December 18, 2014

I find lately, in idle conversation, that whenever the subject of ‘government incompetence’ arises (and who could deny the verity of that trite phrase) my friends invariably attempt to affix blame. By that I mean: It is either the Republicans or Democrats who have visited these tremulous times upon us.  After all, who else could have brought us economic malaise, loss of jobs, terrorist bombers, unrest in North Africa, Ebola and on and on…. It must be the political party in power – or their predecessors. . . Someone must be blamed; right?  But, upon reflection, it seems wrong to affix a single political philosophy to something so vastly complex. There must be more to it than political labeling. Certainly the Democrats of Harry Truman have little in common with today’s.  Likewise, the Republicans of Dwight Eisenhower are not recognizable in Sarah Palin or Ron Paul. So what has changed? And why, like a dog with worms, do we keep chasing our tails seeking solace? Political ideologies no longer offer concise reasons for our global malaise. Are we, as a nation, stupid?  I don’t think so.  A large percentage of Americans are educated and benefitting from the lessons of history.  Along with our western allies, we are positioned to point the way out of this worldwide dilemma.  But we are all pre-conditioned to accept the inevitable.  So, wherein lies the problem?

It resides within the hidden agendas of corporate and social special interest groups and their lobbying partners. These money hungry bastards have usurped the role of an impotent Congress and forced it to bend to their moneyed might – the will of the people be damned.

1 Timothy 6:10 says: “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”  More contemporary scholars proclaim: “Follow the money.”  I believe that is the key.

The problem with our Congress is not the members themselves, as satisfying as it may be to blame those greedy, narcissistic bastards. No – the problem is the  money that feeds them. Like the blood that feeds cancerous tumors.

Dear reader: the problem with our society is an investment banking community that has grown like a cancerous Kudzu vine strangling our education system, our commercial banks and investment in companies that produce jobs.

Repeal  of the Glass Steagall Act, in the minds of many experts, caused the financial crisis of 2008.  It demolished the wall between investment and commercial banking that had served the country well since 1933. Today, every major bank (read too-big-to-fail) is a gambler.  They borrow government funds at unconscionably low rates and invest in high risk gambits. When they win – the banks prosper mightily. When they lose – the government  (‘the public’) bails them out whole – all the while using convoluted securities (a misnomer) designed to confuse and intimidate. . Congress has ensured that fact and insured the banks. It is a travesty.

These same supposed lenders-to-corporations are now also shareholders of those companies and demand quarter to quarter increases in both top and bottom lines. The pressure on CEOs is intense causing them to make bad decisions and establish policies not in the public good or in the best interest of minority shareholders. (Example:  If a company’s earnings suffer – merge with a competitor and solve the problem. Of course the bank earns fees on both sides of the transaction.)

To begin fixing the ails of this great nation, we must reinstitute the measures of Glass Steagall to break the strangle hold of the big (read ‘wealthy’)banks which threaten and cajole the 535 weak-kneed members of Congress who now do their bidding.

The Supreme Court got it right when it declared corporations are people. Those self-same people are not stupid and reacted to restrictive tax policies by moving their operations and taxable entities to more friendly shores, leaving the unemployed wondering: “What happened?”

Do we learn from these Congressional malodorous acts and fix the problem?  Hell no. We make them worse, but expect a different outcome. This time it is the Omnibus Spending Bill of 2014 that allocates $2.1 Billion to keep these weak-kneed imbeciles employed by incorporating , among other give-aways:  a reform of the Dodd-Frank law which would remove some of the separation between financial derivatives and traditional bank accounts protected by FDIC. This bill, written by lawyers from CitiBank, would weaken protections that were supposed to help prevent other financial crises like 2008 and the one that spurred the Great Recession; and if that was not enough, there is a proposal to increase limits for personal contributions to political parties by ten times, from $32,400 to $324,000.

According to the official budget process, these items should have been debated as part of twelve separate bills over a period of months. Instead, Congress has crammed them all into a 1,600 page monster and given themselves only a few days to sort out some of the most important decisions they’ll make all year – all with the threat of a government shutdown looming over the nation.

Who wouldn’t welcome a shutdown of this form of self-dealing government?

You are welcome.