Agree, corporate corruption and insider dealing are rampant on Wall Street and in government all the way down from federal to state and city and unions. Some are getting locked up in jail like Martha but most get away with it, some make hundreds of millions like Raines, or tens of millions from book deals and speaking engagements like the Clintons after pardoning over a hundred criminals.

Do you think the current culture of "anything goes, whatever you can get away with until you're caught" was always this way in United States? If not, what changed to cause it?

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. I watched America go down the toilet in the 80's with his take all you can get and get out of my way idea of running a country. I work with dancers all over the world, and I can tell you that there was a sea change in the dancers raised in that decade - from all who came before. lazy, arrogant, demanding, pretty worthless actually. and it is universal. generational, not country specific. it was a huge attitude shift that changed us from a civilization concerned about the common good to one concerned only with personal wealth and power. It is now so infused in our culture, I see no way to change it. What I can tell you is that Scandinavian countries know nothing of this worldview. They escaped the entire last twenty years. And miraculously, they still have governments that act in the interests and at the behest of the people. corporations have no sway. in those countries. The corruption of Congress began at that same moment. there were 60 lobbyists total in 1980. Now there are a thousands. the tax code over these last twenty years has shifted to only enrich corporations, with the design that the people become enslaved labor at poor wages and no benefits. what has happened to America because of Reagan and his cohorts ( who are still in the white House though grayer) is a tragedy. What was best in us as a people has been lost forever. I have often thought that only great loss - a depression and war and pestilence could possibly restore us. We may see that.

yes, and now they're passing bankruptcy "reform" to threaten the little guy

while repealing the estate tax so the wealthy can pass on their riches tax-free

and raising the retirement age

and with worldwide competition and jobs being sent overseas, wages will continue to decline

and with medical insurance fraud and lawsuits forcing up cost of medical care, workers medical benefits will continue to be cut

very few private sector workers get any pension these days, best they can hope for is to outsmart the full-time wall street crooks playing in their 401K's, but most can't, so they lose even more

and the ones who win have their money right out in the open so they can be means tested out of Social Security

most private sector employees today will work until they die

public sector employees still have a good deal with their guaranteed pensions, even inflation-adjusted

the entire housing bubble refi mania was a cruel ruse that sucked in the masses to even deeper debt, now the plug will be pulled and most of the nation will be trapped underwater, with a few % wealthy at the top ruling over a nation of slaves laboring to afford their rising monthly payments to their masters

CP Huntington, the builder of the Central Pacific Railroad (which became the Southern Pacific) was dispersing as much as $500K per year in the 1870's to politicians in order to grease the skids for his great railroad which ultimately had virtual control of western transportation. This is all well documented since he conveinently kept ledgers.

Huntington said this. "There are three kinds of politicians, the clean, the corrupt and the communist."

The first were those who voted as he wanted. (these votes usually had to do with land give aways, to his railroad), The second, the corrupt were those who voted his way for money. The communists of course were those who voted against him.

I don't think much has changed in 130 years except we call communists liberals now. Not that there are any liberals left in DC but that's what they are called when they vote against whatever it is todays Huntingon's want.

Individual corruption is to be expected. Systematic corruption it was hoped would be checked by the design of our representive democracy.

Little did the enlightenment trained founders suspect that not citizens but rather artifical 'persons' ,corporations, would come to dominate government and just as importantaly opinion. The marriage of modern corporations with public relations, ie. propoganda, has made any ideas of the relation of citizens to the government as envisioned in the civics books absurd.

The modern bussiness corporation is the greatest human organizing model ever concieved in my opinion. No matter how deep the looming economic crisis is they will emerge on top. The language of individualism has been abondoned you may have noticed, from virtually all 'conservative' rhetoric. (rhetoric not used in the prejorative sense) The idea of The Nation is now paramount. In the name of The Nation no individual right is worth keeping. So it will be hencforth.

Libertarians and liberals touch on many points when the notion of individualism enters the picture. However the notion is now quaint. Get used to it.

History can be said to move on the great forces of collective action. Now that corporations, or perhaps one can say corporate attached elites, TOTALLY dominate government a collective force of overwhelming power is in contol. While voting will still take place that's easily enough controlled by Rush , God's self appointed agents, and if needs be the machines.

"bubbles are part of the fabric of what we have become as a society and not just the creation of the central bank.... something has changed, that we have changed, and that this change is not necessarily a good one. I have long had the thought that the demise of competing ideologies, like communism, would cause capitalism to go to an extreme. Maybe that is what Shiller is telling us, or maybe that is the way I read it.

Is Bush’s “ownership society” part of all this? You decide for yourself.

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/index.php?itemid=709

When you replace gold (value) with paper (nothing) you distort the relationships between everything. The truth doesn’t matter anymore. Once you accept that lie - you are accepting extortion and corruption as just means to an end. Black is white, up is down, wrong is right.

Would you want to get paid nothing for your efforts, your value?

Do you expect others to work for nothing for you?

Value must be traded for value. Anything else is a lie.

We are now in the midst of a full frontal attack on what will soon be the remnants of the American middle class by the Stalinist revolutionaries that are running this 'government'. They are in complete control now as they control the corporate media and are married to the facist ideal of corporate supremacy fostered by administrative policy.

The entire unifying principle of the bush regime, most especially in this 2nd term is being devoted to the massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the ultra rich. This will insure a return to a form of feudalism not seen for quite some time. The enslavement of a large class of destitutes to the edicts of a few. All cloaked in the euphemism of modern media lies and distortion.