Wednesday, December 22, 2021

The Democratic Party’s race to the bottom…

“We’re a free market economy,” she said. “They should be able to participate in that.”

- Speaker Pelosi

"Come on, Charlamagne. It's Joe Biden. And don't start talking like a Republican, about asking whether he's president... It's Joe Biden, and I'm vice president and my name is Kamala Harris."

- VP Kamala Harris

"I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can't. I tried everything humanly possible. I can't get there. This is a no on this legislation."

- Senator Joe Manchin

By Gregg Wall (12-22-21)

Wow, the Demo Party is literally imploding right before our very eyes. And yet, it all has a familiar déjà vu, dreamlike quality … like Obama’s squandered first term and that administration’s capitulation to bank bailouts, record Wall St. bonuses, post-bailout, endless war, and throwing it all away on corporate welfare defined, the ACA.

Within the last eight days, we’ve seen three instances where Democratic party leaders have shown a callous, indeed reckless, disregard for democracy, their constituency, and the, apparently, dated concept that elected officials have been voted into office to serve citizens, not themselves and wealthy donors.

JMH has long maintained that it is the Republican Party that is on the highway to perdition. And that, Republicans would rather kill democracy, obstruct voting, rig elections than reform. GOP economic policies are a complete disaster: laissez faire, trickle-down tax policies, borrow and spend fiscal policies, wars for profit’s sake, and the nihilism that is libertarian industrial policy. Given the evisceration of America's middle class; a population that is dying off; wage and wealth stagnation, & regression, for the bottom half (spanning decades); and an economy entirely rigged for the donor class… there is no logical reason for Republicans and their policies to even exist.

Except, once we get past the DNC’s and party leadership’s promises of progressive economic reforms, and the truth comes out, absolutely nothing will change… we see how Republicans continue to exist & thrive. Because, in America, the only alternative to the party that won and lied in the last election, is the party that lost and lied in the last election. Welcome to duopoly and catastrophic two-party corruption.

And welcome to a Democratic Senator that is so corrupt… the GOP looks on in amazement and requests that Joe Manchin join their party. Of course, Senator Manchin’s very existence invites all sorts of questions… like how can a politician exist in a Democratic party with ideas and values that are entirely anathema to what the party, allegedly, stands for? And if the party ever returns to power, what can and will be done to prevent future Manchins from obtaining power within the organization? What kind of creature goes on Fox News and destroys the Biden presidency, and worse, destroys the hopes of tens of millions of Americans that voted for Dems in 2020 (during a horrible pandemic, a lousy US economy for labor, and in the middle of a full-blown climate catastrophe)? And what of a President that allows this behavior to exist within his own party?

Welcome to a party where the leader of the house is so corrupt that she believes it’s perfectly acceptable for congress persons – w/ a continuous flow of insider information - to trade stocks. No conflict of interest here. In the ultimate ‘let them eat cake’ moment, since Louis XVI lost his head, Pelosi reacts in amazement that the question was even asked… We’re the free market economy. No, we are the rigged, monopoly, Wall Street economy… and the only thing more corrupt is the House and the Senate. The arrogance, the hubris, it’s all highly reminiscent of another Pelosi remark, concerning: “The green dream or whatever…”

And we wonder why America’s faith in democracy is ambivalent at best. Politicians no longer believe they must explain themselves, the billionaire owned MSM is to be their obedient servant and the duopoly’s lap dog. And so, when somebody is impertinent enough to ask a question about legitimacy -- and the vast web of corruption, that passes for the U.S. government -- politicians flip out, with incredulity, hubris, nescience, and sometimes demagoguery. Anything but acknowledgement, and humility, that the U.S. is a country in deep crisis.

Welcome to Kamala Harris… in recent interview with Charlamagne tha God, the Vice President remained frozen, after the question was put to her: Who is POTUS? Biden or Manchin? An entirely legitimate question given the power Senators Manchin and Sinema have held over a failing Biden presidency. After Harris aids attempted to pull the plug, the VP responded that the interviewer should not be a ‘Republican.’ Essentially, responding with Liberal McCarthyism … basically, how dare you ask that question, it doesn’t even warrant a response, stop behaving like the enemy.

