2025: The Year in Review

2025: The Year in Review 

 

Finally, financialization can impede overall economic growth, dragging the entire global economy down. Researchers from the Bank for International Settlements surveyed international economies and found that financial booms can create “bloat” in the global economy that drags resources away from productive activities and into nonproductive trading and speculation.²⁴ Further, according to Adair Turner, a former British banking regulator, only 15 percent of financial flows actually fund new projects and jobs in the global economy, with the rest going toward securitizing and speculating on existing assets.²⁵

-             The rising financialization of the U.S. economy harms workers and their families, threatening a strong recovery – Equitable Growth

 

 

By Gregg Wall (12-27-25)

2025 has been for a great many a horrible year.  Economically, politically, in terms of the steady and continued decline of Western democracy and the economy… and the obvious and ongoing revelations in regards the global oligarchy.  But we’ve also learned a lot, I certainly did.  And as we learn, opportunity arises.  Do we change course, based upon our newfound knowledge, or do we continue to allow the ecosystem, fundamental rights, humanity, and the planet to be abused to the point of extinction?

 

Here then, is what I learned, or in some instances already knew but uncovered more materials or information in support of existing knowledge.

 

-             We learned POTUS Trump was a fraud, and after the first term, it really shouldn’t surprise any of us.  And yet, in November ’24, tens of millions of Americans pulled the levers in voting booths for America’s two radically right-wing parties, Dems & GOP.  Donnie, however, specifically ran on winding down wars… Israel & the Ukraine… and addressing the affordability crisis.  Surprising his constituency, Trump said addressing both would be a problem post-election, before he had even been sworn in.  He ran on releasing the Epstein files, only to see the release blow up in his face.  None of this has stopped a seemingly endless flood of gaslighting, lies, and propaganda surrounding Trump & his “achievements.”  His epic success at self-enrichment notwithstanding.  Trump hides in a cloud of chaos, nihilism, rage bait politics, and endless violence and war (war against the U.S. & the world), anything to distract from a catalogue of corruption.  Trump burned a year on tariffs, DOGE, empire, insanity, and self-enrichment… a winner for Trump, a loser for the American people. (See affordability crisis, Palestinian genocide, Ukrainian genocide, new oil & gas war w/ Venezuela, ICE goons & thugs, $40 billion in welfare for Milei in Argentina, declining living standards, catastrophic debt & deficits, healthcare & housing crisis, a predatory billionaire class, etc., etc.).

 

-             Dems completed a postmortem on their 2024 wipeout and despite earlier commitments about transparency, the establishment immediately decided to shelve the report.  Hence, another ’25 lesson: Dems, like GOP, don’t serve democracy or the people… the party serves greed, billionaires, a rotted out economic model… financialization, globalization, neoliberalism, the necro-wartime economy.  Hence, the optics of Dem 2028 frontrunner, Governor Gavin Newsom, dutifully worshipping Reagan.  Corrupt Demo leaders have zero interest in real reform. Seems that Dems are inured, firmly wedded to biz as usual: cronyism, corruption, corporate greed, transferring the nations credit line and tax dollars to the rich,  the world’s most lethal fighting force, and playing sheep herder for AIPAC & the establishment… gently guiding the flock every two years down the cattle chute of austerity & debt and to the abattoir of the necro- economy & poverty.  Austerity, endless wars, wretched dereg & libertarianism -- limitless debt, deficits, and Wall St welfare -- these are the things the Dems stand for and will continue to stand for.  Will the party roll back Trump and his policies when they return to power?  Not a chance.  The two party’s function as one, reporting into billionaires, the MIC, multinationals, and Wall St.  The Dem party’s epic failure, from ’20 through ’24, to address affordability, genocides in Palestine & the Ukraine, our oligarchy crisis, and Trump are clear for all to see.  Dems are just hoping you forget, or that Donnie fails on such a spectacular scale, that you’ll have no other choice but to vote for the GOP’s twin: The DNC.

