Comment Text:
Submitter Info:
First Name: Eric
Last Name: Hanson
Mailing Address: 4444 Upton Avenue South
City: Minneapolis
Country: United States
State or Province: MN
Postal Code: 55410-1930
In recent decades America has shifted from an economy based on productivity to one that earns its profits exploiting vulnerabilities and asymmetries. This is neither sustainable or wise. Concentrated wealth has no national loyalty or societal obligation. The core motive for deregulation is to increase the exploitable vulnerabilities and restrict vulnerability to the middle and lower classes. I can't think of a better definition of "predatory" than this. Our government needs to be responsive to the broader population, not just catering to the moneyed client class. "Efficiency", which is invoked as a holy ideal by financial corporations, works two ways. It should work for the just convenience and benefit of the consumer as well as for the swift and unhindered delivery of profits, however unfairly gotten, to the banker and his shareholder masters. Failure to look at efficiency both ways will ultimately destroy the more productive economy we've enjoyed over the past half century, one sustained by a large and prosperous middle class, one based upon productivity and creativity, not upon clever maneuvering of wealth from the vulnerable to the powerful.