It’s all reminiscent of POTUS Bush’s (W) demagoguery: ‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.’ More recently, it’s reminiscent of Doctor Fauci, who I believe on more than one occasion has told adversaries, that to question the good doctor was to question science itself.

Ego sum re publica.

Ego sum scientia.

Ego sum deus.

Translation: I am the state. I am science. I am God.

When politicians no longer believe they are answerable to the American people, we live under a dictatorship.

We don’t even have to wait for the GOP’ pending coup, part deux… America has already arrived. That’s what a duopoly is… nothing more than hegemonic control, particularly when the duopoly reports into oligarchy. The only thing with greater power is one party; and since both parties – explicitly & tacitly – have identical economic and foreign policies, arguably, America is already under one party rule.

And on that note, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021

Saturday, December 11, 2021

The Internet of Things is Horrible and Growing Worse…

Apple has allowed app developers to collect data from its 1bn iPhone users for targeted advertising, in an unacknowledged shift that lets companies follow a much looser interpretation of its controversial privacy policy.

- Apple reached quite truce over iPhone privacy changes, FT

The outage at Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud-computing arm left thousands of people in the U.S. without working fridges, roombas and doorbells, highlighting just how reliant people have become on the company as the Internet of Things proliferates across homes.

Affected Amazon services included the voice assistant Alexa and Ring smart-doorbell unit. Irate device users tweeted their frustrations to Ring’s official account… Multiple Ring users even said they weren’t able to get into their homes without access to the phone app, which was down.

- How Amazon Outage Left Smart Homes Not So Smart After All, Bloomberg

A nationwide group of utility companies that provided sensitive data from millions of Americans’ cable, phone and power bills to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other government agencies has agreed to end the practice in response to concerns the information was being misused.

After The Washington Post revealed ICE’s use of the data in February, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) pushed the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange to end the sale of more than 170 million people’s names, home addresses, Social Security numbers and other details gathered from companies that provide the essential elements of modern life.

- Utility giants agree to no longer allow sensitive records to be shared with ICE, Washington Post

Gregg Wall (12-11-2021)

It was yet another interesting week in the Internet of Things… when no fewer than three articles caught my eye.

The first piece, published in the FT, that grabbed my attention was how Apple -- the champion of monopoly, labor exploitation, crushing & dismantling competition, and kowtowing to Sino-totalitarian tyranny -- was quietly backpedaling on its commitments to user privacy. Apparently, Apple, capitulating to the Internet of Things, is allowing vendors, such as Meta/Facebook, to go on harvesting data in perpetuity… despite Tim Cook’s strong sales pitch at user privacy. One observer, in the aforementioned article, noted: “Apple can’t put themselves in a situation where they are basically gutting their top-performing apps from a user-consumption perspective. This would ultimately hurt iOS.”

What is unclear is how privacy hurts iOS? Apple has ran entire advertising campaigns on privacy, so clearly the leviathan felt privacy was good for business. Apple’s retreat instead shows who the corporate brass believes their real customers are… not the adults & young kids that buy up Apple products like so much candy. But rather, the faceless men & women in boardrooms, C-suites, and in America’s police & surveillance state that buys up all that data.

The second piece, published in Bloomberg, was enjoyable to read. As the Amazon behemoth came crashing down, in the form of the cloud or Amazon Web Services. What’s amazing about this story is that despite all the cool things the web has provided, it’s failed completely at many things: from personal data & privacy protection to, well, getting hacked and having personal data stole, the resulting extortion, theft, and services collapse. Who are the thousands that have placed their homes under Amazon’s control and surveillance? Is one so lazy that they need Alexa to dim the lights or rely upon Ring to tell one who is at the door? Do consumers not care, or are they that oblivious, that every facet of their lives is being stolen & surveilled by these devices and every other device in their homes?

As the article went on to note, more than a few less smart home owners were gloating, at least they could still place a key into the door and walk into their homes.

