This week, I plan to head to New York City to join scores of American citizens who’ve decided that Wall Street should be confronted for the financial crimes that have been committed against the American people. It is an awkward reunion for me as a Finance Professor, since I have hundreds of former students who’ve gone on to make millions as Wall Street employees. So, perhaps it is because of my intimate understanding of the gospel of Finance that I can also see the dangers of creating a society that has come to believe that making money is the trump card that justifies nearly all sins against humanity…..almost like the doctor who can tell when the patient has become addicted to the drug that was originally designed to heal him.
There are a long list of reasons that all of us should be concerned, disappointed and even angry about what Wall Street has done to our country. The real wage of the average American worker has remained stagnant, while the gap between the rich and the poor has risen to levels that are unsustainable in nearly any civilized society. We live under the illogical reality that those who caused the financial crisis by taking unnecessary risks were the first ones to be bailed out by politicians who are enslaved by campaign contributions and lobbying groups. Labor unions have been undermined throughout the nation, and while the joblessness problems persists, corporations are sitting on trillions in capital that could be used to hire American workers.
I am honored to be an American when I see that thousands of us have simply taken our country back from those who’ve denied their responsibility to properly regulate the power of capitalism in our society. Free enterprise can be a wonderful thing, but when capitalism is not properly controlled, it can become as deadly as an economic forest fire.
The African American community has every reason to be on the front lines in this battle for our nation’s economic soul. Black unemployment has skyrocketed to levels that haven’t been seen since Michael Jackson released Thriller. Nearly half (40%) of all black children are living below the poverty line. Black wealth has continued to shrink, as the burst of the real estate bubble left many African Americans either homeless or upside down in their mortgages. Black families have been destroyed by the prison industrial complex, where Wall Street firms earn billions each year from slave labor. Also, several Wall Street banks deliberately targeted black and brown communities for predatory loans that put grandma out of the house she’d lived in since Malcolm X was alive. CONTINUE READING
© 2011 – 2012, Dr. Boyce Watkins. All rights reserved.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is one of the leading financial scholars and social commentators in America. He advocates for education, economic empowerment and social justice and has changed the definition of what it means to be a Black scholar and leader in America.
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