Monday, October 26, 2009

Misplaced Anger

In Chicago, protesters march on the banks:

"This is not a financial system," he said. "This is a financial disaster."

Protesters carried effigies of bank executives, including John Stumpf, chief executive of Wells Fargo, and former Bank of America Chief Executive Ken Lewis. Some clutched "Wanted" signs bearing the faces of bank executives deemed "Wall Street Robber Banker[s]." They carried signs with slogans such as "No Bonuses for Big Banks" and chanted sayings like "Bust up big banks!"

The morning protests started at the Chicago offices of Goldman Sachs. A woman on a megaphone shouted, "We're here to tell Goldman Sachs, shame on you! Shame on you for helping bring this country to the brink of a depression!" The crowd, in turn, chanted "Shame on you!" An organizer yelled a list of demands for Goldman Sachs, including that the bank support calls for a consumer-finance protection agency and that it donate the money set aside for bonuses to loan-modification programs.

What I find ludicrous about this situation is that these banks would largely have disintegrated had the government not bailed them out, so where is the anger towards the government and Federal Reserve?

The oft maligned "Tea Partiers" marched on D.C. for this reason, yet these liberal anti-corporate protesters don't see that their tax dollars are going to save the very banks they hate. But for some reason the government escapes their scorn. This is just another example of blind faith in government in the face of massive failure.

2 comments:

  1. No one wanted the bank bailout. The country was overwhelmingly opposed, wasn't it? We were told it was necessary. If it was necessary then people on the left figure the Banks ought to be contrite and change their rotten ways since we saved them, and all of us.

    You can act like it's stupidity for anyone to see things different than you do, but that's a different sort of stupidity. Isn't there enough room to be outraged at both the government, and the bankers? If so, is it any surprise that those on the left feel more comfortable blaming the banks, and those on the right the Dem-led government?

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  2. Expecting banks not to be greedy is like expecting a dog not to lick himself.

    And no, it is no surprise that the left protests banks and the right protests government, it's a dichotomy as old as time. But these bank protesters are just pissing in the wind, led on by their hero Michael Moore.

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