From American Dream to Corporate Lie

Before we start, I want to make it clear to everyone - I no longer consider the American Government and the American Corporate landscape two separate entities. They have been melded together and when I refer in this article to "Corporate", I refer to both as one.

Ahhh, the American Dream. It began as a reflection of our forefathers' desire to give every citizen an equal opportunity to succeed, to get ahead in life. The desire to move up, achieve a greater social and economic status are all the trademarks of the New World, as no other modern society before the United States of America has provided such an opportunity. This premise of wealth and prosperity through hard work and dedication proves elusive to most. Yet through most of American history, it has yielded some of the most productive working and middle classes in the world. This concept has given the Corporate structures a great advantage in terms of innate motivation and productivity. Furthermore, people are unlikely to rise up and rebel against the Corporate structures, as this very premise makes the people believe that by rising up or rebelling they are risking a lot. While the average American citizen that followed this premise in the past was unlikely to achieve the American Dream, the very pursuit was good enough to earn a decent living - something we Americans often take for granted. 

It is, of course, pure genius from a managerial perspective. You have a productive dedicated workforce and a mental safety net for the Corporate without a whole lot of effort needed from the top. However, since the time of our forefathers, there have been significant changes in economic and societal landscapes.

From a Corporate standpoint, a person can earn money, which means that he or she can be taxed on the money earned. Furthermore, that very same person can be a productive worker for any Corporate structure. Therefore, that person has the potential to provide the Corporate structures with profit twice. As far as the Corporate landscape is concerned, the more ways money can be generated from the same source, the better.

In present day, the American Dream no longer stands as just a premise of a better tomorrow through personal effort, but rather a well-crafted concept of acquisition of goods and status, regardless of means. You've all heard the standard consumerism version - a good education, a house, two kids, two cars. This is the Corporate Lie.

This is just Corporate Propaganda to make you feel like you're doing what you think is an accepted tried and true path to prosperity. In reality, for most people who blindly follow this version of the American Dream, it is a path to financial and personal ruin.

Let's break this down. For every part of the American Lie shown above, I will give you the following - the way the Corporate structures profit from the person and an alternative the person can pursue in order to benefit himself or herself instead of the Corporate structures.

I will start with Education, both emotional and academic. This is the foundation for all successful individuals that I have come across. The Corporate Lie dictates that pursuing a higher education (College or University) can provide you with a big salary, consequently financial stability and is crucial to your career. However, this lie is pushed by the for profit schools, which are in fact corporations themselves. These corporations make money from Student Loans and Government Grants. Grants are often paid for by the American Taxpayer, while Student Loans are an easy way to make money off the student who follows the Corporate Lie. As a result, The School Corporations profit from tuition, the Bank Corporations profit from loan interest, while the American Taxpayer and the Student are paying. What's worse, the same Corporate structures are outsourcing the very professions you are being trained to fulfill. So it is very likely that after leaving a higher education facility with an enormous debt, you may not have a reasonable opportunity to pay it off.

Let's take a step back - a good academic education begins with the right mindset at a young age. That mindset can only be framed through good emotional education from parents. It is only once a person feels good about him or herself and knows how to handle emotions, as well as how to express them, that a kid is able to get the most out of academic education. Next, all the building blocks a person needs for a good academic foundation can be found from first grade through the end of high school. There are classes of both general and specialized nature that any student can take in high school, which are applicable in the workforce. By the time you leave High School, if you have dedicated yourself, you should be ready for the workforce in a general sense. Now a student needs to acquire what is considered "higher education", which I consider to be skills relevant to your profession. Now I am not saying that students should skip college, far from it. In fact certain professions - Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, actually require college. And some fields do not require higher education at all. However for majority of academic fields, a combination of less costly book study with online courses can yield better results than attending a far costlier four year university. In a four year university a student will wind up taking courses that have nothing to do with their given profession, while an online curriculum can be crafted to include just the relevant courses - after all you're paying for it. Also, while you're going through online study and book study, make sure to get an internship in your field of choice - it will teach you to apply academic knowledge to practice. And that is all you need to get the higher education necessary to enter the work force. The rest of what you need in your given profession is on the job training, that's how the vast majority of graduates (including from ivy leagues) get started anyway.

