sung to Galveston oh Galveston ... but I haven't made up the words yet. Thanks for your insight SC ...

 I try to separate life on the farm from those "external" realities of massive financial abuses. But the bad will have to be dealt with it seems ... contractors and politicians consider bribery a way of life, and big banks leverage the greed to enslave the average Joe.  Seems to be happening at every level.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article18573.html

"The destruction of Jefferson County reveals the basic battle plan of these modern barbarians, the way that banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have systematically set out to pillage towns and cities from Pittsburgh to Athens. These guys aren't number-crunching whizzes making smart investments; what they do is find suckers in some municipal-finance department, corner them in complex lose-lose deals and flay them alive. In a complete subversion of free-market principles, they take no risk, score deals based on political influence rather than competition, keep consumers in the dark — and walk away with big money. "It's not high finance," says Taylor, the former bond regulator. "It's low finance." And even if the regulators manage to catch up with them billions of dollars later, the banks just pay a small fine and move on to the next scam. This isn't capitalism. It's nomadic thievery."

As I understand, municipalities can now form corporations, then get loans for huge projects like hydroelectric on the Mississippi. Bunch of local politicians borrowing a couple hundred million to be spread among cronies, backed by the city.  What could possibly go wrong?