THE WILL POWER REPORT - PRISONERS OF DEBT

Nothing but the Truth!

By Will Power

October
14, 2008 (San Diego) - When John McCain accidentally referred to “My
Fellow Americans” as “My Fellow Prisoners” this week, he
was right on one account. We are all prisoners of the National Debt – currently
$10 trillion and rising rapidly.

Every time a US citizen fills up a gas tank,
shops for groceries, buys a foreign (or domestic) car – the national
debt increases.

Fifty years ago, nearly
100% of the TV sets, cars, phones and consumer electronics were made in the
USA. Now, it’s probably under 10%. Our current exports
consist of computers, software, movies, music CD’s, and cardboard boxes.

Debt
has now become a commodity. Bundles of credit card slips are bought and sold
at action, discounted, and sold again. It’s no wonder the International
Markets are worried.

But the neo-con strategy of making every US citizen a debtor
has long-term political consequences. It’s my belief the real goals of
the neo-cons are to bankrupt government and privatize it. According to the
neo-cons, it is only government regulation that has kept the invisible hand
of the market from bring prosperity to all. Corporations can operate more efficiently
(and profitably) without government.

What hogwash! There is an Iron Heel pressing
down on the backs of consumers. Corporation, banks, and credit card companies
are engaged in a drive to make debtors of all working class American citizens.
That’s why the Bankruptcy
Laws make it impossible for an owner-occupant to save his home, while the person
Like John McCain who owns seven homes can use bankruptcy at will. Here’s
what author John Philips has to say about US debt in his new book Bad Money:

By
2007 total indebtedness was three times the size of the gross domestic product,
a ratio that surpassed the record set in the years of the Great Depression.
From 2001 to 2007 alone, domestic financial debt grew to $14.5 trillion from
$8.5 trillion, and home mortgage debt ballooned to almost $10 trillion from
$4.9 trillion, an increase of 102 percent. A crisis in the mortgage market
in August 2007 brought the party to an end. Since then we have been living
in a twilight zone of what a security analyst quoted in the book calls “one
of the slowest-moving train wrecks we’ve seen.”

So we truly are
all prisoners of debt. And the rich will continue to use that debt as a political
and social club to enforce their vision of the New World Order- with the rich
holding the whip! Keep your shirt on- if you can afford it!

Will Power is a retired teacher who holds a masters degree in
creative writing.