The Next Roman Empire?

For approximately 500 years, it was arguably the greatest empire of the western world. Its military might enabled it to amass territories that spread from Europe throughout Africa to the Persian Gulf. It was the birthplace of numerous world-changing inventions and developments like the modern calendar, aqueducts, roads, and architecture. Much of America’s current system of law, public administration, civil service, and tax collection sprang from Roman minds. Even our founding fathers, when framing the Constitution, remarked on how they wanted to inaugurate an “Augustan Age.”

But Rome fell.   While historians to this day argue over what may have been the number one cause, most agree on this-- the things that made them so powerful and dominant eventually became corrupt and misused, and in the end, became the very things that brought them down.   The Romans spread their military thin and in the long run could not protect their own homeland. Their leaders grew greedy and their corruption and desire for personal gain crippled the economy. Citizens either refused or simply could not pay taxes and the infrastructure eroded.   My fellow Americans, welcome to Rome.   “I think the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are very strong.” These words came from John McCain’s mouth a few weeks ago. A couple of weeks later, about one week ago, speaking on NBC's "Today" show, McCain said, "We are in the most serious crisis since World War II."   Hmm?   McCain also said, just this month on Good Morning America, “We cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else. This is something that we’re going to have to work through.” Today, he is one of the staunchest supporters of bailing out Wall Street with $700 billion dollars of taxpayers’ money.   Huh?   A couple of months ago McCain told the Wall Street Journal that he is generally opposed to regulation. Today he wants more regulation and oversight than has ever before been seen in our country’s history.   What the …?   Okay so at this point you’ve tagged me for a left winging liberal.   Think again.   Let’s be frank. Barney Frank. We all know he’s gay and that’s just fine. As Seinfeld said, “Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay.” Well Jerry, there just might be if you’re gay and your 10-year lover is Herb Moses, a top executive with Fannie Mae. Well, they’re no longer lovers, and Moses is no longer with Fannie, but they were and he was when Frank was serving on the House Banking Committee, the primary House body which along with the Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight has jurisdiction over all GSEs (Government-Sponsored Enterprises such as, you guessed it, Fannie Mae). In 2007, Frank became chairman of the committee, now called the House Financial Services Committee.   Frank’s position on GSEs and on the government’s regulation and oversight of such entities were drastically different then than they are today. He told the New York Times on September 11, 2003, “These two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”   This week Frank was quoted as saying, “There’s a terrible crisis affecting the American economy.”   Wow. Women say men think with their penises. Apparently that holds true even when we’re gay.   Oh and did I mention that both Fannie and Freddie have contributed over $3 million to members of Congress since 1989? And that, according to a source at Politico, the two entities have spent a whopping $200 million to buy influence – including not only campaign donations to members of Congress, but also presidential campaigns and lobbying efforts. At least $40,000.00 of which went to Barney Frank.   The red flags were raised long before the government bailed out the two GSEs in August 2008. The first glaring scandal involving Fannie Mae occurred in 2004. A Wall Street Journal editorial was first to point out claims in an OFHEO report that showed accounting malpractices by the GSE. Believe it or not, the Bush administration actually tried to reform the way Fannie and Freddie were doing business, but they received strong opposition from Democrats. And get this, along with Barney Frank, the other strongest rival to reforms was Democrat Chris Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee Chairman. That’s right, the Senate Banking Committee Chairman.   Fast forward to today. Both Frank and Dodd not only rallied their troops to pass the current $700 billion bailout plan—they helped sculpt and write it. Interesting note—Barney Frank is referred to by many of his colleagues on the hill as “The smartest man in Congress.” That’s our best guy?   So are all you Republicans feeling a little better now that I’ve slammed the Dems? Good. I don’t want there to be any confusion on this author’s viewpoint. In case there still is, I will spell it out.   I d-o n-o-t t-r-u-s-t a-n-y p-o-l-i-t-i-c-i-a-n.   And neither should you.   We all need to open our eyes to the reality that is befalling us. Our government has forsaken us. Greed and corruption have consumed our politicians and the Wall Street moguls. Fortune magazine reports that, “In the past couple of years, we’ve seen an unprecedented rise in a class of historically unprecedented wealth.” Today more than ever, the fewest amount of Americans hold the greatest amount of wealth. Much like Commodus and his upper class of Romans did right before he bankrupted the empire.   Our likeability level around the rest of the world is lower than Bush’s popularity rating at home. A failing market system that will negatively impact the globe should bolster our reputation.   Our troops are spread thin in a country that holds weapons of mass destruction…   Oh wait a minute, there are no WMDs there. So why are we there? It has something to do with lining politician’s pockets, but that will take a whole other article so let’s stay focused here.   Meanwhile it’s been seven years since the towers fell and Bin Laden still roams free.   Our borders are not secure. Homeland Security reports that over 1,000,000 illegal immigrants still cross our border every year. We’ve recently unearthed over 60 underground tunnels leading from Mexico into the U.S. Those are used by the drug cartels, right? They couldn’t possibly be used to sneak in terrorists, could they? Hmm, now that I think about it, Bush has got a better chance of finding a WMD in his backyard in Texas than he does in Iraq.   