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Think of parasites as an organizational pyramid or multilevel marketing enterprise. Maybe a better descriptor is Ponzi scheme. At the top of the pyramid are the liberal elite, the union bosses, trial lawyers, environmental gurus and political hacks that exhort Americans to sacrifice more, tighten their belts and stop complaining about higher taxes, loss of personal freedoms and economic opportunity.

At the bottom are the stupid schmucks that support and believe in the parasite elite, expecting to get something out of this whole pyramid scheme. They usually get the short end of the stick - a few handouts and some useless programs. The middle class gets stuck paying for handouts to the parasites, including the very top of the pyramid.

Let’s use trial lawyers as an example. When one of these parasites is advertising for slip and fall injuries or asbestos-related disease on television, they’re aiming at the bottom of the pyramid. They promise to get their clients big money awards with no fees and no risk. Obviously, they neglect to tell these poor folks, who indeed may have a legitimate claim, that they’ll receive just a small fraction of any award. The trial lawyers aren’t advertising to the upper middle class (aka the taxpayers). No self-respecting small business owner, corporate exec, doctor or professional would even consider representation by an ambulance-chaser. The trial lawyers aim their advertising at the poor, unemployed, hopeless and desperate. They are typically in financial trouble, uneducated and unfamiliar with how these legal parasites work their game. So, they end up signing away their rights in a class action suit or bundled case, and receive far less than they deserve. The trail lawyers, on the other hand, make millions, usually by overwhelming the court or the accused with hundreds of simultaneous claims. Just to the clear the docket, many judges will urge the accused to settle, even if they’re completely blameless.

Obviously, trial lawyers resist any legal reforms that would stop this gravy train. They invest heavily in the Democratic Party, donating millions. In fact, in most states, trial lawyers are the largest political donors. They have enormous influence.

Politicians work the system in a similar manner. They promise the poor, uneducated, hopeless or shiftless just about anything to get elected, knowing full well they can’t possibly deliver on those promises. Once in office, they create programs and laws that take money from working Americans and redistribute it to those who can’t or won’t provide for themselves. But, the government is incredibly inefficient in the redistribution of wealth. For every dollar collected in taxes, only 20 cents actually makes it to the person who needs it. The other 80 cents is used up by the government to ‘administer’ the redistribution. Wouldn’t we be better off with private charities doing this work? After all, even the least efficient private charity still delivers 70 cents of every donated dollar to the proper recipient.

Socialist politicians masquerading as Democrats don’t really want private charities to exist because they are competition. Instead, they want government to assume the roles of benefactor, parent, guidance counselor, personal financier, doctor and therapist in the name of ‘fairness’ and ‘compassion’. What’s really going on is that socialist politicians have been able to manipulate the poor and working class to their own advantage, creating a powerful voting bloc. That voting bloc is kept motivated by promises of even more government handouts at the expense of the ‘rich’, who truly don’t deserve their wealth no matter how hard they worked for it. By inciting class warfare, they keep themselves in office.

Much like the trial lawyers who promise big cash awards and instead grab most of it for themselves, politicians promise the poor and working class handouts and special privileges, knowing they can’t deliver. Instead, that money is absorbed by the politicians’ real constituency - huge government bureaucracies, the labor unions representing them and politically connected government contractors who are themselves unionized or generously underwrite liberal causes. There is one other, very important beneficiary of the redistribution game - activist organizations that directly engage with the poor, the disenfranchised and working poor or pretend to represent them in some way. Many, like the ACLU and A.C.O.R.N., receive direct government funding so that they can continue to foment class hatred and despair among millions of Americans, instilling in them a sense of entitlement instead of a sense of empowerment.

But it’s not just the poor and working class Americans who look to government handouts. Wall Street has snagged billions in taxpayer money to prop up billionaires and a culture of entitlement. Unlike the millions of poor and working poor that have only one vote to cast, the relatively small number of Wall Street honchos and financiers write big campaign donation checks. They buy their political clout, just like trial lawyers. Ask Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. When the Wall Street people overstep their bounds, when they truly screw up, these cobras lean on the American taxpayer. And the American taxpayer is completely unaware that the government, steered by politicians, dispenses money based on political considerations above all else. So, if billions are handed out to the poor, millions of poor each get a couple bucks. If billions are handed out on Wall Street, millions of bucks go to just a few people. The top of the parasite pyramid generally gets the same amount of money as the bottom of the pyramid - it’s just spread out among fewer people. And they have no problem taking it. After all, it’s free!

