I put your name in the title only because of the artistic look of "wall" coming two times in a row, hope you do not mind as nothing was intended.

Since the Wounded Knee Massacre we have acted as an imperial power or as a full, dominate empire. How did America which started its national life with the Articles of Confederation get to this point? There are many reasons, events, ideologies, and so forth that one can point to in trying to explain this phenomenon.

I contend that the average Joe in the street never wanted to dominate South America or the Caribbean. I contend that invading and taking Hawaii from its people and ruler was never the idea of common folk like my working class bunch. I contend that a semi black opp that tore Panama off from Colombia and gave us the Canal was not highly favored by the main street small 'mom and pop' business.

Who then gains? A whole host of demonic players. However, I think a few of the main players and their motivations can be determined. Rothbard back in 84 (in full anti-Republican mode) blamed Bankers and Industrialists. Many of the so-called "free market" men in America are not in favor of Laissez-faire or "free-market" at all; perish the notion.

Businessmen or manufacturers can either be genuine free enterprisers or statists; they can either make their way on the free market or seek special government favors and privileges. They choose according to their individual preferences and values. But bankers are inherently inclined toward statism.

Commercial bankers, engaged as they are in unsound fractional reserve credit, are, in the free market, always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Hence they are always reaching for government aid and bailout.

Investment bankers do much of their business underwriting government bonds, in the United States and abroad. Therefore, they have a vested interest in promoting deficits and in forcing taxpayers to redeem government debt. Both sets of bankers, then, tend to be tied in with government policy, and try to influence and control government actions in domestic and foreign affairs. ...

After that he launched into a history of our economic driven actions abroad from around 1890 on until his day in 1984.

When people try to figure out who may have done a thing, often you hear the the question, "who benefited from this event?" I think it high time to start asking these questions and listening to all who might have some answer, just like on the anthrax thread. As a young man, Rothbard tried to get the "new left" to join a 'fusion' of groups to oppose the prevailing political rulers. I hope Glenn does better with his 'strange bedfellows' idea that Rothbard did a generation ago.

Our country has never been one where "the people" controlled everything; that is a controlling myth. The people vote between competing lackeys and the choice matters little. The people rarely have ever had the unvarnished truth in front of them to decide, even before the modern era of high levels of government secrecy.

The key is in understanding that money is a commodity, like any other, and thus subject to the laws of the market. A government-granted monopoly in this, the very lifeblood of the economic system, is a recipe for inflation, a debased currency – and the creation of a permanent plutocracy whose power is virtually unlimited. I think I remember that the currency has been debased so that a dollar in 1900 is worth 4 cents today --- but I read that a while ago; may be worse now.

Surging against what? The dollar will buy ever less than the year before. As proof, try to get the millitary to live with the same budget 10 years in a row. No reduction, just no increase. I wonder what they would say?

From one of the numerous sites showing historical inflation:

A 2071% increase is a hard concept to grasp so to put it another way, something that cost $1.00 in 1913 would cost $21.71 today ($1 + $20.71 inflation). Or conversely a dollar today is only worth 4.8¢ in 1913 dollars. In other words the government over the years has stolen 95.2¢ out of every dollar.

If that isn't bad enough, actually the situation is even worse than that. If you look at the chart carefully you will see that inflation was fairly steep during the "teens" from 1913 - 1920. Then during the 1920's and 1930's inflation actually declined.

So actually most of the 2000% inflation occurred since 1940. The average annual inflation rate since 1940 has been 4.11% with the 1940's, the 1970's and the 1980's having 5.63%, 7.09% and 5.55% average annual inflation respectively.

Each of those decades were especially hard economically for people trying to make ends meet while prices increased and wages didn't keep up.

What cost $100 in 1907 would cost $2280.06 in 2007. Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2007 and 1907,they would cost you $100 and $4.51 respectively. All that in only one hundred years. A few humans live that long. They live long enough to see their dollar lose almost all its value!

While overwrought, I can agree with the basic idea. The part you aren't getting, is that for most other countries, political favoritism is the MOST important aspect of business. There is no human system anywhere, that doesn't require the natural form of monopoly, or political favoritism. We just happen to have some of the least.

You are missing the point that we have what is defined as fascism. Leave out all the political connotations or the history of Germany; but fascism is an economic system --- ours. The government and business class merge until you can hardly tell where one begins or the other ends.

Simply saying that we slaves, ah voters, are treated better here than somewhere else is pure meaningless bunk.