Following the lead of the Bush administration in the United States, governments all over the world are opening up the public treasury to the big banks and financiers – the same ones who have caused the current financial crisis. Literally trillions of dollars are being handed over to the financiers through a variety of mechanisms, including buying up toxic debt, purchasing shares in banks, guaranteeing all deposits, and printing up billions of dollars of paper money. 

 

Why? Because, out of predatory self-interest, these same banks and financiers are sitting on their billions and refusing to lend to each other and to the general public. They are using the resulting credit freeze as kind of weapon to extract untold taxpayer’s wealth from government. In a sense, the billionaire financiers have gone on strike against the people of the world.

 

This “credit freeze” in the financial sector has now triggered a crisis in the general economy. Businesses are closing, workers are being laid off, and production is being cut. The people of the world will count themselves lucky if only a bad recession results from this mess. 

 

By way of analogy, imagine a town that is stretched out along a powerful and unpredictable river that is dammed upstream. Because of the greed and recklessness of a certain family called “Moneybucket” who live in an exclusive neighborhood which they have all to themselves, the dam is breached and the river floods. The town is plunged into a state of emergency, and everyone pitches in to build dikes with sandbags to hold back the fast rising water.

 

Imagine then, that these same Moneybuckets, who caused the flooding in the first place, are now demanding that their luxurious home must have priority over everyone else’s in the town. “The world as we know it will end unless our property is protected first and foremost,” they cry, and top government officials echo their words. 

 

With no consent from the people of the town, sandbags are ripped away from other sections of the dike, and are heaped to a ridiculous level around the Moneybucket house, so that the polished mahogany front door and stain-glass windows disappear from view; then the tiled roof; and finally even the chimney with that special red stone imported from somewhere. 

 

The townspeople protest, but to no avail. They watch as sandbags are hauled away in government vehicles, while the river water keeps rising, threatening their homes and businesses. Instinctively they know that a bigger flood is coming and that these weakened parts of the dike will eventually collapse. 

 

“Our sandbag program has worked. We have acted decisively and saved the day,” says a government leader to the crowd of townspeople. Clustered around him, members of the Moneybucket family are beaming toothy smiles to the cameras. One of them even winks, and says, “We are safe, so now you are safe. It’s the ‘trickle down’ effect at its best.” 

 

But the townspeople do not clap. They look nervously at the skimpy dikes that are left behind to protect them. Water is already gushing through the cracks.

 

A murmur spreads through the crowd. People begin to shout and swear, and then someone calls out, “Our town is going to be washed away, what the hell can we do?” 

 

One politician, wearing a blue, pin-striped suit and silk tie, mounts the podium and croons, “Don’t worry, the fundamentals of our flood protection system are strong.” A wild-eyed politician from another party screams, “Let’s all stick our fingers in the dike.”

 

A young girl, who has been watching and listening on the edge of the crowd, struggles to have her voice heard. People around her call for quiet and the crowd hushes. 

 

“Why can’t we just form a human chain, and get those stolen sandbags back?” she asks quietly, brushing a strand of hair away from her sunburned face. “The dike must work for everyone.”

 

On the other side of the thin line of sandbags, floodwaters keep rising.