Wall Street, Power & Democracy

( Nalliah Thayabharan)

Capitalism is a confidence trick, a dazzling edifice built on paper promises, gambling, bets and speculation. Wall Street doesn’t make or produce anything.  The Wall Street however attractive it may appear is built on paper. Wall Street only gambles and bets and speculates. Modern day bank robbers are at Wall Street but they wear grey suits and not masks. Speculators, propagandists and financiers of Wall Street are given some unfair advantage over the average consumers and taxpayers and the cumulative effect of the people watching selfishness prevail over the public interest has been an undermining of the public’s trust in the present US government. There’s no question the Wall Street is rigged against the average consumers and taxpayers. The Wall Street has a lot more information. Wall Street jerry-rig the system so that Wall Street always win.  If the Wall Street loses trillions, the US Treasury will bail the Wall Street out so it can go back and do it again.

50 trillion dollars in global wealth was erased between September 2007 and March 2009, including 7 trillion dollars in the US stock market, 6 trillion dollars in the US housing market, 8 trillion dollars in US retirement and household wealth, 2 trillion dollars in US individual retirement accounts, 2 trillion dollars in US traditional defined benefit plans and  3 trillion dollars in US nonpension assets.

There are trillions dollars of new money taken again from Americans to make deals and hand out outrageous bonuses. And when these trillions run out Wall Street will come back for more until the dollar becomes junk. The value of the US dollar declined very significantly during the last 70 years.  The value of the US dollar in 1940 was worth 2,000% more than the value of the US dollar now.

The top 6 US banks had assets of less than one fifth of US GDP in 1995. Now they have two third of US GDP. The financial crisis was created by the biggest US banks to consolidate power. The big banks became stronger as a result of the bailout by the US Treasury. The big banks are turning that increased economic clout into more political power.

Oligarchy is the political power based on economic power. And it’s the rise of the Wall Street in economic terms, that it’d turn into political power. And Wall Street then feed that back into more deregulation, more opportunities to go out and take reckless risks and capture trillions of dollars.

Wall Street only has the lobbyists. Since the heads of Wall Street and their representatives are afraid because they don’t have the substance or the arguments,  they will not come out and debate with the people who occupy the Wall Street. 

The political and economical leadership of the US has chosed to cartel profits and transformed the US economy to serve the colluding and unlawful oligarchy.  The US banks are borrowing money at near zero interest from the US government, then lending it back to the US government at even mere fractions higher interest than they are paying. The net interest margin made by the US banks by lending the money back to the US federal government in the first 6 months of 2011 is 210 billion dollars. 

Due to  the oligarchs’ rapacious looting and their purchase of a politically protected luxurious lifestyle, the people of the US are on the road to permanent serfdom under a police state. The democracy was not given to the people of the US on a platter. It is not theirs for all time, irrespective of their efforts. Either the people of US organize and they find political leadership to take this on, or they are going to be in deep trouble.