The Blame Game
In spite of what Gordon Gekko believed, greed turned out not to be so good. So now there is a lot of talk about the country’s economic and social ills. Here are a couple of my opinions: whatever you may think about it, the notion of closing tax loopholes or imposing additional taxes on those with incomes of over $1,000,000 per year is NOT class warfare. The statistics are in: income disparity in this country is rising and the government’s need to fund a safety net for those unable to do so for themselves, which is a fundamental requirement of civilized societies, grows ever more expensive. The job market is bad and likely to remain so for a while; it may even be that the intersection of more efficient technology and rising population will leave joblessness at higher-than-historical levels for some time to come. These are complex, intractable problems which will take years, sacrifice, and political courage to solve.
That said, I confess to lacking much sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street marchers who appeared for their TV moment in front of the apartments of Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, and the like. We have sold property to many of the reviled 1% and I cannot help but wonder about how history was revised so rapidly. Only five years ago, everyone was aspiring to be a real estate millionaire. Six or seven years before that, every cab driver in New York was a day trader and everyone was going to make a tech stock fortune; we would all be rich and happy in the “new economy” where the stock market never went down.
It didn’t quite turn out that way. Along the road, there was certainly a lot of profiteering by a lot of people in the mortgage and banking industries, and plenty of real estate agents as well. But did no responsibility accrue to those members of the “other 99%” who actually refinanced their home five times to take out more and more equity? Or those who bought numerous investment properties they could not afford with 100% mortgages? I just cannot buy the story that everyone who borrowed was deceived by a heartless one percenter. The truth is, immigrants from all over the world want to come here because our society is so mobile. The streets really are paved with gold for the lucky and industrious; anyone CAN (although few WILL) make a fortune. That is what all the people across the country hoped for as they invested in real estate they could not afford. But when it all doesn’t work out, you cannot just point the finger at Wall Streeters without looking at all the Main Streeters who also wanted to play the game.
As everyone who knows me knows, the failure to assume personal responsibility is my pet peeve. I stand firmly by the belief that we need to address the inequities which have created our current “trickle up” economy. But I do not stand with Occupy Wall Street. It’s always too easy to just blame the other guy.