The Greek debt is making the financiers of the world nervous these days. While the Greek people are being vilified, the bankers are getting off scot free. Citizens around the world need to ensure that they don’t take the bait. Kill the bankers and give birth to a better way.

The Greeks are in trouble. They have just been bailed out by the EU to the tune of $110 billion euros. The chastising has begun. According to many, the Greeks cannot afford to keep living high off the hog. The CBC radio program Dispatches had a segment last week saying the problem was due to Greek citizens not paying enough tax because they do not declare enough of their under the table income. CBC’s Don Pittis smugly said the Greek people blamed everyone (the “plutocracy” and the IMF), but “they didn't blame themselves.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Europe this week said, “I don’t think we should forget that the primary crisis here, the fundamental crisis, is not in the financial sector. It is in the finances of certain government.” Unbelievably Harper went on to say that the Canadian government has a “solid plan” to finance our debt and “urged other countries to follow his lead and create exit strategies from the stimulus measures.”

Of course Harper’s plan to wipe out the $56 billion deficit in Canada is just as pie in the sky as the Greek’s. Harper can provide zero evidence that his ‘stimulus’ plan did anything but. In reality it was doled out like Halloween candy with no long term economic strategy. The only criteria was that recipients be shovel ready and be in a Conservative riding (or at least have the potential to be). The strategy was pure political opportunism.

While austerity measures loom, the banking industry is going gangbusters. One thing is for sure, the stimulus money has benefitted the bankers. They are reaping record profits with the bailout money. Having received $173 billion in government bailout, AIG will be giving 73 employees bonuses of over $1 million. Goldman Sachs is paying out $5 billion in bonuses this year. This despite being sued for helping cause the financial crisis to begin with by selling prime mortgage derivatives to clients while at the same time betting the housing bubble was going to burst. The chief executive of Goldman Sachs is being rewarded with a $100 million bonus.

Thankfully Rick Salutin of the Globe and Mail put things into perspective. He wrote,

The Globe and Mail sermonized, “Greeks have been living beyond their means for years, with extravagant social benefits and fudged public accounting,” although you could easily switch “bankers and speculators” for “Greeks.”

First, the people, through their governments, are told to bail out banks by taking over their toxic assets to save the world. Then the bankers, who just this week declared huge profits, turn and tell governments to slash public spending, such as wages and pensions, to cover the deficits incurred in the bailouts. The people absorb the hit both times....

So it falls to the people, an honourable if antiquated category, to make some of those critical moral points. It’s worth listening to what they say, and not just to those who insult, demean and dismiss them.

There are three myths that need to be rectified. 1. The need to pay for talent. Paying millions of dollars to ‘talented’ people who helped destroy the economy needs to end immediately. 2. Banks needed to be bailed out or else the economy would have crumbled. To date there has been no evidence that this would have happened. None. We were just supposed to take this on faith. 3. Private business knows best. The people who caused the problem definitely should not be in charge of solving it. The people should be.

We should have let the market weed out the bankers who made poor decisions. Governments should have bought the banks at market value (which was pretty much zero). The banks should have been turned into credit unions, where the citizens decide how their financial institutions are run, where the stimulus should go, and how much people are paid.

Instead of playing the financial derivative casino and flipping houses, actions that did not increase productivity or create any real wealth, we need to start investing our money in ways that benefit real people.

We need to start investing in our houses by retrofitting them so that they produce a surplus of energy to be sold to utility companies. Instead of taking out instant loans on your house, your house could be a real source of income.

We need to create a transportation system based on rail and public transit. We need to create denser cities where citizens can more easily walk and bike. We need to create a food system that is locally based. With oil peaking, we need to ensure that we are not wasting the oil that remains. We need to transition our economy from oil and coal to renewable energy. We need businesses that are accountable and responsive to the community, that are democratic, where the workers and the community run the business (as in a solidarity co-operative).

Governments around the world have spent $2.6 trillion, plus guaranteed an additional $2.7 trillion in loans. Most of it has been spent foolishly in ways that will reap few results in the long term. At its worst it has been a handout to bankers who give it out to themselves as bonuses. This has been the biggest scam of the century. It is time to call in the loans. The people can do much better. A better world is possible. Do you believe?