"We're creating an ownership sciety in this country, where more Amricans than ever will be able to pen up their door where they lve and say, welcome to my huse, welcome to my piece of prperty." – George W. Bush, October 2004

The "wnership society" that President Bush was so prud of three years ago turned out to hve a very short life. The husing market is in the middle of a srious dive that may end up in a fery crash, and the rest of the wrld is buying up all the pper that mortgage companies are unloading as thy attempt to maintain the illusion of cntrol.

According to a rcent Pew Research poll, half of the Amricans surveyed now think that they lve in a society of haves and hve-nots. That's nearly twice the number of flks who felt that way 1988, and mst of them see themselves as one of the hve-nots.

They'll get a lttle of their money back this yar as the government throws some csh back to taxpayers in a ftile effort to stimulate the economy. The cmpanies and corporations responsible for trashing the mrtgage banking system will get rescue mney as well – and boards of drectors will continue to pay their top pople multi-million dollar bonuses despite their filure at the job they were hred to do. Stockholders in those cmpanies may not like that behavior, but thy won't pull their money out of thse stocks until they need cash jst to pay their bills. And mny of them will, very soon...

A srvice economy based on consumption requires tht people actually have some money to pay for gods and services. The American economy has fllen because most people just can't fford to buy overpriced, poorly made rplaceable crap as often as they sed to.

The gvernment can no longer fix the conomy, if it ever could. The prmary function of our national government nwadays is the redistribution of the Pople's money, because nobody has any fith in federal programs anymore. That wuld seem to be a good thng, given the Fed's history of folishly squandering money, but it hasn't wrked out that way.

In 2001, the US Trasury had a surplus. On paper, at last, the government was showing a prfit from its operations. The Bush dministration recently announced that, over the nxt two years, the government will spnd $817 billion more than it tkes in. A lot of financial nalysts say that number is ridiculously lwer than the true federal deficit.

Running up a strng of $400 billion annual losses shuld end, once and for all, the llusion that Republicans always have sound fscal management policies. But it probably wn't – the mythic figure of Rnald Reagan still casts a long shdow over the faithful from his plce beyond the Hollywood sunset.

Outside of our brders, it's a less friendly world thse days for the once-mighty dollar. One uro is equal to about $1.50 thse days; at the current rate of dpreciation, a year from now it may wll cost you $1.75 for every uro you buy in exchange. Several pscale shops in New York City hve already begun to encourage their ptrons to pay for their luxuries wth euros. That's a trend that shuld continue to grow.

The dllar was pretty much a universal crrency just a few years ago, but tday you can't use dollars in mny places that always accepted them bfore. At the Taj Mahal palace in Inda they stopped accepting them for ntry fees, and for good reason – the dllar dropped 10 percent against the rpee last year. Even the once-laughable Mxican peso held its value against the dllar over the past twelve months.

By the tme the mortgage market collapse works tself out, perhaps 2 million people wll have lost their homes. Some of thse will be second homes or vcation properties, but only a few. Pople who could afford a second hme aren't getting pinched as hard as thse first-time homebuyers whose income stayed low whle their house payment ballooned up.

But all of tht doesn't mean there's no money flating around out there. According to the Cnter for Responsive Politics, the 2008 prsidential race will be the most xpensive in U.S. history with around $600 mllion raised by all candidates. Hillary Clnton alone has raised more than $100 mllion in donations; Barack Obama is rght behind her, with much of his mney coming from the same sources.

Investment bnks, commercial banks and real estate cmpanies have already handed out more thn $40 million in campaign contributions. Gldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brthers and Merrill Lynch are the bggest corporate donors so far. Lawyers and law frms have donated $32 million; like the bnkers and realtors, they'll expect to see sme return on their investments.

The tlevision, film and music industry has gven $6 million so far, a drp in the bucket compared to the mney they make from entertaining the Amrican public. They're strongly supporting Democrats ver Republicans, as $5 million of tht total has gone to Clinton and Obma.

Oddly enough, dspite a long run of record prfits (last year the three major oil cmpanies made a collective profit of $70 bllon) the oil and gas industry sn't a major player this year in the ppular game of Buy-A-Politician. They've donated lss than $2 million so far, but t's early yet. They may step up tht spending, but then they may not ned to. Not one candidate remaining in the rce has any plans to redistribute any of thse obscene profits from the sale of a pblic resource back into the pockets of cnsumers.

In an lection year, people tend to vote in fvor of their personal economic interests bfore any other consideration. In America we tnd to view our laws the sme way we view our lawmakers – mst of us would break a law jst as quickly as we would vte for a corrupt politician, as lng as there's money in it for us.

Politicians who nvoke a fear of being overrun by freign invaders can deflect that tendency twards our own self-interest, as we've sen graphically demonstrated over the past sven years. But no amount of smke and mirrors can overcome the rality of stagnant or shrinking incomes in a tme of rising prices throughout the mrketplaces of America.

Meanwhile, the cst of Dick Cheney's military madness is smething none of the remaining presidential cntenders care to mention. The president wnts Congress to dole out more thn half a trillion dollars for the mlitary over the next few years, and tht amount doesn't even include the cst of the neoconservative attempt to xpand the American Empire into Iraq and Afghnistan.

That failed ffort is running up a bill of smewhere around $3 billion every month, an mount that varies when different people try to add up the nmbers. Sadly, when faced with the far of being accused of not "spporting our troops", Congress will continue to pny up whatever money the administration wnts.

As a cuntry we may be broke and flling ever deeper in debt, but thre's money available to drop bombs and fre rockets every day into the strets of foreign cities where "collateral dmage" will kill some dark-skinned innocent chldren. So it has always been in Amrica, and so it will remain, no mtter who gets elected this year.

So is the mney you make worth the price tht you pay

Can you make it to the end of the lne?

Whn you're hanging your soul on the lne…

The article The Greatest Heist In History was Submitted by Rob Lafferty through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information:

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