Visit www.howobamagotelected.com for an eyeful of unnerving and infuriating video clips that unmistakably demonstrate the extraordinary influence the electronic media have over elections, the voting process, voter awareness and the functioning of our democracy. The people interviewed in this clips were not morons. But it was astounding to witness how precisely the media cabal can attenuate negative information about Obama or Biden while amplifying erroneous or negative information about Palin and McCain. Please note that Palin takes precedent over McCain. Without her, McCain wouldn’t have captured 45% of the popular vote and Obama would have been voted into office by an apparent landslide. It’s not that Obama was a sterling candidate, even though the media lavished attention on his candidacy and hushed up the questionable aspects of his history and character. It’s simply that John McCain was such a horribly bad candidate. Palin rescued the hapless boob from a horrifying defeat that would have sent the absolutely wrong signal to America and the world. That’s why the media cabal was so intent on destroying Palin, because she kept Obama from claiming an overwhelming mandate that would have empowered him to plunge this country into socialism. As it stands now, some Republicans might even summon up enough courage to object to he more extreme measures proposed.

The parasites and their champions are fully aware that a voter-proof Democratic Party will protect their gravy train. Over the past 125 years, the Democratic Party has come to exemplify the most unsavory aspects of the democratic system, where power and votes are brokered and sold. The Democratic Party has perfected the power-dependency duality of patronage politics. And so, the Democrats felt perfectly justified to thwart the will of the people, put up a dangerously incompetent and ideologically suspect demagogue for President, and gamble with the future of this country for their own short-term gain. This is not an isolated incident. This is the overarching goal for the Democratic Party - they want to make themselves voter-proof. By doing so, they enrich and empower their exclusive constituents: labor and teacher unions, government at all levels, trial lawyers, environmental extremists, government contractors and yes, unbelievably - Wall Street. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Many of the Wall Street honchos are Democrats because their personal philosophy goes hand in glove with the mindset of other top-tier parasites like union bosses and trial lawyers. After all, as an investor or retiree, you’re just a mark, a source of commissions and fees. This accumulation of money by unions, trial lawyers and wealthy liberals allows the Democrat Party to buy its way into office and then ‘redistribute’ taxpayers’ hard-earned money to friends and political allies. Don’t think that the media cabal won’t ask for real money for being instrumental in getting Obama elected. That’s the way the game is played. Too bad most Americans will never know.

Hillary Clinton, the poster girl of moral relativism and situational ethics, will be our new Secretary of State regardless of the massive conflict of interest represented by the William J. Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Clinton Climate Initiative, the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and the other dozen or so scams that Bubba is now running. The Democrat-controlled Congress has no issue with this transparent fraud, where Bubba can stick his hand out and accept money from foreigners and foreign governments, enriching himself and Hillary. This is so bad on so many levels and yet the media aren’t howling and even the Republicans keep their mouths shut.

Dick Cheney was routinely excoriated for his past associations with Halliburton long after he’s stopped working for the firm. Here, there’s a direct, inseparable connection between a Secretary of State and a registered foreign agent. Yes, Bubba is a registered foreign lobbyist. The poor guy can only make $10-20 million a year giving speeches. To supplement that measly income, he had to take in lobbying work. After all, he’s been disbarred and couldn’t possibly practice law. Somehow, even ambulance chasing looks to be a more honorable profession that what he’s currently doing. But then he’s following a time-honored Democratic tradition that even our new vice-president, Gaffemeister Joe Biden abides by. His own son and brother are not only Washington lobbyists, but also dabble in crooked real estate deals with mob attorneys. Funny how that didn’t come up during the election.

It doesn’t bother Hillary how badly her husband, the irrepressible and perpetually jovial Bubba, behaves himself or how stinky it looks when he’s taking money from Arab oil potentates or South American dictators. Their Democratic colleagues don’t care and certainly President Obama could care less. If there is any criticism, they’ll just tough it out. There is no shame, there is no sense of impropriety. No one will resign, no one will stop doing what they’re doing. And Americans will learn to live with it. We always do.

