[Pages 133 -136]
Before pulling
back the curtain you have to get your mind into the money zone and keep it
there. Take all the bright lights and hot button propaganda issues that both
political parties have been throwing at you for decades and toss them out the
window [or at least park them in a separate cavity of your mind]. It is
extremely difficult to do and it requires an unwavering laser focus to keep
your eye on the ball. It’s much like the carnival game where the guy puts a
small ball under one of three cups and switches them around, then makes you
guess which cup the ball is under. In the case of our political system, in
order to understand it, you must keep your eye on the money at all times. Do
not look at the cultural or social issues to your left or right, just watch the
money like a hawk and soon it all becomes crystal clear.
Let’s begin
with the most recent casino game that ended with the collapse of Wall Street
and our economy in 2008. When we talk money, outright theft and massive
political corruption it all starts with Wall Street. While countless books have
now been written about the Wall Street collapse, most Americans don’t have the
bandwidth or interest level to read 20 books on a topic as insidious and
repugnant as Wall Street. Therefore, either of two documentaries, if not both,
will get you up to speed on Wall Street’s greed, one is Inside Job and the other is Plunder,
The Crime of Our Time. Rent or purchase either of the documentaries and
you’ll know enough to understand just how corrupt, crooked and greedy the
entire Wall Street game really is. While tempting to try and explore herein,
the house of cards, the smoke and mirrors, the trillions in paper only assets
with zero monetary value that make up the massive Ponzi/pyramid scheme called
Wall Street . . . is just too intricate to even try and explore herein. The
fact that only one high profile sacrificial lamb, Bernie Madoff, is behind bars
doing prison time tells you everything you need to know about our political and
justice system in America. White collar crime on Wall Street pays handsomely
and it is ground zero for the class of people in America referred to herein as “the
mega-rich.” There is no justice system in America for these people. On the very rare
occasions they are caught in their constant crime wave of raping average
Americans financially on a daily basis . . . they pay only a few million
dollars in fines, never receive any jail time and just keep on stealing.
Any
political novice with even a little degree of objectivity can scratch the
surface to see that both Party A and Party B are fully 100 percent responsible
for what happened with the collapse of Wall Street. Bush and Party A pushed for
and allowed Wall Street to make up their own rules of Russian roulette for more
than a decade. Countless members of Party B, especially in the House Committee
on Financial Services led by Congressman Barney Frank pushed for everyone to be
part of the American Dream by owning a home and even president, Bush got in on
the act. We were told over and over they were doing it for “the people,” but
were they really? Ask yourself if in fact they were both doing it at the
bequest of the banks and Wall Street? To assist in your analysis, consider that
from 1999 to 2008 the financial sector spent $1.738 B on campaign donations
within federal elections and $3.3 B on lobbyists.1
Party B
throughout the end of the boom cycle had plenty of regulatory authority to curb
the casino games being played on Wall Street as did Party A. Neither ever
lifted a finger to put a stop to it because of who was reaping the benefits:
the political class via campaign money and positions of power within the system
for family and cronies, the hedge fund mega-rich that don’t actually do any
work, the silver spoon crowd and the bankers. Party B was the party that really
had to sell it to the people via a pitch of “we’re for the people and just want
them to have a home of their own.” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac became the
conduit for the con game and Franklin Raines, a Party B loyalist who ran Fannie
Mae, laughed all the way to the bank with a bonus of $90 M. Much like children,
now that it’s all blown up in their face, both the parties are doing what they
always do . . . pointing fingers as quickly as possible toward the other party
and saying ‘they did it, they did it, it wasn’t us.’ Who did what when, or who didn’t
in this charade is not nearly as telling as what happened next.
The whole
charade blew up in the face of both the political parties to the tune of
trillions of dollars. The trillions lost in home values and underwater
mortgages, income from job loses, stock portfolios, 401k retirement accounts
and economic vitality across the board are almost impossible to calculate. The
total damage to American citizens is at lest $13 T, but when you project out
the longer term impact on the American economy — the real number is
unfathomable.2 The greedy Wall Street crowd and the banks had
finally gotten caught with their financial pants down. In the process “the people,”
you and I, lost at least 20 percent of the value of our biggest asset, our
homes. What came next was the biggest con game to ever to be pulled in the
history of America — if not the entire world. The media
owned by the mega-rich, left right and middle, were sent their scripts and
marching orders and nearly every politician in Washington, D.C. lined up behind
them as they rolled out the scam 24/7 from every roof top as loudly as their
lungs could scream. Just like Chicken Little, they screamed “the sky is
falling, the sky is falling,” our entire economy is on the verge of collapse,
their will be starving in the streets and social unrest. America as we have known it for our entire
lifetimes will cease to exist.’ Over and over the gloom and doom was preached
and pumped into every American brain. People were jumping from rooftops and just
to prove the threat was real . . . Lehman Brothers was even allowed to fail as
a sacrificial lamb [even though their CEO walked away with millions]. Something
had to be done and it had to be done now, within days, or we would never
recover as a nation.
