History is messy

 Ours has been a messy history.

Americans like to think history is all about the good guys vs the bad guys, and of course we're always the good guys.  Always.  We believe we are clean and pure and virtuous, when in fact, we've stumbled often.  Ours has not been a linear march to greatness.  "Yes it has been" you might say, "except for that slavery thing 150 years ago."  Oh dear, you'd better sit down.

We got off to a fine start when colonists arrived from Europe seeking a new, better life.  They built living quarters, planted crops....and eventually had to resort to sending raiding parties to demand food from the Native Americans, and in the process burn down their homes.  The Native Americans returned the favor by laying siege to Jamestown where many colonists died during the "starving times".  

The original colonists went on to established a democracy that has stood the test of time and been a beacon of hope for the oppressed of the world.  Yea us!  We also spent several Centuries systematically uprooting the Native Americans off "their" land and pushing them west so we could make it "our" land.  It was messy.

Fast forward 150 years to the Revolutionary War period when the locals objected to paying taxes on various commodities to help pay for Britain's war debts and for keeping a force of 10,000 troops in America.  Sam Adam's Sons of Liberty, disguised as Indians, boarded three British ships carrying tea and chunked it into Boston Harbor in protest.  Patriots or delinquents?  Lets just say the King wasn't impressed.  Relations between the colonies and Britain went steadily downhill until the time of the Declaration of Independence....George Washington's Continental Army....we won....big parade. 

Sam Adams, George Washington, and the boys were revered heroes that we still celebrate today.  But had the British won, Sam, George, and all our Founding Father's would have been hunted down and likely executed as traitors.  It could have been very messy.

For the next 75 or so years, the North developed considerable industry while the South remained overwhelmingly agricultural.  The South needed lots of cheap (slave) labor, the North didn't.  The South sent much of their crops to Europe in exchange for finished goods, which upset the Northerners who wanted the South to buy more of their finished goods from them.  The north wanted import tariffs to help their industry, the South didn't.  Great animosity arose. 

Leading up to the Civil War there was certainly tremendous and proper condemnation of the institution of slavery in the North, but an often soft-peddled fact was that the Northern money interests felt they were leaving money on the table, which chapped them greatly.  It was an incredibly sad, messy bit of our history, but thankfully we got it right.

The North of course won, making Grant and Sherman great war heroes, never mind that Sherman slashed and burned his way across the South to the Atlantic.  Hero or villain?  Depends on who you ask.  It was messy.  Then came Reconstruction, a period of great hardship for the average Southerner, and a period of great prosperity for Northern-backed carpetbaggers.  Oh, and how about that little Ku Klux Klan thing?  Nasty messy! 

How about America's industrial coming of age post Civil War?  Andrew Carnegie built an impressive steel empire worth over $300B in current dollars, and gave away much of it to charity, building thousands of libraries that still bear his name to this day.  What a guy, huh?  Oh, and he was a staunch anti-unionist who hired Pinkerton thugs to keep his workers in line, killing more than a few in the process.  His story was a messy one.

John D. Rockefeller cobbled together the modern oil industry, giving us cheap kerosene for lighting and later, gasoline.  His influence was immeasurable, right?  Yes, but he got where he was by "buying out" (under extreme duress) any small refiner who dared to stand in his way.  OK, honestly, he squashed competitors like bugs.  He got what he wanted, by whatever means were necessary.  His story was messy, too.

And don't forget Henry Ford.  He's the guy who established the original "living wage" and created America's middle class, put us all on wheels, which necessitated a large road network, making suburbs possible, and more.  He was a true visionary.  And BTW, he was also a staunch anti-Semite, anti-unionist, and like Carnegie, employed toughs to keep his employees in line, killing many.  Oooo....messy indeed.

FDR's Alphabet Agencies eventually got Americans back working during the Great Depression....the WPA, TVA, CCC....and the FDIC, FHA, and Social Security, as well.  He was admired by millions, and at the same time widely criticized by many (to this day) for leading America down the road to "Socialism".  Hero or villain?  Messy.  There are still fist fights over this one.

