Capitalist Chattel Slavery

How freeing is free market capitalism? It is in most cases offers sovereignty for those directly involved with the markets, and mostly for those who have the most to gain from it. At times, the current economy, and its ideals of capitalism seem too overwhelming to the individual, in that its close relationship with democratic government, seems to take more freedoms away from the individual than it provides, unless, of course, those individuals retain a sum of money to release themselves from a lack of favorable laws to benefit themselves.

There are many elements that lie beneath the surface, and those that can afford to manipulate the systems that attempt to make capitalism fair for all, offering a proper market of competition, instead of a system of biased steering of laws, in order to sustain a faulty or corrupt culture of business. In a nation that recognizes businesses as individuals, on the same level as individual persons, the economic imbalance is evidence that in a democracy that favors free markets and capitalist ideals, the dollar grants more advantage to big business, and places the true individual at a significant disadvantage. (Access To Justice In U.S. At Third-World Levels, Says Survey)

The credit system under the guise of free markets is also faulty, in failing to provide self-reliant financial gain for the individual. Based on my previous statement, legally empowered business grants credit, as well as maintains or enforces the credit values of individuals. The government has no role in this type of economy. There is no element of enforcement available to the consumer, that would provide a financial security if the consumer should be locked out of the current economic system, by not having a monetary provision. This, in essence, heavily enables private interests to selectively control and monitor who receives monetary resources, and how much of it they deserve. The Federal monetary system is practically becoming non-existent, and therefore corporations replace the Fed as a means to managing monetary aspects of the economy.

As manufacturing corporations, and corporations in general are granted more free will under limited regulation, they continue to impress upon the workforce a lower and lower wage, as financial corporations instill the use of credit, in order to keep the low wage earners psychologically at bay, from discovering that they cannot simply afford sustainability on a lower rate of income. In a capitalist democracy, as we have in the United States, money empowers any institution that has enough of it to supply, the corporation legally provided the rights of the individual inherits an unfair advantage over the literal individual. What the U.S. government has done is, instead of creating a separate set of laws to preserve the rights of corporations in a manner parallel to the rights of the individual, the government has purposefully created an artificial class of society that has tremendous amount of economic advantage over the individual, synonymous to the relationship between land owners of early America, and their imported slaves, who held absolutely no economic rights, whatsoever, and lacked the legal rights to sufficiently gain a secure and sustainable way of life.

Constitutional law since its establishment has emphasized an indifference to the financial freedoms of the individual. It is apparent in its wording of the 14th amendment, in that no state entity may "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This wording lends the federal government to too much passivity when it comes to regarding the freedoms of the individual. In a capitalist society, such as the one that exists in the United States, finances are the single most important aspect of gaining the essence of a stable and sustaining life; license to act within the law so as to maintain a sustainable life; and preserve one's own property. Granted the fundamental legislation laid forth in the founding documents and the following amendments were implemented to foster equality, but the reinterpretation of its meanings creates a paradox for the individual. If we are to uphold equality as some right granted to all individuals by supernal granting, then the people must ask themselves, how fortified is this equality when stood up against equality measured in monetary value. When you bring together the intrinsic strengths of individual freedom versus financial capability to purchase the essence of freedom, the two are not one in the same, Therefore, those elements of the governed that have the larger capacity to superficially obtain freedoms, should not obtain the same guarantees of freedom meant for the individual person.

A person is defined as "a human being regarded as an individual." In no way can this be misinterpreted or misconstrued as some other form or being, yet the law interprets it as including a network of individuals, even corporations. As Noam Chomsky has noted, the "powerful and privileged" felt that "any person" was too acute and obtuse under the same definition. "The Courts decided long ago to extend the concept "person" to include collective legal fictions created and supported by state power: corporations, which now dominate the economy and the society, and increasingly the political system." If the political system is dominated financially by corporations, then it is correct to conclude that the individual under these legal bounds has involuntarily relinquished crucial aspects of the freedoms granted by the 14th amendment. "Last January the Bush Supreme Court appointees overturned a century of precedents and sharply extended the right of corporations to buy elections." If those with the financial capacity to purchase votes have the driving force to guide the results of election in their favor, then it is true that the individual has lost their ability to effectively participate in a free democracy as a free person. The means by which laws are created to preserve individual freedoms are now steered by those who gain freedom through financial mechanisms, and not by right alone. "The grounds for the verdict are that money is speech, and corporations are persons, so to deprive them of the right to buy elections would deprive these fictional persons of their constitutional rights of freedom of speech. These expanded rights of unaccountable state-backed private tyrannies are being quite effectively exercised in the congressional campaigns that are underway right now, in a concerted effort to ensure that Congress is taken over by an extreme wing of business representatives." It is wrong to consider that men of business maintain a firmer right to freedom by way of state laws, than what is intrinsic in the right of free men. Whether we are associated with business or not, our freedoms are single in the perception of justice. (Final Remarks, Istanbul Conference on Freedom of Speech)

