Friends,
Note below that I have a new phone
number – 410-323-1607. And don’t miss THE BIG SHORT, as it is a brilliant
production.
Kagiso,
Max
Published on Portside (https://portside.org)
Bernie Sanders and ‘The Big Short’
Larry Cohen
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Campaign for America's Future
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ major policy speech [1] at
Town Hall in New York City on Tuesday – in which he declared that he will
“break up any banks that are too big to fail and that big bankers will not be
too big to jail” – felt a lot like the last scene of Adam McKay’s “The Big
Short.”
Hollywood stars play all the major roles in the film, but it is no
puff piece for the 1 percent. After watching “The Big Short” and talking to
viewers, it’s hard to argue against Sanders’ demands to increase taxes on the
billionaires and break up the banks, and use the revenue to fund better health
care and education.
Sanders advocates a modern Glass-Steagall, a revival of the
Depression-era law that would prevent investment banks from being on all sides
of every bet except the side of the American people. And when you add in
Sanders’s demands to end Super PAC campaign funding, and his own refusal to
accept Wall Street funds in the current campaign, we are presented with a sharp
contrast to the Hillary Clinton campaign and its supporters in the financial
sector.
In the last 50 years the financial sector as a percentage of gross
domestic product has grown almost four fold. “The Big Short” provides the
narrative for how Wall Street keeps that growth going, with little increase in
real value but lots of high salaries and high living that all count towards
GDP. As the film concludes, we have done nothing much to change the rules, and
whether the next financial bubble is housing or some other leveraged
derivative, the result is likely to be the same. Once former Federal Reserve
chairman Ben Bernanke and the Treasury Department let Bear Stearns, Lehman
Brothers and a few mortgage brokers fail, they bailed out the rest and the
high-living self-interest has returned.
Are establishment Democrats so enamored with free markets, and
addicted to the political contributions from financial high rollers, that the
party establishment has rushed to embrace Clinton with no real demands for
change? As we learned eight years ago, the words uttered during a primary
campaign bear little resemblance to presidential policies. And even Clinton
campaign policy is more of the same, rather than a real challenge to
financialization and its demands that finance capital trump citizen rights on
issues ranging from global trade to regulation.
“The Big Short” encourages the audience to demand real change.
Viewers identify with the working-class family that loses their home even
though they were paying the rent each month, as the owners fell behind on their
mortgage when their adjustable rate shot up and foreclosure followed. We even
identify with those who bet against the investment banks and sold their
leveraged mortgage debt short, even though those investors profited hugely from
the misery of the people and acknowledged it.
But the answer is not a repeat and a new crop of short sellers who
profit once again. The answer is the political revolution, as Sanders calls it
– not just for a political democracy with voting rights in and money out, but
for financial revolution that breaks up the banks; separates commercial,
consumer and investment banking; and prevents regulators or White House
officials from circulating between fat jobs on Wall Street and political
service that rewards their previous and next employers.
“Enough is enough,” as Bernie says. As Fannie Lou Hamer said 50
years ago as she fought for voting rights in Mississippi, “I am sick and tired
of being sick and tired.” We can still dream of an America where making things
and providing real services is at the heart of what we do. We can dream of an
America where young college graduates prefer teaching or health care to easy
money in finance.
But as we celebrate the New Year, let’s commit to real change.
Bernie Sanders has challenged us to join him in a political revolution that
goes far beyond the presidency. If not now, when?
Links:
- See more at: https://portside.org/print/node/10576#sthash.sZfUC9wr.dpuf
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
No comments:
Post a Comment