Stein: Welcome to Nightmare America

(CBS)  Certain financial statistics are troubling contributor Ben Stein these days . . .

---

Start with the obvious: This great country is in a very severe recession.

This mess was caused very largely by the inordinate greed, incompetence and duplicity of certain persons and firms on Wall Street.

When the bubble burst in the Fall of 2008, the financial system was hanging by a thread.

Supposedly to save the country, the taxpayers of the United States bailed out the big banks that were on the brink of apocalypse. This was done at a cost of hundreds of billions, maybe trillions.

Now, the country is still in a terrible recession. Unemployment is about 10 percent. Millions have lost their homes to foreclosure and tens of millions live in fear of losing homes or jobs, or both.

But, what's this? Wall Street is booming insanely!

Thanks largely to government policies where the Fed lends money to the big banks at 25 hundredths of a point, then taxpayers borrow it back at 3.5 percent, thanks to the easy money gushing out of the Fed-easy money for the Big Boys (not for you), Wall Street is planning to pay bonuses to its executives on a par with what they paid in 2007 . . . before the crash . . . before the rest of America was pauperized.

Just one huge investment bank called Goldman Sachs was bailed out in many lavish ways by both the Bush and Obama administrations. Now they plan to pay themselves bonuses of roughly $20 billion for the holidays

This is not a fantasy. This is really happening.

Surely, is not the America we are sending our children to fight and die for in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . surely, is not the America our grandfathers and fathers fought for at Normandy and Iwo Jima?

This is some nightmare America, ruled by con men in $2,000 suits.

I love capitalism, and have many friends on Wall Street. But this is just plain shameful.

America, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

[smack1418]

Include more of Ben Stein and no more of Rebecca Mead, please.

[dcdeland]

Ben,

I read many of the comments. Although the huge greed and fraud from many on Wall Street and the banks brought us to this crisis, the majority of Americans, including you, contributed to the nightmare of an American economy and system we found ourselves in 2008 and will live with for quite awhile to come.

I am tired of hearing the diatribes by pundits. Wouldn't we all like to spout on whatever has caught our negative attention today or any day. What are you doing about it? It is shameful that Wall Street and the banks are going to give themselves bonuses. And, as you say 'this is shameful':

"Just one huge investment bank called Goldman Sachs was bailed out in many lavish ways by both the Bush and Obama administrations. Now they plan to pay themselves bonuses of roughly $20 billion for the holidays...But this is just plain shameful."

I take a lot of action in my spheres of influence, but they don't reach the leadership of banks or of this country. I wouldn't be contributing or have impact, if I didn't take action or at least recommend action and then be doggone persistent.

What bipartisan personal actions are you going to take and what bipartisan actions are you doing to take to change at least some aspects of this nightmare?

For republican and democrat commenters, this is not about your political views, it is about fairness, a political (both republican and democrat) and business elite that are totally detached from over 90% of Americans.

Some suggestions Ben:
-Have you met with the CEO of Goldman Sachs and the banks?
-Have you met with Obama or members of his team with a recommendation on how to set the policy standards (maybe not regulate) for companies getting money from the government and not?
-Do you have your team deeply researching the bonus plans at the key institutions for public dissemination?
-Since during the collapse, these firms were still trying to pay bonuses (and many did), how are you exposing their incorrect thinking, e.g., 'we can't lose these people or attract talent' when they clearly demonstrated they aren't the kind of people we can afford in the jobs that brought us this collapse.
-Have you looked at systems thinking to understand what drives the behavior, stocks, delays in the system to identify leverage to change the behavior of the system and get them understood more broadly?

I loved your 2006 Christmas dialog that started with:
"I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees... I don't feel threatened.. I don't feel discriminated against.. That's what they are, Christmas trees." It was a wonderful comment on the humanity we all should live.

But, did you do anything?
I watch the Fox News pundits as infrequently as I can, and marvel that they get paid to report and comment on news with such bias. I was glad to see Lou Dobbs go from CNN. He wasn't doing news.

It seems to me that people with so many opinions, maybe some expertise (not convinced from all I read and then hear erroneously on TV), and a position that can drive or at least influence action, that we should see some impact or contribution from all of you pundits.

What action are you taking Ben to change this American nightmare?

Debbie Deland
[e-mail]
Orlando, FL 32836

[P0STING_AWAY]

Ben - If the bozos at FAUX NOISE catch wind of this, you will be
declared persona non grata ..........

[springcityguy]

Hey, Ben. What's with the class envy? Aren't businesses supposed to make money. If you really want to see a nightmare America, imagine one where the government tells doctors & CEOs that they make too much, and that it can't afford to fight a war. Uh-oh...

[donsherrid]

Basically, I agree with Mr. Stein. This whole mess was a product of greed and it appears that corporate America has not learned the lesson. It is terrible that we have to have government involvement, but these people have made their own beds---and now we, the American Public, will be stuck with it.

