Why No Outrage?

Through history, outrageous financial behavior has been met with outrage. But today Wall Street's damaging recklessness has been met with near-silence, from a too-tolerant populace, argues James Grant
By JAMES GRANT



"Raise less corn and more hell," Mary Elizabeth Lease harangued Kansas farmers during America's Populist era, but no such voice cries out today. America's 21st-century financial victims make no protest against the Federal Reserve's policy of showering dollars on the people who would seem to need them least.

Long ago and far away, a brilliant man of letters floated an idea. To stop a financial panic cold, he proposed, a central bank should lend freely, though at a high rate of interest. Nonsense, countered a certain hard-headed commercial banker. Such a policy would only instigate more crises by egging on lenders and borrowers to take more risks. The commercial banker wrote clumsily, the man of letters fluently. It was no contest.

The doctrine of activist central banking owes much to its progenitor, the Victorian genius Walter Bagehot. But Bagehot might not recognize his own idea in practice today. Late in the spring of 2007, American banks paid an average of 4.35% on three-month certificates of deposit. Then came the mortgage mess, and the Fed's crash program of interest-rate therapy. Today, a three-month CD yields just 2.65%, or little more than half the measured rate of inflation. It wasn't the nation's small savers who brought down Bear Stearns, or tried to fob off subprime mortgages as "triple-A." Yet it's the savers who took a pay cut -- and the savers who, today, in the heat of a presidential election year, are holding their tongues.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121642367125066615-4K_l2jdjmxrSAZRs5Ii1mziroY8_20080818.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Seriously.

We, as a nation, have become conditioned to obey and collectively not think for ourselves.

We are too comfortable and afraid.

Not to be a downer or anything.

crooked corporate america with insanely low interest rates that destroys the value of the US dollar while meek americans sit silently on their hands, it is only then WE begin to understand that ALL is lost. The current leadership in congress is not capable of getting anything done or solving this nations dire problems. ALL incumbents need to lose their jobs to send a message that the american people have had enough of their elitist pampering and WE are not going to take this anymore. Let's see if the american people have any guts or balls.

Just because people aren't rioting in the streets doesn't mean they're not outraged. We'll see that in November.

they keep rigging the system. The question is, when are folks going to wise up about that. Lot of folks want to impeach these criminals and send them to jail but our voices aren't heard. The Dem's are looking as bad as the GOP and frankly, once we have a Dem majority, I am in favour of unceremoniously dumping some our leaders. First on my list is Leiberman, and I think Pelosi needs to lose her Speaker status.

Edited to add-I have become more radicalized these last 8 years. I have hit the streets and sent in more money than I ever have.

you're considered a terrorist. I think people aren't in the streets because they're afraid of the repercussions. Also, I think a lot of people think they're alone in their outrage--if your only feedback loop is the CM, people in rural areas would never even know it if hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets in major cities. I've been to 7 major protests in DC since the junta assumed power, but my mother living in rural Michigan never heard of any of them until I showed her the photos.

"salt of the earth" folks might not have had diplomas, but they actually knew stuff. Today, people have diplomas coming out their wazoo, but except for expertise in very narrow fields, people have little actual knowledge. But they do have a lot of entertainment ("American Idol" and such are the circuses of our day).

One reason for the lack of knowledge is that our educational system has been drastically dumbed down by assaults on it from all sides. Meanwhile, kids are being raised by their peers and pop culture rather than by responsible adults, because parents are either working too much or too busy chasing their own entertainment to pay attention to them.

Into that vacuum of real knowledge and understand, the complicit corporate media and the propaganda machines pour falsehoods, and the ignorant people have no way to understand how they are being misled--or even that they are being misled. Real news is withheld, and blatant lies are presented as the absolute truth.

People end up thinking that they are broke and that their chances for a better future are being stolen away because of some poor Mexican immigrant or some welfare queen. They don't realize who the "malefactors of great wealth" (Theodore Roosevelt's phrase) are that are destroying the country.

For example, I was just thinking this morning about the fact that the influence of Reverend Moon on our political system and his ownership of major media outlets are unknown to virtually everyone in the country except those of us who read about such things online.

Imagine if the American voters in general were aware of the fact that Republican politicians, including both Dems and Repubs, were present at a special dinner honoring Moon, where he was lauded as the Prince of Peace and the Messiah and presented with a crown:

At the March 23 ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) wore white gloves and carried a pillow holding an ornate crown that was placed on Moon's head. The Korean-born businessman and religious leader then delivered a long speech saying he was "sent to Earth . . . to save the world's six billion people. . . . Emperors, kings and presidents . . . have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent <emphasis added>."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Myung_Moon_coronation_controversy

But no one ever even hears about that! Why hasn't it come up on Olbermann or in a blockbuster book? Okay, maybe the politicians didn't realize at first what the dinner was for, but when they did, why didn't they get up and walk out? Why did one of them ( a Dem, yet!) put on white gloves and offer Moon a crown on a pillow? We can guess: there was a lot of money involved, and hardly any Washington player walks out on money.

