Wall Street Greed

One of the great historical dynamics in the world today is the increasing speed at which REAL democracy is disappearing - contrary to what one hears being trumpeted from the mainline press. The fact is, the world is not becoming more democratic, but less - and it is being driven forward in this process by the ever quickening pace of globalization and the inexorable division of the world into a small elite of wealthy "worthies" and a huge population of indigent "worker-serfs" - a division that follows in the wake of the globalization process as surely as water flows downhill.

And it is important to note here that the division of the earth's population in this fashion is occurring not only in the so-called "Developing World," but in the so-called "Developed World" as well - so that now the meaning behind that mysterious lyric in Rev. 6:6 becomes understandable:

"A measure of wheat for a penny [literally - denarius, a Greek coin which represented a WHOLE DAYS wages], and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." (Rev. 6:6)

The meaning of this lyric is that the condition of man during this era (i.e., the "end of days") will be reduced to such that he will have to labor a whole day simply to buy a loaf of bread or three measures of barley. But the second part of the lyric [i.e., "... and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine ..."] means that the "hard times" of this period will not extend to the elites. This is the common interpretation - the one subscribed to by Ryrie, Pentacost, Ironside, Gaebelein, etc.

SADLY, THE AMERICAN CHURCH HAS BEEN A CATALYST IN THIS PROCESS. Please see our article, "Apostasy: Christianity in the Service of a Religio-Political-Corporate-Terrorist State;" please also see our article, "The New World Order: A Closer Look at Today's Ponzi Pyramid."]

In the midst of the greatest economic and social crisis since the Great Depression, the major US banks are about to announce multimillion-dollar year-end bonuses for their top executives and traders. Bankers are able to resume full tilt their mad pursuit of personal enrichment due to the plundering of the treasury carried out for the sole purpose of bailing out the "financial wizards" whose speculative practices precipitated the crisis.

This is a global phenomenon. In all the major centers of world finance, the financial elites are emerging from the economic wreckage stronger and more powerful than ever, and are dictating the terms of their own enrichment to servile governments.

In the US, Goldman Sachs is expected to announce bonuses totaling more than $20 billion, about the same amount as California's state budget deficit. One analyst estimates that the average Goldman bonus will approach $600,000, and that some executives may take home more than $10 million. It is anticipated that Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley will together pay out $90 billion in 2009 executive compensation, with more than half in the form of bonuses.

In a transparent attempt to preemptively divert and contain public outrage, government announced a proposal to put in place a surtax on 20 banks that received funds through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). According to the administration, this would raise $120 billion over ten years—not much more than the five biggest banks will pay their executives for 2009 alone.

The surtax proposal comes together with another public relations stunt—the hearings held this week by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the toothless body set up for the purpose of whitewashing the criminal activities of the bankers.

Whatever the precise details of "the government's gentle bank tax," as the Wall Street Journal calls the measure, it can be said with certainty that it will result in no significant penalty for Wall Street. The proposal will be blocked or watered down to the point of irrelevance by a Congress comprised of politicians who depend on campaign contributions and other bribes from the very banks they purport to regulate. Such has been the fate of the much-vaunted proposals for pay restrictions, the bank regulatory overhaul, credit card "reform," and the government's so-called housing rescue.

The response of the princes of Wall Street to even the slightest encroachment on their right to salaries hundreds of times greater than those of mere mortals is to bristle with indignation.

Much like the powdered wig-bedecked aristocrats of the French Ancien Regime, these modern-day lords and ladies insist on their unchallengeable right to unlimited personal enrichment. "I am a little tired of the constant vilification of these people," an indignant JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said this week of the furor over bonuses. "I don't think it's just whining," another unnamed executive said of the bankers' protestations. "There are legitimate liquidity issues that people have."

These are people who produce nothing of value. Unlike the captains of industry of an earlier period—associated with names such as Carnegie, Rockefeller, Edison and Ford—whose enormous personal wealth was bound up with the creation of vast industrial empires, today's robber barons have made their fortunes through parasitic financial operations bound up with the destruction of industry and a relentless attack on the living standards of average people.

In the midst of soaring foreclosures and growing hunger and poverty, the financial elite flaunts its wealth. "As traders and investment bankers near the finish line of what looks like a boom year for pay, some are spending money like the financial crisis never happened," the Wall Street Journal recently reported. "From $15,000-a-week Caribbean getaways to art auctions to $200,000 platinum wrist watches ... signs of the good life are returning." New York's elite real estate brokers are "outright giddy" over the bonuses, which will "boost sales, particularly in the $2 million to $5 million range."

More than a year after the near-collapse of the US and world economy at the hands of the bankers, nothing has been done to reform the financial system. Nobody has been held accountable. On the contrary, the banks have exploited the crisis of their own making to make more money than ever, and the government, the courts and the media have revealed themselves as mere handmaidens of what can rightly be called a financial aristocracy.

This demonstrates that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite and its unbounded pursuit of personal enrichment are not mere excesses or aberrations of an otherwise rational and healthy system. These characteristics are rooted in the very nature of today's American economy as it limps into the 21st century.

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