Human civilization has always existed as one gigantic pyramid scheme.
A few individuals have possessed the innovative ideas, or charismatic power with good weapons, or sufficient capital funds, or often just, the right family connections to put their genius into operation. With some tact and personable skills, they could transform any successful corporate body, political, economic or both.
Those people have represented the chosen few of the political-economic elites, or the sociopolitical elect. The rest of humanity has had to struggle for survival, perform the daily crap labor, and ultimately, suffer the strangulation of their energy and the sapping of their human dignity – and then they just drop dead. Such is the melancholy absurdity, which parasites off our painful existence.
Throughout the schemes of human history, about 10,000 years so far, the pyramid schemes of family dynasties, royal blood lines, wars of conquests, slavery systems, ethno-state religions and stable market commodities, have nonetheless helped particular geographic populations reinforce social ties. Those same schemes also allowed non-conformists some cultural spaces for creativity. This ancient system of reciprocity and cohesion does not exist anymore.
Now, under Global Monopoly Capitalism, the political-economic elites who rule over such an infernal system don’t care if some pathetic, lower class person loses his or her job, house, land, savings, freedom, family, money and even physical health.
The Modern State and International Capital has declared a nasty war against the poor and the frugal. This fetid scenario is nowhere more apparent inside the monster of the Amerikan Empire.
How could I become so stupid? This is one of the interior screams that woeful American graduate students make after so many years slaving inside a doctoral program. What shocked me when I was attending graduate school was not so much the scam Liberal Arts program that took away my money, paid me terribly, and would never give me a decent job in the future; rather, it was the entire pyramid structure of the American university operation.
I attended a western state land grant university, a so-called non-profit, state associated entity. That institution was anything but ‘not for profit’ – rather everything functioned as a shameless profit scam. The marks of the institution were the students, which included the graduate students, such as myself.
The professional administrator class comprised the Chancellors, Regents, the President, Presidential aides, Vice presidents, Provosts, Vice Provosts, Directors, Associate Directors, Assistant Directors, Deans, Assistant Deans, and multiple other ‘non-profit’ Executive ‘Assistants’ who completely ran the joint.
They all made high six figure salaries and had excellent, full benefits, including the university donut cops on the beat. It was like entering the old Communist Party run dictatorships of Eastern Europe. The Executive bureaucracy ruled everything and had absolutely no oversight. Their will was law on campus.
Although those bosses championed hard work – none of them did any work! They didn’t teach any classes, and instead, would attend multiple meetings-retreats with bogus themes on development, construction, alumni, strategy, grants and mission. These same slackers would then spam multiple e-mails to the campus wide university net. Their hours and schedules were always flexible – and they never had any contacts with students – except for the badly paid student workers that filed their office papers.
Why did supposedly intelligent people, such as myself, venture into such a scam and trap? We students and staff workers wanted a possible better job in the future with the hundreds of flim flam degrees that the higher education system promised us. We were simply fools for the education bait.
The American University offered choices, yet most of the degrees had many required classes to take. Some of the classes had nothing to do with the degree subject. But students had to plow through the course loads, and many of the courses had offerings only one time per school year, so if a student missed a required course, then this often sent the student back another year. Students found it hard to graduate within four years.
At the same time, the university administrators kept railing about austerity on the campus, while they would jack up the tuition costs each successive year. By the end of my studies, the tuition doubled to outrageous levels. Students had to sign for more student loans often recommended by ‘financial aid’ advisers that had special contacts with the same debt slavery banks giving out the extortion rates!
The admins inflated the products sold on the campus – and later sold them as sub-standard items, such as parking garages, and the crappy food services, often served through illegal alien workers. Illegal aliens also performed the general cleaning services. For most of the other ‘academic’ services, the university hired the debt ridden undergraduate students to perform minimum wage labor, usually in the libraries and bureaucratic offices.
The university further penalized students through its myriad of bogus fess or regressive taxation schemes, such as registration fees, late fees, special course fees, laboratory fees, teaching instruction fees, classroom fees, graduation fees, etc. The university bookstore was the most shameless entity involved in price inflation.
For the teaching loads, this same university hired many part-time adjunks to teach the multiple, university level, Liberal Arts courses. Some adjunks even received less than 1000$ per for four months of teaching! In the Sciences, the departments relied heavily on foreign graduate students possessing foreign student-worker visas to perform the menial laboratory work. For such a cheap salary, the science departments worked them late into the early morning hours.
The American Higher Education industry has operated as the greatest pyramid scheme in recent modern history. The students willing paid for courses that the administrators, with no teaching experience, recommended. Next, the students entered into a lifetime of debt slavery, finally receiving a flim flam paper degree. Ultimately, most students encountered no good job prospects after graduations. And yet, they had to pay back the interest on the loans that would stay with them for the rest of their miserable lives! Meanwhile, the university administrators lived it up, did no useful work and enjoyed the six figure salary lifestyle.
This Amerikan, imperial political economy represents the world epicenter of pyramid scheme-scams. Every single institution within the capitalist nightmare of the United States operates under the same rubrics of extreme fraud and shameless swindle. The more flagrant abuses and profits, the better the organization. And why not, the federal, state and municipal governments get away with such extravagant legal crimes!
A pyramid scheme is simply a dishonest job situation where the one’s running the ‘business’ make sure that the profit comes out of the pockets from the duped marks. Those businesses offer no production of value, while they generally do produce shoddy products. The purpose of the business is not mass production, but committing legal fraud against the same workers who often receive no salary, or very low money, for their labor.
The only way to avoid such a scenario is either to become a homeless, traveling bum or just try to get scammed rarely, so that a little capital remains for survival. Unfortunately, we have more examples inside the imperial monster.
US military recruiters target working class saps for a disciplined military life, which includes free work training and a good step into the corporate world. The willing marks forget the most serious tradeoffs inside of this shell game: they all enter as enlisted servants. When a typical civilian enters the US military, regardless of their educational background, they willingly sell themselves as contracted slaves. Once they sign the contract, the US government now controls and owns their actual bodies and minds.
Any military officer can order an enlisted slave to clean the toilets, mow the lawns, clean the decks, spit shine the floors, rearrange bricks, police field areas, or clean a naval or artillery gun. The enlisted slave has to obey the orders, or they will receive a court-martial and an eventual bad paper discharge.
Meanwhile, the top officers receive six figure salaries, have full social privileges on base, get the best benefits including good medical services, and every few years, when the US government starts another war, they rise up quickly in rank, yet they don’t have to risk their lives in the ugly combat arena.
Corporate banks have accounts with almost no interest whatsoever, yet they use the deposit money for their own financial investments. This same bank then punishes the depositor through a myriad of fees and fines: late checks, low balances, excessive account changes, little account use, debit card limitations, bank card withdrawals, etc. For many working class Americans, they cannot even open a minimum deposit bank account, so they have to use the Check Cashing-Instant Cash scam outfits that regularly use extortion loans in order to steal people’s personal properties.
Most American Job scams demand years of experience, yet most applicants don’t have the necessary years of experience that the bosses demand. The executive managers push a particular fraud where they can receive legal slave labor, or otherwise called, unpaid internships. The applicant thinks they are getting experience, yet they destroy their personal dignity by becoming pathetic slaves with no remuneration whatsoever. This horrible con is all legal. The corporate executives laugh as they receive their humongous annual bonuses.
For purchasing housing mortgages and new autos, the willing marks forget that their payments go straight to the bank. As they pay the monthly installments, about a hundred times more than what the actual house or vehicle is worth, the bank-dealer ‘property’ depreciates. Meanwhile, they must pay another interest rate scam on top of the depreciating payments, plus any other incurring fees that come with the purchase. By the time, the signer reads the full contract, the fees will also increase over time. Any missed payment throws the debt slave into economic limbo, and the banks can later seize the property permanently. All of the previous payments result in nothing to own.
In order to drive any vehicle or pay taxes without penalties, all Americans must pay for mandated insurance. The insurance companies through the violence of the State force all Americans to purchase outrageously priced premiums. Even with some hefty payments, Americans must still pay high auto and medical services. In the case of autos, any points on the driving record, will shoot the rate high into the sky. The corporate hospitals also jack up the prices on basic services, including everything from bandages to talking to a medical doctor. The hospital, insurance and auto dealer owners all enjoy superior profits.
Supermarket chains have most of their cheap GMO products listed with the 99 cents category and often add their ‘low prices’ for only those clientele that have the pre-purchased scam ‘discount card,’ so a 7.99 product with the taxes included often comes to around 10$.
Restaurants, bars and cafes will describe regular dishes with flowery and foreign words on their menus in order to raise their prices. The server also has to push expensive drinks on to the customers. Yet, the customers are the ones that pay most of the salaries of the employees. Americans usually pay 20% over the final check, including taxes, all included as the server’s tips! Meanwhile, the owners receive the bulk of the inflated profits, after purchasing cheaply distributed GMO foods.
Using the American Legal conundrum is a complete sham. All American legal services require multiple layers of fees, and even in small claims court. In order to fight a brutal prosecution of a felony, the defendant needs a good attorney, which will cost thousands of dollars. If the person languishes in jail, then he or she will need a bail bond, which can cost up to tens of thousands of dollars. if the perpetrator does not have the money, then the victim could suffer in jail for a while – a very long while. Nowadays, trials are not speedy, and the pre-trial prison term can cover up to a year!
If a defendant receives a misdemeanor conviction, then he or she will receive a probationary period that requires thousands of dollars in payments, and this is especially true for DUIs. If the convict receives a parole sentence after leaving prison, then the convict must also make both monetary payments and time payments to the parole officer. Any parole violation will put the prisoner back into the prison gulag. Yet, all convictions are permanent stains on the person’s public record, so it is almost impossible to receive a job or a stable residence. The judges, wardens, police lieutenants and state prosecutors continue to receive their six-figure salaries – regardless of any previous legal misconduct.
Even the Amerikan Voting system, or political selections, is a hoax. Americans have a choice of two self-promoted, wealthy individuals that represent only two parties, both of which, support and prop up this whole pyramid scheme political-economic system. The parties select the hack who seems to represent the most winnable candidate, while the person running for office will change their positions constantly in order to get the six-figure paying position.
There are a lot more pyramid schemes within the Amerikan Empire, from double dipping cell phone services to high-rocket charging, city utility services. The Amerikan Nightmare persists and gloats in twisting, torturing its poorer victims. A few poor souls just give up and choose the route of honorable suicide. They know that Amerikan society has nothing more to offer.
There is nothing we can do, and this unjust and cruel political-economic system will only get worse – as the global capitalist economy drops further into its terrible, recurring depressions. The sociopaths in power don’t care anymore.
For us, we can only recite the truth and publicly condemn this whole, criminal, violent, imperial monster. So let us proclaim the truth: the Amerikan Empire exists as the most profound depravity of evil that human history has ever witnessed and experienced.
Guns and Anarchy 