Is there something wrong with speculation? Definitely not, as long as the winnings and losses are completedly restricted to the speculator. But how much of the actual speculation funnels the winnings to the speculator and the losses to you and me?

Do the revelations of shady deals by banks, real estate, insurance companies, governmental agencies and the trillions of tax money to speculate on an uncertain future, all to be paid with public money bring up the questions: How is this possible? Where is the justice?

The answer is, there is no justice. Privacy requirements of the monetary system prevent accountability. Some feeble efforts, basically made to give the impression of corrective action, will bring no meaningful change. The basic set-up of keeping financial operations in the dark remains firmly in place and therefore corrective efforts in all areas remain toothless.

Only when enough people, regarless of party or religious affiliation, recognize that financial opaqueness is the root of all evil and demand correction now, will there be a possibility of improvement. Otherwise our fate will remain in the hands of the pokering illusionists.

GUNTER MILOW

Coeur d’Alene