DEAR WALL STREET: BLACKMAIL IS SO GAUCHE

Well, looks like the financial world retaliated for Congress turning back on their promise to pay off the tab run up by the rotten decisions of the moneychangers by selling off assets quick like a bunny. Now they’re on to Act Two, where they’re jumping up and down and screaming about how nobody’s going to get credit anymore and small businesses are all going to shrivel up and Santa Claus isn’t going to show up for your family this year.

They’re basically pulling out a recitation of the full litany of all of the standard Chicken Little alarmist bullshit, to which I feel that there is only one adequate reply.

Fuck all of the dumb shit.

I’m sick and tired of seeing the pundits and mouthpieces of Wall Street trying to blackmail the United States government by trying to conjure up a tornado of paranoia in order to force them into paying up for what in all foreseeable circumstances would be a pile of utterly worthless mortgage-backed securities, in which winking Congressional leaders suggest that we may even make the money back, though they can’t guarantee it, predict how much we could make back, or even determine exactly who “we” are.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson looked absolutely hysterical at a post-Congressional vote press conference (which was also being held after the Dow Jones closed with the largest loss in history.) Paulson wailed, seemingly desperate to anyone with ears to hear, “We need to work as quickly as possible…We need to put something back together that works,” somehow avoiding the tacking of a “GodDAMNit!” at the end of the sentence.

He also sounded almost surreal when he stated, “Our banking system has been holding up very well, considering all of the pressures.” Uh, sure. Consider, if you will, that Washington Mutual and Wachovia, along with other financial institutions, have been going down the shitter in the past few weeks alone. If that’s what’s considered as “holding up very well”, then hey, I’m living the life of an award winning scholar, considering that I only have a high school diploma! Hey, I’m gonna start applying that observational style in more areas of my life, starting, like, todaaaay man!

I wouldn’t exactly paint the majority of dissenting Republicans who voted against the initial bailout legislation as working class heroes either. They’d be more than happy to grab backpacks, fill them with fresh currency straight from the U.S. Treasury, and hop on the next Amtrak leaving D.C. for New York City to deliver the loot directly to the robber barons in person. No, the issue here, as usual, is too much government regulation would be mandated, and God knows we can’t have any of that pesky oversight stuff getting in the way of what they probably still insist is a fundamentally sound economy behind closed doors with their big business lobbyist homies. So no medals for these self-styled mavericks. If anything, they deserve a flaming bag of shit in front of each and every one of their office doors.

And the Democrats are looking pretty fucked up in this whole fiasco as well.

“Look, nobody liked this bill.”
(Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show)

Then why the fuck did anyone even vote in favor of it, much less put it to a vote?

It should be painfully obvious by now that perseverance over the potential collapse of the economy, if that collapse even has a chance of happening, is going to be accomplished by winning a marathon and not a sprint. Adding muddy regulatory water to an insta-quick cake mix of a bailout package and bum rushing it to Dubya’s desk isn’t going to resolve anything, except perhaps for the folks holding all of those possibly worthless piles of mortgage-based securities hoping to dump them on the taxpayers for a few hundred billion fistfuls of dollars.

It is my hope and prayer that true working people all over this country are neither swayed nor terrified by all of this hubris oozing out of what seems like every pore of every government official and financial “expert” in the country right now. If the proletariat of this country has shown anything time and time again, it’s resilience in times of crisis. As for those of you living beyond your means, too bad, you’re part of the problem anyway, so smile and eat it.

But for those of us who live within our means, no worries, it’s going to be alright. Keep your FDIC-insured money in the bank. Keep driving the same old car and keep it well maintained. Go to work and try to save a little of your paycheck. Keep renting, unless you really, really love that new house, you have about twenty five percent cash down, and plan not to sell it for about twenty years. Above all, let the power fall and it’s okay to be a little smug in these times. Oh, sure, sooner or later some kind of bribe will be paid off to the robber barons to loosen up the credit again, but in the meantime, fear not, for this is our time to breathe easy and relax while the addicts of the trough get put on a forced diet for awhile.