American Democracy: Gateway Government to Oligarchy

American Democracy: Gateway Government to Oligarchy

 

When it came to financial markets in 2020, the most frequently asked question was why. Why, in the midst of a global pandemic that has killed some 1.7 million people worldwide and plunged the economy into the worst crisis since the Great Depression, did equity markets stage a historic rebound to reach new highs and become completely disconnected from reality?

 

The answer is much simpler and comes down to one number: $14 trillion. That’s the amount by which the aggregate money supply has increased this year in the U.S., China, euro zone, Japan and eight other developed economies. To put the surge in perspective, the jump to $94.8 trillion exceeds all other years in data going back to 2003 and blows away the previous record increase of $8.38 trillion in 2017, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

 

It’s also important to understand the mechanics. The place to start is with the central banks, which were instrumental in printing the money they needed to inject directly into the financial markets by purchasing bonds and other assets on a scale never seen before. As of Nov. 30, the collective balance sheet assets of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England stood at 54.3% of their countries’ total gross domestic product, up from about 36% at the end of 2019 and about 10% in 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

 

-      Only One Number Mattered to Global Markets in 2020, Bloomberg

 

By Gregg Wall (10-30-2021)

 

Thank Goddess for Vivaldi and wine.  Thank Goddess for cloudless days, knockout blue skies, and the Canadian Rockies in the distance.  These types of days can be quite deceptive.  They make you feel - for a few moments - that all is right in the world.  There is hope… that the powerful can’t possibly mean to destroy the humanity living in this Eden in the name of greed.  That good governance and reform are within reach. 

 

Then one remembers that it was on a very similar day, a perfect day … on a beach on the South Shore of Massachussets, w/ my perfect son… that I learned of the planes that had ripped into the World Trade Center (two flew out of Boston Logan).  And you remember, there is fanatically obsessed, incomprehensible, evil in this world; and so, these beautiful days are a mirage, a veil, perhaps, to a better world. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writing of unspeakable evil, we pivot naturally to America’s national debt… ever growing, ever skyrocketing, the thirty trillion-dollar monster in the corner of the room.  Debt accumulated bailing out the wealthy & Wall St., not once but twice (2008 and 2020), financing tax cuts for the obscenely wealthy & corporate welfare, and debt used to fund endless credit card wars.  

 

National debt that is always used as an excuse, by America’s wealthy & powerful, not to fund basic needs and social programs taken for granted by nearly every other Western democracy.  And so it is, as POTUS Biden retreats from his agenda and his promises to the American people.  In a complete twist of fate, this same debt is never given a moments thought when the GOP are in power, when billionaires and multinational demand more corporate welfare and tax cuts. It’s never given thought, when the annual omnibus spending measure is crammed through congress, w/out hesitation (preserving a failed status quo and massive welfare for billionaires & multinationals). 

 

The crushing debt is also used by the Federal Reserve to hold in place a failed low interest rate regime, that ensures the stock market flies ever higher, so that we see stocks like Tesla with a 364 P/E ratio (as of the close on Friday).  In the ultimate twist, the preponderance of the wealth is in the hands of a predatory few billionaires.  And so naturally, when these men refuse to pay taxes on that wealth… the debt spirals ever higher, the money supply grows larger, and it finds its way into markets and elite assets that escape the surly bonds of Earth. 

 

Odd, the debt – and resulting money supply - fuels a rising stock market, increasing the wealth of a handful of individuals (mostly white men) by some seventy percent, during a time of pandemic crisis, w/out these same men lifting a finger.  It’s all courtesty of the U.S. government and its policies, essentially adding up to a billionaire welfare state. 

 

An American child born into this world is indentured upon exit from the womb to the tune of $80,000.   All because a handful of men refuse to pay taxes on the excessive sums they received from an entirely captured U.S. government, from egregious tax policies, from a complete failure of economic stewardship by the U.S. government (which has allowed monopoly and globalization to become the standard), and via Federal Reserve policies that have made these persons incomprehensibly wealthy. 

 

America’s failed system of governance has so many structural impediments in favor of the wealthy, it’s little more than a gateway government to kleptocracy and oligarchy.

 

When the current gerontocracy exits power, it will be up to the young to write off this great evil – the national debt – which has been used w/out question to enrich a predatory few and to the complete detriment of the American people & sound government. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021