The American Spectator

Ben Stein's Diary

Heroes and Traitors

By Ben Stein from the November 2008 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Anyway, I gave my speech, took a nap, and headed home to D.C. with my wifey by my side.

Phil DeMuth called to tell me the stock market was down 700 points and I felt sick. You cannot imagine how hard I have worked for my savings and now because of major incompetence on Wall Street, major incompetence in the government, and (what I am sure is) a conspiracy to wreck the financial system, I am losing a huge chunk of my savings. This is not an accident. This was human misconduct on a titanic scale, mostly having to do with credit default swaps, terrifying financial instruments that are, as Warren Buffett called them, “weapons of financial mass destruction.” He thought they would be latent for a while and now they are blowing up the whole world. I think the wet work, as we spy novel readers call it, was done by cunning traders in New York and London. But it might as well have been done by the Taliban or by al Qaeda.

I wonder if there is a crime based on economic treason. If not, there should be.

Everyone told us to save. We did save. They told us to save most in the stock market. We did. We diversified. NOTHING WORKED except having it in Treasury bonds or guaranteed CDs. We citizens didn’t do anything wrong and we got looted fantastically. The system has been hollowed out by thieves and gangsters in pinstripe suits. And Henry Paulson just sat there sucking his thumb and asking for even less regulation and Chris Cox did the same over at the SEC.

Wow. Why was the market down so much? Because the House of Representatives voted down the big bailout package for the banks. Why did they do that? Because Americans are disgusted with Wall Street sucking money out of us like giant ticks, growing fat and bloated with our blood. We don’t want to give them still more money, especially under the supervision of Paulson, who never remotely did a thing to save us from the unfolding catastrophe and is only in it to help out his ultra-rich Wall Street buddies.

It is a stinky bailout, but it has to be passed anyway. It is really, really sad.

It is almost unbelievable the damage the finance people have done. Never in peacetime has so much damage been done to so many by so few. Paid the most in history by the citizens to do the most harm in history to the citizens. Treason. Or something like it.

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu.

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