The democracy of the United States of America is succinctly described in three simple words that says all that is critical to democratic rule — “We, the People.” Governance flows from the People, not from some of the People, not from the rich, not from the poor, not from the powerful, not from the weak, not from a select few and not from one party or two, but from all of the People. Governance flows from the whole of the nation, The United States of America; from the whole body of the People via the conscious design of having one person cast one vote in the secrecy of the voting booth. That is the heart and soul of “American democracy” taught to me in my civics class many years ago while a freshman or sophomore in high school. Later, during my senior year, I expanded my understanding of issues concerning our democratic rule in a class named Problems of Democracy. The junior high and high school curriculum have changed much since my high school years of 1965 to 1969. During my adult years, I have witnessed both parties and any number of special interest groups as well as private individuals “game” our system of democracy for the purpose of winning any given election. Gaming the system has taken many forms — purging voting lists, telling lies, passing laws to make it more difficult to register to vote, gerrymandering, and other voter suppression tactics as well as passing laws that allow the very wealthy to contribute overwhelming amounts of money for the candidate of their choice and legislation that was interpreted to mean that a company has the same rights as the individual citizen.
In a democratically governed society, education must be democratic. Educating (as opposed to training) every individual to his or her highest potential must be one of the most primary concerns if not the primary concern of all democratically governed societies. All are to be equally educated. While communication should be the overall encompassing core in which educating activities are performed, there are many other critical efficiencies to be developed within the character of each and every individual populating a truly democratic society and therefore cannot be overlooked. Educating is critical because the health and stability of the democracy is in the hands of each and every individual just as the choice between the negative or positive or the choice between destroying or creating or the choice between exploiting or nurturing is determined by each individual. The personal responsibility of each individual required to protect the freedom of democratic rule is the critical expression of Two Sides of the Same Coin. This coin represents the idea that it is primarily each individual’s responsibility to utilize self discipline to limit his or her personal freedom through the choices that they make.
Educating means facilitating what each individual needs to best decide whether to lie, cheat and deceive or to be honest. This honesty is manifested in the public statement, “Honestly, I do not know the truth of this matter, but I must decide what action I must take which I honestly believe is the right thing to do.” Educating means facilitating each individual’s ability to decide what path to take: to disrespect other individuals, to ridicule, to insult, to defame, to slander, to dehumanize, demean and abuse them, etcetera or to respect each and every individual and through this respect honor them. Educating means to facilitate each individual to decide whether to take from others without consideration or thought or to instead be moved to reciprocate the kindness, assistance, and other benefits received from others and the community in general. In short, educating means facilitating the Decision-Making activities of each and every individual to choose how to use their individual freedom.
Just as the individual is the first line of defense against the negative forces which we all carry attached to the positive forces within our character, that same individual is the first line of defense to either protect our democracy or assist in the erosion and demise of our democratic way of living — via his or her personal vote. Thus, educating each and every individual is paramount to our society’s health and stability.
Education is about the ability to make good decisions. Education is about being capable of perceiving honesty or deceit, between perceiving truth or fabrication, between respect or bigotry, prejudice, and all forms of disrespect, between honor or contempt, loathing and hatred and between reciprocity or narcissism. And, critically important, educating is about facilitating individuals capable of perceiving con artists and deceivers when it comes to deciding how to vote.
We, the People, have allowed our precious democracy to morph into such a monster. At the close of 2018, I am witnessing an incredible occurrence. Is our democracy crumbling into rubble from which will rise an authoritarian, if not a totalitarian, state? I wonder if I am not watching my country developing along a path similar to the rise of Nazi Germany. Don’t take my word for this questioning perspective. Do your own research and read up on how Germany evolved into the totalitarian state that used violence to promote political will, that killed millions of innocent people, and ultimately controlled the whole of the German nation allying itself with Mussolini’s Italy and Hirohito’s Japan.
I am looking to the midterm elections of November 6, 2018 to see the will of the People. The voted will of the People is a concrete demonstration of the character of the People.
What perceptions of the current state of affairs must be evaluated at this time? I have already written about the corruption that has infected the Roman Catholic Church. What other corruptions are perceivable within the institutional pillars that are supposed to provide stress-bearing support for our society?
