Corruption, Faux Civility & Monopolies...
And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes
into you.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
-
By
JM Hamilton 11-16-2019
Our
society is mired in corruption and we’ve grown numb to it. Here in America, corruption is codified
(written into the law) and so omnipresent that we’ve become inured. It’s the background white noise of exceptionally
low expectations that makes slaves of us all. The billionaire class has rigged the system so
nefariously -– fiscal, foreign,
judicial, monetary, regulatory, and tax policy capture -– that it would take an army
of Elizabeth Warrens and Bernie Sanders', perhaps a decade or more to
resurrect & restructure the economy and the government (so that it serves
the people, not just an elite few). That
assumes Congress and SCOTUS are willing to be something other than obstructionists. That doesn’t mean that we give up, however.
At
the top of the list of the darkest of hates: rent seeking monopolies and
utilities have come to dominate the American economy, and w/ there financial might
own the government. Some of this blog's
earliest pieces inveighed against cartel and oligopoly (read here and
here). And in an April 2015 piece, Fear and Loathing at the Clinton Foundation, JMH wrote: “… there is no greater
threat to America, her economy, and free enterprise, than monopolies and
cartels.”
That’s
why it was so refreshing last week to see both the NY Times and the Washington Post come out w/ opinion pieces on economist Thomas Philippon’s new book, The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets. In his new book, Professor Philippon asserts &
documents that free markets – defined by competition – and originally
championed by America - have become a defining European economic characteristic. And conversely, America has forsaken
competition, and has adopted – a once well-established feature of European economies
- monopoly and oligopoly. Ironically,
monopolies are privately held utilities - where the means of production are
placed into the hands of the very few - and define socialism by private proxy.
Odd how the billionaire class becomes upset when
socialism – Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security – benefits society at large. However, this same billionaire class has zero issues with socialism, when the US government authorizes & underwrites: the creation of predatory monopolies; Wall
Street banks are bailed out; corporate welfare is bequeathed by our bankrupt empire;
and the Federal Reserve inflates and backstops markets.
All of which, makes the kleptocracy, who thrive from the redistribution of wealth to themselves, wealthier
than the pharaohs.
The NY Times and Mr. Philippon estimate that
monopolies cost the average American $5,000 a year in rent seeking expense,
that is to say, the costs of goods and services would be considerably lower and
more innovative, if cartel, monopoly, and oligopoly hadn’t come to dominate the
American economy. Throw in both real and
social costs passed onto society by these same utilities (see Big Pharma and the opioid pandemic), the opportunity costs of austerity forced down the throats of 99% of
society (by the billionaires and their congressional lackeys), and an educated guess
is $5,000 doesn’t begin to cover the exogenous and endogenous costs, generated
by cartel & monopoly. Not to mention
a pending planetary apocalypse, and the annihilation of humanity generated by another cartel, Big Oil. Some things are priceless.
Interestingly enough, some billionaires say they get it. The crony system the plutocracy has created – the enlightened acknowledge – has been a disaster. The profits before people & planet ethos has paved a highway to perdition. Trickle-down is a disaster because the elite don’t spend the money, but rather invest it in rent seeking ventures, like monopolies & private equity … meanwhile, as the last several decades have shown, very little is trickling down to the people. Hence, the rise of populism, which is, ironically, destabilizing the very rigged markets the elites worship.
And the last decade has revealed the
true nature of central banks. By adopting a
low interest rate regime, issuing massive sums of debt & liquidity, and
expanding their balance sheets to prop up financial institutions and inflate
stock markets & asset classes… central banks are complicit in
contributing to a debt bubble, the plutocracy's continued rise, and allowing politicians to ignore
catastrophic public debt. (In short, if central banks raised rates
– a la Volcker – it would force politicians to deal w/ the
public debt crisis.) The inflating of asset bubbles and the wall of money created by central banks - none of this is written into the Fed’s or central banks’ mandate - all fall under a deus ex machina: price stability.
The
bottom line: central banks serve banks, the billionaire class, private equity, and utilities, exclusively, and are key to the trickle-down economics many billionaires
are coming to realize is a disaster in the making. It wasn’t that many years ago that a Mr. Bill
Gross (of PIMCO fame) indicated that economies and markets may eventually
face a financial supernova. The pile of negative yield debt has only grown more catastrophic & insidious, since Mr. Gross issued that warning.
Other
billionaires have gone megalomaniacal, drunk upon their own power and the
idolatry generated by their coterie of sycophants that cater to their every
whim. These plutocrats, many engaged in predatory speculation and mere looting, really believe the world
and the planets rotate around them. Stephen Schwarzman once compared a tax increase proposed by the Obama administration to
the Nazi march across Europe. Other
billionaires – seeing the writing on the wall and the progressive wing
ascendant w/in the Dem Party - have entered the presidential campaign
fray. This, of course, reeks of
desperation.
Increasingly,
Americans are waking up to the fact that the enemy is not their brothers and
sisters - of differing genders, nationalities, and skin tones - but rather, the elite at the top of the Ponzi scheme.
And
yet, the Dem incrementalists – despite the civil war surrounding the Obama
years – insist that we join hands and sing kumbaya with the corporate zealots and
the plutocracy’s errand boys & girls: the GOP & centrist Dems. We must be civil, the establishment intones.
There’s
an insistence that we play nice. But
there’s a difference between nice and good.
What we have to do now is do good.
Be morally sound instead of valuing ‘civility’ above all else. Civility is a cloak for corruption. - @gaslitnation
W/in
my lifetime, we’ve seen civility worn like a cheap suit jacket over the
shoulders of American presidents & assorted political opportunists. The very civility & failed centrist orthodoxy that has consigned this nation to
endless war and multi-trillion national debt (while giving the shaft to the
bottom half of society & labor).
In
short, the time for civility has come and past … it’s time to build a body of law
concerning white-collar crime and prosecute and incarcerate sociopathic
billionaires and C-Suite denizens, when and where appropriate. It seems, in most cases, that behind every great
fortune is either a great crime or a monopoly; and the economy is littered with
industries that desperately need to go the way of the buggy whip or are in need
of serious reform. It’s time to
demonstrate that political malpractice & white-collar crime not only does
not pay, but they often have far more serious consequences & repercussions for
the economy, the planet, and society than the crimes perpetrated by ordinary
Americans. And it's long past time to break up cartels and monopolies, which are nothing more than organized crime.
It’s
time to place Sanders or Warren in the White House; and it’s time to go to war
on right-wing centrism and the advocates of a faux - civility/faux - responsibility first mentality. After all, the plutocracy has been waging war
against everyone but themselves, since time immemorial. Many failed leaders –
worried about their legacies – are admonishing progressives that they must be
“realistic.” But what’s more realistic:
doubling down on failed neolib/neocon policies and watching populism boil over; or rebuilding a country &
economy – as many billionaires acknowledge needs to be done – that works for
everyone?
The
political center – the kleptocratic agenda – has little more to offer Americans
than failed trickle-down policies. It’s
a dead end. True, there are still many
Americans with a vested interest in the status quo, and failed centrism. A group of citizens that will become an ever-shrinking minority, as automation, AI, globalism, monopolies, and private equity continue their march.
Those with a vested
interest in the status quo (indeed, all Americans) - outside of the billionaire class - must be
protected, while the economy & society are rebuilt for a better future. It’s absolutely critical. To ignore any human is to ignore them at our, collective, peril.
Copyright JM
Hamilton Publishing 2019
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