Smokey Diamond, our intrepid reporter, and I love when our local newspaper, The Centre Daily Times, asks and answers its own question in the same issue. Today, they ran the article by Adam Geller of AP headlined: Protest’s Mission Remains Murky, about the Wall Street protests. What do these protesters want? The CDT provides a simple answer in the article out of Atlanta in which “a whistle-blower lawsuit claims several large banks and mortgage companies defrauded military veterans and taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars in a “brazen scheme” to hide illegal fees. Proven? No. Plausible? Oh yeah.
The protesters want crap like this to stop. The NYTs today reports that Mellon Bank was being sued for overcharging their customers some 2 billion dollars in exchange fees. Perhaps that stuff should stop as well.
The Geller article picks up on the new Wall Street defense—the victims-are-equally-to-blame-rule. Why did they go for the teaser mortgages or run up their credit card bills? Aren’t they responsible too? Sure. But in this country, we still recognize the difference between foolish and evil. Buying a well-marketed slice of the American Dream is, in retrospect, foolish. Knowingly marketing and selling that impossible dream is evil.
An American Government that promotes the well being of the hucksters, because they are (a little Bach and a respectful hush please) the job creators, over the well being of its common citizens has misplaced its purpose. Citizens are disgusted because the financial system they live under is disgusting and the government they hired to help protect the average Joe doesn’t.