Originally Posted by logtroll
Originally Posted by jgw
...Before any of the above happens, of course, we are going to have to work through the dealing with our incredibly greedy, incompetent, self serving elected class which, I fear, is going to take a LONG time, effort and pain.
Well said. I would add that we have a culture, based on capitalism, that needs to be changed. We won't get the right kind of politicians until that happens.

The basic problem is simple greed, not capitalism. I can remember a time when corporation ceo folk only made 2 or 3 times what those they hired made, now they make 200 to 300 times more. This has been a problem for a very long time. I believe the standard is set by our elected class and that class is elected by US! I am not sure how to change this as I believe that our culture is now based on pure, unadulterated greed, and that never used to be the case and the greedy eventually fell from grace. Now they are not. The Obama administration has made it very clear that if you break the law, and you have the big bucks then they get to pay a fine instead. This is a TERRIBLE plan and when our government catches the malefactor they are fined which makes their activities subject to just another cost of doing business. This is not capitalism but something else entirely. it used to be that the bad guys got to do time - no longer.

I doubt that it would ever happen but, I wonder when the last time was when a voter asked one of their elected whether rich criminals should goto prison. If they get a positive answer then the next thing to do is ask how much time he/she has spent making sure that ALL criminals get to goto jail.

Bank of America was fined when they were caught counterfeiting documents so they could foreclose houses (I think Trump may have nominated the guy in charge of that one to take over treasury). HSBC was caught laundering over 300 BILLION in drug money. Freely admitted it and was fined. (there are a LOT of these!

I think my point is that WE are doing an incredibly bad job of electing our elected class. They are returning the favor by screwing us ALL over, bigtime.

Just a thought...........