The G-20,The Witch Hunt, But Where Are the Solutions?

The G-20 Summit is set to begin in a few days in London and the usual suspects who appear from the cracks in the walk ways and the sewer drains along the streets are already marching in the streets for what ever agenda they may represent. Meanwhile the so called leaders are plotting and planning ways to enhance their standing in the world community and in the eyes of the voters back home but yet there is more happening than meets the eye. The story, which never gets reported it seems, is happening.

It’s happening away from the screaming malcontents who use any global gathering to pimp their latest gripe. It’s happening in our homes and suburbs and workplaces, in cafes and playgrounds, places people gather and talk. It is there too on the streets of London. One guy there must have been listening to Obama ( or one could fill in that blank with the name Rudd, from Australia or Brown, from the UK and it would be the same song). He said the markets failed causing untold damage, the crisis of all crisis. Another one said that capitalism had rewarded a tiny few, and left the vast majority of people worse off. Try telling that to the millions lifted out of poverty across the world by trade and commerce conducted through free markets. Evidently enough drank that kool aide to vote in the Chief Occupier who continues to sing that same old song day in and day out but to them it is government who creates the wealth rather than business.

People who are sensible but anxious about the future have been fed a fairy tale of heroes and villains. The heroes are the politicians meeting in London to work out how to deal with the greedy corporate villains. Politicians , including those gathering in London , bear much of the blame for stoking in the community an irrational anger against capitalism. They sought out scapegoats because it made for an easy political narrative they could sell in 15 second sound-bites. Remember the quote, "ever let a good crisis go to waste"? What a perfect setting for such sound bites. Every good witch hunt needs a witch and today’s witches are found on Wall Street and in corporate offices around the globe. Suspicions are now raised about anyone who has earned a bit more than what some see as a reasonable amount of money from the free market. Corporate bosses and bankers are now presumed guilty of excess. Rogues and crooks run riot in the free market according to the yarn. Why bother trying to explain their own role in the fiasco, the loose monetary policies of the US fed, or the bad laws emanating from Congress that mandated loans to those who could not afford them when you can stick to a simple tale of villains on Wall Street?

Witness the hoopla over the US$165 million payouts to employees at AIG, a firm that received a $US100 billion bailout. Whatever the rights and wrongs of those payments, nothing warrants what followed. US Senator Charles Grassley suggested that AIG executives ought to “follow the Japanese model ... resign, or go commit suicide”. AIG staff have now been warned to travel in pairs, not wear the company logo, AIG employees have received death threats and a union backed campaign and ACORN now run bus tours of AIG houses in Connecticut.

But here’s the hard fact, the place where the rubber meets the road and spin meets reality. Spinning a flimsy narrative where the politicians play heroes won’t wash. After feeding the anger at Wall Street greed, the Obama administration was forced to pull back last week when it announced its plan to deal with toxic debt. It turns out that the plan will only work with the support of Wall Street and those in capitalism central who pursue profit and are driven by greed. Now it turns out that greed will drive Obama’s plan to rid the banking industry of toxic debt. Indeed, no government anywhere will be able to solve the current financial crisis without those participants politicians have spent months demonizing as villains. Given that reality, perhaps along side the banners that read “Climate Emergency,” “Gaza: End the Blockade,” “Planet Before Profit,” “We Won’t Pay for Their Crisis,” and “Jobs not Bombs”, some brave soul should take to the streets of London with a banner that says “Thank God for capitalism after all”. (Janet Albrechtsen)