An open letter to President Barack Obama:
You are failing us. Many people now question voting for you, and your 'fat-cat bankers' are destroying capitalism and democracy.
A year ago, millions of Americans -- investors, taxpayers, consumers, voters -- came together, uplifted by the "audacity of hope," inspired by a vision of "change we can believe in," heartened by "bold and specific ideas about how to fix our ailing economy and strengthen the middle class, make health care affordable for all, achieve energy independence and keep America safe in a dangerous world."
"Yes, we can" was the rallying cheer. You were the game-changer after the Bush-Cheney fiasco. What happened?
Today, we just don't see, or expect to see, any real change we can believe in. America is more polarized than under Bush's GOP, dysfunctional as both political parties tragically undermine our great nation.
There are many reasons future historians may rate your presidency average, or even failed, at least based on the gap between 2008's promise and today's reality, certainly for investors.
But we also know that the future -- seen through a broader historical lens -- will reveal a natural cycle, with you cast in the predictable, final scene of a Shakespearean plot, driven by fate, the same dramatic destiny of all great nations and civilizations.
We know that a dark conspiracy made up of Wall Street, corporate chief executives and the Forbes 400 controls Washington, limiting and manipulating you. So we know it's not all your fault -- for you are playing your role well in America's epic, historical drama.
As Shakespeare put it: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances." As this past year unfolded, it became painfully obvious you are indeed playing a role in a historic drama, along with other leaders in a staged, life-cycle, endgame conspiracy that includes Presidents Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush, Fed chiefs Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, and Wall Street's bosses -- Henry Paulson and your fat-cat banker buddies.
The final scene of this Shakespearean drama is playing out this very moment, with 10 improvisational plot points driving your character's role:
1. Failing to grasp John Adams' warning.
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams, a great American president, made that famous prediction at the beginning of our great nation.
And yet, paradoxically, when a democracy commits suicide, it also kills off the very capitalism that made it powerful, the economic system Adam Smith identified the same year our Declaration of Independence was signed. Today we are neither independent nor free; King George has been replaced by the far more powerful moneyed conspiracy that you sold out to last year.
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Our time is up, says Scottish historian Alexander Tytler, recently quoted by economist Marc Faber: "The average lifespan of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years." Then "once a society becomes successful, it becomes arrogant, righteous, overconfident, corrupt and decadent . . . overspends . . . (engages in) costly wars . . . wealth inequity and social tensions increase and (it) enters a secular decline."
We're on suicide watch, acting out the final scenes Adams predicted for democracy, as Wall Street murders capitalism.
3. Failing to demand sacrifices, instead adding to Bush's massive war debt.
Back in 2003, coincident with the "greatest foreign policy blunder in American history" -- the Iraq war -- political historian Kevin Phillips published "Wealth and Democracy." Phillips warned: "Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt and ultimately burning themselves out."
The war has been a waste of $3 trillion, says economist Joseph Stiglitz. And now, Mr. President, you're playing your role, along with Bush, Paulson, Bernanke and the Congress, piling on an unsustainable $23.7 trillion in what is the greatest domestic blunder in American history.
4. Failing to lead with 'once-in-a-lifetime' systemic financial reforms.
Former Fed vice-chair Alan Blinder recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal: "When economists first heard (Gordon) Gekko's now-famous dictum, 'Greed is good,' they thought it a crude expression of Adam Smith's invisible hand -- which is one of history's great ideas. But in Smith's vision, greed is socially beneficial only when properly harnessed and channeled," with incentives for risk-taking, honest competition, regulatory safeguards and regulators who will actually enforce the rules.
But "when these conditions fail to hold, greed is not good." Blinder fears that "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a sturdier and safer financial system is slipping away." No consumer protection, no mortgage claw-backs, no derivatives regulations, nothing. You are setting the stage for another, bigger meltdown, the "Great Depression 2."
The last tragic act in this drama, dead ahead.
5. Failing to pick a cast of characters that could have changed history.
Recently, John Kay of the Financial Times said, "Our banks are beyond the control of mere mortals." But it's not just banks -- our American government and economy are beyond the control of mere mortals.
Last year many voted for you fearing that John McCain might pick Phil Gramm as Treasury secretary. Unfortunately, Mr. President, your picks not only revived Reaganomics under the guise of Keynesian economics, but you sidelined a real change agent, Paul Volcker, and picked Paulson clones like Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers.
Worst of all, you're reappointing Bernanke, a Greenspan clone, as Fed chairman, an economist who, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb put it, "doesn't even know he doesn't understand how things work." And with that pick, you proved you also don't understand how things work.
And yet, forever true to the script, your decision fits perfectly in the final act captured by your predecessor, President Adams.
Continued: A presidency hijacked
