I just finished watching a documentary called Inside Job which concerned the financial collapse we are still trying to escape all these years later. A couple of points:

• It struck me that all these financial wizards that earned millions and hundreds of million of dollars all had the same carrot hue that the Speaker of the House sports around Washington (although none of the robber barons cried or slurred their words). Coincidence?
• The extent of the recession in the United States has focused the attention away from the damage it did in other parts of the world. When we were paying huge bonuses to banksters using the public funds, China was laying off 700,000 workers who presumably went back to the rural farms and could no longer count on that sixty bucks a month they received making cheap goods for Walmart.
• The level of greed, illegal activities, and moral depredation associated with Wall Street should make everyone in this country sick, unless they are part of the scam. But this latest fraud should teach everyone not on the inside that they are at risk to be scammed like everyone else. If you’ve got money, there are people on Wall Street that want to take it away from you.
• Who knew that Wall Street provided a significant level of support to industries such as prostitution and drug trafficking.
• Despite his shortcomings, President Obama and his financial policies can be credited for stopping the financial free-fall and, although it is taking more time than originally thought (see the Republican controlled congress) the economy is showing weak signs of improvement.
• There are major criminals walking free that should have been tossed in jail to rot, but for some reason the Obama administration has not acted. Add to that a Republican controlled House which is actively dismantling any and all financial controls and the future may be a short one.
• A return to the Republican policies which created this crisis is unthinkable but it still might happen in this country which refuses to grow up and quit living the fictions our politicians, churches, and carnival hucksters still rely on to lead the flock (over a cliff?).