I WANT REVENGE - Democratic Underground

shireen

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Fri Sep-19-08 11:29 AM
Original message

I WANT REVENGE

I'm not too savvy about economic matters, but even an idiot like me does a better job managing money than the screw-ups who created this mess. I have made some bad financial decisions in the past that created a big pile of debt. But I took responsibility for it, and with the help of a good and supportive credit counseling agency, paid it all back in 5 years. I've started saving money, keeping a very minimal credit card balance (0% intro rate) that i can pay off in full at any time, and maintain a good credit rating.

I'm a financial idiot, an HONEST financial idiot, who worked hard to pay off debt, have put off the pursuit of the "American dream" of home ownership till I can really afford it. Like so many other DU'ers, I've done all the right things. But here we are today, paying the price for the mistakes of self-proclaimed financial experts, many of them crooks in suits. We've been screwed by the stupid greedy irresponsible vicious piranhas on Wall Street and in the Bush administration, and many in Congress beholden to those piranhas, not the people who elected them.

Contrary to what sophisticated financial experts would say, I believe that wealth is a fixed quantity. It's like the first law of thermodynamics, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Money, as a representative of wealth, can be manipulated to look like it's increasing and decreasing via inflation, recession, or whatever fancy terms economists have concocted. But as long as we live on this one planet, our wealth is ultimately restricted by the resources that are available to us.

Following that simple logic, we should recognize that the cascade of events that have led to the "losses" incurred by these big sophisticated financial institutions are not really losses. The money did not simply disappear. It's shifted hands; a few people have become obscenely wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.

We need to acknowledge that there is no such thing as a free market. As long as dishonesty is a human characteristic, regulations are necessary to protect people who play by the rules.

We need to make the people who have become suspiciously abundantly wealthy, through cheating and stealing in the guise of complex financial transactions, accountable for their actions. If we do not do this, history will keep repeating itself.

Having said that .... I WANT REVENGE.

I WANT THE PEOPLE WHO CREATED THIS MESS VIA LAX OVERSIGHT, IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, AND ARROGANCE -- IN THE POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL SECTOR -- CALLED OUT AND HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

I WANT BOUNTY HUNTERS TO HUNT DOWN THE LOW-LIFE SCUMS WHO MADE BILLIONS BY THEIR SHADY DEALINGS AND MANIPULATIONS OF THE MARKET, SO THEY MAY BE PROSECUTED FOR FRAUD.

I WANT THE SUPER-RICH WHO BECAME ABNORMALLY SIGNIFICANTLY RICHER IN THE PAST 5 YEARS TO BE, AT THE VERY LEAST, AUDITED BY THE MEANEST BLOOD-THIRSTY IRS AUDITORS, AND IF WARRANTED, DRAINED OF THEIR FINANCIAL ASSETS TO PAY DOWN OUR NATIONAL DEBT.

(add to our wishlist, I'm sure there's more)

I realize that many people, working stiffs like me, made irresponsible choices as they got caught up in living impossible dreams made possible by persuasive scam artists. They need to take responsibility for their actions, and start over. I've done it, and believe me, you'll emerge a better person for it. But some of them have taken so big a hit that they may never be able to recover on their own. For those people, I hope we can, as a community and country, find it in our hearts to help them get back on their feet.