Eye opener for July 12, 2024: The only garantee in America
- Chris Ossman
- Jul 12, 2024
- 4 min read
In late stage Capitalism, the one thing that is guaranteed is that someone or something (a corporation) will be trying to take away your wealth.
This is not speculation. It is simply the final iteration of a system in which growth in the only priority. Whether it's profits or property, a company or an individual must continually gain more. This is the sentiment behind the saying
"If you're not growing, you're dying."
To understand this, one must only look at the banking system. If your bank isn't actively getting bigger, some other bank is growing and that bigger bank will eventually buy out your dying bank. And with little to no antitrust enforcement, there is no real means to stop the trend towards monopoly.
On a more relatable scale, let's look at what happened between 2006-2008, when the banks, with assistance from the Federal Government, caused the Great Recession. During that economic turmoil, the government incentivized banks to loan people money to buy homes. Not just starter homes. Not primary residences but second and third and other investment homes. Some of the people who banks were loaning money to didn't even have jobs, but the banks were motivated by government policy to make these No Doc (no documentation) loans. Mortgage brokers were actually loaning out money with zero proof of how those loans would be paid back. This sounds more like the way a loan shark would operate than an entity regulated by any legitimate government. The similarities between the banks, mortgage brokers, other lending agencies and loan sharks doesn't just end there. Loan sharks actually appear to be more scrupulous when you compare tactics. If you take a loan from a stereotypical loan shark, the word on the street is that the loan shark will break your legs for non-payment. This all sounds bad until you look at what happened with the banks and other "legitimate" loan agencies. Not only did these legal loan providers virtually break millions of homeowners legs by making them homeless and indebted for decades, but they broke the consumers legs before any repayment could be offered. While this may sound hyperbolic, in what other way would you compare banks that made the loans only to crash the economy, making repayment impossible as hundreds of thousands lost their jobs due to bank failures? And adding insult to injury, the banks were bailed out, while Bush and Obama allowed 5.1 million homes fall into foreclosure. And, what's worse is that the banks are failing again due to legal practices like fractional reserves. And what's even worse, or not as bad (depending on whether you have a bank account in a failing bank) is that this time your deposits will be confiscated by a failing bank and replaced with stock in the failing bank. So, it's actually better to borrow from a loan shark than a bank. At least you have a chance to pay back your debt with the loan shark.
Now, it would be one thing if all of the deregulation, or regulation paid for by those who are regulated only impacted big corporations or the wealthy, but this is not the case in America.
Ask any American how often they get some "scam likely" phone calls or some phishing emails or browser pop up. Not only are these daily occurrences for anyone with a computer or cell phone, but they happen hourly. This has got to be due, in part to the fact that, in a system in which incompetence is more often rewarded than weeded out, stopping illegal or legal but immoral and unethical practices is impossible. In such a system, taxes are collected to pay for a government that only pays for departments and personnel that get paid to create budgets to justify their department.
It's a cycle that eventually circles the proverbial drain as wealth is transferred to an evermore smaller group that thinks and has convinced the masses to think they are justified in owning and controlling all of the money, power, lives and futures of everyone else. These elites are so convinced of this "divine right" that they can't even envision it being unsustainable. They can't see the forest for the trees as their oppression causes homelessness, disease, crime and death. They don't see the folly of their greed until a French style revolution opens their eyes or some other country they've persecuted is spilling over their borders through illegal immigration or military intervention.
In 2018, I wrote a book highlighting the problems Humanity would face if more power, wealth, and control was funneled to a small group of elite individuals, groups, or organizations. In my book, I provided solutions (from myself and others) to the inevitable problems and also a means for the Public to analyze, compare, and contrast the words and deeds of those we choose to follow against reality. In my book Solutions: Enough complaining. Let's fix America.
In "Solutions...", I provide the means for readers to disseminate information as provided by their news sources of choice, their elected officials, and any other authority they choose to follow. The book also offers a means to hold their leaders up, not just to a higher standard than is currently accepted but to one that would improve their lives and the lives of those for whom they care.