Home ownership is the most advertised part of the Corporate Lie. We have heard all the monikers - it is the first step to raising a family, it is an investment. First of all, you can raise a family in an apartment, a condo or a log cabin, if you are so inclined. Last time I checked, human reproduction in America does not coincide with owning a home. Second, a home is not an investment, far from it. A house is a depreciating asset that in most cases loses value over time and is susceptible all kinds of risks beyond your control. The "investment" myth came about the inflating home prices during the latter end of the 20th century and the first few years of the 21st. However, if you track people's salaries with respect to home values, you will see that the home by itself serves as a preservation of capital at best and a total loss of equity at its worst. A home is a dwelling that the Corporate landscape loves for a multitude of reasons, here are some:
1) Banks Collect Interest - With a 3.75% rate on a 30 year mortgage, you will wind up paying an additional 50% of the value of your home in interest over the life of your loan.

2) Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) - These bonds represent future earnings from home loans.
3) Insurance Premiums - You are required by the lending bank to pay for home insurance, which increases over time.

4) Property Taxes - Local townships love the taxes collected from home owners and constantly increase them.

5) Home Improvement Stores - Where you will spend money to make the home fit your style.

6) Furniture Stores - Where you will get a bed, couches, chairs, and tables.

And don't forget the implied repair costs associated with home ownership - a leaky roof, torn siding, burst pipe, termites, carpenter ants, mold, heating/ac problems, etc. These are all things you would likely not be responsible for, had you been living in an apartment or a condo. When you add up the difference in costs of living in a house versus apartment/condo, and add that difference to cost of the home, you can consider yourself lucky if you get half that money back when you are ready to sell your "investment".

The only way that a house becomes profitable for the consumer is if you are renting it out to tenants or its land becomes suddenly valuable due to a natural resource discovery or proximity to a desirable site.

My advice is to go for an apartment or a condo, and you will be pleasantly surprised by how much more money you can save. With the condo, make sure to only buy it when you have the money to pay for it outright - you don't want to pay the interest on the loan, trust me. You will have far fewer headaches and more money in your pocket.

Next up are the children. The Corporate structures do not see your kids as pride and joy, they see them as dollar signs and future consumers/taxpayers. With the kids, you have to pay for baby formula, diapers, clothes, medicine, daycare, etc. Yet some adults in this country are not prepared to be parents at all, neither emotionally nor financially. Life is not a lock-step approach where you hit a milestone and move on to the next one - it is a path specific to the person you are (as well as your partner) that is unique in every sense. And you should only have kids when you're absolutely ready to be responsible, in every sense of the word, for bringing another life into this world. Introducing a child into this world by parent(s) who are unable to provide the right environment for that child, is downright criminal in my opinion.

Cars, the Corporate Lie emphasizes status symbols above all else. And much like the house, a car is a status symbol. Even more so, it is also a depreciating asset that will need to be replaced at least a couple of times in your lifetime. In most cases it requires a loan, where the banks make money on interest. It provides business for the Auto Repair shops, Auto Body Shops, Oil Change facilities, Auto Parts stores, Insurance Companies, etc. Unlike the house, you do need a form a transportation. And for most people who live outside large cities where Mass Transit can be a viable substitute, a car is a necessity. However, heed my advice and don't treat it as a status symbol - get something that meets your needs for transportation while taking the least out of your wallet, nothing more. A Bentley is not going to get you to work any faster than a KIA during a traffic jam in the morning.

Don't live the Corporate Lie, live your own version of the American Dream that is based on personal fulfillment and true happiness that is not tied to anything you can buy.

State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman

Eighteen years after the nation was captivated and divided by a racially-fueled television trial of O.J. Simpson for double murder, the nation once again went through the trial of the State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman. In this case, George Zimmerman was accused of second degree murder and manslaughter for the death of Trayvon Martin.

In this day and age the media has become the ever-present integral matrix in our lives, where we post all content, whether its fact or opinion. And the line between fact and opinion can become blurred at times, due to the sheer volume we are bombarded with in social media every day. However, as intelligent human beings, we are compelled to remain vigilant and recognize what are the facts, regardless of how contradictory they may be to our own personal views and/or feelings.

