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Why Capitalism Is Bad for You, Part 1000000etc.etc.

Robert Reich, at TPM Cafe, explaining recent developments in our ongoing capitalist royal screw-up:

While Washington debates TARP II, the Federal Reserve Board continues to buy or guarantee or provide loans for a vast and growing pile of questionable financial and corporate assets, much of which are likely to be worth far less than the Fed has paid or guaranteed or accepted as collateral. We're talking big money here -- so far over $2.4 trillion. (The entire TARP -- parts I and II -- in combination with the proposed stimulus package come to just over $1.5 trillion.)

Taxpayers are on the hook for this Fed bailout money, too, of course. We have to pay the interest on the ever-growing debt used to make these payments or guarantees and loans.

The system fails everyone but the world's owners. When they profit, they keep the money. When they fail, we pay. Of course they are going to be irresponsible.

It is important to note, of course, that those who think of themselves as capitalists on a small scale — not the world's owners, the multinational corporations, but small business owners or the self-employed — are not capitialists in any important sense. They are getting screwed by the system as much as anyone.

It is time to toss capitalism into the dustbin of history. Alongside religion. And "reality" TV.