RevoLUTZion

What does it mean to sell something short? I always thought it meant that you just didn’t appreciate the value of something.  But on Wall Street, there are two types of bet, one expecting eventual appreciation of the value — a long position — and one expecting the value of the investment to fall — a short position. A short position means you will borrow the security from someone and sell it, and then buy it back later, hoping in the meantime that the stock as fallen. Indeed, it is “selling short” instead of “buying long.”

Of course, we remember the $550 million penalty slapped on the wrists of Goldman-Sachs for their recent double-dealing, where

“hedge fund Paulson & Co. helped pick the underlying securities and bet against the investment vehicles.”

Basically, a short position means you are betting against the company or fund. If you have any control of the company or fund, this is highly improper because you can easily undermine the value by making bad decisions, something no one expects you to do, and thus the penalty for Goldman Sachs.

But this is indeed exactly the position the Republicans find themselves. If they can make the economy stay really bad through the election, they may actually gain power by making the Democratic majority and Obama/Pelosi/Reed look terrible. In their view, they find it advantageous to bet against America, and to do all they can to make sure we stay in this recession, or better yet, if we can double-dip, that would make them even happier.

What do they do?

Well, they vote as a block against financial reforms designed to help keep our economy stable. They want everything unstable, for consumers to be ripped off by credit-card companies and unscrupulous banking practices. They want the consumer down and to stay down. Another meltdown, in fact, would be great right now.

Secondly, they voted against the extension of unemployment insurance benefits. Of course, they know that the vast majority of people out of work right now are in that predicament only because of the economic melt-down that started in 2008 and has only barely reached the bottom. It has nothing to do with the idea that these workers want to be out of work. They don’t, they want to get back to work, as as soon as possible.

Unemployment insurance payments is one of the most effective ways to boost the economy, since these families will immediately spend this money for their basic needs and outstanding bills. As each person is paid, they pay others and that boosts the economy like nothing else.

Except for one thing. You see, the condition of our economy is largely what we say it is. When everyone says it is bad and no one is spending money, no one spends money and it is bad, that’s for sure. However, as people start to feel a little better, they start to spend more, and that money circulates and gets the whole thing going again. But if we keep saying it is absolutely terrible, it will stay that way even longer.

So I doubt you will hear the Republicans start saying the economy is looking brighter, even if it is. They want it to be bad. They want the Democrats to fail, and they want America to fail. They are betting against America — they are selling it short.

Such a bet isn’t illegal, but it should be. Our representatives should be working for America to succeed, not to fail. Those who are betting against America must be removed from office before they ruin our economy even more.

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We — the “little people,” as BP calls us — are upset, disturbed, and downright angry.

And BP is not the only massive, national or multinational corporation that is stomping on the little people, over and over. Yes, we are witnessing a catastrophe on a massive scale in the Gulf of Mexico, a disaster that will likely have more lasting effects than 9/11,  indeed may be the start of the end of the balance of our ocean ecosystem and may preface a downward spiral of all life on earth. It is a disaster we could and should have avoided if the regulators of this industry were doing their job. They did not, and the whole lot should be fired, the department disbanded, and rebuilt with new people and new focus from scratch. It is a common story — watchdogs become lapdogs after being coddled by big corporation money and power.

But what seems like only yesterday, we were told that now, corporations have the same “freedom of speech” rights as us real people  and can spend unlimited funds on campaigns to get the result they want. They not only can coddle the lapdog regulators with their money, but elect the lapdog officials as well.

That was right after we watched the large banks and financial institutions profit while our economy sank into the abyss of one of the deepest recessions in history. Goldman Sachs admitted to advising their clients to take long positions in securities (to profit when they increased in value) while at the same time, those same advisors were taking short positions in those securities (to profit when they fell in value.)  In other words, those financial institutions, which we expect to be stable, not only turned into unstable gambling houses, but the gamblers were betting that a recession would be long and deep. They won their bet, but we — the little people — lost.

As the little guy tries to make it through this orchestrated recession, the lapdog legislators, led by the Republican block, decide to pull the safety net out — voting down extension of unemployment payments — to let the little guy suffer while the Goldman Sachs of the world continue to get millions in bonuses. It’s disgusting, that’s for sure.

Our military-industrial-congressional complex continues to fund wars and sell them to the public as if they are essential for our security. We know now that the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) never existed in Iraq, that it is less stable now than it was before we started, and there were other options that we should have exhausted before the shock and awe of a military campaign. Indeed, we know today that this was probably the biggest strategic blunder in military history, a blunder executed professionally by our military men and women, but a strategic blunder nonetheless. We did not “win” anything in this blunder. We lost at the first moment we made that decision to go in, not because of any events thereafter.

We are told now that our involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan is no longer to deal with the Al Qaeda network or to find Osama bin Laden, but now a more general campaign against the evils of the Taliban and the possibility that someone may access nuclear weaponry from Pakistan and threaten us. It is a pattern that is nearly an exact duplicate of the expansion of our mission in Iraq, and I assert, is just as foolhardy. But there is one group that likes these campaigns. It is the military-industrial-Congressional complex: those that sell the weaponry, those — like Halliburton — that provide private-sector support services to the military, those — like Blackwater/Xe — that are hired as private mercenary soldiers to engage directly in battle in-theater, and those — like my opponent — in Congress who are reliant on campaign contributions and act like trained monkeys.

Frankly, we have had enough. We want our troops brought home, the banks regulated, the oil gusher stopped and cleaned up, and corporations and government put in their proper place — as servants of us little people, not lords we must bow down to.

This is not something that will be done for us — we, the little people, must do it ourselves. I ask you to join me in an uprising to get our government and out-of-control corporations back into line. It won’ t be easy, but it must be done, and we can do it if we join together and believe we can suceed — a RevoLUTZion!

– Ray Lutz

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