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The American Dream is Over, It Was A Wonderful Life

Politics / US Politics Mar 19, 2010 - 03:27 AM GMT

By: James_Quinn






The movie’s setting takes place between 1910 and Christmas Eve 1946 in the mythical town of Bedford Falls. The basis for the town was Seneca Falls, New York. The themes of the movie are good versus evil, David versus Goliath, egocentric self interest versus contributing to the greater community, good small town bankers versus bad corporate bankers, and whether one person’s life has a greater meaning.  The movie opens with God hearing the many prayers for George Bailey from the townspeople of Bedford Falls on Christmas Eve 1946. He assigns Clarence, angel second class, to save George. Joseph, the head angel, reviews George’s life for Clarence.  At the age of 12, George saved the life of his younger brother Harry who had fallen through the ice on a pond, with George losing the hearing in one ear. Later, as an errand boy in a pharmacy, George saved his grief-stricken boss, druggist Mr. Gower, from mistakenly filling a child's prescription with poison.

George's lifelong dream was to see the world. On Harry's graduation night in 1928, George’s father, who runs the local Building & Loan had a stroke, which proved fatal. Mr. Potter, a heartless slumlord and majority shareholder in the Building and Loan, tries to persuade the board of directors to stop providing home loans for the working poor. George persuaded them to reject Potter's proposal, but they agreed only on the condition that George himself run the Building and Loan. He selflessly gave his college money to his brother.

When Harry graduated from college, he unexpectedly brought home a wife, whose father had offered Harry an excellent job in his company. George could not deny his brother such a fine opportunity. Once more, George set aside his ambitions.

After their wedding, as George and Mary leave town for their honeymoon, they witnessed a run on the bank that left the Building and Loan in danger of collapse. Potter offered George's clients "50 cents on the dollar," but George and Mary quelled the panic by using the $2,000 earmarked for their honeymoon to satisfy the depositors' needs until confidence in the Building and Loan was restored. George started up Bailey Park, an affordable housing project. Residents no longer had to pay Potter's high rents. When World War II erupted, George was unable to enlist, due to his bad ear. Harry became a fighter pilot and was awarded the Medal of Honor for shooting down 15 enemy aircraft, including one that would have slammed into a U.S. transport ship full of troops.

On Christmas Eve, 1946, Uncle Billy was on his way to deposit $8,000 for the Building and Loan when he ran into Mr. Potter. He proudly showed Potter the front-page article about Harry receiving the Medal of Honor. Potter grabs the newspaper angrily and later discovers the money inside; he keeps it. When Uncle Billy goes to deposit the money, he finally realizes it is missing. Frantic searching fails to turn it up. In desperation, George appeals to Potter for a loan to save the company, but Potter turns him down and swears out a warrant for his arrest for bank fraud.

George, facing "scandal and bankruptcy and prison", gets drunk to escape his woes. Driving wildly in a snowstorm, he crashes his car into a tree near a river. Completely devastated, George staggers to a bridge that spans the river, intending to commit suicide, and feeling he is "worth more dead than alive" because of a $15,000 life insurance policy. Before George can leap in, however, Clarence jumps in first and pretends to be drowning. After George rescues him, he reveals himself to be George's guardian angel. Clarence then proceeds to show George how many lives would have been changed for the worse if George had never been born. The scene that convinces George he needs to live is seeing his younger brother’s tombstone showing 1902 – 1911. 

[George has discovered his brother Harry's tombstone]





The Idea of America


The Founding Fathers risked their lives in order to escape the tyranny and imperial oppressiveness of the British Empire. They dreamed of a country where all men were created equal. They believed that all citizens were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among them were Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. They did their best to create a country where everyone had an equal opportunity to succeed or fail.  It is said that, at the close of the Constitutional Convention, a woman approached Benjamin Franklin and asked him what type of government had been decided upon by the delegates. Franklin stated:


Franklin also deemed that the Constitution could only endure as long as the citizens themselves could sustain it:


The men who created this Republic were practical realists. They were skeptical of all forms of government. They knew that a government would only be as good and honorable as the people who represented the citizens. It was up to the citizens to keep those they elected from abusing their power. Each generation, each individual, needed to pay this price anew each and every day. In the words of Thomas Paine, "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it." For many decades the citizens did undergo the fatigues of supporting it. They defeated the British in the War of 1812. They spilled the blood of 600,000 men in the War Between the States. They died in the trenches of France in World War I. They saved the world from Nazism and Fascism in World War II. Despite these remarkable sacrifices, the idea of America has been lost along the journey. The American Dream has become a nightmare as we have allowed individualism, materialism and selfish greed to override being a good citizen, good neighbor, and going as far as your ability and hard work would take you.