Feelings and Opinions: Trayvon Martin was killed by the racist George Zimmerman who profiled him as a criminal, which resulted in Trayvon's death. George Zimmerman is a murderer. He is solely responsible for Trayvon Martin's death.

Facts: George Zimmerman was a part of the neighborhood watch, which was created in order to stem the recent trend of home robberies. He was attempting to improve the safety and security within his community. George saw a young man (Trayvon Martin) whom he thought to be suspicious and called the police. While George Zimmerman was advised by the police not to pursue Trayvon Martin, he did pursue the kid (which was later confirmed as a legal act). Trayvon became aware of a man who was pursuing him, and had a phone conversation with a friend regarding the situation. During the conversation, Trayvon on record racially labeled his pursuer as a "creepy-ass cracker". As a result of the conversation, Trayvon was advised by his friend to run from the person who was pursuing him. Instead, Trayvon decided to confront George and instead of attempting to resolve the situation, he assaulted George which resulted in several injuries (to which the medical examiner testified). George Zimmerman discharged his firearm in self-defense, which unfortunately resulted in the death of Trayvon Martin.

During the trial, the judge fairly dismissed any characteristics references of Trayvon Martin's suspensions from school, theft and drug use, because they were in fact irrelevant - Trayvon was not on trial - George was. 

However, characterization of George Zimmerman, his desire to enter law enforcement, his wanna be cop persona, his alleged hatred, his alleged ill will; were all allowed to be portrayed by the prosecution, despite their legal nature being argumentative at best and not supported by any evidence. 

There were no real eyewitnesses who could tell the story as it happened, only witnesses after the fact. As such, expert testimony is the primary basis we all have to go on. The only eyewitness outside of George Zimmerman, was actually Trayvon Martin himself. In this country you cannot presume guilt, but the legal system mandates that you have to presume innocence. That is the right every single one of us holds dear as one of the founding tenants of the American Legal System.

No matter how much your feelings may drive you to say that George Zimmerman was the man solely responsible for Trayvon Martin's death simply because he fired the fatal shot, or because he didn't follow the advice of the police officer, they're simply false. The truth, as shown through factual evidence - is that Trayvon Martin decided to turn confrontational and assaulted George Zimmerman repeatedly until George had no other option but to discharge his firearm in order to protect himself. 

In the end, I commend the jury for reaching the right verdict of not guilty - in this country you have the right to defend yourself. While the death of Trayvon Martin is unfortunate, the act of discharging his firearm by George Zimmerman was justified - it was a single shot fired after forty seconds of assault by Trayvon Martin in which he suffered several wounds that were submitted as evidence. 

George will never be able to get a job in law enforcement, because of this notoriety. He will always be labeled a racist and a bigot, when all he was trying to do is defend himself while helping his community. He will also have to fend off the fanatics' death threats in the short term.

I will leave you with this parting opinion of mine - Being asked a question "What are you doing here" is no grounds for instigating a fight and assaulting anyone. no matter how much you feel that the guy is a "Creepy-Ass Cracker". As a result, we are all left to wonder would could have been had Trayvon Martin calmly answered the simple question and did not resort to violence.

“Pussy Riot” - rebels without a clue

I want to begin this article with the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which permits federal prosecution of anyone who "willingly injures, intimidates or interferes with another person, or attempts to do so, by force because of the other person's race, color, religion or national origin". This is an American law, for which the freedom fighters of the Civil Rights movement fought for in the 1960s.

Our wonderful society, as well as media madness, has adopted a policy of defending individuals who have been unequivocally proven of wrongdoing, even by our legal standards. This wrongdoing can be a contract you've signed and violated, an oath you have taken and broke, or simply an offensive display against the beliefs of others in front of worshipers on grounds deemed to be sacred.

In this article, the subject is a self-proclaimed feminist punk rock band called “Pussy Riot”. It does not meet the criteria of what we in the United States know as punk rock – they have no rhyme in their words, and demonstrate no musical ability. They just scream out of key verses to roughly chopped guitar chords. Nobody really cared about this band, or their previous performances, until February 21^st, 2012, when they went inside the Russian Church of Christ the Savior, and screamed several obscenity-laden verses aimed at the Christian Orthodox faith and its patriarch.  

