Potluck »News & culture
Mad as hell on the trading floor…just a Chicago tea party?
Milo Plurnbottom about 1 year ago |

People, and even the media themselves, often assualt ‘the media’ for being too liberal, too conservative, or even puppets for an international conspiracy. Sometimes I agree with all of those statements, feeling as though our news sources cover too-little-too-lightly, often popularizing corporate and government agendas as the only reality. But these same agendas seem to be at the cause of the so-called economic crisis creating the need for bailouts and swift action in the first place. But if things are that bad, maybe we shouldn’t be bailing out a bad system. Maybe it’s time for a revolution.

To the shock of many yesterday morning one media man spoke of on-air revolution with only part of his tongue-in-cheek. Rick Santelli, CNBC trade floor correspondent to the Chicago Board of Trade created a mild controversy when he ranted on air opposing the presidents housing bailout plan with boisterous agreement from those in attendance.

CNBC anchors concluded discussing the 275-billion-dollar mortage plan and Santelli immediately let loose his angry chiding vocative, “Mr. Ross has nailed it. The government is promoting bad behavior. We certainly don’t want to put stimulus pork and give people a whopping $8 or $10 in their check and think that they ought to save it.”

Throughout Santelli’s relatively unrestrained monologue traders on the floor cheered, hissed, and booed akin to detractors in a British parliament session. Santelli continued his vitriol:

“This is America! (turning to nearby traders)

“How many people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgages that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills? Raise their hand! (crowd reacts loudly)

“President Obama, are you listening?”

One trader in the foreground interjects live, “Why don’t we all stop paying our mortgage. It’s a moral hazard.”

Asked about the benefit of lowering interest rates to 2% Santelli responded, “You could go to -2% and they still can’t afford the house,” and the anchor asks why we are trying to keep people in their houses and Santelli implodes:

I mean I know Mr. Summers is a great economist but boy I’d love the answer to that one,” with more cheers from the floor.

“We’re thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up at Lake Michigan I’m going to start organizing.”

The crowd whistles and cheers and another anchor asks, “What are you dumping in this time?” to which Santelli responds with sardonic calm, “I think we’ll be dumping some derivative securities.”

After more mildly humorous revoluationary references another remote guest to the show says to Santelli, “I congratulate you on your new incarnation as a revolutionary leader.”

Somebody needs one. If you read our founding fathers, people like Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson, what we are doing in this country is making them roll over in their graves.”

Though this humble reporter thinks the founding fathers might be less rolling in their graves and more rolling their eyes at the sad cyclic nature of the human condition, politics, and civilization. What is happening now in the U.S. and around the world seems inevitable given how prone humans are for preservation of self-interest coupled with our propensity for ignoring detrimental other-realities threatening those self-interests.

I am not sharing this incident because I agree or disagree with Santelli. Nor because I have insight into the economy worth adding, there are plenty of folks doing that . Nor do I think that such highly charged emotional on-air diatribes and pleas are that rare. Keith Olberman and Bill O’Reilly do it every night.

What is different about Rick Santelli’s mocking call to action is that he doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who typically agitates for revolution, seriously or not. He appears someone who is mad as hell and actually, almost, not going to take it anymore.

So, I’m commenting on the Santelli Tea Party because regardless of what side of the aisle you stand, it does seem that some kind of revolution is in the air. Lifestyles of excess and convenience that began in the 50’s seems to have run their course. The U.S. is not the unilateral powerhouse it once was. More people are conscious of possibilites and consequences of finite resources in the face of seemingly endless population growth. Whimsical and not-so-blissfully ignorant understanding of how global economies work and the implications of failure are fresh in the human consciousness.

People are losing their homes and their jobs. For people in places like the U.S. and Britain people are starting to taste the struggle of their ancestors past and of daily life in smaller countries around the world to this day.

In general folks from every walk of life around the world can sense that something isn’t quite right and are no longer willing to simply accept colorful rhetoric gloss over from their leaders. Statements such as those from Santelli seem to be just a precursor to a much larger dialog starting to take place, in the media, at work, in the malls, and in our homes. ‘The people’ seem to be remembering that have a voice, and they better well start using it before things get worse.

What do you think? Should we continue propping up existing economic and govermental systems and policies? Or is it time for a revolution? And if so what does that “better” world look like?

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