For various reasons, these people are focused on making a fast buck and have not a care about the health of the economy or the American people. If they were concerned they would manage for the long haul and not the next stockholders meeting and their own bank account. We have known for years that this micro management is not good overall.

Generally, I have never believed that many of these people can really be worth these fantastic salaries and bonuses. The fact is that they all put their pants on the same way. They, through greed, line their pockets and do whatever it takes to make it happen.

[noloyalisti]

Absolutely, we do not have capitalism here. We have some greedy, twisted permutation where all the money goes to the top 1%. Some people temporarily think they are doing well when in fact the huge majority are losing. What the "good Germans" don't realize is that they are only next is line to lose everything. Big corporations don't care about life in nay way, only what they can make in profit. That is why we essentially have turned into a right wing fascist country. We better wake up and unite against the top 1%.

[vpcharan]

Yes, Stein, you and your party are responsible for the current mess. Grow up and learn to accept responsibility for your inaction for the last 8 years. Why did you not speak out last year?

[woosailor]

vpcharan, you have got to be kidding. You are saying that Stein and "his party" are responsible? On what planet are you living? My Hope and Change and his party of ne'er do wells are hoping and changing. BTW, how is that working out for you?

[LtSmily]

I was bored so went hunting for fun, and found this ridiculous article with uninformed posts, so what the heck.

Anyone who takes the simplistic view that "capitalism" is to blame for the current nightmare, is very uninformed. Suffice it to say America dropped any pretense of capitalism more than 40 years ago.

Skyk, again you are completely off base with the "surplus" fantasy, and only 50% right about the "change" that has happened.
As simply as I can I will explain the "surplus". Do you keep a checkbook? Let's assume you do, and let's assume your checkbook is in the negative. You have two choices, cut expenses and spend less until the checkbook is balanced (positive), OR you can add up all your future earnings (supposed or other wishful hopes and dreams) and throw them in your checkbook right away and voila, you have a balanced checkbook and with enough "future" earnings you may even have a "surplus" (nevermind you do not really have the cash on hand). Clinton did the later (with help from Repubs mind you).
I agree 100% with your assertion the Republican Party should go the way of the dodo, but you are only 50% correct, the Democrats need to be disbanded as well. Other than that, you usually have fun and informative posts. Cheers

[brianbwb-2009]

To LtSmily

Just like the poster you try to refute, yours only tells less than half the story.

You posit that it is government taxation and spending practices that caused this mess, in positing such you confuse a symptom with the disease.

The bottom line is that trickle down can never work, as it is based on the ridiculous assumption that the wealthy will somehow hire more if they are allowed to escape their financial responsibility to bear their share of the burden of the cost of being a country.

This has long ago been proven wrong, after the Reagan tax breaks, the Gingrich "contract on America" and other pro business, anti social scams, business still closed shop, and "outsourced" their labor to slave-wage countries.

The airlines said that if they got no bailout, thousands would lose their jobs, they got their bailouts, then laid off the workers anyway. This "knife to the trots of labor" is still used and after they get their tax breaks, they slit the throats anyway. Only fools still believe their lies.

The US economy now resembles a shark feeding frenzy, the poor and middle class have been all but eaten, now the sharks are taking bites out of each other, this is what Stein is hypocritically griping about

The middle class has been decimated from a long period of contraction that started in the early 70s with the autoworkers in Detroit, and "dominoed" through steel, ruber, glass, electronics,and other industries.

The Reagan "boom" was a credit-fueled jobless recovery, the middle class economic engine was never able to even approach its former strength. Even when Clinton managed to halfway balance the budget, it was meaningless, as on the streets, jobs continued to vanish to third-world countries.

Bush's (now Obama's) wars, as expensive as they are, only make matters worse, as money that should be pumped into the economy is drained by profiteers without valid reason.

Wall St. became constipated and jammed up, not because of government spending and taxes, but because all of the players had bet money they didn't have with corrupted CDS paper, which was corrupted by their own manipulation, (not because of poor people, and the cons suggest) and they got caught short, to the point where even they did not trust their own, all their stock valuations were and still are pure BS, and they know it.

The insistence of the anti social neos of the GOP and the reluctance of spineless Democrats to stand up to them, assures that failed trickle down will not be reversed any time soon, and so the economy will not recover any time soon.

What is needed is for America to completely rebuild itself, redesign, upgrade, and modernize the current obsolete urban infrastructure, a mega-project that will provide gainful employment for the next 100 years, this neo tax-break and deregulation garbage is exactly what got us here.

You can balance the budget in real terms today, or even create a real surplus tomorrow, but unless the middle class is restored to health, it will mean absolutely nothing.

[wheresmycountry]

Let's not forget that this guy spent 8 years carrying water for Bush.

[bill0bob]

Let's see... first Benji complains that Wall Street is greedy, rewarding itself for screwing the rest of the country, then Benji concludes with, "I love capitalism".

I'm trying to follow the "logic", but it's making my head spin!