There is a monstrous enemy of the people afoot, unfettered capitalism (UC hereafter).  UC has been pushed upon all nations by the corporate giants--first among them is the financial sector (banking/banks hereafter).  UC is dressed in the economic-market theory of neoliberalism[1].  It is neither new nor liberal.  Neoliberalism is a theory that supports unregulated economic activity (laissez faire capitalism, UC), which because of the of corporate influence is taught in universities and praised in the corporate media.  Once we had divine-right of kings and Papal infallibility to justify the unjustifiable, now we have neoliberalism to justify the global-ruling elite.  It is bull used to justify the 2^nd era of Robber Barons (the first ended with the Great Depression).  Corporations haven’t changed.  Don’t swallow the spin of the ruling elite. 

The US corporate press has rewritten the history of the struggle to control banking and thereby the function of government as to whom is served first.  The power to control credit entails the power to control the economy.  Tighten credit and the economy crashes; and then comes foreclosures and bargain buyouts, which benefit the giants in each sector of the economy.  The founding fathers knew of this because France and England had private national banks.  They hotly debated this issue.  Twice Congress voted for a private national bank; then voted not to renew their charters in 1811, and again in1836.  The control of banking had been lost with the death of Lincoln, who had warned that he feared the bankers more than the Rebel Army.[2]  The failure of governments to serve the people first is a result of organized private banking.    

The globalizers’ success in dismantling the populist, Keynesian economics practices starts with the Bretton Woods Agreement (System) adopted by all 44 Allies in 1944.  It created a global financial system with the US dollar (then backed by gold) as the standard of exchange.  This accord set up the World Bank (then called the IBRD) and the IMF.  The process of globalization accelerated out of this accord which favored the giants of banking.  Their control of credit has made them on a global scale the shadow government.  Following the 2007 implosion of finance, the carte-blanch bailouts through the process of reflation which occurred in every developed nation proves who is in control.  The former CEO of Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson was our Treasury Secretary (2006-09 under Obama & Bush).  The present Secretary, Timothy Geithner (former President and CEO of Fed Reserve Bank of NY) worked under Paulson in creating the bailout programs--welfare without oversight.  We bear the burden through debt payments for the over $5 trillion (09-13)  increase in federal debt--mostly carried by banking.  Social services are being cut as payments on federal debt rises.  The Feds pay over $500 billion a year of our taxes in interest on debt.  But what else is to be expected from the shadow government which is too big to fail?[3] 

The shadow governments, with their control of finance and NATO militaries, have established a new-world order.  Political contributions, trade treaties, loans, and economic sanctions are tools of “persuasion”—and when that fails there is regime change.  In the third world loans are mainly through the IMF and World Bank to the under developed country who are signers of and adopt the policies of these trade treaties.  These treaties call for deregulation (UC), which they call liberalization.  The flat-world treaties of the globalizers are  given acronyms such as NAFTA, CAFTA, AFTA, and MEFTA, which are signed by both underdeveloped and developed nations.  In the NAFTA treaty—as in the others--there is 900 pages of clauses.  These treaties require much more than no tariffs:  the opening up the resources, the banking, the media, the utilities, the borders, and their very market places to foreign buy outs and competition.  The UC clauses require an overriding of national environmental, safety, drug, labor, commerce, and tariff laws.  And NAFTA has its own court system to accomplish this!  These clauses and the conditionality attached to loans require the privatization of government services such as the water works, social security, post office, schools, prisons, and even the military. In The US the White House and Congress have been gradually implementing these clauses.  The power of the globalizers has caused our national sovereignty to be signed away, and their corporate press is essentially silent over the treaties reach.  

5)  While the elite tell us to blame the corporate heads, it is the corporate system that produces the bad results.  Standard Oil and J. P. Morgan and Company did not change business practices with new CEOs who replaced John D. Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan.  We have robber-baron corporations, which is a result of the need to maximize profits.  Monsanto, Merck, B.P. Petroleum all have the same goals.  And they have evolved into global corporations.  In the past the third world was carved up into colonies, and nations protected their corporations and colonies with high tariffs.  In 1946, starting with the Brent Woods Agreement, there was a banking led move towards the “liberalization” of regulations (UC).  The Business ethics hasn't changed, only monopoly capitalism through these trade agreements is now played upon a board that covers our planet.

The Iraq and Afghan wars are about MEFTA—opening up the entire Middle East markets including the oil fields, banking, marketplace, and manufacturing.  Both nations resisted globalization and were punished.  The war is about the resolve of the US (as a tool of the shadow government) to promote neoliberalism (called liberalization).  So far 13 Middle East nations have signed all or parts of the MEFTA package of treaties, which Europe and the U.S. are parties to.  But it is more than just trade treaties: it is about a takeover of governments by international corporations who want UC globally.  Thus it is entails the crushing of populism—includes theocracies & socialism types.  There is a long list since WWII of U.S. lead assaults against countries that have formed populist governments—resistant to the new imperialism.  Populism is about serving the people first, thus the control of  corporations, land reform, social service, banking regulations, trade restrictions, nationalization of resources.  The corporate media call this “socialism” and drums into our heads that this is counter to freedom, thus evil.       

