REMEMBERING THOMAS JEFFERSON ON NEW YEAR’S EVE

“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”   -Thomas Jefferson

What would he say if he were here today?

A lot of numbers get tossed around when the conversation turns to the bailout and the ultimate tax payer bill for the excesses of the aggressively deregulated, greed-is-good, free-market ideology of the past 40 years.  None of them are as startling and disconcerting as that claimed recently in an article from Bloomberg:

“The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago. The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.”

Think about that.  Can you even wrap your brain around those figures?

And the banking industry recipients of TARP funds, loans, and loan guarantees have responded to recent requests for some accounting of their employment of these funds with comments ranging from “we don’t keep track of that,” to “we’re not going to tell you.” Nice.

Then there is Bernard Madoff, former chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange and crown prince of greed, whose own sons apparently tipped off investigators and brought down a financial empire with tentacles reaching around the globe.

What have we learned from all this?  I’m not sure yet.  But if there is one lesson that I hope we can all take away from this–from homeowners who gambled on housing to the Bernard Madoffs of Wall Street–it is that greed is in all of us, and it is not good.

Here’s to 2009 and to hope for wisdom, humility, and hope.  I wish you a prosperous new year.