“Socialism” was the scare word used by the oligarchy of the Gilded Age when America began to regulate and break up their giant corporations. It was the term used by the American Liberty League in 1935 to attack President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposal for Social Security. “Socialism is the epithet they have hurled at every advance the people have made,” President Harry Truman observed. It was “what they called public power…bank deposit insurance…free and independent labor organizations…anything that helps all the people.” Every time over the last century Americans have sought to pool their resources for the common good, the wealthy and powerful have used the bogeyman of “socialism” to try to stop them.
If by “socialism” Dimon meant social insurance, the brute fact is that by 2019 America spent very little on safety nets compared to other advanced nations.
But America does practice one form of socialism—socialism for the rich. Exhibit A is the bailout of Wall Street in 2008. Dimon was at the helm when JPMorgan received $25 billion from the federal government to help stem the financial crisis, which had been brought on largely by the careless and fraudulent lending practices of JPMorgan and other big banks.
Obama defended them as “very savvy businessmen” and said he didn’t “begrudge peoples’ success or wealth. That’s part of the free market system.” What free market system? Taxpayers had just bailed out the banks, and the bank CEOs were still taking in fat paychecks. Rather than defend those paychecks, Obama might have demanded that the Wall Street banks help underwater homeowners on Main Street as a condition of getting bailed out.
By 2019, America’s five biggest banks, including Dimon’s, accounted for 46 percent of all U.S. bank deposits. In the early 1990s, they had accounted for only 12 percent. Their giant size has translated into a huge but hidden federal subsidy estimated to be $83 billion annually....Dimon says it’s wrong to “vilify” people who succeed under free-market capitalism, like himself. But he has an odd view of free-market capitalism. It seems not to include the bank bailout and its ongoing $83 billion hidden government insurance.
大衆のためになんかしようとするとき、それは社会主義的だ、と言って、「社会主義」という言葉は、脅し文句、悪口として使われることもあるが、実際には、金持ちには社会主義、貧乏人には過酷な資本主義が押し付けられているー銀行は補助金たんまり受け取って、また、倒産しそうなときは税金によって救済され、CEOは手厚い報酬をもらえるのに、貧乏人のためのセーフティーネットは手薄で路頭に放り投げだされるだけ・・・みたいなかんじだよなああ。
ライシュは「いわゆる規制緩和」というのは大企業の利益のためのものであって国民の利益にはなっていない、と。外国との競争に必要といって法人税減税や合併しても、その実、儲けるのは大企業とそのCEOだけだ、と。
株式は自社株買いで価値が膨れあがっており、実体経済を反映していないし、
The richest 0.1% own 17% of stocks
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) December 16, 2020
The richest 1% own 50% of stocks
The bottom 50% own 0.7% of stocks
Repeat after me:
The stock market is not the economy.
株式をもっているのはごく一部で、株式市場というのは経済ではないのだ、と。
そういえば、巨額の自社株買いの末に 「金融マシン化」したボーイングの自滅
最近こんなニュースもあったね。
0 件のコメント:
コメントを投稿