Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street now into its second month is arguably the most important revolution this country has seen since the big one in 1776. We should note a few important differences: the one against King George was a protest for MORE government representation, not less. It was a protest against a tax break for the East India Tea Company, the modern day equivalent of say Goldman Sachs or Enron. It was a populist movement that didn't have specific goals other than to oust the powers in place, you know the "one percenters" wearing red coats!

OWS doesn't have specific goals unless tar and feathering the investment bankers and CEO's that fed us Securitized Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps with liability to asset ratios of 40-1, and credit rating agencies who graded them AAA are considered goals. If you're on the sidelines wondering what the hell is going on at Zuccotti Park, picture an investment banker who packaged a deal with $4,000,000 in securities pledged against a $100,000 piece of real estate. Now multiply that times a billion and you get an idea of the financial contagion that has rained on world economies.

You ask: how could a deal be struck where an underlying asset is only 1/40th of the security written? It's easy; Ask Phil Gramm, the authored and champion of The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Yea, there were some democrats involved, and they should be covered in axle grease right along with him, but make no mistake about it; this was Phil and Wendy Gramm's demon child gift to the world (Wendy Gramm is an economist who Reagan called his "favorite economist".) The Commodity Futures Modernization Act in essence deregulated investment banking and allowed commercial bankers to trade the aforementioned derivatives without a shred of government regulation. Capitalism on speed.

Contrary to popular scare tactics and rants by assholes like Rush Limbaugh, OWS is not a liberal movement. It is a populist movement. The financial destruction inflicted by unregulated derivatives will be felt for decades. The immensity of the contagion has grown beyond comprehensible numbers. If you think the debt ceiling debate was huge at 14 trillion dollars, consider there is over one qua

The financial destruction inflicted by unregulated derivatives will be felt for decades.

drillion dollars worth of bad paper hovering in the world today. That's more than the Gross Domestic Product of the Milky Way Galaxy. Doubt those numbers? Just ask Greece, Germany, Iceland, or Ben Bernake. And by the way, ignore CNBC when they tell you that derivatives will cancel each other out. The only thing potentially being cancelled is the sovereign debt of the border countries of the European Union. If that happens, we'll have a global depression unlike anything we've ever witnessed.

Sorry right wing protest-a-phobes, but the derivative contagion inflicted by Wall Street (a euphemism for unfettered greed) outweighs any of your pet peeves including Welfare, Medicare, School Lunch Programs and tuition for illegal immigrants, by a billion.

The meltdown of our economy and the economies of the world was created by "private enterprise." Banks made bad real estate loans, not governments. Investment bankers made derivatives, not Barak Obama or Nancy Pelosi. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs J.P. Morgan Chase, Citi Group and AIG got billions in bailouts and then received over 200 billion dollars in bonuses as punishment.

The original Tea Party got it right, we need more government, more representation and regulations that protect ordinary citizens like the 99 percent represented by the patriots in lower Manhattan.

Mad as hell? You're goddamn right!

America, it's time to grow your hair, put on your beads, and light up the patchouli. It's a hard rain a gonna fall.