David Sirota has written that

the real divide that will be (and has been) defining politics is not the one between Republicans and Democrats, but between the Money Party and the People Party. On many issues, the Money Party is synonymous with the GOP, but it also includes a faction of corporate-backed Democrats.

See especially Sirota's listing of leading Dems into People Party and Money Party affiliations at
http://www.alternet.org/story/45066/

According to the latest Quarterly Report from the Bank for International Settlements, dated March 2007:

Trading on the international derivatives exchanges slowed in the fourth quarter of 2006. Combined turnover of interest rate, currency and stock index derivatives fell by 7% to $431 trillion between October and December 2006.

(see page 24)

So, derivatives trading – mostly futures contracts on interest rates, foreign currencies, Treasury bonds, etc -- is now $1,200 trillion in a year. That’s $1.2 quadrillion a year.

By comparison, U.S. GDP last year $12.456 trillion.
(Table B-1 of the 2007 Economic Report of the President.

OK, OK, here's some NEW stuff for you to cogitate on:

By the way, in addition to derivatives trading, there are the bond and stock markets. I'm not sure, but I think the BIS statistics do NOT include futures on commodities such as oil, corn, sugar, etc. I'm not sure about precious metals. The stock markets are very small in comparison. However, turnover in the bond markets I believe is around one quarter to one half that in the derivatives markets.

People seem to be at a loss about how to deal with these runaway financial markets which have in effect created an entirely separate economy that has nothing to do with the reality of 97 percent of the population, to use the number used here by the original poster(s).

An issue that I have recently mentioned is that of national sovereignty.

Fundamentally, the financial markets have usurped the sovereignty of the nation state. In the Constitution of the United States, the Congress is explicitly given the power to coin money and regulate its value (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5). Though Madison was opposed to the issuance of paper money, he did write in Federalist, no. 42 that this power extends to “the public securities.” Joseph Story, who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1811 until his death in 1845, in section 1115 of his Commentaries on the Constitution explicitly argued that the issuance of paper money was nothing more than a different means of coining money, and ought therefore be subject to the same authority under the Constitution.

The problem I see today – and this is the point I am driving at – is that the Adam Smith / van Hayek / Milton Friedman school of economics, and its belief in the untrammeled workings of the free market – has been so internalized by almost all people, most especially our elites – that they simply cannot conceive of the government interfering in the financial markets. The very idea is anathema to most people who have been schooled in Western economics in the past half century and more. Yet, it is very simply the exercise of national sovereignty that is demanded by the situation today. The banking and financial systems must be made to work for the benefit of ALL people, not just three percent. Denying that government has the right to FORCE the end of the derivatives trade, of taxing financial turnover, of taking whatever measures are required to reign in and control the banking and financial systems, is to DENY THE PEOPLE THEIR NATIONAL SOVERIGNITY.

I have half-jokingly raised the idea of an “accidental” cruise missile attack on some of the most egregious examples of the world’s hot money centers, such as Zurich, London, and the Cayman Islands. But, stop and think: What is so different from this denial of national sovereignty, and the denial of sovereignty that occurs when a foreign army attacks, invades, and occupies? In either case, national sovereignty has been violated, and the people, and their government, are fully within their rights to respond with the appropriate measures of self defense, including military action.

Look, let us be clear about what the “two economies” means. Three percent are doing well in the financial economy. In the real economy, living standards have been declining for decades. The social safety net is a tattered joke. People are going without medical care. People are DIEING. People are dieing just as surely as if they were gunned down by an invading army, or bombed by an attacking air force. The result is the same. They are DEAD.

It is only economic theories that prevent most people from seeing this. Nothing but God damned THEORIES !

Isn’t it about time we got all the free market bullshit out of our heads? Let us return to the idea of exercising national sovereignty over the financial and banking system. Our first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton , firmly set the standard in Number 15 of the The Federalist Papers by asking simply and pointedly, “Is private credit the friend and patron of industry?”

If someone disagrees, our response should be: Fuck you, and fuck the theory you rode in on. Because, all jokes aside, we really don’t want to be forced to that point where power speaks from the barrel of a gun.

...a class system?

sent me an e-mail yesterday. Heres an excerpt I thought was well-written.

I think we need to forget about both the democrats and republicans. Neither of them are offering any solutions to problems at all. The blame game lets them work together to maintain the status quo. Most Americans have a list of reforms they find most necessary to put the US back on track. We have too much disparity. Huge corporations have too much power and freedom. News is just spin or deception and nobody has the balls to call a liar what they are. Healthcare is for the few who have access and mental illness is considered an excuse to freeload. War is not waged to preserve our common sense of righteousness but to enrich the friends of those in power. Business doesn't have as it's core a need to produce anything, but simly to perpetuate itself nd manipulate numbers into profit.

Grab a handfull of wind as it flutters through your fingers and that is more valuable than what we produce as a nation. You know the value of what you produce on the farm. A man making steel in a mill knows the value. Ewlitt knows the value of his produce. A myriad of tasks have measurable value and may not all cause blisters, sore backs, or minds in need of peace, but the value produced has substance. Knowledge has substance as a teacher can lift and feel the weight of what is contained in book and passed on. Even shit has substance and value. What we have making money today with some exceptions is foreknowledge, connections, class advantage and prejudice, and appearance. We don't even have honesty or integrity in the mix. Most of our religious leaders would be burned at the stake for heresy 300 years ago.

I did inhale.