5. We
can't stop spying on Americans because this endeavor now employs millions of
people. (The Department of Homeland
Security alone now employs, directly or indirectly, nearly a million
people. Plus there are now something
like 15 different intelligence agencies.)
6. We
can't restrict the Wall Street casino, or limit its size and scope, or the
number of people employed on Wall Street would be greatly reduced.
7. What
about all the superfluous production and consumption? If we ever stopped spending $100 billion a
year marketing all that stuff, and workers had the option of working ten hours
less a week (without losing their health care or their chance for promotion), half
of that stuff would never be sold. Why
not, exactly? Because most workers would
prefer extra leisure time instead of the extra stuff. But if half of it were never sold,
inventories would pile up, and the next thing you know, millions of unnecessary
workers would have to be laid off.
8. Finally,
what will happen to university jobs when growing numbers of young people finally
realize that, given the ever-growing indebtedness that a conventionally-acquired
college degree requires, a traditional formal education is, for growing numbers
of them, simply not going to be worth the cost -- as they increasingly discover
that they can get essentially the same education online, at a much lower price?
(Yes, this presumes that online
education, with occasional face-to-face seminars and meetings, will become ever
more effective and successful.)
In other
words, our artificially-maintained "economy' needs these manufactured
problems and inefficiencies, in order to create and maintain enough employment
to keep sufficient numbers of us busy 40-50 hours a week, 11+ months of the
year. But please understand that most of this employment is today a kind
of artificially-created and artificially-based employment. It arises from the various absurdities
referred to in the eight points just listed.
C. Money
Has No Stable or Inherent Value: Our money is loaned into existence with
arbitrary interest rates set by a private monopoly (the "Federal" Reserve Bank).
Its value fluctuates based on the supply
of that money that's put into the economy -- which, again, is controlled by a
for-profit monopoly. (The only things
with inherent value to humans are skills (labor), tools and materials, food and
water, and energy.)
D. The
Fed Now Buys 90% of This Nation's Treasury Bonds: By buying its treasury
bonds, the Federal Reserve loans money to the US government (its Treasury Department),
which issues its bonds to cover the nation's spending. Historically, most of those bonds have been
sold on the open market, at auctions, to investors worldwide, who believe in
the ability of the United States to make good on redeeming those bonds, with the
interest promised. Apparently, however,
the US is facing a shortage of potential investors because the Fed must now buy 90% of new Treasury bonds. This phenomenon is called "monetizing the debt,"
or, in simple English, creating ever more money out of thin air. (When the Fed buys a treasury bond, thus
loaning the US government money, a Fed employee simply types up the cost of the
bond on the Fed's computer system and electronically transfers that newly created
"money' to the US Treasury Department.) This
legerdemain acts to keep interest rates artificially low, because without someone purchasing these bonds at
the current rate of interest that the bonds currently pay, the Treasury
Department would have to raise interest
rates significantly in order to attract outside "investors." And rising interest rates would guarantee a
renewed recession and downward economic spiral.
In a nutshell, our monetary system is a paper tiger as well as a house
of cards.
E. What
is the Value of Anything? The price-discovery
mechanism, or the process of determining the value of an asset in the
marketplace, has become so convoluted that determining the genuine or inherent value of anything has become
nearly impossible. For example, why does
an ounce of marijuana (a weed that can grow anywhere) cost up to $500? Is that the real value, based on labor and
materials, and supply and demand? Of
course not. Its value is inflated hugely
by way of prohibitive laws and regulations.
Hence marijuana has become one of the biggest cash crops in the USA,
employing tens of thousands of people -- all because of the laws against its
sale and distribution. Without those
laws, tens of thousands of additional Americans would be thrown out of work.
F. Failure
is Rewarded: You know we must live in an artificially-maintained
and propped - up economy when failure
is rewarded and success is penalized. Citizens
everywhere are being told they need to tighten their belts, and work harder so that
we can bail out our failed government, banks, insurance companies and even car
companies. And when we work harder and
achieve some success, they tax that success heavily so as to indefinitely pay
for these large, too-big-to-fail, fraudulence-based institutions. Yet
this enormous amount of
money creation and taxation, necessary for the bailouts, is light years from
solving the root cause of the problem.
The reality is that the bankster-centric solutions are the problem! Why? Because
they enrich the investor class at the expense of the middle class. Global bankers are gambling (mostly
successfully, so far, since being bailed out) with taxpayer money, and the money of many future
generations, in a global casino royale, which growing numbers of financial
analysts say is destined to eventually fail.
And they are stealing us blind in the process.
G. Corporate
entities have the same rights as humans, but not the same risks of punishment:
When the
Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the free-speech rights of people, it
was one of the final nails in the coffin of this republic: Monied interests can now
openly finance "our" elections and buy the legislation they need in order to
operate with impunity. Corporations may
be comprised of humans, but they are not subjected to the same standards of
humanity. It was profoundly argued in
the article, "What If BP Were a Human Being?" that, judged by common standards of morality,
decency, and previously agreed-upon definitions of criminality, BP would be
judged both a psychopathic killer . . and immortal. Ditto for the rest of those leading the
predatory corporate rat pack, the
most obvious being defense contractors. And since these corporations are now joined at
the hip with government itself, what does that
make our government?
H. People
buy things they don't need, with money they don't have: In a type of trickle-down debt whirlpool, our
government's rampant spending, without sufficient assets to back it up, is
mirrored in the behavior of the American consumer. Despite inflation, rising unemployment , and a
continued collapse in real estate, American consumers haven't stopped their
rampant credit-based spending. In fact,
the Associated Press just reported that Americans swiped their credit cards much
more often this last October than they did in the previous month, and borrowed similarly
more to attend school and buy cars. As the
Federal Reserve reported consumers
increased their borrowing by $14.2 billion in October over and above what they
borrowed in the previous month. Total
borrowing rose to an all-time high of $2.75 trillion. Borrowing in the category that covers autos
and student loans increased by $10.8 billion.
Borrowing on credit cards rose by $3.4 billion. Most troubling is the type of borrowing that was most prevalent: negative-return investments such as student loans, credit cards,
and cars. All this reflects a kind of magical
thinking that renders people completely blind as to where all this is headed.
I. Engineered
Slavery: Do you think slavery died
in the 1800s? Think again. Economic hit-men (lenders, essentially) have
successfully enslaved-by-debt practically everything and everyone on the planet: entire
industries, entire nations, state and local governments, and individuals. And they bought your servitude with money
they simply created out of thin air! So,
even if an individual doesn't have any bank financing or credit cards, they must
still make payments to the privately
owned Federal Reserve, . . through Fed-induced inflation and excessive income
taxes. As author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John
Perkins, would say: The time has come for the banks to collect
their "pound of flesh" from average citizens -- by way of higher taxes, fewer
social services, and the confiscation of your pensions -- i.e. "austerity."
For an enlightening explanation of how
economic hit-men work their dark magic please watch this video.
Another,
more obvious, form of engineered slavery is prison labor. Laws and regulations are specifically created
to add to the prison population, which, when maximized, enriches the
corporations that own them, while local communities actually become poorer and
more dangerous (source).
Until we are
committed to doing something about the nine points above (A through I), we will
remain in the grip of a kind of collective hallucination, caught in a downward socioeconomic
spiral.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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