From a Letter to the Editor in the SF Chronicle:
Ever since we were asked to tighten our belts and prepare to do without, I’ve been thinking about the fact that virtually none of us citizens is responsible for this economic decline — and yet it is we who are asked to pay the price.
I keep wondering why the relatively few people — namely bankers who decided to put personal or institutional profit above all considerations of honesty and social responsibility — have been able to remain anonymous. It is thanks to them that we, and people all around the world, are now condemned to anxiety and even poverty. I’d love to know why it is that those are not called to account.
How can the government ask us to accept this disaster as though we were all paying for our own greed and dishonesty, when the vast majority of us live lives of honesty and integrity, and have had nothing whatsoever to do with this crisis?
Tonight I read about how Bernard Madoff’s own particular crimes of greed are going to cost us in the shape of lost taxes — which, I don’t doubt, will be manifest in cuts to the neediest of our citizens. I realize it wouldn’t change things, but I’d still feel better if those responsible had to face the music.
– CD
Filed under: crime, george bush, impeachment, iraq war, politics, u.s. history
