Who Do You Trust?

My father lived through the Great Depression that began in 1929. His small hardware business went broke and dad accepted a position with a large company selling in China. Dad largely missed the day to day horror experienced by most other Americans; the soup kitchens, the bread lines, the American citizens (largely male) wandering aimlessly seeking employment. All of this dad missed while in China. Of the many blessing my father counted this missing of events was quite high on his list. In fact my father upon his return to America was confused by the changes he observed. These had to be explained to dad by his brother.

I am struck by the fact that the years 1929 to 1932 are still referred to as the Great Depression. In late 2008 America (and the rest of the world) was struck with a second great depression that started with bank failures. These failures quickly spread around the world. What is bothersome is that like New Orleans in the face of Hurricane Katrina America’s banking system is composed of weakened levees to help defend the system. Chief amongst these was the Glass-Steagall Act. This act was unraveled starting in 1970 and repealed by a Republican controlled congress by such a large margin that President Clinton could not veto it.

Glass-Steagall Act - Wikipedia

A very prophetic article appeared the fall of 2007. This post by a fellow Blogger strangely enough.


None of this answers the question posed by the title of this writing. When I was young enough to earn a living practicing my trade I did invest 10% of my gross into investments for my retirement. Over a number of years I managed to amass I nice amount. Now a strange thing happened on my way to retirement. Following several bubble-bursts my funds had decreased by a remarkable amount. You see I was by this time in transition to a retired state. My job had been outsourced. The people who worked for me were let go with almost no notice. So I was at least not able to send good money after bad money by purchasing additional equity instruments.

I did not think at the time these moneys were lost, that anyone was acting in a criminal manner. It took the Enron collapse to realize that crooks are not easy to spot when it comes to Grand Larceny and I use “grand” as an understatement. Much the same fraud was perpetrated upon the American public at large that occurred at Enron. The deeper lesson of the ease and wide spread nature of the corruption at Enron was overlooked when a very few of these folks were brought to trial.

If you cannot trust corporate officers and officers of large banks just exactly who can you trust? This realization is at the very heart of this issue. Drugs have corrupted the American system of justice. Greed has corrupted the American corporations and banks. Where does the American public turn to now? Who is honest enough to be worthy of leading our nation? For whom will you vote on November 4, 2008? It matters.