Our Economic System Is No Longer Capitalism

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The battle of ideologies currently raging in America produces an attack from the left on everything that can be gathered and apprehended in a basket labelled with the catch-all term “Capitalism,” — catch-all  because what it refers to in today’s America can hardly be identified as Capitalism.

Wall Street Bull

 

For the most part those who attack industry, or too-big-to-fail businesses, or too-big-to-fail banks, or small to medium organizations, simply don’t understand the lexicon which yields their talking points.  They supposedly despise “big money” and yet the biggest bankers have financed the election campaigns of their party’s leader, the President — the end justifies the means, perhaps?  Those very same bankers have bought the influence of the Clintons through hundreds of millions in donations to the Clintons’ foundation, but don’t ask about the real purpose of Hillary’s traipsing all over the world while wearing the Secretary of State badge on her lapel.  All of Congress is guilty of capitulating to the wealthiest structures of society and even to foreign financial interest whether coming from banks, or from potentates such as those ruling Saudi Arabia.  Influence is for sale.

Senior bankers have bought the best seats at the table of government — Goldman Sachs for example has so intertwined itself into the fibre of U.S. Governance, it is impossible to distinguish any dividing lines which might inform us as to control, or if those divisions even exist.

Bankers long ago took control of America’s largest corporations. One of their powerful tools was the stock markets. First they changed corporate governance structures across all US businesses.  For example:  Once upon a time, in all medium, large and enormous companies, corporate management, including the Presidents, reported to independent Boards of Directors which included a Chairman, but the Chairman was not CEO. Gradually the magic wand of Wall Street created a new norm — CEOs would be anointed and everyone, including the Boards, would kiss their rings.

CEOs became America’s royalty, each responsible to himself. Egos had an open field.  IPOs became the desired exits for investors and made senior managers wealthy.  Bankers negotiated/dictated to the CEO what the deal would be and how it would be structured.  Bankers controlled the stocks and controlled the daily lives of senior managers.  They wanted CEOs to worry about stock price fluctuations — “The market needs an announcement,” or “You need an acquisition and we know one that will fit just fine.”  Bankers made hundreds of billions of dollars in fees, consulting and structuring, pretending that their work was a complex craft bordering on being a black art, requiring brilliance. One need not look very far up the hierarchy of primate intelligence to find capacity to be a banker —  spider monkeys, is high enough.  Although, spider monkeys, while instinctual and self-serving, seem to not be quite so ruthless.

Their schemes made life of the “banker” so much easier.  One guy to manipulate is so much easier than a crowd.  Want to do a new stock offering? The CEO will agree. Why? “Because we bought him with another offering we issued, and hey, we made sure he was loaded up with millions of options and we decide what the price is and when he can sell.  Yup, that CEO will do our bidding.”  Salaries, bonuses and stock options went through the roof, as we witness today. The more a CEO made, the more he was in the clutch of bankers.  No insane amount of cash seems too much these days.  Is the media full of incredulity when the CEO of a hedge fund pays himself $5 billion in one year?  Does it make any sense?  Well, to him and to his friends it does. But look, he donated a few million to a foundation everyone’s heard of, so what a great citizen.

Bankers already controlled The Fed and all central banks, however, while they were getting control of government, they also took control of the largest segments of the private sector.

The biggest bankers of Wall Street changed the economic landscape of the developed world forever.  American Capitalism became Financial Capitalism, and this Financial Capitalism can also be correctly ascribed the term Crony Capitalism.  A few individuals control the game, and control it unforgivingly.  Bankers deliver very little productive contribution to society, and yet they are now firmly in charge of our present and our horizon, with fawning media applauding and heralding their triumphs.

Bankers have morphed themselves into the single most destructive force in our modern societies, and average, hard working individuals have been placed under yokes of debt which cannot be repaid.  A mountain of excessive credit sitting on a system of fractional reserve banking, or fractional deposit lending, is not required for a free market system.  It is counter productive and counter constructive. Unable to grasp the nature of the catastrophe they have produced, their answer is to throw more trillions into the already excessive bonfire of debt, serving nothing and no one but themselves.   This is NOT capitalism and should not be misinterpreted as such.  We are in a new century of Financial Capitalism.

America is in urgent need of entrepreneurs and the progress, the jobs, and the wealth they infuse in society.  It must first jettison the influence that the too-big-to-fail banking and corporate leaches have secured to abuse willing politicians, while doing nothing to encourage and inspire a population yearning for encouragement and freedom to energize its creativity.  This will not come about with imposition of more regulation, such as ignorants like Yellen and the Administration call for to “feed” the ideologically dependent, and to appease Democrats.   Growth will come with changing the nature of the banking system, bringing back an understanding of Savings, promoting the positive effect of limits on Debt so that we don’t steal from our grandchildren while creating an artificial present, limiting all purchase of influence that comes from corporate funding of political campaigns, and putting an end to graft that comes from lobbying.

Why are bankers and politicians so determined that our grandchildren NOT have a better life than we do?

Let’s allow Capitalism to function effectively, instead of the system now enabling bankers to suck the oxygen out of society.

 

Postscript:

Yesterday Yellen (The Fed Chair) told the American people, “Central bank independence in conducting monetary policy is considered a best practice around the world,”

Translation, “We don’t want an audit, and won’t allow you to conduct one. We know better what’s good for you.  Get lost.”

Who’s in control again?

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JR, this was brilliant. I have never understood the power of bankers; yet, you have aptly described the phenomenon in a few paragraphs.

The ugliness of the Clintons with their sanctimonious foundation, that serves to keep them living in the elite circles of money and influence, has become the template for others to “Play” the system and play the rest of us for fools.

Please consider an expose on the business of foundations.

Well done, JR, well done indeed.

JR, there is a serious book lurking in your commentary. I will help you with initial or rough editing. I would be glad to help as a favor. I am not a finish person, but I am fast. Please consider it as a possibility.

@James Raider:

A good read James. However I would argue that what is missing from your analysis is that, (rather than encourage middle class entrepreneurship, ingenuity, and the profitable capitalism it creates,) those in the financial hierarchy are all over the world doing everything they can to break the middle class. We have a business environment where mergers, takeovers and the eventual creation of competition absorbing behemoth monopolies are seen as good things. (if you check the boards of directors, you often find a network with same people rubbing elbows on multiple corporate boards of so called “competitors”,)

My theory is that the end plan of these globalist elite is not to push global financial capitalism at all, but to create a carefully reined one-world-governemnt ruling body enacting and supporting global feudalism, with governments headed by political elites hand-picked, nurtured and put into power by the wealthy world elite. These possible (near future?) overlords would not care one whit what form of political central control the anointed nation-state leaders rule by, so long as they keep the serfs in control. Of course those who might threaten the overlords status quo, must needs be discovered, disabled or destroyed through either a controlled press or other nefarious means. The internet will also have to be stringently controlled to stifle free thought or possible threats, which also requires massive information gathering and processing to identify those who would be a threat.

You just figure this out now? The economic system hasn’t been “Capitalistic” in over a hundred years.

Your Nation is a joke…the land you grew up in doesn’t exist any more and if you had balls you’d do something other than bitch about it.

Rasputin

It is very obvious that you are unaware of what the word “blog” means. So I took the liberty of looking it up for you.
Blog:
A Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

Blog:
Freedom of expression written chronologically.

Welcome to America! It isn’t my nation, your nation or the writers nation. It’s OUR nation and a nation that says we have something called….Freedom of speech!

So rather than bitch about someone talking about truth possibly you should open your own blog and let some steam out. Probably would do you some good.