STATE OF THE UNION DEMYSTIFIED - PART I

I had hoped that President Obama would bring a voice of change to the nation, leading us away from our present trials. As I listened to his State of the Union speech, I listened between the lines to the real message behind the President’s speech. Perhaps he could not be as forthright as he would have liked due to concerns about bucking the multi-national corporations' game plan for a world without commercial boundaries. Following is an excerpt from the early portion of the State of the Union, with my elucidating comments in boldface:

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“And if there's one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans, and everybody in between, it's that we all hated the bank bailout. I hated it -- (applause.) I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal. (Laughter.)”

The real message:

We in Government discovered you really can’t fool all the people all the time, but we can misdirect them. So we have to pretend that nobody was in favor of the Wall Street (not “bank”) bailout. See, now you’re mad at your oral surgeon – not the puppeteers running Wall Street and Washington right now.

“But when I ran for President, I promised I wouldn't just do what was popular -– I would do what was necessary. And if we had allowed the meltdown of the financial system, unemployment might be double what it is today. More businesses would certainly have closed. More homes [of the wealthiest Americans] would have surely been lost.”

The real message:

We’ve repackaged Reagan’s “Trickle Down Economics” and are calling it “Suck It Up Economics”. The masses suck it up while our grandchildren’s tax dollars are destined to be sucked up and used to pay for propping up the sleazebags that robbed our financial system. Everybody smile!

“So I supported the last administration's efforts to create the financial rescue program. And when we took that program over, we made it more transparent and more accountable. And as a result, the markets are now stabilized, and we've recovered most of the money we spent on the banks. (Applause.) Most but not all.”

The real message:

Sure I was in bed with AIG and other big financial players. And it’s not hard to make a box of mud more transparent. Anyway, most of the missing money is safe in those confidential Swiss bank accounts the anonymity of which I am so carefully protecting. That's called Swiss transparency.

“To recover the rest, I've proposed a fee on the biggest banks. (Applause.) Now, I know Wall Street isn't keen on this idea. But if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.” (Applause.)

The real message:

Of course, these “modest” fees will be passed along as hidden increases to consumers, the greatest burden to fall upon those who can least afford it, as usual. Rest assured that the fees will never go “back to taxpayers” but will momentarily pass through government coffers to another boondoggle to benefit the same slimy characters legally robbing the banks.

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END OF PART I