The Crisis of Our Times
Tim Williams
December 06, 2011
The capital markets all over the world are in full-scale meltdown mode. In the United States the Dow Industrials continue their roller coaster ride that shows no clear signs of leveling and stabilizing. Don't be beguiled by what the Dow did recently because it is just speculation that Europe still might or might not finally gets it's financial act in order. Every indication is Europe like the United States the future looks bleak. The S&P 500 has shed 8.1% since its late October high, while the Nasdaq Composite has tanked 8.4%. This financial instability only perpetuates already deteriorating conditions here in the United States and about in every other country around the globe today. The peripheral European bond market is imploding! Belgiumīs borrowing costs has hit record highs, while Spainīs cost to borrow has more than doubled in the last month. The reality is that Spain this past October had to pay such an exorbitant amount in interest and points just to borrow the funds it needed to keep that country finances just above water. Just think in our everyday terms Spain had to pay more in interest at roughly over 200 times what one person here in the United States does to refinance a car loan. The panic is spreading to the very heart of Europe. When Germany attempted to sell 6 billion euros of 10-year bonds investors were only willing to buy 3.6 billion euros worth. That meant Germany still needs to sell a little less than 2.5 billion euros roughly 40% more. This bond sale has been a complete failure because it continues to drive up borrowing cost in the one country everyone is counting on to bail out the the other weaker economies in Europe. This means that the global economy is rapidly stalling out. One of the key indexes for all this is measured by the manufacturing activity in China which fell from 51 in October to 48 this November. The worst in over 2 1/2 years. In Europe comparably the manufacturing activity is the worst it has been. The quandary is that the European countries that need extra funding can't raise it without paying one of the highest interest rates ever. The European countries and super-national organizations that are supposed to bail these countries out are now finding that THEIR cost of borrowing is also rising while in practically every country around the world their real economic output is continuing to show no real signs of improving.
There has been allot of rhetoric about the real root cause of the global financial crisis we have today which was initially started right here in the United States. One has to go back to 1999 when Congress repealed the Glass-Stegall Act of 1933. The Gramm-Lech-Baily Act passed in 1999 ended up deregulating and removed the conflict of interest prohibition between investment bankers serving as officers of commercial banks. This repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act gave "Card Blanche" to the investment bankers and allowed Wall Street to gamble with depositors money that was and is held in commercial banks. Another attempt by congress to fix what was working for decades only ending up creating the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The financial and economic terror all over Europe has greatly intensified our own economic crisis here in the United States. Amid the Congressional fiasco of the so-called "Super-Committee that was infested with discord and dissension it is we the hapless citizens of America end up being the looser's of it all. Even before Congress repealed the Glass-Stegall Act the clouds of economic uncertainty had already started to gather. It has taken decades of constant erosion of middle class wage jobs to finally reach a point where the United States is right at the edge of the cliff of an economic abyss. So peariless is our situation where this country is poised to fall into that void no amount of legislation will ever pull this country out of the abyss of economic uncertainty.
What Congress, the main stream media and most of the political candidates today fail to grasp is that sure there there has been and continues to be governmental agencies that need to be reformed or altogether eliminated but the real issue for solving the national debt remains the basic fact that this country has had an individual income crisis that has been sniffling out all the economic stability that the United States experienced for decades following World War II. For years prior to 1993 in the United States there has been a slow methodic exodus of middle class wage jobs but ever since 1993 when NAFTA was enacted the acceleration of those middle class wage jobs reach epic levels. So that today millions and millions of Americans who were earning middle income wages are now left earning poverty level incomes while millions more have no income at all. The United States government doesn't have a spending problem per say, but what we really have is an income exodus unparallel in our history. The delusions of our elected officials has only compounded the enormity of the plight in which America is in today. And, we are not alone.
Not only has and continues to be clouds of economic uncertainty where financial instability has uprooted whole families our society has shifted so drastically away from the moral virtues that prevailed for generations which earned Americas trust with nations around the world. Today that trust and our moral virtues that have paved the way for the United States to become a most respective nation been cast aside. The art of deception and deceit through the years eroded this nations trust and our moral virtue. It was in the mid 1970's when advertising shifted away from the morals that society embraced for generations toward what was to become a moral detachment, a total separation of passed obligations where high moral standards were the rule. When that occurred soon after the music and our culture gradually shifted so that today in most of the advertising, in the media, in our music and in the arts and entertainment industries an amoral behavior is ever present. In public education this shift of our society really became evident. So that today the virtues and morals of our heritage has been lost. And we are not alone.
