Public outrage boiled over this week when it was revealed that AIG bonuses were funded by us the taxpayers in the form of bailout money. When CEOs and upper management are making salaries that are 400 times that of their workers and after running their company into the ground and losing 98% of the stock value and 156 billion in market capitalization the general public has every reason to be outraged. That someone would then expect to get multi-million dollar bonuses after a performance like this and hide behind what they claim are unbreakable legal contracts is unconscionable. A contract that by the way would have been broken or worthless had AIG gone into bankruptcy prior to not being bailed out with funds from us the taxpayers.
Over the past decade we have seen many Republican politicians devoutly go to church every week in an overtly public display and claim God directs their every move in public life. Yet they have ignored one of the basic tenets of the early Christian church, that "Greed" is one of the seven deadly sins. Were these Republicans too busy counting their homes and cars during that part of the sermon?
Greed is most assuredly not good and it never has been and never will be. Greed has not put out a fire, Greed does not keep our streets safe, Greed has not helped an accident victim along the side of the road, Greed has never given a blanket to a homeless veteran, Greed has not taught a child, Greed has not given you the best possible health care coverage, and Greed has not brought neighbors of all colors, sexual orientations and political persuasions together as Americans.
Laissez-faire capitalism (unfettered and unregulated free markets) is nothing but a bastardization of true capitalism that allows greed to be the primary driver of the "private decisions". The other part of Webster's definition that is also essential to a properly functioning system of capitalism is "competition in a free market". But over the past two decades the basic ideas of the Sherman Anti-trust laws have been either weakened or completely ignored. The result is that we have dozens of companies that are now “too big to fail”. Corporatism in this country has run rampant and as an unseen entity it is now more powerful than our government. Its greed controls our politicians, it controls our legislation and up until recently it controlled the mindset of the general public.
So what I am against and what all Americans should be against is unfettered and unregulated free-markets that operate only on the principle that "Greed is good" and seek to ultimately eliminate any competition. As Senator Bernie Sanders often remarks, "If you are too big to fail you are too big to exist".
It is time to turn the page and agree that both government and free-market capitalism can and must exist in harmony like two kids on a teeter-totter. But if one side gets too large and powerful it holds the other hostage.
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