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Corruption: That's What Government Was Designed For
Submitted by Bill Bonner via Bonner & Partners,
Why I’m Looking Forward to the Next Big Crash
Our beef with our own generation is not that it failed, but that it succeeded too well. It took control of government and used it like an ape uses a rock – to crack open a nut. But we’ll come back to that in a minute…
Yesterday, a London-based magazine and a TV station interviewed us. Both asked if we were “pessimistic.” “Of course not,” we replied. “We expect today’s financial system to fall apart in a terrible crash and depression. But we’re looking forward to it.” This was not exactly the answer they were looking for… And there’s not enough time in an interview to explain why this view makes any sense at all. The audience must have thought we had lost our mind.
We also had a meeting with our old friend and editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report Marc Faber yesterday. He helped make sense of our “pessimism.”
“The system is corrupt,” he said. “The government. The banks. The central banks. Big business.”
People always use their wealth and power to try to protect themselves. Sometimes they use it to take wealth and power away from others, too. That’s corruption. Of course, that’s what government was designed for: to allow one group to rob another. If the elite could take no advantage from it, why would they bother with government at all?
Dirty Work
We baby boomers took over in the 1980s. We have been in charge ever since. Since then, we’ve corrupted the economy, the markets, and government. By the 1970s, some of the dirty work was already done: The Nixon administration had ditched honest money. Now, the coast was clear. We could use this new credit-based money to pervert the whole shebang.
The U.S. government used to be limited. That was the point of the Constitution – to restrict the feds’ power. Much of the restraint was financial. States were forbidden from making anything but gold and silver legal “tender.” But there was restraint when it came to foreign wars, too. Congress was supposed to bear the sole power not only to put troops in the field, but also to raise the money to pay for them.
Today, the Constitution is in a musty drawer somewhere; not even the Supreme Court justices can find it. The new money, along with a sans souci attitude toward debt, changed everything. Now, the feds can get away with anything – including murder – if they put the right spin on it.
Pretend to be fighting terrorists, drugs, cancer, racism, global warming, lack of consumer demand, or tobacco use and nobody asks questions.
Capitalism No More
The Reagan administration talked about balanced budgets and fiscal conservatism. But within months of arriving in Washington, the Republican Party rolled over. Since then, it’s scarcely ever met a zombie it didn’t like – especially if he had a gun in his hand. Wars overseas. Wars at home. Every fight cost money and every one was a loser. But not for everyone…
And now capitalism is no more – not in the 50 states at least. Now we have cronyism, in which businesses angle for favors from the feds.
Why the switch? It is more profitable.
Another old friend, Strategic Investment editor Jim Davidson, described the payoff:
The Sunlight Foundation reports on research it undertook between 2007 and 2012, tracking 200 of America’s most politically active corporations:
“After examining 14 million records, including data on campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, federal budget allocations and spending, we found that, on average, for every dollar spent on influencing politics, the nation’s most politically active corporations received $760 from the government. The $4.4 trillion total represents two-thirds of the $6.5 trillion that individual taxpayers paid into the federal treasury.”
“That translates to a 75,900% rate of return,” says Jim.
Real capitalism means taking real risks… working hard… getting lucky… and discovering the future. Cronyism is safer and surer. It favors old, established businesses, the ones that can afford expensive lobbyists.
It doesn’t lead to wealth creation or progress, but it is easier for politicians and central planners to work with. They know where the money is! And they can plan for the past; it’s the future they have trouble with.
But wait… We came to praise our fellow boomers, not to bury them in scorn. Have we nothing nice to say about our own generation?
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Billy the Kid was always a trigger happy Oligarchy hired gun who sold his shooter to the highest bidder.
Well done !
Jefferson and Washington were true turds for having created a nation, a government and a constitution.
We were better off when the Sioux ran America. Right??
red man was free.
a democracy is for people who are capable of governing themselves. Americans, for the most part, are not. Nor would they want to be.
they want their government to protect them from others and to provide the necessities of life. lawsuits, polarization, NIMBY and nanny are the hallmarks of americana now.
pity there are no more red men; the original americans.
Ask Texas how corrupt Washington is.
TEXAS DELUGE: A Geoengineered Weather Event to Enforce Compliance with Agenda 21?
Kick the fuckers who can't govern themselves out of society.
The solution is right there in front of everybody: put all the animals back in the jungle and kill them if they try to return.
We have a corrupt government because we have a corrupt citizenry. Period.
