalism pronto.  The other ally is the greedy Wall Street gang who never miss an opportunity to be opportunistic.  These fellows, led by fools with names like Greenspan, Geithner, Paulson, Rubin, Summers and Bush II (any Catholics in that group?) are straight out of central casting.  Let’s face it folks, these people are greedy pigs looking out solely for number uno. 

So, Moore’s story is rather well told but, it is also unbelievably one sided.  The one thing you can almost take to the bank, pun intended, is that when Michael’s sits on one side of the teeter totter, his side will be well weighted down.  And he doesn’t much care about whether anyone, or any viewpoint, or even any perspective is brought to the device to provide any form of balance.  This is called “literary license.” 

Nevertheless, the movie serves a good purpose.  It makes one think.  About greed.  About foolish, greedy men.  About what changes could be made.  And, more than anything, about what went wrong.  Is it simply the way Michael presents it?  Greed?  Lack of regulation?  Oh, and he does acknowledge this little thing called competition.  He actually brings it up early in the movie so that by the time the excrement hits the oscillator, it is lost in the drama of the mounting problems.  Hmmnn, we wonder if Michael is planning to make a movie about competition.  Does Michael want to regulate competition?  This does happen a lot these days.  It’s called government.  Oh well, time will tell.

Now let’s provide a bit of balance.

One, this essayist and these pages could care less about wall street and the financial industry and their so-called service businesses with their claims to new products and devices and so forth.  We would support a strict and harsh regulation of all they do which is to simply say go back to regulating the banks with high capital requirements and high lending standards and limit them to those services.  By the way, they also would also be required to pay savers that old fashioned concept called “interest” for their deposits.  The only problem with that approach is that it will not support the progressive agenda of the dominant political party.  So the dominant political party will still need to find all sorts of ways to fund their agenda of abundance for all (well really their voting groups – see below) and that means government will print and borrow money rather than greedy Wall Street bankers doing it.  This, by the way, pretty much describes where we are now.

Let’s keep one other thing in mind.  You can tar and feather the greedy bankers and outlaw all their Wall Street shenanigans and all their trading schemes and derivatives and third tranches and option contracts and so forth.  You can drive them out of town; shut them down; tax them into oblivion.  Have at it.  Just remember this one little side effect.  Someone else will be only too happy to pick up the slack and all the jobs that go with it and all the tax revenues it produces for the cities like New York and the states like New York (the state of Illinois is scrambling around with favorable tax packages to keep their financial exchanges in town as we write these words) will be offshore.

TheFundamentals supports strict banking regulation and we support letting a lot of the derivative crap go overseas.  Tax receipts will then decline and jobs will disappear so the price tag will include cut backs on entitlements and expectations.  We also support strict government regulation and that is the part of the story that Michael forgot to tell.  We need a fat boy on that side of the teeter totter. Volunteers?  Michael cannot point to one example, anywhere, where the circumstances of his own country are thriving under socialism with heavy government bureaucracies making key economic decisions.  We don’t think his friends in his parish can either.  On this last observation it would be appropriate for some church hierarchy to use the same long view outlook on economic matters that they apply to church matters. 

Capitalism did not create this mess.  Greedy people did.  Let’s not forget that greed is a relative concept.   Goldman Sachs is not going to be enticed by a chance to grab a payoff of $10,000.00 or even $50,000.00.  But the punks hanging around Springfield Illinois and most other state capitols are.  They are called SEIU and AFSCME and NEA and AFT and AFL-CIO and the fingerprints of their Democrat party friends are all over this mess.

We have said it before.  Democracy without limits is corruption.  Ditto for banking.  Ditto for wall street.  Ditto for financial services.  Ditto for public service unions.  And a big time ditto for government. 

If the attackers prevail, who will pick up the tab?  AFL – CIO?  AFSCME?  SEIU?  NEA?  Their “occupy” movement pawns?

C’mon.  Get real.