An Odd thought occurred to me last night about the real purpose of any governmental institution. There is, of course, the concept of the "social contract" in that governments, whatever they may be, are chosen by the populace to implement a stable system of rules and programs to benefit them. These social contracts varying widely often based on the cultural/violent tendencies of the people bound, and vice versa, by them.
This old notion, in our advancing understanding of the interrelated fields of policy, foreign and domestic, and economics (again, bound by whatever arbitrary rules are put in place by the populace), is, well, all bullshit.
This idea, this concept, came to me very insidiously, as I was trying to sleep, yet watching the sky move from black to light blue. It is the notion that governmental systems are really just valves on the monetary flow in-between the social strata, the acceleration rather than the velocity, if you know what I mean. For example, a dictatorship concentrates the vast plurality, if not majority, of money into the hands of the dictator. The very basis of this governmental system allows for, essentially, this form of class differentiation to continue forever, or at least until such time as the dictator dies, and/or possibly his offspring are unable to maintain the dictatorship, don't want to maintain the current standard, or are simply clubbed to death by their insanity-threshold-long-passed nannies who hated them all along. Possibly by double-sided cocks, a la Lock Stock, a classic film if ever there was one. The other option is to establish a dynasty, which we as a species just fucking love, thus creating a monarchy.
I will continue with examples to further imply my notion.
America, bastion of the sort-of-free. Great fucking place, although definitely in decline. Just watch MTV or the new generation of semi-retarded morons with, literally, no clue about consequences or really, what the fuck is going on. China, in a very confrontational way, sees this and is going to exploit it for the next 50 years, thanks to Wal-Mart. Thanks Wal-Mart! India is doing the same, but in a much more Western-friendly style. Plus, India has a class and dignity China is probably pissed off about, due to their lack of a Maoist leader who felt all should forget the past by killing those with historical knowledge, and possibly eat them.
Ok. My point is America has a Capitalist Republic form of government. This is good for a multitude of players, though definitely not the majority, as well as the greased wheel. This form of government allows for a relatively fast acceleration of money from one hand to another. This is why Texas oilmen can lose $2 billion in a month betting on the silver commodity trade. This form of government allows the people to move up or down said social strata in a span ranging from days to lifetimes. Problem with this is, in our evolving perception of the global economy, we ourselves are becoming victims of this virtue by the loss (maybe diffusion is a better term) of our greatest tool of wealth gathering: information. Though that is a very relevant and interrelated point, I am off topic, and digress.
America is also changing. Our laws have become such that the flow of wealth is becoming a one-way sieve, where everything flows up, and nothing down. Like pulling apart Chinese finger cuffs. This is of course, a foolish form of government made by ideological idiots, banking on the fact that being 17th educationally in the world, we will all be too stupid to notice. Don't Agree? Look up: Recent Bankruptcy law, recent Medicare law, recent energy bill, and, of course, the famous Bush Tax cut, giving %50 of the cut to the richest %1 of the populace, because they bought a $10,000 plate dinner to fund our current corrupt joke of a system.
The problem with this sort of system, and we saw this very same sort of problem in the late 90's-early 00's, is that without the constant back and forth within the varying social strata, the money supply cannot grow naturally, and thus various concentrations of wealth, i.e. corporations, who are particularly in fear of dipping down into a lower strata, begin, in a sense, to manufacture money. We all love Enron. They use to do it with banks, but now any large aggregate can do it with, essentially, creative paperwork.
No real surprise here that this happened/happens/is going to happen, as we follow the lead, and our government has been doing it for years through deficits. The modern form took place in WW2 to finance the war (although this was a much more noble outing with an explicit deal between the Federal Reserve and "Actual" government to buy and sell shitloads of bonds and notes, and in fact helped define our current financial system, at least the good part), and eventually became twisted and corrupted by these various monetary aggregates, using, of all things, paranoia, propaganda, and slight of hand.
I find the happiest balance in England. A moderately socialist system, free health care (which does a great deal to stem much of the negative backlash of the wide variances of social classes), great educational system, and, the linchpin, stable enough governmental system to provide that those at the top cannot plummet too far too fast (though it does happen, usually through financial institutions dealing with south east Asian options and commodities markets. It too happened in the late 90's). This helps to alleviate the potentially dangerous paranoia, which leads to the aforementioned magic money making schemes. Not to mention the avenues of advance are still open, available to the quickest intellectually and socially. Or at least, those who care about that sort of thing. Hell, they even have a pseudo-monarchy providing the perception of monetary stability. This blends very well with Chad's killer Celebrity theory.
So what does this all mean? Well, various aggregates/corporations/concentrations have learned that the greased wheel can lead to a one-way system of monetary flow, without nagging social responsibilities such as paying taxes. The Homeland Security Act had an interesting amendment slipped in that allowed for mainland companies in the US to go "overseas" (Caribbean) and establish nominal HQ's, removing almost any requirements to pay any Taxes, Federal or otherwise. Arthur Andersen Consulting, of Enron document shredding fame, pushed for this very big, changed it's name to Accenture as to not be remembered for the nasty deed of that "other" company, transferred it's HQ to the Bahamas, and then got a $10 Billion logistics contract with Homeland Security. What a Country!
Companies are doing this all the time. Wal-Mart is practically in-league with the Chinese, responsible for the majority of their technical expertise as well as the massive, massive outflow of U.S. currency in a huge trade deficit, which they turn around and buy U.S. Bonds and t-bills with. Can anyone say Currency Crash? Wal-Mart grossed $256 Billion in 2004. It has become the model of a nationally detached company, being able to set it's own priorities regardless of any outside commentary about policy. And though I have not seen its tax sheet, I can only speculate.
The wall was worn down over years, before it ever had a hammer put to it. If policy continues the way it has, eventually we will be unable to pay out the interest on our debts, defaulting, thus signaling the decline of our once dominant rule
Now, onto the TEENAGE SEX MAP!
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