Chapter 14 - Right and Wrong

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themselves fantastically. When their house-of-cards collapsed, it caused incalculable financial, emotional, and physical pain to millions of ordinary Americans. And not just Americans – people across the globe felt the rattlesnake bite of Wall Street's avarice. We should all be deeply angry. What these 'captains of industry' did was not only morally wrong but probably illegal as well. So, where are the search warrants, the Grand Juries, the indictments, the verdicts, the jail time?

Where are the congressional investigations, the gavel-to-gavel hearings, the presidentially appointed 9/11-style Commission, the coast-to-coast calls for reform, or, most significantly, the enacted legislation overhauling the entire stinking system?

As I said – nowhere.

Instead, we've had eight months of bailouts for the bastards that caused all this trouble in the first place. Billions and billions of taxpayer dollars have been shoveled directly into the pocketbooks of banks and other corporations deemed "too big to fail," making the much vaunted 'free market' look exactly like a lie. Apparently, our economy is piloted not by 'captains' at all – but by crooks, liars, greedheads and their enablers in media, business schools, and think tanks. Additionally, an entire class of professionals – economists – has fallen into justly-deserved disrepute. "Too big to fail" has become not only the cynical slogan of the current crisis, it's the motto of the entire hypocritical corporate financial system that passes for our economy in early 21st-century America.

If I sound angry – well, I am. Millions and millions of Americans have lost their jobs as a consequence of this gigantic

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swindle, not to mention their homes, their life savings, their retirement plans, and their faith in the American Dream. In terms of financial and emotional devastation, the events of last September are far worse than what happened on 9/11, in my opinion. So why aren't the perpetrators being called economic terrorists? Why aren't we pursuing them with the same determination that we brought to bear on Al-qaida or the Taliban? Instead of handing them checks drawn from my children's dwindling bank accounts, why aren't the bastards in jail?

I'm also upset at the lack of outrage among my fellow citizens. Other than some grumbling recently about obscene bonuses being paid to executives at these bailed-out firms, some editorializing by op-ed authors and reporters, and the usual angry buzzing in the blogosphere, Americans have watched passively while their jobs, homes, and financial stability were wiped out by Wall Street greed. I find this truly remarkable – and very worrisome. Have we become that passive as a people? Do we feel that disempowered? Or are we assuming that someone else will take action – the neighbor next door, the nonprofit down the street, the local district attorney, a national newspaper, or a member of the political leadership?

Maybe there are too many targets for Americans to focus their outrage on. Take your pick: (1) the Wall Street bastards themselves; (2) asleep-at-the-wheel (i.e., complicit) government regulators; (3) the huge community of academics, economists, and other 'pundits' who facilitated the debacle; (4) Congress, whose lack of oversight and leadership makes them culpable as well; (5) business reporters and other members of the Fourth