As a response to this act, seven patrons of the Church of Christ the Savior that were present during the band’s performance on February 21^st filed charges with the local police as plaintiffs under the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code. These charges involved disturbance of the peace and hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.  Russian authorities acted swiftly and arrested three members of “Pussy Riot”.  After a prolonged trial, they were convicted of the charges brought against them, and to this day two members (Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova) still remain in prison serving out their two year sentences.  A third convicted member (Samutsevich) was recently released on probation, as a result of her plea to the court and an official apology to the patrons of the Church of Christ the Savior for her actions on February 21^st.

The outrage by the Western media and its hoard of left-minded zombies, who have no idea of their own country’s laws, is astounding. The news outlets had no problem making it appear as though the Russian Federation government is responsible for imprisoning the members of “Pussy Riot” for opposing Vladimir Putin and his administration. To the contrary, their prior performances just prove how the far freedom of speech has evolved in modern day Russia. Take a look at public performances by the band on November 1^st 2011, December 14^th 2011, and January 20^th 2012.

Their November 1^st performance was aimed at political opposition to Vladimir Putin’s administration and chided that the ballots Russians cast are nothing more than toilet paper. Their December 14^th performance was rallying a revolt against the justice and prison system for the conviction and holding of political activists who were arrested during an earlier political protest on a western equivalent of misdemeanor charges. Their January 20^th performance was a straight berating of Vladimir Putting himself with lyrics like “Putin pissed himself”. Although members of the band were fined 500 rubles ($17) each for violating rules governing free assembly and protests for igniting a smoke bomb in a crowded public area, none were incarcerated. This clearly shows, that the Russian government was more than willing to let “Pussy Riot” perform in public all they wanted and actually recognized their freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

However, the members of “Pussy Riot” just wanted to push the buttons further in order to get a defining response and actually violated the rights church-going worshipers on February 21^st of 2012. On that day, they filed into the church of Christ the Savior and disrupted the worship of ordinary citizens in order to push their own beliefs onto others. Their intention to offend ordinary citizens to gain a reaction from the authorities is ultimately what led to their convictions, not their hatred of the Putin administration.

I am an Atheist and I firmly believe that there is no higher power. However, I recognize that this is my belief. And if others are to respect my beliefs, I should respect theirs. Therefore, I respect religious individuals and their faith. Someone very wise once said: “Religion is like a penis. It’s ok to have one. It’s ok to be proud of it. But don’t whip it out in public and start pushing it up against everyone”. Well, that’s what “Pussy Riot” did – figuratively speaking, they took out their vaginas and rubbed them in the faces of everyone in that church on that day. And for that action, several members of “Pussy Riot” got their retribution.  

In my opinion, the punishment fit the crime. It is unfortunate that far too many uneducated and/or ignorant individuals chose to side with this perverted ball of hatred. But then again, it’s not the first time in world history that the people have been led by hatred under the guise of a higher justice.

On a side-note, the term pussy can be manipulated into various nouns, verbs, and adjectives in Russian jargon.  One such popular manipulation leads to a word-specific translation of “to pussy around” (пиздеть), whose meaningful translation into American jargon is “to bullshit”. As such, one may conclude that the true meaning of the band “Pussy Riot” is in fact a “Bullshit Riot”. Having examined the facts carefully, it seems very fitting. 

The Fall (Part II) - Military Race against whom???

In last week's post we began looking at the fall of the Socialist empire and the major factors that forced its demise. In Part I, we covered the Patriot Act, SOPA and NDAA, as well as how each parallels the government control principles of a Police state. While today's news were all about the Internet blackout and the SOPA/PIPA backlash from the public, today's post will focus on The Fall Part II that will cover our country's out of control military spending.

