Howard Beale Meets Frank Capra in Bailout Plan Aftermath

The suggestion that the interests of Wall Street stand diametrically against those of Main Street is dangerous populism.

In the American Senate, the committee of Foreign Affairs is called Committee on Foreign Relations. In the House of Representatives, the name of the equivalent committee is slight different: Committee on Foreign Affairs. A senator once explained the difference as follows: senators have relationships; members of the House are only capable of having affairs.

Something of that boastfulness in the Senate – where a term lasts 6 years, while the delegates have to justify themselves towards the voters every two years – came to the forefront this week after the ‘world’s largest debating club’ had accepted the rescue plan for the credit crisis. The Democratic Senate majority leader, Harry Reid [1] from Nevada, and the Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell [2] from Kentucky, did not only praise each other extensively, but also applauded the Senate as an institution that shows itself decisive when needed. The House – where the rescue plan unexpectedly shipwrecked three days earlier – had to show itself from its flexible side, as McConnell subtly reminded.

At the moment that this piece is being written, it’s not known yet whether these words have been taken to heart. The House was scheduled to vote again yesterday about the plan, and generally the expectation is that there will be no hurdle anymore, partially because various sweeteners have been included in the law design in the meantime, with which the suspicious supporters can somewhat be appeased, such as intensifying extra fiscal deductions and more money for disaster control.

Rage

But even if the adjusted plan passes through the House, the vote will not drastically alter the country. Besides fear and insecurity, a lot of rage dominates, which is being fed by both rightist as leftist sentiments. Howard Beale meets Frank Capra – that’s how the national feeling could be typified.

Frank Capra is the director of film classics such as Meet John Doe, It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Movies that are drenched in a kind of Christian-socialistic ethics. The pattern is always the same: the little man who gets attacked or is threatened to be corrupted by big money, but whose simple, good nature finally conquers evil.

Howard Beale is the name of the anchorman who is one of the lead characters in the renowned movie Network. His position is at stake because of declining viewing rates, he suffers from seizures, but a slick producer manages to forge him in becoming the interpreter of the rage for everything the average American can no longer control.

State intervention has got nothing to do with socialism, but everything with pragmatism. At a certain moment, he calls for his viewers to open the window and yell outside, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” His outbursts of anger are being heard and his wound-up news show becomes a smashing success.

(Film fragment Network [3])

Wall Street

With his nontransparent activities and speculators who have earned millions of dollars via shady constructions, Wall Street these days is the perfect target for an already lingering people’s anger. And let this be clear: a financial adventurism has taken hold there that goes beyond all limits and that urgently needs to be reigned in. Irresponsible, shortsighted bankers and stockbrokers carry the first responsibility of the credit crisis.

That is why it’s so unfortunate that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson – former COO of business bank Goldman Sachs – from the beginning used the term bailout for his rescue plan. Because that involuntarily suggests that mainly the fat cats with their top salaries and bonuses need to be salvaged. The rescue operation should of course center in first place around the savers and honorable investors.

Main Street

But however justified the criticism is on the practices of the financial sector, it takes a wrong turn when the suggestion is made that the interests of Wall Street stand diametrically opposite those of Main Street. That is a dangerous populism. A far-reaching disruption of the money market is in considerable time a danger for the entire economic traffic. Banks keep their wallets closed, entrepreneurs postpone investments, employment is affected, and consumers have less to spend. Therefore it is good that the government intervenes and puts things in order. That has nothing to do with socialism, but everything with pragmatism, as The Economist soberly remarked.[4]

Populist resentments against Wall Street historically exist mostly in Democratic circles. But in this crisis, it’s the Republican Party, once the trustee of large banks and companies that wreaks most havoc. Especially in the House, a considerable group of ideological diehards has settled, that rather risk a firm recession than deviate from their doctrinarian line. Casually they also jeopardize their own presidential candidate.

On the condition that his party does not get weak knees, Barack Obama can now wrap himself in the robe of the responsible statesman. He realizes that not Iraq and Afghanistan, but the recovery of American capitalism, outlines itself as the biggest challenge for the next president. Who has to borrow his inspiration more from a Roosevelt (New Deal) than from an Eisenhower (exit Korea).

Fragment on the New Deal from the BBC4-documentary “The Century of the Self.* [5]

1:http://reid.senate.gov/

2:http://mcconnell.senate.gov/

3:http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08

4:http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12341996

5:http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_self.shtml