PLAYING THE VIOLIN WHILE U.S. COLLAPSES

A great civilization is not conquered from

without until it has destroyed itself from within.

The essential causes of the Roman decline

lay in her people, her morals, her class struggles

 and failing trade, her bureaucratic depotism,

her stifling taxes and consuming wars.

                                     ---THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION III, 1944

Let's stop pretending and just plain tell it like it is. The essential equation has two components. 1- Large corporations run this country with a little help from their friends, our elected officials. 2- The American people are in denial and in a state of complacency and unconsciousness at the same time.

The bankers, who gambled in new and creative ways with other people's money, and, by doing so, brought the global financial system to the brink, were bailed out by their aforementioned friends. Since they play on the same team as the government, there were no strings attached to the money.

Although the sleeping public was told out of one side of the conspiracy's mouth that there was at least the implication that the banks would lend out the money to individuals and small businesses in order to reignite the economy, the "banksters" took the txpayers' money and started gambling all over again. After all, they were considered too big to fail by their same collusive friends and therefore could play with the public's dollars without incurring any risk. But greed knows no limitations. The next step was to maximize the use of our money by paying themselves $140 billion in bonuses at a time when the rest of us are trying to find jobs and make ends meet.

With no regulations in sight (wink, wink), the banks gamble on and exacerbate the size of the over-the-counter derivative time bomb while the government tries to cure the debt bubble by increasing its size by an order of magnitude.

Then there's the health care fiasco. It is obvious that the public wants a public option, as it is the only means to restore some semblance of competition to the health care industry, which to this day remains singularly free from any anti-trust legislation.

That there is even a debate about a public option shows clearly that our elected officials are owned by the industry instead of representing the people who elected them to do the public's business. Their blatant disregard for the citizenry in favor of the health insurance industry is so transparent as to be laughable if it were not so criminal.

Once again, where is the outrage? Corporate America, whether it's the banks, the health insurance industry, the drug companies, the oil companies and so on, is bringing down this country for its own greedy goals, and no one seems to notice. Nero fiddles on while the U.S. dollar continues its descent into the black hole of a darkening future. Remember, the dollar represents the common shares of the United States of America. Keep your eye on the dollar. It will tell you all you need to know. It's all in the dollar. And would someone please stop playing the violin and regain consciousness.

10/28/2009