New York 2140

by Kim Stanley Robinson

“So then you go to the president and explain that once again the American taxpayer has to bail out these fucking idiots, to the tune of maybe twenty trillion dollars this time. She won’t like that news, right?” “Right.” “She might not just go catatonic, like Bush did with Bernanke, but she will freak out, and she’ll want you to have a plan. So that’s when you tell her to nationalize the biggest banks and investment firms. Bail them out by buying them out. At that point the American people are in control of global finance. In the cosmic battle between people and your oligarchy over there”—gesturing at Wall Street and the superscrapers uptown—“the people will have unexpectedly gained the upper hand. You can print money, restore confidence, crank the handle and get things going again, and after that, the ridiculous profits from finance will belong to the people. Also you can aim finance at solving people’s real problems. Congress can reform the financial system based on laws you write for them to pass, and you can quantitatively ease the American taxpayer instead of the banks. Print money and give it out to the bank of Mr. and Miz Taxpayer. It will be the biggest judo flip of power since the French Revolution!”