By Ziad Abdelnour President & CEO Blackhawk Partners, Inc
Source: LinkedIn Link to Wall Street Group
I consider myself a seeker of truth. It isn’t easy finding it in todays’ world. In an alternate version of the famous scene from A Few Good Men, I picture myself telling Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner that I want the truth and his angry truthful response.
The Truth? You can’t handle the truth!
“Son, we live in a world that has Wall Street banks, and those banks have to be guarded by puppet politicians in Washington D.C. with lobbyist written laws and Madison Avenue PR maggots with media propaganda.
Who’s gonna do it? You? Your Representative Paul?
I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for the average middle class American family, and you curse the ruling oligarchs. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know.
That the death of the American middle class, while tragic, probably saved the bonuses of thousands of Wall Street bankers. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, increases the wealth of these same bankers who destroyed the worldwide economic system in 2008.
You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about in the food bank line, you want me on Wall Street, you need me on Wall Street.
We use words like derivative, fiscal stimulus, quantitative easing. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent siphoning off the wealth of the nation. You use them as a punch line.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very debt that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up 1000 shares of Apple, and hope our high frequency trading supercomputers can ramp the market for a while longer. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.”
Ziad’s personal thoughts…
I find myself more amazed than ever at the ability of those in power to lie, misinform and obfuscate the truth, while millions of Americans willfully choose to be ignorant of the truth and yearn to be misled. It’s a match made in heaven.
Acknowledging the truth of our society’s descent from a country of hard working, self-reliant, charitable, civic-minded citizens into the abyss of entitled, dependent, greedy, materialistic consumers is unacceptable to the slave owners and the slaves.
We can’t handle the truth because that would require critical thought, hard choices, sacrifice, and dealing with the reality of an unsustainable economic and societal model.
It’s much easier to believe the big lies that allow us to sleep at night. The concept of lying to the masses and using propaganda techniques to manipulate and form public opinion really took hold in the 1920’s and have been perfected by the powerful ruling elite that control the reins of finance, government and mass media.
Abraham Lincoln once said that he believed in the people and that if you told them the truth and gave them the cold hard-facts they would meet any crisis. That may have been true in 1860, but not today.
The cold hard-facts are available for all to see:
- A $16.3 trillion National Debt
- 47 million people on food stamps
- Over $222 trillion of unfunded Federal entitlement liabilities
- Over $5 trillion of unfunded State entitlement liabilities
- True unemployment above 20%
- True inflation above 5%
- A stock market at the same level as 1999, with a 10 year expected annual return of less than 4%
- 10-year bond returns of 0% will be a miracle.
- A savings rate of 3.7% and with Bernanke’s ZIRP, no incentive to save
- Real hourly earnings continue to fall
Now you know,
Z
