What Is The Price Of Liberty?

Four years ago, from wild unregulated financial speculation and greed, the global economic system nearly collapsed. It took massive taxpayer funded bailouts of those who caused the problem, to save the system.

Had the system collapsed, in the chaos that would have followed, your money and mine would have been largely worthless, and perhaps so would what have remained of our democratic system. Yet the people who caused the problems continued to bonus themselves, none was ever held accountable and the unregulated financial system has remained largely as it was.

To some people, this is the freedom inherent in a democratic system. To them it is liberty in its truest form in which they are free to do as they like, unconstrained by government authority. Now 10 banks control about 80 percent of U.S. bank assets and have been declared "Too big to fail," meaning more taxpayer funded bailouts if they get in dire trouble again.

It also means lax enforcement of the law as we saw recently among those among the giant banks who illegally laundered and managed huge sums of drug cartel money, yet faced no criminal prosecutions as you and I would have. Instead, they paid relatively small fines. This stunning accommodation was done by the U.S. Justice Dept. to avoid disrupting the banking system.

So my friend, I ask you, what is the price of liberty? And if only some people are granted this liberty and it is at the expense of the vast mass of people whose assets can be destroyed or raided by those with the liberty to do so, what is the meaning of liberty?

Ultimately it is justice, security and freedom for all or liberty will disintegrate and fall, a victim of greed, campaign contributions and cronyism. For without integrity, trust and compassion, no political system based upon democratic ideals and the voice of the people can long stand

Dick