Grift is nothing new, it's existed throughout human history. See for example Herman Melville, "The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade" (1857), which is a catalogue of various kinds of grift common in that era.
If anything has changed much recently, it's that grifters have taken control of the entire system of government and economic activity - they're no longer just a pack of con artists preying on riverboat travellers, but have infiltrated all the branches of government and business and academia in the USA.
Today's most successful grifters are not isolated criminals like SBF, but rather the leading politicians and media talking heads and government bureaucrats and corporate executives who sit at the top of the American Empire - it's a nice example of the systemic institutional corruption seen at the ends of previous Empires, from the Roman to the Byzantine to the French, British and Soviet collapses, and appears to be heading towards the same conclusion.
Ironically this is what conspiracists call "global government" - in reality a network of mafia-like operations kept together by the same interests, spread internationally because the world became so small.
I don't know how you can start out a comment by saying, essentially, that there's nothing new under the sun and then immediately contradict it by saying
"grifters have taken control of the entire system of government and economic activity.. Today's most successful grifters are not isolated criminals like SBF, but rather the leading politicians and media talking heads and government bureaucrats and corporate executives who sit at the top of the American Empire"
Yawn. Cynicism masquerading as insight; all claims and no evidence. An adequate rebuttal to something with so little of a foundation might be "nuh uh"
>it's a nice example of the systemic institutional corruption seen at the ends of previous Empires, from the Roman to the Byzantine to the French
oh my gawd the Roman Empire took 1000 years to fall from the death of Caesar and had been around for 500 years when he was assassinated. If you want to demonstrate complete historical ignorance, definitely reach for the "Fall of the Roman Empire" as part of your fear campaign when describing the world today. There is very little that the US has in common to the singular Classical civilization that your high school history class covered.
it is so obvious that it is a globe-spanning conspiracy by all the leaders, educators, and heads that talk!! you have cracked the case wide open for anyone to see!! how could we have been so blind? do you think also that the sports-celebrities are in on it?
If anything has changed much recently, it's that grifters have taken control of the entire system of government and economic activity - they're no longer just a pack of con artists preying on riverboat travellers, but have infiltrated all the branches of government and business and academia in the USA.
Today's most successful grifters are not isolated criminals like SBF, but rather the leading politicians and media talking heads and government bureaucrats and corporate executives who sit at the top of the American Empire - it's a nice example of the systemic institutional corruption seen at the ends of previous Empires, from the Roman to the Byzantine to the French, British and Soviet collapses, and appears to be heading towards the same conclusion.