We defeated the Nazi's and the cruel Japanese Empire in WWII.  Surely we get a World Class pat on the back for that one, right?  Umm....ask the decedents of the120,000 Japanese Americans who were interred for the war's duration because we were scared of their names.  DOH!  Otherwise, *fist bump*

But we started the Marshall Plan to keep war ravaged Europe from starving and to help them get back on their feet.  Aren't we nice guys?  Absolutely.  Although our ulterior motive was to keep the Soviets out of our post-war sector of influence, and to create markets for US exports as Europe recovered.  Nothing is as cut and dried as it seems.  Messy.

Late 60's and early 70's....tens of thousands of Americans died in Southeast Asia fighting to stop the spread of communism.  We lost.  Yet we still came back home and built a well deserved tribute on The Mall to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsman who died there.  We celebrated defeat?  No, we honored sacrifice.  Win....lose....history is messy.

The world is seldom a simple good vs evil proposition.  Its evolution is essentially two steps forward and one step back.  Don't jump to conclusions, regardless of your views on history.  The truth is messy.  Look at all sides, and be benevolent winners and forgiving losers.  Life is too short to do otherwise.

S

Be afraid, a__holes. Be VERY afraid!

Have you heard the funny saying, "Some people are alive only because it's against the law to shoot them"?   I think they were referring to bankers.

Now and then I tend to get off on a vitreol-laced rant about The Banksters.*  Some have asked me why I get my panties in such a wad over them?  Fair question.  Here's why:

Back during the Great Depression thousands of banks went broke, with depositors losing their life savings in the collapse.  The misery was unimaginable.  To restore confidence in the banking system, FDR/Congress did things like create the FDIC (to insure that even if banks go broke in the future, the depositors will still get their money back), and passed the Glass-Steagall Act.  This separated the commercial banks (like the First National Bank of Gooberville) from the investment banks (think Shark Tank in a 3-piece suit).

Commercial banks were regulated, only allowed to loan to solid, credit-worthy borrowers, usually for things like homes or cars or small businesses.  These were usually to locals, and the borrowers were well known to the banks.  It was safe, but not all that lucrative for the bankers. Investment banks could gamble big on just about anything, but with their higher risks (they weren't covered by FDIC insurance) came much higher rewards, too.  This separation worked well, but by the 1980's the banks were wanting to be unshackled, and finally, after intense lobbying, Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, and off to the casino they went.

They began an intense home loan campaign, and they had many well-qualified takers.  But after a while all the well-qualified borrowers who wanted a home had a home, so the banks lowered their standards and kept throwing out money.  Not long after, they ran out of even marginally-qualified borrowers, so they just kept loaning to anyone who could fog a mirror.  

If borrowers couldn't afford to make payments based on a 6% interest rate, they gave them a 2% loan....for 4 years, then it skyrocketed to make up for the early-years rate-break.  The banks frankly didn't care if the loans were paid back or not, as they had devised a way to pass along the risk to investors downstream.  They took all their loans, sliced them and diced them, and repackaged them as "derivatives".  These were essentially packages of 10,000 little pieces of 10,000 separate home loans.  

Problem was, the investors they sold them to (often employee pension funds, etc) couldn't easily figure out which homes they had an interest in or who owed them, which is exactly what the banks were hoping for.  The banks LOVE working in the dark!  The senior banksters made literally $$$BILLIONS of dollars for themselves personally with this fraudulent scam!

By 2008 the House of Cards collapsed, and investors worldwide were holding worthless paper.  But....haha....the banks were, too!  They still had BILLIONS in their loan portfolios waiting to be sliced and diced, but the collapse happened before they could get them all out the door.  Oops!

Here's where it gets personal for me:  In their typical bureaucratic knee-jerk over-reaction, the banking regulators pretty much told banks to say "NO" to any real estate loans.  Unless the borrower was solid gold and had a HUGE down payment...NO!  This applied coast-to-coast, regardless of whether an area participated in the fraud or not.  WTF?

Many in my industry were forced to close their doors, losing everything.  (We managed to stay afloat because over the years we had developed nice relationships with many affluent professionals who didn't need any bank financing.)  Plumbers who might once have had 20 employees could then only afford to keep 3 or 4.  The same with electricians, insulation and drywall contractors, etc.  It was to them like Armageddon.  Then it spread to our neighbors who might have needed to sell their homes for whatever reason, but couldn't because there was little mortgage financing available.  They were all defaulting on their homes and cars left and right, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THE BANKSTER'S FRAUD!

