Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Let's Eat Pie Together

When I hear stories about the depression, and I heard many from my old grandma, Nanny, and her sisters, it was rough. After school, their snack would be a little bread, dampened somehow, with a little sugar on top.

But people helped each other. There was a kindness.

With less room for competition (the game pieces were taken away), there is more room for communalism. And so there is.

Frankly, let the swamp be drained. Let Wall Street quake and break. We’ll survive.

I have some ideas:

1)Whatever banks and investment firms are left standing right now, let them take over the other ones. The responsible institutions should be rewarded for staying afloat.

2)Since everyone hates the idea of taxpayers doing this huge bail out of 700 billion big ones, why not get the money from another source? Why not nationalize the oil companies and use their assets to buy these failing institutions?

3)Once the oil companies are destroyed by being nationalized, why not make all future energy exploration (ie: renewables) a utility completely controlled by the government?

What the hell did this country think? That everything was really worth what we thought it was worth? When houses quadruple in value in eight years, doesn’t that sort of smell like speculation? And whenever there has been huge speculation, what has always happened, always?

Capitalism could work if it were highly regulated. But friends, in addition, we need some form of socialism, or at least an amalgam of government and business working very closely together, for education, health, energy and let’s just throw the internet in there, too. At least then, you wouldn’t have to kill yourself, like some slave, in order to be smart, healthy, energetic and able to check your email.

2 comments:

Todd HellsKitchen said...

I'm powerless over this economy.... I gotta keep saying that cuz otherwise it makes me nuts...

Rebecca Waring said...

Either way, this is going to cost me well into 5 figures. I'd rather spend it letting the chips fall where they may. I don't want this bailout. We'll all still make things and sell them to each other. We'll be okay. Let Wall Street stew in its own juice.