Society’s Parasites (The Speculators)
extracted from http://corporatewelfare.org/feudalism/pg1-45.htm
If prostitution is the oldest profession, gambling is certainly one of the runners-up. The practice of increasing one’s wealth without having to expend one’s energy, or be productive in any way, has attracted followers from the dawn of time. In the West, individuals who do so as a career, have percolated to the top of the economic and social ladders because their predecessors have successfully lobbied for the legislation that makes it all possible.
Regrettably, the message being broadcast by the yuppies and the super rich is that putting in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay is reserved for suckers and those afraid to take risks. Accordingly, the fever to get rich quick, without really working, is causing countless lower class entrepreneurs to choose drug trafficking as an elevator to their financial success, just as stock market and real estate speculation is chosen by the upper class entrepreneurs. To put it mildly, Wall Street scandals are becoming commonplace, and stock markets seem more and more to be the playing field for inside traders and stock price manipulators. Legitimate balance sheet acrobatics makes it increasingly unwise for all but seasoned market professionals to invest in America’s potential. The article on page 46 in the Jan 9 1989 issue of Forbes, entitled “Never, but never, give a sucker an even break”, exposes just how easily the unwary can be parted from their money.
Although the stock market has always had a casino-like atmosphere attached to it, the contagious “get rich quick” fever, now seems to have pervaded virtually every aspect of legitimate business. Corporations are spending more time and effort on making profits through balance sheet maneuvers than through anything even remotely related to efficiency or productivity.
The investment departments of corporations have usually preferred to gamble on the stock market, and banks on real estate. But in reality they each gamble in both speculation games simultaneously, converting assets back and forth from real estate to stocks whenever they think one or the other of the speculation games is ready to crumble.
The October 1987 stock market crash was to the stock market speculation game, the equivalent of a national run on the banks in the real estate market speculation game. Stocks across the board had been traded back and forth until they were hopelessly overvalued, at which time the gamblers who did not get out in time, took their losses, and passed them on to their customers in the guise of price inflation. Of course there were the usual bailouts, but some of the brokerage houses still went bankrupt.
The key, to understanding why the public at large should be concerned about market and bank failures, centers around the fact that speculators rarely gamble with their own money. They normally borrow the money from someone else. To appreciate the magnitude of this problem, let’s examine why so many banks and savings and loan thrift institutions have gone bankrupt.