 

-             And of course there’s America’s worst nightmare, oligarchy or the billionaire class. When this crew isn’t buying out the government… when the oligarchy is not destroying the economy with consolidation, greed, hoarding and rent seeking behavior, they are plotting America’s next for-profit war.  We’ve learned a lot about billionaires and America’s predatory elite in the last year, mostly from independent journalists … like the Grayzone, Unlimited Hangout, BreakThrough News, and Sabby Sabs …  but even the MSM was informative at times.  The Washington Post pointing out the obvious, the billionaire class often comes to great wealth not via the private sector, rugged individualism, or the libertarian ethos… but instead, through massive state welfare, the privatization of the state, and military contracts (from a Department of War that can’t pass audits).  As disturbing, Team MAGA loves to get their panties in a bunch over the working poor receiving SNAP benefits, essentially more direct welfare for America’s corporate royalists – like McDonalds and Walmart (that refuse to pay a living wage & provide acceptable benefits).  But this same tribe of MAGA racists have nothing to say, when the amount spent on socialism for the 1% and on billionaire entitlements are insane by comparison to a SNAP program that is entirely necessary thanks to our necro-economy.  That is, SNAP is a fraction of the money spent on corporate welfare and tax cuts for the rich.

 

-             In 2025, we all bore witness to the Peter Thiel, Antichrist show… and the insanity of Peter’s CEO at Palantir, Alex Karp, pretending to be for the working man.  Right.  The more you learn about the billionaire class, the more you realize they have nothing but contempt and hatred for democracy, functioning government, and humanity.  Indeed, if what one reads is true, they appear hellbent on destroying all three.  Witness DOGE and its destabilizing attack on regulatory agencies, government workers, and DOGE utilized as another Trojan Horse or vehicle for destroying the regulatory state, looting, privatization, and tax cuts for the wealthy.  To billionaires, globally, citizens are just something to commodify, exploit, manipulate, monetize, and rob.  Explore deeper and you learn not only do they want to discard capitalism in favor of rigged markets and totalitarian monopolies, but they want to rule via a star chamber of monied elites… words like “corpocracy” and “technates” appear be the ultimate objectives coupled with dark enlightenment & transhumanism.  So much for Silicon Valley oligarchy claims about their devout faith in Christianity & Libertarianism.  At the end of the day, it all rolls up to dictatorship, fascism, and the extinction of humanity.  Purely from a raw economics perspective, putting aside elite plans for world and interplanetary domination for the moment, billionaires are a gross misallocation of precious resources… a misallocation, along with a perversion of the economy & government, that humanity and the planet can ill afford.  Add transhumanism, singularity, wiping out humanity and we have a crisis: billionaires are an existential threat.

 

-             Of course, it wouldn’t be the 21^st Century if we didn’t see the crucial role central bankers played on the world stage, and 2025 was no exception.  Who keeps the empire afloat, the house of cards from complete collapse, well that’s the Federal Reserve and exorbitant privilege.  In fact, central banks and ultra-accommodative monetary policy (aka expansionary monetary policy) have served to mint billionaires on an epic scale, cause wealth inequality to explode, and transferred wealth and the nation’s credit line to multinationals and egregiously high net worth individuals.  Central banks throughout the West continue to bailout:  the financial sector, dereg, greed, the obsession with growth, libertarianism, neoliberalism, supply-side/trickle-down economics, the failed Reagan/Thatcher economic paradigm (if you think that I exaggerate, consider that 40% of US GDP comes from government spending and catastrophic debt & deficits).  In the process central banksters feed: greedflation, asset appreciation, a hideous Gini coefficient, poverty, malaise, monopoly formation, political extremism.  But what the central banks are mostly guilty of is preserving and protecting a failed status quo.  The central banks bailout Tories & Labour, GOP & Dems, Cons & Libs… save them from having to make critical fiscal & tax decisions, set spending priorities.  Central banks paper over structural & systemic failure from political duopoly & the oligarchy they report to, so that our corrupt, failed, lethal, and repugnant economic & political model are never addressed (at least for the moment).  Blame the central banks and exorbitant privilege.  If a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, fear not…  central bankers, oligarchy, and politicians are ready to pounce at a moment’s notice to profit from said crisis with a deluge of money printing.  And the financier of bailouts & elite salvation, the financier of endless colonialism, murder, and wars are the central banks.  Know that the central banks are there to transfer more taxpayer wealth into the hands of the mafia state, greedy billionaires, and private sector contractors: again, and again, and again.  All of it done in the name of, the rhetorical smokescreen of a safer society, job retention, pension protection, and national security.  Never mentioned: expansionary monetary policy & financialization are highly detrimental to the economy and the American people, as it robs real investment in a real economy, cuts and destroys jobs and opportunity.   Never mentioned, never asked: Who’s protecting Americans, the British, Canadians, and Europeans… indeed, the world…  from the billionaire class, the political class, and the cartel of Western central banks?

