We Had an Agreement: The Results of the Bank Bailout
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Economic wealth that the corporations and investment bankers have been reaping for over a year and continue to enjoy today are a direct result of you and me giving our tax dollars to them via our elected officials. The plan was to help the power brokers who would then in turn help us.
We have generally agreed to this type of relationship for decades. It became especially apparent two years ago with deliberate government bail out programs. We agreed to this arrangement not because we are dumb and can’t figure out how to distribute wealth ourselves, but largely because we realistically understand certain lifestyle preferences, talents, intellects, and personality types are better suited to managing complex economies. Often times they are called Type A personalities. They are not better than other people, in fact some make an argument that they are less humanistic. They are driven though by needs and reasons many do not possess or even seek. To be fair and in no way pejorative, other people are better suited to being kind and thoughtful for example.
We need these Type A personalities to take on the many stressful responsibilities because they have the temperaments for that work. But recently it has become apparent the moral and social contract we have made with these personalities, as we communally carve through the Great Recession, is that we are being lied to by them.
They were expected in exchange for our help, to first if not simultaneously bring stronger footing for themselves and for us. But they have thus far largely reacted without consciences. They have not even shown us the respect of lying to our faces, or behind our backs. In fact, they have simply ignored us. Ignored the moral and social contract they entered into that gave them the privileges they now enjoy.
We have called and been told they are “in a meeting.” We have dropped by their offices, “and their assistants screen us out.” We have gone to their supervisors and been “tossed from one customer service representative to another who themselves are scared” because they a) know what kind of people they work for, and 2) quietly huddle in the strength of their numbers to hush resistance that might jeopardize their own jobs.
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