The land is haunted, haunted by a crisis of capitalism!
The expression 'may you live in interesting times' wasn't a a blessing but a curse. Many home owners are under water on their mortgages, and student loan debt is at crisis levels (no doubt another bubble). The issue is systematic. 'Capital cannot abide a barrier' as the video below explains. And when demand stagnated Wall Street created a abundance of credit to be handed out instead of income.
https://www.youtube.com/...
Things worked for a while under regulated capitalism from around 1932 to 1980. And under a partially workers owned union-corporate-economy things looks pretty good. Union membership was much higher before Ronald Reagan.
Boy how things did change, while the right loves to attack the idea of State-Socialism-- Red China and Soviet Russia, the kind of Socialism the right talks about is much closer associated what Bill Maher refers to in this piece that's synonymous with the protection of private capital backed up the taxpayers; ie: the state:
https://www.youtube.com/...
While the corporate elite loves to rail again the government, boy do they ignore the fact the very things they profit off of was created by the state (through tax dollars) and private capital picked it up and ran with it claiming it was the private sector that made these things possible. The bailouts were just the zenith of state-capitalism, when capitalism collapsed on itself with the subprime mortgage crisis corporations begged the assistance of the state.
Little wonder there's radical reaction on both sides of the isle, unfortunately a good portion of that anger is misplaced on the right side of the aisle. And unfortunately even liberals keep bowing to the corporate-free enterprise, top down hierarchical structure/model.
The folly on the right side of the aisle though mirrors absurdity in regards to the role of the state. While the right lambastes the state providing services for citizens, the wealthiest ignore the massive subsidies the state affords them. The mortgage interest deduction is by far the largest government subsidy the government provides to people:
https://www.youtube.com/...
But, there's hope for a new round of thinking, if OWS did anything it was to clear the table in regards to the status quo, Americans are really down on the rich these days, believing few of them deserve the wealth they've "built". After all, if those influential people who run the state select influential winners in this economy are the wealthiest people's fortunes really earned based upon meritocracy?
From the perspective of a long game, the state-capitalists sense danger on the horizon, people in this day and age are asking all sorts of questions that challenge the very system we're living in. We've created two Americas-- two economic models and two legal systems.
It's a loaded system with some in the know and in on the take making fortunes on the labor of the working class, then there's rest of us, the 99%. Stay tuned, we're living in interesting times:
And here's PBS 'To Catch a Trader':
http://www.pbs.org/...
Full article with embedded links and pics:
http://liberalinkentucky.blogspot.com/...