Washington government used as mere Wall Street appliance

Wall Street Hoover and American Lemmings

When "forewarned is (not) forearmed:" 13 years after the first "American Hoover"-column's warning, Wall Street and Washington keep sucking money out of American taxpayers pockets more than ever

LOS ANGELES, Aug 3 - At a first glance, story you are about to read is about deception.  "Big Boys" from Wall Street and Washington are supposedly deceiving and fleecing the innocent American public.  Here's a YouTube video clip a friend of mine from Sedona, Arizona sent me with the following caption:

The short video shows just how much the Big Boys Love and Profit from all of the alleged losses from the poorly granted home loans and who is making the profits. AND! Actually making a bigger profit, ultimately being paid by the original home owner and the poorly managed Fannie May loans from the money. The American People gave them AND NOW THEY WANT MORE SO THEY CAN BILK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AGAIN!

  Indymac Boys Get Sweetheart Deal (4:26 mins)

If you took four-and-a-half minutes to watch the entire video, I presume you might agree with my friend?  That we are being duped and fleeced by both the Wall Street shysters and their cohorts in Washington?  Certainly the two TV show hosts who were featured in the video seem to think so.  Were you surprised?  Did you find the video shocking?

I hope not.  For, if you read on, you will see that the assertion that the American public is being deceived by Wall Street and Washington is actually not entirely true.  Or more accurately, it is only partially accurate. 

In order for a con game to succeed, the person being duped has to agree to play.  Like those Americans who are now crying foul and casting stones at Wall Street and Washington, but who were willing participants in the zero or low interest mortgage con game.  Or those who lost money when the stock market crashed two years ago (yours truly included).

Yes, Wall Street and Washington are guilty of setting the trap.  Like putting a piece of cheese on the floor to catch the mice, they offered the American public "free lunches" or promises of future riches.  But we, the taxpayers, could have said "no, thank you." 

This writer's heart would have still gone out to them had we not been forewarned.  But "forewarned is forearmed"-adage did not work in this case.  Blinded by greed, people ignored the lessons from the past.  Here's what this writer wrote in his Washington Times column, published almost 13 years ago (!):

Can't you hear that great sucking sound of the Wall Street Hoover which was revved up in the aftermath of the crash of Oct. 27, 1997?

You can't? You don't know what the Wall Street Hoover is?

It's a giant vacuum cleaner. Its one end is attached to Wall Street institutions' bank accounts; the other to Main Street's mattresses, piggy banks, retirement accounts and mutual funds. The Hoover's function is to methodically vacuum out the latter suckers' savings.

How does it work?

Just as the combustion engine runs on a mixture of gasoline and oxygen, the Wall Street Hoover runs on a mixture of hogwash and greed.

Where does the hogwash come from?

From the White House. And other places. Like Wall Street, too.

And who provides the greed?  The Main Street suckers, of course.  The taxpayers.

(An excerpt from "The Great American Hoover," Washington Times, Nov 1997)

This 1997 story went on to explain how this devious vacuum cleaner works.  And what an American consumer can do to defend himself against it ("just say no" to funding the con game).

Less than a year later, in August 1998, another Washington Times piece carried the same message, with even more meat on the bones (more data to back it up).  Check it out:

"Panem et cirsenses" ("give us bread and games") - the way the last Roman emperors ruled their morally corrupt citizens. Until eventually the bread ran out, and the games turned into rebellions which destroyed their pot-bellied empire.

The same trends are at work in modern-day America. The Wall Street casino is the Coliseum stage. The Big Business financial elite, the "Princes of the 20th Century," are the pot-bellied Roman aristocrats. The Baby Boomers are the "middle class Romans," comfortably seated as spectators at the Coliseum. The rest of the Main Street Americans are the "extras;" the pool from which the gladiators are chosen.

But there is one 20th century innovation. It is typically perfidious, to go along with the "interesting times" (a Chinese curse) in which we live. In modern-day America, it is the gladiators who are mostly funding the games. And thus, their own demise.

(An excerpt from ""Wall St.'s Conquest of America"," Washington Times, Aug 1998)

"The gladiators funding the games" in which they are designed to perish.  That's what the American people are doing when they join the Wall Street/Washington con games. 

In other words, we are self-destructing, just like the lemmings.  The American taxpayers evidently have short memories and big appetites for "free lunches."  All we had to do is stop investing in Wall Street and borrowing beyond our means.  All we needed to do is "say no" to greed.  The effect would have been like unplugging "The Great American Hoover."  Without the "electrical power" our money provides, it could not function. 

The cons, such as those described in the above video can only work if there are enough willing participants in the quest for a "free lunch" that Wall Street and Washington are offering.  So when we get fleeced in the end, we only have ourselves to blame. 

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, the oldest written version of the saying “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” comes from 1576, in Petit Palace by G. Pettie: “So long as I know it not, it hurteth me not.”

The American people have no such excuse.  We cannot plead ignorance nor innocence  So I replied to my Arizona friend:

It is the same old game that Soros & Co. (Goldman Sachs etc.) used when they nearly brought the Bank of England to its knees, forcing a British Pound devaluation in the early 1990s (Sep 16, 1992, to be exact, when Soros made over $1 billion profit by short-selling the Pound).  

Ditto in 1997, when they (Wall Street juggernauts) practically bankrupted the Southeast Asian banks and economies, only to buy their assets at, like, 10 cents to the dollar.  Ever since, we have not heard a word about that "Southeast Asia financial crisis."  Why not?  Because after the bandits make out and take off with the loot, there is no point in scaring the local population anymore.  Not when Wall Street needs such coolies to slave for the new masters. 

So the big shyster boys tried and test this "bait and switch" game abroad, before bringing it home in 2007-2008 in the form of the mortgage market.  The US government to them is merely an instrument with which to siphon off money out of taxpayers pockets. Check out the Washington Times column I wrote in 1997 titled the "The Great American Hoover."  

I also told my friend that, therefore, "there is nothing new under the sun," quoting King Solomon from over 4,000 years ago.  "There's a sucker born every minute," David Hannum noted over 150 years ago (1868).  "Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it," George Santayana (1863-1952), a Spanish philosopher and novelist, warned a century ago.

As you can see, we had plenty of warnings and wise musings. But we did not learn from history, this writer included. So we were doomed to repeat it.  We allowed the Wall Street and Washington to pull the wool over our eyes once again, just as they do every four years when they bring out two new horses from the same stable to run in presidential races.  Like "Bushama," pictured above.  Patsies like that and others in our Washington government are used as mere appliances by the Wall Street Hoover.

The universe is unfolding as it should.  The King Solomon was right.  There is nothing new under the sun.

So the next time they make us an offer that is supposed to "smell like roses," maybe we should first check to test spray it around the house to make sure it is not another "BS" fragrance.  Just like that clever babe on the right.

Bob Djurdjevic is a writer and consultant based in Haiku (Maui), Hawaii.  He is a free-thinking humanist.  Which means he is neither Republican nor Democrat.  You can find more of his research and columns at www.truthinmedia.org (geopolitical) and www.djurdjevic.com (business) and his personal web site www.yinyangbob.com.

Check out also some of our past stories that dealt with the subject of usury and financial enslavement: