Sharing the blame for the financial crisis

by Peter Stern

There is enough blame for our financial plight to go around for everybody. The trophy of fault goes to the Corporate-Military Complex whose objective has been higher and endless profiteering. During the George Walker Bush administration corporations made billions in profits getting lucrative contracts overseas fighting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, parts of Africa and other areas of the world. This was done by pulling strings in Washington D.C. and buying the best government money can purchase.

Congress is the runner-up winner for its irresponsibility in throwing away more than one trillion of our taxpayer dollars to fight wars overseas that have done little to resolves the urgent and major issues here at home. We have borrowed money from China and other nations that will keep us in the red for future generations of Americans. Our government has let our infrastructures decay and have permitted the outsourcing of American jobs to overseas cheaper labor. Congress allowed lackluster oversight of most industries to damage our reputation and destroy our savings, investments and retirement funds. But most of all, Congress permitted the greed of corporate profiteering above the good of the American community. In addition, government enabled the corporate sector to use cheaper and illegal employees and did not enforce or modify our immigration laws, which contributed to the mess we find ourselves into regarding this issue.

Although part of the corporate sector, the financial markets and Wall Street deserve honorable mention as they scammed the American public and myopically focused on market profiteering at all costs and opened themselves up to manipulating clients with ponzi schemes, loose credit that got clients into big financial trouble.

Next in line for responsibility is the American people, who lived above their capability and began to incur huge debt, which led to the falling of the housing markets and the huge number of home foreclosures. Americans decided to follow the lead of our Congressional leader as they put the U.S. in huge debt and taxpayers did as well as they applied for loans they would not be able to repay and bought homes they could not afford. American voters also permitted Congress to remain stagnant and lackluster in general, but allowed Congress to approve legislation for their wealthy special interests that made CEO's fortunes while stepping on the American people.

The bottom-line is that there was no accountability or proper oversight to manage all facets of our economy, nor were there any safeguards practiced that protected the people in lieu of the Corporate-Military sector of making their huge profits. Big business wanted it all: hands-off capitalism when things were going well, then taxpayer socialist bail-outs when they screwed-up and needed help. They got the best of both worlds while the majority of people lost their homes and savings.