Citizens United
The normal path for individuals seeking to become lawyers traverses through four years of undergraduate studies to acquire his or her B.A. or B.S. degree. Next these graduates take and hope to score well on the entrance exam into law school. Upon graduating successfully from law school, they face the daunting task of passing the bar exam. Once the bar exam is successfully completed a practicing lawyer is created. This required path which every lawyer takes is important for understanding my concerns about Citizens United and all the legal bantering that has brought us to the current atmosphere surrounding the elections of our government officials. It is also important that to become a judge requires additional effort and to become a United States Supreme Court judge requires even more fortitude and work.
We, the common everyday citizens of the United States, are not so trained in the laws of our land. However, we, the common everyday citizens, form the greatest proportion of “We, the People” than all of the lawyers and judges combined. So, this is not a legal brief. It is an open discourse with any and all of the common, everyday citizens of the United States who care to participate. I am sure that many fellow citizens wonder as I wonder if our legal system is broken or, at very least, suffers from a serious need of a complete tune up and a change-out of all oils, lubricants and other fluids that facilitate the efficient humming of our legal and law-making engine.
Citizens United and all of the legal verbiage, opinions, briefs, counter briefs, arguments and judicial decisions revolve around the “gaming” of our process of electing our government officials. That being the case, we should seek the basic structure of our democracy. As I wrote earlier:
Governance flows from the whole of the nation, the whole of The United States of America; from the whole body of the People via the conscious design of having one person cast one vote in the secrecy of the voting booth.
All else flows from this premise. What is attached to this basic premise is the right to freedom of speech. We, Americans, hold the freedom of speech as dearly as we hold our right (and responsibility) to vote secretly and without intimidation or the sinister menacing, or usurpation of that right. It is too obvious that our individual vote is our power. Our individual vote is what distinguishes our country from a dictatorship or authoritarian rule. Since we, the People vote, those who want to control the government must control the vote. Hence the “gaming” of the voting process. It is really that simple. Citizens United is part of the process of “gaming” our process of electing our government officials.
The power of governing flows from the individual. Unions, corporations, and all other organizations are composed of individuals but those unions, corporations, and all other organizations are not individuals themselves. One person, one vote means that the position of each and every union, corporation, and any other organization is the collective position as defined by each vote cast by each individual of that group. The chairman of the board, nor the CEO, nor the Pope, nor the president of any other organization can cast the collection of votes of all of the members of that given organization. No collection of individuals who come together for cooperative action forms a human being. Such a collection of individual humans does not make up an entity equal to the entity that has been labeled “a human being”. A citizen is a human being. A corporation, union, or any other group is not a citizen. Thus, those entities that are groups of individuals are not the exact same entity as an individual citizen. Being significantly different in reality, groups of individuals do not constitute “a citizen” and therefore do not have the same rights as an individual citizen. The Roman Catholic Church, Amazon, Google, Target, Walmart, the NRA, the Boy Scouts of America, the Baltimore City Police Department, etcetera do not cast a vote in any United States of America election for any government office.
When the Ford Pinto vehicles were exploding because of a design flaw that put the gas tanks in a vulnerable position and many people died because of this design flaw, the board of directors did not get charged with any crime and no member of the board went to jail. If the Ford Corporation is like an individual, then the charge of involuntary manslaughter should have been considered as a real possibility for the board of directors and the CEO to face. But in the case of the exploding Pinto vehicles, the Ford Corporation is not considered to be a single person upon which such a charge could be hung.
When our ability to think abstractly travels so far down the road in pursuit of ideas, we become more and more vulnerable to lose contact with what is the genuine aspect of our reality. We become very brilliant in our ignorance.
Our laws and the thinking of our law makers may have traveled too far down the abstract path chasing ideas to promote their own personal agendas instead of truly trying to problem solve our many difficulties through a cooperative action as citizens of the United States of America. Instead, some members of some group forming a faction of the populace (special interest groups) formed a brilliant communication based on profound ignorance.
Within the verbiage that surrounds the issue of Citizens United, I came upon the following pronouncement:
“Spending is speech, and is therefore protected by the Constitution — even if the speaker is a corporation.”
