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Guest Post: What If We're Beyond Mere Policy Tweaks?
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
What If We're Beyond Mere Policy Tweaks?
The nation's ills cannot be fixed by thousands of pages of regulation or more policy tweaks. Only a profound cultural transformation can address our problems.
The mainstream view uniting the entire political spectrum is that all our financial problems can be fixed by what amounts to top-down, centralized policy tweaks and regulation: for example, tweaking policies to "tax the rich," limit the size of "too big to fail" financial institutions, regulate credit default swaps, lower the cost of healthcare (a.k.a. sickcare), limit the abuses of student loans to pay for online diploma mills, and on and on and on.
But what if the rot is already beyond the reach of more top-down policy tweaks? Consider the recent healthcare legislation: thousands of pages of obtuse regulations that require a veritable army of regulators staffing a sprawling fiefdom with the net result of uncertain savings based on a board somewhere in the labyrinth establishing "best practices" that will magically cut costs in a system that expands by 9% a year, each and every year, a system so bloated with fraud, embezzlement and waste that the total sum squandered is incalculable, but estimated at around 40%, minimum.
Does anyone really think that the lack of another centralized Federal fiefdom and thousands of pages of additional regulation is what ails sickcare? Of course not. In effect, we as a society have completely lost the ability to honestly admit a problem exists and that the solution is not to paper it all over with more regulation and insatible, ever-rising debt-based funding, paid for by our children, grandchildren, and their children.
Consider the National Security State, busily constructing rectangular mountains of office space to house its vast, unchecked, oversight-free Empire. Does anyone actually know what tens of thousands of highly-paid people are doing in all these sprawling fiefdoms of National Security? And I don't mean the Pentagon or the NSA--the buildings sprouting all over the tonier bits of D.C. and its suburbia are the metastasizing results of the "green light" given to anything remotely connected to GWOT--the global war on terror, the war that by definition can never be declared won or even ended, the war that always requires more funding lest one "event" slip through the cracks.
If nobody in the elected chain of command actually knows where all this "black budget" money is going, what are the odds it's being spent wisely and prudently? "No meaningful oversight" inevitably leads to abuse of budget and power. If we haven't learned that, then we are well on the way to financial and political self-destruction.
Consider the Glass-Steagall Act, at 37 pages in length, and the 2,319-page monstrosity of corrupted Federal power, the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act:" (Source)
Back in December, Nick Schulz helped put the size of the 2,074-page healthcare bill into some historical context by comparing its length to some previous bills that rank among the most consequential in U.S. history, like the 82-page Social Security Act of 1935 and the 74-page Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Now that Congress has passed the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,” it might be a good time to compare the 2,319-page financial reform bill (245 pages longer than the healthcare bill) to the previous bills listed below (and see graph) that are considered among the most consequential legislative acts for banking and finance.
1. Federal Reserve Act (1913) – 31 pages.
2. Glass-Steagall Act (1933) – 37 pages.
Though few have delved into the ramifications of this monstrous power-grab, it seems that the Executive Branch has grabbed potentially unprecedented powers with little if any oversight by Congress--all in the supremely Orwellian pursuit of "consumer protection."
If a 37-page bill took care of the problem in 1933, why can't the same 37-page bill be re-instated? Why, indeed. The reason is that the bill impedes the flow of public funds to favored cartels and opportunities for financial looting by these cartels, and so a monster is created that nobody understands and which limits or simply overwhelms oversight by elected officials outside the Imperial Presidency.
The entire financial and political infrastructure is corrupt. Perhaps it is time to note that the most thoroughly, venally, pervasively corrupt nations on Earth all have abundant regulations against corruption.
Regulations don't stop or limit corruption, fraud and embezzlement by magic. Sickcare is beyond being "fixed" by thousands of pages of policy tweaks, limitations and regulations. The financial system is beyond being "fixed" by thousands of pages of arcane regulations that only serve to obfuscate the looting and predation while enshrining another vast Federal fiefdom that harvests the national income while accomplishing nothing of substance.