And the people were singing. They clapped and hollered, danced in the streets and stood in line at the porta-potties filling the Mall. They were happy and hopeful, trusting and naive. And, they had no idea why they were there except what the media told them. This was a historic occasion, indeed. But then, what precisely is historic about Obama’s ascendancy? Was this blend of Kenya and Kansas, this product of affirmative action and racial politics, the best black president we could have elected? Were other black candidates with more experience, credentials and qualifications pushed aside simply because they were more conservative, or too overtly radical?  Was it because Obama happened to be a person of color and therefore, regardless of his actual qualifications, experience and political ideology, was propelled into office? Did Obama get elected because of his skin color or in spite of it? What role did the news and entertainment cabal play in amplifying and distorting race issues in America, in effect paving the road for the Obama candidacy? 

55% of voting Americans have no idea who they elected as president. That critical 5% margin will no doubt be characterized as the tipping point in our nation’s history, when we descended into the grim and ghastly grasp of socialism. The Orwellian aspects of an Obama presidency are just too obvious to ignore. Our new president likes to strike poses reminiscent of FDR and JFK, and the media obliges with lavish coverage. But it’s the carefully crafted language that Obama uses to describe his dreary utopia that should make the average Joe a little nervous. When President Obama announces that ’a private Wall Street can no longer threaten Main Street’, just what the heck does he mean? There are at least two potential meanings - either Wall Street will be nationalized, or Wall Street will be so heavily regulated that it won’t be able sell a single security without direct government control. Neither is very good for America. This phrase is but one in hundreds of similarly cryptic pronouncements that Obama made prior to and after the election. He means to change things. Let’s all hope that he doesn’t make things worse, like FDR did.

Unfortunately, Obama appears to be headed down the same road to ruin that FDR, LBJ and Jimmy Carter previously trod. It’s a foregone conclusion that a huge increase in government and government spending will breeze through Congress. This ’stimulus’ package contains every single earmark and pet project ever dreamed up by any left wing loon in the Democratic Party. Every single stupid idea and wasteful government project ever devised is now enshrined in this pork barrel bonanza masquerading as help for a stricken economy. Much like FDR deepened and prolonged the Depression with ridiculous and harmful government intervention, Obama, along with his co-conspirators Pelosi and Reid, intend to repeat history. We will be thrust into a deep abyss, cheered on by the mindless mobs who think that a few government handouts will solve all their problems.

The mainstream media will go along with the hype and cover up the true nature of the proceedings. Our Constitution will be quickly disassociated from government and legislation. The normal checks and balances that prevent our government from running away with both the treasury and the law will be eradicated. Under the pretense of an economic recession, we will be stripped of our basic rights and the opportunity to prosper through our own efforts. The parasites will be in firm control of the government and the engines of wealth creation. The rest of us will work for the government, either directly or indirectly. The wealthy will escape this dreary existence, just as they have in Europe and elsewhere. The barriers to new wealth creation will be fortified, and the barriers between classes made impenetrable. It won’t matter how hard you work, or how well-intentioned your efforts may be.

If you’re born working-class, you’ll die working-class. That is unless you sell your soul to the Party - the only way out. That’s how it worked in the Soviet Union and Communist China. Welcome, comrade, to the era of hope and change.

The events in Washington DC are a chilling indicator of just how badly average Americans misunderstand their current predicament. Amidst the applause, the outpouring of joy and nonsensical optimism lies an astounding depth of ignorance as to the motives and intent of the Anointed One and his retinue. The self-reinforcing cycle of bad education and badly educated Americans allows socialists to usurp our economic freedoms. It blinds most Americans to the true motives of a Democratic Party that has abandoned democracy for the unbridled power of a socialist regime. Laura Ingraham’s radio show featured clips of typical Obama fans expressing (or attempting to) their rationale for supporting this newly-minted president. Most of them couldn’t complete a sentence, much less coherently explain why they’re so infatuated with Mr. Obama. Their random utterances were nothing more than mindless parroting of Obama sound bites that had been repeated over and over by the mainstream media in the months running up to this coronation ceremony. They clearly don’t understand what they’ve voted for, who represents them and what will happen once Democrats make themselves voter-proof at every level of government.

Barack Obama knows exactly what he’s doing, as do all of his advisors and departmental nominees. The only person along for the ride is the Gaffemeister himself, the honorable Joe Biden, ably assisted by his wife, whose only priority in life appears to be the endless refinancing of his real estate holdings. And, of course, keeping his son and relatives out of the media spotlight.

