Cubadebate

Traducción para Cubadebate Damaris Garzón

Since I was a child I've had my fears, as everybody else. First it was the fear of seeing my father getting angry; there was also the fear of being forced to eat radish, or to fail a maths exam. I feared, under the dictatorship, being run over by a police car. I feared that my shack, dangerously perched on the edge of a cliff, would be washed away by the constant rain.

Nowadays I collect other fears. One of them is my fear to the Market's invisible hand. When it comes to invisible things, the only thing I do not fear is God. I fear bacteria and extra-terrestrial beings. I fight bacteria off with antibiotics. With regards to the extra-terrestrial beings, I felt much better when I found out that the largest distance human technology can reach out in the space is that of TV signals. I am sure that, when other beings received those signals, they were convinced that there was no intelligent life on Earth.

So this brings me back to the Market's invisible hand. Where does it end up? Preferably, in our pockets. Especially in the pockets of the poorest in society. It is invisible because it is cynical, like a crime that is secretly perpetrated. For example, the Market extorts money from the poor through the taxes associated to products and services. Everything could be cheaper if it wasn't for that fool hand which interferes with everything we consume.

Now that the Market suffers from a crisis -the balloon they inflated blew up in their faces-, where is the invisible hand? The answer is visible: in the government's pocket. Towards the end of the infamous Bush administration, the Market grabbed $830 billion from the government, Now, in the newly inaugurated Obama administration, it has bagged another $900 billion. And in the end, it will just end up in the bottomless pockets of the financial system.

Moreover, the Market's invisible hand does not know the citizens' pockets. Because of its addiction, it always and only benefits the pockets of the wealthy. This is the case of Brazil. Before the economic crisis (and before the then upcoming election) the government tried to corrupt the PAC (programme of rapid growth), in a way that allowed the Market's hand to fill up, and fast, the pocket of those private construction companies that were in charge of the works.

It is exactly what my grandmother used to say: "be careful where you put those hands!" And then she forced me to wash my hands before sitting down to eat. I believe that the Market's hand is invisible because it never washes itself. It does however ‘launder' money, without washing away the filth that impregnates it. This is what I deduct when I read the news that tell me that, in tax havens, the liquidity of the largest banks was guaranteed over the past few years thanks to the deposits resulting from drug trafficking.

The hand may be invisible but its fingerprints are not. Where the Markets puts its hand, it leaves fingerprints. These are especially visible when the hand withdraws, leaving millions of unemployed on the streets of bankruptcy, trapped by massive debt.

The Market is like a god. You believe in him, you have faith in him, you worship him, make sacrifices to be in good terms with him, and you feel guilty when you make a mistake that relates to him -even when it is the Market's fault, as it happened when he promised a fortune if we bought stock shares, and now those shares are worth next to nothing.

As it happens with god, you can only see his effects: the stock market, your wages, a mortgage, interest, debt, etc. It becomes obvious that it exists through his creations, but it never allows you to see him or locate him. Nobody knows exactly what his face looks like or where does he hide, despite being omnipresent. But it always sticks his hand somewhere, that famous invisible hand, that dreaded invisible hand, that hand that his even more abominable that the hands of the mad man who tries to fondle women on a bus.

And it's of little use shouting: "get that hand off there!" even though the invisible hand openly manipulates our quality of life, privileging the few and suffocating the majority. No one can escape the hand. Because it is invisible, it cannot be cut off. There is only one solution: to cut off the Market's head. But that is a different story. Today I wrote about the hand. I will leave the head for next time.