Niall Ferguson, Harvard historian, recently detailed that the choices and decisions we’ve made as a nation have put us on a path of collapse. The believers in American Exceptionalism think it is sacrilege to mention the decline of the American Empire. They estimate that any decline would play out over a century or more. Ferguson notes the widely held belief that:


But what if they are wrong? What if the speed of the modern world also translates into the speed of declines? Ferguson understands that any grain of sand that falls on an instable portion of the sand pile can lead to collapse:

“What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night? Great powers are complex systems. There comes a moment when complex systems ‘go critical.’ A very small trigger can set off a ‘phase transition’ from a benign equilibrium to a crisis -- a single grain of sand causes a whole pile to collapse.”

Lack of courage, political corruption, greed, immorality, laziness, and materiality has left the country on the brink. Ferguson assesses the facts and concludes that collapse of the American Empire is closer than most people think:

“Most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises. Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly indeed as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2010 of more than $1.5 trillion -- about 11% of GDP, the biggest since World War II. A complex adaptive system is in big trouble when its component parts lose faith in its viability. Empires behave like all complex adaptive systems. They function in apparent equilibrium for some unknowable period. And then, quite abruptly, they collapse.”

How did we get to this point? In 1946 America sat on top of the world.

America – 1946 – Bedford Falls

“There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.” – wight D. Eisenhower

Europe, Russia, and Japan were devastated by World War II. Their populations, cities, infrastructure and industries were ravaged. Only America remained unscathed by war. The rest of the world looked to the U.S. to lead and be the beacon of light on the hill as the shining example of capitalism, freedom, and morality. As the only country whose manufacturing base was still intact, America had huge economic advantages. Despite these advantages, the seeds of destruction were being planted. Almost 30% of our economy was based upon producing things the rest of the world wanted to buy. Another 12% of GDP was from the productive functions of agriculture and mining. Americans were settling into their post-war suburban oasis, leading to 15% of the economy being driven by retail & wholesale sales. Finance and professional services accounted for only 14% of the economy. Today, manufacturing accounts for 11% of the economy, while finance & professional services account for 33% of the economy. This dramatic shift has had a profound effect on the nation.



The tension between big business and small business is clearly defined in the movie. Frank Capra concludes that allowing bankers to control a society would result in a sordid, dark, ruthless, selfish, materialistic culture. Amazingly, the FBI thought otherwise. It may shock you that our government didn’t like the movie so much. The FBI considered the theme of the movie to be pro-Communism propaganda. A report was written by the FBI stating that the portrayal of bankers and the rich was part of a Hollywood Communist plot. Here is a portion of the actual report:

There is submitted herewith the running memorandum concerning Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry which has been brought up to date as of May 26, 1947.... With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life", our source stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists. In addition, our source stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. He related that if he made this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this individual to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank Examiner in connection with making loans. Further, he stated that the scene wouldn't have "suffered at all" in portraying the banker as a man who was protecting funds put in his care by private individuals and adhering to the rules governing the loan of that money rather than portraying the part as it was shown. In summary, he stated that it was not necessary to make the banker such a mean character and "I would never have done it that way."

