Is Fantasy Driving Our Economy Therefore Our Nation?

“Made in the USA” empowered the United States of America in the 20th Century, commonly referred to as the “American century” because of its economic and military supremacy. America relied on the “quality” of its people, made possible by providing the freedom, liberty and focus on “human rights” that is essential to nourish the “fertile ground” necessary for innovation to take place. Unfortunately, this “fertile ground” all but dried up to Americans “lacking” the proper skin color,gender, religious affiliation, and/or status in most cases which is a huge caveat that cannot be overlooked.

However, America’s abundance of “fertile ground” far exceeded every other country at the time and gave even those without the “proper breeding” more opportunity than they would have had anywhere else in the world. In other words, America produced a clear blueprint or paradigm for a level playing field where "everyone" has the chance to succeed.

We used to make everything from steel, cars, television sets, toasters, and appliances to toys, bikes, textiles, and almost every tangible item that existed. Now, we're not sure what drives our economy. All we know, is that some people getting very rich while the majority of us are finding ourselves swimming in debt. Why? Because the financial services sector is in charge now and it's biggest products are debt and credit cards. As Kevin Philips says, in his new book Bad Money, "we now have an economy based on our money being moved around".

As we all know banks and investors charge excessive fees from ATM transactions, insufficient funds, questionable late payment, and anything else they can think of to the outrageous money hedge fund managers make on the fees they charge, - average annual salary in the $50 million range!- fees for services most of us have no understanding of and exist in a world 99.9% of us will never know. Without oversight, banks and the entire financial industry have capitalized on service fees they charge on services and money invisible to us, for the most part.

We are held captive to the financial sector who can arbitrary manipulate the rules and policy to steal from us without having to offer any justification. Considering financial institutions earn billions of dollars off the money we, the people, hand over; how is it fair that we, the people must pay the exorbitant fixed sums these institutions charge based on the capricious whim of a few men at the top?

People see right through the guise of "excellent customer service" the financial services sector promotes in order to engage in what can only be called, "lawful" extortion. However we experience the injustice individually and made to feel like we're the only one who is "stupid" enough to bring this kind of injustice on ourselves, we keep our mouths shut for the most part, so we reluctantly put our trust in these institutions such as the Federal Reserve, never once audited, who manufactures money out of nothing; banks and financial institutions who covertly invest, speculate on, and spend this so-called money (fractional reserve banking) in convoluted practices designed to confuse even the most informed and educated of us, and they do all of this with very little and in some cases, no regulation!

Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international moneylenders ….The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States. - Barry Goldwater(R-AZ)

Not only are we allowing this industry, one notch above an elaborate magic show, to drive our economy; we have taken on the additional burden of having to import all the goods we no longer produce at an expense we can no longer afford. We are borrowing from countries who are in the process of building enormous wealth by replacing "Made in America" with "Made in China, Korea..."

Since wealth is not destroyed, merely transferred, it's easy to see where the money is going. It's lining the pockets of those who are privileged enough to get backstage passes to this amazing display of smoke and mirrors. The media spares us the details of what's really going on, in part because they themselves do not really understand and in part because they are controlled by the same people who have created this illusion that will eventually crash and burn. Who will pay the price? We, the people who try to earn an honest living but have no choice but to pay not only our share of taxes but in addition, the taxes the multi-millionaires and billionaires should pay but don't.

By his own admission, Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world, pays less than half the rate his secretary pays in taxes.