"They are very discriminating. They do not purchase back securities of
those enterprises which by their mismanagement they wrecked. They are
sure of getting control of them again for a song during reorganization.
Thus, you are left with many valueless stock and bond certificates and
with a complete loss of your savings. Every ten or fifteen years they
use the same scheme to plunder and to again entrap you, adding new
dupes each time. Your stock market collapse of 1929 was not a natural
phenomenon, but a man-made concerted crime. With their old tactics of
surreptitiously bidding for stocks, they created a boom and a demand
for the securities, until every one of you got the stock-buying fever
and craze. No one of you was immune--the street sweeper, dishwasher,
bellboy, all were becoming rich, pyramiding your stock holdings, and
your paper profits were increasing from day to day. Then the time came
when the financiers generously unloaded the last of their securities on
you, as well as sold you more on short sales. They then stopped bidding
for stocks, taking out the props from under the market and letting it
decline through its own momentum.
"The market was like a large overflowing lake with a weak dam. It burst
and created a flood overwhelming your whole house of cards in your
financial world. It was followed by the most drastic panicky drive
against all commodities and industrial production prices. The crash
brought on ruin by closing weak banks, building and loan companies,
and financial houses. It wiped out the savings of millions of people
through bankruptcies and foreclosures of an unprecedented panic. The
result was a large world wide depression which lasted for years.
"And when you, the public, had finished throwing over securities at the
bottom of market prices, who purchased them? Why, those who originally
sold them to you.
"Not content to rig the stock markets, they also trade and corner
in futures of your most staple commodities. Again, the 'public' is
inveigled, and again you are made the losers, not only in the gambling
losses but also in the increase of your costs of bread, meats, sugar,
coffee, and other necessities.
"These people are more treacherous to each other than wolves. They
would just as soon ruin their own set as not. Their financial
activities according to your laws are not only legal, but very
respectable.
"They are among the most respected of your world. They belong and are
the leaders of not only your most exclusive clubs, and societies, but
are the top members of your so-called high class social world, and live
in the utmost luxury and affluence.
"The Octopus has other mediums in which his tentacles excel. To exploit
from you enormous profits, he craftily and mercilessly by seductive
propaganda, and intensive methods of advertising, subverted and
succeeded in turning 90% of your Earth population toward habits of
indulgence, greatly contributing to your extensive organic diseases,
and early deaths.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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