The Bail In

Paul Krugman has a nice essay in today's (Monday, 9 February) New York Times. Roughly, his point is that Obama's campaign to cooperate, to compromise, or to capitulate, is making any stimulus package weaker.

It's a predictable strategy. While campaign, Obama had to please voters. President Obama has to please managers. Thus a 'stimulus' that is going to help the better off far more than the average. Tax incentives to buy houses that are still overvalued. Promises to place a "floor" beneath bad assets — in substance a promise of profit to investors, profit at Our — We the People's — expense.

It is predictable because key Dogmas of American Economy, articles of faith, remain unchallenged, unquestioned, even unremarked but for the likes of the late John Kenneth Galbraith and a handful of others.

That business, in this case the banking institutions of the United States, must remain in private hands goes unchallenged.

That the wealthy have a right to profit and indeed to ever increasing profit — a right guaranteed by We the People — goes unchallenged.

That We the People exist to Serve the Privileged goes unchallenged.

That We the People — We the Voters — serve those by law elected to serve us goes unchallenged.

That those in power, whether in the corporate boardroom or in the elected office, are naturally talented, naturally gifted, to carry out their roles goes unchallenged.

That they the privileged must, by virtue of their unique and natural talents, be better compensated than We the People, and indeed that they must be compensated even as we go poor, goes unchallenged.

Unchallenged are all the articles of faith which have lead us to the very point we find ourselved today.

Now We the People will pay for the Bail In — the direct, popular financial compensation of exactly those who created this mess. Water will be bailed into the sinking ship, courtesy of the dogma of tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts and no public ownership, no public control.