When the economy imploded in the Soviet Union, one of the major factors which led the demise was the consistent foolish desire by the Socialist world leader to "Keep Up with Uncle Sam" in terms of military might. The CIA saw an opportunity in this desire and consistently fed it, in order to drive their ideological opponent out of business. To compound the problem, Soviet Union's incursion into Afghanistan lasted for over nine years and bled the once formidable Socialist adversary completely dry. What the Politburo discovered, when it was way too late to stop the collapse, is that you cannot expect to cover the increasing costs of military spending without growing the country's gross domestic product. But the money to pay for all of this had to come from somewhere... and it did. It came at the cost of a declining living standards of Soviet citizens, as the government fleeced its population of their earnings in order to pay for the military indulgences.

Which all brings us to today, where the United States has no formidable military rival in the world and still outspends the closest military power eleven times over. Let me repeat that, the United States of America spends eleven times more than the second highest military spender in the world. Last year, our country spent over seven hundred billion ($700B) on military during one of the worst ongoing recessions in the country's history. Incidentally, we also had the largest increase in military spending than anyone else in the world. And while our national economy isn't growing, our military spending continues to increase.

To be fair, some of the spending increases are attributed to ongoing operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Nobody will contest that the incursion into Afghanistan after 9/11/2001 was justified as retribution against terrorist-sponsoring Taliban nation. Neither will there be issues justifying the incursion into Iraq in March of 2003 to destroy a terrorist-harboring regime. However, the length of stay in these regions has been extensive. Nevertheless, the public has yet to question our government's intentions when it came to military spending correlation to our economy.

The public may already know that active military operations cost money. The Army employs over 1,100,000 Americans in active and reserve military personnel directly within the branch. You need to pay for arming, clothing, feeding and transporting military personnel. Intelligence, logistics, armored vehicles and other related equipment costs a lot of money - and you can't get it on sale at Walmart. The taxpayers pay the full price and sometimes an inflated price due to the existence of only one supplier in many cases. What most people do not realize is how far-reaching the war machine is into our economy. Manufacture of small arms, tanks, fighter jets, reconnaissance planes, helicopters, drones, refueling vehicles, artillery, optics, satellites and more are all taken care of by private companies. The engineering and medical staff required in the field are a part of the military, but the equipment they require are also supplied and maintained by privately held companies.

Part of the arsenal in our military is the highly mobile Navy that can deliver a military presence anywhere in the world. All of its vessels are enormously expensive to build and maintain, as well as instruct personnel on how to operate them. In the disclosed vast arsenal of our Navy there are 12 Aircraft Carriers, 29 Amphibious Vessels, 109 Surface Vessels and 71 Submarines. To keep this fleet afloat year in and year out costs the American Taxpayer a fortune.

The United States Air Force provides incredible first strike capability in the American arsenal. In addition, it can prevent the need for ground operations and subsequently avoid American casualties. In its services are 5,573 aircraft, including 2,132 fighters. It employs more than 550,000 Americans directly, has 32 satellites and 450 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. However, the wealth of equipment we have is redundant with a significant part of existing projects for future aircraft unnecessary and wasteful. The Comanche helicopter and F-22 Raptor fighter were incredibly expensive and unnecessary projects that cost the taxpayers a lot of money, cancelled due to high cost of the programs and in the end were never needed on the field of battle. 

The United States also maintains an incredibly large military presence at home and overseas. We have Army, Navy and Air Force bases all over the world in every continent except for Antarctica. We have bases in Afghanistan, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cuba, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Greenland, Guam, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and Turkey. And these are the installations that the United States has made public - it doesn't account for others that are utilized by various intelligence services. While not as expensive as an active military operation, the same exact costs apply to personnel and equipment. Furthermore, the majority of installations in Europe serve no real purpose, as they are Cold War relics that survived our transition from the days of the arms race, where we successfully pushed the Soviet Union to expend its military to the breaking point.

In the end, the United States military machine is very costly to the American taxpayer. In addition, the war machines and bases the United States maintains around the world are a bleeding wound to the American taxpayer. Furthermore, taxpayer funds are also spent heavily on the wide array of private companies that supply the United States military. As a result, the indirect and direct military expenses are beyond reason. Furthermore, they provide a reduction in unemployment figures as more people are employed directly and indirectly through the military each year - this allows the government to mask true unemployment figures. Moreover, they provide related private sector economic growth which is fueled by government spending and represents false growth and false hope in our economy.