As the celebs and rock stars pour into the capital to spend thousands of dollars on overpriced event tickets, limos and hotel suites, the proletariat fill the streets, cheering on the passing of free-market economics and equal opportunity. The TV anchors and print propagandists are beside themselves in apoplectic, eye-twitching ecstacy. But no one in the mainstream media asked how this will all shake out - not in the months since the election and certainly not in the last few days. 

How will the overtly leftist campaign promises of Barack Obama be transformed into government policy and legislation? How will Obama, ably assisted by Nancy Pelosi and Hary Reid, shred the Constitution and destroy everything that makes America different, and therefore, better? It will be obvious. It will be plain and straightforward, and the Republicans will be aghast at how easily a republic can be dismantled and replaced with a totalitarian system. With unbelieving eyes, they will see legislation passed in Congress and signed into law at the White House, confirmed by the Supreme Court and put into action by the bureaucracy. Every last bridge back to a free society and a free market will be set ablaze. And, it will be saluted with great fanfare by the media cabal, academics and the liberal elite. It will be cause for a celebration. Freedom will be snuffed out with guitar riffs and wild applause.

It’s only a matter of time before everybody in America begins clamoring for a bailout. At the height of the crisis in September of 2007, it made sense to pump money into the credit markets to keep the economy from grinding to a halt. Problem was, banks started using those taxpayer funds for just about every purpose except lending. On top of that, investment banks and securities brokers demanded to be chartered as bank holding companies so that they, too could get a little bailout boogie. The TARP fund was gamed and compromised within hours of the very first fund transfer. Treasury Secretary Paulson tried a mid-course correction and a head fake, only to find that the momentum he’d whipped up in Washington also meant that this runaway beer truck he created was impossible to stop and impossible to steer. It’s no doubt that Paulson was dismayed and angered by the actions of self-serving bank executives. That initial $700 billion went over the guardrail, never to be seen again. But, the banking sector’s behaviour created a wave of me-too bailout supplicants. And so, the bailout boogie began.

Not all of Wall Street was hurting, but they received funds anyway. Hank Greenberg’s monster, AIG, didn’t need a nickel. The insurance holding company could have been auctioned off in pieces, since each individual piece was a free-standing, self-sufficient and profitable enterprise, with the US government acting as receiver and funding day to day operations until the entire enterprise had been sold at a profit. This is something the government actually knows how to do. It happens in bankruptcy court every day of the week. Instead, taxpayer funds are given directly to the executives who created the mess in the first place. No one gets a pay cut, no one has their stock options taken away, no one is fired. Instead, they make a mocking ’sacrifice’ by not taking oversized bonuses that they didn’t deserve in the first place. This is absurd. It encourages parasitic behaviour and it emboldens other people to scheme and game the system.

And so, the gravy train is pulling into the station. Every purported victim, every charlatan and schemer, every influence peddler and power broker, is busy lining up to get their ‘fair share’ of the taxpayers’ personal net worth. Yes, that’s precisely what they’re doing - they are stealing the personal net worth of the upper middle class, which pays 80% of all taxes collected. Aided and abetted by politicians and bureaucrats, Americans are going to find a huge number of players doing the bailout boogie. It will quickly spread beyond carmakers, insurers and homeowners, and it probably won’t stop until the government goes broke or the dollar is worthless. We’ve crossed over the hump, that dividing line, between pretending that our government has some fiscal control and just throwing all common sense out of the window.

Political pundits and TV newsreaders make much of ‘crony capitalism’ - as if all capitalism is based on monopolistic tendencies. The mainstream media will usually characterize this as conspiratorial corporate collusion aimed at hapless consumers. Monopolies or price-fixing never last because they’re inherently inefficient and unmanageable in a dynamic free-market system. One needs only to look at OPEC, an openly conspiratorial and monopolistic bunch. Whenever OPEC oil ministers agree to set market prices at an artificially high benchmark it only takes a couple of weeks before one of their own is exceeding their production quota or lowering their prices. Despite all their machinations, they can’t control the price of oil. It’s market forces and human nature at work - good, bad or indifferent.