Regulation only functions if the culture and the society have a value system and a will to enforce it. The American people have lost those values and the will. Complicity reigns supreme. Instead we support going through the motions of adding layers of bureaucratic bloat, and listening to Soaring Rhetoric (TM) from bloviated politicos who promise us "prosperity," "recovery" and all the rest without any sacrifice or engagement.
Going through the motions never solved anything. 2,000-page regulatory thickets are one thing, and one thing only: purposeful obfuscation via complexity. ( America Is Just Going Through the Motions (November 19, 2010):
A profound realization hit me last night: America is just going through the motions now--of reform, of healthcare, of everything. America's leadership--both its elected and appointed officials, and its "shadow" Financial Power Elite leadership (the corporatocracy of crony Capitalist cartels and rentier/speculative parasites) are just going through the motions of financial reform. And the American public is resigned to just going through the motions of accepting the travesty of a mockery of a sham that is called "reform," too, even as they understand in their bones that nothing has been fixed and the next financial crisis has already been cooked into their future.
One of our few reliable voice of reason in the world of finance, Simon Johnson, has already laid bare how the the next financial crisis and inevitable bailout of the banking parasites will unfold. His article in The New Republic Way Too Big To Fail reveals how the "too big to fail" banks have shredded the wet paper bag of "reform" Congress went through the motions of conjuring up: they are quickly expanding globally, beyond the reach of any mere nation-state's grasp.
Let's be honest, shall we? There never was any fire for real reform of the financial sector. It was all rote, a foul, stupid play-act, a passionless pantomime of "caring" and fake-"progressiveness" displayed for propaganda purposes.
Real reform occurs when the political class of toadies, sycophants, leeches and cowards is forced by a near-universal public outrage to pass simple, powerful legislation and the budgetary resources to enforce that legislation. For example, the landmark environmental laws of the 1970s. Rivers in America used to catch fire before this Federal legislation; now they don't. There was a true passion and desire in the nation to clean up the industrial pollution that was destroying the nation's commons.
There was no real fire for financial reform in the politico class. All they had to do was wait out the public's outrage over TARP and then get down to the business of collecting contributions from financial players and their armies of toady-lobbyists.
So Washington went through the motions of "reform" and the regulatory agencies went through the motions of "enforcing" existing regulations. But nobody was indicted, no RICO suits filed on behalf of the defrauded, no billion-dollar penalties slapped on those who carted off tens of billions in embezzled, ill-gotten gains, and no perps forced into bankruptcy.
In other words, nothing got done except another layer of useless, overpaid bureaucracy was added to the bloated, overstuffed Federal payroll.
The exact same dynamic is visible in the "healthcare" (a.k.a. sickcare) "reform." 2,000 pages of mind-numbing slicing and dicing of the vast flood of national treasure that flows to the sickcare cartels, and nary a single word on the actual health of the American public, which continues to deteriorate on multiple fronts.
The "reform" is to add multiple layers of bureaucracy and additional costs on a bloated, out-of-control system in which 50% of the money is already wasted on fraud, needless procedures/meds and paper shuffling.
It was all about going through the motions of reforming a system everyone knows is beyond dysfunctional.
The painful truth is that we are far beyond the point where policy/legalist regulatory tweaks will actually fix what's wrong with America. The rot isn't just financial or political; those are real enough, but they are mere reflections of a profound social, cultural, yes, spiritual rot.
This is the great illusion: that our financial and political crises can be resolved with top-down, centralized financial reforms of one ideological flavor or another. It is abundantly clear that our crises extend far beyond a lack of regulation or policy tweaks. We cling to this illusion because it is easy and comforting; the problems can all be solved without any work or sacrifice on our part.
Our complicity in the corruption is never mentioned: our votes for kleptocractic politico toadies who promise us that our share of Federal swag will not be sacrificed, our interest payments to the banking cartel/oligarchy, our acceptance of bogus statistics, bogus "reforms" and ceaseless propaganda as legitimate, and lastly, our silence in the face of destructive deficits, lest our share of the swag be cut.