Again we have lost contact with what is real about our reality. Is it not obvious to every ordinary citizen that spending is not speech? If spending is speech (spending = speech), then speech is spending (speech = spending). I go into the grocery store, pick up a loaf of bread and walk towards the door and make a proclamation, “I have taken possession of this loaf of bread, position is nine tenths of the law, I now own this bread,” and I walk out unafraid because speech is spending. RIIIIGHT! That’s not going to happen. Spending is not speech and speech is not spending even if some legal pronouncement tries to make it so.
This kind of trap occurs when educating is divided up into rigid compartments of thought which have little or no influence upon each other. We model this falsehood for our young citizens from kindergarten through the twelfth year of their education. Consider the linking verb “is” and the mathematic symbol “=”. The captain is John. John is the captain. These two sentences are exactly the same. Mathematically expressed, this idea would be: “captain = John”. Mathematically speaking equations are the same in both directions therefore “John = captain” is exactly the same (in both directions). Our legal thinking and our law making have strayed into the realm where abstraction has abandoned the true aspect of our reality.
Let us assume that I am like the little Dutch boy trying to put my finger in the dam to keep it from failing. I, as a single citizen, have little power nor do I control enough power to alter the legal powers that are the reality of my country. However if spending is speech and every citizen has an equal voice in the establishment of my government, then every individual citizen has the same amount of voice (speech): one person, one vote. There is absolute equality in the premise: one citizen, one vote. That same equality must therefore be extended to all speech pertaining to all elections. Thus no one person nor entity can spend more than any other regarding the equality of voice when considering the election of government officials. Otherwise, one individual’s or entity’s voice (vote) is more valuable than all of the others. Of course I know that all of this is argumentative. Decisions have to be made. I am once again back to the three coins and the individual as the first line of defense against the negatives and for the positives. While knowing that exploiting cannot be absolutely escaped and nurturing is not a requirement for surviving, a corporation or any organization is not the same reality as an individual casting their vote. In this predicament, I believe it is vital to aspire to see a thing for what it is: nothing more; nothing less, acknowledging that we cannot know every thing that is needed to be known. We must however act, act randomly or act consciously.
Laws are a matter of words. Just as the Roman Catholic Church has ceremonies in which a designated individual speaks words and makes a pronouncement bestowing sacred reality upon secular reality (as in anointing the thumb and forefinger of both hands of a male adult along with other actions of the rite making the secular man into a holy man), words and oaths are taken making ordinary citizens into lawyers, lawyers into judges and some few judges into Supreme Court judges. Just as we have witnessed and experienced anointed “holy men” of the RCC preying on young boys sexually, lawyers and law makers are not above temptation and corruption. In 5-4 decisions rendered by the Supreme Court, a citizen or many citizens might wonder how much justice truly permeates that law of the land so rendered by the voting voice of a mere nine individual opinions held by a select few men and women?
Time and time again I have heard officials and individuals of prominence articulate the sentiment: “We are a land of laws,” or “We are a country of laws,” as a badge of honor and decency over the use of brute force and the sentiment: “Might makes right,” as the principle of governance. However, there is a flaw in this false honor of being governed by laws over being governed by the strength of brute force. A critical word is omitted by the sentiment: “We are a country of laws.”
If unjust laws are passed then being a land ruled by laws is not a badge of honor. Being a country of unjust laws means that such a country merely legalized behavior which would be consider illegal in a country concerned with justice. Because some behaviors are made acceptable through enshrining them in one’s legal code does not mean that laws, in and of themselves, are the advancement of justice. Consider the following hypothetical. A country has a democratic structure of governance but the voting majority of the people elect individuals who pass unjust laws. Another country is under the rule of a benevolent dictator but he rules in a completely fair and just manner. When considering and judging the presence of justice, structure is not the issue just as the packaging of a desired product is not the determining factor of that product’s quality. Packaging is a way to distract consumers from considering the quality or lack of quality of the product being purchased.
