You Heart Corruption

"'Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations.' That's Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize! We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it! Corruption is our protection! Corruption keeps us safe and warm! Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the streets! Corruption is why we win!"

The quote is from the film Syriana, and the character that delivers the passionate/delusional diatribe is Danny Dalton, a Texas oilman and member of Committee to Liberate Iran. Dalton is a patsy, and is being charged with "corruption" in order to protect a much larger, much more corrupt corporation standing behind him. He's a fall-guy, and that's why he flies off the handle.

Watching the Bush administration and Wall Street executives gulp and thrash like beached fish made me think of little Dalton. The stock market isn't a force of nature. It takes men and women (but mostly men) creating very corrupt policies to create America's initial wealth, and then her downfall.

Everyone needs to stop acting like they're surprised by the recession. It's not cute, and it's painfully insincere.

There's been a proliferation of handwringing and philosophizing about what caused the economic collapse, why there was little impetus to aggressively address a rotting subprime industry, why our politicians were too lazy, slow, or indifferent to do something to address Wall Street's broken ways.

Times of economic woes are the only time our society collectively examines the Free Market, and the effects of globalization -- rarely on the world -- but on us, Americans. How will this screw us? How long will it last? How will this vast machine affect us parochially?

Americans pretend like this is the others' problem, and that they don't also benefit from our corrupt society. Wall Street practices are certainly corrupt, but the problem isn't contained to mortgage lenders, banks, and insurance companies. It's pandemic and it has infected every facet of the American way of life.

The dirty truth no one wants to admit is that corruption floats America to the top. Only by utilizing cheap labor, deregulation, and speculative lending can our markets create extraordinary wealth. Wall Street occasionally acts as though it has just awoken from a strange nightmare because it's necessary to act moral every now and then, namely when the press shows up.

Now is the time financial experts act like they have no idea how market bubbles inflate, CEOs get bonuses 100 times their annual salaries, and people like Bernie Madoff exist.

Regulation is trendy right now, but what that actually entails may surprise Americans. If our government seriously regulated the Free Market, and extended that moral behavior to the international community with living wages and humane worker conditions, it would profoundly change the way Americans live.

The price of our food, clothing, and other goods would increase. Fuel would skyrocket. Everything would be more expensive, and we would have to do with a lot less. CEOs would surrender their penthouses and yachts. Certain exotic fruits like bananas would suddenly cost much more now that Central American workers are permitted to unionize and demand living wages.

On the plus side, maybe less children would die and more people could have a shot at stability and happiness. Maybe cases of infectious disease would decline. Maybe people would drive less. Maybe we could save the world.

Of course, Americans would have to sacrifice, and they have a history of hating that. But things are changing now. There's a murmur in this society, and it seems to be saying: Our way of life is broken. We need to fundamentally change the way we live.

People want regulation. They want less enormous wealth and extraordinary poverty. They want balance and justice. But they have to stop looking to the men that made the corruption to fix the problem. Americans have to demand the presence of independent sheriffs to watch industry 24/7 in order to right the wrongs of our corrupt past.

If regulation actually existed, things would be a lot less cushy for Americans, which would probably be a good thing, but some may suddenly miss that corruption that kept them so sheltered for so long.

Comments

[Peelo]

Thank you miss Kilkenny for keeping it real and telling it how it is. How ever it is not just the Americans who are asleep, the entire western world is in coma and denial.

[ld]

You're right on this issue, and the role of corruption in our lives and economic lives is an uncomfortable truth most avoid. The Bush administration has taken corruption to a level never seen in the US, as far as I can tell.

But one issue I didn't see above is your take on whether the current level of corruption - extremely high - is reversible in any way that doesn't involve crashing the system.

[joebhed]

There are two faces of Eve, and Uncle Miltie's economics.
You have the free-markets face, and the nationalize the money face.
People need to pay more attention to the nationalization of money.
A la Uncle Milties quantity-of-money theory.

Had we done so, we would have NONE of this.
ALL of this mess is attributable to a "free-market in money".
People need to be educated on the difference between these two and the importance of the money system.
Had we followed Miltie's advice, the government would be CREATING all the money, rather than the banks via the FED fractional reserve system, and speaking of which, banks would ONLY be lending REAL money, that is after it has been created and deposited.
100 percent reserve banking was a cornerstone of Miltie's economic model.
If every reader would get their head around this difference, we would realize that this entire bubble-bust economic cycle capitalism could and would disappear from the earth.
And we could move on to real free enterprise.
Just like Miltie wanted.
And we would never need to resort to the free-banking of the Mises and Rothbards.
And we would de-establish the corrupt mechanisms of the WorldBank, the IMF and the BIS.
Nationalize the money system, and we're home free.
Monetary Revolution.
It's OUR money.

[joebaggadonuts]

Allison,

Very good article but, I have to disagree with one point. You said, "Only by utilizing cheap labor, deregulation, and speculative lending can our markets create extraordinary wealth. "

Extraordinary wealth is NOT created this way. This describes how extraordinary wealth is STOLEN. Innovative industry creates wealth. Banksters, and other thieves who travel with them, STEAL it.

Thanks.

[stell]

Outstanding post. Since the country's founding this has been the case. Decimation of native populations, free labor from slaves, and more built up ill-gotten gain. Assets transfer. The propaganda that we are the richest nation in the world requires repeating almost on a daily basis to embed it into people's heads. A double-digit trillion dollar deficit notwithstanding. Welfare to the undeserving black bad, welfare to the billion dollar entrepreneur good. It's all in the language; the deceit that is.

