no longer remember the first time I saw the classic Christmas film, It's a Wonderful Life, but I know for certain I've seen it at least two dozen times since then, and most of those times, I shed a few tears over the sweetness and decency of that old movie.

It's a cliché to say that they don't make 'em like that anymore, but the cliché fits here. When was the last time you saw a Christmas movie that made you feel a little better about being a human being? When was the last time you saw a movie of any kind that showed a fairly realistic vision of the lives of working people?

It's a Wonderful Life was made in 1946, the year a lot of young families were struggling to put their lives back together after the war. The prosperity of the '50s was still a long way off, and young men like my own father were back from battle, finding jobs, starting their families, or expanding them.

In case you haven't seen the movie, the story follows the life of a man named George Bailey, from childhood to middle age. He's a dreamer, with aspirations of world travel. But life has other plans for him. He loses hearing in one ear while saving his kid brother's life, and when World War II breaks out, that disability keeps him home, minding his father's savings and loan business, competing with Mr. Potter, the flint-hearted banker who preys upon the working people of Bedford Falls, the archetypal American town where both men play out their lives. George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, offers affordable loans to working people, many of them immigrants, all seeking a shot at the American Dream. Mr. Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore, wants to run the Bailey Savings and Loan out of business so he can jack up interest rates and fulfill his ambition to own the town completely. Potter controls most of the local money, and when the Bailey Savings and Loan misses a payment to Potter, the villainous banker threatens George Bailey with ruin. Desperate, George attempts suicide, only to be saved by an apprentice angel named Clarence.

Clarence brings George back from the brink and shows him just how different things would have been had Bailey never been born. Meanwhile, all the people in Bedford Falls have been summoned to help George in his hour of need. And they do, turning up on Christmas Eve to provide him with a bailout that comes from their individual hearts and pockets.

That all sounds pretty corny, just a few weeks before Christmas sixty-two years since that movie was made, in a time when so many people are now being thrown out of work, and driven from their homes by predatory real-life lenders even more heartless than the greedy Mr. Potter. When the big money boys at the big money institutions like Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros, Citi-Corp, and Goldman Sachs began to make all those sub-prime loans, and all those adjustable interest rate mortgages, and then sold that weak paper, all bundled up, to various investors, the seeds were sown for a financial crop failure that would cost millions of Americans their homes, or a big chunk of their equity. And while all that was going on, more jobs were being exported overseas, more goods were being imported, more non-union jobs were being created at places like Wal-Mart where employees were denied benefits, and made to know they were lucky to have jobs at all, even if those jobs blocked access to the middle class lives some of their parents had known.

Meanwhile, the trolls and the politicians who worked for the corporate equivalent of Mr. Potter were busy on the American airwaves, blaming the victims for the collapse of everything. If only those grubby poor people had not sought home loans, everything would have been fine. If only those people with the small incomes had not presumed to own their own homes, then the bankers would have been more circumspect about parsing out mortgages. If only the evil liberals had not pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to spread a little money around to minority folks who wanted mortgages, then the system would have been sound. And if only all those greedy poor people hadn't tried to get in on the real estate boom and catch the ride of ever-escalating home prices, then all would have been Jim Dandy. But those bankers lent money to everyone in sight, banking on the idea that that home prices would continue to rise, and failing to employ due diligence in vetting the credit worthiness of the people to whom they were lending money.

But have no fear, angels were standing by, and they weren't apprentices; they were pros. These angels were named Paulson and Bernanke, and they rode to rescue all the Mr. Potters who'd gotten so much when the getting was so good, all those CEOs who'd showered themselves with lavish lifestyles and huge bonuses, living like rajahs and stealing with both hands. Unlike George Bailey, these men never gave much thought to the people to whom they were lending money, nor to the communities imperiled by their greed and recklessness. But, when it came time for these angels to show a little mercy, it wasn't the George Baileys they sought to comfort. Instead, they brought relief in the form of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, with no strings attached, bounty and beneficence to all those Potters who'd proven so untrustworthy, irresponsible, and selfish in the first place.

There were no angels of mercy, however, for the millions of working stiffs whose homes were in foreclosure, or about to be. No support for those few remaining small town savings and loan businesses, or local banks where business was still conducted between real people who tended to know one another, and who kept a pretty close eye on the bottom line.

A largely unregulated financial sector ran amok while the Potter mentality dominated the nation, turning a legion of Potters loose to gorge themselves without oversight. There was no George Bailey, and there was no apprentice angel named Clarence to watch over those who lacked the means to afford a battery of lobbyists and a fleet of corporate jets.

Was it a wonderful life?

It was for some. While it lasted.
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http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/19406

Very insightful