EDITORIAL: The financial crisis one year later

“If the American people, ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currencies, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their prosperity until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.“ – Thomas Jefferson

President Barack Obama spoke about the financial crisis on the anniversary of the 
Lehman Brothers collapse last week at Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City. He pontificated about the lead up to the crisis and how he and his team averted another Great Depression.
While some of that may be true, his speech raised some red flags.
First, his great team, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and top economic advisor Larry Summers, were part of the creation of the disaster.

Geithner was at the New York Federal Reserve where he was in a perfect position to keep an eye on Wall Street. Summers “collected roughly $5.2 million in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw over the past year and was paid more than $2.7 million in speaking fees by several troubled Wall Street firms,” according to The Washington Post.
Yea, that’s the guy I want as the watchdog for Wall Street. 
Specific regulations the president mentioned in his speech included things we have heard since the campaign trail: curbing executive bonuses and new consumer protections.

Other proposals include a merger of the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Comptroller of the Currency, both of which supervise banks, but they would leave the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation intact.

Some, especially Rep. Ron Paul, consider the Federal Reserve the cause of the U.S. financial and economic crisis. The Federal Reserve is a private corporation with no Congressional oversight, and it is not accountable to any public authority, according to speeches made by Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve controls the money supply and manipulates the conditions of credit and debt in the United States.

Could it have averted the crisis? Probably. Was that in the corporation’s interest? Probably not.

The Federal Reserve says its goal is to provide the nation “with a safe, flexible and stable monetary and financial system.”

Job well done.

Campaign finance reform should be a part of this whole economic discussion as well.

During the 2008 election cycle based on data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), securities and investment firms donated $64.2 million; miscellaneous finance companies $28.7 million; commercial banks $22.7 million; accountants another $12.4 million. That’s more than $128 million to influence this election on both sides of the aisle.
The influence of those with deep pockets keeps politicians focused on the wants of the rich while most of the people they represent are far from it.

The focus should be on limiting the amount of influence any corporation or individual can purchase; otherwise, our republic will continue a downward slide.

This year, the Supreme Court may eliminate the last barriers of corporate money (bribery) in the case Citizens United v. FEC. The court will review the last 100 years of precedents banning corporations and unions from spending general funds to influence elections.

Can we trust corporations to do what’s right for our country when they are not even based here? When they use a mailbox in the Cayman Islands to avoid funding the government? When they ship our jobs overseas to save 2 cents per widget? When there existence is solely to produce profit for shareholders? I think not.

Corporations are not people and are not afforded the same rights as citizens. Nor should they be. The Supreme Court may rule in their favor however.

We can’t trust corporations to hold an allegiance to the United States. Only the citizens of this country should have that right. That’s why we’re the ones who vote. That’s why we’re the ones who are supposed to be represented in Congress. That’s why we need to continue to call, write and email our legislators to remind them of that fact.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the current economic sludge. We should be able to agree that money won’t fix all our problems, so we should get it out of the political sausage grinder as fast as possible.