Typically, ‘crony capitalism’ involves government intervention or collusion, because the ‘cronies’ involved are usually government officials, elected or otherwise. Free-market capitalism by its very nature wouldn’t tolerate an unfair advantage, because market forces and competition would undermine the enteprise with an unfair or unethical advantage. This was true when our own government got involved in the corrupt practice of handing out special charters to politically connected individuals who would then form steamboat, railway, subway or trucking lines. These government-sponsored businesses were inherently inefficient and unprofitable not only because of the amount of bribery and graft involved, but because workers and management didn’t apply themselves, confident that their government charter protected their incomes. This is as true today as it was in the 1840s, when crony capitalism first began to appear. Compare Northern Suffolk Railways, a profitable private-sector operator, to Amtrak, a government-controlled operator that costs taxpayers millions each year. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, both government-chartered lenders, were subject to corruption and political gamesmanship that triggered the mortgage meltdown.

Pure capitalism has little in common with crony capitalism. In fact, crony capitalism is more closely aligned with socialism, where the government owns businesses outright. When government gets involved in business, those businesses will be run with the vision, energy and efficiency of government itself. In other words, it will be a disaster. Which doesn’t provide us much hope now that government is part-owner of banks, broker-dealers, insurance companies and carmakers.

It’s like opening up your credit card statement and gasping at the amount due. Someone had gotten hold of your credit card number and charged up thousands of dollars at a seamy strip club. You call the credit card company. They refuse to reverse the charges and insult you by implying that you were in fact the strip club patron. And then, they jack up your interest rates to 33% because you exceeded your credit limit, too. You complain to various state and local agencies. No one can help. You’re stuck paying thousands of dollars at exhorbitant interest rates over the next few years. Every month, as you write that check, you’re burning up inside. If you ever find the parasite who did this to you…

Well, it’s about time American taxpayers did the same thing to politicians and bureaucrats. These people have looted us time and again. They’ve lied to us, they’ve cheated us and they’ve defrauded us. They are the ultimate parasites and prostitutes. And given the level of suffering they’ve created, it’s even more infuriating to find that they’re cheap prostitutes to boot. Representative Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd stonewalled the Bush administration’s efforts to investigate and regulate both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as lenders like the now bankrupt Countrywide Mortgage which gave both Frank and Dodd special VIP loans with terms that neither will disclose. In other words, for a few hundred thousand dollars in bribes, they started the ball rolling on the entire credit meltdown mess. It will cost Americans trillions in new taxes.

This is reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s deal with China. Al Gore was sent to San Francisco to pick up a bag of cash from a Buddhist temple, ostensibly from a Chinese general back on the mainland. In short order, China was granted Most Favored Nation trading status, which opened up our financial system to Communist China. The Chinese were able to open up banks in the US, establish foreign currency exchanges and participate fully in the international credits and payments system through the direct efforts of Bill Clinton. Interestingly enough, an Arkansas corporation - WalMart, became China’s largest trading partner. Walmart used the pricing advantage to destroy its competition in the US, most notably KMart and Sears, among thousands of smaller enterprises. All of this for a measly $450,000 in cash.

Barack Obama shamelessly accepted more than $38 million in untraceable, unaccountable prepaid credit card contributions from nameless donors and millions more from unknown oversease donors. All of this is illegal and specifically prohibited by law. It didn’t matter. No one was going to investigate the matter because to do so would imply a ‘racist’ motivation.

There’s plenty of precedent to indicate that most politicians and bureaucrats don’t work in the public’s interest. In fact, they’ll burn billions of dollars in exchange for a relatively modest campaign contribution. It’s anyone’s guess what Barack Obama has promised in private to whoever it was that provided millions in untraceable campaign donations. But, rest assured it will cost the taxpayer many times that figure.

Most Americans think that corruption is just a little bite, a piece of the action, that lubricates the political system. The problem is that corruption creates huge economic impacts that usually mean more taxes or less purchasing power. That’s because bribes and influence peddling is necessary to push something that’s completely illogical, economically suicidal or totally inequitable through the legislature or the executive branch. And that wasteful or economically destructive initiative, be it oversized government programs or special exemptions, must be paid for in some manner. And politicians always make sure it’s the taxpayer picking up the tab.

The last 6 months of 2008 will be marked as a turning point in America’s history and its status as an economic superpower. The real estate crash could have been contained had it not been for Wall Street’s unethical packaging of questionable home loans. Those loans were resold to other banks and governments as secure, rated investments. As housing prices corrected in the US, which does occur occasionally, those multi-trillion dollar investments became suspect. Once banks and investors lost confidence in these shaky loan packages, they were effectively worthless. No one wanted to buy them or guarantee them. Trillions of dollars evaporated overnight.  As a result, the global financial system was severely damaged and the world economy nearly collapsed. Someday it will be revealed how near the brink Wall Street pushed us for the sake of a sales commission.

