The second great depression and the Occupy movement of 2012.

It was almost ten years ago now, I was warning my friends who were buying houses they could not afford, that they were sitting of a bubble about to burst.

Yes, I thought it would be a 20% adjustment, the banking system was banking on a government bailout, and would get it.

What I didnt see, was how the ill timing of the retooling of the US economy, from a manufacturing to a service, and intellectual property based economy, and the increasing equalization of wages due to globalization, in conjunction with a %35 miss-speculation on the housing market, caused global ramifications in the solvency of nation states.

I knew the banks were lending money they knew would not be repaid, to make money on the transaction, write off the loss, and get bailed out in the end.. all while each employees within those banks kept getting raises and bonuses.

The hire ups in the banks figured out they would make more money with a collapse and subsequent bailout, reaping the benefits of the booming business all the way up..

.. being sure to sell at the top.. as on the way down, one could take the million dollar severance, blow a kiss to the regulatory bodies of the US government, and retire to Florida.

It's all a shell game that is a bit to obvious to play. Except we have no choice.

Due to corporate influence in US politics, there is little effective regulatory reaction to what led to the global financial crisis. I have read that the financial industry, in their infinite wisdom, could not have imagined getting away with what they did, and are now able to continue at will. I am told they are downright giddy that they made a lot of money during the 'crash' and are excited to see the game continue.

Speculation is still a huge part of the daily amout of dollars spent in the stock market. Anyone, including absolutely huge stock brokerages, or fund managers, can bet in the failure of whatever they want to see fail, including the US government.

The buying and selling of nothing more than knots of mathematics, imaginary products of risk and tolerance. Bets that create economies of perverse intensive.

Economies of perverse incentive, people. This is not a good thing.

We want out systems of economies, and yes we can and should guide them.. we want them to be built on positive relationships and intensives. ie, healthy competition drives innovation and efficiency, that is good for the economy.

This is what we should have learned about why Communism wasnt efficient at providing social welfare - the incentive to compete was absent, creating disincentive to be creative, or work harder to make more, in fact you are working harder and making the same, in effect making less.

So, we have not, to this point, proposed or passed any meaningful regulation to change to rid our system of its perverse incentives, or the rampant speculation as its main source of funding.

This is because big business, including the banking system, have nearly complete control of the US political system, at this point.

I already see a bubble developing in the way Chinese and Indian growth is funded, not to mention Brazil.

The problem for us is, and this post is here to predict, that the next financial collapse will be without bailout, leading to a painful global depression. This next crash could bring most all of us back to per-industrial living conditions due to a lack of capital investment in small buiness.

My guess is we have 20 or so years before it goes down, so to speak. Enjoy it while we can, and prepare for rough seas ahead... as the greedy will hold on to our system, like a pitbull will hold onto its prey long after the dog is dead.

The Occupy Oakland movement is just the beginning here in the states. The Arab Spring has inspired the movement, and has reminded everyone across the world of the power of protest.

Especially in Syria, if the protests are successful there, in the face of such brutality, that will send a strong message to the US as well.

This may be as simple as getting the corporate right to person-hood revoked, and getting all public elections publicly funded by a general tax... or as simple as a 'separation of corporation and state' amendment (28th!!).

In the end, the corporations couldn't govern the people if it wanted to, so they will fail in politics. Its just a matter of time until they are kicked out due to incompetence and the power given back to the actual electorate. I just hope its a swift kick in the butt, so we can get back to prospering as a country.