I don't see any reason or logic behind this statement. Are you trying to say that the founding fathers had sought to reinstate the same kind of tyrannical government that they had fought so hard to remove themselves from?

Not all of them, but some of them did, particularly Alexander Hamilton and later James Madison. The entire idea behind the Federalist system was to set up a government similar to the British Empire, and the only reason why it didn't happen was because the anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry and a few others made enough noise and threatened either leaving the union or even starting another revolution.

Tyrannical systems are only bad if you're not the tyrant, and some joined the revolution specifically because they hated the British Crown and Parliament, not necessarily because they actually wanted a freer system. There's a reason why Patrick Henry didn't have a say in how the Constitution was crafted, why Jefferson was keen on the idea of grabbing hold of the Louisianan territory as soon as he was president, and why the revolutionary Pennsylvania Constitution (which was the most radically Libertarian of any of the colonies) was snuffed out by the Federalists and replaced with an exact duplicate of the US Constitution.

Granted the Constitution is hardly a bad document, most of the stuff in the first 10 Amendments is pretty good, but it was still a compromise between good and evil, and our country is suffering so much precisely because overtime additional Amendments and tyrannical laws have been passed that are more in line with the Imperialistic philosophy that some amongst the Founders held.

All true. Excellent explanation.

What I meant was that in many ways since the first settlers came here, there has been an abundance of hypocrisy from the Salem witch trials through the birth of the nation. Again, much of the ideology was in the right place, at least I want to believe that it was.

I think that the founding fathers wanted to make the new nation a better place by implementing obviously a different more viable system but there have always been corruption issues going on closed doors that they don't want you to know about. Freedom though is limited in this country and it comes with a price tag. Not that there is anything wrong with that really; obviously it has worked in the past, but it bothers me that some people just blindly follow the government in thinking whatever they say is right, and I just don't agree with that.

I think there is this shroud and veil hanging over the whole ideologies unfortunately. Just because back in the day there was no CNN doesn't mean there wasn't any corruption. Along with that, who even knows if CNN or all the news channels are reporting everything that is true anyway, news channels obviously report what they can "find out".

Obviously just my opinion and that's all.

I am well aware that Hamilton and Madison wanted a stronger central government. Adams was even someone who supported a stronger central government, he was however not someone who wanted a tyrannical government. The fight was between state powers and federal powers.

I highly doubt people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams sought public office for there own personal gain. Jefferson and John Adams didn't spend their post presidency days sitting on a mountain of wealth. They had drastically less than they did before the revolutionary war. I can't say for some others though. Blatant Corruption did rear it's head when Andrew Jackson arrived.

What do you think Federal Power is? The Throne Of The Holy See or some divine charity institution? Government is power and force, it isn't charity, (I'm now paraphrasing George Washington), and the more centralized a government becomes the more tyrannical it becomes. George Washington opposed the formation of political parties and wasn't tied to either the Federalist or anti-Federalist ideology per say, he was simply a figurehead, although one I'd take before Madison and company any day.

You will note that I specifically mentioned Alexander Hamilton and I referenced Madison as later on, which implied after the system was implemented. He along with all of the other early federalists wanted something that could make war with the British Empire, and the only thing you fight an empire with is another empire. The difference between the kind of America that Hamilton and Adams wanted was one with a different banner than Britain, but not much else. Jefferson was a little better and was able to keep the damned Rothschild cartel out of America for a while, a job later assumed by Andrew Jackson, but like Jackson his policy was loaded with double standards, especially when it came to the idea of expansion via military action in the west.

The best among the Founding Fathers were barred from any real power, and the best among those that remained like Charles Carroll of Carrollton lost credibility when they opposed the war of 1812. Essentially the battle came down to two sides who were almost as bad as each other afterward, Confederation types who wanted to maintain a strong state system but wouldn't let go of the practice of owning slaves, and the tyrannical Union supporters who were the precursor to modern globalism. If I'd lived during those times I probably would have sought refuge in Utah with the Mormons, although they were eventually forced into this tyrannical system with similar threats of military aggression that are used to keep poor 3rd world nations in line.

I have no clue why you even bothered to type all that. That has no bearing on what I was saying.

Unfortunately mate, if the American economy fails, the world economy will crumble with it. That's what happens when us piggy capitalists stick our grubby hands in everything.

True, we are feeling the pinch too, I dare say things had gotten bad as early as the beginning of the year but the Govt did its best to keep it under wraps so as to not drive away potential investors. A combination of a credit card economy that allows you to live beyond your means, free access to speculative markets as a source of income and a widespread lack of accountability at the highest levels is a recipe for disaster, so - in hindsight of course! - it's no surprise things have got as bad as they are.

More control was given to professional executives and shareholders rather than the business barons themselves to ensure transparency but what do you do when the dream of a ranch/yacht/ any other rich man's toy drives an executive to greedy, short-sighted decision-making? Transparency and accountability cannot be institutionalized and the day will never come when one cannot fudge the books anymore - take it from a professional. Yes, you can make stricter and stricter rules but you cannot seal all the loopholes no matter how hard you try. It has to come from within but ah, if people always did the right thing, the world would be a different place, for better or worse.

I must mention here that when the whole crisis snowballed, the first thing that many Indians would have thought of is the countless articles written in biz magazines urging Indian companies to give up family-based management and adopt professional management (even the biggest Indian companies with turnover running into billions of dollars have a family heir at the helm) and how professional management could not stop the crisis in the US. Well, what do we know, it transpired that a blue chip Indian software company - family run again- tried to buy out two real estate companies owned by the chairman (real estate companies are in trouble and are being denied fresh credit by banks, so this is a way to give an interest-free loan more than anything). The shareholders voted with their feet and the stock crashed before the company backed out of the deal giving vague reasons that fooled nobody. I don't know what it proves other than that greed and corruption have little to do with laws or organizational setup or the like.

The whole thing started to go downhill not long after the Founding Fathers turned things over to the Founding Sons. The first generation of American leaders that were not originally British citizens just didn't have the same take on government. For that matter, the first generation of American citizens that were not British subjects didn't either.

The Founding Fathers all came from a system of noble rule, which says that if you're from a certain family line you get to be in charge of things, just because. There wasn't inherently anything wrong with British Common Law, except that there was always that noble/common divide that colored everything they did, including governing and the practice & application of the law.

So they basically swiped British Common Law, and wrote in a bunch of exceptions aimed at eliminating the idea of nobility, and called it a new system of government. For example, in Common Law, only members of the nobility could openly bear arms, which typically referred to a sword. So the Founding Fathers made bearing arms fine for everyone - not that they wanted to carry swords, they just didn't want to be told they couldn't.

Most of the US Constitution is verbage aimed at firing a torpedo into the side of the nobility. That's why the rest of the world thought they were nuts.

The next generation, however, weren't rebelling from monarchies. And they were the first generation of a non-noble society, in which they could be the children of statesmen, generals, industrialists, etc, and not automatically be granted high status themselves, for doing nothing except being born. This didn't sit well, because the practice of nobility had been de-legitimized maybe, but the idea had not.

So began American politics - the pursuit of nobility vs. the tyranny of the majority - both sides pursing gains to which they feel entitled, for essentially no reason.

Money in and of itself is the problem, I think; although it would be hard for anyone to come up with a valid base for an economy beyond money. A resource-based economy would be ideal, but humans are greedy pigs by nature. We will do whatever we can to further ourselves at any expense, it seems.

Money is king, especially in today's day and age where people believe they are entitled to everything, and that, simply because their buddy at work has a big HDTV with a Bose surround-sound system and a Ford Excursion, he should too, irregardless of whether or not he can afford it. Credit is an amazing thing, ne?

Money, in its purest form, is an extension of barter, whereby money substitutes gold or other precious objects.

That is the classical definition, but it is insufficient to describe all aspects of money because it doesn't explain the origin of interest. According to newer Keynesian theory, money really has its origin in IOUs -- that is, in credit with interest --, which are in fact historically earlier than bullion as a means of exchange and far earlier than coinage; they were already used in the temple economies of ancient Babylonia and denominated in amounts of grain. Basically, someone whose crop had failed could borrow grain from someone else, to be paid back after the next harvest, with interest. The amount of grain borrowed and the interest were written down on clay tablets, which were stored at the central temple of the community. These tablets, and the credit plus interest they represented, could then be traded by the creditor for goods if he found himself in short supply. Money is thus really a commodity not much different from other commodities; it can be bought and sold (in the form of credit), and is paid for with interest.

I don't think that emulating the corrupt system of Babylon is the way to go, and although systems of credit and interest may not be inherently evil, they are heavily prone to usury and fraud, which is where most of our problems lay. A system based upon credit is destined to destroy itself, and a society that lives it's economic life solely on credit is a society that owns nothing.

Hence purest form. With fiat and central banks and fractional reserve and all of the other financial banes of today, that definition is inadequate. In most any modern monetary system, the amount of physical money in circulation roughly accounts for the principle of overall debt, but not the interest. With such practices, debts are impossible to wholly pay off. Of course, I think the simpler system, the one whose definition of currency falls short of what money has been molded into today, is the far superior one.