Investments

Why are the surreal investments of stockholders valued more than the real investment of stakeholders? 

Wall Street parasites

Saying Wall Street and its machinations are the economy is saying the parasite is the host.

parasite noun 1. An organism that feeds on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.   2. One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others.

Free Market

How do subsidized and deceptively marketed products create a "free market"? The US market is not free, but "authorities" say so. It reminds me of the aphorism: You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. But if authorities think the pig is beautiful, it is presented in the language of beauty. Yet it's still a pig.

Thomas Jefferson quoted.

Paraphrased and quoted:

He feared that the rise of a new form of absolutism was more ominous than the British rule overthrown in the American Revolution. He distinguished in his later years between what he called "aristocrats and democrats." And he then went on to say "I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial[,] and bid defiance to the laws of our country." He also wrote "I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."

                                                                     ~ Thomas Jefferson

(From Noam Chomsky's book : Power.)

We were warned more than two hundred years ago about corporations and banks, and their subversive intent has been pursued for all that time. They might be given credit for persistence, I suppose, but not credit for persistent, narrow minded ignorance. This defiance of democracy has been made to appear "democratic." It is not.

Capitalism

Capitalism is supposed to raise net worth, but if the net worth of society is lowered while the net worth of a few is raised, this is not capitalism. What is it? My view—the system is authoritarian, not democratic—some unwise decide for the many. (See the blog with the Thomas Jefferson quote.)

Song of Division - Poem

(This is against self-justifying greed.)

Neither nor, either or—
I swear there is a difference
You slobs work for the good of all
I work for recompense.

Now that capitalism means
Fairness and truth don't matter,
My responsibility is to see
My wallet get fatter.

Individualism!
That is the word to live by—
Getting suitable benefit
Means I take, you give. Why?

Some of us are better,
Plain as the nose on your face.
If you don't see it, too bad—
Losing is no disgrace.

Money and property
Accumulate to those with taste:
Imagine losers with either—
It would be such a waste.

Not wasted in my hands—
Sensibility's a buffer
Ignorance insulates me from
Knowing things much tougher.

My justification?
I have taste— I said it before:
Desires that must be satisfied.
Wants you cannot ignore.

The fact is: I don't see
Or care about what I cause.
There are winners. There are losers,
Obeying nature's laws.

It's a law of nature,
A simple way of keeping score:
Your starvation and death mean nothing
As long as I have more.

I am a patriot
I am for the Land of the Free.
You wonder what we're fighting for?
It is for me, me, me.

Dangerous experts

Financial and other "experts' are supposed to keep us out of trouble, not lead us into it. Are the "experts" who created the economic trouble really experts, or simply opportunists?

Experts fail when their "special knowledge" causes them to weaken valid statistical predictions because they "know more" or :"know essential facts."

But then, bad predictions are forgotten and often buried in reasonable-sounding explanations.

Wall Street profiting

Wall Street financial houses are supposed to make money when the economy is out of balance, and the U.S economy is way out of balance. However, dishonesty masks what is really wrong. If you prevent Wall Street firms from making the money they are supposed to make in a sick economy--this is addressing the symptom rather than the cause, which is a SICK economy. The problem is even deeper--society's values are sick, which makes the economy sick.