The primary excuse US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (and his NeoCON Masters) give for pumping endless amounts of money into Banks is that they are "too big to fail", implying that if they do, everything else will collapse. It's why he won't Bailout individual mortgage holders, whose "safe" savings tool, their home, is going, going or gone into foreclosure, along with their hopes, dreams and retirement savings.
Big city folk have lost any connection with Nature, and Wall $treet is a prime example. Nature is a great teacher, for those who bother to look.
More species have occurred, and extinguished themselves on our Planet than exist at the present time. Our forced rate of species extinction is astronomical, compared to all which humans have caused up until the last century.
How do species survive? Diversity. Those who are able to change and adapt, survive. Those who do not, do not. The notion that "bigger is better" is an outrageous human speculation that has little reality to support it. One tiny microbrial virus can wipe out a centuries-old species. Wall $treet bred a lethal virus it called a Derivative. And it existence threatens to wipe us out.
America thrives when Trust Busters break giant monopolies into smaller pieces, creating more diversity. Only with the totally failed philosophies of Ronnie Reagan's trickle-down pipe dreams, Uncle Miltie Friedman's deregulation wet dreams for the already rich, coupled with Ayn Rand's funky claims of Objectivism, did America begin to unravel at it's seams. Greed is good is a failed belief system. It is morally corrupt at its core.
These are provenly failed Utopian Fantasies, even though NeoCONs cling to them still. It's a feed-the-rich, starve-the-poor mentality. "They don't have bread? Let them eat cake!" said Marie Antoinette, not long before she was led to the guillotine.
All of these abstract aberrations fly in the face of Nature. Is it any wonder they are failing, faster than dominoes can fall?
If all your eggs are in one monolithic Wall $treet basket, and Wall $treet collapses, what then? When the viral infection of Greed carves the heart and soul of decency from Wall $treet Banker's transactions, collapse is inevitable.
Packaging the Nothing of Derivatives into the pretense of being Something, then peddling them all around the Globe, is a virus of extinction at work. Every Financial Institution on the Plant fears they have been stuffed with these contaminants, and it will cause them to fall just as surely as the Sun shines again tomorrow morning.
Those who did it should not be hung. They should be drawn and quartered in public squares across our Nation, to teach us and future generations to never trust such sleaze bag financial CON Artists ever again. Instead, they are being allowed to stuff their pockets with everything they can take, as they stroll off into the Sunset, never looking back at the devastation they alone caused.
Hangers-on with friends in high places are being Bailed Out, creating a debt that will saddle future generations, in a futile and hopeless belief this will do any good. It has not thus far.
How to stop this insane hemorrhaging? Let them fall? Sift thru the rubble and see if there is anything worth salvaging at pennies on the dollar? Turn our Economy over to scavengers?
Or, break them up before they fall. Carve away the rotten parts, and if there is anything worth saving, save those pieces. Trying to save a corrupted Overstuffed Bank or Too Big Corporation is inviting their corruption to spread to contaminate others. Break them up as soon as possible.
The Too Big to Fail US Auto Makers whine that if they fall, the ripple effect through laid off employees, collapsing overstuffed dealerships, and the glut of sub-contractors could cause more and more failures infecting all World Auto Makers. So instead of rushing to Congress with a Master Plan for building Sustainable vehicles, they jump onto separate corporate jets and tell Congress that any money they may take should not affect Executive Bonuses. Draw and quarter them. Along with any CEO who does not immediately cancel all Bonus Plans, and cut Executive Salaries by two-thirds.
It's time to sh*t or get off the pot, Corporate America. Your 15-minutes in GloryLand has come to an end. Time to take an Exit off the Road to Ruin.
Diversity. Nature's way for survival. The Road to Sustainability. Smaller is better. No more interlocking directors. No cross ownerships. No more mergers to increase CEO Bonuses. No one earning more than 10 times that of your lowest paid worker. Want to earn more? Become successful enough to pay your lowest paid worker more.
None of these concepts are new. They've been written about for decades. There's a wealth of knowledge abundantly available about how to make Sustainability work. How to join with Nature, rather than believing Nature must be conquered and brought under control. It's Cooperation, NOT Competition which ultimately succeeds.
Redefine the Purpose of Corporations. Not: to make as much money for investors as possible by any means possible. But instead: to provide a Sustainable living for inhabitants of our Planet, in the best ways we can discover.
We are on the cusp of the 2nd American Revolution. Whether it will be a Great Revolution, or a Dismal Failure of the American Dream, will take a decade to determine.
A first step to making it a Great Revolution will be to let those Too Big to Fail, fail. Stop throwing our intelligence down rat holes trying to save the unsavable.
Put our money, energy, imagination and ingenuity to work rebuilding Sustainable communities, with working main streets, smaller but Sustainable businesses owned and operated by people who take personal pride in what they do. That was the American Dream we allowed the NeoCONs to divert our gaze from. Small is beautiful.
Nature's Wisdom was here long before humans, America or Corporations. Nature will still be here if we are dumb enough to extinguish ourselves from the face of the Earth. So what will it be? Learn from Nature's Wisdom, or chase more Utopian Fantasies?
