Warning! Warning! Pontification about to commence! Warning! Warning! You've been warned.
The government isn't owned by the banks. If anything they own each other. The banks, financial institutions, multinational corporations (big oil, big pharma, big media), etc. and governments, including the US, are all made up of the same people working for the same ends. Those ends are amassing as much money for themselves as they can but more importantly as much power over other people as they can. They both love regulations. That's right, big business loves regulation. It keeps other players out of the game and they use their political connections to avoid them. Government loves regulation because it gives elected officials and their vast, nameless, faceless, brainless, and useless army of life long bureaucrats control over people who actually matter; namely you and me. Big governments also love big businesses. Small businesses are more independent and there are lots of them which make them hard to control. There are much fewer big businesses and they are beholden to the establishment; if they want to stay in business they better play the game. And if they don't have big businesses they make big businesses; forced mergers, nationalization, workers co-opts, etc. Also any good student of Marx knows that you start with capitalism, transition to socialism, and then end up with communism. The theory being that the capitalist system is unfair and the rich get richer and the poor get poorer (which makes no sense. If you have nothing how can you have less?). Anyway, the poor majority eventually gets the government to intervene and get the rich minority under control (socialism). But that isn't good enough because some still have more then others and that just won't do so communism brakes out (and even according to Marx this should be bloody and destructive). Here's the problem, in capitalism the rich get richer and the poor get richer (just look at the occupiers complaining about how everything is unfair and they don't have enough while they check their email on their $200 iPhone, sip a $6 half caf soy milk latte, and try to figure out what to do with their $100,000 art history degree. They don't need the 1% to pay their fair share, they need a punch in the face the spoiled little brats). Then there's socialism, the system where government bureaucrats with no understanding of the real world try to force businesses to do things that make no economic sense. Yeah, that's a winner. Oh, and what about communism. Well, let's look at its track record. The USSR; doesn't exist anymore. The numerous Eastern Bloc countries; the smart ones have run from it as fast as they can while others tried communism lite (aka socialism) and done jack squat. China; now the second largest CAPITALIST economy in the world. North Korea; do I really need to say anything? Vietnam; they make a great soccer ball. Cuba; if you want a 1958 Buick with a 1954 Chevy engine and 1953 Pontiac transmission in it... Cambodia; 1 out of 3 Cambodians would probably vote against it if they weren't dead. So where does that leave us? In a nutshell it comes down to one word: dependence. Who do you want to depend on; yourself or the government? The less power you give to government the less power you give to big business and the more power you keep for yourself. All other opinions and theories are wrong. Cestusrex has spoken! End transmission.
