Who Are the Enemies of the State?

What about them Russian spies living under "Deep Cover" in the U.S.? Here with their anti-capitalist propaganda?

One of the spies was quoted in the first paragraph of the Wall Street Journal article on her treacherous ideology:

"The essence of capitalism is exploitation and permanent expansion to ensure profit growth and the power of mega-corporations…," Ms. Pelaez, a native of Peru, wrote in a 2007 column for El Diario La Prensa, a Spanish-language daily.

As we learned over the last 3 years (and counting), capitalism is the bestest! Particularly the form as practiced and exported in America, predatory capitalism, where a few monolithic financial firms (Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs) make extremely risky bets in DEEP COVER with no ability to pay if the bets go bad.

Some (Goldman Sachs, et al) of them even insure against the lousy bets and shake down the insurer (AIG) with aggressive collateral calls unmatched by any other AIG counterparty. Sometimes it even deliberately structures the bet in a lousy fashion and insures against default. Why not? It only has to put down a minuscule amount to hit big.

The government bailed out(and will continue to bail out: see Financial Reform Bill) these "Too Big To Fail" banks (what is that, a get out of jail free card?), asking nothing in return and offering the taxpayers the fiction that the banks will unfreeze credit and lend money to small companies and individuals again. But they don't.

Trillions pour from government coffers to these bank vaults and the execs skim both ways. They can't lose! And some financial firms have too much money:

Use it or lose it. That is the choice faced by some buyout firms sitting on piles of capital they have raised but not invested. The firms are unlikely to give it up without a fight.

A fund-raising arms race last decade was followed by a sharp slowdown in investments, leading levels of dry powder to surge. Such undeployed capital stood at a record $280 billion among U.S.-focused buyout firms at the end of 2009, according to research firm Preqin.

Once the oligarchs get theirs, the propaganda begins.

Teachers are overpaid and absent. Public employees are ripping us off. Why should they get pensions and not us? The top 1% stands back in amusement and watch the rest of us fight for the crumbs on the bottom.

During a time of record-high long-term unemployment and little hope for the future, the talk turns to deficit fears. Gotta cut the debt. Raise taxes and cut spending. So taxes are raised, regressively. On cigarettes and booze, never those making $1+ million. Do you think a millionaire gives a damn if the cost of his cigarettes goes up $3 a pack? He's lighting his Cubans with $100 bills.

Another way to look at it: Black & Platinum lottery cards for the poor and newly poor. Black & Platinum credit cards for the rich.

And people are dying:

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The weak economy is crippling the government program that provides life-sustaining antiretroviral drugs to people with H.I.V. or AIDS who cannot afford them. Nearly 1,800 have been relegated to rapidly expanding waiting lists that less than three years ago had dwindled to zero.

So I ask you again, who or what is destroying the social contract? Are we a government by the people and for the people?