The present market turbulence is refocusing public attention on what matters. Yes, the Alaska governor’s inability to discuss anything of significance coherently and truthfully is significant. But her family tribulations, and her running mate’s proclaiming we are all Georgians, are mere side shows, no more real than “reality television.” How private markets are recapitalized with public money, and for whose benefit they are regulated, are reality.

Who benefits? Since Ronald Reagan proclaimed that “government was the problem,” government was administered by those who disdain governance.

Regulation was in the hands of those who regarded it as a crime against freedom bestowed by private wealth. The public good was entrusted to those who held the public in contempt. The administration of George W. Bush, with all its incompetence, scandal and ignorant arrogance, is the final product, our nation on supply-side conservatism.

Who benefited? The well-to-do, whose acquisitive aggression was undeterred. In less than 30 years their incomes and assets more than tripled; the ratio of CEO compensation to average worker pay ballooned from 40 to 1 to almost 400 to 1. Taxes on wealth and business profits assumed a smaller fraction of government revenue; the nonwealthy majority of taxpayers picked up the bill, paying higher local taxes and getting less services.

The word “republic” derives from the Latin ‘res public,’ the business of the public at large, the commonwealth. Liberal Democrats always understood this and have been more conscientious stewards of the public business than conservative Republicans, whose defense of private wealth mocks their party’s name.

Henry Wyatt

Belfast