cypher's Journal

The economic conditions have taken a dire turn, with people who have worked their entire lives losing their employment, security and homes. People who have always done what was expected of them and been good citizens are being punished with financial insecurity and threats of dire

 consequences. The Great Depression of the 1930's may offer some lessons for government officials and greedy corporate pirates. 

The talk of the greed of financial institutions and automotive companies has had the taxpaying public in an uproar for the past few weeks. AIG has especially drawn the ire of taxpaying citizens, by taking their bailout money and giving multi-million dollar bonuses to their executives. The same executives who drove the company into needing the bailout to begin with have been rewarded with big bucks bonuses. 

It is important that people not forget the abuses by the big money corporations who have been buoyed up by the U.S. government, while the middle class citizens are being allowed to fail, lose their jobs, lose their savings and lose their homes. 

During the Depression the public sentiment against banks and financial institutions was strong because financial losses caused people to lose their homes and farms. The era opened the door for the 1930's gangsters to become folk heroes. Even though the gangsters were criminals, killers and robbers; honest citizens admired their ability to take what they wanted and needed. 

According to information on the FBI website, the economic conditions during the Depression made folk heroesof bank robbers and criminals such as John Dillinger, Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde and Pretty Boy Floyd. 

Gangster Pretty Boy Floyd would rob banks, but while he was at it he would also tear up mortgages, while standing right in the bank. He took money for himself, but he also gave some of it away, making him a Robin Hood like folk hero. People in his region would not turn him in to the law enforcement or reveal his whereabouts because they related to the gangster more than law officers or the bankers that they saw as enemies. 

Honest citizens may not have gone out and robbed banks at gunpoint but they had a certain amount of admiration for the bandits who did. While I am not one to condone violence, the greedy corporations and government should take a cautionary note from history. People will not stand for the

 financial abuses we have seen recently for long. 

The U.S. government and companies like AIG, who have demonstrated poor management and stewardship of federal tax bailout dollars, should take note of the public sentiment of the Great Depression and the current disgust that taxpayers have with the wasteful spending of corporate pirates.

The United States citizens should not become complacent with the business as usual attitude seen in government and business. Even though executives have taken home obscene amounts of money in the past does not mean they should expect to do so in the present or future. 

Related Articles:

Pretty Boy Floyd - Prohibition Era Robber and Robin Hood

Public Enemies: Johnny Depp Stars as John Dillinger in Gangster Film

Al Capone, a Notorious Prohibition Era Gangster

Bonnie and Clyde: Depression Era Robbers