The Global Financial Crisis was a wave of fiscal disaster that has had many ongoing serious repercussions to this day. Everywhere you look, things look economically gloomy. Australia always likes to trumpet how well it surfed that wave, but that's not going to be any help if everywhere around us collapses. Still, the point I want to raise is a simple one - the general public across the first world is saying one, important, valid point - it's just a shame no-one's listening.
The UK has had their first general strike in about 30 years. 2 million workers have walked off the job in protest. Two million. Let that sink in. Riots have dotted Europe for months, while the Eurozone struggles to keep from imploding. The US is reported to have 9% unemployment at the moment. Including under-employed and employed, but living below the poverty line, some have put the figure at 14 million people. Let that sink in.
Everywhere there has been a private sector incurred debt, it is the taxpayer that has picked up the tab. Whether in a direct plunder of the national purse, or a hack and slash of public services, the greed and corruption of one sector is being paid for with the hardship and suffering of another.
When 2 million workers walk off the job in the UK, when Greece is stricken with riots, when everywhere from Ireland to Spain has ongoing protests from the public, when the Occupy movement in the United States counts its membership into the millions, one message is coming through loud and clear, and it is this - you do not get to loot the purse of the most vulnerable to pay for the excesses of the corrupt wealthy.
Nowhere has there been suggested a nationalisation or regulation of these financial institutions to control their excesses. Nowhere has there been any suggestion of jail time for the most vicious of these economic vandals. Everywhere, the message is the same - they fucked up, but you will have to pay for it. It is disingenuous to dismiss this protesting and rioting as unfocused, or of having no answerable demands. That is wilful blindness of the first order. The message is clear, the will of the protestors is strong. The governments dealing with this crisis MUST respond accordingly. Jailing bankers is not just a radical ideological statement, it is a practical step that must be taken for a number of reasons.
The public must see that when the law is broken punishment is applied fairly. Rob a convenience store of $150 and a pack of smokes - go to jail for 2 years. Rob $12.3 trillion of taxpayer's money - get indignant when people demand you explain yourself. The public must see some sign that blame is being apportioned correctly. Letting a banker on a salary of $1.5 million p.a. get away with theft, but endangering the standard of living for someone on $20,000 a year in order to restore that theft? Plainly inequitable. The hardest hit by the downgrade or removal of public services are the very people who need those services the most. Those wealthy oligarchs and the institutions they run do not need such services. Indeed, you could probably take a big financial slice out of them, and they'd still be doing better than even the best off of the public.
The message from these countries where the protest is strongest is simple, and it is clear - we did not destroy the economy, punish those who did.
It's all well and good to say 'we're all in this together, we've all got to tighten our belts to pull through'. I think you'll find however that the belt-tightening is not uniform across the board. Those who could comfortably sacrifice the most sacrifice the least. Those who give until it hurts are those who can least afford to give anything.
This is not an intellectual argument, it's an argument of hardship breeding discontent and rage. People don't care about economic intricacies when they can't afford rent or to put a meal on the table. They know who to blame, they know who's aiding and abetting the corruption, and one day they'll be at the door, and they won't just be aggrieved protestors, they'll be angry, violent revolutionaries.
All we need to do to stop this happening is blame and punish the people who committed the crime in the first place. It may not stop the economic crisis, but it might stop an angry mob rising and unleashing bloody havoc.
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