The Bigger Picture

Since this economic crisis began, I have argued that we need to look beyond the exorbitant bonuses and outrage. Rather, we should be focusing on deregulation and the pro-Wall Street culture that has reigned supreme in Washington since Reagan entered office in 1981. Even the trillions of dollars that American taxpayers have funneled into the nation's banking system are small potatoes compared to the political power that financiers have amassed over the course of the last half century or so.

It's as simple as this: Instead of being blinded by dollar signs, look at who's in the driver's seat. By electing not to nationalize banks, the federal government has empowered the people who got us into this mess. Granted, this is an extremely complex situation, and I see many drawbacks to nationalization. Matt Taibbi has a fantastic article detailing this aspect of the current crisis. I particularly like how he addresses the role of financial language in the crisis and our economy as a whole. Money quote:

In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.