There are more mechanisms in place that tend to disable consumers from participating in the economy, by utilizing their financial assets. Without any government involvement most private institutions share information about consumers, basically known as credit reporting. An individual's movement through an economy is monitored at all times by, not a governing element, but instead by private interests: corporations. Since these corporations are granted the same status of liberty as you and me as individuals, it is as if one person has the ability to oversee your financial habits, and on the same token, enable or disable your ability to effectively spend or acquire money. If capitalism is a sponsor of free market practices, how is it possible that one individual can judge the financial capabilities of another? How does one individual justify your economic status within a market? What is that concept called? Controlling, manipulating, and monitoring one's ability to participate in an economic environment can somewhat be defined as an aspect of slavery. If participants have a minimal amount of money to spend on sustaining their inalienable lives, then they must turn to some other form of financial capacity, which is defined in capitalist structures as credit. Either the government's economic mechanisms supply the means by which its society can maintain sustainable living, or the private elements will follow suit in providing loans or credit dispensation. If the individual who lends to the individual who lacks the assets to participate in the market, at what point does the borrower gain non-debt status, if the economy is not providing enough means to participate in the economy, then how would the borrower ever exit debt status? The individual who has loaned or granted credit to the other is aware of this situation, and will seek to extend the debt status utilizing the information provided via credit reports, in order to manipulate debt elimination steps, and indeterminately keep the borrowing individual economically disadvantaged. Therefore, the economically disadvantaged individual fails to ever enter a prosperous stage, and due to the constant lack of having on-hand financial resource, obtains the economic status of an indentured slave.

There are two types of people in economic culture: those that practice the art of deception as a means to producing more prosperity for themselves, without providing an ample product, and therefore lacking production; and there are those that produce as a means of provision to the rest of society. Those who facilitate provisions into a society, and are compensated for it, are those that improve, and enable better growth for the economy. In contrast to this, there are those who seek compensation from society, without offering a provision, and it is these participants of a society that impress disadvantage upon other members of society, and therefore are degrading the efficiency and growth of any economy.

The process of creating an alternative international military force, "is nothing short of a subversion of the very existence of the nation-state and of principles of sovereignty and self-determination. 'The increasing use of contractors, private forces or as some would say "mercenaries" makes wars easier to begin and fight -- it just takes money and not the citizenry.'" This is the crux of this argument, in that there is no containment or element of private industry regulation to ensure the citizens that a paid force would not maneuver against the rights of a state and it's people. Only does money create mechanisms by which a force can generate a system which the intrinsic rights of the individual come with a price in monetary terms, and not on terms of liberty. (Scahill, Jeremy. Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. 2007. Nation Books. New York.)

