The Fourth Annual Neoliberal Darwin Awards

 

The Fourth Annual Neoliberal Darwin Awards 

 

WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed an $858 billion defense policy bill that would rescind the Pentagon’s mandate that troops receive the coronavirus vaccine, pushing past the objections of the Biden administration as lawmakers in both parties united behind another huge increase in military spending.

 

-      House Passes $858 Billion Defense Bill Repealing Vaccine Mandate for Troops – NY Times

 

By Gregg Wall (12-23-2022) 

 

My readers by now are familiar that I use this annual column to write about companies and executives who have epically failed to provide goods and services for humanity… indeed, in the name of shareholder value & self-enrichment, have gone out of their way to harm consumers and treat humanity & labor with great contempt.  And trust me, there was no shortage of targets to write about this year, be they executives, owners, or entire industries.  It seems that COVID and global calamites - like the climate crisis – have done absolutely nothing to cause humanity and leadership to pull up, take stock, and recognize the path we are clearly headed down is a most unhappy one. 

 

This year, however, seemed somewhat different.  It was a great year for recognizing, witnessing, and examining great macroeconomic trends.  And this year, the year of our lord 2022, was munificent in that regard.  Therefore, we dedicate this column to some of the great Darwinian macroeconomic trends, observed in 2022.  So walk with me and let’s look at some of the great economic & political trends. 

 

I felt badly in recent months that so many of the parties in leadership conducting, doing, saying horrible things have been women in power.  I’m far more used to attacking my own kind - the privileged white male - who are and remain responsible for hell’s amount of evil, going back centuries and millennium.  But apparently, the price of admission to power in the West, for the current crop of female leaders, is to exceed & outdo their male counterparts in avarice, corruption, and genuflecting to economic power, kleptocracy, and a failed status quo.  I believe, it’s called identity politics.  Please don’t misunderstand me, we need far more women, minorities and LGBTQ2S in positions of power… but with that, we need real, very real acknowledgement, that the manner in which we have done things – in the U.S. specifically, our economic and foreign policies - has been an abject failure (or more simply put, no longer serves humanity or this planet we are so privileged to exist upon). 

 

And enter Liz Truss, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain and the second coming of PM Margaret Thatcher, or so she had hoped.  Former PM Truss will forever be in my pantheon of heroes for accidently bringing about the beginning of the end of Thatcherism, supply-side economics, and trickle-down tax theories.  With Tory leaders failing frequently & often in the U.K., PM Truss came to power on the heels of Boris Johnson.  Truss promised to reverse course and double-down on Thatcherism with large tax cuts for the rich, donors, businesses, and friends (coupled with austerity, shrinking the state and public services, at the same time Britons were feeling quite abused by four decades of the Thatcher economy and Etonian elites).  But ironically enough, it wasn’t center-left politicians or the public that brought PM Truss down; but the very markets, financial mavens, banking, and shadow banking entities that had thrived for decades under failed supply-side and trickle-down economics (as Great Britain’s national debt soared to pay for all that plutocratic welfare).  The FOREX markets, and arguably, the Bank of England toppled PM Truss, as the pound crashed.

 

A key difference between Thatcher and Truss was national debt to GDP ratios of roughly 40 to 45% in 1979, versus just over 100% in 2021.  That and forty odd years of tax cuts for the rich, laissez-faire, City of London and bank bailouts, and the robbing of the public and public services to pay for the transfer of wealth (aka socialism) to a predatory elite.  And now, the country has erupted into strikes as inflation and consumer price gouging soar.  As for PM Truss (aka Maggie Thatcher 2), she lasted all of 45 days. 

 

If some of this seems highly familiar with what is going on in the United States, the parallels and economic decadence and debauchery, for a predatory few, are very much aligned.  Soaring national debt, the looting of the state by the rich, a tax code only Warren Buffett could love, the collapse of Reaganomics (Thatcher’s evil twin)… yes, it’s the nightmare that keeps on giving, along with a highly, highly corrupt United States government (and a failed political duopoly).  Which, perhaps, brings us to the next great macro-trend, politicians who acknowledge problems, make promises to address problems or say they are addressing a problem, and then, do little or nothing about it.  I know, I know, this is not unique to 2022.  But President Biden and his recent acknowledgements that monopolies and trickle-down economics are a huge problem, also goes along with the readily apparent collapse of neoliberalism, supply-side economics, and anything goes (aka laissez-faire) for the billionaire elite. 

 

And if we are totally honest, it’s also in keeping with that other self-regulatory failure, GFANZ, Wall St., and the private sector.  The trio that is going to save us all from perdition, a planet in distress, a planet on the verge of collapse. 

