By Craig J. Cantoni

Feb. 9, 2009

 

It is dawning on the American public that the system is rigged against them.  Their anger, disillusionment, and frustration are palpable.  Unfortunately, they are raging against everyone but the people most responsible for today’s economic crisis:  themselves.

 

Memo to the masses:  You were given a constitutional republic, but you traded it for a majority-rule kleptocracy.  Stated differently, you traded a government that limited itself to protecting life, liberty, and property for a government without limits that lets you vote for free stuff at your neighbor’s expense.

 

Did you expect the trade to result in something other than an insolvent government?

 

Second memo:  Your frugal forebears tried to warn you about living beyond your means.  Instead of taking their advice, you went on a credit binge, buying stuff you couldn’t afford, including homes, cars, big-screen TVs, electronic gizmos, bottled designer water, and four-dollar lattes. 

 

Did you expect that living beyond your means would result in something other than bankruptcy?

 

Third memo:  In your defense, the government flooded the banking system with cheap money and easy credit, and led you to believe that it wasn’t necessary to save money, because Uncle Sam would provide for you in old age.  The government also led you to believe that homes are a risk-free investment and made it easy for you to buy one.

 

Do you know that you are the government?  You elect the scoundrels, liars, and propagandists who run it.  In that sense, the government is the mirror image of you.  It’s not very flattering to look like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and George W. Bush. 

 

Fourth memo:  Yeah, yeah, I know:  You were too busy working, raising kids, watching “American Idol,” and standing in line at Starbucks to keep an eye on the government.  Not only that, but you probably attended a government school, which is the last place to tell you the truth about the government.

 

Did you think that self-rule would be easy?  If you want easy, then fascism, communism, and Obama-ism are for you.

 

By the way, it wouldn’t have been very difficult for you to find out the truth about the housing and stock markets.  In ten minutes on the Internet, even a chimpanzee could have punched enough computer keys to find out what has happened to home prices and stock prices over the last century.  Home prices went down as many years as they went up, and stock prices plummeted many times, sometimes staying in bear territory for decades.  It seems to me that before you took out a big mortgage and invested you life savings in the stock market, it would have been worth ten minutes of your precious time to have first done some research.  But nooooo, not you.  That would have been ten minutes away from “American Idol.” 

 

Oh, sure, some of you depended on the mainstream media for your financial news and information, but that’s like getting advice about heart disease from a chiropractor.  You wouldn’t trust a chiropractor to have expertise in heart disease, but you trusted journalists to have expertise in finance and economics.         

Fifth memo:  Because you’re upset at those greedy fat-cat Wall Street tycoons in their corporate jets, you’re having doubts about the benefits of a market economy and are delighted that President Populist is going to limit the pay of the tycoons.  What President Populist isn’t telling you, though, is that the banking industry is different from other industries, such as the turnip industry.  The government doesn’t have a monopoly on turnip production, as it does on money production.  And the unelected and unaccountable Federal Reserve, along with its member banks and their cronies in the financial industry, doesn’t have a turnip cartel, as it does with money and credit.

 

Are you aware that President Populist has surrounded himself with members of the monopoly and cartel instead of free marketers from the turnip industry or some other honest industry?   Does that seem like the change you voted for?

 

Psst!  Come close.  I want to whisper something to you in closing.  At the urging of politicians whom you’ve elected, the monopoly and cartel are planning to hide their crimes by printing enough money to debase the dollar, trigger inflation, put a hidden tax on you and your offspring, and permanently destroy American prosperity.

 

Have you lost you mind to have let this happen?                                            

 

Sorry for yelling.

_____________

 

An author and columnist, Mr. Cantoni can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.