More and more as time passes and this recession appears to me to be turning into a depression, I am constantly looking for answers as to why this crisis has happened and I believe that overwhelmingly, it is due to a failed system; Capitalism, and those that "own" it, in that, at least here in America, when you use the very system that the entire population has been forced to live under, for your own personal profit and totally segregate a portion of the population, anyone without money and/or possessions, than you are—sooner or later, going to have a revolt—a.k.a. a revolution.
Nothing illustrates this quite so vividly as two of our biggest issues: Health-care reform and Wall Street’s excesses, these excesses being the primary reason we are in the mess we are in; that and, as I’ve just stated, Capitalism. In America’s case, Capitalism is like a bunch of sharks in a school of sharks that taste blood and end up attacking each other.

These two crisis’ are splitting the country right down the middle and if things don’t change soon, then I will not rule out a revolution—of sorts.

If the Congress does not pass a health care reform bill for all, when polls show an obvious majority in favor of the public option—at the very least—then we are going to see the majority of the population revolt in the form of not having any insurance; most of them because they cannot afford it and the rest in support of those who cannot afford it, and fees which only add to their already exorbitant costs. Of course, there will always be a small segment of the population who will see money as the end-all and be-all answer to every problem and—as we have all seen— most of these people are usually highly educated, earn a six-figure, or higher, income and extol the virtues that got them there, starting with their education.

And so, let us go to one of the world’s most renown, and also the world's wealthiest school's, Harvard University, and see what they have said and done, concerning the real estate crisis that is the root cause of the mess we currently find ourselves in.

As we now know, Wall Street sold MBS that were worthless, along with Credit Default Swaps and any other sort of derivative that they could use to make a fast billion or two on. And, so what did the illustrious, highly-educated traders at Harvard Management Co., the subsidiary that invests some of the $37 billion worth of endowments that make Harvard the richest university in the world, invest in, being the highly educated, sophisticated individuals that they are purported to be?

In June 2009, Harvard’s endowment fell to $26 billion, down from $37 billion just one year earlier, about a 30% drop in their fortunes. They are a private not-for-profit university, whose tuition for just one semester happens to be $37,000 a year and that costs the average student $50,000 a year to attend. They may obtain student loans, of course, or pay by check but all—and I do mean all—schools in America prefer cash, especially in these ‘hard’ times; i.e.: when your endowment has fallen to a mere $26 billion, as Harvard’s has.
And how, you might ask, did Harvard come to lose so much money? Well, Harvard had investments of slightly over $7 billion dollars in … yup … you guessed it … derivatives; exotic and illiquid holdings: commodities, MBS, timberland, hedge funds, emerging market equities, private equity partnerships and interest rate swaps. This risky strategy paid off with market-beating results as long as the market was going up but not in a crashed market. In one gamble, Harvard’s “geniuses” bet that interest rates would rise and when they didn’t it cost the world’s richest school at least $500 million in payments to escape those derivatives that backfired.

Their losses are especially hard on the Arts and Science Dept., which includes Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering, because the endowment provides half of its budget. Geez, I’m sure glad it didn’t impact their Economics Department, I mean, gee-whiz, where would we be then? I mean they were getting margin calls from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, both TARP benefactors … still … Capitalism is Capitalism and when you have the money … get the picture?
Harvard’s annual report provided details on their derivative-related losses, which showed that the majority were entered into in 2004, when none other than Lawrence Summers, director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, was the university’s president at the time. White House spokesman Matthew Vogel declined to comment on this.

Oh, by the way, Lawrence Summers was, of course, the Secretary of the Treasury from 1999-2001 and from 2001-2006 he was the President of his alma mater, Harvard University, from which he received a PhD in Economics. Oh, he also got a B.S. degree from M.I.T., which is good to have, as all politicians know that having to B.S. throughout their entire careers, is S.O.P. for them.

