America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes out as jet fighters, DEA agents, wheat subsidies and Medicare, plus pensions and bennies for that great untamed socialist menace called a unionized public-sector workforce that Republicans are always complaining about. According to popular legend, we’re broke and in so much debt that 40 years from now our granddaughters will still be hooking on weekends to pay the medical bills of this year’s retirees from the IRS, the SEC and the Department of Energy.
Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?
Most Americans know about that budget. What they don’t know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden bailout programs, it eventually rivaled the “official” budget in size — a huge roaring river of cash flowing out of the Federal Reserve to destinations neither chosen by the president nor reviewed by Congress, but instead handed out by fiat by unelected Fed officials using a seemingly nonsensical and apparently unknowable methodology.
This article appears in the April 28, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue will be available on newsstands and in the online archive April 15.
Read the rest of it here.
Beyond Money 
Robert,
I’m not a big a fan of transparency as a solution. Most things are very complex these days — and a superficial understanding is insufficient for making good decisions. I’ve read enough economics, history, business, and science to know that I’m poorly qualified to make most decisions — but it took quite a bit of education to gain that understanding.
So I’d rather see a truly functioning government. Nothing like our current government, but one where expertise could be brought to bear on the problems. I imagine some “super-board” like structure for every “business function” that has public, business, and domain experts.
Until we get real change, I don’t see how we can stop the wealthy.
LikeLike
Isn’t it amazing? Seems like the more that we think we “discover” / “Learn” the more we find we do not know about.
Would be great to have a transparent world where all the “Big Wheels” were not trying to hide all of their illegal plans and schemes from the people that they are supposed to be “serving”
LikeLike