The great depression led to more government. This led to social safety nets and pension plans. For a pension plan to work, money in the fund has to acrue faster than it is drawn out. This happens when the contributions and or an increases in the funds asset prices exceed the funds payouts
If this is not the case, you have a Ponzi scheme. To increase the value of the assets, you can inflate them by inflating the money supply and debt. To increase the contributions, increase the population or increase the required size of contributions. It didn't take long for the financial titans to spot a good thing and pitch in to help make the plan work. A fractional reserve banking system was an ideal way to keep asset prices rising. JP Morgan and the Rockefeller were happy to lend money at ever increasing multiples. Their creation, the federal reserve, was the perfect vehicle to guide the government toward its goal of freedom 65. By creating the biggest debt binge in history.
Now that the tide has gone out, we see some things.
We see countries burdened with debt. Banks, often bureaucracies themselves. Sucking at the jugulars of debt weakened governments and its citizens. We see the former world economic giant being foreclosed and repossessed. we see them slowly lose their hegemony. We see China dictating policy. They were in Washington this week wanting to know when the fed will get the boom going again. Pension funds, loaded with deadwood portfolio managers, thought buying securitized mortgages(cdo's) to get an extra 1% return, was a good investment. Then, when that idea went south, they switched to commercial r/e loans. They had to be solid, no? The same phd's in financial engineering, boasted of how they were beating the stock index averages while they rode them to the bottom and lost 50% of their clients money.
We see former employees of the predatory and parasitic banks and investment houses, working in high places as part of the process. Holding positions such as head of the U.S. treasury and the Bank of Canada, they are furiously pouring money into their former companies, while those same companies continue paying huge executive payouts. Not hard to connect the dots. We see bloated institutions. Corruption and incompetence in high places.
Madoff's ponzi scheme and others, which ran for years side by side with the governments pension plan, failed as the tide went out. We see cons, scams and ripoffs from top to bottom.
America had become so weak, that even the parasites were dying. There was no new debt being created. We need more debt just to pay the interest on the existing debt. Then what does the govt do? To keep the debt machine alive, they bail out the parasites, .
The 2 trillion dollars spend so far has disappeared into the gaping maw of the wall street predators. The tarp money to prevent foreclosures went to the banks instead, foreclosers have soared. Obama aid for employment? Gone! Employment continues to fall. If it wasn't for the people running out of benefits, the statistics would be horrendous.(insert on chart)
My point is that the smart ones, the Morgans and Goldmans, figured out long ago they needed to be part of the process. You see, in a bureaucracy, the process is all there is. They succeeded to the point where they have nearly killed their bureaucratic host. They are no longer part of the process, they have become the process and nobody sees it. They pretend to be part of the solution, but there is no solution, only money disappearing into the process. That to me is fascism.
It all comes down to one thing,is the tide coming in or going out? Everyone needs a rising tide, the U.S.A., China, the pension systems, the parasites, the govt, home owners, baby boomers. We all need a new sea of red.
