Over 15 years ago, Richard Sauder reacted to the announcement of massive GM layoffs much like I did. His piece is no longer online, and neither is the excerpt from it that I shared 16 years ago. But thankfully I preserved some of his excellent analysis, replete with vivid analogies of an economy in decline, to remind us that many astute thinkers warned us of the bleak future that we now know too well. But like a sea of lemmings we blindly followed our fearless leaders over the cliff, because, well, we needed to do as we’re told in order to ‘make a living.’

“The news of the 30,000 jobs that General Motors recently announced it plans to cut caught my attention like a searing brand plunged deep into my mind.”

“[T}he United States … is rapidly deindustrializing, in large degree as a consequence of … so-called Free Trade agreements … such as NAFTA, CAFTA and the WTO which have made capital and entire industries very portable internationally, to the considerable detriment of workers at home and abroad.”

“[S]ociopaths are running most of the major governments of the world, and most of the major industries and financial institutions, and sociopaths are not much interested in mutual uplift and global benefit for the great bulk of the human race . . . [they] are primarily interested in war, plunder, destruction, cruel domination, violent subjugation, and ruthless social control.”

“Essentially, the entire nation is in hock. We’ve been pawned.”

“We are already exporting astronomical quantities of American currency, and millions of jobs to go with the big bucks. The printing presses are running madly 24/7 the year around. The American government, allied with the high finance sector of the economy, has conspired to sell us out to the highest bidders“

“[T]he United States is positively awash in a tsunami of imported merchandise…the captains of American industry destroy the country from within, ransacking the economy, plundering entire industries and communities as they loot the productive base of the country for their own personal enrichment, without the slightest thought for the well-being of anyone else at all. . . the psychopaths and sociopaths in the … government and in high finance … liquidate the country from under our feet…”

“Their behavior is like that of madmen … who heat the house in the cruel depths of a bone-chilling … winter by stripping the insulation out of the walls and using it to stoke the furnace! As the flames leap higher they strip the shingles and plywood off the roof and fling them into the furnace!! … they fling back the blankets … rip the paneling off of the walls, tear up the floor boards and take an axe to the furniture and feed it all to the devouring flames in the furnace.”

They belittled [Ross Perot’s] warning that the “sucking sound” they were about to hear would be the sound of … capital and jobs [being] leached out of the American economy…but [they] didn’t like him … so they tossed him aside. So much to plunder; so much to loot — and so little time!! 

“The American economy, like Elvis, has left the building…the bleeding of jobs, money and industries just goes on and on. We are living in a country in steep and rapid decline.

And this was over 15 years ago. Now, not only have they pawned our entire economy out, right under our noses, but they have corralled us all into the confines of our own homes, where the only glimpse we get of the world around us is filtered through the online networks they permit us to access. We are now officially embedded in a matrix, which they unilaterally control, almost exclusively to our detriment.