The Fall Of A Nation

Oligarchy Democracy
A guest post
By Engineer of Knowledge

As I write this article today, September 26, 2008, Congress and President Bush are cutting a deal to bail out those who were responsible for the destroying the economy of the United States to the levels never before seen since the Great Depression. Those that bought influence over the years, ending with this administration, to remove the financial and stock market safeguards that had worked so well for so many years since being put in place by Joseph Kennedy during the 1930’s Depression Era.

Oligarchy is a form of government where political power is by an elite segment of society. Many times it is distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military powers or occult spiritual hegemony. The U.S. has been under the control of politically powerful families whose children were heavily conditioned and mentored to be heirs of the power of the oligarchy exerting control through economic means. Oligarchy governments are completely reliant on public servitude to exist and the financial abuses are a common result for the middle working classes.

The Great Depression was brought on by more than a decade of abuses like the Teapot Dome Scandal of Warren Harding, a Republican President who allowed the oil industry to pump oil from U.S. reserve sites without reimbursing the U.S. government as oilmen gave gifts totaling over $400,000 to his administration. Much like what we are experiencing today in the U.S. A decade that ended up with the corrupt Presidential Administration of Hubert Hoover, a Republican who was from the mining industry that allowed the abuses to the government by corporate America to continue. Again, much like what we are experiencing today in the U.S. This decade of abuses finally lead to the financial infrastructure and stock market crash of 1929. Just like we are experiencing today.

Three years into the Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in November 1932. By this time the national income was cut by more than half and five thousand banks had crashed, wiping out nine million dollars in savings and retirement accounts. More than fifteen million workers had lost their jobs. The Great Depression devastated the middle class who were, like today, the bulk of the tax base. This ruination of the working class brought to light the question of government’s role to the forefront of protecting the working class from the abuses of the corporation’s controlling officers.

The election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt represented a revolutionary realignment of political power in the United States. The ascendancy of the Democratic Party facilitated by new voting coalitions of rural south and industrialized north, dislodged the Republican Party’s nearly seventy-year dominance.

One of the first reforms of Roosevelt was the passage of the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934. Roosevelt appointed Joseph Kennedy as the first Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. With this appointment Kennedy became responsible for drafting legislation which would regulate the business dealings of his former Wall Street colleagues. The first legislation drafted proposed federal supervision of securities traded over state boundaries, and established the Securities and Exchange Commission empowered to enforce the regulations. Some of the abuses that the commission was to address were insider trading, bear raiding, and manipulating stocks to create the illusion of activity. One of the most alarming propositions was that companies selling stocks would have to reveal their financial histories to the public.

Since the late 1970’s, there has been strong lobbying movement by the financial industry to remove these laws of check and balances. Slowing nibbling away, year after year, repealing those laws which kept the ethics of proper business practices and prevented greed from taking over the financial markets. President Regan even made the statement that, “Government is not the answer to problems, Government is the problem!” Without any elaboration to his sound bite statement’s meaning, too many from the middle working class accepted the statement at its generic face value.

Even Presidential candidate John McCain noted the abuses as being wrong when Bears Stern was bailed out from bankruptcy with tax payers’ dollars. The CEO, Alan Schwartz, rewarded himself by cashing in his stock options walking away with millions of tax payers’ dollars originally slated to keep Bears Stern cash viable. Yes, after making decisions responsible for the financial ruin of Bears Sterns, he felt that he did such a good job that he should be rewarded with his yearly bonus with our tax payer’s bailout money. Without any concern that he was taking away from the retirement funds of the working class that had invested in Bears Sterns, his greed was dominant over common sense of what should have been honorable.

So in conclusion, we are now debating rewarding with a financial bailout of those who bought influence with our elected officials, those who removed the safeguards placing ourselves in this financial ruin. Meanwhile our elected officials are now trying to look like epific legislating heroes as they come up with legislation that will cure and safeguard the American public on the $700 billion to be given to those that bought the influence dismantling Joseph Kennedy’s laws.

So in essence, we have government of the influence lobbying contributors, by the influence lobbying contributors, for the influence lobby contributors. The United States has been governed by the lobbying contributions of an elite few with influence that has increased annually for the past 30 years. The middle working class masses have been duped into thinking that they are included in this group. The real truth is we have been taken financial advantage of and left with the responsibility of their financial burden.