by Stephen Lendman

They're more powerful than standing armies. What they say goes. They decide policy. They rule the world. They do it by controlling money, credit and debt.

They manipulate markets for self-enrichment. Grand theft is official Wall Street policy. Government officials wink, nod, and permit the grandest of grand larceny to persist.

Financial giants recycle their executives in and out of Washington. They strip-mine economies for profit. They buy politicians like toothpaste. Whatever they want they get.

They do it at the expense of government of, by and for everyone equitably and just.

On October 2, 15 financial lords met with Obama. They did so at the White House. They gave him their marching orders.

They came to assert their demands. They're uncompromising. They're ruthless. They want business as usual continued. They want more than ever.

They want more bailouts. They want bail-ins. They want personal bank accounts, pensions and other assets confiscated.

They want more crushing neoliberal harshness. They want America thirdworldized. They want it looking like Greece.

Budget and debt ceiling debates conceal their ugly agenda. What's ongoing is a longstanding orchestrated swindle. Bipartisan complicity supports it.

Social America is on the chopping block for elimination. Another grand bargain plans it. Expect it once current theatrics end.

The worst of what's coming could begin in weeks. Harder than ever hard times will follow.

Obama expressed support for deeper Medicare and Social Security cuts. He's on board for weakened social protections overall.

Partisan warfare is more subterfuge than real. Both parties fundamentally agree. They want New Deal/Great Society policies entirely ended.

Wall Street bosses demand it. They want to feed more aggressively at the public trough than already. They want money gotten used to make more of it.

They want it stolen from ordinary people to make doing so easier. Obama and congressional leaders are their hired hands.

They're complicit. They're on board to eliminate "unnecessary" social programs. He want them entirely eliminated. They're dismantling them incrementally.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and public pensions are prime targets. Planned death is by a thousand cuts. It's the new normal. It's by letting Wall Street profiteers control these programs.

So-called "creeping normalcy" is defined as a way to make major changes seem normal and ordinary.

Class war in America has been ongoing for decades. It's worse now than ever. It benefits business and rich elites. It does so at the expense of most others.

Middle class America is targeted for elimination. Bipartisan complicity plans it. Obama capitulated to Republicans on preserving tax cuts and other benefits for rich elites.

He gave trillions of dollars to Wall Street crooks and other corporate favorites. Profiteers benefit hugely from ongoing imperial wars.

Main Street Depression conditions persist. Bipartisan complicity plans much worse ahead. Militarism, favoritism, waste, fraud and other rewards benefit Wall Street and other special interests.

They do so at the public's expense. Let 'em eat cakes defines official policy. Ordinary people are increasingly on their own sink or swim.

Wages no longer keep up with inflation. Benefits steadily erode. High-paying manufacturing and service jobs offshored to low wage countries. Automated production claimed more.

So-called free markets aren't fair. They work best for those who control them. Growing numbers of others lose out entirely.

Technology driven productivity increasingly pressures workers to toil longer for less pay and fewer benefits.

Marx was right explaining capitalism's contradictions. They reflect an anarchic, ungovernable system. Today's monster is far worse than he imagined.

Powerful monopolies and oligopolies control production, commerce and finance. Wall Street and other corporate bosses demand increasing amounts of surplus from pressured workers.

They're looting America. They're wrecking it. They're sucking it dry for profit. Predatory capitalism is too corrupted, malignant and broken to fix.

Institutionalized inequality reflects it. America is more hypocrisy than democracy. It's a kleptocracy. Criminal gangs pose as political parties. They're complicit with corporate crooks.

They're war criminals. They're serial liars. They're scoundrels of the worst kind. America's real crisis isn't government shutdown, said Paul Craig Roberts.

It's not the debt ceiling. It's looting America. It's wrecking the economy. It's offshoring good paying jobs. It's lowering the tax base in the process.

It did so by transferring America's wealth and overall well-being to China and other low wage countries.

It did it by permanent imperial wars. They inflate annual spending. Larger deficits followed. They're "too large to be closed," says Roberts.

Money printing madness sustains things as long a possible. What can't go on forever, won't. Dollar debasing doesn't work. Gold and silver prices reflect it.

Wall Street and Washington rig markets to keep them from going higher. Illegal naked short selling is done to do so.

It constrains prices even when physical demand is increasing. It bears repeating. What can't go on forever, won't.

Given irresponsible financial/economic policies, expect eventual gold and silver prices to explode.

Another crisis, says Roberts, "is the absence of intelligence among economists and policymakers."

Don't worry, they said. Offshoring jobs doesn't matter, they claimed. A "New Economy" with better jobs is coming.

Monthly payroll data explain otherwise. High paying/good benefit jobs are disappearing. Low paying/poor or no benefit jobs replace them.

America is being hollowed out in the process. It's being strip-mined of its material wealth and resources.

It's being suffocated. It's being thirdworldized. It's headed toward dystopian backwater status.

Plans are to force feed greater austerity. It's to replicate Greece harshness. It's to make America a ruler - serf society.

It's to crush trade unionism. It's to crack down hard on nonbelievers. It's to make America more than ever unfit to live in.

It's to create more severe crisis conditions than now. It's to do so for greater profits and control.

Ending what's ongoing requires replacing duopoly power with responsible governance. It requires rebuilding the nation's industrial base.

It's ending imperial wars. It's disbanding America's empire of bases. It's strengthening social protections too vital to lose.

It's putting money power back in public hands where it belongs. It's making the privately owned and controlled Fed really federal. It's prohibiting banks too big to fail from existing.

It's ending corporate personhood. It's replacing kleptocracy with real democracy. It's running free, fair and open elections. It's getting money entirely out of politics.

It's curbing corporate power once and for all. It's empowering people over money. It's making crime no longer pay. It's prosecuting crooks in the suites. It's protecting human and civil rights.

It's mandating universal healthcare and public education. It's reinvigorating organized labor.

It's reinstating progressive taxes. It's making everyone pay their fair share. It's guaranteeing a minimum life sustaining income.

It's abolishing poverty, unemployment, hunger, homelessness and inequality. It's ending favoritism. It's getting rogues, rascals and other miscreants out of government.

It's substituting truth and full disclosure for managed news misinformation. It's replacing media scoundrels with responsible ones to do so.

It's consigning Wall Street and other corporate crooks to the dustbin of history.

It's establishing government of, by and for everyone. It's making America what it never was before.

It better happen soon or else. Roberts calls today's situation dire and "discouraging."

"At this time," he says, "collapse seems the most likely forecast."

Perhaps rebuilding from ruins will change things, he hopes. Perhaps intelligent life exists elsewhere. Perhaps it's on other planets.

Perhaps it'll replace what doesn't exist on earth. Perhaps it's the only hope for survival. There may be no other way.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity"

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

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http://www.dailycensored.com/wall-street-bosses-run-america/