Because we have an ignorant citizenry. Guess who keeps them that way.
@Anusocracy
The only problem is that they WAY outnumber us.
Possibly not.
In nature, they prey outnumber the predators by a considerable margin.
yes, they were a peaceful lot
well, a few of them were
until the neighboring tribe killed them off.
I think most tax paying people want to go to work, come home, enjoy their families, their time, food and their stuff expecting the government (because they worked Monday and some of Tuedsay to pay for good service) to do the necessary things government should do, They want it done correctly, efficiently and managed similiary within the borders of the constitution (or at least how they understand it).
Trouble is we are being squeezed by those that pay no taxes and the power and corrupt that hold the wealth and power in our nation that could care less about some 244 year old warm and fuzzy document the commoners take as biblical, (which is another feel good problem).
Maybe someday we can tweet to the world to "Standby, we are purging our bad players and reestablshing our constitution)
Expecting a small group of people to take money forcefully from a large group of people and not become corrupt is an illusion. Power attracts those with mental disabilities more so than those whom are mentally fit. Until a given geographical area comes up with a solution to the governance problem that does not include giving a small group of people the legal use of violence and theft, then the human race is doomed to repeat the boom / bust cycle we have been going through for the past several thousand years.
Until a given geographical area comes up with a solution to the governance problem that does not include giving a LARGE group of people the legal use of violence and theft by voting in a government to do it for them.
Most people are parasites.
Given the current system, yes. most people aren't given legal immunity when stealing / initiating force against those that earn their wealth though.
A very small minority of people currently enjoy that legal use of force now.
Wake up.
The Noble Savage is a myth.
Actually, for those who actually CAN handle the Truth... Here is a Cognitive Dissonance causing question:
How are countries that remained British colonies and we're eventually freed anyway (Australia, New Zealand, Canada) worse off? I'll bet that the US and certainly the world would not have been worse off and perhaps better, had there been no War of Independence in1776.
In 1776, america traded one form of serfdom towards the ruling class for another more subtle form. The new subtle form of serfdom was hardly noticeable for the first few decades, but it began to become more and more apparent from the civil war onwards.
The people that have ruled western society for the past several hundred years don't care about borders or governments.
The "War of Independence" in 1776 was merely an image sold to the masses.
The United States is still a British Colony.
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/united_states_british_col...
nope. paranoid nonsense.
not surprised to see you subscribe to it, though.
Lol, that's rich- coming from a paranoid poseur.
Never heard of the City of London?
Might wanna fix that.
Capitalism failed. The constitution failed. Time to try something new this time.
Panarchism: choose your poison or your elixir and live with it.
Awesome. Accurately. Pithy and to the point.
Making the final case for a looming deflationary depression...
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/inflation-vs-deflation-part-4is-the-u...
You can also start at Part 1 -
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/inflation-vs-deflation-part-1which-on...
"But wait… We came to praise our fellow boomers, not to bury them in scorn. Have we nothing nice to say about our own generation?"
<crickets>
Wait, wait, I got this. Hold on, give me a minute. Um... the 80s were OK. And um..... Somebody help me out here.
The only good thing you can say about them is that they were just a step on the way to Idiocracy.
Hair bands
if you don't join the club
you will do no business
one world economy
chip in hand
Bill Bonner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bonner_(author)
(If that doesn't work, just go to Wikipedia, and enter Bill Bonner, and then choose Bill Bonner (author)).
I wish Bill Bonner would stop saying that his generation is the fault. I think the fault began in 1913, when Woodrow Wilson signed into law the act creating the Federal Reserve. Anyone voting for Woodrow Wilson in 1913 would have been born no later than 1893, and would therefore be in Bill Bonner's grandfather's generation, or his grandfather's grandfather's father's generation, or his grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's generation.
Not the first to loot the nation to be sure. And you are right to say they stood upon the shoulders of those giants of corruption that came before.
But the fact is that when they came of age the US was the greatest creditor the world had ever seen, and today in their twighlight, it is the greatest debtor the world has ever seen.
Never have so many stolen so much with so little consequence.
We've been looking forward to the next big crash. Now I'm 7 years older. I'm in college. I stopped jogging. I get better government handouts. I gained 20 pounds, and the F'n crash ain't happened yet. Thank God I'm not alone. Greece is on my side.
My generation blew the doors off Capitalism to expose it for what it is worth, absolutely nothing!
WAR
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Say it again, America the Warmonger?
