The
economic disaster that confronts America was not just
happenstance; it was brought about by specific people. One could go back in history and name
people whose malign influence still reverberates across the span of
time. That is not necessary to
apportion responsibility for our current economic circumstances. Most of the principal offenders are
still alive.
Maybe
others would place the offenders below in a different order, maybe the order
isn’t important. Possibly
others should be on the list.
What is important is the complicity of these rogues and knaves in the
current financial chaos. Ben
Bernanke was deliberately excluded as he had all the appearance of being a
patsy right from the start. He
was placed in the job specifically because he was an academic Keynesian who
didn’t have a clue. Some
would place blame on the dark figures who inhabit
the shadow world. The fact is
that those shadowy figures could not exert power without the agreement of
those listed below.
1 The Mainstream Media
Journalists
and Editors have repeatedly, chronically and with gross dereliction of duty
failed to inform of the ever worsening situation. Exceptions are almost non-existent.
They accepted Press Releases instead of digging for news. They ignored real scandals that did
manage to penetrate their Ivory Towers in favour of staying ‘on
side’ with big money advertisers.
They knowingly failed to keep at arm’s length from the political
establishment. They fed the
public bread and circuses. They
were utterly corrupt in the role that they pretended to perform.
The
Journalists and Editors of the mainstream media, particularly over the last
thirty seven years, have been an egregious disgrace to a long sullied
profession.
2 John Maynard Keynes
Keynes’
main economic theory was released in 1936. It promoted the idea of government
intervention in the economy to rectify any perceived problem. Classical economists knew full well
that it was a load of self-serving nonsense designed with the one aim of
ingratiating Keynes into the echelons of political power.
At first
many protested the lack of intellectual rigour and the destruction of the
proven virtues of the free market.
As the years moved on more and more simply sold out. Few career opportunities were open to
those economists who opposed what quickly became the prevailing
orthodoxy.
Whilst
understanding the pressures, that does not justify being a part of that which
was so destructive to society. It
is like a Darwinist becoming a Priest because the pay was better.
3 Richard Nixon
President
Nixon took America
off the gold standard in 1971 rather than face up to his fiscal
responsibilities. The US$ was
doomed from that point. Whilst
Nixon is already disgraced, history has still to hold him accountable for his
worst crime.
4 George
W. Bush
Whilst
the current President never claimed to be a great thinker (it is reported
that he admitted not having read a book since leaving college), he yet was
elected the President of The United States of America. With that job comes the responsibility
of ensuring that the economy is under sound stewardship. Whilst it is probable that Bush
hasn’t understood much, if anything, of what has been going on around
him, he bears great responsibility for what happened on his watch.
Hiring
people who are ignorant to be your advisors brings the reward that it
deserves. In the instance of
George Bush, that is the wholesale opprobrium of those whose lives have been,
and are about to be, destroyed by his profligate Presidency. Much like the F.D. Roosevelt
Presidency, the pain of the George W. Bush Presidency will be felt for
generations.
Possibly
George W. Bush is in the same patsy category as Ben Bernanke, but nothing can
excuse such incompetence in a President.
5 The US Congress
Congress
sat on its hands for decades doing nothing, absolutely nothing, as the
national debt became larger and larger.
They voted regularly to ensure that it was so.
Time
after time they placed their own interest in being re-elected above their
duty to the Constitution which they had sworn to uphold. Their order of priorities was always:
1/ Me
2/ My party
3/ Whatever
Ultimately
Congress had control over the Federal Reserve in that at any time they could
have dismantled it. They failed
to do so, yet could not have failed to notice the disastrous results being
produced.
It would
be remiss to not exclude Ron Paul from the above.
6 Alan Greenspan
The
Federal Reserve was a failed concept before it was even started in 1913. The various no-hopers who occupied the
job as head of the Federal Reserve all complacently oversaw the gradual
disintegration of the US$. The institution was from the start,
and never ceased to be, utterly beholden to vested interests. It was completely divorced from, and
indifferent to, the American people who produced all the wealth that this
country once had.
The
difference with Alan Greenspan is that he knew all this. He was the one head of the Federal
Reserve who could have stopped the rot because he understood its cause. He chose instead the life of wealth
and power, with callous disregard for the honest toilers and entrepreneurs
who paid his wages.
7 Christopher Cox
As Chairman of the Securities and Exchange
Commission, Cox had the job of overseeing regulation of the markets. He manifestly failed to do any such
thing. Even when the results of
investigations, showing massive manipulation of the markets were forced to
his attention, he still did nothing.
Cox should probably be higher on the list. He came to the job in 2005 directly
from Congress, so is really on this list of rogues twice.
8 Bankers
Bankers
played horrendously dangerous games with money entrusted to them by the
general public. The quote by Guy Hands, CEO of Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd. in November 2007 sums
it up best:
“Bankers are like dogs … they hunt in a
pack and go into a feeding frenzy. When hit, they whimper, and hide in their
baskets. The bankers have been hit very hard, and they’re not going to
come out of their baskets.”
Again,
as with President Bush, ignorance is no excuse. Investment banks mostly defrauded
other giant corporations, ‘sophisticated’ investors and national
governments. The American bankers
mainly defrauded the blue collar workers and middle class of America and left
them either living in Tent Cities, or very likely to be doing so in the not
too distant future.
9 Hank Paulson
Hank
Paulson came directly to the position of Treasury Secretary from Goldman
Sachs, so knew better than anyone the scope of the problems. He should have come clean, and
honestly addressed the problem in June 2006 when he first took on the
job. Whilst the damage could not
have been avoided, it would have been less severe than it will be now.
He also
sold out, despite the fact that he was already vastly wealthy, to those who
wished for the economy to be kept going just long enough that it did not
implode on their shift. Like
Greenspan he cannot use ignorance as his excuse.
10 The American People
The
American people swallowed the big lie that economics is too complicated to
understand and therefore didn’t even bother to try. Economics is so easy it cannot even be
construed as a science. It is
just plain common sense.
Only the
ignorant, or those seeking to create ignorance for their own nefarious
reasons, choose to complicate economics.
This generation failed to carry forward the advances of all other
generations. It was an
irresponsibility born of a self imposed ignorance in all matters economic.
The
upshot is the proving, once again, of the old adage: ‘a fool and his
money are soon parted’. In
this instance we have had so many people acting foolishly, that it is not the
parting from our money that is the only problem, it is the probability of
being parted from the American way of life that for so long we have taken for
granted.
“Things you expect to happen usually take
longer than expected: but once underway, they tend to evolve much more
quickly than you expected.”
Doug
Casey
Sam Mathid
September 22, 2008
The brilliant Professor Antal
E. Fekete, economist and mathematician, is
conducting a seminar in Canberra,
Australia
from the 11th to the 14th November this year. Talk about perfect timing. It is the ONLY seminar anywhere in the
world where all aspects of the gold and silver basis are discussed, together
with a trading system guided by the basis. Meet and hear one of the giants
of our age. Bookings for the
seminar can be made through: feketeaustralia@yahoo.com
I was privileged to attended Professor Fekete’s seminar in Hungary
in August of 2006, and will again be in attendance in Canberra. Sadly it will be Professor Fekete’s last presentation of Gold Standard
University Live. Also in attendance will be the
loquacious Mr D.R. Schoon and possibly even Tom Szabo of silveraxis.
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