The Global Financial Crisis: financial chancers, 1; American dreamers, 0!

One of America's greatest satirists and author of The Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce had a highly nuanced view of American politics. He defined Republicans as those who think Democrats will ruin the country, and Democrats as those who think Republicans have ruined the country! It seems there are few areas of American political life where these sentiments come into their own than when looking at the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

We will return to the GFC shortly, but firstly, some background.

As a result of my research into all things suspect about the Home of the Brave, I am constantly amazed, horrified and bewildered in roughly equal measure by the discoveries I have been making about this beacon of democracy, accountability, transparency, equality, justice, and equal opportunity and all the other fruit that purportedly comes with the 'main menu' that is the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The ignorance, stupidity, corruption, duplicity and self serving arrogance of the ruling elites – whether in the judiciary, Congress, the Executive or the Federal bureaucracy – appears not to recognise any boundaries defined by any notions of equity, fairness, morality or ethics.

Put simply, it is difficult to determine much distinction between the two parties when assessing their adherence to the principles in those venerated, indeed sacred, documents, the feel-good rhetoric of political stump speeches and State of the Union addresses and the like notwithstanding. In respect of looking at the GFC, any distinction between the two becomes very difficult.

By the same token, occasionally one is encouraged by the reality that there are many decent, upstanding folks from all walks of life and from many unexpected quarters in the US who are desperately concerned about their country's direction, and are putting 'skin in the game'. And here I'm not talking about 'Alice in Blunderland' Tea Party types or their loony equivalents on the notional left. It does include though not just folks from both sides of the Congressional divide, but many other ordinary Americans who are indifferent - indeed resistant - to the partisan political process. For them the left-right divide is not just passe, it is counterproductive!

Which is to say, the current state of play in America and the direction it is heading in cannot be attributed solely to partisan politics and the machinations of successive presidents and their administrations past or present. Nor will real solutions come from either side. Those with a deeper insight into US history know all too well that the malaise in the American polity long ago transcended such simplistic interpretations. This is another crucial insight I have made on my 'journey' to the outer reaches of American political reality, one which keeps reinforcing itself every step I take.

To illustrate the above observations, let's consider the rising star that is US Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose integrity, character, intelligence and sheer courage came to prominence in the aftermath of the GFC by her interrogation of people like Tim Geithner, the former Treasury Secretary, and one of the principal architects of the taxpayer funded bailout of the Big Banks, the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

Yes Warren is a Democrat, but a sensible one it seems. Yet in this quixotic endeavour she is supported by Republican Senator John McCain. Warren's been on my radar ever since the principal 'perps' of the GFC knocked down the front doors of the American economy and proceeded to trash the joint like a bunch of hormonally fuelled, coked-up teenagers who have just graduated from high school with self replicating fistfuls of taxpayer 'Benjamins' and an almighty hard-on for creating mayhem and running amok without anything resembling adult supervision or expecting anything approximating accountability much less reprisal resulting from their actions.

A welcome voice of reason in this Sometimes Great Nation that inside and out is descending inexorably into hell and lunacy in a hand basket with large holes, Warren seems to be one of the few people in US public/political life prepped to stand up and be counted when attempting to hold the Too Big to Fail Banks and their Too Big to Jail Executives accountable for their actions and seeking meaningful, lasting reform of an inherently corrupt, top heavy financial system.

Of course someone has to do it. Because the 'Bank Bitch' Obama – aka the Great Black Hope, aka the Judas Goat and Lame Duck president – has completely blown it. Seems the current POTUS never had any intention of doing anything of the kind from the off. After all he got the gig largely due to the support of the Big Swinging Dicks on The Street to begin with, something that at the time was not widely publicised. Of course we can expect President 'BOB' to get a cushy gig at a major multi-national corporation or Wall Street behemoth when his lease on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave lapses and he snatches the keys to the Revolving Door of Opportunity that is the next step on the road of forward and upward mobility for the political and financial elites.

That Senator Warren, in attempting to seek and obtain a measure of justice on behalf of the hapless US citizens and taxpayers, is doing so against what are surely extraordinary – possibly insurmountable – odds, is obvious to anyone who has any inkling of how America derailed itself in the Great Financial Train Wreck, ably and enthusiastically assisted by the modern day 'Lords of Creation'.

The system however is stacked against anyone even with her profile, measure of determination and political conviction. It is no overstatement to say the already precarious future of the American economy – and by extension the global financial system – rests on more and more people like Warren to apply the blowtorch to the belly, and the Powers That Be (PTBs) and the guardians of the status quo know that all too well. It is moreover no exaggeration to say that the Power Elites will do anything and everything to shut people like Warren up, and then if necessary, shut them down and out. In this they have an impressive track record.

As Warren points out when emphasising the importance of not just tightened regulations but the strict enforcement of those new regulations – including time in the Big House – the system works better and much more fairly for all concerned according to the rules that operated under the Glass-Steagall Act (GSA) brought into effect under New Dealer Franklin D Roosevelt. Even if the 'Street Mob' would have us all think otherwise, the GSA essentially prevented the kinds of activities that placed the financial system at such great risk by 'firewalling' investment banking from commercial (or consumer) banking.

