Its been ten years since the most memorable event of my lifetime occurred. The story for the last ten years has been the tragedy and the loss of life. There has also been the emphasis on the heroism of those first responders who went plunging in despite all the signs to the contrary. I think these two should be the prevailing memories of 9-11. However, its funny how this country and the culture has evolved since that day. The politics of 2001 seemed to be so strong. This patriotism that motivated us into a war is now replaced by patriotism that is confused by economics. 9-11 was the one event that evolved into a non-partisan philosophy in this country. There were different degrees of anger but it was almost universal that some kind of response would be required, specifically a violent response (again in different grades). The one thing that has become apparent since that day, is that it is one of those things that will be talked about 100 years from now. Just like Pearl Harbor is something that everyone learns about in school, my kids will one day spend a day in class learning about what happened that day and everything that occurred afterwards.
But something happened in 2008, thirty years of economic terrorism by certain investment banks, fueled by the greed of this country to own everything, created one of the biggest economic downturns in the history of the world. I won't go into details, that everyone knows, of the subprime bomb that exploded in late 2007 and 2008. It was thirty in the years in making stemming from changes in the investment banking industry. Throw in the internet the rapid spread of information and the subprime boom was the equivalent of a legal ponzi scheme on steroids. With all the public outrage over Bernie Madoff, no one seems to have had the same anger towards Goldman Sachs and the other investment banks who cheated the world (not just this country) by operating under the pretense of being money managers and a bank, but in reality they were just operating for their own bottom line. The customers' profit margin and the people in those subprime markets were just tools in their trade to make their own balance sheets look better.
Now I can never say what those terrorists did on those planes in 2001 was right. And there is no caveat to that but in the grand scheme of history what will be deemed worse for this country? These banks and the subprime market wrecked the global economy. Within the boundaries of this country they costs hundreds of thousands of people their jobs, their homes and their future. We are still trying to figure out how to regulate it so that it can't happen again. Ultimately its hard to argue with murder and especially mass murder. I see those videos and tv specials where they show the families who lost their love ones and the pain in their eyes that exists even ten years later. The magnitude of 9-11 is difficult to understand even now because it was such a senseless tragedy and loss of life that came from that day and the subsequent wars that were fought in the name of 9-11 cannot be measured against financial disasters. So in the end those guys from Goldman and AIG who played fast and loose can sleep easy that they weren't as bad those monsters.
But I think we can refer to them in a new way -- social terrorists. They were social terrorists in that the financial disaster they created has had far reaching effects on the social structure of this country and the world. These events may have accelerated China's rise to becoming the preeminent economic power in the world. It has created this arbitrary partisan politics that politicians have used to confuse the public with economic policies that probably will have no impact on the economy, except to cause panic in the markets. In the end they are guilty of terrible crimes that will most likely have longer and greater impacts in history then 9-11 will because their crimes and the devastation left behind will impact a couple of generations.
The only thing you can say is that God will ultimately judge and punish the terrorists responsible for 9-11. I just hope history will be judge these parasites from Wall Street.
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