The old king is dead – long live the new king. Republicans are down and Democrats are up. It is now time to make sure the president-elect lives up to the expectations. Democracy gives the people the government they deserve, and the rise of the left has much more to do with our own faults than with the virtues of its political machine. The business class has failed in its own premise of prosperity, but that will be a memo for itself.
Democracy also entitles the mandate of the people, and politicians ignore the call of the masses at their own peril. Such power is not always beneficial, since the populace can be easily manipulated by the skill of some. After all, we just want to go on living and not be bothered with the gibberish of politics, legislations or the economy. That is why we hold interviews to hire those guys in Washington every once in a while.
Politicians work for us – let’s never forget that. We hire them, we pay them and we trust them with our present and future. So just like those rich old guys who rather stay on the golf course, but come to the office every now and then to ensure their riches are still there, we must also come out of the comfort of our ignorance – which is not really bliss – and make sure our employees are doing their job. We must educate ourselves in what matters, keep the involvement of these past couple of years alive and raise our voices so those in office know we are watching. In that spirit, here is my note to the president.
Among our many worries, the economy seems to be at the top of the list by far. The same press that lost its respect and objectivity to seat its favorite in office has been deceiving the American people into thinking that, once more, capitalism needs to be saved, not only from the capitalists, but also from Republican policy. The American people cannot be fooled for long, and even in the midst of the recent history-making events, they will soon pay attention to the fact that capitalism needs to be saved from Democratic political corruption.
Mr. President-elect, we know as well as you do that the mortgage fallout at the heart of this crisis was born out of Democratic misgivings when your President Jimmy Carter and your party’s legislature passed the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which forced financial institutions to make loans to those who would have never qualified under regular business guidelines. We also know that this act was expanded under Bill Clinton’s National Homeownership Strategy, requiring quotas for sub-prime and minority loans. This forced banks to mix those bad loans with the good ones in the financial instruments that were then eagerly traded by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
We know how Freddie and Fannie made millions by deceiving the financial systems worldwide into buying paper that was rotten with those bad investments. It is also well known that Freddie and Fannie were able to get away with such schemes by fighting Republican regulation attempts over the years with the help of Democratic legislators in their payroll. We also know, Mr. President-elect, that you played your part in some of that history, but you will be president soon, and the people have given you a chance.
We want to see Franklin Raines in jail, just like the Enron elite whose real sin now seems to have been foolish enough to play dirty without government support. We want to see you taking on Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Harry Reed, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the corrupt and demagogic elements in your party in favor of a responsible approach to the economy. Not until then, Mr. President-elect, will the world markets trust us again. We know the business class and the Republican leadership has failed us, but we understand their main mistake was to not speak louder against such flagrant Democratic support for what has been clearly an unsustainable policy of welfare and deregulation that decried the basic principles of market efficiency and business common sense.
Bonilla, a project management technology graduate student, can be reached via [email protected]
