With the first half of the $750B already dolled out to banks and financial institutions the results are less than promising. First there was the frenzy to try to buy each other out. Not more stable buying up unstable institutions, which might have made some sense in streamlining the industry and providing some stability, but the big boys trying to play a high stakes game of Monopoly with our money. Now it seems that some individual institutions have given out more in year end and Christmas bonuses to executives than they received from the government. I absolutely loved the rationalization given by the apologists for the banks. It seems that these bonuses are necessary if they want to be able to keep the best people. HELLO! Aren’t these the same best people that got the industry into this mess in the first place? Or was it that the best people were all on holiday for the last 20 years and the help somehow screwed the pooch without their guiding hands. Maybe these people suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder, yeah, that’s it. They are the best people when they are drinking champagne and celebrating their bonuses; as soon as they sit behind their desks the evil idiot inside them comes out.
This is what happens when you hand out money with little or no oversight. I have a major insight for all of you out there in cyberland. Corporate executives and business people in general are just that people, with all the foibles that go along with that designation. In fact in our system it is virtually impossible to rise to the upper executive level and have any ethical fibre to your character. If you aren’t prepared to pimp your mother for a nickel you will inevitably run into the glass toilet bowl on your descent into upper management. So these guys are just being true to form. They need those million dollar bonuses so they and their families can enjoy this festive season. Oh and the bonuses are down from last year they assure us. But I bet they are still more than those who are being laid off from manufacturing plants in all sectors, not just auto. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the envelopes in which the bonuses were delivered are worth more than some American and Canadian families have to spend this Christmas. As a matter of fact I know they are because I know many people who have $0.00 to spend this Christmas. But these are the entitled, the movers and shakers. These people would be lost if they couldn’t pay people to do everything for them.
Hegel in the Phenomenology talks about the master-slave relationship. The slave is independent while the master is dependent. Without the slave the master is nothing and cannot survive. First without a slave how could he be a master and secondly he relies on the slave for the means of subsistence. The slave, however, not only provides from him/herself but also for the master. The slave has no need of the master to survive. The only thing the master gives to the slave is his/her slavery. Once the slave realizes this, he/she is no longer a slave. It is time for us to realize that we the slaves of this planet are the ones that sustain the self-appointed masters. It is time for us to walk away and let these parasites die if they cannot adapt.
Others are starting to do this already. There is move afoot in South America to create an alternative to the World Bank which has enslaved developing countries for decades. Several South American nations have paid off their debt to the World Bank by helping one another. It is their intention to found a new Bank without the neo-colonial strings exerted by the World Bank. Voting would be equal; one member, one vote unlike the weighted voting at the World Bank which gives control to the industrialized West. Micro-banking is growing around the world and needs to be introduced here as well. And it is us that needs to introduce these ideas, you and me. Let’s just take what we provide to those who have been our masters and use it for the benefit of ourselves, the decent people in this society that actually create and sustain its wealth.
