Alan Grayson is a former US congressman known for being outspoken, but this had all the makings of a fit-up. He was the only 'left-leaning' (for an American politician) member of a heavily right-wing panel discussing the Occupy Wall Street protests. He'd barely said a word until PJ O'Rourke started to take the piss out of him. Once Grayson had finished, O'Rourke was left gasping and reeling like a playground bully who'd just been kicked shitless by the weedy kid in glasses. And to think I used to like PJ. These days he just looks more and more like a ... dick. If this is the quality of political debate on US TV, no wonder people are getting antsy.
Grayson neatly articulates in less than a minute exactly why people are so angry. He cites the main political parties being in the pockets of Wall Street, the lack of universal health care, unemployment, the destruction of America's wealth reserves by reckless bankers and the rising number of people stuck in negative equity. Sadly, what he didn't do was articulate what people want done about it, so his bravura performance did little to advance the OWS cause beyond its current 'passionate but pointless' phase.
He also inadvertently put his finger on why I find some aspects of the OWS protests so irritating. It's the 'they got us into this mess' angle. No they didn't. We got us into this mess. They just facilitated. We were the ones glutting ourselves on cheap credit and taking out mortgages we knew we couldn't afford. We had our snouts in the trough up to and beyond the moment where the entire house of cards came down. And it was our elected representatives, not least Bill Clinton and chums, who deregulated mortgage lending to the extent that the subprime crisis was not only likely, but historically inevitable.
Sure there was fraud - lots if it - and as Grayson says, it's a crime in itself that no-one has been prosecuted. But to single out a nebulous 1% as 'the guilty' while exonerating ourselves is basically dishonest.
And I hate the 1% idea too. It's an invidious mix of scapegoating and the politics of envy. It allows the unthinking vilification of a group of people, which is never a good idea, especially when that group is so poorly defined. "Those Jews are a bad bunch" doesn't have quite the same harmless ring to it, does it?
Consider that the 1% in many cases represents the brightest and the best we have to offer. It includes some of the greatest charitable benefactors in history. It includes the people who build and run the nasty corporations who make the cameras, clothes, social media, phones, luggage, transportation and food that make something like OWS possible. It even, until recently, included Steve Jobs.
So while we're taking about nuance and inclusiveness as the reasons for a lack of an agenda on the protest side, why are the same protesters indulging a total lack of nuance and inclusiveness when it comes to the people they're protesting against?
Confused? Not as much as they are.
Taking a slash
3 days ago
People did over-stretch themselves, and I used to think it was their fault but consider:
ReplyDelete1. the growing gap in the price of housing vs. the largely static wage inflation during the 90s-00s. People were unable to get onto the housing ladder at all. The lenders chose to allow 120% mortgages on 5, 6 and more x multiples; they brought out 50 year mortgages. Think about what that means. That kind of underwriting was based on nothing an actuary would agree to. The banks make the decision on whether or not to lend, and how much. They brought the bad debt on themselves. If people got into this situation simply because they wanted the latest consumer goods, I'd agree that Joe Public is to blame, but that's not the case.
2. The Govts are not only in the pocket of business but have done nothing to ensure affordable housing for the low paid. That means people like nurses and teachers - no wonder schools are shit in London. No talent.
3. De-regulating markets doesn't mean that those operating within them should take on practices which are not only ethically wrong, but contrary to their objectives. The work of banks is well understood, but they chose to reinvent it. They weren't serving their customers and they weren't serving their shareholders - more should have been allowed to go to the wall. If they were car manufacturers, they would have.
The 1% isn't vilifying out of jealousy. Well, not for all of them. Politics of envy just doesn't exist in the US as it does here. People generally celebrate the success of the wealthy. It's just that the 1% this anger is aimed it is the super-high-earning bankers who are not only totally disconnected from the havoc they've caused, not only bailed out by tax money, not only back to making their $m bonuses, but have the temerity to tell us that we need them and that they won't be paying back the bailouts. It isn't politics of greed.
In terms of what they want, they're not so stupid as to demand anarchy or a system reboot. They're more practical than that. They want the banks to pay back what they took. Obama said that he had ensured conditions to make that the case - but those conditions seem to have disappeared. The same goes for Brown's promises. We are now dependent on the Banks succeeding in order to get our money back through re-selling their shares. The banks are literally in a no-lose position, whereas everyone else is suffering.
You called me a contrarian once, but this time, you're in the minority. Of about 1%.
On your points:
ReplyDelete1. The US used to have extremely tough regulations around mortgage lending. To fulfil his campaign pledges to provide housing to people who couldn't afford it, Clinton deregulated and put heavy pressure on the banks to relax lending rules. Under the old rules, Sub Prime simply couldn't have happened. It was political interference that triggered the mess. It doesn't really matter that this particular road to hell was paved with good intentions.
2. I don't disagree. But that wasn't the way to do it, clearly.
3. We know (from history) that unregulated markets don't behave responsibly. When money is involved, greed and stupidity are the watchwords of the day. The rules need to be set and enforced. You can't rely on bankers to behave ethically when the other guy is making a buck. Re: letting banks go to the wall, I disagree. That's what happened after 1929 and it was cataclysmic. And it's worth noting that after the Credit Crunch, almost every Western govt bailed out its car manufacturers as well, US included.
Re: the 1%, I stick to my guns on that. Scapegoating a group is always, always, always bad. If people are pissed at super-high-earning bankers, name the bankers they are pissed at. They want to be nuanced and intelligent about their protest. They should try the same for the people they are protesting about.
And I don't disagree on the stuff you say about paying back the bailouts. I think it's absolutely criminal. And I don't think the protesters are wrong about a lot of the other things they are protesting about. Quite the opposite. I just think they're making a virtue of being disorganised and directionless, when it's actually wasting time and effort and goodwill.
I'm inclined to think that you can see something and critique it without aligning yourself with one side or the other. If that puts me in a special percentile, I genuinely care about ...yep ... 1%.