This is how once-great Empires end: toothless regulations are passed by bought-and-paid-for legislatures for the purposes of perception management, and a populace addled by constant entertainments and staged combats in the Coliseum listlessly pursues their "right" to bread and circuses of distraction.
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momentum is working against those trying to shed light. but i do hold out some hope for the hundreth monkey syndrome. if enough people realize then the energy required to get more people to realize drops slowly at first but then very quickly. the future is difficult to see, all full of emotion, just as much as we could destroy ourselves we could also evolve ourselves. adaptation is our greatest strength.
The best rules are clear, without exception, and uniformly enforced.
The bureaucrats were tweaking
While debt & oil was peaking
The surprise was great
When they learned too late
Our greatest need is eating
The more corrupt the state the more it legislates.
~ Tacitus ~
Need a quick fixer-upper for down in the dumps Federal government?
Well, give 'ole uncle john's tonic of federalism a try...
i believe we are reaching the cusp of something significant
Spring training starts in a few weeks?
Peak pussy?
Sadly I think I passed that date last year.
Dear Dr. E : Never give up, never surrender.
You will be amazed at how long it can get better.
The pussy bubble is still being blown.
That's one bubble I'll make an exception for.
Those in the pussy bubble will eventually get shafted and then the dick bubble can be blown until it explodes in their faces(like all the other bubbles)...
Once the U.S. drops a big old nuke on Iran the shit will hit the fan. When all else fails start a war - and hey when you have the largest military on the rock ya can't just have those boys sitting around possibly having homosexual thoughts about each other - ya gotta fire up the engine and keep the war machine fed. Dollars into arms and military to keep the economy chugging along as long as possible. Distraction from problems on home turf help keep the sheeples confused and unwilling to really do anything but watch.
To his credit Tyler keeps posting CHS articles, disregarding the growing hostility from a few readers/commentators and assorted flakes. It is this kind of passage that bothers them:
Our complicity in the corruption is never mentioned: our votes for kleptocractic politico toadies who promise us that our share of Federal swag will not be sacrificed, our interest payments to the banking cartel/oligarchy, our acceptance of bogus statistics, bogus "reforms" and ceaseless propaganda as legitimate, and lastly, our silence in the face of destructive deficits, lest our share of the swag be cut.
Spot on.
Just let the whole damn thing collapse. I'm sick of this shit!
My exact feelings, MountainMan, why can't they just let it go?
Everyone with half a brain knows that it's gonna drop but they insist on proving that everything is hunky-dory by holding up just that few weeks longer.
I'm ready, or at least as ready as I'm ever gonna be, so I'm prepared whenever.
Just let it go already.
Glass Staegall - yes!
Gold Standard - yes
[gold checks inflation/ deflation automatically - no need to be distracted by interest rates - focus on primary issues]
Dual-Mandate of Fed regarding employment should be shuttered [1977 - present] - quasi gov't program implemented only?] {tough-one?}
Ref: "Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 27: Milton Friedman's 'Second Thoughts' on the Cost of Paper Money" --- ebeling 2/99 @ Freedom Daily *[thinking of going back to the gold standard which is hard for friedman to acknowledge, if, not impossible, but, we all do change for the better, one hopes?]
http://www.fff.org/toc/fr99.asp#Mar
In other news, the Romanian government just collapsed due to austerity.
http://news.yahoo.com/romanias-government-collapses-protests-151141275.html
Vlad Tepec would be so ashamed.
"Onto the pikes with the lot of them!"
East Europe: kettle on the boil
Just in time to provide a final little boost for the Greek all-in strike today!
NFP
CNBS JUST HAD A LINK TO ZERO HEDGE:
http://www.cnbc.com//id/46280983
Awesome find, Dead Canary.
Does that make us respectable?
Just hope it doesn't make us Mainstream. :-)
Yeah, next thing we'll see Obama campaign ads!