In the final analysis, educating individual citizens is about facilitating their ability to determine justice over structure. Justice is of the highest concern, but structure is also of great concern. Structure is of great concern when the system goes bad and by bad I mean the system begins to devolve into an unjust system of exploitation and narcissistic endeavors of a select few over the health and benefits of the overall citizenship. My read on the history of human systems of governance is that dictatorships are hard to change, especially when they are corrupt and unjust. Violence, bloodshed, great suffering (especially by noncombatants), and uncertainty of the justice of the replacing ruling officials are the major elements of removing a dictatorship. Whereas a strong democratic structure with a healthy incorruptible voting system allows for the possibility (hopefully a probability) of a nonviolent removal of officials who act with a diminished concern for justice. Therefore, structure is about facilitating change. Justice is the defining attribute by which to evaluate governance. Justice is about facilitating the health, welfare and development of the overall body of citizens over a select few. This is not to say that the select few are to be deprived. It is to insist that the select few are not to be enhanced over the deprivation of other citizens.
Democracy in the United States of America has devolved.
It has been devolving for some years now and has demonstrated its lowest level since our current government was elected in 2016. As 2018 comes to a close:
- A free, independent, credible news industry critical to democratic governance is being compromised.
- Daily fact checks are required to correct what the President of the United States publicly states as facts. The voluminous fact checking being required is symptomatic that our independent free press has been and is being seriously eroded.
- It can be credibility argued that an apparent, conscious plan is being employed to dramatically weaken the independence and credibility of our free press. A major area to consider is the extremely tight relationship between Fox News, President Trump and his administration. Some public figures of note and others who are observers of government activities have put forth the notion that this tight relationship between Fox News and President Trump closely resembles a state-run information news organization (a propaganda machine). What gives credibility to this assessment is the collusion concerning the misinformation (the lies) that President Trump puts out into the public arena. CNN fact checks the President. Fox News promotes, explains (spins) and attempts to sustain the President’s misinformation in such a fashion that must be countered by other news organizations (like CNN) who challenge and fact check the President. These other news organizations (like CNN) are touted as being ‘fake news’ organizations.
- First, this creates a credibility crisis. Which outlet of news is the individual citizen to believe? Having no other independent information evaluator to settle the opposing reports of the facts of the issues critical to public health and welfare, the individual citizen is more open to choose what to believe by emotional bias over intellectual or cognitive rigor.
- Second, creating an atmosphere of “You’re wrong,” and “No, you’re wrong,” wastes decision-making time and weakens the credibility of the news reporting industry.
- Third, such an atmosphere of pointless arguing elevates the need to have a public educational system that focuses on facilitating critical thinking skills (educating over training).
- Fourth, in such an atmosphere of pointless arguing, individual citizens in leadership positions must decide to speak the facts critical to the welfare and health of the general public as opposed to spinning the facts so that they win votes. When winning votes or raising ratings are the ultimate goal of individuals and corporations, the country, the general public, is wounded because serious problem solving becomes secondary to those individual citizens who occupy the positions critical to the general public’s health and welfare.
- Social media (Facebook, Twitter and other such internet exchanges) have begun to replace traditional, rigorous and professional investigative reporting with opinions framed as facts without any serious, high standards or vetting process to determine factual accuracy. Recall the many conversations that you have had around the water cooler at work or with coffee and pastries in your favorite coffee shop. Now consider how much of those conversations were infused with hard, documented facts as opposed to general opinions stated as facts. The internet has exploded that reality of conversational exchange astronomically. Add to this the fact that there are professional spin-doctors that are paid by various agencies — governmental, political and private — to manipulate public opinion. (Russian involvement to weaponize social media is the current hot news item; but, Russia is not the only agency or organization to utilize professionals to tell half truths or to deceive.)
- Julia Carie Wong wrote the article, “How Facebook and YouTube help spread anti-vaxxer propaganda” for The Guardian posted on February 1, 2019 16.20 EST. She writes: “In 2015, Mark Zuckerberg weighed in on an unusually fraught issue with an uncommonly blunt statement: ‘Vaccination is an important and timely topic . . . The science is completely clear: vaccinations work and are important for the health of everyone in our community.’ ” Wong continues with: “But when members of Facebook’s ‘community’ seek information about vaccines on Facebook itself, they may be steered toward unscientific, anti-vaccination propaganda. On YouTube, a rival social media platform owned by Google, users seeking information about vaccines are similarly nudged toward anti-vaccination misinformation, much of it designed to frighten parents, even as a measles outbreak rages in the Pacific Northwest. The Guardian found that Facebook search results for groups and pages with information about vaccines were dominated by anti-vaccination propaganda, and that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm steers viewers from fact-based medical information toward anti-vaccine misinformation.”
