'The Great Gadfly'- THE American novel of the Whimpering '10s

We wonder if it is by mere coincidence or some sadistic irony, but there will be released in the very near future, an updated version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic 'The Great Gatsby' starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Maybe it will be a great film.. maybe it won't.

Our interest is not to critique or compare to the original with Robert Redford.  You the reader will go (or not go) see it for yourself.

What gives as we see it, a darkened humor is "Gatsby" is seen by many as the book the best captures the essence of that era, the Roaring 20's -- seen by many as a carefree time when the champagne would keep flowing, the music would never stop playing and Wall Street simply could do no wrong.

And it is amazing to us that in a little over 4 years, we've gone as a nation from openly admitting we were in a serious recession-depression with real problems requiring real solutions to this utter delirium of exuberance...

 This desperate desire to pretend all is well and relive the glory years of the post WWI era based on an artificial (i.e. fixed, rigged, manipulated, phony, false, fake...) stock market!

The con is like a drug; its too pleasurable to fight..

All that delicious cheap money just flowing what appears like water down a meandering stream for all to believe will mean acquiring their fair share to quench their 'thirst'..

The illusion that all is now well is too good to open eyes and see that its really a tributary; the water is meant to flow Toward the bigger 'parent' stream... to the 'Big Boys'.. not down to you...

Its just too difficult for most to see right now.

Vision is blocked by a ginormous American flag and the deafening sounds of 'God Bless America' repeated without let-up as the stock market rises while genuinely bad men and women called politicians thump their chest with pride at the illusionary 'success' they did nothing to create.

Fitzgerald wrote 'Gatsby' in 1922 so there's no references or inferences in the book to an enormous market crash seven years afterward, wiping this period of history into the trash heap of kitsch nostalgia.

The period, as offensive as it was to Fitzgerald while living through it feels so quaint today; so safe.  A bit of sadness reading or watching the film and knowing in such a short time, many of these wretched creatures having the time of their lives without a care in the world on someone else's dime would end up penniless or broken shells of their former selves.

Some would find the adjustment to the new world so difficult, so unprepared as they were for it... their despondency would end up with bullets; shots through the brow.

One day there will be the Great American Novel written about this period-- we'll call it the Whimpering '10s and the book, 'The Great Gadfly'.

And what will be said?  Will it be written in the 'now' -- when the Fed's monthly $85 billion party had no end and the music played on and on?

Or will this novel encapsulating the time be written in a couple years-- when the stock market bubble popped and its effects were felt far worse and far more prolonged than anything we've seen before?

Will Ben Bernanke be written as a hero who saved the world?

Or as an utter piece of shit Bastard deserving of a fate involving molten-hot sticky tar and feathers; the main saboteur in causing its demise of true capitalism, while opening the doors to fascism, communism and all the Rots of the 20th century we fought a war with tens of millions dead to end?

And who will be our modern 'Gadfly'?

A derivatives trader who made all his fortune on inside information?  Or a professional investor who made his riches via privatization;  profiting off the desperation of a small nation's crumbling economy by buying up their airports, trains, lottery, turnpikes... Anything that generate revenue that would normally go back to a nation's populace...

And should the writer of this future Award-Winning novel focus on the 'good ol' days of 2012-2013 when anyone with merely a pulse could secure tens & tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, and anyone could buy a home or car with minimal down while securing insanely low interest rates?

Probably..  Too depressing we expect to be writing on the future when it does becomes a reality.

There's something about history... one sees problems of that day it seems so easily fixable.

'If only there was a time machine', one argues... 'Then I'd go back and prevent the Civil War or fix it so the market never crashes in October 1929 or go back and kill Hitler'

Life just doesn't seem to work that way.

Forget the imagination of time travel... Here we are in 2013.  We know the specific culprits who are destroying the global economy.  In the US, its Bernanke but its coordinated with the central banks of Britain, Continental Europe, China, Japan, Australia, etc..

A small cabal of men (and maybe women) creating such an enormous bubble that when popped will affect just about every man, woman and child on the planet...

We know who they are.. generally speaking, we know where they reside.. And yet..  Nothing.  There's simply no way of stopping them.. Of stopping IT..  There's no groundswell.. no movement..  People are utterly clueless with few exceptions.

And many who know; who are in the know.. they are profiting far too much to ever dare to suggest openly its best to end it..

That is the true Bitch of history.. and of life.

We're living through one great big stock market party.. One very few have been invited to partake in but shown for all the nation and world to see.

And like all grande galas and extravagant affairs of the elite, once it is over and guests flee for grander pastures, its always Others that are to clean up the mess..

Always others.

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