An American Christmas Carol…

An American Christmas Carol… 

 

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!" "Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge. "Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?” 

 

 

“If they would rather die,… they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

 

-       A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens 

 

By JM Hamilton (12-26-2020)

 

There may never be a more popular book written about predatory capitalism.  Written at roughly the close of the first industrial revolution and the beginning of the Victorian Era, Charles Dickens' book, A Christmas Carol, has it all: a greedy – banker – miser, ghosts and more ghosts, brutal poverty, a Christmas backstory, rapacious capitalism, denial, a love story gone bad, and of course, hope & redemption.  Published in 1843, the book is as resilient & relevant in its messaging today, as it was throughout the 19^th and 20^thcenturies.  And the author, Dickens, had real life experiences with poor houses, poverty, and crushing labor practices with which to draw upon. Experiences that became a familiar theme within the Dickens’ canon.

 

Christmas Carol came to mind because I found myself wondering, what would happen if the three ghosts visited the personification of America today?  What if the three ghosts visited the Ebenezer Scrooge of our times, Donald Trump… the billionaire president, who campaigned on helping ordinary Americans, but in reality, only helped himself and his ultra-wealthy donors?  Trump is also something of a businessman, whose parsimony & venality – like Scrooge - was, and remain, legendary.  

 

Would Roy Cohn, lawyer & mentor, now deceased, visit Trump like Jacob Marley?  Or maybe Trump’s idols would come calling… say Nixon or Reagan, wreathed in chains, dragging cash boxes, and shrieking & screaming warnings.  

 

What of the first ghost, the Ghost of Christmas Past?  Would the ghost show Trump America’s ill-fated founding… complete with indentured servitude, slavery, and the slaughter of indigenous Americans?  Would the apparition take Trump to the slaughter of vast herds of buffalo with a singular purpose, to inflict genocide & starvation upon the original Americans?  Would Trump and the great spirit visit Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears?  Perhaps the Ghost of Christmas Past would show Trump slaves with severed limbs … limbs severed by their masters, so that they could no longer run away.  Maybe the ghost would hook Trump up with Christians – who fled England to avoid religious persecution – only for these same zealots to conduct their own jihad, upon entering the New World? 

 

Surely such a spirit would fly Trump back to the early industrial revolution with child labor, mangled limbs, obscene work hours, even more wretched working conditions, and of course, wealthy New England textile owners counting their profits. 

 

And the Ghost of Christmas Present?  Obviously, such a ghost would want to show Trump the refrigerated morgue trucks, and the thousands and thousands of American dead… thanks to Trump and the US Congress playing down the pandemic, or failing to adequately warn Americans (Congress, of course, was too busy managing their stock portfolios; besides notifying Americans of the coming plague might have harmed their trades).  Would the ghost break through to Trump after visiting the tear-stained cheeks of brave frontline healthcare workers, as they attempt to save lives, while worrying about the health of loved ones and their families? 

 

Might the Ghost of Christmas Present show Trump vast billionaire fortunes compounded exponentially to obscene valuations, as taxpayer funded backstops, debts, and welfare for the rich are being laundered in the stock market (thanks to Federal Reserve & congressional policy)?  And in the process bequeathing ordinary Americans endless decades of austerity, poverty, and foreclosure upon the American Dream.  Meanwhile, tens of thousands of small business owners watch their hopes vanish, and burn, from lack of support from the US government during the pandemic.  

 

Would Jack Ketch, and his good buddy, US Senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, both be lurking near?

 

And who can forget the twins, contained within the Ghost of Christmas Present’s great coat: The phantom wraiths, Ignorance and Want.  Forever stamped upon a, seemingly, cursed America … always trillions for empire and endless war but never enough money for an affordable & quality higher education.  And always, a bull market in extreme poverty, no less so than in Charles Dickens' England.  What is the number?  Twenty?  Twenty-five percent of American children living in poverty & despair (the modern-day equivalent to Tiny Tim on an industrial scale)?  

 

All of this misery & suffering is nothing less than a public policy failure, orchestrated by an oligarchy looking to rid itself of surplus labor & population? 

 

And the final apparition, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come… pointing to a darkened grave, unkept, unloved, & un-mourned?   

 

America’s fate?  

 

The United States’ riches looted by a rapacious oligarchy.  Her vast potential squandered upon endless wars and war profiteers.  The nation’s exorbitant privilege wasted upon endless Wall Street bailouts & colossal debts used to finance tax avoidance by the exceptionally wealthy.  

