To the editor,
Does anyone remember the great Wall Street crash of 2007-08? Probably not? It was something that just happened, a blip in the canvas of history, one might say.
Some say it cost the U.S. and the world economy in the vicinity of US$14 trillion, yes trillion.
One country, China, was not really affected because they had not tied themselves to a vision of unrestricted free-market capitalism.
All about the global banks and financial institutes went “bust” were nationalized, or in some case, re-nationalized.
However, the epicentre of this financial tsunami was right in Wall Street, the heart of U.S. capitalism. Old financial firms like Lehman Brothers, went broke and the like of Goldman and Sachs ran around picking up the pieces and the U.S. taxpayer footed the bill.
It’s a long story about how the U.S. “banksters” took the bailout money, paid themselves huge bonuses, bought themselves new corporate jets and the foreclosures of houses and property — some six million and counting — went on.
Here in Canada, we got by the “great meltdown” fairly easily.
Stephen Harper, ignoring his own political ideology, gave Canadian banks millions of dollars to clear up some bad paper and there was not too much robbing of the poor to pay the rich during these tumultuous times.
Incidentally, the Canadian banks rewarded the taxpayers with a scheme to bring workers in from India, have their workers train them, then lay off Canadian banks workers — enough said.
The reason I’ve rambled on is I recently ran into someone who rambled on about that “Terrible Trudeau, look at the deficit he has created during these pandemic times.
Our great, great, great grandchildren will be paying for it.” Oh, boo hoo, Canada is going to Hell in a hand basket!
It is strange that the average citizen will allow the super-rich to get richer at the expense of everyone else, but if a little cash strays the way of the “peasants” — the ordinary people — oh, horror, it will break us!
Oh yes, one further point here: Despite the mismanagement and outright thievery — billions stolen and lost — the U.S. remains the preferred place to invest?
Dennis Peacock,
Clearwater, B.C.
newsroom@clearwatertimes.com
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