A great con, perhaps The Great Con, has been perpetrated on the American People, if not the whole world. This con has destroyed lives and economies, and brought a once-proud nation to its knees.
I am not talking about Credit Default Swaps, or its effects on the Global financial markets, although that it a symptom of the con itself, a side-effect, a footnote in history; nothing more.
This con is the Republican Party, a pyramid scheme of such depth and elegance that it will go down in the annals of this country as the greatest pulling the wool over the eyes of a people ever achieved.
For no or little money down, you, too, can make riches beyond your wildest dreams!
We've all had those emails, quickly deleted and ignored. "Invest $5, send this email out to 50 others and you get their investments too!" - the simplest of pyramids. Easy to spot, easy to ignore.
Of course, now with the internet, we have more complex schemes. My favorite (and a great template for the GOP-con) is the one that promises a website and book, telling you the secrets of "The SYstem" that will "generate wealth". If you order the "system", you find the book tells you... how to sell more copes of thise book. And the Website is a site that allows you to sell... more websites, and more copies of the book.
This pyramid is concealed behind its contents, but it is, ultimately, the same basic system as the original Ponzi scheme.
This is the model for the modern Republican Party.
For just your vote (and an optional donation to the RNC!) you, too, can build riches beyond your wildest dreams!
The whole edifice is a Ponzi Scheme of breathtaking audacity. No-one will pay except the people who invest after you - your children, your grandchildren, your great-grand-children. The scheme's details are terrifying - deregulate capital markets, remove Governemnt from every facet of business, while moving that monolithic structure into regulation of every other aspect of our lives (a bait-and-switch of epic proportion), allow those at the top of the heap (the original investors) to make money off the backs of those investors lower down the ladder, while those at the very bottom receive nothing but the vague promise of "riches".
Don't get me wrong - conservatism is a valid philosophy (even if it doesn't work), but, like all political philosophies, when taken to its extremes it appeals solely to the greed of others. The main difference is that, from its base, Republican conservatism apepals directly and unashamedly to that base instinct, unlike, say, socialism, which at least tries to appeal to our better natures.
Reagan was the first to see the power of the GOP (Greatest Of Ponzi) con; by removing, or at least beginning to erode, the power of unions and ordinary workers through legislation, he set the system in place whereby the only way to make money was to buy into the scheme. Soon, manufacturing died in the US, and we became a "white collar" economy, one that produced nothing, but invested and moved money around.
In such an environment, the next step was easier to make. With a manufacturing base, there would always be some out there who preferred to make their money the old fashioned way - producing things for others. Now, with fewer jobs in that arena, and only imports to live on, the American people were primed to suckle at the teat of the GOP's scheme. No manufacturing base disconnected our economy from its roots, and the bait-and-switch tactics of the Republican party were allowed free reign.
Bush 41 tried to bring the plan to fruition, but was voted out before he could implement the final cut; Clinton held back the tide for a little while, but even he, finally, fell victim to the con. Perhaps convinced by the promise of ever-expanding wealth with no foundation and (it was assumed) no ceiling, he allowed the beginning of deregulation. The Republican Congress took that tacit approval as the signal to press onwards, and thus the Gramm-Leachy Act, and the beginning of the end.
Bush 43 performed those final acts that allowed the scheme to move freely. Financial deregulation, accompanied by hyper-regulation of personal freedoms and choices. The pryramid was becoming top-heavy, with those at its pinnacle stuffing the fountains of money that showered up from the bottom rungs into their offshore accounts. Everyone watching knew that it would finally collapse.
What they might not have notced was that this scheme was not just about finance; it was about everything. A generation was stripped of everything; their freedom, their dignity, their money, their jobs. A sort of social Armageddon was approaching.
Barack Obama's election may (may) have averted this. I hope so. The Ponzi scheme is still rumbling along, in the halls of the RNC, in the Senate (as evidenced by the Auto 'bailout' failure, and the success of the Wall Street Giveaway). The Ponzi Scheme's social effects will be felt for years, perhaps generations, as America tries to shake off the shackles clasped there by the Republican machine, and shrug off the label of "a Nation That Tortures".
The Better Business Bureau watches out for us, protecting us from financial Ponzi schemes across the country. The only people looking out for political Ponzis like the GOP are those like us.
Be vigilant.