 

Further reinforcing these macro themes, was the collapse of crypto in 2022.  You know that fabulous libertarian solution to central banks and money printing.  Crypto … with absolutely nothing supporting it or tethering it to reality… but celebrity endorsements, love and appreciation from members of congress, and the corporate titans that piled in.  All that, and of course, fraud.  As Sam Bankman-Fried and his crypto exchange, FTX, went down in flames. 

 

Nearly lost in the smoke and rubble of Thatcherism and Reaganomics -- and forty years of the Greed Based International Order -- was the abject insanity of the United States going to war with a nuclear power, Russia.  Casting aside logic, intelligence, reason, and the MAD doctrine… and facing, potentially, global nuclear annihilation… America decided to back the most corrupt nation in Europe (whose 'Dear Leader' suspended press freedoms and any political opposition, presumably in the furtherance of democracy).  With no national security interests whatsoever in the Ukraine, why is U.S. leadership toying with & stroking, what Freud would call, our collective death wish? 

 

Perhaps we can find the answer to that question in the 859-billion-dollar defense bill, presently sailing through congress.  With ungodly sums of pork for defense contractors -- more than the G10, combined -- the epitome of a greed, hubris, and kickbacks, as U.S. child poverty soars again.  

 

The elite’s priorities seem really, really screwed up. 

 

I’m not always a fan of markets, especially rigged markets, particularly as some sort of North Star or moral or pragmatic compass for running the world.  But when humanity & markets signal Reaganomics, supply-side economics, trickle-down, crypto scams, and the accompanying catastrophic debt are a big, big problem…  just maybe, it’s time to listen and bag forty years of greed, before greed bags all of us and the planet so many of us deeply adore.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2022

Rail Strike Avoided…

 

Rail Strike Avoided… but Robber Barons, a Corrupt U.S. Government, and the Monopoly Economy are Alive & Well 

 

 

On Friday, December 2, President Joe Biden signed a joint resolution from Congress binding railroad workers to a September tentative agreement with the railroad corporations — a contract that a majority of rail workers had recently rejected. Joined by labor secretary Marty Walsh and transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, Biden declared, “We’ve avoided a catastrophic rail strike.” The reason Congress could intervene in the railroad labor dispute is that a century-old law — the Railway Labor Act of 1926 — explicitly provides for the possibility of a strike while simultaneously limiting its disruptive power.

 

Understanding this contradiction — allowing for strikes but within narrow, government-sanctioned confines — requires a review of the history of the right to strike and its regulation in what came to be called “emergency disputes.” Whereas the US legal system looked askance at workers’ right to walkout for much of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the effective legalization of trade unions during the New Deal transformed the relationship between workers and bosses in the United States. If labor unions were to be legalized, US politicians reasoned, their negotiations with employers had to be regulated in those workplaces where, in the words of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, interruption of service “imperils the public health and safety.”

 

-       The Railway Labor Act Allowed Congress to Break the Rail Strike. We Should Get Rid of It. – The Jacobian

 

 

By Gregg Wall (12-10-2022)

 

From, allegedly, being the most pro-labor President, since FDR, to stabbing railroad workers directly in the back - over sick leave - Biden has performed the most extraordinary pivot in modern American politics.  

 

Then again, it’s entirely consistent with Biden’s, seemingly, endless betrayal of the American people, during his first two years in office.  You know, when Biden and Dems, controlling both the House & Senate, failed to pass BBB, cannabis legalization, higher minimum wage, ROE codification, and voting rights legislation.  Understandably, one might conclude that Biden is working for the Republican party and the robber barons, that America’s failed political duopoly reports into. 

 

Of course, Biden does work for the robber barons, in America’s Neo-Gilded Age, and American voters were keenly aware of this back in 2020.  Biden’s track record, along with establishment Dems and GOP, has been one never ending catalogue of treachery… attacks directed at the American people, the nation, unions, and the consumer & labor (versus endless favoritism & welfare for wealthy donors, the rich & powerful). 

 

Even “progressives” in the House played their role, by decoupling strike breaking legislation, and proposing separate legislation for the sick leave railroad workers sought (so these same faux progressives could pat themselves on the back, knowing full well that the sick leave bill would never pass the Senate).  That’s right, this entire ordeal was about cheating workers out of five to seven sick leave days, so labor could stay healthy and run the nation’s critical infrastructure.  Goddess knows the robber baron ingrates -- sick twisted chiselers, and mentally crippled misers, like Warren Buffett and Charles Munger -- aren’t going to get the job done.

