Why can't anyone call it like it is?

by Rich Miles

So I'm watching all this shit going down in Congress about "business reform", and in the midst of all that, I suddenly realize that no one, but NO one, is really saying what has happened: the Republicans have fucked up the country beyond all recognition, and we're now faced with the daunting task of UN-fucking it.

No one is saying that in any kind of serious public forum. No one is saying that back in the Reagan administration, when the talk was all about "free markets", and suchlike nonsense, and we actually LET THEM DO IT, let them remove most of the government regulations that controlled the robber barons to a degree, and as might be predicted the robber barons started lunching on all the rest of us, and their greed was so great that twenty-five or thirty years later, there was hardly a one of us who didn't have at least the odd bite mark on our sorry carcasses, and some had been utterly devoured.

And here we are, 30 years after Reagan was elected, and the only honest statement one can make about the business practices of those 30 years is that they DIDN'T WORK for the overwhelming majority of the American people. And as we try to fix the system that ate at least a little of almost all of us, no one is willing to use the one word that describes the actions of those vultures to a T:

Greed.

For that's all it was. It wasn't letting the free markets have their way, it was greed. It wasn't capitalism at its "best", it was greed.

It was people who were already insanely wealthy using the relaxed laws to rob the less wealthy and the poor. It was unregulated big business devouring the small mom and pop businesses that all but don't exist today. It was those same big businesses greasing the palms of government to secure contracts that made them even huger and richer.

In short, it was greed. And those who could not trade in greed perished. Those who had a conscience, and couldn't bring themselves to run roughshod over their fellows were themselves run over and killed. And it continued for years and decades, and now we've finally realized the human and financial costs of such a status quo, and we're trying to put the genie of greed back in the bottle.

But it ain't easy. For one thing, the greedy have received lots of help from the courts, and for another, the greedy are whining about their right to be greedy being infringed upon, or potentially so, by these new laws. Seriously, they're whining!

But the country can't keep up this way. We can't have this kind and degree of greed continuing in the boardrooms and office suites of America. There has to be some sort of regulation of these people. They cause too much pain and damage when left to their own devices. Congress is slow, but they seem to be on it this time, at least to a certain degree. But they have to pass some version of the reforms. It is very possible that America will not survive if they don't. At least, won't survive in its present form. We won't be able to afford her. There'll be about 1000 people with all the money, and none of them will be paying any taxes.

Far-fetched perhaps. But not impossible.