Bogus Schemes And And Politically-Created Fraud From America’s Longest Depression Foretell Of A Greater Truth That Lies Ahead

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.  An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.  The traitor is the plague." – Cicero Marcus Tullius 106-43 BC

Given the heightened exuberance of financial markets and the perceptions of a return to prosperity created by the illusion of a dying monetary system, this is a good place to repost a Courier & Ives print I have put up here a few times in the past.  Along with it is some text below from one of its prior posts.

Every single financial activity that is glorified today was recognized as a Ponzi scheme 135 years ago. (As shown in the 135 year old graphic below.) By the way, that includes the state’s infatuation with gambling, taxes on finance and finance industry lobbyists funds as a source of political revenue. It’s actually quite amazing and frightening to view this print because 135 years ago the U.S. was in the midst of the longest protracted depression in our history. A depression created by elitists, banksters, the finance industry and politicians. What have elites and politicians learned in the last 135 years? What have we as a society learned about sustainability and economic democracy? The answer is clearly nothing.

Click on the graphic for a larger view

These cycles of endless misery and injustice of private, for-profit capitalism are repeated time and again.  When private entities control our banking and corporations (and as a result, substantially influence and create our social values) and our money, this is what the end result will always be – Ponzi schemes, bubbles, fraud, legalized theft, tyranny, poverty, misery, slavery and economic injustice.  As noted in two of the bubbles in the print above, that includes public office and public policy that is used by politicians and political gangs who rig the system for private, for-profit capital gangs to loot, gamble, pillage and steal from the good people of this nation and the good people around the world.   Who create a world of impoverishment.  Poor people are most often poor because they have been impoverished by others.  People aren’t born poor.  They are made to be poor.  By beating people down and controlling them rather than empowering and exalting human expression and human decency.  Poverty in a world of abundance that exists today is a barometer of the level of control exerted by the state and the level of corruption that exists in society.

Public office and public policy are clearly bubbles today as well. (And as a result, the lobbying bubble, the lawyer bubble, the law school bubble, etc that created the political and policy - legal red tape, endless mounds of legal code, useless rules, overregulation, rigging the economic & political game, etc that are indeed bubbles themselves.) 

As noted on here many times, whenever the best jobs in any economy are government or banking jobs, doom of the system is imminent.  Neither produce or make anything.  Neither are productive resources in our economy that translate into sustainable wealth or technological advances that benefit humanity.   The reality is both only exist by preying on the productive assets and people of our society.   They are parasites who attach themselves to the productive assets in society and suck them dry. 

Ayn Rand may have been dubious in her glorification of class-based, predatory corporate capitalism but she was surely right about the looters, moochers and parasites that use class and political authority to enslave people.  She should know as she lived through the communist takeover that became the Godless Soviet Union.  Just like we are living through the corporate takeover of what has become the Godless corporate state.  Private, for-profit bankers and politicians serve no purpose to a democracy or a free people other than mooching, looting and parasitically attaching themselves to productive assets and people.  Public capital markets, public banking and public money owned by democracy and public servants serve a purpose of empowering democracy, human development and economic freedom.  We have none of that today. 

The global economy peaked just about the time this Courier & Ives print was released.  And, it peaked for decades to come.  Globalization peaked in 2008 and that peak could very well be forever.  Yes I realize forever is a long time.  But most trade under a global capitalist system is meaningless and useless to a free society.  It’s part of the overproduced make-work required to keep private, for-profit capital in power.  It serves our masters who tell us what we need or want rather than what a free society needs or wants.  And if capitalism is failing permanently, so too will the false paradigm of exploitative, predatory, environmentally-destructive global trade we see today.   We could see a future reality where global trade literally collapses to some very small percentage of what exists today.  Forever.  And, even so, that trade could look very different than today.  I’ll talk about that some time in a future post but it certainly is not a future prosperity most people have ever even considered. 

In case you have trouble reading the “bubbles” above in the Courier & Ives print, I have included them below.   All of the schemes are exactly the same as today.  Nothing ever changes when it comes to financial and political fraud and corruption.  The only thing that has changed is the amount of leverage granted through financial “innovation” and financial “engineering”.   More pointedly the extent of the corruption or con that is perpetrated on society and its victims has achieved unprecedented leverage and scope. 

Gold Mine Bubble - Bogus Schemes - Gambling - Speculation - Lottery - A Big Bonanza - Fancy Stocks - Railroad Bubble - The Capital System - Jockeying - Capital Prize $100,000 - Pools - Gift Enterprises - Public Office - Puts And Calls - Rings - Betting - Policy - A Lucky Hit - Something For Nothing - Grand Prize $100,000 - Inflation - Games Of Chance - Rag Money (Paper currency)