Let's think about IBM's move to relocate, or expatriate its domestic workforce in the United States (Project Match). IBM simply wants its workers in the U.S. to leave the U.S, and move to India, because the cost of living is cheaper there, and the workforce demands a significant less amount for wages (The Business Elites ... Are Instinctive Marxists). Basically, outsourcing jobs to foreign workers for its company is not enough, and now that that workforce is saturated, and the U.S. workforce is desperate for jobs, due to economic hardships, IBM gains from removing a trained workforce from one nation to another, in order to decrease pay, without regard for international laws, or the domestic rights of the individual who chooses to relocate for work. The worker has two choices: relocate outside of the country that guarantees your freedoms and quality of life, to preserve your job, and work for less money, or resign, and seek work elsewhere at a time when the availability of jobs is scarce. Either way the individual is forced to sacrifice their livelihood and the stability of domestic laws that preserve individual rights over state or plutocratic authority. This is a basic manifestation of involuntary labor enslavement. The lack of international laws protecting foreign workers who have relocated, plays into the hands of corporations who take advantage of global free trade, in order to manipulate labor in a way that would place global workers within an insecure, and lacking global arena of nonspecific human rights laws, which provide these corporations with the ability to have complete dominance over a workforce's ability to sustain a free and stable life based on its provided labor. Is it not in the practice of financially advantaged corrupt third world entities, to gather up the strong, and those fully capable of providing intense labor for minimal compensation, in order to gain full profits? There is an unspoken advantage supplied to the corporate elites, that consumes the liberties of the common man, and that disguised upper-hand that the elites have gained, fails to address the laws that guarantee a dislocated workforce's economic freedom, and prevent capitalist-driven indentured servitude.

If we are to continue to convince ourselves as a society, that the current form of free-market capitalism is the only means of providing the individuals of society with freedom, then we are leading ourselves down a path of foolishness, ignorance of the law and misguided philosophy. Those of us, that are not financially capable of purchasing the attention of representatives at the state and national levels, are the individuals that are blindly led to have faith in our freedoms, but that faith is weakened by the mere fact that freedom within a capitalist society is so closely tied to monetary value and status. This is especially true, when the availability of money is decreased, and replaced by a system of credit, that has the intent of deteriorating our value as free members of society, and therefore debt becomes the chains by which we are prevented from gaining individual prosperity. If the individual cannot prosper, then the individual cannot be free.

Confidence is Nothing Without Value

Headlines everywhere today, are discussing how investors need to hold out and keep a positive outlook on where the markets are going. For seven days straight, the markets have been in negative territory, and yet the general public is being asked to stay positive, instead of dealing with the reality of the situation. How can people possibly hold their heads above water, when governments are tossing money at financial institutions that are failing, not because they are losing money, but because the average investor can't remain confident in an institution that has been absorbing money faster than the investors can put back into it.

Blame Wall Street, and blame the government for not owning up to being responsible with money. It is nearly impossible to look at an investment portfolio these days, and confidently get a solid understanding of what it's doing. For example, today I accessed my 401K plan online, and looked over my portfolio. Talk about scant information! I had one table showing all my funds, bonds, stocks, etc., along with prices of the stock at purchase, and quantity of stock I owned. Fair enough. Then it shows way at the bottom, my total earnings on these investments. No current stock price, no market values, and no break down of gains or losses. The company that runs this online software is CitiSmithBarney, which when I opened the 401K, was just SmithBarney, and also not to mention, that when I log in, I get a disclaimer saying that ING has just completed its acquisition of CitiStreet, which is an affiliate of CitiGroup. My eyes began to cross after the acknowledgment of CitiSmithBarney.

Wait, there's more! Now I see my list of investments, and then decide I'm going to look the stocks up on Google's finance site, and I could only find four out of the ten items in there. For instance, I was looking to do more research on the value of one of the items, Western Asst Mgmt US Gov. What the hell is that? There was no corresponding stock symbol. Why is it abbreviated. It doesn't come up in a search on Google, and Western Asset's web site, does even list it as a product, unless it's been named something else. I couldn't find any contact information on the site, so that I could call someone, and ask my unfulfilled questions. What kind of operation is this?

It is very frustrating to see that a Wall Street company, that is responsible for millions of people's hard earned money, and makes millions in profits a day, can offer up such a lousy excuse for an investment portfolio. It's almost as if they don't want you to understand it, because then it would be a lot easier to manipulate your money to grant them more profit.

The lesson for Wall Street to learn today is to respect your customers, and show a little more consideration for those who keep your hefty paychecks rolling in. If there is no confidence in the market, then it's because people just don't know. We are given half rate information, and expecting our advisers to do their job, and make sure we are headed toward a more secure future. So much for that. Would you invest in something you were unsure of, or something you nothing about, and if you did invest, would you be sure that things were going well, considering you nothing about what was going on?