I always find it rather confusing how rational-minded people accurately point out the absurdity and unsustainability of the "mixed" economy through appeal to the free market and voluntaryism, and then say "we've lost democracy" or "this isn't how democracy was supposed to work".
If you're appealing to human freedom, then democracy and free markets (i.e. laissez faire capitalism) are incompatible. Freedom and liberty are both defined as the lack of coercion in an individual's decision making, particularly the lack of coercion from a central authority (the state). The State is the belief that a certain group of people have the legal and moral right to initiate violence in a given geographical area against legally disarmed people. As democracy is a method of organizing the state (and the worst kind according to Hans Hermann Hoppe), democracy and true freedom are mutually exclusive.
Democracy isn't gone, hasn't failed, and is certainly not the ideal. Democracy is functioning the exact way it was intended: by mob rule, increasing disputes between infinitely overlapping majorities and minorities, and siphoning resources from the masses to give to a few special interests, many of which remain unnoticed.
And I'm really glad this article points that out.
To put what is going on today in its proper perspective and to learn the history of how fortunes were made and political corruption was the basis of the U.S. (a sub-corporation of the Virginia Company) and why we are in the situation we find ourselves in today…You MUST read these books. Links below:
Books 1-3 - The History of Great American Fortunes
Or you can find a good audiobook reading of the History of Great American Fortunes on Youtube. There are other readings, but this is very good one. The link is:
https://youtu.be/uk7l2EZBD6s (Part 1)
Book 4 - Richard F. Pettigrew Triumphant Plutocracy
You cannot navigate the future if you do not understand the past!
Governments are here to protect and serve us.
That's what they are there for and that's what they are paid for.
It is easy to generalize and put the blaim somewhere else.
Nothing is all good or all bad, no system or government is the ideal or perfection or above natural law.
Corruption is not a strength, it is a system based on fear and therefore will fail and self-destruct.
Most people govern themselves, unless they are too weak or disabled, that's when they need help.
What is true and good for most people is that they want to be free, independant and equal to others.
Freedom, equality and Justice is a privilege that comes with bearing responsibility for oneself.
In the real world, Freedom, Equality and Justice is not really a basic human right,
as some would like to have us believe.
In the real world, we the people, have to fight for those rights.
WR;)
That's my Mom speaking, she blames "my generation" for screwing things up.
She's absolutely right. We fucked up her shit, and her grandchildren's shit.
-Agents of Fortune Forward to 2:22>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV5rujDmdMw
This definitely isn't the Garden of Eden; there ain't no Angels above.
Things ain't what they're supposed to be, and this "Ain't the Summer of Love"......https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW9HofMkWuA
Behold, my friends:
The Powers Who Art in Charge...
The Greatest Crime Syndicate In History.
OK, so the elitists are evil and they use government to control others. Yes, I figured that our on my own.
Gov = corruption.
'Nuff said.
Stunning reurgitation!
"government" is the noun
created to represent.
.
created to oppose a
generally shared fear. ( thought of a systemic threat
or morbid COLLECTIVE circumstance )
adopted only because the
opposition and threat demanded
such a perversion OF THE self or spirit.
yet, the perversion persists,
right or wrong, it persists.
so, what to do? think about it
and then do it or not.
the intersection of traffic control and
private monitoring and revenue collection,
systemic highway robbery, this kills me.
yea, and there is all the other stealing
and slavery, rampant; that too makes me
want to die or tell some child the truth.
but , i still resist.
anyway .....
"Cronyism is safer and surer. It favors old, established businesses, the ones that can afford expensive lobbyists."
"Have we nothing nice to say about our own generation?"
I have to wonder about the thought processes of someone who can write the above sentences spaced only a paragraph apart.
First Bonner declares that Cronyism is the bailiwick of "old, established businesses" then he immediately follows that with "Have we nothing nice to say about our own generation?"
The inference is that he is the source of the problem.
Speak for yourself Bill.
All of our problems come down to one thing, the problem of scale. When things get too big, they become corrupt and destroy themselves. You see this truth in nature, government, unions, business, etc. If a tree becomes overgrown, it withers and dies. Keep everything small, build local self governed communites and connect them together, outlaw corporations altogether. If one business fails, there are many to pick up the slack, one failing can in no way bring it all down.
human predators == REAL
government == FICTION
-------------------------
Whenever you read the term "government" (a fiction that literally doesn't exist), just mentally substitute "predators-DBA-government". Then you'll understand the sentence.