Follow The Money

My guess is that you suspect something is wrong – terribly wrong.

Somewhere along the way, our marginally functioning system has become critically dysfunctional. What went wrong? Follow the money...

Ignorance of bliss is not bliss.

Ignorance of reality is dangerous.

Ignorance of danger is self destructive.

In every society, there is a constant struggle between the builders and the predators – the innovators and the extractors – the nurturing and the exploiters – sometimes even the slaves and the slave-holders. The course is never clear, and the choices never easy. But the struggle has made us stronger. It has also made our would-be exploiters smarter.

The primary issue is simple; carrying capacity.

There's only so much milk the cows can give – especially when they aren't fed well any more. And there are only so many taxes the people can pay – especially when they aren't paid well any more.

The wealth extractors always want more – because there are always more of them.

...And as always has been, the more powerful the wealth extractors get, the more they become like slave-holders (or even predators).

It appears that today's wealth extractors have become more powerful than the government of the United States of America. Face it; we know who tells whom what do in our government... We know that our votes don't count nearly as much as they should... The oligarchy ignores us. But only because we let them.

The biggest monopolies are multinational now. Our nations will have to work together to limit their power. This is the one thing the super-rich oligarchs fear – which is why you see so much “one world government” negative propaganda. They want us to keep fighting amongst ourselves. They don't want us to organize. They don't want a UN with real power.

If humanity organized worldwide, we would have the power to break these monopolies up – and sometimes, we really really should.

If they come to us for bail-out money; we should break them up.

If they callously break the law, and people die; we should break them up.

If they stifle life-saving innovation; we should break them up.

If they manipulate our governments to loot our wealth; we should break them up.

But we haven't promoted authentic capitalism. We've allowed the biggest companies to merge and acquire each other for decades now – until they've become “too big to fail.” (Translation; too big.) These dangerously big companies are growing even stronger now – and more predatory. For example; the big banks forced America and Europe (and the world) to give them billions of dollars because they gambled away our savings. And behind our backs; they borrowed trillions from theFederal Reserve (at our expense).

…

Most of the time; what we see anymore is really only pretend capitalism. Check for yourself. Take a drive across town in the nearest city. Every five minutes, you see the same set of big corporate business signs (and you know that many of them are owned by one of the other corporations). Local businesses are like endangered species. I see an oligarchy. I see a small group of people making greedy decisions that are, at best, only good for themselves, and only for only a short while.

As simply as I can put it; taking is not making. And a take over is not a make over.

Monopolies are well known for two things: eventually selling us garbage, at over-inflated prices. Ultimately, this isn't good for anyone – because good ideas (which our society desperately needs) get ignored.

Let's face it; we're all trying to get ahead on the same planet.

But if we trash the planet in the process, nobody gets ahead.

Paper profits don't amount to shit in a crappy world.

If we bring back real competition, good ideas will follow. If we nurture that competition in the right direction, we could even create a stronger civilization in a healthier environment. That's what we really want.