Even our government is not providing the confidence we need in the markets. Today, George W. Bush gave a speech in the Rose Garden, explaining to us, all the facets of a failing economy. He simply restated everything we already know, and is not providing Americans with a sound and consistent plan. It's been 2 weeks already since the plan has been put into place, and the market is just getting worse. What is the plan? Why isn't it working? Why are we being told to not worry about the economy, yet every morning we wake up to a market that is diving? More rules need to be in place holding the Treasury accountable for all purchases and bail outs. All transactions should be openly available online for the taxpayer to see, so that they know what their return will be if and when the market climbs out f the depths. Also, all Wall Street firms need to be handed regulation making robust information readily available to public investors. Information just as well structured, and easy to understand as that of Google's or Yahoo's financing sites.

Information is a powerful tool. It can be used to take advantage of certain situations by limiting the amount that is granted forthwith. It can also benefit those who want to be informed, in order to make better decisions, because if those who are limiting information are harnessing that power, then the less informed will fail to effectively support the systems to which they contribute.

You've Been Had

Obama said something that made a huge amount of sense, today, "the American people have been suffering long before Wall Street has." This couldn't be made clearer to the current leadership, who has devastatingly ignored the real problem that the U.S. was and is currently facing. All of this could have been avoided, but when the wealthy in this country are not effected, and the wealthy are so closely tied in with the political elite it is no wonder no one in the U.S. congress, the presidential administration, or the treasury couldn't accept or acknowledge the looming financial crisis that has slammed us hard.
It is worth noting that the current Bush administration has, since 9/11/2001, has governed with the drive of its own interests, committing it's political maneuvers to high level secrecy, without an ounce of regard for the American people and its well being. Now in an attempt to secure our financial crisis, Congress has made an attempt to shore up this crisis, by obliterating party lines, and seriously taking care of this matter once and for all. But, yet again, the Bush administration has not offered up any information regarding its approach to salvaging flailing Wall Street firms, and members of Congress are still in the dark, on both side of the aisle, to boot.
So, the U.S. Treasury is planning to buy up bad mortgages with a estimated value of 2 trillion dollars, and will implement a ban on short selling of financial stocks. The ban is a great idea, because it is definitely a Wall Street trait of abusing financial security and is representative of its ability to abuse the markets. This may work or it may not, but the point is that this was an administrative decision to put a proxy in place to shore up the crumbling walls of big financial firms on Wall Street, at the cost of the American taxpayer. Congress (in other words your voices in government), had no say in the matter.
With all the sympathy from Obama and McCain (not both Congressional members) about how much middle America is suffering and is in financial dire, yet the government insists on shoveling more money into failed business ventures, not because the failure was circumstantial, but because that failure was a product of cheating the American people out of their hard earned money, and the government blatantly wants to foster that with financial rescue.
It's not the smaller number of investment firms with larger amounts of financial debt, but the folks at the bottom end of the market, the taxpayer, the individual investor, the homeowner, who need the bailouts, and may make up a smaller dollar amount of the nation's debt. Yet the government wants to shove 2 trillion dollars into bad mortgages, that will undeniably force a raise in taxes for the individual American.
America's outstanding credit in 2006 reports by the U.S. Census shows that American consumers owe $2,405,000,000,000.00. The financial market's outstanding credit comes in at a whopping $14,129,000,000,000.00. Now I'm willing to bet that those numbers have since increased, and the ratio of difference has, if not remained the same, has also increased. And one could only assume that the best way to approach fixing the market is putting cash into the lower of the two, since it would be a more feasible strategy toward economic stabilization, and let the money trickle up.
There is no financial backbone in America. The value at the top is so ridiculously inflated, that Americans are not capable of reaching for a balance that isn't justifiably within reach. It is so inflated that practically is fictional and non-existent. Those who owe will owe forever because the final balance keeps moving upwards, and continues to be pushed away by the actions of the Federal government. Those who owe are losing jobs, losing investments, face mediocre salaries, and higher costs, and will await an increase in taxes. With that we are expected to pay back on ever-inflating balance sheets. How much more can we possibly endure?
How's this? Why don't all Americans withdraw all of their investments, and use the tax from that to dump back into Wall Street? There's really no difference between that and having to pay more taxes further down the road, which is money that could be placed into a thriving market's investments. This way we could benefit from a thriving market, and not continue to lose our money to bad decisions, and a corrupt corporate America, and government.