 

-             The list of business practices within Canada & United States is horrible and growing worse, from totalitarian monopolies & domination to predatory private equity & venture capital, and, of course, financialization and privatization.  I always knew these enterprises and business practices to be a net drag on the economy, but this year, I ran across further evidence and academic research that confirmed financialization, monopoly, and concentrated wages & wealth are damaging to the economy, families, growth, and labour.  Privatization invariably fails to yield savings or improvement in services, read here, here, and here.  Instead, privatization merely enriches management and ownership on the taxpayer’s dime, on the backs of labour & the real economy, and with consistently lousy services and/or products.  In the US think of a privatized defense industry and the fact that half the DOW (Department of War) budget goes to private sector military contractors… within a DOW that fails to pass audit after audit.  Here, in Canada, a highly concentrated retail food industry (aka grocery stores) has led to obscene price gouging.  This, at a time 25% of Canadians are food insecure and relying upon food banks and charity.  And there’s not enough time to go into the ripoff that is American healthcare… the private sector failing the US on an epic scale with 50% of Americans unable to afford privatized healthcare.  And the beneficiaries of financialization, monopolistic rents, privatization, private equity rent extraction: billionaires, politicians, & Wall St.  There’s also big oil and gas, for me this was a breakout year.  Confirmation that the industry is a welfare queen… addicted to endless state welfare and subsidies… hoovering up far more in externalities and subsidies than it pays in royalties and taxes.  Like many industries, O&G is investing tax cuts in automation, software, and strategies that allow it to significantly cut its workforce.  It’s an industry that’s not only swimming in an ocean of welfare, dumps trillions in externalities on the public (that is to say, known costs & expense), but O&G loves its wars, its conflicts, murders one in five, and is actively destroying the planet, clean air, and clean water.  

 

-             And we can’t possibly ring out the old year and ring in the new without discussing American foreign policy.  This year, all pretense vanished, all the lies, justifications, rationalizations, and spin came off as half-hearted … the establishment isn’t even trying to justify its colonialism, extortion, genocide, theft, and mercenary for-profit wars anymore.  The apex predators use the US military to loot foreign nations, conduct regime change, and install & maintain evil people in positions of power.  Evil people that are perfectly willing to sell out their countries, their natural resources, and surrender to American corporate interests.  The recipients of America’s military & shakedown operations: the usual suspects.  Financial forces… like the IMF, World Bank, and Wall St banks… play a key role in debt slavery, destabilization, and regime change.  As for AIPAC & Israel, so much has been witnessed & written about Zionism, and the Adelsons, that some might consider it piling on to write much more about a foreign power and military outpost that came to dominate our pathetically corrupt congress (but not a fraction as cruel as the genocide America & Israel are responsible for).  Congress, of course, is in badly compromised company, the Zios have a lock on Europe and the Five Eyes as well.  At the end of the day, the question that never gets asked: How is it that the US spends 40% of global spending on war & violence; spends more than the next ten nations combined on war & violence?  And yet, the solution to all our problems isn’t diplomacy or negotiation, but rather, endless wars, profiteering, privateering, colonialism, genocide, Global South debt slavery & extortion, planetary destruction, and austerity for the American people to pay for an ocean of blood.