- Falsehoods abound, are viable, and apparently economically profitable. It is not just traditional news outlets that are under attack. It is truthfulness itself that is being forsaken by professionals that were once upon a time pillars of integrity.
- Gerrymandering and other gaming techniques to manipulate the voting process undermines the spirit of the democratic principles which produced the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America.
- There was a debate during the formation of our constitution that revolved around a difference of opinion concerning the wisdom of the general public regarding governance issues. One group believed in a strong central government. The opposing group believed in a stronger states rights form of government. During this debate it was stated that the wisdom of the great mass of public opinion would not be up to the task of making the critical decisions needed to run the government.
- I believe one of our founding fathers (perhaps Thomas Jefferson) stated the opinion that the general public would make good sensible decisions if they were given all of the important facts needed to make informed decisions. This is critical because it implies that the general public must be told the true facts. If the general public is not told the true facts then by definition they have not been given the facts. In addition, after given the true facts, each and every citizen is guaranteed the right to vote — one person, one vote — cast in secret so as to prevent the use of intimidation to force or influence one’s vote. Gerrymandering, spinning of facts, voter suppression tactics, etcetera all go against the spirit of honest debate with true facts in the quest for the best solutions for all citizens, not for just a select few.
- The separation of powers was, in my opinion, the most important genius of the founding fathers. Distrust of consolidating all or most of the power of governance in the hands of a select few was consciously a guiding force in structuring the new government of the United States of America. Thus the power of government was divided into the three branches which would need to cooperate with each other, but would be completely independent of each other. Needed cooperation but absolute independence were the essential components for the formation of the three (executive, legislative, and judicial) branches of our government. The strong separation of the power between these three branches has been eroding over the past decades. The motivation behind the erosion is like that motivation behind the gerrymandering and other gaming techniques to manipulate the voting process. That motivation is to win. When individuals’ motivations to win escalate to the level of winning at any cost, the individuals’ integrity (to tell the truth, to be honest) is not a core concern. When winning at any cost is the major (perhaps the only) goal then the spirit of democratic governance that motivated our founding fathers to write our basic constitution is not relevant to the issue.
- When winning is the ultimate motivation, especially winning at any cost, then the ability to rationalize incorrect behavior greatly increases. Such rationalization permeates our government, our market place, our entertainment industry, our religious institutions and so forth. Winning at any cost undermines cooperation. The desire to win at any cost has contributed greatly to the shut down of our government when the Senate, the House of Representatives and the President cannot cooperate. Vying for the power to win over all opponents undermines any atmosphere of true cooperation.
All of these occurrences are quite understandable, even expected, especially if the system of educating the general public is poor or if educating is supplanted with training.
Banks
When I was growing up in small town USA, banks were considered to occupy a position of importance to the community because banks were that part of the community that helped the individuals of the community to buy cars, houses and get loans for many different requirements. My recollection is that banks prided themselves as being friendly helpers for the local people. One bank in my small town was called Union Trust. Trust was its name as in “You can trust us.” What I remember is that the banks were “community” banks who knew and understood the issues and concerns of the local people. To contrast this sentiment that has all but disappeared, I ask you to consider the words of United States commerce chief, Wilbur Ross who is a self-proclaimed billionaire. He is reportedly one of the richest members of President Trump’s cabinet.
On January 24, 2019 The Guardian posted at 18.34 EST, “Trump commerce chief wonders why federal workers are using food banks,” by Erin Durkin (New York). The following are words from Wilbur Ross on the state of affairs of the 800,000 federal employees who had to go without paychecks for 35 consecutive days because of a partial government shutdown (the longest in the history of the United States of America:
“I know they are [turning to places like homeless shelters for food donations], and I don’t really quite understand why,” he said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “The obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union, are in effect federally guaranteed. So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out, there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it.”