"The situation in Greece went seriously weird this morning..."
Not bad for MSM reporting - I have to thumbs up 'seriously weird' - would be a good ZH avatar name, if not already taken.
NFP
I respectfully question the premise of this article.
Aren't we beyond mere policy tweaks simply because of the fact the governments are lying to us about the results as well as the current state of affairs?
You can't legislate morality. All of the laws and regulations written will not stop a criminal from being a criminal.
The root of the problem is greed. Throw in a lack of virtue and voila!
A part of me does enjoy reading the folks saying that Jesus Christ was really a capitalist and making excuses for this sorry collection of citizens and leaders. The other part of me is in mourning for an idealistic and generous nation that has been led away from our better natures.
For the record - I believe that J.C. cared about the condition of people's souls/spirituality - not how the state or business was organized.
... render unto caesar the things that are caesars, and unto god the things that are god's...
I believe that JC's statement was pertaining to souls to god and taxes to caesar...
But, it's a parable and on top of that who knows what was lost in translation?
Trav, what is the best way to send you some recent us and canadian oil production estimates? Your friend in the energy/oil patch.
Cheers,
Pigpen
The USSR is the model for all Western Governments and they have converged on the All-Powerful State run by a Politburo and a self-perpetuating political elite. The system has morphed into Putin's Russia with Siloviki and another elite which has siphoned off national wealth to build a new Boyar Class loyal to their Tsar in The Kremlin. This is where the USA and other Western countries have ended up and where Russian Oligarchs feel at home. Ut is developing amazingly well and surprisingly little resistance is evident.
Global Debt Crisis
The greatest private fraud of human history.
Who are the great fraudsters who are becoming the murderers of the human kind? How does the economy "illness" threaten Democracy and the freedom of people?
http://eamb-ydrohoos.blogspot.com/2012/01/global-debt-crisis.html
---------------------------------
By knowing what happened in indebted Greece, where loan sharks created “bubbles” and the current inhuman debt, one can understand the inhuman plan in total ...understand where this plan started just to bring all states at the same end ...understand how this type of plans are established...
Authored by PANAGIOTIS TRAIANOU
+5... Accurate analysis, CHS...
"If a 37-page bill took care of the problem in 1933, why can't the same 37-page bill be re-instated? Why, indeed. The reason is that the bill impedes the flow of public funds to favored cartels and opportunities for financial looting by these cartels, and so a monster is created that nobody understands and which limits or simply overwhelms oversight by elected officials outside the Imperial Presidency."
And that is what Corporate Owned Governance (aka Fascism) is all about Charlie Brown...
The legislation does need to be simplified which would require a top down re-write. It is the complication which permits corruption by codifying loopholes. Simple direct language in the law would shore up these loopholes. But first, we have to get the money out of politics, because as long as politicians are regulating the businesses which pay for their reelection campaigns, we will get no meaningful reform. And without actual reform, this mother is going to collapse itself by its own hand.
Anyone who has hung around ZH for more than a year knows the what ifs - should been buying PMs since before 2008, should of been buying some acreage where you can grow some food and raise some animals, and should have had plans A, B, & C. The Headlines on ZH have screamed at you for years that policy tweaks have never worked and never will - Greece is BK and the deck of cards that follows will be the wreakage of the EU.
Policy Tweaks? Good luck with that.
Greece is BK and the deck of cards that follows will be the wreakage of the EU
of course the USA and Asia won't be affected......their Debt will be sought after by all
i heard part of this
and thought you might
appreciate some of it?
.
heart of mind
Monday February 6 1:02pm
http://archive.wbai.org/
.
george quant on quantum meditation.
" there is no there there" g.q.
hidden state of consciousness etc.
Only a government acknowledged Depression with a capital "D" will engender real changes in our system. Of course that's what we're actually experiencing now (re our particular time and circumstances, social security notwithstanding) which will never be admitted to by any congressmen hoping for reelection. So down the rabbit hole we go.