SOME THOUGHTS ON THE "here we go all over again" FINANCIAL CRISIS:

It amazes me that people are surprised. When you remove regulations like the Glass-Steagall Act (Clinton and Rubin did this) so that banks can merge different types of banking [savings, loans, commercial operations & credit, and investments (stocks, bonds, etc.) all in one bank] and become the mega monsters they are now; it means that people across the board are hurt by the ensuing financial crisis. Remember, business cycles are real. What goes up comes down again. Of course, much of this started back in Reagan's time when the Republicans were screaming about "big government" and asking for deregulation. They got it. Then we had the "Savings & Loan fiasco" (Bush family involvement) followed by more deregulation. Next came the Hedge Fund nightmare that almost brought several countries to their knees. Derivatives once again were part of the problem and the geniuses who supposedly devised a foolproof method had to hide their Nobel prizes. Now the most recent crisis which, as yet, has no cute moniker.

I remember how back in '98 workers in my company who had hoped to retire could not. Their 401Ks were invested in stock and that crisis took a big bite. Now 401Ks will be hurt again. And Bush wanted to privatize social security? That would have been the final legal bullet in the heart of average people in the US. What I want to know is why people continue to believe that we have a government of, for, and by the people? We do not. We have a government run by extremely rich people who are beholden to even richer and more powerful institutions in order to keep their millions and billions growing. So who do our politicians listen to? Us? Not a chance unless you take to the streets. Then they might dole out a crumb or two.

How are they able to bailout $700 billion to these institutions when they can't provide decent health care to many Americans? How can they do this when so many children are living in poverty? How can they do this when so many are out of work? How can they do this when we have such an enormous debt? They can and they do because it benefits them.

If you want a tag for this crisis, it could be called "chicanery all over again." Chicanery is a word that is seldom used. Perhaps that's because the economic belief system today has chicanery as its root meaning. For those who want to know, "chicanery" is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as: "legal trickery, pettifogging [being a "rascally attorney"]; the use of subterfuge and trickery in debate or action; quibbling, sophistry, trickery." Even though it is used to characterize low level attorneys who put together unnecessary cases through trickery, it could be extended to anyone (and the government is filled with attorneys) who uses legal means to pull the wool over peoples' eyes.

Let's start with deregulation. The given reasoning behind deregulation is that it hampers business from growing. Example: Regulations about contaminating the air and earth cause business to change the way they do business and this costs them money (out of their excessive profits). Meaning, if they are polluting the air and people develop lung cancer they don't want to help. So, legally, the regulations are changed to benefit business growth. That growth results in "too big to fail."

Next, derivatives. Most people have absolutely no understanding about derivatives, but neither do the people who use them (except to know they gain outrageous profits from the bubble that occurs). They are legal despite almost twenty years of problems. I'm not going to try to explain them either. Just know that they are "chicanery."

And what about "free markets"? Free markets supposedly mean that there is no government interference in the operation of markets. The result of this verbal chicanery is that the corporations of more developed countries can freely and legally enter the underdeveloped markets in Latin America, Africa, etc. And the result of that is the siphoning of funds from those countries back to the developed ones. Yes, you get cheaper prices from the sweating of labor in those countries, and yes there is development in those countries for the richest, but no, the wealth does not "trickle down" (another example of Reagan's verbal chicanery). If you want to know why, read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins.

Big government? The bailout is a prime example of big government. The bailout gives the lie to "free markets." The bailout is prime, triple A, chicanery! The government (i.e., the rich) tries to convince us that they must do this in order to save us. The result: those who created the mess in the first place are rewarded for trickery and outright criminality, while we will see another generation of average folks sacrificed. In real terms your money over the past 20 years or so has been decreasing in value. Now it will decrease even more. And the younger generation will face an uphill climb much more severe than it has been. All from economic chicanery used to benefit those at the top.

So what's happened from all of this deregulation and crisis? Well, for one thing, already big corporations are gobbling up failing ones and becoming even bigger. The government that doesn't want to be "big" is now taking on the job of controlling the market. Don't expect this to stop. It won't unless we the people take back our government. What kind of government do you want? What kind of economic system do you want?