Lets Talk Financial Crimes

For the past couple of weeks I have found reason to discuss the Pastor Daniels case; but, the focus of this blog is much more about financial crimes and how we are all being taken advantage of. We are told that we are a democracy or at best a republic and this all goes back to the creation of the United States and some simple concepts that seem to have been forgotten. I want to talk about them.

Europe in the 1700s was not a democracy, it was a series of Monarchies. Because of "birthright" a few individuals owned all of Europe and were all related to each other. People were told this was the natural order of things and killed for arguing that the world should belong to the people of the nations and not just a couple of people who inherited wealth. We used to believe that in America; but, now we quietly sit by while we are told that should not be true.

Lincoln said, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth." Who are the people if not society at large? The background to the concept of the United States came from European philosophers, specifically Locke, Hobbs and Rousseau. They talked about what they called the social contract. The agreement to allow one another to be free within a firm set of rules and responsibilities. These crazy people thought that all people had certain rights, not just the people in power. They believed that if we worked together we could all benefit and it worked pretty well as we became the most productive and free country in the world.

There were things that we did that were very wrong. Slavery was not a high point and neither was the undue influence we tool over Latin America. We stole land from the Indians and claimed it as our destiny. Still our highest aspiration was found in the words of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we sought to be a nation based on laws which allowed everyone to participate in choosing. That is not what is being fought for anymore.

Not long ago I linked to an interview with a Billionaire who argued that the wealthy should be given a vote for every dollar that they paid in taxes. What he forgot was that since the 80s, they do. They buy all the lobbyist and eliminate any law that doesn't benefit them. That may or may not be capitalism; but, it is not democracy.

Once the social contract, the agreement is broken then the government looses all legitimacy and right to rule. If contracts are not enforced against both parties then it is silly to contract at all. Heads I win, tails you lose is a false agreement. The absence of freedom is slavery. If the rules only apply to some then it is slavery for those who the rules apply to.

I have actually seen a Bugatti, a million plus car. The car was parked in a very expensive area in front of a fire hydrant. The owner did not care about getting a ticket or that they were endangering others because they could afford to pay the ticket. That is a type of arrogance that is not appropriate in a democratic nation.

Obama had it wrong, he wasn't clear enough. If you succeeded in this country then don't take all the credit. The guy that runs the touch down does it with help from the whole team. The road system in the world was not created by any one person, it was created by millions of people over hundreds of years and everyone benefited from it. I have been very successful in life; but, I did not birth myself or teach myself everything I know. Others were involved and this nation allowed that and promoted it.

Over the years there has been a lot of comparisons between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Jobs was a narcissistic, cruel to his employees and completely obsessed with proving to himself that he was better than everyone else. Gates was equally hard working; but, actually cared about others. While Mr. Gates is a globalist, he wants to help people in other countries. Mr. Jobs was more than happy to pay people in Communist China slave wages to make his products even though many committed suicide in the plants that make Apple products.

There seems to be this idea going around that globalism is the appropriate; but, where is the vote? Where is the democratic agreement and what are we being asked to agree to? Do you agree that a few oligarchs in the world should have the right to tell us what American law should be? I don't, we have no social contract on this issue.

I just watched the right in this country make a big deal about the Bundy ranch. They claimed that Bundy's rights were being taken away, for instance his right to have his cattle graze on federal lands without having to compensate the federal government. They complained that "free speech zones" were set up in limited spaces; but, they rejoiced when the Occupy members were kicked out of free speech areas in New York and other cities. They missed the real issue, it was about freedom of assembly even more than being about freedom of speech.

The financial crimes that are going on are part of a much more fundamental problem and that is the elimination of consent and participation by all equally in the laws of this nation, democracy is what we are losing. Congress is no longer protecting our right to representation. Romney flat out said that he did not represent everyone, only the successful. When the TARP bill was passed under Bush, members of congress said that they had been told if they did not pass the bail outs of the banks that martial law would be declared.

YouTube - Rep. Brad Sherman: Martial Law If Bailout Bill Not Passed. Mr. Sherman was interviewed about this comment and he repeated that some had been told that if the bill was not passed martial law would be put in place. That is not democracy. The vast majority of people opposed the bail out and yet, it went through because congress does not believe your opinion matters.

Huffington Post - Bill Moyers - Watch: What the 1 Percent Don't Want You to Know. I recommend you watch the video. The point the person is making is that if the wealthy control politics, eventually all the laws benefit them. There is a wealth distribution going on and the wealth of the middle class is being transferred to the wealthy.)

Huffington Post - The Terrible Fear of Paying the Poor Too Much. What is this insanity where people are afraid of having a decent minimum wage? They say we will not be able to compete economically with the Communist Chinese. This is like saying that if another country uses all slave labor we have to do the same or we won't be able to compete. We banned goods from South Africa because of how they had apartheid. Is such slavery okay because they are Chinese? I don't believe in tariffs (charging foreign goods taxes)I believe in banning goods from countries that act criminally to their people or other nations.

Los Angeles Times - Moving in with parents becomes more common for the middle-aged. While 92% of all the economic gains have gone to the top 1% since the crash (taxpayer money by the way), the bottom 40% have lost ground and people who worked for decades have been left with nothing except the remote hope that they might someday get social security that they paid into and they want to take that away from them.

CNBC - For many Americans, 'temp' work becomes permanent way of life. Where is that old concept of upward mobility without having to commit crimes?

If you write a bad check for ten dollars you can go to jail. If you write bad financial instruments like derivatives for hundreds of billions of dollars, you get a bonus. If your father is a politician and friends with the governator then you get a pardon for murder because as Arnold Schwarzenegger said, that is what you do for friends. The problem is not inequality of outcome, the problem is inequality of opportunity and unequal laws that benefit those who have benefited from the misery of others. The problem is that this nation is being perverted into a nation where there is no democracy.

This nation started out horribly unfair; but, because of the insistence that all men deserved to have a say became a nation constantly moving towards benefiting all of it's citizens. We saw the greatest distribution of wealth in history because we allowed people to benefit from their own hard work and inventiveness. They got to share in the benefit of their labor. That is capitalism and that is dead in America. Wage earners do not share in the benefit that they provide to their organizations, their wages do not go up as their productivity goes up. There are stats on these things.

If the wealthy really believe in Social Darwinism than the best thing for us to do is defund the military and the police and the fire departments and the public works departments and the schools. Ayn Rand believed that society held the special people back, she did not consider what how it was why people could succeed on a grand level. This is why the United States flourished; because we worked together as a nation.