The mere word socialism is enough to send card-carrying Republicans into paroxysms of rage, their eyes rolling back in their heads and their mouths foaming while they regurgitate the same old rhetoric of the free market economy’s divine ability to solve any economic problem. Like many of the truly important political issues, debates over the level of government involvement in the economy quickly degrade into partisan pissing matches. The fear of being blacklisted as a socialist runs so deep that even in the party of the pinkos, Obama and Clinton are engaged in a slugfest over whose universal health care plan is the least socialist.

While I understand the idea of socialism may be anathema to those who worship at the altar of The Almighty Dollar, the free market has not exactly been a roaring success recently. As the economy continues to drunkenly stagger down the street, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a display of irrational exuberance, slashed interest rates with the largest cuts in years.

The Federal Reserve cut its interest rate by 1.25 percent in an attempt to prop up the sagging economy. By contrast, previous Chairman Alan Greenspan only cut rates by half a percent after 9/11. Meanwhile the nation’s economic growth has ground to halt, down from 4.6 percent to just six-tenths of a percent. And yet, have no fears, Exxon Mobile has topped its past record for quarterly profits, netting a cool 40.6 billion last quarter alone.

So call me crazy, but it doesn’t exactly seem like the vaunted free market is working for anyone except fat executives in corner offices and the nation’s elite. The ongoing sub-prime loan crunch is a corporate debacle of such magnitude that I half expect Karl Marx to rise from the grave and utter dire proclamations urging the proletariat to rise up and throw off their chains of oppression.

The past decade has been rife with examples of why the free market is not the end all, be all it is continually prophesied to be. Examples stretch from the well-publicized case of Enron to less well-known scandals involving such giants as Time Warner and Bristol-Myer: corporations that have all come under investigation for negligent and often illegal business practices. The worst part of big business’ dastardly deeds is that they almost never affect the big men in the corner office; rather, it’s always Joe Sixpack who punches the clock that takes the pain. As the giant lenders come crashing down like old growth trees, it is not the private jetsets that feel the pain of losing their houses but the thousands of people suckered into trick loans.

The free market economy might work in a vacuum, but the truth that should be painfully obvious to everyone is when it comes down to a choice between dicking over some nameless slob and cashing a million dollar end-of-the-year bonus check, executives laugh all the way to the bank. This rash of shoddy investments and sleazy corporate schemes shows the obvious lacking in the market – the little guy is left out in the cold. Sure, it helps that we’ve got an administration that cut its teeth working in and for corporations, but I’ve got more than enough guilt to spread around and the Democrats deserve their fair share of the blame as well.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t trust the government either and I’m not advocating some U.S.S.R.-style socialist regime. What I am suggesting is that oversight is a necessity, a requirement, a must-have. Big business has shown no qualms about destroying nations, ecosystems or individuals to make money, and it’s only now when its greed got a little too out of control that people are taking notice.

The Fed’s rate cut is designed to ease the crushing debt that Americans are forced to live in just enough so that we’ll go out and buy some big-ticket items and jumpstart our Frankenstein’s monster of an economy so that the raping of the average American family can resume.

I don’t trust the government and I sure don’t trust the corporations. Hell, I don’t even trust most of the media. Transparency and oversight are effective tools that need to be implemented at all levels of public and private life. We deserve to know how our government and economy is running. With this credit crisis, business has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, to me at least, that it cannot be trusted; even the so-called “old money” banks have been forced to sheepishly reveal their involvement in this torrid affair.

Gasp! Businesses like money? I’m shocked. Wise up, people – it’s time we started demanding transparency in our economy. It’s time we woke up and took back control of our money and our government.

– Quincy Miller is a senior in English from Altoona.