Nothing happens in a Democracy without the pressure of the political will mounted by a unified people. The financial terrorism focused on the Country not only by foreign interests but also by our own criminals has been micro-managed very skillfully by the manipulators here, assisted by incompetent and/or corrupt regulators with conflicts that can't be measured.
Traditionally, our biggest financial problems have never been won by a unified will, but by misdirection of attention to other matters, as in WWII, and the passing of time. Capitalist financial systems have a certain capacity for self-healing, but they can be easily impaired by well-meaning bureaucrats who don't believe in either Capitalism or Democracy.
What is different here from our past financial crises? Never before in modern history has the entire Globe been impacted across every board by such massive financial fraud, corruption, manipulation, and outright terrorism all at the same time. This logically imputes to a deeper crisis, which will take much longer to heal itself, if it can without massive disruption of all our systems.
Investor confidence was once a local national concern, which could be cured by the United States simply standing itself upright and dealing with its problems as head-on as a Democracy could permit.
Maybe a simple review of history since the Great Depression will explain what I am trying to say. After the 1929 Raid/Crash, our economy and employment deteriorated at a terrible rate which was only arrested by the beginning of WWII. Even then, investors did not start to come back to our markets until 1954. Our market progressed steadily from there, until the 1968 crash, which was the beginning of a 14 year secular Bear Market that only ended with the election of Reagan. We had a major market run-up then based on significant investments in Oil and Gas, and Real Estate, based on tax incentives, that were crushed by the Tax Reform Acts of 1984 and 1986, the latter being a catastrophe that wrecked many parts of the US economy for decades.
The worst part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 is that it betrayed investors who had poured hundreds of billions of dollars into tax incented investments. To this day, tax deals are unsellable to mass markets. This was a minor instance of a small part of the American people rising up against ex post facto tyranny, and there has never been another attempt at such conduct again since.
Beginning in March, 2000, we saw the beginning of a massive Bear Raid on our equity markets that didn't weaken until mid-2003. This correction, which was every bit the equal of the 1929 Raid, wiped out thousands of small companies, the core of the engine of our Country, and the source of all new jobs and wealth creation.
Now we have a series of staggering frauds, bad decisions, and importune policies all coming to fruition at the same time. The big difference is that this time, markets are so globally linked, nothing happens here "in camera", with damage bleeding off on the entire world.
I am almost to the point of concluding that we can only worry about our own country, hoping we can fix it gradually over a number of years, beginning with knocking down our consumer debt and future entitlement loads, and let the rest of the world come along when they are ready. Certainly, the US has severely damaged its reputation, and that of Capitalism and Democracy in the process. Whether or not this ultimately beats us, we simply have to focus on the problems we can fix, and unfortunately, we have little control of the rest of the World.
Again, the great unknown here is what is going to happen in the rest of the World. While we are trying to heal our wounds, the rest of the World will be going its own way, and we can't very well influence their conduct. Having said that, you should believe me when I tell you that there are circumstances developing in the World that will drag the US in, whether we are ready or not.
Our bureaucrats and politicians have shown us that they don't like to assign blame when they don't get their jobs done. Tens of thousands of criminals should lose everything and go to prison here, but it won't happen. Why won't it happen? Because the American people can only move the systems against giant vested interests when they all unite behind a single political will. Until that happens, we can only expect more of the same as the last decade. Will you stand up?