Backdoor Exuberance

In the decade of robbery and deceit, prosperity with the .com bubble, housing bubble when on the stock market, we thought trees would grow as high as clouds, Alan Greenspan spoke of irrational exuberance. Universities with their great business schools, economists and economics journals, bankers, did not have the common sense to know that “what goes up, must come down.”

This returning military veteran, was invited, as a guest, to a huge statewide banquet for leaders of commerce. There, I heard the best speech I have ever heard, all in a clever production.

The president of the group announced that the speaker for the evening was delayed on a plane and would be rushed to the meeting by the highway patrol. One gentleman in the audience rose and said, “we are honored to have a guest with us who is an outstanding banker-economist. I think we would all like to hear a few words from him while we are waiting for our speaker. This rather disheveled man... very reluctant, protesting, shaking his head... pleading with excuses, was led to the lectern then, in irrational exuberance-dejection-rejection-flatulous collection of stories which only a speaker of renown could present to an audience hurting with laughter, he gave a symposium of pristine business advice. We knew we had heard the speaker, one of the world's best, presented with his vehicle of clever reluctance.

In my lifetime, the building of business empires: IBM, GM, GE, etc. The 21^st century begins, the world run by one big crime syndicate. The Mafioso has expanded. Billionaires lined up in competing factions. The luminaries of the world, seeking to control the wealth of the world, make politicians with their patchwork-band aid approach to economics, seem like amateurs. The average elected politician, such as Obama, who has never run a lemonade stand, give credibility to the Corzine's of the world, who like the other “hatchlings” of Goldman Sachs-US Treasury tie with bright ribbons, meticulous-fastidious bundles of debt, not traceable. Much like the gold and silver parade, advertised to the investor. Your gold, silver, shares of stock, are only safe when you possess them. Some still think there is gold in Fort Knox. Robbery, clever profiteering, Enrico racketeering, have achieved new levels of deceit. The robbers of everything not nailed down (pension funds, bank accounts) are leaving with great exuberance through the backdoor. Investors, the world over, are finding that they are left, raped without even a kiss. Even in Europe, France, (and France has never won a battle of any type, since Napoleon) markets gyrate, world markets. There is nothing safe in investments, the worst time in the world for investing. Is it possible and probable that the power-brokers of the world (puppeteers) have installed-instructed, worldwide puppets of totalitarianism, as in history when this develops, socialist control becomes so easy? It is much easier to conquer free people with migrant border crossing, capture without munitions. Watch the free people of Israel, overrun by millions of Muslims, mostly from Egypt. Like a large game board, the free world is being “check-mated”, engulfed.

Before the fall of the Roman Empire, all the world's wealth was controlled by 2000 people. The empire was “satisfied” with bread and the circus. The people were fat and dumb, too busy watching their sports teams (Super Bowls) to care about things going on around them. In Yugoslavia, a victim of Tito's communism told me, “when we realized what was happening, it was already too late.”

This totally blind, 100 disabled, medical officer, veteran of the Korean Conflict does not seek sympathy or victim status but, I am depressed beyond measure to what has happened to my country, a nation which gave me and my ancestors so much opportunity. Born in poverty, pitiful country school, 13 in my graduating class, I have not forgotten that school principle of the 12 grade school who said, one day, “you can do anything, you are Americans.”

This writer worked his way through 8 years of university education, working at night, classes during the day. Summer months, I sold Bibles door to door across Eastern North Carolina. Just one house, just one day, just one WWII widow, changed my life. She said, “we had just the baby when my husband went to war.” My baby boy and I lived in this house which he had built for me, down the road from his parents. Benji was everything a mother could want. Watching me carefully, started talking at six months. In the fenced-in backyard, the almost two year old toddler fell and hit his head (cyclopian frontal area) on a rock which killed him instantly. “I don't believe he even made a whimper.” I screamed and his grandfather finally heard me, came running, although frail with arthritis. Grandmother, who could drive, rushed to the crossroads store to call an ambulance. An ambulance came, a deputy came but, it was all too late. The grandparents insisted that we call the funeral home, I would not allow my baby to be embalmed. I took him in the bedroom, his crib, washed him, kissing him as I washed him, thinking all the time what a wonderful husband he would have been. The funeral home came and said they would go back to town and get a small casket. When I put his favorite clothes on him, his limbs were already stiff, but I laid him in the casket and stayed with him all night. A large crowd came to Fellowship Methodist Church for the service the next morning. There was not enough time to notify his father, fighting in France, or even members of my own family. My pastor and I wrote a letter to David, (child's father) to be delivered by the Army Chaplain. She told me that her husband never returned home from the war to she or his parents. The news of this child's death evidently destroyed his desire to return to America. Some Americans have exuberance during hard times and good times, games, movies, eating and drinking. To many, life is a “soap opera”, reality or game show with a happy ending. For many, freedom is not free.