For years the financial media has been reporting the ups and the downs of the markets, but all in all they kept harping on just how healthy the economy was no matter the fluctuations in the markets. Yes, there were wild swings, but it always seemed to come back to a good bull market. Now the question is, why did not these reporters with their massive contacts within the financial sector not report on the approaching storm? Surely, the reporters have had some minor economic training, at least we would hope so, especially if they were advising people where to put their money and what to watch out for.

None of the media outlets, print and cable, reported on the extent of the crisis that was coming. Was it a huge secret? Please! It is Wall Street, secrets are a dime a dozen and the whole system is a piece of Swiss cheese.

I am old enough to remember the Chrysler bailout in 1979.

A special place of shame must be given to the national media and political elite. In 1979 they raised a hue and cry about the need for Chrysler’s workers to “sacrifice” and extolled the virtues of the free market. Today they offer few such sermons to the financial elite responsible for the current crisis. But they continue to insist, as they did in the days of the Chrysler bailout, that the working class must pay the bills for the failures of American capitalism. The working class is being asked to fork over trillions of dollars—the sum would have been unfathomable in 1979—to bail out a criminal financial aristocracy that has bankrupted American capitalism, and very nearly the state itself.

One possible reason for the lack of coverage of the developing storm was the fact that most of the news organizations are now part of a huge corporate structure, it was not so much so in 1979. So why would an organization that was knee deep in the financial wheeling and dealing actually report the failure of their parent corporation?