 

America’s epitaph: Privatized profits – for a privileged few; Socialized losses – a burden carried by all Americans, but the privileged few. 

 

The fate of all empires, an unmarked grave and an unread footnote contained w/in a dusty history book.  Would POTUS Trump be moved?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, the best part of A Christmas Carol is that Scrooge does feel remorse, he reaches for redemption.  And he does appear capable of turning it around with genuine acts of kindness.  But not before Scrooge embraces denial and excuses, and he pushes back against a, seemingly, endless tide of apparitions, facts, and history. Like Scrooge, in order for America to redeem itself, it must confront its ignominious past and present; it must permanently retire the myth of American exceptionalism and seek out rebirth and redemption w/ genuine acts of aid, contrition, and redemption, particularly for the least among us. 

 

America must turn its back on a predatory version of capitalism & neoliberalism that has repeatedly failed, that only affords state aid and extraordinary welfare for the exceptionally wealthy, & ruin and scraps for everyone else; America must become a country where we look out for one another… and our government’s efforts are pivoted & redirected towards that endeavor.  

 

What Dickens’ book most reveals is how capitalism has changed very little, since early Victorian times; and in fact, if anything, it is growing far more abusive, and driving an ever-growing body count.  

 

 Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020

How many Americans have really died from COVID-19?

How many Americans have really died from COVID-19?

 

 A new model from the COVID-19 response team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that coronavirus cases are probably more than 10 times higher than the total tally in many parts of the country. 

 

-       US coronavirus cases are probably 10 times higher than the official numbers, more and more research suggests

 

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.

-       Trump Administration Strips C.D.C. of Control of Coronavirus Data

 

By JM Hamilton (12-12-2020)

 

I was watching CTV News, here in Canada this week, and a guest was on that stated – per the CDC – the number of COVID-19 deaths is likely seven times greater than the government’s official tally.  Simple math, assuming 300,000 reported dead, presently, tells us that the number of American COVID fatalities appears to be closer to 2,100,000. 

 

Of course, this got me scrambling, and if the mortality rate is consistent, what the gentlemen on the news broadcast stated appears to be correct.  For there is story after story on the web, from credible news organizations, confirming that COVID numbers, per the CDC, are grossly underreported.  Read here, here, and here. 

 

Of course, we shouldn’t be entirely surprised… we read a story this week - in the Washington Post - indicating that the State of Florida invaded a scientist’s home for reporting out unflattering COVID data. Florida is run by Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

 

What we appear to have, in the United States, is Federal & State governments – run by Republicans – who are at war with the truth.  We also know Trump, earlier this Fall, stripped the CDC of COVID data gathering capabilities.  What better way to cloud the lies and incompetence of this Administration’s handling of the plague, than to change the direction of data flow & gathering, mid-pandemic?

 

 

 

 

 

 

And yet despite all of this, we had Republican after Republican playing down the pandemic, doing their billionaire and multinational donors bidding and attempting to keep economies open.  Try as they might, hospitals have begun to overflow again this Fall and business is booming for mortuaries and morgue trucks.  The American economy, inversely correlated w/ the rising body count, is stumbling again.  And given how the government is underreporting COVID fatalities, how good was the economy really doing this Summer?  How real was the strength of the economic rebound reported by the US government?

 

All this brings up other issues, like the moral collapse of American society … where the President and the Business community lie constantly, seemingly without repercussion.  Yes, we can rejoice that Trump will be exiting the White House – not soon enough – on January 20^th (sadly, only to have another liar take his place); but there is the issue at hand, which is Trump – despite everything – received seventy-four million votes.   

 

That’s an amazing quantity of votes in favor of a man responsible for an estimated 2.1 million American dead.  Granted, the US congress also bears responsibility and is equally complicit.  Congress won’t even pass economic aid for unemployed Americans. All this, so that Nike can go on selling sneakers, and the airlines can, attempt, to fly the friendly skies. And Zombie companies can continue to attempt to make interest payments, etc., etc.  Forget the show, the economy must go on.   

 

There’s something else very much a part of America’s moral collapse, as mentioned above… namely, the credibility of US government statistics and economic data.  If we have leaders, from both parties, that are willing to deceive Americans for economic & political gain, costing millions of American lives in the process…  how credible are the government’s economic numbers?  

 

For instance, the Federal Reserve was given $4.0 trillion in funny money – conjured up with derivative instruments, under the CARES Act – to backstop markets; and yet, none of that $4.0 trillion shows up in America’s national debt numbers.  How accurate is the FED’s balance sheet?  How reliable are the big four accounting firms?  How credible are public & private financial statements?  And on and on. 

