Saturday, August 27, 2011

World's Crookedest Casino

The globe's most dishonest gambling parlor did not burn in Mexico earlier this week. It is not in Nevada or some dusky foreign locale. It is not even in a Third World backwater. The casino where billions are routinely lost by the suckers (individual investors, folks with 401(k)s, you and your neighbors) is Wall Street. Can you imagine a venue where more is lost yet the gamblers keep playing? What could be more corrupt than Warren Buffet meeting with Barack Hussein Obama, then suddenly buying five billion dollars of Bank of America stock, and agreeing to host a major fundraiser for Obama? It smacks of quid pro quo with Buffet and Obama doing each others' bidding. A major US bank is flagging and Buffet is brought in to serve as White Knight saving the company and buttressing the entire American economy while Obama appears to be listening to the sage advice of the Wizard of Omaha and boosting his capitalist colors, so one hand washes the other and the President and the partisan billionaire enjoy a win-win- but what about the fundraiser? Since when did oligarchs enjoy such power in the United States and since when did the wealthiest elites and the political class do so much to protect each other? Crony capitalism makes the real capitalists, the risk takers, the individual investors, retirees and those soon to be relying on pensions, the marks and with Obama in the Presidency, only the largest investors and power brokers, the players.

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