The third article, coming out of the Washington Post, reminds us it’s not just corporations and multinationals buying up and hoovering up all that data; but an entire American police and surveillance state is busy, 24/7/365, using data gathered by utilities for unconstitutional ends. Turns out the Orwellian named, National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange, has been giving data gathered by utilities to the credit rating cartel, namely Equifax… which in turn sells the data to ICE, government agencies, and the police state. After the Post exposed this operation, Senator Wyden of Oregon had it shut down, by exposing the clear civil liberties violation. But fear not, as the article goes onto note, vague rules and regulations, as well as lax and captured regulatory agencies, all but ensure the U.S. police & surveillance state will have other data bases to access and crack (as they trample over the Constitution).

Of course, these three articles bring to mind our corrupt, feckless, and day trading U.S. Congress. The endless committee hearings Congress holds on these topics, the countless studies, and representatives’ and senators’ complete inability to do anything right for the American people. Least of all, hold tech utilities, endless data gathering & surveillance… and the outright contempt Silicon Valley, and multinationals, have for civil liberties and the American people… in check. After the latest whistleblower came before Congress concerning Facebook/Meta, and given all the sordid revelations (from manipulation of billions of citizens around the globe to targeting children, and all the irreparable harm to democracy & individual lives - in the name of profits)… for a brief shining moment, it appeared Congress had to act. But per the usual, the insider traders – masquerading as political leadership - are counting their money and shuffling stocks around.

I’m old enough to remember the internet from the beginning, the hope that it brought, the democratization of data & information, and the advancement of education and knowledge… and I look at it today, and yes, some of that hope is still alive. But for the most part, today’s internet is merely an extension of everything else billionaires and Wall St. get their hands on: the commodification of all human endeavor; the worship of data and money; the capture & corruption of U.S. democracy & the government, for the sake of profits; the crushing of jobs, innovation, and opportunity (indeed, the economy itself), by a greedy few; the reinforcement of systemic racism & misogyny, as the cornerstone of the U.S. economy; and the rank double standard & hypocrisy, as billionaires and monopolies dictate to the U.S. government and then cower before their totalitarian masters in China.

The internet and the whole authoritarian set of utilities appears to be the consolidation of all the past sins of capitalism … magnified and increased exponentially. Entirely captured and profited from by a privileged few, w/ hegemonic control over humanity. You know, citizens, who are little more than data cogs in one ultra-nasty & malevolent machine. The web's mantra, today: freedom for none, enslavement to Silicon Valley’s biz model, and surveillance for all.

The ultimate buzzkill.

If Orwell were alive today, he’d say, I told you so. And then he’d recommend pulling the plug on the entire sorry mess.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021

Saturday, November 27, 2021

A new variant, magic coins, and libertarian collapse …

In poorer African nations, the cascade of travel closures triggered a wave of resentment among people who believed that the continent was yet again bearing the brunt of panicked policies from Western countries, which had failed to deliver vaccines and the resources needed to administer them.

Richer countries, having already hoarded vaccines for much of 2021, were now penalizing parts of the world that they had starved of shots in the first place, scientists said.

“Told you so,” said Francois Venter, a researcher at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, referring to warnings from African researchers that delaying vaccinations there risked the emergence of new variants. “It feels like these rich countries have learned absolutely nothing in terms of support.”

As Omicron Variant Circles the Globe, African Nations Face Blame and Bans – NY Times

By Gregg Wall (11-27-2021)

Thanksgiving week 2021 started off brightly enough, filled with hope and some hints at a return to normality, but try as the media might, it just never felt right. And then the reports hit, w/ holiday air travel in the United States back in full swing, news of a new COVID variant coming out of southern African nations. The new, Omicron, appears - at least as of this writing, this is all still under review by scientists – more easily transferable and there are ominous warnings that Omicron, maybe, better able to evade vaccine defenses. All of this should come as no surprise, as the global vaccine rollout was handed off to the private sector – Big Pharma – which has an inherent conflict of interest, or moral hazard, built into its business model. To wit, crush the virus with vaccine, globally, and all those billions in taxpayer funded profits are likely to vanish overnight or certainly be crimped.