 

It's not just the government & politicians, but the moral collapse of the nation comes directly from business elites, who run the country and own the politicians.  So back to the question at hand: How many Americans died of COVID-19?  

 

Answer: Who the hell knows, because the American government's credibility is shot. 

 Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020

 

It’s that time again: The Neoliberal Darwin Awards

It’s that time again: The Neoliberal Darwin Awards 

 

Lawmakers are charged with the arduous task of rewriting the U.S. antitrust laws — something that hasn’t been done in earnest in decades. The country’s two major antitrust statutes, the Sherman Act (monopoly law) and the Clayton Act (merger law) were passed in 1890 and 1914, respectively. The Federal Trade Commission Act, which established the FTC and gave it powers to regulate competition, was also passed in 1914.

 

Congress just finished its Big Tech antitrust report — now it’s time to rewrite the laws, CNBC

 

JM Hamilton (11-28-2020)

 

Last year, we kicked off the Neoliberal Darwin awards…  acknowledging & identifying companies - and their management & ownership - that were run in a highly egregious manner.  Behavior, corruption, & profit taking so glaringly bad, that these companies are a threat to capitalism, the US economy, and society at large. 

 

In 2020, neoliberalism didn’t fail to provide, yet again, corporate and multinational examples worth writing about.  If anything, the pandemic revealed entire industries, such as private equity, to be completely incompetent and self-serving: not masters of the universe, but rather, vampires.  Volumes could be filled, case studies written, and textbooks created, but for sake of energy and time, let’s focus in on two key industries.  

 

This year’s recipients of the Neoliberal Darwin Awards: Big Tech and American for-profit Healthcare. 

 

Big Tech (often referred to as FAANG stocks) was in the spotlight this year and received long overdue attention from congress…  for destroying competition, monopoly creation, and causing great harm to the US economy.  Studies were conducted, hearings held, and Silicon Valley royalty made less than impressive appearances before congress.  Further complicating matters, America’s captured & owned regulatory authorities are little more than toadies and lackies, all too often run by industry insiders.  Pro-corporate American courts, too, have made a perfidious hash of US antitrust laws, that date back to the early 20^th century.  Aided further by owned academic institutions and think tanks, US antitrust laws – over time - have been limited to ideas surrounding “consumer welfare.” 

 

And since consumers appear to be doing well by these tech leviathans – so the thought process goes – then these monopolies remain, largely, untouchable.  The conventional wisdom further goes that congress will have to rewrite the antitrust laws but given the divided nature of congress and its penchant for obstruction & sabotage – good luck with that.  And even if a law was passed, it would then, more than likely, be beaten down in right-wing courts, over the span of years.  

 

Instead Dem staffers, who compiled the study, argue (per CNBC) that US antitrust laws should – as originally written – not only protect consumers, but “workers, entrepreneurs, independent businesses, open markets, a fair economy and democratic ideals.”

 

Excellent.  Hard to disagree with any of that, and of course, the aforementioned utilities – or FAANGs – have: crushed labor; entrepreneurs; destroyed capitalism - often well beyond their own economic sector; and indeed, harmed the US economy.  Throw Uber & Lyft into the mix -- along w/ the labor, regulatory, & tax arbitrage seen throughout the tech industry -- and the well documented stagnation of wages and wealth -- and it seems like an open and shut case.  That is, this isn’t creative destruction, but instead, wholesale economic genocide. 

 

Except…  lawyers being lawyers, and judges being politicians, they are likely to stick to precedent, which means any arguments & efforts to break up the tech utilities are likely to fall back upon arguments concerning the consumer. 

 

But that may not necessarily be a bad thing.  For whom is the American consumer but US labor?  Unless one is lucky and born into wealth and privilege, and the vast majority of us are not, the only way for one to be a consumer is to earn wages.  And labor has been absolutely crushed, over the last four decades, by M&A, monopoly, and monopsony power… especially by the tech industry.  Therefore, if labor has been crushed, the US consumer has been crushed, as has America’s purchasing power.  This is not conjecture, but rather, well documented fact. 

 

Basically, unless a right-wing judge is entirely corrupt, arguably, they can quickly see the argument's merit. Add in the originalists & textualists on the Supreme Court -- and unless they throw out century old antitrust laws, in part or in whole -- it would appear that the laws, as originally written, are straight forward enough. Especially, if they conclude, that there is no consumer, w/out labor’s ability to earn a wage, first.  (That's Econ 101.) And if labor is harmed by these multinational monstrosities, then the consumer is harmed.  In the US today, forty percent of Americans can’t meet a $400 emergency payment, and the pandemic and tech utilities have surely, driven that number up.  That one in five US children live in poverty is further testament to this fact. 