 

 

At the end of 2025, if you want to understand the essence of evil, look no further than bankers, billionaires, monopolies, the oil & gas industry, politicians (aka political duopoly), private equity, war contractors, and Wall St…. it’s where the hell is.  In the span of mere decades, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US is trashed… and we have nobody to thank for failure but the duopoly, oligarchy, and multinationals, like oil & gas.  We had everything, and billionaires, Congress, monopolies, Wall St, and the War lobby stole everything (facilitated by the Federal Reserve).  And nobody, from either political party, appears the least bit interested in reversing course or acknowledging failure.  We can obviously, therefore, blame the essence of evil for the situation the United States, Canada, and the West finds themselves in.  Not to belabor the point, but again, we must place blame squarely on leadership: billionaires; repulsive Clintons & Dems; the Federal Reserve for manufacturing billionaires, financialization; GOP; greed & libertarianism; monopolies; Silicon Valley; oil & gas; war contractors; Bernanke; Euro Toffs - who support Amerika’s racist enterprise & empire; AIPAC; the corporate MSM; private equity; venture capital; and of course, Wall St.

  

If anything, positive can be said about ’25, it is people, citizens, and voters are starting to learn… indeed, many already know & have long known… that the billionaires, monopolies, private equity, and Wall St. are an abomination, a fraud.  Responsible for the collapse of Western democracy, responsible for our lethal necro-neolib economy, globalization (aka the race to the bottom), empire, and right now, are calling shots on the latest pending, prospective catastrophe, artificial intelligence.  Undoubtedly, they’ll want a bailout for that, as well. 

Our economy, the predatory elite, US foreign policy, the central banks are all an epic disaster.  There really are no longer any excuses.  If Americans and the West want real change, we know exactly what must change and where to start.  And that’s exactly what gives me hope in 2026: the class war fought against the American people and the world is staring us in the face.

It can no longer be denied.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton 2025

Carney Betrays Canada

Carney Betrays Canada 

 

Canada and Alberta are focused on what we can control: building a stronger, more sustainable, more competitive, and more independent economy together.

-       PM Mark Carney, X

 

Expressed differently, if countries cannot pay the debt they incur through IMF loans and World Bank (and associated Multilateral Development Bank) financing, they will be offered options to “repay” their debt through implementing SDG-related policies. However, as future instalments of this series will show, many of these options supposedly tailored to SDG implementation actually follow the “debt for land swap” model (now re-tooled as “debt for conservation swaps” or “debt for climate swaps”) that precede the SDGs and Agenda 2030 by a number of years. This model essentially enables land grabs and land/natural resource theft on a scale never before seen in human history.

-       Sustainable Debt Slavery, Unlimited Hangout

 

By Gregg Wall (12-6-2025)

Mark Carney revealed volumes about himself and his administration of government in late November, when he signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Alberta’s Premier Smith.  While the political dynamics surrounding the accord or détente between the two leaders have been widely speculated on, only time will tell what will come of the deal, the center piece of which is yet another pipeline from the Alberta oil fields to the British Columbia (BC) coastline.  The agreement also calls for the opening of British Columbia coastal waters to supertankers, just due south of where the infamous Exxon Valdez spill occurred.  A deep-water port that First Nations have vowed will never happen.  The MOU was panned by some First Nations tribes and environmentalists and praised by the O&G industry.  To date, no private sector interests or oil & gas industry players have stepped up with a commitment to build the pipeline.  All this for an industry, oil & gas, that is highly lethal & problematic for Canada and the world.

 

Also contained within the memorandum, Carney backed off environmental controls, regulations, and kicked the deadline can down the road on remaining regs and objectives… all of which served as a reminder that under Liberal government, going back to Trudeau’s arrival as PM in 2015, Canada has never hit its climate objectives.  It’s so bad that Canada now plans on hitting its net-zero goals by 2050.  Some will recall that Carney was the leader of GFANZ, which, high soaring rhetoric and window dressing aside, is entirely about the commodification and monetization of carbon, so that the financial elite and oligarchs can profit off the financialization of the planet killer, fossil fuels… and GFANZ is about the West maintaining its stranglehold over the global south, via debt for land & resource swaps and indentured servitude.  Sustainability and the promotion of fossil fuels are yet another Trojan horse for servility & subjugation, as described in Unlimited Hangout.  So, the Carney/Smith MOU should come as no surprise to anyone.  Reminder, carbon capture, carbon credits, carbon commodification, carbon and nature monetization, as well as net-zero… have done absolutely nothing to rein in carbon emissions.  More specific to the MOU, Carney eliminated the commercial emissions cap on oil & gas, abandoned rules on clean electricity.  Carney & Smith, in turn, bumped the rate on carbon pricing, which benefits the financial services industry and they agreed to a carbon capture program.  Carbon capture, infamously, is known as a waste of taxpayer cash and historically, has been cost prohibitive, given renewable energy’s advances & affordability.  In fact, it's nine to twelve times more expensive to install carbon capture than it is to go 100% renewable.