Durkin continues reporting Ross’s comments:
“You’re talking about 800,000 workers, and while I feel sorry for the individuals that have hardship cases, 800,000 workers. If they never got their pay – which is not the case, they will eventually get it, but if they never got it, you’re talking about a third of a percent on our GDP. So it’s not like it’s a gigantic number overall.”
Mathematics is not the receptacle of emotions. When humankind, when human individuals, are reduced to numerical entities, they are dehumanized. Can you perceive any humanity in Wilbur Ross’s words?
Wilbur Ross’s matter-of-factly delivered punch line is an attitude that has been growing for many years. I want to outline the progression to this state of dehumanized understanding of current human reality.
There are three historical events that are like stepping stones to the policy rhetoric voiced by United States commerce chief, Wilbur Ross. In my adult life, the first economic crisis to demonstrate our financial sickness was the Savings and Loan scandal during the 1980s and 1990s. Of the 3,234 savings and loan institutions, 747 failed at the cost of $370 billion dollars of which $341 billion was taken from the taxpayers. Next came the Enron scandal in 2001. Wikipedia reports:
“Enron’s shareholders lost $74 billion in the four years before the company’s bankruptcy ($40 to $45 billion was attributed to fraud). As Enron had nearly $67 billion that it owed creditors, employees and shareholders received limited, if any, assistance aside from severance from Enron.”
The third event prior to Wilbur Ross’s insightful revelation of the United States government’s level of humanity is the financial meltdown of 2007-08. I do not have hard figures on the vast amount of loss or cost of this horrific economic scandal but I have Wikipedia’s assessment of the financial crisis of 2007-08 as: “considered by many economists the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.”
How can the average American citizen come to terms with the huge amount of loss of money attached to this scandal? I offer a small excerpt from Rolling Stone’s article “The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare” written by Matt Taibbi (November 6, 2014 2:00 PM ET):
“Fleischmann (a tall, thin, quick-witted securities lawyer in her late thirties) is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion (not $13 billion as regularly reported – more on that later) to keep the public from hearing.
Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as “massive criminal securities fraud” in the bank’s mortgage operations.
Thanks to a confidentiality agreement, she’s kept her mouth shut since then. “My closest family and friends don’t know what I’ve been living with,” she says. “Even my brother will only find out for the first time when he sees this interview.”
Six years after the crisis that cratered the global economy, it’s not exactly news that the country’s biggest banks stole on a grand scale. That’s why the more important part of Fleischmann’s story is in the pains Chase and the Justice Department took to silence her.”
It is my opinion that the financial crisis of 2007-08 was precipitated by greed and perhaps cunning thievery on the part of some of this country’s largest banks on a grand scale. Corruption not only permeates our banking (financial system) but also has been and is eating away at our legal system with legal pronouncements like confidentiality agreements. Matt Taibbi continues with further explanations about the coverup:
“She [Fleischmann] was blocked at every turn: by asleep-on-the-job regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, by a court system that allowed Chase to use its billions to bury her evidence, and, finally, by officials like outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, the chief architect of the crazily elaborate government policy of surrender, secrecy and cover-up. “Every time I had a chance to talk, something always got in the way,” Fleischmann says.
This past year she watched as Holder’s Justice Department struck a series of historic settlement deals with Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America. The root bargain in these deals was cash for secrecy. The banks paid big fines, without trials or even judges – only secret negotiations that typically ended with the public shown nothing but vague, quasi-official papers called “statements of facts,” which were conveniently devoid of anything like actual facts.
And now, with Holder about to leave office and his Justice Department reportedly wrapping up its final settlements, the state is effectively putting the finishing touches on what will amount to a sweeping, industrywide effort to bury the facts of a whole generation of Wall Street corruption. ‘I could be sued into bankruptcy,’ she says. ‘I could lose my license to practice law. I could lose everything. But if we don’t start speaking up, then this really is all we’re going to get: the biggest financial cover-up in history.’”
Matt Taibbi’s article clearly presents to me three telltale signs of a critical, viral and degenerating illness plaguing our country.