Poverty is the worst form of violence. They have no real plan for those without power.
The West in general has been covertly raping the African continent, for example, for centuries. Fomenting internecine war, and accusing those governments of corruption, while pretending to promote humanitarian aid, and the well-being of wildlife:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11311

The people have developed an attitude that if you aren't well-off, it's your own fault. By condescending to other countries and accusing them of corruption, it makes the accuser feel better, and legitimizes their own spurious system. If we knew the true extent of the financial crisis, there would be bank runs everywhere.

The most powerful and smartest, refine the system by allowing some in the Third World to have more to give the illusion of a just system. If there were justice around the world, what would happen to the concept of "exceptionalism".

The seeds of the destruction of the system itself are sown into it.

[breakingpoint]

well said, however, I don't think this sort of change would be devastating for the American psyche.

I think it would heighten our priorities and our general out look on life.

We would no longer be just the collector of things, but perhaps we'd become the collectors of knowledge.

If corruptions were curtailed I think that would strengthen out sense of justice and what we truly value in our society.

Human beings are remarkably adaptable.

We might even develop new organ, a new sense that we are all in this together.

It doesn't hurt to try, we can all change our minds again later.

[PATina]

I agree w/ a lot that you've said. The problem I find is in this statement...

Americans have to demand the presence of independent sheriffs to watch industry 24/7 in order to right the wrongs of our corrupt past.

While it's true... we do need people to watch the industry and prevent it's abuses... what tends to happen... i that once involved... those people become part of the system. Throughout history... the same things happen over and over again. We learn our lessons... only to have a future generation forget them... and have to learn them all over again.

This is just "our time" and we happen to live then in a time when we forgot our ancestors lessons... and are in the process of 'relearning' them.

[Antifascist-08]

US = a country/economy built on pyramid schemes.

Wall Street = a casino

There is no free lunch.

"Free Enterprise" = a myth

if we want to have a great country, everyone needs to be involved and get on board with change.

Capitalism is NOT a social system, it is a flawed economic system. Some things like health care and banking/creation of money need to be nationalized. 50% of our health care money goes to insurance companies. For what?

An economic system based solely on debt will always fail. You can't spend if you don't have a job. Credit cards have to be paid sooner or later.

Later = NOW

[Ponovision]

Good one. Also,the best definition of fascism is "thuggery capitalism". And, we need to question the aspiration to get rich. Too many people wanted wealth without work. When money is the top criteria on the list this is what you get. And what about renters? Nobody cares about them do they? They get no equity for all the thousands of dollars they spend for a roof over their heads, the underclass that help pay for peoples real estate speculations. Renters are marginalized, invisible, off the radar and represent a huge segment of the population- I think almost 40%. I know how to help them. They shouldn't have to pay income tax. How's that sound? Try looking up "bourgeois" in Webster's. It is very revealing. It is "one whose political, economic, and social opinions are believed to be determined mainly by concern for property values." Bingo!

[plumnelly]

Yes, we have to stop looking to the men who caused this problem to fix it. Wall street's pretensions on their surprise of the unregulation that went on is the new reality show. They are so full of crap, still trying to give the American taxpayer advice on where to put their money. Then to top it off, wall street still is pounding on the unions and the everday working stiff for the economic mess and wastefulness. Just read how much the bonuses were paid to the ceo of Merrill Lynch and then turning to the taxpayer for a bailout not a loan! The American taxpayer needs justice and CHANGE AT THE TOP. If another repub utters the BS TRICKLE DOWN as the answer THROW A BUSH SHOE!

[LeonBNJ]

What the rich and powerful forgot is their corruption of government is finally hurting them with their assets and future incomes. Eventually the level of corruption they promote leads to finanical crises as we have now reaches down to the working classes with unemployment then elminating many of the consumers they need to get and stay rich.
To me we need to look at our tax policies to discourage excessive compensation, extreme short term gains in stocks and real property investments as well as execessive consumption.

[TheJibreelaMonsters]

See: Sen Chuck Schumer

even Frm NY Gov Spitzer got duped

[mattress 1]

Unfortunately we already DO have regulation in this country and it's called the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve's manipulation and control over our money supply and interest rates is what caused this financial disaster. Their control over our currency and our markets has been going on much longer than the past 8 years. They did the same thing in the 1920's which led to our Great Depression (which they only prolonged). We should abolish the Federal Reserve System and let the Free Market work. We should follow the teachings of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard rather than Milton Friedman and John Keynes.

[kae]

so well put ..kinda scary

[ceti]

Allison, you got it dead on. We all benefit from this corruption that forces a majority of the world, including at home, to live in squalor, while a class of hyper consumers benefits in the short term from the spoils. This high-tech feudalism, contemporarily called corporatism infects and overwhelms our entire political system, whether you are a liberal or a conservative in the narrowed confines of our elite-sanctioned political system.

Unless you deal with this central facet of our current civilization, we will continue plummeting into the abyss reserved for those Martin Luther King termed as embodying: "power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight."

[SharonWantsToTalk]

One silver lining of this extended recession is the hope that it will bring people back to their senses. Hopefully they will opt out of the mindset of material wealth and once again appreciate the wealth of families and communities. Now is the time to break the grip of the corporate influences that deem to tell us with their ads what it takes to make us happy. We don't need the latest SUV nor designer purse to fulfill us. All we need is what is around us for free. Hopefully this moratorium on spending will give us time to reconnect with what really makes us great as a people.

[gifu]

People have no common sense to come back to.......look at the track record of the human race.