Stocks struggled to finish the week and have now moved into the red for the year. Since Monday the DOW has lost about 300 points or some 3% while the NASDAQ has given up about 50 points or a little over 2%.
Reports are circulating on ABC and other outlets that the Senate doesn’t have the votes needed to confirm Ben Bernanke as Fed Chairman for a second term. This plus Obama’s recent proposal to actually rein in the banksters probably explains the markets recent slide.
It’s common knowledge that we have the best politicians money can buy and with yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling that Unions and Corporations are free to spend unlimited sums to influence federal elections the balance of political power shifts further from the electorate in favor of big money and big business.
Recent stories regarding the financial plight of state and municipal government are growing more common and the stories more acute as the days go by. Some recent highlights include 25 states now borrowing funds to pay unemployment benefits and another 9 in trouble. Whilst LA is the latest municipality to declare that bankruptcy isn’t an option despite dire financial conditions. Forgotten in all the excitement is the fact that during the boom the banks fleeced state and municipal governments including school boards with incomprehensible derivatives laced financial packages long on fat fees for the banks and woefully short on financial benefit for the government entity involved, in many cases exploiting their lack of understanding in the process.
What was it that Thomas Jefferson said in 1802: “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” That was before the age of lobbyists but the point being that the interests and desires of the corporation are radically different than that of the electorate and Mr. Jefferson’s observation that the corporations would get everything and the people nothing should not be forgotten.
Hi and welcome to The Profit Motive, I’m your host Caleb Lawrence. Once upon a time in America the media acted as the watchdog of the corporations and the state. In the modern era it’s all about ratings and profits, opinion has been substituted for news and frequently is presented as fact. 