Eight of our presidents have graduated from Harvard, including George W. Bush and Barack Obama. George H.W. Bush Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger were all economics majors, and all of those ex-presidents left office with federal deficits and Arnold is the governor of the only totally bankrupt state in America. Robert McNamara got an M.B.A. from Harvard; remember McNamara? He was the Secretary of Defense who couldn’t count the number of dead bodies in Vietnam and helped keep us mired in that dung-heap for so long. Alan Greenspan has a B.S. in economics and was awarded a PhD in 1977 from his alma mater, NYU. Robert Rubin, the Secretary of the Treasury from 1995-’99 has a B.A. in economics from the London school of economics and an L.L.B. from Yale Law School and was awarded a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from the University of Miami in 2008. What did he do to earn this last degree? Why he “made” himself a multi-millionaire whose net worth is said to be close to a billion dollars … hmmm … a billion dollars? Yes, he worked for Goldman Sachs for over 30 years.
Henry Paulson got an M.B.A. from Harvard … ah you do remember Paulson right? He got an MBA from Harvard and worked for Goldman Sachs for thirty years, becoming the COO in 1994-1998 and the CEO until he became the Treasury Secretary in 2006, during the second Bush Administration. He served until Obama was sworn in, in January, 2009, serving just long enough to bail out his old firm, Goldman Sachs, even as he let Lehman Bros. fail and have to resort to declaring bankruptcy. Paulson then made sure to bail out AIG and as to why, well, we now know that the Goldman Sachs benefit from the AIG bailout was recently estimated at $13 billion smackers; Goldman being the largest recipient of the public funds from AIG and originating the collateralized debt obligation (CDO's) forming the basis of the current crisis, which was an active part of Goldman Sach's business while Paulson was CEO. An investigation into whether the creators of these debts failed to disclose their underlying risk—likely in civil damage suits arising out of AIG's failure—would necessarily involve scrutiny of Paulson's own role, especially considering that Paulson’s sale of his Goldman Sach's interest was tax-deferred and he made $200 million in tax benefits, which is why he joined the government service in the first place, as anyone living under America’s Capitalist society quickly realizes, when it is repeated over and over and over, by those sly old dogs otherwise referred to here as our political representatives. Oh, by the way, Paulson’s net worth is reported to be nearly a billion dollars … uh, sound familiar? So, what else is new? Paulson’s buddy Ben Bernarke, the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has a B.A in Economics from Harvard and a PhD from MIT. Tim Geithner, today’s Secretary of the Treasury has two advanced degrees from Dartmouth and both men, of course, are using their advanced college degrees to open the revolving door between the government and Wall Street, as would only be expected in America’s Capitalist, get all you can get and *#&% everybody else, society.

We can’t obtain the necessary funding for the infrastructure of this country, the building and repairing of many of our decimated roads and bridges and yet countless trillions appear at the snap of a politician’s fingers so that the financial sector can create, and sell, “junk” so that they, these highly-educated *scumbags can add another million or two to their portfolios.

The difficulty of this market turmoil has impacted Harvard’s management company’s staff visibly and 25% of them have been fired in the past four years and they have had five chiefs; yup chiefs, chief investment officer is what they are called, which brings to mind— to my mind anyway—what a wise old Indian chief once told a general when they visited the reservation where they were being held captive by the “victors,” the wealthy, wise and war-worn white Europeans.
“Good White Father,” he said, could you do me a favor please, do not send anymore of my braves to your schools to be educated?”

“Well, but why not?” the taken-aback general replied.

“Because,” the chief said, “when they come back from your school, they do not want to work anymore, they are good for nothing, they are worthless to the tribe … all they do is sit around all day and issue orders for others to do what they should be doing; they have “forgotten” their humanity and the Indian way and “learned” the white man’s way!

*I’m still searching for a better word to describe them, I’ll let you know when I come up with one; any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

May our friends respect us, trouble neglect us, angels protect us and heaven accept us.