Because of popular unrest, with over 1 million voting socialist in 1932 and an attempted fascist coupe in 1933 backed by corporate elite, Roosevelt responded with Keynesian, populist changes that ended corporate political domination, and established through the protection of unions a powerful populist political voice for the people.  With the marginalization of unions in the 1970s, we have returned to a blatant corporatist state, a state which promotes on global-scale neoliberal policies.  These policies have resulted in the out sourcing of jobs, the flood of cheap tariff-free goods, the flood of foreign workers both documented and undocumented, the reduction in the pay for skilled and unskilled jobs, the breaking of unions, reduction in requirements for benefits to employees, the reduction of government social services, and a shift of the tax burden from corporations (many of whom have moved to tax heavens to avoid U.S. taxes) and the rich to the bottom 95%. productivity has gone up, but buying power way down.   In 1950s the husband supported the family; the mother stayed home.    Through the corporate media, paint a rosy picture for the benefits of UC and the new Robber Baron corporations, by using  bought economists, slanted media, cook federal stats.  But reality thunders a sad, sad, storm, and a sadder future.      

8) In the pursuit of their short-term profits and global interests the neoliberals expanded credit which resulted in a credit-expansion based prosperity similar to the 1920s.  Now it is like the 1930s only by our government expanding credit have we temporarily escaped the economic collapse of 07.  The $4.7 trillion in by 09 of debt has reflated the economy (a path not taken by Hoover, but by his successor Roosevelt).  But reflation is a short-term fix, for the same casino type banking speculation hasn’t changed, nor can it, for contraction entails collapse.  The Federal Reserve policy[4] is to flood the banks with funds based on new government debt that is expanded 10-fold through issuing new credit ($1 million in assets become 10 in loans).  It is the 10% equity requirement and going off the gold standard plus deregulation (the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act was modified under Reagan, and repealed in 1999) that has led to massive market speculations.  Mostly deregulated, banks take high-risk gambles, which pay off because of credit expansion.  The problem banking is much greater than a credit bubble.  Most of the loans have been bundled and sold to other institutions based on 3% equity.  Speculative shadow banks are mostly owned by banks and have over $25 trillion in liabilities (world-wide $67 trillion as of 11/12).  Shadow banks holding are highly leveraged.  When the bubble burst in 2007, the US our government stabilized the markets by guaranteeing $23.7 trillion mostly in shadow banks assets (source Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general).   Every-developed nation’s banks operate like the US’s.  All have a very high total debt to GDP ratio.  In the U.S. total debt is over 483% of GDP ($72 trillion total debt, $14.7 trillion GDP).  It is higher than was held by those nations that have had an economic crisis in the last 2 decades (Mexico, Argentina 1995, and the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.  Servicing federal government debt is now the second biggest item (over $428 billion in 07) in our budget after the military.  State and local governments have similar debt payments.  Our tax dollars are feeding banks instead of providing social services and infrastructure.  Our shadow government especially banks want more and more of our money, and they get it.  And there is business and personal debt interest payments.

Neoliberal policies--especially unfettering finance and NAFTA (both just described)--have brought our nation to the precipice, and when the US falls, so too will all the developed nations.  Our nation is being bought up by foreigners made fat by our trade deficit ($817 billion in 06, and rising) because the manufacturing, once the foundation of our economy, shrunk to less than 12% of employment.  Falling wages are a result of rising number of people looking for work:   seniors, women, illegals, immigrants, and those made unemployed because of outsourcing.   Not counting food and plants, 87% of items sold at Wal-Mart are imported.  Credit inflation has resulted in over $53 trillion in debts.  Of corporate profits, bank’s share is 44%.   Our over 800 foreign military bases only makes sense by considering the aspirations of the globalizing corporations and vulture capitalism.  Globalization costs us over $1 trillion annually in military spending.[5]   And though US worker productivity has increased 45% over the last 30 years, the masses don’t benefit.  The real median income has declined world-wide.  Pollution, global warming, corporate medicine, dumb-down schools and media, all these follow from the neoliberal policies of the shadow government.  The corporate-banking shadow government follows the pattern observed by Adam Smith.[6]  Thus the globalizers want to remove the social safety net, so that our government can make interest payments without raising their taxes.  These are the results of having the international business community as our shadow government. 

