Over the past 3-4 weeks I have been watching the fall of dismantling of the American financial system. No one is jumping out of windows this time because nobody on Wall Street wants the public to know how bad the crisis is. I think we already know whenever we go to the gas station or the market. We are reminded when petty theft occurs at work or someone we know looses their house. We all know someone that has filed for bankruptcy. We loan our friends money to pay bills. We let relatives come stay with us.

I cry for my country. When I was younger, I was a citizen of the most powerful country in the world. Now I am a citizen of failed tyrannical oligarchy that pretended to be a democracy for the first half of the 20^th century.

For the past 30 years, we have pretended to be financially solvent. When Nixon took us off the gold we began printing paper that has no real value. 20 years ago, someone slicker than me decided to expand the credit markets. Even dogs have been discovered to have credit cards because business is performed with a wink and a nod and basically anything goes.

Pimpin Is Hard Work
A few weeks ago, Wall Street was exposed for the panderer it is as the concept of naked short selling was exposed. Naked short selling is basically a sophisticated way to steal and has as a consequence destabilized stock markets around the world. This comes on the heels of the mortgage lending shake up that exposed the wanton thievery that has been occurring for over a decade.

“Greed is good” has morphed into “I’m gonna do what I gotta do” to get paid. And since money has no real value anymore the limits on how much one will steal and the lengths that one will go to in order to steal have no moral or ethical boundaries.

We really should have understood how rampant thievery had become 5 years ago when Wall Street executives started going to jail but instead we remained passive and unconcerned because we had condos, BMWs, credit cards to buy our wine and co-pays to subsidize our prescription drug habits.

Overnight that all has changed. Everybody I know is downsizing and carpooling.

As usual, I was about 8 years ahead of that curve when I left my spacious 2200 square foot home, my 5 cars and my wife. I moved into my tight ass one bedroom apartment one block from my job and began walking everywhere I needed to go. I did it because my excesses were literally taking my life from me. I was suffering from numerous stress induced illnesses that my doctor was more than happy to prescribe more drugs for. And I knew that Dracula would put me in the ground before she would be willing to do what was necessary for us be happy.

I made a drastic change in order to correct the direction of my life. As I watch events on the national scene unfolding, I wonder how much America is going to be willing to change to survive or will more people be living in alleys and tents.