Meanwhile, while millions of middle-class families were being devastated, the guilty bankers still had their ranches in Montana, their estates in the Hampton's, and their penthouse apartments on Fifth Ave.  They still vacationed in Europe, still bought Bentley's, still had their hundreds of millions of dollars hidden away from possible angry plaintiffs. AND  NOT  ONE  EVER  WENT  TO  PRISON!  Their lives didn't suffer one twit!

And they're still at it today.  They still put together fraudulent deals, pricing in a few hundred million bucks to cover the fines they know the Feds will slap on them....not bad considering the few $$$BILLION they scammed in the process!

I truly believe a day of reckoning is coming. At some point in time fed up middle class Joe's and Jane's will invade the Ivory Towers and haul these well-scrubbed criminals off in chains.  And there will be rejoicing in the streets.  :)

S  

*  Not all bankers are Banksters.  The little guys and gals at the local corner bank are NOT who I'm speaking of here.  I'm talking about the BIG BANKS....B of A, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Capital One, Morgan Stanley, etc.

GOP debate recap

This is actually what I tuned in to see, but it was a bit more restrained.  Pity.  ;)

For those of you who are vaguely interested in politics, but not enough so to actually watch 2 hours of their regularly televised sit-com, I offer this debate recap:  Mark O. Rubio seemed cool and above the fray, Dr. Ben Carson, always the polite gentleman, showed....umm....good posture, The Donald seemed to have ratcheted down his mouth a couple of notches, Chris Christie was once again the 8-to-5 working guy's guy, Mike Huckleberry showed he was still the best orator, Ted Cruz had a memorable line, John Kasich seemed to be desperately struggling to keep his head above water, Carly Fiorina was chomping at the bit for a cat fight with Hillary C,  and Jeb Bush and Rand Paul rode off into the sunset (they just don't know it yet).

And the CNBC moderators were assholes.  What the hell was wrong with those folks?  Every question they asked was little more than "have you stopped beating your wife?"

For the life of me I can't understand why Dr. Carson is now the front-runner. Is he smart?  Yes, he's brilliant.  Does he act like an adult when the opportunity is there for a sleazy attack?  Yes, he's a class guy.  But IMHO his demeanor is more that of a statistical actuary than a leader.

I expect my leaders to be able to inspire, to work a crowd up into a force for action.  Such as....

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall NEVER surrender."  Winston Churchill

or "Mr. Gorbachev, TEAR...DOWN...THIS...WALL!"  Ronald Reagan

or "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."  FDR

Dr. Carson has a soft-spoken demeanor that is [to me] reminiscent of Jimmah Carter, and we all know how THAT turned out!  (He was absolutely run over by the scum-bag Washington professional politicians.)

Several of the candidates (Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie) seemed almost like they were "Democrat Lite" when they spoke of entitlements.  "Workers have BOUGHT their 'entitlements', they were not just given to them."  Gov. Christie even slapped us with the truth:  The money we put into our Social Security Trust Fund is GONE.  Over the past 50 years our "leaders" have STOLEN it.   We're not EVER going to see it again.   Fact!  

And Christie wants to jail the crooked bankers who almost imploded the world back in '08.  YES!

There was almost unanimity over how unhealthy our income inequality is.  This from Republicans?  Whoa!

Poor Jeb.  If you're a Jeb Bush fan, I'm sorry, but it's over for him.  The Bush dynasty has obviously ended with Dubyah.  Give Jeb a nice dinner and a gold watch and retire him.  Now.

Even Ted Cruz got a well-deserved round of applause from the audience when he called out the moderators for being unfair beyond belief.

And Donald Trump.  *sigh*  I think he'll lumber along for a while longer as a legitimate contender, but voters seem to be getting a little lot more serious about the issues, and The Donald hasn't really told us much yet about how he's going to do what he's promised.  I'm not sure if he can.  

My chuckle moment was when Trump skewered PAC's as the scourge of politics.  Ha!   So true!  But as he was the only one there not accepting PAC money, he was a lonely voice of one.  Touche Donald!

I think Mark O. will get a bounce from this debate.  Something about him, though, troubles me.  I'm just not sure exactly what.  I'm sure if there's anything there it will surface in time.

There you have it....my opinion, which ranks right up there with a big bowl of cold oatmeal.  ;)

S