And now our government wants to use our tax paying dollars to bail out the mess that we elected—and pay them— to prevent? I am not an economist but I am also not a fool. I haven’t read the entire 110-page proposal but I have read all the major points. If you want to continue to put your trust and your money into the President and Congress, then this plan is for you because the basic gist of it is that we have to “trust” them to do the right thing. Here’s the 50 cent version of the plan along with my personal footnotes…   -         No golden parachutes for executives. Don’t worry if you don’t know what these are. I’ll tell you the layman’s definition. The top dogs of these companies we would bail out would no longer be able to receive humungous severance packages if their companies are taken over. Geesh, that will really hurt these millionaires (some billionaires) and will surely teach them a lesson. -         Increased oversight. Our government will now keep a really, really close eye on our money and where it goes. What were they doing before this? -         The Treasury may directly negotiate with companies in regards to the Treasury buying their “paper” at low prices. But no one knows exactly how that would work. -         The Oversight Board will, well, oversee, the entire plan and they will send “reports and recommendations” to Congress. This is insufficient—all transactions, purchases, sales, etc. should be made public. Would you invest your money with a brokerage firm that told you, “Sorry, we can’t tell you what we’re doing with your money? You’ll just have to trust us.” -         The Oversight Board. You know who comprises it? They are all members of the Executive Branch! Oh wait, I’m wrong. The one exception is the Federal Reserve Chair—hmm, but wait, isn’t he appointed by the president? Call me skeptical, but the past eight years have seemed to drain my faith in the Executive Branch. -         It’s not really even a $700 billion deal. The plan only starts at $250 billion. The president can then get another $100 billion with a simple written certification. But then he has to ask Congress for the other $350 billion, and they can pass a resolution to stop it. So, we could end up being a couple of years into the plan, with half the money already spent, and then having Congress being split and undecided between whether or not it is actually working. The president will then have to convince Congress to commit more of something for a cause that might not even be working. Where have I seen this before… the president asking Congress to commit more of something for something that might not even be working…oh yeah, but instead of lives, this time we’ll be throwing away money. -         The plan also allows Congress to increase the $700 billion dollars if they see fit. Holy crap! -         Streamlined Contracting. This circumvents the normal checks and scrutiny that private contractors have to undergo in order to be hired by our government. Sure, I trust the government to only hire companies that are in the best interest of the country and I feel perfectly comfortable not having any committee overseeing their decisions. -         And finally, what if the plan doesn’t work? No sweat, the wonderful people we’ve elected have got that covered. The president would simply submit a proposal for recouping the losses from all the financial institutions that benefited from the program, and Congress would then simply pass new legislation to make it happen. We all know how well our two parties work together so coming up with a plan should be a piece of cake. Of course, even if they do, at that point it will have meant that the plan failed, so wouldn’t these companies that we’ve bailed out have no money for which to pay us back?   There’s obviously much more to the plan, but the bottom line is that we would be putting our hard-earned tax dollars— one-third of the entire federal budget—into the hands of the very people who got us into this debacle. To top it off, we wouldn’t even know where most of the money would be going or for what it was being used.   So now you ask, “What the hell else are we supposed to do?” Once again, I am no economist, but I do have two words for you. Caveat emptor.   Our parents always taught us to never get in over our heads, right? But did we listen? No one twisted our arms to invest in the stock market. No one forced us to take out mortgages that we knew we couldn’t pay. No one told us to max out our credit cards to the point we could no longer pay them. But everyone else was doing it so what the hell. It has come back to bite us in the proverbial butt. Now we have to suck it up, and if we do, it will all work out in the long run.   Private sector moguls like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates will pump billions of dollars into the markets and business sectors in order to protect their own interests, and that will help us all. Energy companies will have to find cheaper and cleaner energy sources even faster now, and that will help us all. Virtually every world market relies on the U.S. as both an importer and exporter and will therefore do everything and anything to keep our economy from failing, and that will help us all.   In the meantime, Congress can take that $700 billion and divide it up among the 225 million adults in America. That would be over $3000.00 per person. I don’t know about you, but that six grand between my wife and me would pay off some of our debt and even buy us a few needed things— and that my friends would boost the economy and you guessed it, help us all.   Yeah, the road ahead is not pretty. It’s actually ugly and will quite possibly get even uglier. But giving our government $700 billion and telling them to buy what they want…. well, be prepared for the fall of the American empire.  

Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware. That’s Latin, language of the Romans, right? Ironic, this thing called life.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Rate It:

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5