As you watch this film next Christmas, remember that it is not a poignant story about how each of us, no matter how apparently insignificant, has the power to make a difference, and that the measure of our humanity has nothing to do with fame or money, but with how we live our life on a day-to-day basis. Remember, it doesn’t teach us that family, friendship, and virtue are the true definitions of wealth. It is proclaiming the Marxist view of the world. The absurdity of this government report in 1947 was a warning that our leaders would come down on the side of big banks in the coming decades. The point of the movie, that money won’t buy happiness and that good works are more important than consumerism, was cast aside by America with assistance from the bankers who control the Federal Reserve. The result is a country of bureaucrats, paper pushers, and government lackeys, producing nothing and borrowing at ever increasing amounts in order to live the good life today with no thought about tomorrow. The message of materialism has been preached by the holy trinity of bankers, government, and corporate media.

Path of Least Resistance



Americans were lured into believing they could live the good life without making the sacrifices necessary to obtain that life. They chose to take “50 cents on the dollar” from Potter. They borrowed the other 50 cents from Potter and let the Bailey Building & Loan go out of business. In the world Americans have chosen, George Bailey committed suicide. The United States government made a choice too. The politicians who hold the reins of power in America’s Gomorrah, Washington D.C., sold their souls to the devil of fiat currency printed by corrupt bankers. All the power of the Federal Government has been put in the ravenous claws of the Federal Reserve, a private bank owned and controlled by the biggest banks in the world. Politicians hit the jackpot in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve and the institution of an individual income tax. These fateful decisions have allowed slimy depraved elected officials to promise their constituents trillions of dollars in unfunded entitlements, tax credits for their buddies, and promises of safety and security in order to buy votes. The government made a pact with the banking cartel which has unleashed a torrent of debt that has skyrocketed to levels never conceived by the Bedford Falls America of the 1940’s. Net U.S. debt now exceeds $52 trillion, a full 372% more than GDP.

Total U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP now exceeds the levels at the depths of the Great Depression by 24%. Ask yourself who profits from printing money and ever increasing levels of debt. Bankers and politicians profit. Who loses from ever increasing levels of debt? The middle class, who have been ensnared by banker deception and phony promises into the belief that possessing extravagant objects is real wealth while sinking ever deeper into debt, are today’s losers. Unborn future generations who will be stuck with the bill for the Baby Boomer orgy of materialism are the real losers. The current fascination with the affluent, the influential, and the celebrated was not found in Bedford Falls. To Frank Capra, the well-to-do and elite had none of the critical traits to safeguard liberty in America, nor did they display any of the core cultural values the country was built upon. The country was built upon the hard work of small close knit communities supported by small town banks and freedom to succeed or fail without government interference. An entrepreneur with a good idea could attain a higher place in the social order through their brains and work ethic. The choice of government to support monopolistic mega corporations and mega banks has destroyed the vital values of the country. Profit and wealth have become the ends, with the means being inflation and debt.

Credit card debt didn’t exist until the late 1960s because credit cards didn’t exist. Until 1970 Americans bought things by saving money until they accumulated enough to make the purchase. Noble bankers were able to put their luminous minds to the task and created the credit card to “help” all Americans. We are now referred to as consumers rather than citizens. The chart above chronicles the “success” of this banker invention. They didn’t have another such outstanding “success” until the creation of the subprime mortgage, the credit default swap, and the no doc Option ARM. There are 310 million Americans and 1.5 billion credit cards in circulation. The top 10 banks control 88% of the credit card market. Americans owe these banks more than $800 billion. In 1980, at the outset of the great credit hurricane, a credit card application was 700 words and fit on one sheet of paper. Today, a credit card application is 30 pages of unintelligible legalese. Did bankers increase the complexity to help consumers or mislead, bamboozle, and confuse them? I’m sure their motives were honorable.

Comparison between 1980 and 2010 Credit Card Applications

Source: Barry Ritholtz

The ethical bankers are so concerned about young Americans they have managed to issue, on average, 4 credit cards per undergraduate student in the country. They are surely looking out after the best interest of these teenagers. Through devious marketing, with the help of the mainstream media that glorifies the rich and famous, the largest banks in the land convinced a vast majority of Americans they deserved to live like kings. They deserved a McMansion castle, a BMW chariot, a flat screen to watch fools entertain them, and instead of gold coins as real wealth – a gold Amex to create faux wealth. The banking elite hit the jackpot when they “invented” derivatives that allowed them to package credit card and mortgage debt and sell it to unsuspecting suckers. This opened the door to unheard of wealth for the banking elite, as their models told them they could loan money to people who had no chance of paying you back, package the loans, bribe S&P and Moody’s to rate the package of shit as AAA, and sell it to pension funds, small towns, and grandmothers. Wall Street surely cared about their responsibility to the community at large.