Most importantly it prevented major economic crises for about 50 years until Ronald (The Gipper) Reagan decided in 1981 that America was ready for another era of boom and bust. Along with his 'laissez fairy' cadres – themselves led by the nose by hard nosed economic (ir)rationalist Milton Friedman, the Laissez Fairy Godmutha – like any good carny barker The Gipper shilled to the masses the spiel about the rising tide lifting all their boats and turning them into 65 foot, 450hp inboard ocean going cruisers, that government regulation of any kind was always bad and never good, and that the time was right and ripe for another Gilded Edged, dog eats dog era in the Land of Never Ending Opportunity at the End of the Rainbow.

As history records it, the Average Joe and Josephine America bought into The Ever Chipper Gipper's shell-game en masse, and from there on in it was downhill – or depending on your viewpoint, uphill – all the way. Thus the Land of Milk 'n Honey became the Land of Bilk 'n Money, albeit taxpayers' money. Reagan's 'initiative' in kick-starting the controlled demolition of the regulatory foundations underpinning the financial system – brought to completion by Bill Clinton's eventual repeal of the GSA in 1999 – was akin to rescinding the road safety regulations thereby enabling motorists to drive around as high as kites and as drunk as lords at high speeds in any direction they so desired and not have to face any penalties for the damage they caused as a consequence. This effectively turned the American economy into the personal casino of the mega-rich Wall Street Mob and their corporate acolytes, where the upside was all profit to them and the downside, well, we all know the rest.

Put simply, by the time Slick Willy left office, the hitherto Promised Land of Opportunity had morphed into a decidedly unpromising Land of Opportunists, though not for the latter. The end result was of course the GFC, when The Gipper's original House of Cards came crashing down. Financial Chancers, 1; American Dreamers, 0!

Of course there were plenty of warnings in the interim (Savings & Loan Crisis, Long-Term Capital Management Crisis anyone?, to name just two), all of which were duly ignored by all and sundry, by folks who should have known better, whose job it was to know better, and indeed who all but went out of their way to make the situation worse when it was obvious it was getting bad enough of its own accord without them putting in any additional effort.

That this notion is still being resisted by those who should know better is not only evident in the attached interviews and video presentations featuring Warren, it is an indictment on the mindset that prevails in contemporary America regarding what needs to be done to avoid another financial crisis. Whether it's in the mainstream media, the regulatory regimes themselves such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and others, whether it's congressional legislators, or the administration itself, it seems everyone is keeping their fingers crossed and holding their breath hoping the Moral Hazard doesn't morph into an Amoral Catastrophe down the mountain. We have met the enemy, and he is us!

It is appropriate here to reference Abraham (Honest Abe) Lincoln. In the context of the discussion of the GFC, what caused it and who was responsible, and how to avoid the next big one, Abe's memorable utterance "you can fool some of the people all of the time, [you can] fool all of the people some of the time, [but you can't] fool all of the people all of the time" has not weathered the storm of subsequent history as well, even if there was any semblance of veracity in it from the off. Because it seems the Masters of the Universe and their shills in the lobbying industry have done a masterful job of defying, denying and decrying any logic or wisdom that might have been otherwise inherent in his oft quoted aphorism.

This is of course what Warren is up against, and she knows it to be sure. The big shame is that she can't be cloned, as there certainly does not appear to be enough peoplelike her being produced by the old fashioned method to stave off the next derailment. Having said that, the more people there are like Warren, the more the game upon the part of the PTBs of shutting them down will be like playing Whack-a-Mole!

And the more likely it will be that the American populace will eventually awake from its collective, Rip van Winkle-like slumber and not so much as smell the roses but smell the rodents that are ravenously chowing down on the fabled American Dream, assuming of course there is still anything left of said fantasy. And that kind of assumption is risky business. Then and only then are they likely to manifest a semblance of reality in Honest Abe's homespun insight.

And speaking of "risky business", by the same token – and this time possibly to an even greater degree – history has demonstrated that hundreds of folks past and present (not excluding politicians from JFK to more recently Senator Paul Wellstone) willing to challenge the status quo, its architects and guardians, and stand up and ask the hard questions of the PTBs regarding The Big, Hard Issues are not immune to retaliation up to and including of the terminal kind.

We can only hope Senator Warren is watching her back and cloaking herself in some pre-emptive, self preserving paranoia, with some heavy duty homeboys keeping an eye on the Grassy Knoll as it were on her behalf. Not that this may be enough. When the stakes are as high as they are now, when they want you, they will get you. Just ask any self-respecting JFK conspiracy theorist!

Which brings to mind those pithy old one-liners about "you don't need to be paranoid, but it helps", or "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you". They are especially apposite herein methinks. What say you folks? Some expect Hilary Clinton will be the first female POTUS. 'Chilly' Hilary doesn't hold a candle to Senator Warren. And yet apparently she's one of the most admired women in America! Chilly H that is.

As the Americans might say, "Go figure". Me, I know who I'm 'voting' for, and I can't even vote. But I – along with many others I suspect – will be watching.