We Gave Billions to the Banksters and all we Got where these Cheap Tennis Shoes

We Gave Billions to the Banksters and all we Got where these Cheap Tennis Shoes

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By Grant Lawrence

Americans are upset about the recent news that insurance giant AIG will be paying $165 Million in executive bonuses.

President Obama has called the bonus payout to the AIG executive derivative traders an "outrage."

Well I think it is probably good to be outraged over millions of dollars of American taxpayer money going to greedy executives that don't know how to speculate.

But let's face it. The executives at AIG had a rough year last year. They lost big and they need a little something to help them forget about the past. I know a lot of liberal types are calling for an intervention in the freedom of executives to make fabulous fortunes at the expense of the American people. But I am more concerned about the "American Way" and that is the ability of the super wealthy to stay super wealthy even during tough economic times.

But in this new globalized world we live in, American taxpayers have to do more than support the super wealthy in America. We now have to support many of the big banks of Europe.

According to a recent news report, "The documents AIG released account for some of the more than $180 billion in aid that AIG has received, and they detailed for the first time which financial firms are benefitting from the federal handout. In all, AIG disclosed payments of $105.3 billion between September and December 2008. And some of the biggest recipients were European banks. Societe Generale, based in France, was the top foreign recipient at $11.9 billion, Deutsche Bank of Germany got $11.8 billion and Barclays, based in England, was paid $8.5 billion...."

So when you have the wonders of a Globalized economy that supports transnational financial and corporate interests then you have to take the good with the bad.

The bad news is that Globalization shipped most of America's good paying jobs to sweat shop labor. Globalization also brought about a US economy built on credit because the working Americans lost income year after year.

The good news is that Globalization created a great disparity of wealth around the world, which meant that the super rich could gain super riches without much regulation or tax problems. Also, Globalization meant that I could buy my tennis shoes cheaper. Well maybe not.

So I guess it is only fitting that after raping the average American worker in the name of Globalization that our government took whatever was left and bailed out wealthy executives and the big banks around the world.

Under Globalization the rich got richer and all we got was a Wal-Mart economy.