SAN FRANCISCO -- One recent morning I awoke with a funny feeling. It had just struck me: I've been partly nationalized.
With huge influxes of taxpayer dollars flowing into some of the nation's biggest companies, the invisible hand of government suddenly has its fingerprints all over my life. My mortgage was first financed by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. They've gotten a large chunk of federal bailout money. So has GMAC LLC, the parent of Homecomings Financial, which bought the mortgage six years ago. So did Countrywide Financial, now a renamed Bank of America Corp. unit, which bought the mortgage from them in part, I assume, because these banks want our mortgage considerably more than we do.
I don't have a car from General Motors Corp. or Chrysler LLC -- both effectively government wards now -- but I do take the train to work. San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit System, or BART, doesn't always have an air of efficiency that makes you think it's run by anything other than a government.
But you wouldn't expect it was swept up in the bailout mess either. Still, BART has a lease-swap agreement with American International Group Inc., the insurer now in government receivership. When I scan BART destination signs for stops at Millbrae, Mission and MacArthur, I'm seeing federal bailout dollars at work.
Despite a lot of hand-wringing about how nationalization is making America look like a socialist nation, I'm not yet lining up for three hours to buy groceries, or housing four families in my apartment. In other words, government intervention hasn't drastically reshaped daily American life yet.
But the new ethos is an adjustment for someone who grew up in an era characterized first by the forceful antigovernment rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, then by a Democratic president declaring, "The era of big government is over." I can only hope it eventually leads to a Euro-style world when I get all of August off work, and three-hour lunch breaks are the norm.
But wait -- there aren't that many degrees of separation between lunch and the Brave New World now. I'm paying for my bowl of steamy vegetable soup with a corporate credit card issued by American Express Co. -- which, you guessed it, has also been backed with government money. Even if I were paying on my own dime, I'd use my personal card from Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank which -- well, you know.
Some thinkers argue that we should welcome the government at the table. "In Europe, it's considered a good thing to have the government involved," says Lars Perner, an assistant professor of clinical marketing at the USC Marshall School of Business.
Jeff Stuart agrees. Mr. Stuart runs a ballet academy in which he instructs little girls in tutus, including mine, in the art of the arabesque. Between classes, he deposits our checks into his business account at the Bank of America. Before the federal injection of cash into the bank last fall, he says, "I wanted to take all the money out and put it in my pillowcase." Now, he's sleeping more soundly: "I'm glad I'm with the [bank] and feel more secure."
Still, it's hard to see how these ballerinas and many kids still unborn won't be shouldering debt for years to come as the government pumps taxpayer dollars swelling into the trillions. Amid a credit crunch that has dried up lending, Americans have been handed a massive, national home-equity loan that we'll be paying for a long time. This brings new meaning to the term "ownership society."
Many of us have voluntarily given money to big institutions before. (I don't mean taxes.) In our case, it was for the local firemen's association and victims of the Indonesian tsunami.
The federal bailout extends this kind of involvement to levels unheard of in recent years, even if it's only in indirect and minute ways. Corporate giving, for example, which these days is more like corporate regifting. Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America -- both recipients of bailout dollars -- are among the biggest corporate givers to our school district's annual fund-raising campaign.
For the 2008-2009 year so far, Wells Fargo has shelled out up to $25,000 to the campaign, while Bank of America has handed over up to $10,000. Julia Burke, the fund-raising coordinator at the local educational foundation, says the money from corporate donors pays for math and music enrichment classes.
"I was amazed we got all the banks to contribute this year," says Ms. Burke.
On behalf of all taxpayers, you're very welcome.
By PUI-WING TAM -FEBRUARY 27, 2009 -The Wallstreet Journal
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