Wall Street Gets What It Wants as Government Obliges

[swag]

Run time: 04:14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pjBcMSePEo   Posted on YouTube: December 28, 2010 By YouTube Member: Bloomberg Views on YouTube: 38   Posted on DU: December 28, 2010 By DU Member: swag Views on DU: 635

 

[stockholmer]

1. of course Wall Street gets its way, they are the Neo-Pharoahs, after all

The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.

That public virtue which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic system; and it became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature; honour, religion, and state control.

If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel order would have been executed without hesitation by the ministers of open violence or of specious injustice.

The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide the natural descent of its object, soon operates with the irresistible weight of tyranny.


"The five marks of the Roman decaying culture of empire:

Concern with displaying affluence instead of building wealth.

Obsession with sex and perversions of sex.

Art becomes freakish and sensationalistic instead of creative and original.

Widening disparity between very rich and very poor.

Increased demand to live off the state

Edward Gibbon "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"

[JDPriestly]

2. Doesn't Gibbon also discuss the problems with the Roman

tax structure. When the rich have the ability to extort money from the poor and middle class but refuse to pay enough to the government of their own money to fund society's needs, the society collapses. That has happened over and over. Think Louis XVI and the Roman Empire in its final years.

Concern with displaying affluence instead of building wealth.

Obsession with sex and perversions of sex.

Art becomes freakish and sensationalistic instead of creative and original.

and

Increased demand to live off the state.

are all due to the Widening disparity between very rich and very poor which is due to a tax system (and a compensation system) that does not reward work or creativity or good character in one's personal life.

Hanging on to the traditions of taxation system that no longer fit a new economic reality dooms civilizations. Thus, the French aristocrats continued to take their rents from the peasants on the lands they owned but did not want to pay the high taxes that the French government needed to fund its feud with the British (including Lafayette's support of our Revolutionary War). (They essentially taxed the working people and middle class but not the idle rich.)

Similarly today, Wall Street continues to take its "rents" in the form of bonuses, fees and commissions from our system of pension and wealth investment in the corporate sector, but does not pay enough tax on the money they take from those "rents" to support the massive defense industry that protects those "rents" or the welfare system that pacifies the American public as it is being robbed.

Raise taxes on wealth earned by the financial sector until the money made from work and investment in American industry is in balance with that earned in the financial sector and overseas investments. That means that we need a sensible trade policy that does not impoverish American workers. That's how to put the country back to work and avoid very damaging social chaos in the future.

Hey, humankind has been here before. Why repeat age-old mistakes? We can do better.

[stockholmer]

3. perhaps because for the top level of power, this is not a 'mistake', but ...

instead a systemic pattern of control, and each new successive epoch of empire brings the central consolidating powers closer to true global mastery, as espoused in today's nexus of scientific dictatorship and oligarchic monetary dominion

[trungpa ricochet]

4. The Course of Empire

Great post....thanks. I am an American expat and a practicing artist. The US is truly fucked. I took my family out five years ago.

Now I won't even go back to the States at all. Just the TSA scan/patdown bullshit is proof enough of our premonition of collapse.

[sulphurdunn]

5. Wall Street gets what it wants because

Wall Street has lots of money. Wall Street doesn't have an army or a police force. We could solve our financial problems quickly by putting a dozen of the creme de la creme of the financial CEO class in maximum security federal prisons where they belong for about 20 years each. That would be just, and quite humane considering the magnitude of their crimes, not just against the financial, legal and judicial interests of the United States but against the security and well being of humanity and the entire biosphere. We need to quit pussy footing around with these monsters, or they will kill us all.

[stockholmer]

6. ahhh, but the actual owners of Wall Street DO have the armies

the CEO's are mid-level liege lords, jailing them doesnt begin to unwind the true schema of power

"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

Carroll Quigley

"The Rothschilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the representatives and agents - men who never think of lending a shilling to their next-door neighbors, for purposes of honest industry, unless upon the most ample security, and at the highest rate of interest - stand ready, at all times, to lend money in unlimited amounts to those robbers and murderers, who call themselves governments, to be expended in shooting down those who do not submit quietly to being robbed and enslaved."

Lysander Spooner

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."

Mayer Amschel Rothschild

“It is well enough that the people of this nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

Henry Ford

[sulphurdunn]

7. That is OK.

The Rothschild family put their inbreed feet into their pants one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.