America – 2010 – Potterville





The banking elite have been so successful, the average American hasn’t realized their standard of living has been steadily declining for decades. Even using the fraudulent government manipulated CPI, real average weekly earnings are below the level of wages in 1964. Average Americans are making less than they did 46 years ago. In a fascinating coincidence, Alan Greenspan and his minions began “tweaking” the CPI calculation downward in the early 1980’s just as banks opened the spigot on easy revolving credit. Using the true CPI, as calculated by economist John Williams, real weekly earnings are 70% lower than they were in 1964. Revolving credit outstanding per household has risen by 1,100% since 1980. Knowing the average American doesn’t understand the concepts of inflation, interest or debt has allowed bankers and politicians to convince Americans they were getting richer when they were really descending into the abyss.

Here we sit in 2010. We are blessed with 4,300 Wal-Marts, 2,200 Home Depots, 1,500 Lowes, 1,000 Best Buys, 15,000 McDonalds, 11,000 Starbucks and 2 million other retail stores. Americans need to ask themselves whether cheap economy packs of tube socks were worth allowing small town America to disintegrate and blow away. Small businesses that were the heart of America in 1946 have been methodically driven out of business by predatory mega-retailers. The free market capitalists claim this has been good for America. Is it free market capitalism when these companies use their billions to buy politicians, zoning boards, and local officials? The next time you drive through a small town and see boarded up stores, for lease signs, and decaying infrastructure think about the true cost of big business capitalism. Succumbing to corporatism and debt financed materialism has resulted in a society marred by divorce, broken families, decaying cities, drugs, murder and police chases -  the Potterville of It’s a Wonderful Life. Was it worth it?

Sympathy for the Devil



Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

                      Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil

Frank Capra ended his movie on an optimistic note. This makes sense, as the U.S. was just entering a new High. There were bad people in the world, but the good people had just defeated the bad people in a World War. Good people had the support of God and his angels. Every time a bell rang, an angel got their wings. Today, every time a bell rings, a Goldman Sachs banker gets a bonus. The depressing truth is that Capra’s faith in Americans was misplaced. Evil has won out over good. The men of wealth and taste have stolen our souls and our faith. They’ve used their superior knowledge of money and power to obscure the nature of their game. This country was founded upon the rights of the individual, respect for property, freedom to succeed or fail, and power at the local level. Judge for yourself on the political and economic continuum below, where we stand today. I contend that we are much closer to a centralized military corporate fascist state than a true democratic Republic of the people, for the people, and by the people. Both political parties have been successful in shoving us in the direction of big government, corporate & banking oligarchic monopolies, never ending warfare, fiat currency, entitlements for the many, and riches for the few.



Frank Capra thought a suburban oasis, as reflected in Bailey Park, would protect Americans from Henry’s Potter’s nightmare world. He was wrong. America’s suburban sprawl has actually encouraged the onset of Pottersville.  The suburbanization of America corroded much of what remained of community values. With its cookie cutter McMansions, lack of meaningful community space, suburbia fostered not neighborhoods, but individualized rampant consumerism. Americans live next door to people for five years without saying more than hello. This reality made it effortless for Americans to turn inward and disregard all but their own self interest. Instead of community identity flowing smoothly from the communication of citizens and neighbors, as in Bedford Falls, suburbia took on the personality of a sprawling concrete meca of four lane highways, regional malls, power centers, strip centers and stand alone 350,000 sq ft palaces of consumerism. The average family of 2.5 Americans huddles in their 3,500 square foot brick and vinyl castle on ¼ acre of chemical treated land during the week and crosses the drawbridge on the weekends in their $60,000 leased Mercedes SUV chariot to venture out to the jousting matches at the local mall, charging the entertainment on a 4 inch sliver of plastic.





By James Quinn




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