Deregulation results in economic and social devastation

Rev. Harry Rix
Posted 1/27/15

“Following the rules is not easy.”

— Today’s Parent

It doesn’t matter that the New England Patriots deflated their footballs during Sunday’s game against the …

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Deregulation results in economic and social devastation

Posted

“Following the rules is not easy.”

— Today’s Parent

It doesn’t matter that the New England Patriots deflated their footballs during Sunday’s game against the Colts. So what if Tom Brady gets a better grip on the ball or if receivers catch the ball more easily? So what if fumbles are less likely?

I believe in deregulation. Football has far too many rules. Why have a penalty for face masking or cutting a player off at the knees? Why lose 15 yards for helmet-to-helmet hits?

Yes, these regulations prevent concussions and other injuries. But I liked football when it was tougher. In fact, we should take most of the referees off the field.

Sound ridiculous? Of course. But deregulation which imperils our safety is precisely what some Republican leaders seek for much of our public life.

Most egregious are calls for deregulating Wall Street. Remember the economic crash of 2008? Oligarchs gambled trillions with our bank deposits. They made satanic surpluses with successful bets. When calamity struck, they got a taxpayer bailout.

In their flaming wreckage reside millions whose home values burned to the ground. Others were foreclosed. Pensions were decimated. Charities were bilked. Everyone suffered losses.

Wall Street swindlers paid no penalty for their avarice. Supposedly, they were “too big to jail.” With no prosecutions, the titans of finance believe, correctly, that they can violate the law and violate people with impunity.

Actually, these autocrats need not break the law. They purchase Congress and write the laws they desire. In 1999, for example, they demolished Depression-era legislation that protected the economy since 1933. At the time, economists Mark Thornton and Robert Ekelund wrote prophetically that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was a “moral hazard that will make taxpayers pay dearly.”

This is “elite economics.” The working poor and middle class must suffer so the rich can get richer. As if the affluent need more: By next year, the top 1 percent will have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.

But capitalism is sacred! Not really.

True capitalists accept risk. Through deregulation and legalized theft, the elite have no risk. Their corporate welfare costs trillions.

Following the 2008 disaster, congressional Democrats passed reform legislation. Their achievement, Dodd-Frank, is being scrapped piece-by-piece. Just last month Republicans gutted protection from the abuse of credit default swaps, the primary cause of the 2008 crisis, by cunningly including a last-minute provision in a “must-pass” spending bill.

An Obama veto would shut down the government. So, once again, Wall Street won. Obama mistakenly signed the bill: A shutdown costing another $25 billion is preferable to another economic debacle.

The problem is not “big government.” The problem is unregulated big business.

“Deregulation” has a nice ring to it. Governor Rick Perry famously wants to axe three federal departments. This deregulation would eliminate vital functions such as preventing terrorist attacks with radioactive materials; providing early warnings of weather disasters; and assisting poor schools already left behind by inadequate local funding.

Others want to deregulate wages. Eliminating the minimum wage, Tea Partier Michelle Bachmann claims, would “virtually wipe out unemployment.” Wrong! Would you work for $5 or $6 an hour with no benefits? Neither would others.

Even more pertinent, deregulating wages is repugnant. How dare these prosperous despots demand subminimum wages. Why? Because they revere “whatever the market will pay.” Their Scroogian supply-and-demand approach to minimizing wages places a puny price on people.

We already treated people like objects once in our history. It’s called slavery. The new slavery – even with the current minimum wage – requires working full time only to remain in dire poverty.

It’s clear: The deregulating plutocrats and pols detest depositors and taxpayers, wage earners and students. They bribe legislators to fatten their bloated bank accounts – even when doing so delivers abject misery to everyone else.

With all big business, not just football, we need the referees.

Rev. Harry Rix has 30 articles on spirituality and ethics and 1000 quotations for reflection available at www.quoflections.org. ©2014 Harry Rix. All rights reserved.

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