The
Latest Economic Crisis
An
Interview with Wolf Larsen
from the book Capitalism Sucks!
Question:
So Wolf, what do you think of this latest economic crisis? Answer:
Man, what a mess! I guess the
bankers and the fat cats on Wall Street really screwed up the economy this
time! But capitalism has always had its
ups and downs. That's just the way it
is.
Q. That's just the way it is? What about all the
people losing their jobs? It's one of
the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression!
A. I know.
That's the nature of capitalism. Lots
of human suffering. You notice that the
first thing that the politicians in Washington did was bail out all the fat
cats in the banking industry and on Wall Street. And yet they haven't gotten around to bailing
out homeowners who are being thrown out on the street. The fact is the politicians both Democrat and
Republican don't care about all the human suffering that's going to be caused
by this crisis. What the politicians of
both parties care about is saving the asses of the rich.
Q. What caused this economic crisis?
A. Too much speculation. Too much paper wealth. The ruling class used to invest in our
country. They invested in factories,
they invested in railroads, they invested in all forms of infrastructure. But now the rich people of our country don't
want to invest in our country anymore.
Now instead of investing in factories the rich people prefer to come up
with predatory schemes to enrich themselves at the expense of the working
people.
Q. Where do you think the economy is headed?
A. Down.
The economy has been going down for the past 30 years. Not just in the past year. When I was a child back in the 1970s I lived
in a very prosperous and powerful nation.
Our nation is still relatively prosperous – at least compared to Third
World countries – but America is nowhere near as prosperous as it used to
be. That's because the rich people have
closed a lot of our factories. We've
lost much of our industrial base. And
when a country loses its industrial base it loses its very foundation. Now the rich people are outsourcing the
professional jobs to places like India.
So not only have we lost much of our industrial base, but now we're losing
a big chunk of the information economy as well.
A lot of professional jobs are going overseas, just like the blue collar
jobs before. Of course, the workers in
China and India and across the world are not our enemies, they are workers like
ourselves. All workers across the world
are our brothers and sisters. It is the
rich people and their big corporations that are the enemies of working people.
Q. So too much speculation and bad lending
practices and the loss of the industrial sector is what caused this latest
economic crisis in your opinion?
A. Bad lending practices is an
understatement. The lending practices
were downright predatorial. All the fat
cats who were giving out predatorial loans didn't care if these people lost
their homes in the future. All that the
predatorial lenders cared about was making lots of money real fast. But that's the nature of capitalism. The rich people get richer and working people
get screwed. Losing our industrial base
is the single biggest reason that our economy is falling. You can't have a powerful wealthy nation
without a strong industrial base to support it.
Instead of creating more wealth with industry and with a higher standard
of living all the economy was doing was creating paper wealth – or speculation –
and that is not a healthy economy.
Capitalism is not a healthy type of economy.
Q. Is the problem really the entire system of
capitalism? Isn't the problem a lack of
regulation governing the economic system?
Wouldn't better regulation have stopped this crisis?
A
. Up-and-down cycles are the very nature
of capitalism. It's a crazy irrational
economic system. There will always be
economic crashes under capitalism. Under
capitalism in the best of times there's lots of human suffering. In the worst of times there's even more human
suffering. The rich people just keep
getting richer. That's the nature of
capitalism. Regulation may or may not
prevent the worst abuses, but no amount of regulation is going to stop the fact
that capitalism is an up-and-down craziness of boom and bust. Capitalism is irrational. And no amount of regulation will change that.
Q. So you don't support more regulation in the
financial sector in order to prevent a future crisis like the one that just
happened?
A. Instead of trying to regulate the system lets
just throw capitalism in the garbage can.
Q. But the new President of the United States
seems to be a very talented individual.
And he has excellent advisers around him. Don't you think perhaps he could save the
economy?
A. No. Mr.
Obama might be more intelligent than George Bush, but that will not save
endless millions of people from being unemployed because of an economic
crisis. Capitalism is always having
economic crisis. It is a boom and bust system. Capitalism was going boom and bust long before
Obama or any of us were born. Regardless
of whatever new regulations they may impose capitalism will continue to have
periods of crisis in the future because that is the nature of capitalism. The only solution is to get rid of
capitalism, and replace it with socialism.
Under a planned economy there will be no more boom and bust. Under socialism everyone will have the right
to a job. Whether you build a bus or
drive a train or provide medical services – everyone will do something. There will be no more capitalists. There would be no more speculation. All the capitalist predators will have their
ill begotten wealth confiscated, and they will have to get real jobs. They won't be able to screw up our economy
anymore. And the politicians will have
to get real jobs too. I can already see
Obama, George Bush and Dick Cheney, Bill and Hillary Clinton all working at
McDonald's together. But I don't think
we'll trust George Bush in the kitchen – everyone might get food poisoning that
guy is so incompetent. I think with Dick
Cheney we'll just let him clean the bathroom and wash the floors. Mr. Obama has good people skills – so he can
work the cash register and smile at everyone at the front. Bill and Hillary can do all the hamburger
flipping. And that George Bush will make
an excellent clown, we'll dress him up like Ronald McDonald and he can greet
all the customers as they come in, and entertain the children. (Laughs)
On Economic Crises under Capitalism from my YouTube Channel SucksCapitalism:
Buy the book Capitalism Sucks on Amazon or other online retailers,
or just scroll down to read Capitalism Sucks for free.
You can also click on whatever chapter you wish listed
in the upper right hand column of this page.
You can also click on whatever chapter you wish listed
in the upper right hand column of this page.
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