Hartal, American style

My dear readers, I am writing to you from New Jersey, and usually, I write about my reaction to things Bangladeshi. However, once in a great while, I will take on a local issue in the hopes that you there on the other side of the world can understand a little of what's going on here. This week, I may venture into New York City to the Occupy Wall Street Protest.

I do this as storm clouds of class war and divisive politics loom on the horizon. Although both sides may fail to realise it, what is really at issue here is how the government has spent taxpayer's money since one fateful day almost exactly three years ago.

On October 3, 2008, I decided to vote for Barack Obama. Although I consider myself a proponent of small government, I am less a fan of political hypocrisy, and I knew on that day that John McCain, whom I previously considered a man with an impeccable character, had sold out the American people.

That was the day that McCain voted for the bank bailout. He and the majority of the members of Congress authorised the US Secretary of the Treasury to waste up to $700 billion of American Taxpayer's money to bail out the failing mega-corporations that handled our money. Later, an additional $150 billion was added to measure, which President Bush then signed into law.

The theory was that if the banks were to have funds available, they could provide loans to businesses, and thus stimulate the economy. Instead, many banks, such as Wells Fargo, the largest recipient of the taxpayer's largesse, took the bailout money, and used it to buy out other banks, and create mergers even less responsive to the needs of the American people.

I figured that this was corporate socialism at its worst, and if we were going to have to vote for socialism either way, I might as well vote for socialism that favoured me. I cast my vote for Obama.

Things kept getting worse. The corporate executives, the same ones who had driven their banks into the ground to begin with, now began to take the taxpayer's money and give themselves obscene bonuses. In those early days, only Dr. Ron Paul, perennial presidential candidate and voice of reason, rose in opposition of the bailout. "The financial bubble created by the excessive credit and the low interest rates is the cause of the recession", Paul said in 2008. Paul pointed out that the US had the power to "paper over" the inevitable several times, simply making the bubble bigger, creating a situation that was increasingly unsupportable in the long term.

The Republican-supported bailouts were rightly seen by Paul as "doing more mischief".

On October 20, 2008 Nevada Senator John Ensign wrote a letter to one of his constituents that was published on the internet. I quote an excerpt:

"In October, Congress passed a bill, H.R.1424, intended to stabilise the financial industry and the economy as a whole. Like many Nevadans, I find it distasteful that hard-working taxpayers will be bailing out individuals who bought homes they could not afford and financial companies that invested recklessly in assets they did not understand. Even so, the cost of doing nothing would be far worse. After considering the legislation at great length, I ultimately voted for the financial rescue bill because I firmly believe the government had to do something to stave off potential economic disaster. Under some of the worst case scenarios, the financial crisis could cause millions of Americans to lose their jobs and significant amounts of their savings."

Three years later, millions of Americans have lost their jobs and significant amounts of their savings, while the banks remain solvent.

Government tampering with the status quo, passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, outsourcing of services have all contributed to economic decline in the United States. Meanwhile, the government is spending an estimated 1.8 billion dollars per week in Iraq, and about $630 million per week in Afghanistan. While the war in Afghanistan had a punitive and preventative purpose, the war in Iraq has had no direct benefit for the American people.

Republicans are now levelling charges of "class war" against the Occupy Wall Street crowds. The truth is that the charges are creating the reality. Many of us on the "semi-right" are outraged by the fact that Wall Street was allowed to act with impunity, and that the banks did not hold themselves to even the appearance of contrition or self-restraint. They simply took our money and became more deeply entrenched, more centralised, and less connected with local economies, as they engulfed and devoured smaller institutions.

Wells Fargo, whose colours suggest the old Soviet flag, the biggest winner in the 2008 bailout, took $25 billion dollars of the taxpayer's money. Neither Congress nor the Department of the Treasury demanded accountability. In fact, the Treasury gave huge benefits to banks willing to buy other banks. Nine other banks swallowed smaller banks within weeks of receiving their bailout money. Every taxpayer in America gave this corporate giant a gift, on average of $250.30. And that's just one bank! Our congress strong-armed us into declaring Christmas in October.

The jobs and the boost to the economy that was promised were not forthcoming. JP Morgan, Citigroup, and many others also found large packages under their Christmas trees at the taxpayer's expense. In all, payments to individual banks, from taxpayers, a measure I don't even think is really constitutional, cost each and every taxpayer in the United States an average of $1000 worth of taxes. What's worse, the bailout was so anti-capitalist, so anti- lasses-faire, so against the Reagan Revolution of 1980, that it opened the floodgates for equal and opposite socialism on the part of the Democrats.

So we come to this day. No one can find a job. People are becoming frustrated. Banks aren't lending money. The economy isn't growing. I don't think either side understands what it should demand. The free market system works, but only works when it is free to fail. If I make the world's worst sandwich, say a maggot sandwich, eventually I'll go out of business because no one is buying. If I make the world's best sandwich, say a nice liverwurst on rye, and the ingredients cost more than what I charge, eventually I'll go out of business. However, if someone shows up at my door each year and forces me to pay for those sandwiches either way, and then doesn't even let me eat the good sandwich, I think that maybe I'd sit in front of those sandwich shops demanding justice as well.

The fascinating thing that no one realises, except me, of course, is that the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street people are demanding pretty much the same thing: Fairness and common sense, two qualities that have been lacking on Wall Street and in Washington for a long time now. How does this relate to you? Well, for the first time in my life, I may get an inkling of hartal: American style.

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", teaches the native art of oral tradition storytelling.