Lastly, and to my initial point, against whom are we conducting this arms race? We no longer have a Soviet Union to strangle with our spending. On the contrary, we are suffocating ourselves with every additional budget increase that is earmarked for the military. Our Cold War rival was pushed to the brink with the arms race we engineered. Let's not fall victim to our own strategy.

The Fall (Part I) - Free Country vs. Police State

Free Country vs. Police State. The clash between these two philosophies was all over the headlines during the Cold War era of the past century. It was a war of ideology - the idea of a society that harnesses the creativity and freedom of thought versus a society that marginalizes and stifles it. Contrary to popular belief, the ideology battle, which defined the Cold War, was finally settled by economic means. Through oil price speculation, aggressive military spending and the space race the Soviet Union was pushed to the brink of a collapse. The consequences of internal corruption pushed it over the edge. That is how the Western World won the battle.

Nevertheless, it appears no lessons were learned by our people and now the same plagues which doomed the Soviet Union are manifesting themselves right here in the United States. First of which is an overbearing central government, which usurps the freedoms and rights of the people - the very same rights which our forefathers deemed inalienable. Second, the gigantic ever-growing military spending, most of which is obsolete, that devastates government budget and consistently runs our country's debt further into the red. Lastly, the widespread corruption within the government that allows the elite minority to raid the coffers of the taxpayers - money which pays to facilitate further corruption through lobbies.

A large portion of the public has no idea what a police state really means, except for the sensationalist remnants of the national propaganda machine that was designed to vilify the Soviet Union and everything it was associated with. Short of the History Channel documentaries about countries behind the "Iron Curtain" during the Cold War, the public at large regards a police state as something that was tied closely to Communism - something that couldn't possibly occur here in the United States. Well I have a surprise for you - it is happening right now as I write this post.

It all started with the Patriot Act, shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The Patriot Act is the first step toward taking personal privacy out of the equation. This legislation was masked as the means to combat terrorism by opening up all data available on the internet to be used by Intelligence and Law Enforcement authorities. However, the end result is that this act allowed the government to spy on any person in the United States without a valid court order. The Patriot Act is unconstitutional, as it infringes upon the Fourth Amendment, which protects the public from unreasonable search and seizure.

Fast forward to 2011, and we now are faced with SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). This legislation practically allows the government to silence internet content that is deemed inappropriate. What can our government deem inappropriate - criticism, dissent, exposure of corrupt practices and anything it wishes to file under such description. Therefore, SOPA is unconstitutional, because it infringes upon the First Amendment to our Constitution, which guarantees the Freedom of Speech.

Also in 2011, moving into 2012, we have the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act), The verbiage of this legislation reads like the charter of a dictatorial state. If enacted, it will essentially allow our government to imprison any individual it deems to be harmful to the United States for an indefinite amount of time, without affording them the luxury of due process. Furthermore, the act is not limited to foreign nationals - it covers United States citizens as well. As such, it is in the direct violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that guarantee no citizen shall be denied liberty without due process.

So if you put all three of these pieces of legislation together, you will come up with a horrifying realization - we have a government that can spy on us, silence us, and throw us into prison without affording us due process. The people who represent us in Congress and in the White House have pushed for this... This is exactly what KGB was designed to do in the Soviet Union - to spy, silence and incarcerate indefinitely. Remember that the abbreviation of KGB stood for (Committee for Government Safety). This, my fellow readers, is the true definition of a Police State.

To be continued... (In my next post, I will cover the aspect of Military Spending)

Doing the Right Thing

A guest speaker at my company's holiday party decided to quote one of my favorite characters in history - Winston Churchill. The quote: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they’ve tried everything else." While that quote was a not-so-subtle jab at the United States for their late entry into World War II, it applies universally, to humanity in general. The generic form of this quote is a motivational speech moniker: "Change will not occur, until the pain of not changing surpasses the pain of change itself".

As we get older, human beings tend to take fewer and fewer chances turning into conservative beings. As professional adults we have already established ourselves and want to preserve our current standing, often overlooking potential improvements to our lives that require significant change. In this stretch, we have forgotten what it was like to choose where to go to college, what to study, where to take your first professional job and where to live. As adolescents and young adults we make these choices without much to lose, because we are just starting out in life. Further down the line, we acquire a steady level of income, a circle of friends, a comfortable place to live, and a level of familiarity with our daily routine that makes us want to preserve the Status Quo.

