Wall Street And The Robbery Of The American People

Too often we Americans - all of us, myself included - get distracted with ideological battles. But if we would stop and just focus for a moment, we would see that we - Democrats and Republicans alike - have a common enemy. One that has succeeded in doing an amazing job of more or less going under the radar. And that enemy is the relationship between the financial /corporate world and our public officials - from both parties. The amount of corruption and crime that is allowed and overlooked is shocking and disgusting. And it has hurt all of us. Immensely.

Matt Taibbi has an amazing, eye-opening article in Rolling Stone that everyone should read. It makes you wonder, with all the protests about health care reform, teachers unions...where are the protests about the greatest robbery in the history of the country? Literally a robbery - there were crimes committed, but since bankers are above the law in this country, they don't even get a slap on the wrist.

Health care and education reform are important, and we can debate the best way to accomplish that, but to act as if those are the reasons our country is in an economic shitter is naive.

And this is by no means an indictment of capitalism. Capitalism has proven to be the greatest economic system for in history. But capitalism is based on a free market and competition. It ceases to be a free market when the rules and laws are written to stifle competition, to protect those with and to suppress those without from getting ahead.

Humans are not perfect, and greed and corruption will always be a part of the human condition. And when that greed is allowed to run rampant, unsupervised, the consequences can be disastrous, as history has also proven.

Instead of blaming health-care reform, the Tea Party, teachers unions and each other we should all focus on the real cause of our economic problems. How can we just overlook the fact that financial criminals stole an ENORMOUS amount of wealth from the American people, leaving many unemployed, homeless and uninsured, causing states to lose massive amounts of revenue while at the same time having to pay skyrocketing unemployment insurance and other assistance? The fact that they stole from all of us, decimating our 401ks and retirement funds. And then we, the taxpayers, BAIL THEM OUT. Bail out people who made off like bandits. We make it possible for them to keep their companies going, so that they can continue to reward themselves with massive bonuses. Of our money. People who do not need it, who did nothing to deserve it, people who in a true capitalistic economy should have lost it all, personally walking away with billions of our hard-earned tax dollars?

How do we Americans just let that slide?

If we don't fix that problem, we are all royally fucked.

Lar