REACH FOR THE STARS

by Victor M Adamus

I understand and have a great deal of empathy for the 99% crowds expressing their anger at the crooks on Wall Street, Brokers who made huge sums of money off the taxpayers by running stocks into the ground and taking homeowners equities with it.  They also took out insurances against the triple AAA ratings of securities they were selling, backed by Real Property that was soon to be worthless.  So they got paid billions when real estate hit the wall and the insurance companies went down with the properties heading for foreclosure.  Foreclosure because servers at Taco Bell had managed a no doc loan.  On $16,000 a year income, they were buying $300,000 pool homes in Florida.  And the paper the loans were written on, mostly, were fraudulent.

My point is that these were NOT Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet type billionaires.  No, no, Jobs, Gates and Buffet are people who give people an incentive to reach for the stars.  These were crooks, just like you see when a person or more than one rob a bank.  Only in this scenario they robbed the U.S. Treasury and everything collapsed when George Bush bailed them out the first time, too big to fail, remember those lies?  So these are troubled times and the devastation to homeowners and retirees who lost all their life time investments are good reasons to protest; those jobless due to the bankers hanging on to liquid cash; and literally turning this country into a class warfare with the clout going to the 99% including military types.  It's not a good political season for those who go begging for their jobs in the Congress.  Begging the Corporations for more money because in 2012 they are definitely going to need it.

No one on the Hill is safe.

I applaud the crowds that are marching in cities throughout the United States.  An Arab Spring some call it.  I would not like to see violence.  But I would like the electorate to throw the bums out, starting with the stupid teapartiers.

Vic,
I like what you say and agree with it for the most part and what I am seeing reminds me of the 60's with the SDS, the Weathermen, the Chicago 7, etc., but, unfortunately, our economic crisis will be sustained for a while and over the next couple of years, when college graduates cannot find jobs to pay back their student loans, they will default, and the tax payer will pick up the tab.  This defaulting will continue for a while, which will stall any kind of recession recovery.  Meanwhile, our debt increases, our balance of payments increases as we import more and export less;  China and India continue to grow along with OPEC while the rest of us falter.  If the Feds decide to print more money, it will devalue the dollar and cause inflation, exacerbating an already volatile situation.

As parents whose children need food and have no jobs with which to pay, violence is inevitable.  If this scenario is played out to an extreme, then we will have another civil war in this country and it will be between the "haves" and the 'have nots."  There are not enough police or military personnel to control the masses of Americans, expecially those who, are armed!!!

The senior citizens in this country are a large enough majority where they will fight very strongly if any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are threatened.  Democrats and Republicans will continue to fight over ideolgy of big or small government.  Business will continue to operate the way it is and if threatened, they will relocate overseas or use their well paid accountants to find loopholes.  The rich outside of business will continue to get rich because Americans have to have their music and movies and reality television and professional sports where spectators live for the violence of the players.

These last 20 years of our lives will be like no other 20 years that we have ever experienced - our world is about ready to be turned upside down like the Titanic.