The Bigotry Of Bankers

Last week I labored. I didn't do my normal, sit-in-my-chair job of programming, but instead really worked. I framed my basement. Twelve hour days, late dinners, tired muscles. And, I realized just how much a life of leisure I live. I sit for eight hours, take my lunch at the proscribed time, make up activities just to get a little physical exertion. Sure, lifting and bicycling get my heart-rate up, but in the end, I have nothing to show for the effort: The world has not been changed, other than some extra calories burned.

But physically building, assembling something – making a structure where none stood before: That is real work. As I labored, I thought about how those who have forgotten what it means to work with their hands often look down on those who still remember: The economists for whom a day laborer is just an interchangeable unit of output, unable to command a higher salary due to the low level of education required; The Banker who believes his or her output is somehow superior due to the extra education attained and money's fungible nature.

But during the last decade, when the financiers of Wall Street paid themselves ever greater salaries and bonuses as they repackaged ever more mortgage backed securities, justifying it on the grounds that they were making large contributions to the economy, who was it that was really providing the wealth of the nation? Why, it was the laborers who were building the houses that were being securitized: The framers, the drywallers, the electricians and plumbers, the surveyors and roofers and concrete workers. Wall Street extracted its profits on the backs of those who do the work – and to add insult, the unscrupulous mortgage brokers who had nothing to lose by writing liar's loans, often saddled those same laborers with houses they couldn't afford.

When Wall Street's house of cards came tumbling down, who has paid a disproportionate share of the cost through extended and high unemployment? Why, it is those same individuals who created the wealth that Wall Street pilfered.

Yet, an unrepentant Financial Industry has beaten back attempts to write regulations and increase taxes that would move some of their ill-gotten wealth back to those who did the actual creating. Crying foul, they continue to justify what they do as something vitally important: That without them and their expertise, the economy couldn't run.

However, they are only partially correct: Money and finance are necessary components of our world, but not sufficient. In order for money to have any value, in order for a loan to return a profit, there must by some underlying worker who is actually creating something of use; building, modifying, molding. Wealth comes from the bottom up.

Bankers are experts in obfuscating this simple fact by the language they use, their allusions to (unproven) economic principles, their appeals to politicians who receive their money.

Fortunately for us, however, by pretending that they aren't riding on the backs of all of the workers of society, by claiming theirs is a privileged position that must be paid 20, 30, 100+ times what a laborer makes, their bigotry is plainly visible for all to see.