Unsurprisingly, the Canadian taxpayer already owns a pipeline from Alberta to BC (i.e. Transmountain) which was built by Trudeau for a corrupt, ungrateful Alberta government and the O&G industry.  A Transmountain pipeline that operates at less than capacity and will likely not operate at capacity anytime soon, given the global glut of fossil fuels.  All of which serves as yet another reminder, the O&G industry fully supports: privatized profits; socialized (i.e. taxpayer funded) bailouts, CAPEX, cleanup costs, expenses, infrastructure, remediation… that have come to define modern day capitalism. 

Who has the marshmallows?  Canada is burning again.

Which brings us to why this industry is an epic loser for Canada, indeed the planet, this is my favorite part.  Let us count the ways, shall we? 

O&G is cutting heads and eliminating its workforce, despite record production and high profits.  The Pembina Institute notes that O&G production jobs have declined 43%, since peek hiring in 2012.  The Maple - MAGA, insurrectionist crowd in Alberta believes the industry is being held back, but with a global glut of oil & gas and declining prices that does not appear correct.  That is, the industry has less of an incentive to expand production, invest in infrastructure & jobs, as prices drop.  Moreover, the renewables industry, which Premier Smith ran off, offers more jobs and opportunity.  It looks like UCP and its followers have hitched their star to an industry that is fully dedicated to eliminating headcount and payroll. 

The Alberta and Canadian governments are collecting inadequate royalties and taxes on Fort McMurray relative to other nations, say Norway.  In short, Alberta and Canada are being ripped off.  Norway has $2.1 trillion in assets, Alberta and Canada have zip to show for Fort McMurray.  Blame Canada’s political parties and the O&G industry.

O&G hoovers billions in direct and indirect subsidies annually.  Trudeau’s free pipeline is but one of many examples.  Externalities… like environmental damage, clean up pawned off on the public, and public health…are said to be running $30 billion.  See also Canada burning for six consecutive summers (since I moved here in 2020); and yet, mysteriously, there’s never any discussion about presenting the bill to the O&G industry.  The industry loves to deny attribution and conveniently, crony governments delay in setting firm numbers to externalities because once the numbers are set, the litigation begins.  If O&G were properly assessed and billed for externalities, some have concluded that the retail price at the pump would double.  The public would howl for EVs and free renewable energy. 

“US funds now own about 59% of Canadian oil & gas companies,” per CBC.  Canadian ownership has dipped to 34%.  In short, Canada bears the hideous fallout of the Alberta oil patch, plus subsidies and externalities, while the Americans own the patch and reap the bulk of the profits and rewards.  Does anyone believe the Americans will pay for the cleanup and pollution?  Not a chance.  All of which begs the question, who does PM Carney and Premier Smith actually work for: the Americans, Blackrock, Brookfield Private Equity, Chevron, etc (?)… so many conflicts of interest, so little time to sort them out. 

It's easy to talk about the direct and indirect costs, fiscal, and tax & royalty ramifications of the industry and its impact upon Canadians… none of it good… but what we don’t discuss is monetary policy.  The Bank of Canada (BOC) loves to keep the Canadian dollar low; this is classic beggar thy neighbor behavior that helps Canada export its resources and oil, globally.  But the BOC’s Canadian dollar devaluation hits Canadians in the pocket, at the grocery checkout, when it comes time to pay rent or the mortgage on the new truck.  It’s nice for the robber barons & bankers, as the exchange rate aids exports and makes repatriated earnings look good on financial statements, but it’s a drag on Canadians already slammed by greedflation, sky high groceries, rents, and lowballed minimum wage.  The Alberta and Federal governments are not the only entities captured by O&G.  It would appear the Bank of Canada is also owned by the industry.

