Into the greedy black hole it goes

Bait and Switch

Breakdown or Breathrough?

Were they evil or merely stupid?

It is astounding to realize how this last congress acted in its bailout of Citicorp. The figures speak for themselves. Citicorp market cap (the sum total of shares x stock price was to the tune of 21 Billion Dollars (End of November, 2008 (CBS)). Then the US monies given: 345 billion US $Dollars. The deal: an "8-10% share" of stock.

Were they evil or merely stupid?

Evil if they meant to funnel public money to a select group of private capitalists in a unwarranted overvaluation of their stock, that doesn't fit with current valuations. (I take it that you will agree that prognosicating future valuations, wherein Citicorp will be worth 345 x 10 (3.45 trillion US $Dollars), the company would have to grow 1000%, which I think dear reader will agree are to be taken with uttermost skepticism.

Stupid if they meant to find a good bargain for the public's money in this filthy whore, Citicorp.

A Moment for an Economic Democracy?

Consider the following quote I have culled from an article by Steve Fraser (here):

"A real democratic nationalization of the banks -- good value for our money rather than good money to add to their value -- should be part of the policy agenda up for discussion in the Obama era. As things now stand, the public supplies the loans and the investment capital, but the key decisions about how they are to be deployed remain in private hands. A democratic version of nationalizing the financial system would transfer these critical decisions to new institutions created by the Congress and designed to pursue public, not private, objectives. How to subject the flow of credit and investment capital to public control ought to be on the drawing boards if we are to look beyond the old New Deal to a new one.

Or, for instance, if we are to bail out the auto industry, which we should -- millions of jobs, businesses, communities, and what's left of once powerful and proud unions are at stake -- then why not talk about its nationalization, too? Why not create a representative body of workers, consumers, environmentalists, suppliers, and other interested parties to supervise the industry's reorganization and retooling to produce, just as the president-elect says he wants, new green means of transportation -- and not just cars?

Why not apply the same model to the rehabilitation of the nation's infrastructure; indeed, why not to the reindustrialization of the country as a whole? If, as so many commentators are now claiming, what lies ahead is the kind of massive, crippling deflation characteristic of such crises, then why not consider creating democratic mechanisms to impose an incomes policy on wages and prices that works against that deflation?"

NOW, this idea should not seem that strange to us--and yet it does. The idea that the public should have decision making authority in corporate entities including banks and auto making firms (more than just voting as consumers), is a part of the idea behind Economic Democracy. We talk a good line in this country about how free we are, how democratic we are, and all the rest of it, but when push comes to shove, off to work we go the slaves that we are unable and unwilling to question or rebel against the corporate entities which run our economy, our lives, and our government. NOW is a moment which could fold towards more democratic control over the economy. Wouldn't that be a victory for democracy?!