I hear the smallest fiddle in the world being played in sympathy:

Citigroup chairman: bankers being ‘vilified’

JAYMES SONG

The Associated Press

HONOLULU - Citigroup Inc.’s new board chairman, Richard Parsons, said financial institutions are being targeted for creating the nation’s financial crisis, but they aren’t the only ones responsible.

“Everybody participated in pumping up this balloon. Now the balloon has deflated,” he said Monday. “Everybody, in reality, has some part of the blame. But it’s much more in the culture to find a villain and vilify the villain.”

Besides banks, there was reduced regulatory oversight, loans to unqualified borrowers were encouraged and people took out mortgages or home-equity loans they couldn’t afford.

“We had a big party in this country,” said Parsons, a longtime Citigroup board member who succeeded Win Bischoff as chairman at Citigroup.

Look, the banks bear the greatest burden. Not only did they create schemes to profit from the least creditworthy, but they lobbied specifically to reduce the regulatory oversight. Blaming ‘unqualified borrowers’ is like blaming an addict for the actions of the pusher. Of course people of lesser means will utilize credit cards, cash providing centers, pawn shops and loan sharks. People motivated to advance will take what they get from whatever source is available.

But that doesn’t excuse the bankers from ripping them off with adjustable terms, usurious interest rates and the like. To be sure, other corporate execs share big blame, such as auto execs who ignored the obvious need for fuel efficiency over the long run. Or agribiz execs always on the federal dole.

And all of them have been guilty of creating interlocking board directorates where everybody raised the rates of executive compensation way above standard percentages. That is and always was unjustified, extremist greed. What the market will bear is an ideology that always leads to eventual panics and financial collapses.

In the Great Depression, some made heroes of Bonnie & Clyde or Dillinger because bankers weren’t trusted. Today, we have bankers whining because their pay is being questioned and their feelings are being hurt. Waaaaaah.

I’m not impressed. And what’s still needed is more negative feedback, not less.

Emptywheel has exactly the best response that will drive reform: hit them in the pocketbook. See the video. And her post.

Economic boycotts are almost always the most effective forms of protest. Business leaders and politicians are helpless to stop them and must make accommodations and reforms to end them.

And we need a system that:

a) advances businesses that invest and reinvest in the communities where their dollars come from. If they want to use cheap foreign labor, investing in those foreign communities also must occur.

b) is regulated for environmental and worker safety.

c) protects union-won benefits from being stripped retroactively, even in bankruptcy decisions.

d) provides negative consequences to individuals who make poor decisions, even in corporate environments.

e) don’t gain favorable tax treatment and tax-free havens. Ever.

f) offers more assistance to small businesses and to individuals. Socialism sucks most when most of its benefits aid the wealthy.

So boycott away. Banks, insurance, autos and energy companies first. The latter is hardest, because we’re captive to the utility companies and Big Oil. So there we do best to target a principal player, such as Exxon-Mobil.

And if there’s a CEO still whining, put them in touch with me. I’ll give them a miniature violin for $1 million. On credit. At 36%. Compounded daily.