The Alberta Maple MAGA mob loves to cry and moan about “equalization payments” or taxes paid to Ottawa being greater than the money sent back to the province by Ottawa… but the reality is that’s simply not true.  As noted above, externalities and subsidies exceed royalties and taxes.  In other words, if the industry, or the Alberta government, were correctly assessed and billed externalities, both current & retroactively… like healthcare, destroyed property from fire season (i.e. Canadian summers), soaring property insurance, free pipelines, and a burned-up Canada… Alberta and O&G would end up owing Canada and Canadians money, annually.  The so-called equalization or more accurately, tax advantage would evaporate.  All this is to say, the industry, Oil & Gas, is a net loser.   On taxes, royalties, ditching oil well cleanup, running away from environmental damage, escaping the healthcare costs of murdering one in five, American ownership, and throwing sand in the air and running away from externalities… this industry is a NET LOSER for Canada & the United States.   And who benefits from an O&G industry that defines privatized profits and socialized (publicly funded) cleanup, externalities, publicly funded healthcare necessary to address cancer alleys & pollution, and oil field subsidies… well, that would be the industry, the Mark Carneys of the world, the Premier Smiths, Bay and Wall St, and American ownership.  The privileged and the powerful benefit, while the public has been indoctrinated and lied into believing the industry is a cornucopia of wealth, just waiting to trickle down upon humanity.  It’s an egregious lie. 

It gets better.  Carney said in a recent X or Tweet, post- MOU signing, that he wants to build a sustainable economy and future for Canada… and being an energy superpower is a key component of Carney’s dreams, along with an oil & gas powerhouse.   But the simple reality is there’s nothing sustainable about an O&G industry that: dumps abandoned well clean up on the public; murders one in five and dumps the healthcare costs on the taxpayer; produces 1.4 trillion liters of tailings/contaminated water and proposes that the gov look the other way, while it dumps processed oil field water into Alberta rivers… nice; burns down homes, forests, businesses, towns and not once offers to pay for the damages the industry is responsible for; dumps tens of billions in externalities and subsidies onto the backs of Canadians, while profits are realized in the U.S.; pollutes the minds of Alberta & Canadian voters with industry disinformation and propaganda campaigns; captures and owns federal and provincial governments, in a direct threat to democracy; an industry that benefits from endless wars in the middle east and around the globe (see a possible war in Venezuela to capture that nation’s oil fields)… war also a huge threat to the planet with massive carbon emissions.  Never asked, how are the American owners going to feel about exporting Alberta oil to China, when they are making a killing off the Canadian fuel inside the U.S.… this, of course, might explain why the industry hasn’t stepped up to fund Carney’s and Smith’s pipe dream?  I have a feeling the Americans are going to want to service the American market first.

In short, Carney, net-zero, “sustainability” are a road map for planetary collapse, the financialization and monetization of humanity & the planet, and debt slavery.

Somehow, PM Carney never gets around to explaining how an industry that is responsible for burning down the planet and Canada is sustainable.  It’s merely assumed.  That’s the power of conflicts of interest and compromised men and women in positions of power.  Women and men who will do whatever it takes to please money & power, oil & gas… where the ends always justify the means.  On at least one level, Carney did Canada a big favor.  The honeymoon is over; the mask is off.  No one can deny that we have a far-right, fascist oil & gas, private equity government in Ottawa.  No one can deny that when it comes to oil & gas, both PM Carney and Premier Smith are so closely aligned, that there’s little or no daylight between the two of them.

Who pays?  Who always pays: the disenfranchised, First Nations, minorities, the poor & the powerless.  Who profits?  Who always profits: the connected, the powerful, the politicians and insiders, the bankers, war contractors, and the oil field robber barons.  Given the rate of economic and planetary collapse, those gains appear to be both illusory and pyrrhic. 

 

 Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2025