I would love to see an investigative journalist do a blockbuster book on Moon's influence in American politics and have it published in time for people to read it before the election. Why isn't anyone doing such a book? I wonder whether the Moon machine is like Scientology--i.e., whether people are afraid to take it on for fear of finding rattlers in their mailbox or something even scarier.

Anyway, people can't understand what is causing their misery and the destruction of the economy, because they are not just without real information--they are also being effectively bamboozled by a powerful, pervasive propaganda machine that fills their heads with lies.

Here's the latest article by Mike Whitney has written:


Reality Check
The Democrats are the Real Problem

By MIKE WHITNEY

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney07212008.html

I'm convinced that those so-called "reality shows" are calculated to alter brain functioning so that people can't focus. I think if you watch that stuff long enough, you'll begin to behave as if you have ADD, and that's the way they want us. Unable to hold a thought long enough to problem-solve effectively or to reflect on what's being done to us.

What I've seen (from the promos, or in passing as I'm changing channels) is that they're characterized by chaos, high noise level, meaningless verbilizations, hand-waving, fist-pounding, lack of civility to one another etc. Being exposed to that tripe, night after night, has got to have negative effects.

It's amazing how, once you turn off the TeeVee your brain starts to feel clear again. My TV watching is down to practically nothing. When I'm home I NEVER have it on during the day unless there's a severe weather advisory. Most evenings I never turn it on at all.

When I do watch, it's Bill Moyers, NOW, NOVA, Shields &(that fool) Brooks on The News Hour on Friday. Will watch Brothers & Sisters when it returns in the fall.

When future generations look back on what used to be our republic, they'll see that those who controlled the media were instrumental in engineering its downfall.

100%. It's a travesty. People really need to wake up. Don't they see the shift in income from the middle class to the rich. How could anyone vote for the Republicans given this state of affairs.

The pendulum needs to swing back the other way. If we start getting our information through forums like these instead of the Corporate Media, maybe things will change.

I was pretty outraged. I think people need to make their voices heard much more loudly on these issues.

Here's my take on the article:

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2008/07/why-no-outrage.html

I'd love to hear more of your opinions. I think Americans are too apathetic while crisis in staring us in the face.

I think we've gone one better.

A fitting end to a nation built on lies.

Freedom?
Justice?
Hope?

I don't think so. How about:

Greed
Exclusion
Extermination

Only one logical end for such a nation.

It was built on a bevy of excellent ideas, brought into being by men of good intention.
Our recent problems have primarily been a result of the Bush family and their inner circle.
They aren't our allies ... they're out enemies.

I have no other heritage. I only have this country. And I'll defend all the good of it to anyone.

I've spent the last four years trying to warn people about Wall Street and how they're not after your best interests, and the people who can't argue facts just dismiss me a 'crazy.' Fine, it gave me a title for a book and a way to diffuse people.

But the bottom line is that people trust the media to keep them informed on the markets while they watch 'American Idol.' People need to wake up, and maybe my little contribution is helping. Bottom line is, we can't give up now.

I agree 100%. We are being distracted by mindless drivel while we are being robbed. One day people will wake up. We can only continue to make the point as to what is happening in America until they do.

Oh, that's right, you guys are the only sane ones. Everyone else is stupid.

I don't get where you're coming from Melody. We're not the only sane ones. There are plenty of sane people out there. That's one big reason change is coming.

He's a very dangerous choice for such "sheeple".

I'm really tired of people hating on my people. We're no different than any other nationality.
To think otherwise is nothing less than bigotry.

Look up the reason behind Shay's rebellion and what came of that.

Bush is basically doing the same thing, all these years later.

Shay's rebellion is one small part of our history.

I never discuss these matters with Marxists, though. They have been indoctrinated with as many lies as
the right wing has fed to some Americans about Europe.

And I'm hardly a Marxist- I'm simply someone who wondered how we could have flushed our vaunted principles down the drain so fast...but when I looked at history, it became clear that we never HAD those principles.

Shay and the other veteran farmers were being robbed blind by the people in power, and then were declared traitors when they attempted to fight back...and then the Federalists used it as a 9/11 to declare that there needed to be central gov't with a united army to put down such traitors.

What an auspicious beginning.

If you need to find a reason to hate your own people, you will find one.

I entirely disagree with you on every level about this so I suggest we just let it drop. We're
never going to agree beyond agreeing to disagree.