Ever hear of the “wobblies?” That was the nickname of the International Workers of the World, a radical labor movement that had many followers a hundred or so years ago. An outfit that promoted the idea of one big union of all the world’s workers to confront “the bosses.”
Their one big union of working people idea never came off, of course, But a collective of a very different sort just took on what was supposedly its own bosses and won really big time. I refer to the bankers’ strike that just shook the money tree of world governments to the tune of $1.8 trillion in Europe, and God only knows how much in this country, there being no way of counting because the doles are growing so rapidly and taking so many forms.
Here was the threat used so successfully by these banker strikers: Give us huge amounts of money in the form of cheap loans. Buy our lousy assets. Take equity positions no one else wants. Or else!
Or else what? Or else we won’t loan money to anybody and the economy will stop dead. Take it or leave it.
The governments of the world took it. Big time. Really big time. It’s the most successful strike in history. Not of workers, but of capital.
OK. No need to complain. Learn the appropriate lesson instead. Non-bank, ordinary shopper/consumers should mobilize and not only continue our buying slowdown, but cut back even more. Let’s make it clear that unless the governments of the world gift us as richly as they have gifted the banks, we sit on our wallets.
Our demands should be straight forward and easily understood, Government leaders don’t handle subtlety well. We demand our debts be forgiven (like the banks got). We demand our bum assets—old cars, depreciated houses, et. al.—get taken off our hands (like the bank got). And we demand the government buy equity positions in our future earnings and profits, paying up front for the right (like the banks got.)
Consumers of the world unite! But do it quick. Before Wall Street and its offshoots strip our national and international cupboards bare.