Greetings:

I am running for the US Congress with two main concerns, reversing climate change and saving the middle-class--see BarnettForCongress.org. Of climate change I wrote my first essay in 1982 in which I predicted longer droughts with downwind deluges/flooding. Likewise, I wrote on the below topic of "decapitalism" in 1991.

I use in my analysis of events a system called "timism"(long "i" as in time)--see Timism: The Morality of More Time. By converting anything into a value of time, one has a terrific heuristic tool for determing where time is being lost (problem) or created (solution). Applied to old conclusions, new revelations become apparent, e.g., the conclusions on Deepthroat of Watergate fame is quite different if one converts "Follow the money" into "Follow the time." Afterall, time is money and money is time. Time, however, has a greater range of human motivation than money alone.

I have the OpEd in an numeric listing which can be modified if published. Read it carefully, for you, the reader, are a victim of the problem defined.

Capitalism is a Victim of Identity Theft

  1. Wall Street hijacked capitalism's terms and tools to decapitalize production (bankruptcies) and decapitate jobs (unemployment). As one cannot fault democracy for failing in a despotic dictatorship nor can one claim capitalism is failing when it is not practiced. Wall Street preaches capitalism but practices decapitalism.
  2. Literally and basically, capitalism exists when people are rewarded for using their heads (capita) to solve time-wasting problems. Laissez-faire semanticists object by invoking Humpty-Dumpty in defining capitalism, that is, "it means just what I choose it to mean." Do we want a definition of capitalism that rewards problem-causers who legally or illegally steal the real time of others via some symbol of time--currency, stocks, bonds, 401ks, etc? Is a brief-cased Wall Stealer a capitalist any more than than a gun-toting robber?
  3. In 1980, the average retiree had nearly $300,000 in a corporate pension. Today, a 65-year old has about $100,000 in a roller-coaster 401k which is only $30,000 in 1980's buying power. In one generation--a few decades--retirees lost 90% of retirements.
  4. In 1980, the top 1% owned about 20% of America's wealth. Today, over 60%. Did the top 1% create more wealth or merely legally steal wealth via stock options, IPO's and 401k's?
  5. Wall Street firms buy corporations usually with borrowed pension funds. After a few years during which the stock is recapitalize, i.e., multiplied  (aka counterfeited), it is sold to pension funds and individual 401ks. As such, 401ks are the biggest bank robbery in history.
  6. Wall Street paper pushers legally steal middle-class pensions and retirements. For instance, William Simons, Nixon's Treasury Secretary, put $300k into a partnership to buy the second largest gift card company (Gibson). Eighteen months later, it was sold to pensions: Simon received some $60 million. Was any wealth created? Any problems solved? A problem caused? Did Gibson grow 200 times? Did it become the biggest card company? Like Congressional habitual politicians, pension managers vote bad investments as a turnstile ticket to a more money Wall Street job.
  7. The Gilded Age Robber Barons stole by keeping workers' wages low. Now, guilty decapitalists rob workers' pensions. The theft is via "bastard" stock procreated by insiders without any parental duty to make good of these corporate offsprings.
  8. Can workers duplicate or triplicate a car or house title to sell to more than one buyer? Wall Stealers counterfeit and bastardize stocks each time they flip a corporation into 401ks and pensions, e.g., Mitt Romney and Dunkin Donuts.
  9. While workers labor more and have less, decapitalists sweat less and play more as seen in record prices for art work, real estate, sports teams, etc. With bastard stocks, we have public financing of elections, e.g., Meg Whitman's $142 million of eBay stock sold to finance her failed election. Does biggest political campaign donor (Sheldon Adelson) drain bank accounts or sell self-issued stocks? How do the "do no evil" Google founders finance $50 million jets on a salary of $1 per year? Or, Steve Bezo pays $250 million for the Washington Post when Amazon does not pay dividends and his salary is only $85,000? His $60 billion in Amazon bastard stocks is how much money he will legally steal from workers' savings, pensions and retirement. Bile Guts of Maggotsoft has legally stolen billions with billions of B-stock remaining in his printshop.
  10. Is the thesis of this essay without Wall Street awareness? Jerome Kohlberg, the first K of the famous leveraged-buyout firm KKR, concedes that, "Of course, what we were really doing, in my view, and I've thought about this a lot, was taking earnings or value that should've gone to the shareholders and bringing it unto ourselves." The shareholders are pensionless workers forced to buy KKR's IPO'd bastard stocks via 401k's.
  11. When the Nazi invaded European countries, they issued Reichskredit Kassenscheines. Soldiers quickly bought the countries' wealth and food in a few month. They lived the high-life of mansions and mistresses. When it comes to economic impact, is there a difference between Nazi Reichscredits and bastard stocks? Both are economic death certificates.
  12. Is Wall Street the center of capitalism? Or, the den of decapitalism? More semantic honesty reveals the true nature of other hijacked terms of capitalism. Divesting wage earners are divestment banks. MBA's are Masters of Bankrupting America. IPO means Insiders' Private Options or Insiders Phooling Outsiders. IPO money does not go to corporations for jobs but for insiders' M&M's--mansions and mistresses.
  13. After an IPO where they do a gangbang selloff of some bastard stocks, decapitalists thereafter bleed b-stocks into the market place each time the stock starts to rally. This causes the market price to be far below a price undiluted by more symbols chasing the same goods and services ... the traditional definition of inflation. Bleeding tart libertarians on Wall Street are like the Federal Reserve which keeps inflationarily diluting the buying power of the dollar by creating them out thin air. Both B-stocks and Fed notes are created out of thin air.
  14. Three simple laws can stop decapitalism only if American workers recognize Wall Street math: As the lottery is a tax on those who do not know math, 401ks are a tax on the middle-class who igknow Wall Street math. As is, workers spend more time planning a two-week vacation than a two-decade retirement. All play and no politics make middle-class Jack and Jill desperate, destitude and demised.
  15. Criticizing capitalism is like criticizing a grocer for no food when there are no farmers. Capitalism is a victim of identity theft by the wolves of Wall Street parading in MBA sheepskins.