Mr. Freeze the Financial Curmudgeon: Getting Spanked by “The Invisible Hand”
I, MR. FREEZE, AM REALLY P…….ED OFF! I HATE BEING LIED TO. I HATE PROPAGANDA. I HATE LIARS, THIEVES, AND HALF-TRUTHS. MR. FREEZE IS SICK AND TIRED OF LISTENING TO THE “VIRTUES” OF THE FREE MARKET AND HOW IT WILL “REGULATE ITSELF”…….WOULD THE WEALTHY FINANCIAL CLASS QUIT SAYING THIS? IT JUST ISN’T TRUE. MR. FREEZE SAYS SHUT UP. MR. FREEZE HATES BEING SPANKED BY THE INVISIBLE HAND.Until now, I, Mr. Freeze the Financial Curmudgeon have been silent on the the Financial/Credit Crisis, a crisis that has literally gripped the world economy by the throat. It threatens our way of life. It has destroyed our credibility in world markets and our confidence in our own institutions. It has tanked the real estate market. It has made our retirement nest eggs dwindle to the size of apple seeds. What makes Mr. Freeze more angry than anything is the fact that NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR THE TRUTH: Unregulated American Capitalism has failed! Those of you who believe that the free market can do no wrong need only look at your dwindling wealth, your childrens’ shrinking college fund and the number of zeros in the $700 Billion rich man’s bailout (oh….I’m sorry, rescue!). 
The High Priest of Capitalism himself, Alan Greenspan, admitted as much before Congress this week. Swallowing his pseudo-naive Libertarian pride, the exchange went like this:
Congressman Henry Waxman asked: “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?”
Mr. Greenspan: “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”
Mr. Greenspan, who was without a doubt the most powerful man in the world said the following:”Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder’s equity — myself especially are in a state of shocked disbelief.”
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I’m not buying it. For the last 30 years the wealthy special interests who run this country have convinced “Joe the Plumber” (AKA Mr. I-never-paid-attention-in-class) that government was the problem and that if business made more money with fewer taxes and no regulations, wealth would trickle down to the “little people.” Life would be grand. Well, my friends, Mr. Freeze has more bad news: wealth has been spread around (redistributed), but not how you think:
“The mega-rich of today are as wealthy as any Americans have been at any time in our history, arguably richer. In 2004, a household in the top 1 percent of incomes pulled in an annual average of $940,000. That’s just the rich. If you wanted to be among the mega-rich (the top tenth of that 1 percent) in 2004, you had to earn an average of $4.5 million. to be filthy rich, a true Midas in the top one-hundredth of the top 1 percent, you needed $20 million a year. That’s $385,000 a week.”
“From 1990 to 2004, real income increased just 2 percent for Americans below the top 10 percent of earners. But in that same time, the real income increased 57 percent for the top 1 percent and 112 percent for the top 0.01 percent. To put it in wider perspective, economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez found that the top 10 percent of earners in 2004 made 42.9 percent of everything that Americans earned. The top 1 percent alone gobbled up 16.2 percent of total income. The distribution of wealth and income has not been so out of whack since the 1920’s, if then.” (p.222 Why We Hate Us by Dick Meyer)
My friends, Mr. Freeze feels your pain. Mr. Freeze would like to make it all better, but Mr. Freeze knows that many of you can’t believe that it wasn’t government that was picking our pockets. No, no, no, it was the greed and corruption of investors and speculators and their influence over politicians. Ultimately, deregulation let the criminals do whatever they wanted. Before Mr. Freeze goes to bed tonight and cries himself to sleep, Mr. Freeze would like to share a video from tonight’s 60 Minutes that explains why unregulated human nature and the free market” are a deadly combination. Just click on the picture below.
