This diary comes from a comment I made earlier.
I'd waded into one of the arguments. You know them, they've been all over the site today. It starts with, "I love watching those Wall Street Fat Cats choke on their own bile!" followed by, "Well, yes, but are you going to rebuild my father's tanked pension?" and so on.
The front page has told us that this bill got derailed due to mass phone calls from constituents urging their reps to vote no. It was a populist uprising not seen in this country for decades. The only problem is, it's a false populism, it's not sustainable, and it may very well be wrong headed in the extreme.
I'm no economist. I know the issues in the most basic of levels. However, I'm a smart guy and I can connect the dots. That doesn't mean I know anything, but a lot of the economists will admit that they don't know anything, either. They're guessing.
If the economists are guessing, what can that say about the "rabble"? They're guessing even more. It's visceral. They see "giveaway to fat cats" and out come the pitchforks.
Believe me, I completely understand the sentiment. I'm a populist at heart, and I'm a complete "soak the rich" guy, and I'd love nothing better than to see a few overcompensated CEOs begging on street corners. (I'm enough of a vicious asshole to think that Money Men throwing themselves off tall buildings was the one good thing about the Depression.) Look, I'm not alone in this; I'm sure a lot of us think of the people begging for the Bailout and think "Mr. Potter" from It's A Wonderful Life.
However, here's the problem. I'm a 43 year old man who moved back in with his parents after my divorce to go back to school. I have full time work, full time school, and I make a whole 17K a year. I have shitty health insurance and gas to get from school and work is killing me. I'm not starving, but I'm poor. I'm one of the "have nots".
And I have a small 401K. I have a loan out on it. I need to take another one. I can't, because there's not enough money in it. I don't plan on retiring on this 401K; I'm going back to school to become a teacher so I'll get into the retirement plan; but I want to take a loan for my education expenses. And I can't. ANd it just got worse because that sucker tanked today.
This is the realization we're all going to come up with, and soon. Why do you think there was a push to privatize SS? So that more people would be in my position: a populist at heart who watched his savings drain away.
We've all been coopted.
So, while we fight about it, I wish we'd keep certain things in mind. First, there are no easy answers. None. This is a complex issue. Second, that sometimes instincts are at odds with reality. And, third, while it might cause great glee to watch the portfolios of the Fat Cats drain by millions forcing them to sell the seventh house and the fourth Beemer, those of us who lost a couple hundred bucks today are going to feel that pain a lot worse.
The thing that worries me about the Populist Uprising is that it's a smokescreen. There is a bill out there: one that bails out the system but enacts real reform, real oversite, and makes the Fat Cats hurt. There's a bill out there that'll do that. However, it's NEVER going to get passed now, because some of the Congresscritters know that the only thing their constituents hear is "700 billion tax dollars!" and they're going to ride that one for all it's worth.
Folks, this is not going to be pretty.