I'll ask you to put into perspective the circumstances which brought about the 2008 Great Recession. Think about the role the Wall Street criminal racketeering cartel played. To get a glimpse of Wall Street crimes, check out this summary (list) by FRONTLINE on the PBS website...
Remember how it went down? So-called complex financial instruments were deployed by financial institutions, designed by some of the top scientific minds money could buy. We're talking about collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), derivatives, and a host of other "products." The way the Wall Street criminal racketeering cartel would make money is by bundling mortgages into securities (mortgage-backed securities), selling them to investors around the world, and generating huge profits mainly through fees.
Because they had already bought and paid for the debased, corrupt-to-the-core political establishment, the conditions had already been set for the public to be left holding the bag when the house of cards, the (biggest) ponzi scheme (in the history of the world), collapsed.
And so, the Wall Street criminal racketeering cartel paid off the politicians to do their bidding (deregulation, etc.), and the rating companies to be active participants and accomplices in the scam; thus the AAA ratings on trillions of dollars of worthless mortgage-backed securities.
All the pieces in place, this kleptocratic cabal, like pigs in the trough, proceeded to engage in an orgy of rapid-fire, utterly fraudulent transactions generating huge amounts of profits, and showering the top executives of these firms with obscenely-large bonuses.
When that round of looting and pillaging (and that is what it was) came to its predictable-conclusion, the public was held holding the bag. Aside from the thousands and thousands of suicides, stress-related illnesses and social ills caused by these criminals, average Americans lost tens of trillions of dollars in assets, including millions of homes, equity, and pension funds.
The criminals who perpetrated the fraud? Well, some of them got hired by the current administration, and almost all got even wealthier in the aftermath of the biggest economic depression since the Great Depression. The debased, on-the-take politicians? Well, they got compensated with even larger amounts of campaign contributions, highly lucrative "jobs" which on the average increases their salaries 1,500 percent.
Yes Virginia, if the thought occurs to you that this ain't fair, that those who perpetrated the crimes benefited from it (greatly), while the victims of those crimes were doubled-, or tripled-victimized, you are totally correct.
But that's not all... Prepare for another round as the scams are now back in full swing again, until the next collapse which is likely to be even worst. You know, the "moral hazard" thingy...
Now, that was just to set the stage, to remind the reader about the level of depravity we are dealing with when we're talking about the American Kleptocracy (which has now branched out to become an international racketeering cartel).
So now I'll ask you to think about a few other countries, like the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Portugal, Colombia, and many others...
Here's what's happening: Think of the same Wall Street racketeering criminal cartel as an international organization. Its tentacles are like a "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity." Now, think about the political establishment in those countries... The same way the Wall Street criminal racketeering cartel bought and paid for our politicians, the international version of it (the financial cartel) has also bought off the politicians in Italy, and France, and England, and Spain, and Portugal, and Colombia, and many other countries.
A Short History of Neoliberalism (And How We Can Fix It)
While Western countries like the United States and Britain have experimented with neoliberalism in their own economies, they have also aggressively – and often violently – forced it on the postcolonial world, and in even more extreme measures.
~Snip~
This is how the plan was supposed to work: the IMF offered to roll over the debts of developing countries on the condition that they would agree to a series of “structural adjustment programs”. Structural adjustment programs promote radical market deregulation on the assumption that this will automatically enhance economic efficiency, increase economic growth, and thus enable debt repayment. They do this by cutting government subsidies for things like food, healthcare, and transportation, by privatizing the public sector, by curbing regulations on labor, resource use, and pollution, and by cutting trade tariffs in order to create “investment opportunities” and open new consumer markets. They also aim to keep inflation low so that the value of third-world debt to the IMF does not diminish, even though this reduces governments' ability to spur growth. Many of these policies are specifically designed to promote the interests of multinational corporations, which are often given the freedom to buy up public assets, bid on government contracts, and repatriate profits at will.
These same neoliberal principles are pushed on developing countries through the World Bank, which gives loans for development projects that come attached with economic “conditionalities” that entail forced market liberalization (this was particularly true during the 1980s). In other words, the IMF and World Bank leverage debt as a tool for manipulating the economies of sovereign states. The World Trade Organization – along with various bilateral Free Trade Agreements, such as NAFTA – also promotes neoliberalism by granting developing countries access to Western markets only in exchange for tariff reductions, which have the effect of undermining local industry in poor countries. None of these institutions are democratic. Voting power in the IMF and World Bank is apportioned according to each nation’s share of financial ownership, just like in corporations. Major decisions require 85% of the vote, and the United States, which holds about 17% of the shares in both corporations, wields de facto veto power. At the WTO, market size determines bargaining power, so rich countries almost always get their way. If poor countries choose to disobey trade rules that hurt their economies, rich countries can retaliate with crushing sanctions.
The emphasis is mine
Many of these politicians, being of low moral character and intelligence, could actually be bought off outright, but they like to pretend they are honest, hence the international Neoliberal agenda. It is basically another scam, and the narrative goes as follows: The free market is the best way to allocate resources, and therefore it should be propped up against the public sector (or "big government). With that lie fully internalized, then the looting can continue, and that's when you see the resulting attack on public sector employees, the dismantling or undermining of public education in favor of for-profit "charter" schools; the privatization of prisons; the ravaging of public lands exploited for their ores, oil, etc; and the subjugation and exploitation of workers.
So the economic philosophy of Neoliberalism has spread to multiple countries, greased by a system of legalized (or sometimes outright) bribery, not too dissimilar from the type of bribery that as engulfed the United States.
And so if you delve into the intricacies of the political establishments in Spain, and Italy, and Greece, etc., and you go deep into the finances of average politicians, you will discern the pattern. You will see the favors, the lucrative jobs for themselves, close associates, and family members.
And of course, they use the many international meetings they have (WTO, conferences, etc.) to share notes, to move their agendas forward, in some sort of self-delusion, trying to justify the worth of the Neoliberal agenda.
That's the corporate state; the international corporate state. It has totally failed, and now it is time for the people, who have been the ones suffering the consequences of the horrendous actions of this tiny elite, to remove them all from their position.
It should not be that difficult. After all, the people outnumber them 99 to 1.
Countdown to Revolution
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Market For The People |Ray Pensador | Email List | Twitter | Facebook
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