Personal tendencies ultimately trickle down into professional behavior as well. Therefore, the fearless leaders of monetary policy at the Federal Reserve are not immune to doing what is the easiest, rather than doing the right thing. When the financial crisis hit our national economy in late 2008, the government and Federal Reserve had important decisions to make. Specifically, whether or not they would allow free market's natural selection kill the banks and corporations who were borrowing irresponsibly and leveraging their assets foolishly. On one hand, the officials could have elected to allow these institutions to fail - showing that there are consequences for being foolish and irresponsible, while plunging the economy into an immediate crash that would have been quite severe in the short term. On the other hand, the officials could save these institutions by using taxpayer money to create bailouts, and borrow money to provide means of further financing - the proverbial "kicking the can down the road" for future generations to deal with.

At first he government allowed Lehman Brothers, a financial institution with too many toxic mortgage-backed securities, file for bankruptcy and fail. The same fate awaited Bear Sterns. The stock market's initial reaction was positive, because everyone saw that the government will not protect failing businesses and believed that financial institutions will be held accountable for their transgressions. But in the long run, that was not the case. The government turned around and chose to provide large sums, many of which were undisclosed to the general public until very recently, to Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and countless others. The government chose to save their financial pillars of the status quo at taxpayers' expense.

The treasonous criminal nature of that act may not be evident to the naked eye at first. However, as you look closer you see how the government told the average Americans to pull down their pants and bend over so that they can service our accounts. We were all intentionally mislead to believe in 2008 that the initial bank bailout was in the amount of 700 billion dollars. At the end of November of 2011, we discovered that the initial amount was actually 7 trillion dollars. Just so that the average reader understands - the Federal Reserve intentionally mislead the American public, which is responsible for the bill of all government bailouts, that the amount of money being borrowed was 1/10th of the actual amount. When, in reality, the actual amount of $7,000,000,000,000 was slightly less than 1/2 of the entire Gross Domestic Product of the United States. If you, as an individual, take 10 times more money from your employer than you are supposed to, you will be in hand-cuffs facing prison time.

But there's more to this fraud against the American people. Imagine you have a mortgage with Bank of America which you have signed at the peak of the housing bubble in 2006. Bank of America has claimed profits from that transaction and truly appreciates your business. Usually, on a 30 year fixed rate conventional mortgage, the finance charge over the life of the loan will be a little over 105% of your home's face value at 5.25% interest rate.

Now, with that profit on the books Bank of America packages your projected profit value into an investment called a mortgage-backed security. This security amounts to nothing more than an IOU in the amount of projected profits from your loan's lifetime payments. It turns out that this projected profit security was packaged with some not-so-certain (sub-prime loans) projected profit securities, and now the bank is in trouble, because the investors can't get rid of these securities fast enough, even at discounted prices. As a result, Bank of America receives a bailout from the government, which taxpayers must pay. So, in addition to paying 105% of your home's value to Bank of America in finance charges, you are now shelling out your tax dollars to help the bank survive the consequences of acting irresponsibly with the 105% you paid initially.

But wait, there's more! As a result of the $7,000,000,000,000 bank bailout, the government must borrow and print more money. As I've discussed previously in 'Real Money' post, when the government prints money without real asset value to back that money, they are in effect devaluing (diluting the value of) existing money in circulation. So over the past three years, the Federal Reserve has more than tripled the amount of money in circulation without any real asset value to back that money (just the faith of the US Government). Therefore, doing the math, your $1.00 in 2008 is mathematically worth $0.33 today. The only reason why you didn't feel that is because deflationary forces kept the purchasing power at the same level over the same time span. In the short-term, there are more deflationary forces in play (European Crisis, Asian Crisis, etc.). So the dollar may get stronger, before the actual inflationary crash occurs. But when the inflation catches up to the reality of dollar devaluation, it will be lightning fast and severe.