 A strong economy and domestic tranquility are not built on a steep pyramid of income, but on a prosperous middle class, full employment, and social-economic justice.  The U.S. now ranks 4^th in GDP per capita, yet is 92^nd in distribution of key benefits—UN stats (principle causes for being 92^nd are the economic pyramid, the military budget, debt payments, inflated corporate profits, and high costs of health care).  Neoliberal policies have rolled back the wisdom that got us out of the Great Depression and carried us forward following WWII:  tariffs, living wages, and strong unions.  A prosperous working class buys lots of durable goods, while those at the top primarily speculate in trading.  Most of the credit inflation since the 1970s has gone into highly leveraged trading.  Banking exists as a parasite upon the backs of labor, for nearly all the payments on debt is passed on to them.  Labor provides the goods and services used by banking and its employees.   They have created a casino like economy[7] with the banks holding the chips and making the rules, rules for finance and the corporatist state. 

         11) Globalizers promised better pay, cheaper goods, a strong economy, and whatever else sold the public on it.  Now they say that lower wages and benefits are necessary to keep jobs here.   They and the politicians, who are in their fold (Reagan,

Bush 1 & 2, and Margaret Thatcher were the most brazen) have no regard for the truth.  Thirty years of economic decline for both developed and undeveloped nations proves the case against them.  A case much worse than the CIA’s and World Bank’s manipulated stats; and worse still because they include the parasitic income made by banking as part of the service sector.  The service sector’s percentage of GDP is in the US is 79.6%, Germany 70.6%, U.K 77.7%, Mexico 61.7%, India 56.4%, Venezuela 60.4% of which the parasitic financial activity accounts for over half of those totals.  The GDP growth thus is not a result of greater prosperity, but the results of currency expansion (see graph page 1), which results in the parasitic profits based upon ever increasing speculation.   A second deception of the GDP comes from an underestimation of the rate of inflation (the Consumer Price Index, CPI).  In the US inflation average over the last decade is 10% (some estimate it at 12% others a bit less), but the official rate is under 3%.  Thus historical comparisons are off.  A final distortion as to the prosperity of the masses is that the income pyramid has over doubled in the last 40 years; even more for the top 0.01% (see footnote).  With that wealth and their use thereof, they and their corporations own our political system.  A better measure of purchasing power and what has happened to the bottom 90% would be to calculate how many loaves of bread can the median[8] income worker purchase per hour of pay now and in 1973?   In 1973 the average Safeway checker made $15/hour in 1973 dollars.   

 The troubles are not over:  Greece, Italy, Spain, and Ireland are just some of the countries to face a second round of debt based problems.  And the market has responded by buying their new government bonds at rates that strips most of its social services.  Greece in Nov, of 2012 sold 10 year bonds that paid 13% interest, and a high of 37% Dec 2011.  The economies of Greece and Spain collapsed under the sucking effect of the high-interest payments.  If our government in a crisis was forced to roll-over its bonds (November 2012 rate was 1.62%) at a rate comparable to Greece’s, our economy also would collapse.   In crisis assets become dirt cheap, and this creates opportunities for the vulture-capitalist corporations.  As Naomi Klein explains in her book, The Shock Doctrine, it is all scripted.  In the IMF and World Bank’s scripts are loans with conditionalities that prolong the crisis.  Also in the script for the lackey governments is a military-police response to the mass’s protests--Klein calls it the Pinochet option (dictator Chile 73-90).   Economic collapse is on our horizon, and I fear our government’s response.   

SOLUTION:  The market place needs regulations:  regulations for safe and effective drugs, wholesome foods, clean air and water, safer work places, honest advertising, product safety, accurate news reporting, and to prevent price gouging.  It needs regulations to prevent banking and speculative bubble, regulations to distribute to the workers a greater share of what their labor produces, regulations to protect unions, and tariffs to assure a living wage.   All this is needed for a government to serve the public weal first.  Such a government ought to replace the existing banking system with public banking, prohibit corporate political donations, democratize the corporations by having workers elect directors, close the speculative markets, and replace the corporate media with one ran by public universities free of corporate influence.   All this is to insure that the corporations don’t again create a corporatist state.  There is a fundamental conflict between short-term profits and long-term economic growth, between domestic prosperity and open borders, between the aspirations of the ruling elite and the bottom 95%, between corporate media and a true democracy, and between neoliberalism and populism.  As Aristotle observed:  “A democracy exists whenever those who are free and poor are in sovereign control of the government; an oligarchy when the control lies in the hands of the rich and better born.”   Therefore don’t believe the spin of the corporate media.  The corporatist parties are about globalization and promoting their contributors wealth.  NAFTA was passed under Clinton.  Nothing will change until we dethrone the ruling elite and replace them with a populist type of government ran by humanist who will legislate fundamental changes like those just listed above--otherwise history will repeat itself, as it did following Roosevelt. 

More readings:  The long version http://www.skeptically.org/glob/id3.html;  a rebuttal of the 5-basic premises in support of neoliberal (laissez faire) economics http://www.skeptically.org/glob/id4.html; original 2007 version http://www.skeptically.org/wto/id13.html; & the solution http://www.skeptically.org/ethicsutility/id11.html.