With all the economic uncertainty in our world today the United Nations just recently concluded that the worst of human nature is again raising it's ugly head. In countries such as Syria what has been long suspected is true. Crimes against humanity continue to escalate. The scale or magnitude of these crimes is almost on the same scope of the atrocities that underscored the events of World War II. Torture, rape, mutilation, and unspeakable horror still manage to ravage countries all over the world. Is this the world of the 21st century we want to live in? It is this moral decay which brought about the greed of certain individuals to do heinous acts against man and nature that threaten life as we know it on earth today.
One can't help but wonder and be amazed by all the technological advances in medicine and science over the past 30 years. The sad reality of all those marvels of technology is that so few through-out the world have yet to receive the benefits from all that wondrous innovations that to some already have capitalized on. Mans most primal instincts have taken root in the minds of certain individuals to willfully, openly sanction, and endorse more of mans inhumanity upon man and nature. In doing so the delicate balance of nature is almost completely destroyed. We have to use the resources and the innovations that have been developed for the greater good of all mankind. Only in this way can the preservation of planet earth be assured and every county will receive the benefits of economic stability, security, and prosperity.
There has been allot of rhetoric about the real root cause of the global financial crisis we have today which was initially started right here in the United States. One has to go back to 1999 when Congress repealed the Glass-Stegall Act of 1933. The Gramm-Lech-Baily Act passed in 1999 ended up deregulating and removed the conflict of interest prohibition between investment bankers serving as officers of commercial banks. This repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act gave "Card Blanche" to the investment bankers and allowed Wall Street to gamble with depositors money that was and is held in commercial banks. Another attempt by congress to fix what was working for decades only ending up creating the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The financial and economic terror all over Europe has greatly intensified our own economic crisis here in the United States. Amid the Congressional fiasco of the so-called "Super-Committee that was infested with discord and dissension it is we the hapless citizens of America end up being the looser's of it all. Even before Congress repealed the Glass-Stegall Act the clouds of economic uncertainty had already started to gather. It has taken decades of constant erosion of middle class wage jobs to finally reach a point where the United States is right at the edge of the cliff of an economic abyss. So peariless is our situation where this country is poised to fall into that void no amount of legislation will ever pull this country out of the abyss of economic uncertainty.
What Congress, the main stream media and most of the political candidates today fail to grasp is that sure there there has been and continues to be governmental agencies that need to be reformed or altogether eliminated but the real issue for solving the national debt remains the basic fact that this country has had an individual income crisis that has been sniffling out all the economic stability that the United States experienced for decades following World War II. For years prior to 1993 in the United States there has been a slow methodic exodus of middle class wage jobs but ever since 1993 when NAFTA was enacted the acceleration of those middle class wage jobs reach epic levels. So that today millions and millions of Americans who were earning middle income wages are now left earning poverty level incomes while millions more have no income at all. The United States government doesn't have a spending problem per say, but what we really have is an income exodus unparallel in our history. The delusions of our elected officials has only compounded the enormity of the plight in which America is in today. And, we are not alone.
Not only has and continues to be clouds of economic uncertainty where financial instability has uprooted whole families our society has shifted so drastically away from the moral virtues that prevailed for generations which earned Americas trust with nations around the world. Today that trust and our moral virtues that have paved the way for the United States to become a most respective nation been cast aside. The art of deception and deceit through the years eroded this nations trust and our moral virtue. It was in the mid 1970's when advertising shifted away from the morals that society embraced for generations toward what was to become a moral detachment, a total separation of passed obligations where high moral standards were the rule. When that occurred soon after the music and our culture gradually shifted so that today in most of the advertising, in the media, in our music and in the arts and entertainment industries an amoral behavior is ever present. In public education this shift of our society really became evident. So that today the virtues and morals of our heritage has been lost. And we are not alone.
With all the economic uncertainty in our world today the United Nations just recently concluded that the worst of human nature is again raising it's ugly head. In countries such as Syria what has been long suspected is true. Crimes against humanity continue to escalate. The scale or magnitude of these crimes is almost on the same scope of the atrocities that underscored the events of World War II. Torture, rape, mutilation, and unspeakable horror still manage to ravage countries all over the world. Is this the world of the 21st century we want to live in? It is this moral decay which brought about the greed of certain individuals to do heinous acts against man and nature that threaten life as we know it on earth today.
One can't help but wonder and be amazed by all the technological advances in medicine and science over the past 30 years. The sad reality of all those marvels of technology is that so few through-out the world have yet to receive the benefits from all that wondrous innovations that to some already have capitalized on. Mans most primal instincts have taken root in the minds of certain individuals to willfully, openly sanction, and endorse more of mans inhumanity upon man and nature. In doing so the delicate balance of nature is almost completely destroyed. We have to use the resources and the innovations that have been developed for the greater good of all mankind. Only in this way can the preservation of planet earth be assured and every county will receive the benefits of economic stability, security, and prosperity.
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