Dear 1%,
Fuck you. We thought you had shattered the economy, but it turns out you've only shattered us. The recession ended two years ago, but joblessness stays as high as in France. In France! You might wonder why there are people occupying your street this month. Now, I can't speak for all of us, but I think I can sum it up in four words, and I suspect that I would find welcome ears all over the country:
We're on to you.
(more below the fold)
We the 99% know the game is rigged. We know this isn't how things have to be. We know you'll lie, cheat, and steal to get what you want from us. We know we can't beat you at a game we were never meant to win. We know that there's nothing in your economy for us. And we know you can be replaced.
We trusted you to run things. Now, the scales are off our eyes, and your dog days are over. You lured us into betting on tech companies, you pushed us into borrowing against what little we had, you used our homes against us and turned them into anchors around our necks.
You, the 1%, simply shrug and say "whaddya gonna do? we earned all that money fair and square." You act like you made your wealth happen all by yourselves, against the odds. But that's not true--- we let it happen. Don't forget that. We the 99% let it happen because you promised us that a rising tide would lift all boats. It didn't. You promised us that wealth trickles down from the rich to the rest. It doesn't. You promised us that trusting our money and our livelihoods with you will make our bounty grow forever. It won't.
Income inequality in America has reached Third World levels. You the 1% pretend like it's just the inadvertent by-product of the almighty market, merely the natural order of things. It's almost as if the spiraling increase in your wealth and our misery is just another act of God. When a tornado, earthquake, or hurricane hits your town, there's nothing that can be done about it, except shrug your shoulders and brace yourself for the next one.
Of course, your pitiful attempt to frame the issue this way is preposterous, blasphemous, and just plain ridiculous. For one thing, we can do something about acts of God. We can't stop them, but we can use good government to minimize their damage. We can build our houses and buildings and infrastructure to resist them (and use government regulation ahem to ensure we do). We can make plans and prepare for them when they do hit, and we can see them coming because the forecasting (government-funded ahem) is focused on honesty, not profit.
For another thing, there is absolutely nothing inevitable about wealth inequality. There is nothing inherently normal about bloated banks, golden parachutes, and cheated clients. Inequality isn't inevitable, and it isn't an accident. Everything wrong with our economy is the result of conscious decisions that people made. They made these decisions because the reward from the market outweighed the reward from their morals. That is, there is no such thing as bad business; only bad businesspeople. Business decisions are never inevitable, however, because we the 99%, through a functioning democracy, can introduce an 'incentive' that outweighs almost any market reward--- exclusion from society in prison and the confiscation of ill-gotten gains.
Perhaps it pains you, the 1%, to see the 99% below you. We are people who've had enough of your abuse, but who are unable to be steered against our government. But take note: The anger you don't care to see in the streets of our cities is just a small taste of the rancor you don't bother to see in the hearts of our citizens. We the 99% trusted you the 1% for decades, but we don't anymore. We're done playing your rigged game. We're done chasing the false dreams you dangle before our noses. We're done enthralling ourselves so you can build your little empires at our expense.
We can and will use our government to repair the market's failure to provide a strong economy for the 99%. Because that's what government is for--- it serves to repair the failure of the market to do what is necessary or what is right. We handed you our country, trusting you when you said you knew what was necessary, what was right. We know now that was a terrible idea, and it ends now. When we have a functioning democracy again, we the 99% will decide what is necessary and what is right. If you find yourself unable make the ends of your yacht meet in our America, there's over 200 other countries for you to try out, if they're gullible enough to have you.
Some of you are wont to blame the corrupt system. Now, it's true, immoral excess greed has infested the breadth and depth of the financial system. But greed is a property of people, not systems, so either the entire industry is crammed with immoral scum, or there are some bad apples among you who are spoiling the bunch. Since deregulation, the market has been rewarding the bad apples by offering them competitive advantages, which forces everyone to join 'em 'cause they can't beat 'em. It's a moral whirlpool, and the market is failing to stop it. Indeed, it only makes it worse.
I assume that like any group of people, most bankers and financiers are good (relatively). I also assume that these good folk would prefer to get rid of the bad apples in their midst, apples that are still there despite the mess they've caused. Since the good guys can't use the market to clean up the situation, how then but with regulation? Regulation is what we need, and that is what we will get before we go silent.
Regulations won't hurt honest businesspeople; they just keep the assholes from winning. For every corrupt bankster who'll blame their inability to reach the Gekkosphere on 'the Man' keeping them from setting their clients up to fail while betting against them, there'll be dozens of good bankers who will sigh with relief that making an honest buck no longer puts them at a competitive disadvantage. We want good people running our banks and our markets. And that is what we will get before we go silent.
The economy is growing, but only for the 1%. That ends now. You the 1% may feel like you've done nothing wrong, but you have. You may feel like we want to take from you what's yours. You would be right to feel that way if what's yours was rightfully gained. But it wasn't--- it was the fruit of a rotten tree, and it's just as rotten. Your wealth is the product of a market where the 1% gains by making the 99% lose. That incentive is wrong, and so is any wealth produced from it. If you're rich because your employees are poor, you haven't earned it. If you're rich because you laid people off instead of bringing something new to the world, you haven't earned it. If you're rich because you place bets on the bets on bets of others, you haven't earned it. You might protest that you didn't make the game, you were only playing it. Well, that makes you a profiteer and a weakling, but it's no excuse. Either way, your gains are ill-gotten, and we will fight to prevent such craven profiteering in the future. Pray we don't decide to strip your previous gains as well. You say our economy is lacking demand, but here's one: We demand an economy where the 1% can only get richer by making the 99% richer. And that is what we will get before we go silent.
"So what", you say, "we broke our promises; that's business as usual on the Street. The scorpion and the frog, and all that"... maybe breaking promises and cheating are normal in your world. They're not in ours. What's going on below you is the 99% bringing you back into our world. You made this mess, and refuse to clean it up. So get out of our way, we will do it. But don't expect us to go back to 'normal'. Don't expect the keys back--- you drove us off a cliff, and are gearing up to do it again. We will stop you, and we will overcome you. Your world is going to change. If you the 1% are really the amazing, brilliant, titans of money that the fawning magazine profiles make you out to be, you should be able to see that already, and will plan accordingly. Then again, you're not very good job creators, so maybe you're not so amazing after all. You also led us into two ridiculous bubbles in the last two decades, so maybe you're not so brilliant after all. And you squandered what little we had left on war and cronyism, so maybe you're not so titanic after all.
We will create a country where the 99% set the rules for the 99%. If you, the 1%, can't play your games anymore, that is your problem. We'll always have the rich. But you are just as expendable and replaceable as we are, and if you stop being rich, we'll just end up with better rich people. And that's not so bad. Either way, we the 99% will be making the rules again. The whole country will prosper, even if you the 1% can't keep up with the oil sheiks and oligarchs that make up your Joneses. We aim for true democracy, we aim for a strong economy, we aim for a fair America. And that is what we will get before we go silent.
Sincerely,
The 99%