middle class angst

While we are talking about financial abuse, I have just started to notice a long term trend of late.
It is only my own observation and is extremely unscientific, but it strikes me as interesting info to file away in the old noggin.
It goes like this:

When my dad was raising his family, the times allowed a single spouse to support an average middle class life. When I was raising a family, it seemed necessary for both spouses to work in order to support the average middle class life. Looking at my children now grown and on their own, it appears as if some may need to hold more than one job to support their middle class dream.

How far will it go before the middle class is eliminated, or simply enslaved economically to those at the top of the food chain?

I could be very wrong, but I am starting to suspect that government, taxation, financial schemers, bankers and such, are those people who are riding in the wagon. The middle class is pulling the wagon. Those in the wagon, keep taking more and more from those pulling the wagon, seeking greater and greater riches and ease. We keep paying for their leisure.

It is just my impression. I could be wrong. But I also see others writing things on blogs etc, like "never before in history have so few people, taken so much, from so many", referring to recent economic pillage we have undergone to make wall street and bay street richer. To think that this pillage has been helped by financial regulators or people who pose as regulators, and ultimately by politicians who back the regulators. Sad.

I hope the Industry of Accountability will develop far enough and strong enough to start holding some of these crooked folk to account, before it is too late.

My effort at the Industry of Accountability is found at www.albertafraud.com
check it out to see how billions get stolen each and every year by "trusted criminals" who do not have to follow the same rules as you and I. Join my facebook group and lets hold a few of them to account. Even if just "name and shame".

Getting away with financial murder, financial rape and other crimes against the public

What a set of headlines to find today. I just got back from a 1000 km journey to Grande Prairie and back, and found my newspapers stacked up for me to read.

From Nov 21, 2010 Lethbridge Herald cover story came this headline "PM TARGETS AFGAN CORRUPTION"
I had to take a few breaths and slow myself down from getting upset and angry at the thought of our prime minister working to prevent corruption in a foreign land, while I spend my time here in Canada trying to make the public aware of the extent of corruption at home. It seems bizarre, dishonest and misleading, but I am slowly learning that the job of our leaders is to lie to us and to distract us from the major issues. Like a pickpocket who has an accomplice "bump" or distract you so another can pick your pocket, I am starting to feel as if that is the role of our government.

Then , further into my reading a photo of a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk in downtown Toronto, in front of the major bank towers. I found the photo striking since I made a video journey film titled BREACH OF TRUST, The Unique Violence of White Collar Crime. One of the premises of the film is that predators (mostly financiers) take advantage of those lower than them on the economic or political food chain, thereby causing financial violence which knows no end upon those poor victims. They have zero recourse against their abusers (somewhat like an eight year old child verses the Catholic church circa 1960) and the net result is a lifetime of self sabotaging behaviours. I will try to obtain the image and post it.

Then as I went shopping at my local supermarket, speaking to the meat counter guy about a certain cut of meat, I saw the posters and photos near the back about "meat thieves". Never seen or heard that term before, but here is was, big as life. Photos of surveillance camera shots showing people who were known meat thieves. All I can say here is pure profanity. The frustration of seeing our system so able to "see" crime at the bottom of the food chain, and "see no evil" for those at the top of the economic and political food chain. Pure profanity. Pure Profanity. (even as far as me saying "George W Bush" which to me is like saying the fuck word)

I will end with this: "I want to live in a country where predators and abusers (from any station in life) can be held to account for the damage they do to other humans, to the economy, or to the planet". Today I do NOT live in such a country. I live in a so called free country where politicians and bankers and a few others (corporations, resource companies, drug companies) from the highest echelons of society can nearly get away with any abuse they happen to specialize in. They do not have to follow the same rules as you and I, and the laws of the land are not strong enough to reach upwards against gravity high enough to reach their stations in life. George W. Bush, George W. Bush, George W. Bush

Alberta Finance Minister (new) Ted Morton, just cannot come any cleaner than his predecesor Iris Evans.

Ed and Ted’s Adventures

Recent news revealed a world renowned institution caught “protecting itself”, instead of “protecting its victims”. I see identical hubris with our premier and finance minister.

Over one billion dollars of Albertan’s money is missing in toxic investments. Two western Canadians are dead by suicide. You would think that Ted and Ed would be honest with the public, but no. They act similar to how my two year old nephew does when he has a bathroom “accident”. First try to hide it. Then deny it. Then perhaps put on an angry face of indignation. This forgiveable behavior for a two year old, but for Ted and Ed? It seems evident of persons who should not be in leadership nor trusted with money.

For those who are out of the loop, this investment paper turned out to be junk that was sold by investment salesmen, and the assets were then pledged to foreign banks (Deutsche bank in our case), in a complicated insurance process called a credit default swap. Not many people know or care what a credit default swap is, but imagine if you and your friends could buy insurance on your neighbors home. Then imagine if someone were to burn that home so that you and your friends could collect the insurance money. Apply that pathology to finance and you know the basics and the dangers of credit default swaps. They can be financial weapons of mass destruction.

$32 million of city tax revenues were lost in these by our city treasurer. Another billion or so from other Albertan’s.

Ed and Ted’s excellent financial regulators gave investment firms permission to sell this toxic junk in Alberta. It granted them permission to violate Alberta Securities Laws to do so. It has given several thousand such permissions without a single notice to the public. And neither Ed nor Ted is willing to tell us why. After all it is only billions of your money. Ted has not lost a nickel so why should he care? Ted now informs me that he will not answer this question of “why”. Nor will he tell why secret deals like this are done without any public notice. An accident Ted? Hiding something from the public?

Contact the writer at lelford@shaw.ca if you would like to become part of the solution.

Larry Elford