老美看美国：How Revolutions Start---US Baiout of AIG

THE U.S. BAILOUT OF AIG

HOW REVOLUTIONS START

Roger Snyder

(03/20/2009)

The bailout of AIG has reached epic proportions, $170 billion.

The most recent public furor, however, isn’t about the $170billion the government has loaned AIG to survive. It’s about the $165 million that AIG has paid to executives in bonuses. These are the same executives that drove AIG into the situation it is in now. These are the same “traders” that made the poor financial investments that resulted in the American taxpayer loaning them $170 billion. The taxpayer is upset, and rightfully so, that some of this money they have loaned is now going to pay bonuses ( some of the bonuses are over $1million ) to the very people who have created this mess!

Let’s put this in perspective. The average taxpayer needs a little over 23 years to earn $1 million. Now, this same “poor” taxpayer is asked to “loan” these guys money for their annual bonus that is greater than 23 years of their own hard work? No wonder the public is in an outrage and AIG has had to hire private security to protect their offices.

This is how revolutions start. From within the borders of a country! Systems become corrupt, politics and money become bed mates. There is no room for others in this bed of corruption and greed.

The masses, the people, are generally accepting of their position in life. They strive neither for power in money or politics. They are content to have their families well fed, have a roof over their head, have their children educated and live out their years without too much worry. They basically want to feel that they are treated fairly and are not trampled on or abused by those in power.

When the masses feel that they have been abused the crescendo of their voices has often led to changes in their societies that have not always been peaceful. The unfortunate situation for those “in power” is that they are not very many. The masses represent the vast majority of the population. Great armies in history have turned against their “government” because most of those in the military are the children of the “masses”. Most people have national pride, but their family is closer.

The past 500 years of world history has seen this before.

France – the “Sun King” and Marie Antoinette. When the masses had no more bread to eat, she flippantly said “let them eat cake”.

Vietnam – a historical blunder of the U.S. militarily and economically. There was no way to win the war or gain the trust of the “people” even in the south of the country. The U.S. was viewed by the masses as upholding the very system that kept them down. They, the masses, had nothing to lose, and perhaps even nothing to gain. But, by sympathizing with the communist north they could at least exact punishment on those who had kept them down.

Iran – The Shah of Iran, 1979. Overthrown and escaped into exile in Egypt, the people had had enough of a corrupt system where wealth and power had become very concentrated in the hands of a very few. The religious background of the country culturally made it a fertile garden for the type of change that eventually came, a “Theocracy” of Islam, a change that the people then welcomed. But, it too has now become corrupt and the young people there today want change because the theocracy has become powerful and regulates so much of people’s lives.

Romania – Nicolas Ceausescu. A ruthless leader and dictator, the masses had had enough of him and his wife and his son. His own troops essentially turned on him and took him and his wife out and shot them. Government change at the end of a gun!

Mao once said that political power comes at the end of a gun.

The U.S. says political power comes at voting booth.

The U.S. masses goes to vote. But the U.S. government practices what Mao preached.

President Obama showed his outrage at the bonuses as did nearly every member of Congress. They aren’t so worried about guns and being overthrown in the classical sense of “coup de tat”, but rather they are worried about being overthrown at the voting booth when elections come around again.

The U.S. government’s impotence in being able to halt these bonuses to AIG executives, paid from taxpayer funds, shows the people that the government has little power over the very laws and deals that it makes.

When people see that their government can’t protect them or takes from them, they have often taken matters into their own hands.

I doubt that this situation would occur in China. The government is much more aware of the restlessness of the masses. While the U.S. leaders spew words and little action in this situation, I think that in China it would never occurred in the first place – the government would have simply said “no money for bonuses”. That’s it. Done! The government would never compromise a situation that could be so explosive with the very masses who were asked to bailout the sick firm.

While corruption exists in both societies, in both governments, I doubt the Chinese government would ever want to be seen by the hundreds of millions of masses as have taken their money to give a bunch of loser executives’ bonuses that represented 23 years of hard work of the average citizen.

That’s how revolutions start.

(此为LG 罗 杰的新鲜出炉的文章，中文翻译稍后奉上)