$700 Billion Bailout Fails to Pass Congress

What do you know. The unprecedented, mind-bogglingly big, handout to the corrupt financial sector in the United States has failed to pass through the House of Representatives. It failed by a margin of about 20 votes. This has caused a major drop on American stock markets, but remarkably an even larger drop in Canada. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average of the New York Stock Exchange fell 6.98%, the S&P/TSX Composite Index fell 7.9%.

As we see stocks in Canada being more adversely affected by this crisis than American stocks, and the trading partner on whom the Canadian economy is dependant circling the drain, we have the out of touch ramblings of our Prime Minister for cold comfort. Two weeks ago, Stephen Harper said “My own belief is that if we were going to have some kind of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now.” Yeah, right Steve. Tell that to all of the people who have seen their retirement savings wiped out over the last three weeks as the TSX has been tanking.

Steve would very much like for us not to connect the currently unfolding crisis in the States with the kind of massive, neo-liberal, deregulation that he wants to foist on us up here. Deregulation is responsible for this crisis, because when greed (i.e. capitalism) is allowed to run rampant and unchecked, it results in shady dealings and outrageous short-term planning. It leads to the kind of exploitation that sees the CEO of Lehman Brothers take home a pay package of US$37 million this year, the same year he steered that bank into the ground. Capitalism, but especially deregulated capitalism, is what allows the kind of insane, idiotic lending that led to this whole crisis in the first place. Neo-liberal deregulation of the economy is what led to Washington Mutual having on a tiny percentage of its debts in available cash, and being by far and away the biggest bank failure in the history of the world. Out of control capitalism is what led to the Great Depression, and it is what will lead to the depression that is coming. And the level of integration in the modern economy could lead to this depression spreading world-wide and making the Great Depression look like nothing.

Now is the time for the people to reassert democratic control over the economy. Now is the time to take control of the financial system away from greedy, exploitative and uncaring capitalists in their bank towers, and restore it to the people who actually make the economy go, the working class. Building institutions to allow for horizontal, popular, control over the economy will make sure that wealth is shared, and that no small cabal of piggish capitalists can drive the economy into the ground for their own personal gain.

It is exactly this connection that Steve and his pack of lying, bigoted and reactionary Conservatives would like for us all not to notice. Steve doesn't want us to realize that he is leading us down the garden path to financial ruin. He can spout all of the "strong on the economy" bullshit that he wants, but his policies essentially represent a massive wealth transfer from the labouring class to the capitalist class. The class that has stolen untold billions that they did not toil to earn. He wants to bleed Canadians dry to fatten the capitalist class. Canadians have to show him that we know what he is up to, and that he doesn't fool us.

But don't take this information and go vote Liberal. The Liberals have endorsed Harper's fiscal policies. They are simply a nice, smiley face to go with the same hyper-capitalist fiscal policies, and in fact they want to deepen the corporate tax giveaways and enrich corporate welfare while at the same time stripping resources from the poorest of the poor through a regressive carbon tax.

The NDP, while not perfect, is a party that can be counted on to stop this outrageous rush to the bottom of regulation, to put a stop to the insane transfers of wealth to the already obscenely wealthy, and to put money back into the social safety net. That's why I'm voting NDP. I hope you'll consider it too.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 112