To summarize, you have paid the Bank of America 105% of the face value of your home in finance charges, the tax dollars to save for its irresponsibility with the money you paid. And to thank you for all of this, the government has stolen two thirds of your lifetime savings and all the money you earn through devaluation of the dollar. The Banks made money, the Government made money, while the people were left bent over with their pants down... waiting for the banks and the government to double-team them.

The Federal Reserve has recently said that they will "Do the Right Thing" by not printing any more money - they are currently rejecting any notion of a Quantitative Easing 3 program. Which means, for the time being the amount of dollars in existence will remain unchanged (if you trust Bernanke). However, it remains to be seen whether or not the Federal Reserve and our government will stick to this position.

As I've alluded to in the beginning of this post, change will not occur until the pain of not changing becomes too great. For those who are in power and have nobody to hold them accountable for their actions, the pain cannot be too great until it is inflicted by the people whom they are meant to serve. Our forefathers understood this concept and created means to hold each other accountable. However, the government has corrupted these means over centuries to a point where an average American is ignorant, if not altogether indifferent, to the actions of people who are supposed to represent their best interests.

So I ask you, my fellow Americans, are you willing to wait until the pain of not changing becomes too great?

Accountability

My former co-worker, as well as a good friend of mine, and I were discussing the various causes of present day financial crisis. Naturally, the Real Estate Bubble of 2006 came up along with the subsequent crash of 2008. After a long spirited exchange of supposed scapegoats like oil speculation and Ponzi scheming financial firms, I went on to talk about government intervention and policy failure.

My argument centered on the deregulation of the banking industry and the loosening of the lending standards. The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 opened the door for Banks to become giant conglomerates that could perform savings, loan, insurance, investment, as well as other types of business under one roof. The Glass-Steagall Act was passed originally in 1933 in order to stem the abusive corporate tactics that led to the market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression. This act prohibited banking institutions from engaging in other businesses - in essence, they could no longer take on unacceptable risk with people's savings. This was one of the first steps taken by the United States to get out of the Great Depression.

The loosening lending standards began to escalate in the past decade due, in part, to the demand of the Democratic party that everyone in America deserves a chance to own a home. The other part was the realized profitability by the newly "unchained" banking institutions. So when the banking institutions saw the Democrats' demands, their eyes lit up with dollar signs. They helped the Democrats' lobby for the Federally sponsored mortgage programs, and the rest is history. Soon, the massive lending led to soaring profits which led to even looser standards and more profits. By 2006, the peak of loosening lending standards led to the sub-prime mortgage era - where people with atrocious credit rating could get a mortgage at a substantially inflated interest rate. Everyone was raking in the money and nobody was paying attention that the money earned can never be realistically realized...

Let me explain that - you wouldn't lend money to a broke man without a job, because you would never see that money again. However, with banking institutions now having government protection and willing insurance branches to protect in the event of default, the banks lost all sense of responsible lending.

My good friend argued in turn: "You can't blame the banks and politicians. Surely the people who took the loans they knew they could never repay deserve the blame."

My response to that was: "You have people who are responsible and irresponsible. The bottom line is the people in charge must put measures in place that decrease, if not eliminate, these kinds of noncollectable loans. When the savings of ordinary people and the health of economy is at stake, you have to have responsible and accountable people take the right action at the top."

My friend replied: "I refuse to blame the banks for the fools who borrowed irresponsibly and contributed to the financial crisis. The blame is in the borrower."

My response: "The borrower does have a certain degree of responsibility to themselves. However looking at the bigger picture - if you're in charge, do you really want the health of the nation resting in the hands of the people you consider to be irresponsible fools?"

There is a Russian phrase that roughly translates to - "the fish rots from the head down". In this context, it means that the irresponsibility present in the society of a nation is a direct reflection of the leadership of that nation. On the other hand in a well run society, the leadership are more intelligent having the integrity and accountability to the people. The leadership must be responsible to the rest of the people, who may not be as intelligent, but are willing to work and contribute to society as a whole.

Accountability by the leadership ensures accountability by the rest of our society, with appropriate indisputable retribution in the event anyone fails to conform in this regard. The society is only as corrupt and irresponsible as the government and the government is nothing more than the representation of the people's ambitions.

So the question is - are you ambitious enough to force a change of who represents us as a nation?