The George W. Bush administration and Congress acted swiftly (pork-barreling nothwithstanding) to shore up the American side of the ledger sheet. Whether the initial $1 trillion was well spent is a matter for economists to debate. It provided a badly needed confidence-booster  and signaled to the world that America would attempt to clean up its mistakes. Since September 2008, trillions more have been pumped into the financial system. As of January 2008 that number stands at approximately $7 trillion. Just to provide some perspective: At 3% interest, that $7 trillion demands almost $1 billion in interest payments per day. At 1% interest, it will take almost a 1,000 years to pay off the debt based on our government’s past performance for loan repayment. America had already piled up $40 trillion in national debt before this most recent debacle.

Given the gravity of the situation and the magnitude of the destruction, it’s outrageous that no one’s been arrested, investigated or even pilloried in the press. Of course, Bush administration officials have been grilled endlessly, but what about the clowns on Wall Street who created this mess? What about Obama’s housing advisor Franklin Raines, who was a key player in the mortgage meltdown as CEO of Fannie Mae? The press has diverted attention away from the people who created this mess to an intense scrutiny of the people trying to clean it up.

What gets lost in all the noise is the hard fact that someone’s going to have to pay down this debt. It doesn’t appear that Wall Street honchos are going to cough up a nickel. Franklin Raines isn’t going to return his $45 million bonus. That leaves average working Americans to pick up the tab. That means a century or more of diminished economic growth, personal opportunity and personal wealth. It means more taxes, more inflation, a drop in the dollar’s value and a drop in our standard of living. And, adding insult to injury, Barack Obama wants to add an astounding 600,000 new government employees to the federal payroll. That’s insane. With pensions and benefits, it instantly adds another trillion dollars to this year’s federal budget, which is already a trillion in the hole. And it adds another trillion every year going forward forever. At what point do the wheels come off this gravy train? It appears that the only thing that can stop our government from spending money it doesn’t have is for the rest of the world to push our government into bankruptcy. And even then, our politicians and bureaucrats won’t be suffering one bit. That will be left to the taxpayer.

Bernie Madoff exemplifies the prevailing ethic on Wall Street - investors are merely marks. It’s all about the transaction, protecting the transaction and making money from the transaction, investor be damned. Madoff went a bit further than the average broker or manager.  But, the losses that his investors bear are a trifling compared to the trillions eradicated in the mortgage-backed securities catastrophe engineered by so-called ‘legitimate’ players like Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. Who’s the greater evil?

Bernie Madoff was well protected. No one, not even the SEC, could touch him. His clout with regulatory agencies was considerable and he worked his connections effectively. What brought the Madoff operation down wasn’t the investigatory zeal of any governmental agency, it was the collapsing stock market and the inevitable run to redemptions. But then, the big investment bankers, broker/dealers and bank holding companies were equally well protected and well connected. Madoff is a parasite. But that characterization can be applied to much of Wall Street and the banking industry given the awful mess they alone created and the way they’re now conducting themselves with taxpayers’ bailout money.

In that context, Bernie Madoff is not unusual in many respects. He is the logical extension of the largely unethical practices that make up too much of the day-to-day activities on Wall Street. What goes on has been dressed up in many guises, but it’s all the same. It’s the transaction - whether the investor makes money or loses money is immaterial. The broker-dealer, the underwriter, the investment banker or the adviser is focused only on the transaction itself. It’s the transaction that creates revenue. Everything else is eyewash.

Given the stupendous disaster created by mortgage-backed securities, no one seems to remember the mutual fund scandal and the hedge fund improprieties of just a few years ago. And before that, it was the derivatives scandal, preceded by the collapse of Long Term Capital Management. There has been an endless procession of financial chicanery stretching back 100-plus years. But, everyone does forget, and Wall Street counts on it. Eventually, the sheep forget about the wolves and go back to grazing. The hunt begins anew.

The size, scope and sheer audacity of the improprieties are expanding. There’s not even a pretense of transparency or accountability. Even pretending to be ethical and aboveboard has become inconvenient and boring for some of the players involved. To Wall Street, the rest of America are just marks, nothing more. Bernie Madoff just took it one step further.