Devil's Advocate
⠀⠀⠀
If you don't see a moral component to your decisions or if you equate "legal" with "ethical" then there is nothing I can say that will change your mind.
That's the horrible beauty of what we've created. We now have a shrinking middle class that depends greatly on some of the least ethical companies to keep funding what's left of our leisure activities and our retirement. If we speak out chances are nothing will change, but even if it did the result would hurt us even more than it would ever hurt them!
That depends on how you look at it. Many of the assets our government now possess in return for the bailouts are of disputable value and questionable liquidity so I don't know how we can determine how much as truly been paid back at this point. Another problem I have with this whole bailout process is that we are still left with banks that are "too big to fail" and growing ever larger. I wasn't any happier about the Savings & Loan bailout in the 1980's or the Dot Com bust in the 1990's but at least the dot com companies lost their businesses and some of the S&L executives went to jail in the process. This time almost everyone who helped create this mess got to keep whatever they managed to grab during the boom cycle and managed to avoid the pain of the bust cycle the rest of us are still suffering from. The fear of serious repercussions and regulations is long gone and the vast majority of the pain was easily dumped on a citizenry who are either too naive or too cynical or too busy working for their next paycheck to connect the dots. Few if any folks at the top of the food chain paid any serious price for all the havoc they wrecked upon our economy. What's to keep them from starting yet another market crippling boom/bust cycle all over again now that they see we're no longer capable of punishing them when they screw up?
From what I understand the United Services Automobile Associate Employee Political Action Committee has reported donations totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars to Rick Perry alone and millions more spent elsewhere. To be completely honest I do not know how much money USAA itself may or may not have donated indirectly or laundered through various methods and groups. In theory all of this stuff is supposed to be reported in public filings. Unfortunately the investigative arm of the IRS has seen lots of budget cuts over the years and does not appear to spend much effort going after companies or groups who simply choose to obscure or withhold such information on their own. In addition, after the Citizen's United ruling many of the former restrictions that originally spurred the creation of PAC's have been lifted. As a result it's likely that USAA itself will begin bankrolling more political causes whether it's actively reported or not. But even if they don't they're still doing a great job routinely soliciting and bundling donations from their huge pool of employees. Remember, USAA is based right here in San Antonio and they are huge. In fact they are located on a campus that includes a single building with more floor space than the Pentagon. This is no small outfit and their money does the same amount of harm no matter if it comes from a single huge donation or thousands of smaller donations.
You are by far the most intentionally confused person I've ever met. The only part I don't understand is why you keep replying to me. What more can I say that you won't do your best to twist into something else?
Last edited by a moderator:
