Journalist Chris Hedges interviews economist Michael Hudson in a video entitled Traumatized Worker Syndrome. This is a clear explanation of why we are here today and where we are headed...to an inevitable crash that our politicians do not talk about. [You can watch the video or read the accompanying transcript.] Locally the problem is that our leaders and lawmakers at the city and county are not paying attention to this and so our discussions of the Comprehensive Plans at those levels is essentially based on growth myths. The fantasy jail proposal will not come to pass because there will be no money for it. When the ultimate failure arrives, the tax base will collapse along with those grandiose growth projections. Essentially a repeat of 2007/2008 but, as they say, on steroids. It all starts here...

Excerpt: HUDSON: The key of demagogic politics is to realize that the people who are really backing you are your campaign funders. Your job as a politician is to say, “I can deliver this constituency to you backers. “Obama was a genius at doing what Donald Trump is trying to do today: taking a constituency. That’s his column A: a focus group listing everything the constituency wants. They want debt relief. They want better jobs. They want higher minimum wage.

HEDGES: And not trade agreements like NAFTA and …

HUDSON: Right. And then column B, that he didn’t tell them, was what the campaign backers on Wall Street want. Obama was picked essentially by Robert Rubin, who then became head of Citibank after having come out of the Goldman Sachs. Obama was picked by Rubin of Wall Street to promise was he was going to really do. It was what any president today is going to do: A politician’s job is to deliver whoever voted for you to your backers, who are on Wall Street. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, but especially if you are a Democrat – that’s really the Wall Street wing of the American political system. The Republicans are for the corporate monopoly, oil and gas wing of it.

Feeling screwed yet?