speculators unhinged 'speculators, meanwhile, have seized control of the global economy and the levers of political power. they have weakened and emasculated governments to serve their lust for profit. they have turned the press into courtiers, corrupted the courts, and hollowed out public institutions, including universities...they feed like parasites off of the state and the resources of the planet. speculators at megabanks and investment firms such as goldman sachs are not, in a strict sense, capitalists. they do not make money from the means of production. rather, they ignore or rewrite the law - ostensibly put in place to protect the weak from the powerful - to steal from everyone, including their own shareholders. they produce nothing. they make nothing. they only manipulate money. they are no different form the detested speculators who were hanged in the seventeenth century, when speculation was a capital offense. the obscenity of their wealth is matched by their utter lack of concern for the growing numbers of the destitute. in early 2014, the worlds' 200 richest people make $13.9 billion, IN ONE DAY, according to bloomberg's billionaires index. this hoarding of money by the elites, according to the ruling economic model, is supposed to make us all better off, but in fact the opposite happens when wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals and corporations, as economist thomas piketty documents in his book 'capital in the twenty-first century.' the rest of us have little or no influence over how we are governed, and our wages stagnate or decline. underemployment and unemployment become chronic. social services, from welfare to social security, are slashed in the name of austerity. government, in the hands of speculators, is a protection racket for corporations and a small group of oligarchs. and the longer we play by their rules the more impoverished and oppressed we become.' - chris hedges 171205 what's it to you? who go blather from