Global Soul Searching

Wrongdoing by the political leadership, exploitation of the middle class in the United States and Europe and pushing environmental protection out of the public discourse… The world’s high holy days.

Yom Kippur [Day of atonement] is not meant for Gentiles, so it’s said. They have been blessed with an option (apparently) for permanent forgiveness through the suffering of Jesus Christ or alternatively, a short confession in the cold Catholic church. And still, the hard and burning year passing over the world invites theological flexibility and requires a brief account of major global sins.

These are not offenses to be forgiven on the Day of atonement. “For sins between man and God, Yom Kippur atones. But for sins between a man and his fellow, Yom Kippur does not atone until he appeases his fellow,” teaches the [Talmud] tractate Yoma, and the following violations are all between the people and the world. A word of warning: this is a text adapted to Yom Kippur, before Slihot.*

Wrapping up such a year begs a question: what do we need leaders for? The good and dedicated voters of Western Europe went to the polls and chose determined, sophisticated and ambitious politicians. In the United States, the whole nation united to elect a Democrat president, and then sent those supposed to be its best to Congress. These chieftains were supposed to grapple with the economic crisis that befell the globe and threatened to cast the shadow of great depression on all of us.

It’s time to mention, of course, that this was the political leadership that has brought us, from the start, to adventures without cover and to a debt mire. It’s enough to think of George Bush in order to figure out how. This reminder does not change the fact discovered by the West this year: the political and economic leadership is not courageous enough to save the entire world from one of the harshest economic crises it has ever known.

In Washington, President Obama demonstrates limited political ability. He managed, upon his election, to pass an economic stimulus plan and avert a total economic downfall. Since then, the United States has drifted between lukewarm to negative indexes of economic health, with faltering growth and high unemployment. One in six Americans is poor. Forty million Americans receive food stamps.

Toothless Bureaucracy

The giant financial organizations were back to distributing bonuses and announced the end of rationing, but at the moment they find themselves again in the swamp of toxic assets — this time, laid open to the poisonous assets in Europe. Europe itself verifies the negative image that was linked to the European Union. The opponents of the union have always brought up the dictatorship of the “Euro-bureaucracy,” but now, a graver truth has become obvious: the bureaucracy exists, but has no teeth.

The Europeans have already stood for months on the brink of financial collapse that by all accounts, will drag the whole world into a renewed and sharp recession. The credit downgrade is accompanied by rising unemployment figures, difficulties in selling state bonds, dangerous exposure to the Greek tragedy, contraction of the southern economies of the E.U. and even more news ranging from very bad to monstrously bad.

Who’s missing in this gloomy picture? The ones who are expected to pull us out of this. The political superiors. Obama is right in wanting to cancel tax breaks for the wealthy, courtesy of the Bush family. Obama is right in his desire to encourage, in a Keynesian way, the real American economy. Obama is right in his proposal for massive cuts and not less investment in infrastructure.

The problem is not his being right but rather his political qualifications. The Republicans, on their side, make every effort to burn the club down. In our case, the club is the planet. One minute they authorize exaggerated expenses in Congress and the next they refuse to raise the debt ceiling — to pay for these exact obligations. At every other point in history, the House of Representatives did not hesitate to elevate the debt ceiling. The face of the current Congress is painted with the colors of the tea party war. Populism reigns.

“Winning isn’t the most important thing; it’s the only thing.”

In Europe, the state of affairs is equally bad, with leaders who are afraid to tell their publics the truth: Greece is not the problem of the euro zone; the euro zone and the present system is the issue. The European Union without a budgetary union is an economic disaster.

The payment the Germans and the French are to deliver now is designed to rescue themselves as well, more than just the Spaniards or the Greeks. Stuttering political leadership, scared and confused, is currently guiding the democratic West. That kind of sin brings along heavy punishments to all of us.

Over the last 10 days, the American protest against Wall Street has spread around. What had begun with 10 students in New York, is turning into a mass protest movement on the East and the West Coast. “We are the 99 percent,” the demonstrators say, and you need to understand America to realize the power of this message.

In the United States, one of the basic foundations of the nation is the individual potential for success. For decades, the myth of the land of unlimited opportunities was invented and perfected; here riches can be gained by means being forged in the fires of boiling competition. Anybody who once played baseball, football or chess against an American is acquainted with this mighty competitor instinct, the sentiment which asserts that “winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”

And now come these protesters, young and vigorous, a lot of them from elite universities, chanting that they are a part of the American masses which are not rich. That won’t ever be rich. They are the 99 percent. In the name of this solidarity against Wall Street, the sticky principles of American soap operas get abandoned; ideas about our exceptionalism and the chance that we all, everyone, will prosper.

Impoverishment of the Middle Class

That was sort of the case 60 years ago. American financial institutions provided credit for small and medium-sized businesses striving to succeed. American workers enjoyed respectable salaries allowing them to send their children to college. The ratio between the wages of CEOs and of employees was 1 to 40.

60 years later, the average salary of a big company CEO is 400 times higher than that of the employee who earns the most modest paycheck. 83 percent of the shares traded on the stock exchange in the United States, are held in the hands of one percent of the population. 66 percent of the growth between 2001 and 2007 was made by one percent of the population.

In the open, liberal and competitive America, an average staffer in the governmental sector earns 60 percent more than an employee in the private sector — and it’s not because the government pays a lot. In 2009, the average bonus on the Wall Street was 17 percent higher than in 2008 (the year when the economic crisis occurred). Credit card debt grew eight times over the past 30 years. On one hand, there is a phenomenon of the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few; on the other hand, there is an increasing impoverishment of the middle class.

Our Grandchildren Will Pay for Our Failures

Anyone who wishes for the continued existence of capitalism, primarily the most affluent and the owners of financial institutions, should have been very worried about this picture. It is likely to eliminate the whole economic model. But someone who made $20 million in bonuses during the last year thinks not about the future: he is settled, and so are his grandchildren.

And environmental protection has been steadily dropping out of the ongoing global discourse. This is how it goes under the economic crisis: politicians cannot tackle stuff like that which costs money in the short term, but saves in the long run. The external costs of air pollution and global warming will be paid by our children and grandchildren, but in the days of unemployment and recession, there isn’t the political capacity to handle them.

Up until several years ago, these matters were on the top of the global agenda. For the moment, when whole continents are moving toward guaranteed catastrophes and oil prices are in free fall, there’s no sense to deal with the rate of melting glaciers.

So here’s a selection of this week’s news: in the Arctic circle, the amount of ice is almost at an unparalleled historical nadir. According to the U.N., by 2050 climate change will cause 200 million people to leave their homes. And new research is now examining whether animals will keep shrinking because of the global warming. These are transgressions which are not making headlines, but that doesn’t diminish their consequences. May you be signed and sealed in the book of life.**

*Translator’s note: Jewish penitential poems and prayers, especially those said in the period leading up to the high holidays, and on fast days.

**Translator’s note: A greeting used on Yom Kippur.