Future

The future for the world is decidedly very fuzzy right now. We are at present deeply affected by the H1N1 epidemic and the severe economic morass caused by greed and recklessness. However, American politicians, including Obama, seem to be totally unconcerned with the present problems and are more keen to put in as much travel, visits and foreign holidays as they possibly could get hold of now. New fresh incidences of H1N1 infection cases overwhelmingly originate from the US but US politicians are not concerned at all. It seems that it is perfectly okay for viruses to spread outwards and away from the US just like the HIV/AIDS virus but the reverse is of course not permitted. The economic ill affecting the world today also originated from the US. The reckless and ruthless capitalism practised by the financial robber barons and wheeler-dealers in the US finally caught up with them and the result was wholesale collapse of the world economy. The economies of the world are expected to register contractions for this year and the next save for a handful of exceptions. The reckless nature of American capitalism can be traced to the far-off events of October 1929. That particular collapse of the American stock and financial markets led to the Great Depression of the late twenties and early thirties. Prior to October of that year, US stocks had been artificially raised to five times their real value and eventually that was shown to be unsustainable and the New York Stock Exchange collapsed that very month and the market was only able to reach bottom in July 1932. Thus, for almost three years the world suffered greatly because a financial disaster was allowed to happen in the US. It happened purely because of market manipulation and had nothing to do with industrial or agricultural production or productivity. After WW2, many servicemen left the American armed forces and began venturing into business. Over time, many of these small firms started by them soon began to attract the attention of the 'venture capitalists', people known to be wheeler-dealers who used not their own money, but money from the public and certain rich individuals to take over such firms with the aim of making a quick bundle through their efforts. It all had no connections whatsoever with either the business or industrial production or productivity of these firms. It was merely to make a quick and clean kill to obtain their mountains of cash. Thus between the end of WW2 and the losing years of the War in Vietnam, American wheeler-dealers were busily chalking up huge profits (most of the time) and busily getting big-headed in the process. One certain 'investment' was so spectacular that it turned an initial $70,000 investment by the venture capitalists into a holding worthed $350 million within ten years but which interestingly disappeared completely some 20 years afterwards. Money can merely buy so much in the end. In the 1970s the disengagement from the war in Vietnam caused

many companies and businesses to experience slowdowns and this was further aggravated by the oil embargo following the MidEast Yom Kippur War. This situation was just right for a new round of takeovers by the wheeler-dealers. By now, it became necessary to become a little more sophisticated, and wheelerdealers grouped themselves into 'investment financiers' and thus, such financiers or raiders, depending on how you viewed them, began buying or taking over firms and businesses using boardroom manipulation, rumour-mongering, insider bribery and ferocious horse-trading and hard negotiations. The companies & businesses taken over were then broken up and sold piece by piece. Again, nothing to do with production or productivity at all. Just plain greed and ruthless behaviour and cold cash. This was also the beginning of the so-called 'shadow banking' phenomenon or system in the US. The investment financiers in the US were now able to control huge sums of money that could be directed to flow in the direction desired and among them were firms like Drexel Lambert and Lehman Brothers, both of which were later forced to go under as a result of unmitigated speculative and reckless lendings. Huge wins and huge losses. That is how they operate in the US. Don't blame anyone else. That was not the end of the story as other groups of financiers were able to continue their octopus-like grip on the overall American financing system and busily making it top-heavy with their mega transactions which had truly no relation at all to production or productivity. Among such groups were Carlyle and Forstmann which eventually lost very heavily when the stock market crashed in 2001-2002. The market had peaked in early to mid 2000 but the gambling mood that prevailed at the time was ultimately going to provide their undoing. The bust of that period led to the rapid fall of interest rates in the US and it was yet another step in making Uncle Sam the champion clown of the capitalist system. People began to plonk money into real estate and housing. Credit companies began to dole cash even to those who did not really qualify as managers came under pressure to surpass targets. Big bonuses were dangled as carrots and lenders tripped over themselves to gain customers. Eventually the whole thing unravelled and giant companies like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae needed bailouts by the US government. At the same time professional speculators especially from hedge funds pushed up the price of crude petroleum to unnatural highs and by end 2008 the world was truly in a deep state of crisis. It all had nothing to do with production or productivity but was caused solely by greed and wanton ruthless capitalism. Thus the world is suffering now because Uncle Sam has clueless politicians who have no idea at all on how to tackle the current problems caused by unbridled speculative investors who now needed mountains of bailout money after their wild overindulgence and a military who thinks that it has a blank check to spend. The visits and trips by Clinton, Geithner and others pleading with foreign governments to continue buying US debt betray the lack of ideas & plans within the US government with which it could use to tackle the present crisis. The future scenario is one that is extremely bleak and could be predicted as providing a doomsday reckoning for

the entire world. And who is to blame ? Absolutely no one but the inept politicians in Washington, the Pentagon and the ruthless speculators meddling in almost everything. People like Clinton, Geithner, Gates and the rest are nothing more than a bunch of liars, hypocrites and morons in the best of Amercian tradition who are going to ensure that the whole world pays for the mistakes and excesses that were manufactured within the US itself. The rest of the world has been forewarned. Kick them out of your capitals and airports. Starting now. Today. Immediately. For good.