87 The Real Game of Missing Money Bottom line: think of a tornado of financial paper and derivatives full of collateral fraud that is sucking up all of the federal cash flows and an increasing amount of all other assets and income flows in a drive toward securitization to keep the ball rolling and to prevent global financial mar- kets from imploding—and, in the process, destroying the fundamental conditions of real wealth. How, exactly, does Congress address this inherent conflict between the centralization of wealth into the securitized tornado and the creation of conditions for a healthy, decentralized economy? Derivatives dependency and blackmail are at the heart of the Congressional fiscal cliff conun- drum. Military Federal finances depend on the U.S. dollar’s status as the global reserve currency and the ability of the Treasury and federal agencies to borrow from and transact in financial markets despite their not complying with the basic standards required of state and local governments and private companies when they access those same markets. This is made possible by the tactical threat and use of force. Essentially, the U.S. military, with its strategic control of sea lanes, space, global trade, and communications, is the enforcement arm for the banking cartel run by the Federal Reserve, as proxy for the U.S. Treasury. These dependencies of the central banks on the military—and of the military on the central banks—make it extremely difficult for the central banks and the military to hold each other to standards of efficient and accountable use of resources. This makes reengineering defense appro- priations a very necessary yet delicate task. Small Business The use of the federal budget to centralize political and economic control has had devastating consequences for small businesses and farms, resulting in significant decreases in employment, income, and household wealth—and, therefore, tax revenues. Government regulation and enforcement (including antitrust policy, health care, food safety rules, and Agenda 21), as well as policies that impact the allocation of capital, are designed to benefit the government, large agribusiness, and corporations at the cost of small business. This is not unrelated to the fact that the greatest source of political contributions comes from capital gains—profits on corporate stocks and bonds, on securities and financial assets, and on real es- tate. Consequently, facilitating large corporate access to federal largesse or promoting policies that allow corporations to increase local market share results in corporate profits that generate cam- paign contributions. Not surprisingly, one recent study, based on data compiled by the Organisa- tion for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), placed the United States second to last out of 22 rich nations in the percentage of workers who run their own businesses. The growth of student loan debt is related to this phenomenon, leaving graduates in a position where they feel pressured to work for the military or large banks and corporations instead of taking entrepreneurial risks and starting or joining small businesses. For a very interesting description of the relationship of the health of small farmers to the domes- tic GNP, see Charles Walters’ fascinating book on the U.S. economy, Unforgiven.