EAT THE RICH / SMASH RACISM / FUCK AUTHORITY

With markets in Europe and Asia completely destabilized by the punch-and-grab antics of US politicos and finance gurus, I found myself nostalgic earlier this morning for the blunt single-mindedness of those slogans often found on badges, patches and t-shirts worn by a select, perhaps more sensible few during the 1980s. Eat the rich. Smash racism. Fuck authority.

Nostalgia is never a good thing and no crisis is reducible to the ham-fisted logic of a bellicose or deeply masculinist slogan. But at this stage of what appears to be a nascent economic meltdown far from over, a firm and uncompromising denunciation of wealth and the mechanisms that create the conditions for its grossly inequitable accumulation may provide some solace. Unfortunately on this side of the Atlantic the vast majority of Hummerkins are busy mapping their desires onto the crisis, believing the $700 billion bailout (and the additional $1.3 trillion the Federal Reserve has committed to buying out short-term debt) will stabilize not only a crippled American economy but an incomprehensibly more complex global economy. While Ben Bernanke gives $1.3 trillion to shore up a market investors have almost completely abandon due to the crisis, Henry Paulson has selected an old Goldman Sachs buddy to dish out $700 billion in corporate welfare:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has tapped a former Goldman Sachs executive to be director of the government's bailout program. Neel Kashkari, who has worked with Paulson at the department since July 2006, was chosen Monday as the interim head of the government's unprecedented effort to unclog the credit markets.

But what began in the US with huge high-risk investments in mortgages expressly designed to exploit millions of working poor and underemployed Americans has generated a financial tectonic shift that has thrown European and Asian markets into a state of chaos. Despite the fact that accountability for this crisis resides in the US, I was stunned to find an American financial analyst on CNBC this morning mocking Europe. This analyst wondered whether German workers — whom his remark suggested already enjoy the excesses of a living wage and adequate health care — would continue to agitate for higher wages now that German markets are in crisis. The comment seemed to suggest that, like those largely underemployed Americans suckered into high-risk mortgages, German workers seeking more than they are believed to be worth are part of the problem. Workers, the working poor and the underemployed are of course not financial analysts, investment bankers, treasury secretaries or even students of economics. And, for those of us that live in the "developed" world, a living wage and adequate health care in exchange for some form of full-time employment are not unreasonable expectations. Given that this presumably well-paid CNBC analyst was himself a media representative of the nation responsible for the crisis, the comment seemed especially pernicious.

Thinking back to media coverage of the mortgage crisis during the summer, mainstream news anchors, analysts and reporters seemed largely united in their condemnation of those Americans that presumably knew they couldn't afford the mortgages they agreed to. Like the comment leveled against German workers, accountability is assigned to those the financial crisis will most effect in a very material way rather than the investment bankers, stock brokers and executives that will walk away from the fallout with generous severance packages and, in many cases, even bonuses.

What is even more astonishing is the undisguised arrogance American media figures continue to project outward to the world this country has imperiled. If this economic catastrophe worsens and those at the top of the heap continue to reward each other and assign blame to those of us completely impoverished by their antics, perhaps we can stop struggling to reason with the rich and simply eat them.