The American Way?

I've asked before -- as an electrical engineer 3,371 miles from Wall Street, what do Goldman Sachs, AIG, and Lehman Bros. provide me? That they are able to take a percentage off many hundreds of thousands of banking, real estate and other financial transactions, how exactly does this help me?

Do I have more access to my own money in my own bank as a result? Do I have a lower interest rate on my mortgage as a consequence of what these firms do? Is my credit card issuer providing me access to credit with a lower annual fee because of JP Morgan? Is my interest rate earned on my savings higher due to the in-the-dirt federal funds rate aimed to bail out these firms?

What, exactly, do these firms provide me? Would I not be able to ride my bicycle to work if they didn't exist? Would my employer not be able to process my payroll if they didn't exist? Are there any consumer goods in my housal unit that, on their bottom, are labeled "made by Merrill Lynch?" Is my life insurance premium lower because they aren't there to manage it, invest for it, and hedge against it? Would SMUD not be able to build a new substation if these firms weren't there to issue securities for it, raise capital for it, or broker the deal to manage the bonds to build it?

All these questions, and not one reasonable fucking answer.

All I need, all I really need, is access to my own money. That's the minimum service requirement of my bank. I don't need them to provide me interest on savings through complex derivatives and collateral debt obligations. Look at my interest rate today -- 0.14%. This is what all these actions over the past two decades have provided me? This is my reward for taking on an additional $4,700 in present and future tax liabilities for bailing them out?

I am so, so damn thankful that I'm not going to need a mortgage service provider come 2011. I might just jettison my credit card and learn to live within my monthly means, which without a mortgage I should be able to manage just fine. Without any liabilities I won't need insurance.

I know the argument of the financial, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) "professionals" -- that without them, without their "lubrication," without their "making money more accessible," that I'd have a harder time acquiring credit, loans would be more difficult to underwrite, and my interest rates would be higher than without them.

A whole rash of people who provide nothing of real value to the economy. They don't build shit, they only market the production of things elsewheres to other producers. 11% of our economy is in FIRE and it ultimately produces nothing. It would not pain me in the least to see that percentage drop to 2%. I would not, in the slightest, feel like my standard of living had been reduced, believe that I'd have to wait twice as long at the checkout counter at the grocery, wouldn't be able to cash my payroll check or pay my bills. By maintaining a good payment history I'd have no problem accessing future credit, that people whether privately or publicly wouldn't lend to me.

But then again, we fuckered away our manufacturing base in this great nation so that we wouldn't have to build anything anymore, and all we had to do from now on was manage the marketing, financial engineering, and the insuring of the building of junk by dumb poorly paid foreigners to other dumb poorly paid foreigners and take our 15% commissions and build our own private rancherias and our own 3,400 sq ft garage mahals with our 3.7 vehicles and our gold plated freeways and fill our housal units to the rafters with cheap foreign mass produced consumables.

This is the American way?

This is what we spent 224 years to develop? A nation where half don't pay income taxes, a nation where one eighth uses food stamps, a nation that imports 53% of its energy? A nation whose "dream" is housal unit ownership without mortgage, wealth without risk, fruits without labor, winning lawsuits against faceless corporations for perceived damages, unfettered moral license, pay without employment, and the ethos of "default, then rent?"

This is the American way? Yes, this is the American way.