1. Confidentiality agreements have become a legal means to keep illegal behavior secret,
2. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon paid $9 billion to keep illegal behavior from public eyes (that would be your eyes and my eyes). It is too obvious that JPMorgan Chase is about making profits and avoiding losses. So, how much did it steal if it had no problem spending $9 billion to keep it hidden away from public view? Answer: A hell of a lot more than $9 billion ! ! !
3. The original premise for establishing banks was to protect the individual’s money from robbers and thieves. Right? Now we have witnessed that the financial system has become the biggest, most successful robbers and thieves of our (the individual citizen’s) money that they were supposed to protect.
This one article is very illuminating of the corruption eating away the pillars of our society. I recommend a full reading of Matt Taibbi’s article.
Some individuals disagree with the statement that the financial crisis of 2007-08 was the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. One individual with whom I spoke believed it to be the second great depression. Public relations just didn’t want to label it a depression. Why throw gasoline on a forest fire? However you want to label it, the financial crisis of 2007-08 did not occur or develop in a vacuum. The deregulation during President Bill Clinton’s years in office (1993-2001) set the stage for the 2007-08 financial meltdown with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which was an outcome of lessons learned by the devastating Great Depression. There were other individuals who contributed to the forces causing the catastrophe. Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial, embraced exotic mortgages to borrowers that might not be able to repay the loans. Senate Banking Committee chairman, Phil Gramm worked hard to push through the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, embraced the notion that deregulation was good and that financial institutions could and would regulate themselves responsibly. He was a fan of Ayn Rand, who wrote a novel titled Atlas Shrugged that praised the benefits of greed. Greenspan ultimately stated before a congressional committee hearing that he was mistaken about financial institutions regulating themselves responsibly. There were many other individuals whose actions contributed to the progressive infection of corruption within our banking and economic institutions in alliance with corrupting forces within our legal and government institutions.
When I used the Internet to search for the ‘financial crisis of 2007–2008’ I clicked on Wikipedia”s huge article which had a great number of hot links to various key components to attempt to understand how the Great Recession came to be. I will cite a tiny part of this article. You can find it under the “Causes” section.
“The US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported its findings in January 2011. It concluded that:
… the crisis was avoidable and was caused by:
- widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the tide of toxic mortgages;
- dramatic breakdowns in corporate governance including too many financial firms acting recklessly and taking on too much risk;
- an explosive mix of excessive borrowing and risk by households and Wall Street that put the financial system on a collision course with crisis;
- key policy makers ill prepared for the crisis, lacking a full understanding of the financial system they oversaw;
- and systemic breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels.— Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission – Press Release – January 27, 2011″
In reading some parts of this article while scanning many others, I have come to a conclusion. There were many forces that wanted and still want to shed any blame for the immense tragedy that wrecked the lives of a great many families and individuals. For the sake of brevity I cite again from the “Causes” section to report some estimate of the financial damage done:
Falling prices also resulted in homes worth less than the mortgage loan, providing the lender with a financial incentive to enter foreclosure. The ongoing foreclosure epidemic that began in late 2006 in the US and only reduced to historical levels in early 2014 drained significant wealth from consumers, losing up to $4.2 trillion in wealth from home equity. Defaults and losses on other loan types also increased significantly as the crisis expanded from the housing market to other parts of the economy. Total losses are estimated in the trillions of US dollars globally.
Finally, I remember reading some individual in some article commenting that warnings of problems in the financial sector were sounded and recommendations were made after the Saving and Loan scandal of the 1980s and 1990s to avert any more such crisis situations. In that article, the comment was made that these recommendations were not employed. It is my understanding that needed policies, laws, regulation and oversight to rein in the financial sector and Wall Street are still being ignored.
I, as a simple citizen affected by the powers to be, need, and have, a simpler explanation or guide to judge these catastrophes. The resolution of the tension between the exploitive side and the nurturing side within individuals in positions of influence and power were flipped or were consciously turned to the exploiting side of the Decision-Making Coin. These individuals worked in concert with one another via the common ideology of economic exploitation in a social environment without the necessary laws, policies, regulations and oversight needed to protect the greater community of individuals over the greed of the select few.
Greed is the motivator. Empathy, a requirement for humanity, is deficient or absent altogether. Narcissism is the dominate trait ruling over the human character within the leadership ranks of our critical institutions.