Voila! Like
magic, within matter of a couple of weeks or so, Party A and Party B [who we’re
told hate each other] came together, like never before in our lifetime, to pony
up a trillion dollars in almost interest free loans. The age of bipartisanship
had finally arrived, a true “kumbaya” moment where members of Congress held
hands and participated in a fundraiser for Wall Street. There were a few in
Congress who grumbled, but at the end of the day, the personal phone calls from
the mega-rich telling horror stories of loosing their yacht and of little Biff
having to go to a state university were just too much for members of Congress
to bear. Since the millionaires in Congress could relate to the indignity of
associating with commoners, they examined their conscience and lent the mega-rich
our tax money to bail them out from their over the top unhinged greed. Letting
them crash and burn so they would finally learn their lesson was just too much “tough
love” to dish out. Tough love is only for “the little people,” the unemployed
and the homeless in America — not the mega-rich. If Wall Street
and the banks were allowed to crash and burn, who would fund the political
campaigns of Congress the next time around? Since virtually all members of
Congress are placed into office by the mega-rich to begin with, there really
wasn’t much choice when their markers were called back in. Almost overnight, it
was happy days on Wall Street and the polo grounds once again. Dads would get
their millions in bonuses, little Biff would be able to go to an Ivy League
school and members of Congress would be able to yacht with Wall Street cronies
in the summer. Within months, all was well again on Wall Street and in Washington D.C. which the mega-rich own.
So Party A
and Party B came together in unison to save the day for America’s aristocracy and “the little
people” were none the wiser. “The little people” thought that Congress saved
our entire economy and everyone in the media read from their scripts and
confirmed it 24/7 . . . while playing all of America for fools.
Nonetheless,
something seems to be missing from that “saved our entire economy story.” Biff
is now at Harvard hanging out with the silver spoon crowd, instead of a state
school. The children of “the little people” are fighting wars or going to
community college — because they are forced to by the ruined economy. While things
are great for Biff and his daddy on Wall Street, what about the 8.5+ million
lost jobs and 1 in 4 homes that are now worth far less than their purchase
price? What about the downward pressures on salaries and wages forcing people
all across America to either work for nothing or to
take a pay cut? What about the 30 million under employed and the 15 million
unemployed? What about the suicides, the drug and alcohol abuse, the domestic
abuse, the rise in crime and the massive social unrest now on the horizon? What
about the plunge in tax revenues that will soon be tossing at least 2 million
[if not far more] public sector employees out into the streets? Does any of
this sound as if the economy was saved? Wall Street was saved and members of
Congress were ensured their campaign contributions would continue to arrive,
but everyone else in America got screwed to the tune of untold
trillions.
- Far lower starting wages and salaries
- Wage and salary concessions
- Lower pay raises or none at all
- At least 30 million unemployed or underemployed
- Falling home values and underwater mortgages
- At least 5 million homes lost to foreclosure and 5 million more on the way
- Millions of personal and business bankruptcies
- Nearly $13 T in lost household wealth3
- Virtually zero consumer spending for at leas a decade or more
- Constrained economic growth due to lending restraints
Where are
the Harvard economists when we actually need them? Where is the study that adds
up and calculates all the numbers above over the course of a couple decades or
more? Some educated guesses would of course have to be made, but in general,
the numbers and projections exist to come up with a total dollar figure that
would encompass the damage from Wall Street’s greed. It is the last number
either of the two political parties and the mega-rich want calculated and
reported to the American people.
We’re now
being told that we’ll have to pull together for America by tightening our belts and the
“recovery” will just take time. When the Wall Street billionaires, responsible
for destroying the economy via their greed, needed money — Congress came
through in a moment’s notice. Like devotees, Party A and Party B held hands and
wrote the check with our tax money in a “New York minute.” Now, “the people”
have no jobs and 55 percent of those that do are worried about losing them. Lost
wages, downward pressures on salaries, lost economic activity and a destroyed
economy . . . all for the cause of greed!
Breakout Resource(s):
Sold Out – How
Washington and Wall Street Betrayed America
Conclusions
of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
Website – Financial
Crisis Commission
Congressional Darlings
of Wall Street
