Opinion Sur
A multimillionaire bailout is in process to rescue troubled European banks (most of them). Something similar occurred a few years earlier in United States. Never were those enormous figures available to promote development. It was said that there were no resources but, what a surprise, now they appeared. Those resources do not belong to the banks that are going to be ‘saved’ but to the societies that contribute them through taxes or indebtedness; therefore they must be used for collective interest and not for that of bank owners.
Today a bank is an organization that receives resources from third parties and channels them towards where they get higher profits. Who, apart from those benefiting from it, could possibly think of giving up our savings to a company so it can allocate them to maximize its profits? Of course there are regulations and regulators but they have proven not to regulate properly since several financial entities already went bankrupt or are at the edge of the abyss.
A financial system that serves society as a whole is a vital piece to enabling sustainable development but not this financial system that led us to the crisis. The allocation of depositors’ savings and the conditions in which they are lent cannot remain at the will of bankers; it is the monetary authority in the context of the economic policy the convened to define where to and under what conditions loans are given. The billions of euros or dollars dedicated to save banks should be assigned to transforming them; this is, changing its purpose and the ownership structure to ensure the new course.
Voices guided by their own interests want to make people believe these changes cannot be carried out during the crisis; on the contrary, it would provide more effective instruments to face the current challenges. If there is something that would give meaning to the tremendous suffering that struck our people is precisely seeking from this crisis a profound transformation of what harmed and squandered us.
Cordial greeting,
The Editors
