Permission Slip

When we got rid of George W. Bush, it was a bit refreshing because I had thought that perhaps the dictator vibe would no longer exist in the White House. I may have been incorrect.

In a recent New York Times Magazine article, Barack Obama says that “Wall Street will remain a big, important part of our economy” but it “won’t be half of our economy.” The comment that struck me, however, was this one:

That means that more talent, more resources will be going to other sectors of the economy. I actually think that’s healthy. We don’t want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader. We want some of them to go into engineering, and we want some of them to be going into computer design.

When the fuck did Obama become the all-powerful, all-knowing god who decides which student goes into which field?

As for the remark about Wall Street, Obama seems to be pandering nicely to the segment of Americans who view our economy—essentially a free market with regulations—as something that the government simply “creates” and then changes at will. If Wall Street became a big part of the economy, it did so due to the free-market aspect of the economy. In turn, we can’t just wave a magic wand and decide that Wall Street will be a certain percentage of the economy because we want it to be that percentage.

This is, however, a belief that many people no doubt have. For example, I work with a few people who view employment in these terms: companies give people jobs because that’s what they’re supposed to do; when a company lays people off, the government should order them to give people their jobs back; supply and demand are foreign concepts that are just theories talked about by university professors.

It pains me to say it, but I had to explain to a few adults that businesses, banks, and government are not separate entities in our economy—each affects the other. A few months ago I had one colleague who became angry when the banks received bailout money before General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. Her view was that banks already “have” money, since that’s what banks “have.” While common-sense would tell us that the main reason that banks got bailout funds first was because the financial sector are big campaign donors to Washington, another reason that banks were first in line was because they can affect businesses—in this case, car manufacturers.

I explained that if banks had money, they could provide customers loans. If customers have a loan, they can buy a car. If they buy a car, it keeps the car manufacturers afloat. When I told my colleague about this action-reaction-action-reaction order of our economy, she gave me a look that was either an “I don’t get it” look or an “I never thought of that” look. Maybe it was neither; maybe it was a mixture of both. It was difficult to discern.

Either way, hopefully Obama will let me keep my little percentage of the World Wide Web via this blog and he—or his followers—won’t decide that I should be focusing my talent elsewhere.

Reference

“Obama: Wall Street Will Play Less Dominant Role.” ABC News. 2 May 2009.

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