Stanley Fischer, head of Israel’s central bank, knows on which side his bread is buttered. And it certainly ain’t on the side eaten by Israel’s poor or those supporting the J14 social justice movement. No, Fischer is pleased as punchthat a few Israeli families own most of the wealth in the country and that it has one of the widest disparities of wealth in the developed world:
“I hope the tycoons will continue to be rich even after the recommendations are carried out,” Fischer said at a press conference in Jerusalem. “So far, they have done nothing criminal. Attacks on them endanger the economy,” the central bank governor said, defining such attacks as “populist.”
Is it truly the role of the nation’s top banker to champion an economic system which treats a huge swath of the Israeli population so savagely? I don’t expect bankers to sympathize with the poor (though it would be nice), but to so flagrantly thumb their noses at their interests is the height of arrogance. I half expected he was going to trot out that Republican battle cry of “class warfare.” At a time when half a million Israelis spoke out loudly in favor of social and economic justice, Stanley Fischer mounts the barricades defening wealth and privilege. And this guy wanted to be president of the World Bank a few weeks ago?? Not one to rock the boat, even when it needs rocking, Fischer also championed the bloated excess of the Israeli military budget in a shameful exercise in pandering:
As to the possibility of cutting the defense budget to fund the Trajtenberg recommendations, Fischer said: “We are not a normal country and this prevents giving citizens what they get in other countries.”
You mean like a good education and health care system? Or personal security? Or a military complex ruled by civilian control? I guess in Fischerworld Israel has to settle for second best until the politicians decide they’re going to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which should be sometime in the next millenium, if we’re lucky. No thanks to Fischer, though, who’ll be counting his pension and the consulting fees he’ll be raking in through sitting on the corporate boards of all those Israeli tycoons whom he lionizes.
The American Model — of so many IMF impositions on mostly weak countries and not also on Greece — is ALSO IMPOSED ON USA AND ISRAEL.
Reduced expenditure for the poor, the middle class, vastly increased concentration of power and wealth in the hands of an ever-smaller oligarchy, government bought and paid for by the rich whose table-scraps are riches to the legislators and presidents who wish, with understandable lack of concern for the people to be re-elected (hardly seems corrupt when so expressed).
Why should Israel be any different?
But if by some happy chance Israel could lead the way to breaking the power of the oligarchs, and show it to the world, and describe the situation before and after accurately, and EXPRESS ANGER, and PRACTICE WELL-DESERVED CLASS WARFARE, well — WONDERFUL.
And be nice to do something for the Palestinians along the way. Pass along some table scraps, or some minced oligarch.
The reality of Israel, the “not normal” picture, grows more grotesque every day. I am all for class war here in the US and in Israel. It is time to take these rich guys, buying off politics day after day, to take them down a peg or two. What Israel needs, and the US, is leadership, someone with credibility and charisma to point the way. For now, decent folks everywhere have to organize and work at offsetting the sickening policies in both countries.
Milton Friedman will be rolling over in his grave.
Stanley Fischer is doing a good job.
The whole region will benefit economically if peace breaks out.
FYI, his name is spelled, FISCHER.
Thanks for the correction.
RE: “Stanley Fisher, head of Israel’s central bank, knows on which side his bread is buttered…Fisher is pleased as punch that a few Israeli families own most of the wealth in the country” ~ R.S.
ALSO NOTE: U.S. tax-evasion probe leads to Israeli banks, By David Ferguson, Reuters, 9/16/11
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/16/u-s-tax-evasion-probe-leads-to-israeli-banks/