And so here we are, the libertarian economic model, and market rule, failing humanity once again, as a new -- potentially, far more lethal -- variant is shutting down parts of the globe and threatens economic recovery. Politicians are already reacting. Biden, not for the first time, is calling for the release of vaccine formulas and the suspension of IP rights. Such a move will undoubtedly be met with howls of derision & scorn by Big Pharma utilities, which have badly botched the pandemic response (largely, with taxpayer funded vaccine formulas & technology). Politicians, particularly in the US Senate, that profit from taxpayer monies laundered through private corporations (with campaign contributions, stock buybacks and dividends) will undoubtedly kick up a fuss. As once again, so-called moderate senators will place greed, monopolies, rigged markets, and their own personal interests ahead of the interests of humanity. Even if humanity dodges a bullet with this new variant, what of the next?

Lost in all the shuffle this week was a hidden piece coming out of Bloomberg… in which Mark Carney offers the following insight on the Net-Zero paradigm. A paradigm politicians frequently love to cite as the great savior of the other planetary crisis facing humanity, Big Oil & the climate catastrophe.

The use of carbon offsets should be a last resort to cover only a small fraction of emissions if the world is to achieve meaningful decarbonization, according to Mark Carney, the co-chair of the Global Financial Alliance for Net Zero.

If I read Mr. Carney correctly, it appears that Net-Zero, and carbon credits, will not save the planet. Nor will this ‘market-based solution’ provide the answers for a planet under threat by atmospheric floods, drought, famine, & fire (aka the four horsemen of the apocalypse), as a direct result of fossil fuels emissions.

So much for billionaire rule, laissez faire, and the infallibility of markets… the trifecta is literally slitting humanity’s collective throat.

Of course, it’s about to get interesting in the Senate again… the place where all good deeds and better legislation goes to die. Eleven months into President Biden’s term, his Build Back Better agenda is coming up for a vote… just as the debt ceiling limit is all set to rear its ugly head, yet again. You know, the favorite tool of far-right politicians -- who shower trillions in welfare upon corporate donors, the MIC, Wall St., and their own stock portfolios -- but then turn around and use the same debt limit as a well-timed excuse to cut aid and eliminate proposals of long overdue assistance to the American people.

Over the last couple of months there’s been much talk about magic coins that could be used to thwart the debt ceiling. I love a good gimmick & to wonk-out as much as the next person, and even highly educated economists seem up for the coin. Nearly everybody in the U.S. is tired of the national debt (debt accumulated bailing out Wall St, repeatedly, financing endless war, funding tax cuts for the rich and, seemingly, a bottomless welfare state for billionaires) being used as an excuse to inflict endless austerity upon the American people.

But does the magic coin really resolve the national debt itself? What happened to a good old-fashioned debt haircut or write down? The nation’s inability to take on our ever-soaring national debt is just another in a long line of failures that America’s two-party system seems unable, or unwilling, to address. With the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet swollen with Treasuries, it seems to be in a fantastic position to engage in gradual, methodical debt forgiveness. The FED could even move the forgiven Treasuries off balance sheet and place them in a bad bank or a SPV (special purpose vehicle), so as not to take the hit. Excess money supply contorting bond and equity markets, evaporated? Problem solved.

(As for inflation… almost all of it is being generated by the end result of the failed libertarian model: cartels & monopolies with too much pricing power, and a TBTF Wall Street.)

If such a course of action were followed, so much for GOP and far-right Dem arguments about the national debt (which, as long as faith in the dollar to pay tomorrow’s bills is retained, are moot)… public debt forgiveness, by the FED, eliminates nearly all arguments about the Build Back Better bill, presently before the Senate. Last I checked, the badly abused US dollar is on a tear, as a preferred safe-haven asset.

What such a move does not do, most unfortunately, is address the abject corruption & structural defects that plague the US economy and government.

One step at a time.