 

In short, it’s long past time to break up the tech utilities. Not so ironically - given the industry’s donations to the Democratic party - the biggest obstruction to proceeding w/ antitrust enforcement, may not come from republicans, but establishment democrats. After all, it is America, which means: Count on the political duopoly and right-wing judges to side w/ economy crushing billionaires and monopolists.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, some industries don’t require the elementary - legal - leap from labor harm to consumer harm, in order to enforce antitrust. American healthcare, pre-pandemic, made up nearly twenty percent of US GDP.  During the pandemic – w/ shrinking GDP and higher healthcare usage – the percentage of GDP healthcare monopolies (insurers, Big Pharma, hospitals, pharmacies, private equity, & pharmacy benefit managers) consume…  will, more than likely, grow well beyond twenty percent. 

 

And yet, all of our Western peers and allies have some form of universal care, and portability of care – consistently, at half the per capita price tag.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but imagine going through the physical stress of undergoing Corona-care, w/in the failing American healthcare system, accompanied by the added psychological stress of knowing, you are likely to go bankrupt?   Add in incompetent congressional & executive branch leadership, at the federal & state level, and no wonder the United States leads the world in Corona-deaths. 

 

For regular readers, JM Hamilton spent a good amount of time outlining the horrors of the American healthcare system, over the last year:

 

Did Trump embrace … Socialized Medicine?  

 

In this piece, JMH asks why Trump turned to Canada and Medicare For All, as a solution to America’s Big Pharma problem. 

 

Storm Clouds Over US Healthcare…

 

Here, we eviscerate the “choice argument” that monopolists, w/in the US healthcare industry, often put up.  The reality, there is no choice in American healthcare, except for many to go bankrupt.  JMH also asks: Why is the US government – siding w/ healthcare monopolists – and working against the interests of the US economy & Americans?

 

Another Black Hole in the US Healthcare Model: Workers' Compensation Insurance  

 

In this piece, we point out the fraud & waste, that is the Affordable Care Act, isn’t limited to personal healthcare, but carries over into duplicative, Workers’ Compensation insurance.  (i.e. American healthcare for injured workers)

 

Death Panels

 

Irony of ironies… as the pandemic heats up, America’s failed for-profit healthcare system is rationing care and deciding who lives and who dies.  Conservatives, and shills for the healthcare industry, used to worry about socialized medicine and death panels…now their worst fears are happening w/in American for-profit healthcare. 

 

COBRA

 

How do employers ensure American workers remain compliant, grateful, and docile (w/ zero entrepreneurial ambitions) … by tying healthcare coverage to employment.  COBRA is outrageously priced healthcare insurance, post- employment. 

 

Social Costs & American Healthcare 

 

Here, we visit how billionaires & multinationals have shifted nearly the entire cost of healthcare – and the extraordinary profits of same – onto the backs of America’s disenfranchised:  The American worker & taxpayer.  Hence, Corporate America’s collective willingness to sacrifice labor and open up the economy, in the middle of a pandemic. The oligarchy has absolutely nothing to lose & near zero financial skin in America’s ever escalating healthcare costs.  That's called moral hazard. 

 

Medicare For All 

 

JMH reviews the grim outcome & economic malaise surrounding America’s failed for-profit healthcare system, versus our Northern neighbor and Canada’s highly successful, Medicare For All. 

 

Trump Loves Socialized Medicine 

 

When the chips were down, and the president was suffering with Corona … where did he flee to?   It wasn’t for-profit healthcare, but rather, the finest socialized medicine American taxpayers could buy. 

 

 

Roll these pieces together and we have one hell of an indictment against neoliberalism but also against America’s worthless two-party political system, essentially a duopoly. 

 

A duopoly where Dems & GOP – despite some modest show of bickering – always vote in lockstep against the interests of the American people, and in favor of their donor masters. 

 

US for-profit healthcare, with its ever-growing body count, defines systemic racism, just as much as it fosters and protects raging inequality.  US for-profit healthcare is the paragon of injustice, waste, and fraud.  Via monopolistic taxation, American healthcare kills jobs, opportunity, innovation, and the economy itself. 

 

And there you have it…  the Big Tech and US Healthcare winners.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020