Re: SC78

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10446

Lessons from the Collapse of Wall Street

..........4. The massive flight of capital from productive ( manufacturing ) sectors to FIRE ( finance, real estate and insurance ) was accompanied by the huge surge of capital overseas, making the domestic economy over dependent on 'services', particularly volatile and risky 'financial services' and highly indebted consumers.

The conversion of the US from a diversified economy to a 'FIRE' monoculture increased the probability of a general collapse if and when the financial/real estate market went under. Recovery and sustained growth can only occur with the return of a diversified economy, the retention of capital from overseas flight and large-scale, long-term public investment and incentives for the productive and social service sectors.

5. The pursuit of military-driven empire building at the expense of joint ventures and reciprocal trade agreements with countries with expanding markets, strategic energy sources and large populations and markets, created enormous budget and trade deficits and alienated potential sources of markets and strategic commodities.

Trillion dollar military expenditures in pursuit of prolonged, costly colonial wars (without end), diverted funds from the application of technological advances and high-end manufacturing, which would have lowered costs and increased market competition. Equally important, by shifting from market-driven domestic expansion to overseas military-driven conquest, the entire axis of economic power shifted from industrial to financial capital. Finance capital essential to funding government budget deficits incurred through military expenditures, grew in influence - Wall Street replaced the steel-belt as the axes of power in Washington.

6. The ascendancy of militarism and financial capital facilitated the increase of influence of a virulent power configuration promoting the regional hegemonic interests of a colonial-militarist state specifically, a previously marginal political lobby - the pro-Israel-Zionist power configuration (ZPC).

The military-driven empire builders saw in the ZPC a strategic ally in pursuit of their global conquests; the ZPC saw an open door to high office and multiple opportunities to promote Israel's expansionist agenda through their influence in Congressional Committees, electoral campaigns and direct White House appointments. The ZPC surge to the top echelon of power was aided and abetted by the increase of financial support they received by members in strategic positions in the most lucrative financial institutions. The ZPC was an economic beneficiary of the speculative bubble: it was the massive infusion of financial contributions that allowed the ZPC to vastly expand the number of full-time functionaries, influence peddlers and electoral contributors that magnified their power - especially in promoting US Middle East wars, lopsided free trade agreements (in favor of Israel) and unquestioned backing of Israeli aggression against Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. Economic recovery is contingent on ending budget busting military imperialism. That will not happen unless there is a wholesale replacement of the political elite nurtured on the metaphysics of military-based global power.

No economic recovery is possible now or in the foreseeable future as long as the US Congress and executives provide trillion dollar bailouts to Wall Street's insolvent speculators, bankroll 700 billion dollar budgets of ever expanding war spending and while Zionist power brokers dictate US Mideast policies.

The lessons of the past tell us a great deal about what paths we should and shouldn't take.

Social Security still exists precisely because the US public rebelled and defeated its proposed handover to Wall Street and it remained a publicly run program. The financial system collapsed because the US economy 'specialized' in a single crop - finance - at the expense of a diversified productive economy. The political system is totally discredited because it is run by a failed political elite which blatantly represents and acts on behalf of a few thousand financial oligarchs; a couple hundred militarist oligarchs and a few dozen zealous Zionist organizations.

The 'power elite' is only as powerful as it is able to manipulate, intimidate and beguile three hundred million plus US citizens into thinking that they are indispensable to their lives ( and they are not
). The overwhelming popular rejection of the privatization of social security and the Wall Street bailout suggests that the ruling oligarchy is not invincible.