Slightly Off Center                       

Fear And Loathing In America

    The time has come to take our collective heads out of our bunkers and allow the light of day to remove the pall of shadows obscuring our perspective.  It’s time to seriously examine the mitigating results of using a constant state of fear to rule what’s left of our democracy. Each new terrorist alert has wreaked havoc on my inner child, forcing me to reprise that careening free-fall down a rabbit hole experienced by Alice . With no end in sight, we must be responsible and vigilant, making the most of these precious moments allotted until the next alert.

               Good citizens, be mindful of each new revelation spotlighting the latest miscreant to be added to a cavalcade of characters of elected officials, bankers, auditors, brokers, lawyers and corporate boards. The “Code of Honor” of this pernicious unholy alliance of individuals can be summed up in two words: ambition and greed. 

 Confidence games and other flagrant schemes such as Enron and Global Crossing are possible with the generous assistance from the roguish perps found in both parties of congress. The Peter Principle, the theory that all members of an organization will eventually be promoted to a level at which they are no longer competent to do their job, is the life force of these shills on the hill. (Our lesson here is; “not only cream rises to the top”.)  Their latest insult is, “Campaign Finance Reform”, which has as much sincerity as a note from a philanderer to a pregnant woman confined to a home for unwed mothers. Yet, there is not a guilty one to be found among them. If we hung a huge mirror in front of this august body of representatives there would be no reflection at all – now that is truly the meaning of transparency.

                 Today’s scandals in our financial markets had their auspicious beginnings sowed during a time known as “Morning in America ”.  The 1980’s,  while fanning the flames of fast track globalization,  preached the virtues and benefits of deregulation and a free market ideology. We gave the world notice, “It will be our way or the highway”. This relay race and endgame “baton” is passed to each administration; it is now in the hands of its latest poster boy of disaster. 

       With the demise of the “Glass-Steagall Act” of the 1930’s and the destruction of the firewall of regulations separating the banking, brokerage and insurance industries, (which was accomplished in the 1990’s), it has taken less than twenty years for these mask-less bandits to set up history to repeat itself.

                  Deregulation has spawned a mindset of arrogance, duplicitousness is the game plan. False valuations, bogus deals and the massaging of numbers are nothing more than egregious acts colorfully described as fiendishly clever and artful in nature.  “The New Deal”, “stakeholder capitalism” (When employee and community interests were protected, when regulations protected ordinary citizens from the excesses of capitalism.) is finished, replaced by our latest idiom known as “The New Economy”.

    As the month of March approaches, three thousand underpaid and understaffed employees of the S.E.C. (Security Exchange Commission)  will take on the daunting responsibility to examine the balance sheets of over one thousand mutual funds and over ten thousand stocks.  Burdened at the same time to keep abreast of the latest machinations of over a half a million brokers and those of investment bankers. With the stench of scandal still permeating the halls of congress, no longer is anyone threatening to slash the budget of the S.E.C., nor is anyone on the hill offering to increase it.  It seems to me, increasing the S.E.C. budget should be part of the “Homeland Security” pie. The bad news for the investing public is that the S.E.C. has lost many qualified individuals with years of knowledge and experience in the ways of seeking out either clarity in financial reporting or fraud.

            So, as the Ides of March approaches, let us take our cue from our leadership, “Let’s go shopping”.  Better yet, as Peggy Lee once sang, “If that’s all there is my friends, than let’s keep dancing.”

© Philip J. Rappa 2002

 Home
Alpha and Omega
Rhapsody in Democracy
Requiem for the Silliness I Learned in Civics Class
Oh-Sum-Bodies-Been-Lying
Help Me If You Can, I'm Feeling Bad
Fear & Loathing in America
Choose Heads or Tails
Open Letter to the President
In God We Trust
The House Always Wins
We The People
Salted Peanuts
Enough Ranting - Just For Fun

copyright slightlyoffcenter.org