 

Interestingly, students of America’s highly corrupt congress had seen this stunt before, when the Progressive caucus saw the House decouple the bipartisan corporate infrastructure bill from BBB; and then, the same progressives caved to Biden’s plea to pass the corporate infrastructure welfare bill, while leaving BBB essentially dead & buried (and now, BBB, almost assuredly, is a footnote in the great American pantheon of lies).

 

 

 

 

 

It should turn the nation’s collective stomach… and the irony should be lost on absolutely no one… that many of the union busting acts & laws of the 19^th and 20^th centuries concerned railroads.  Moreover, as clearly stated in the aforementioned Jacobian article, the rationalization for busting up union strikes often comes down to interrupting services that "imperils public health and safety”.  The cold hard reality:  billionaires, and the judges & politicians that the oligarchy owns, are far more concerned about interrupted profits, not interrupted public health & safety. 

 

What could “imperil public health and safety” more than sick & unwell engineers and railroad employees operating locomotives, that weigh anywhere from 100 to 200 tons?  So you know that I’m not exaggerating, and what a threat to public health and safety Biden’s & congress’ decision was … some of us recall a railroad accident in Canada a few years back, where a town was incinerated. 

 

That’s right.  The Lac-Megantic rail disaster, where half the town was destroyed and building after building had to be demolished, post-catastrophe.  The death toll was 47.  The deadliest non-passenger rail accident since Canada’s confederation in 1867. 

 

What caused the disaster?  Lax rules & regulations, dilapidated infrastructure, tank cars that had not been replaced, and likely, overworked rail employees (there was only one employee on the doomed train, which no surprise is what American railroad robber barons are pushing for presently).  The accident could as easily have happened in the United States, given America’s aging & crumbling infrastructure, union busting activities, overworked employees, presently - zero sick leave, and the greed & parsimony with which U.S. railroad management and ownership conduct themselves.  To drive the point home, we know that increased frequency of accidents drives catastrophic events.  The NSC reports: “Railroad deaths totaled 893 in 2021, a 20% increase from the 2020 revised total of 744 and the highest since 2007.”  Meanwhile, railroads are scoring record profits, at the expense of their workers and the general public.  Seems that billionaires, management, and ownership merely view their employees and the general public as collateral damage, on the way to multi-billion returns and rich dividends for shareholders. 

 

The bottom line:  The very words & excuses for busting unions… safety and public health… are often sacrificed when we allow billionaires, cartels, monopolies, and Wall St to trample over workers, consumers, and the general public.  

 

And when a blood-soaked congress & regulatory agencies are for sale, on the cheap. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2022

 

Nancy Pelosi and the Decline of American Democracy

Nancy Pelosi and the Decline of American Democracy

 

“History will note she is the most consequential Speaker of the House of Representatives in our history,” Biden said in a statement. “There are countless examples of how she embodies the obligation of elected officials to uphold their oath to God and country to ensure our democracy delivers and remains a beacon to the world.”

 

-       Pelosi stepping down as top House Democrat after 2 decades in leadership

 

By Gregg Wall (11-26-2022)

 

Enjoy the above quote, girls and boys, because that’s the only positive thing you’ll read in this piece about the former House Speaker.  Do consider the source, pay-to-play Biden.  If like me, you are celebrating the former Speaker’s long overdue retirement, then please read on.  

 

The month of November will go down in the history books for the unprecedented magnitude of gaslighting & lies issuing forth from the MSM.  First, we were told repeatedly that the Dems won the election, despite losing the House and squeaking by in the Senate.  In essence, assuring that centrists, a failed status quo, endless gridlock, and wealthy American oligarchs were this year's true election winners.  Certainly, no win for Dem voters, who will now have to contend with the fact that the president and crew wasted his first two years and achieved virtually none of the Dems’ 2020 campaign promises.  The second whopper the MSM told… perhaps comparable to an ominous Russian gas leak discovered last summer, in terms of a limitless toxic cloud of methane & gas… was how great Queen Nancy was over the last two decades. 

 

It’s galling to read undeserved & worshipping hagiography, especially volumes of it written for someone so entirely corrupt.  So, let’s get on with it and go over the facts, on Queen Nancy’s reign of terror.  I really couldn’t decide what was the most monumental of her achievements: endless war & the cowardice of hiding behind the 2001 AUMF, two Wall St bailouts (the first bailout, given QE and interest rate suppression, never really ended), the explosion of national debt, or the passage of Obamacare (for-profit medical care, which is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S.)?  All four combined really do Pelosi justice.  In January 2007, when Pelosi initially began as House Speaker, the national debt was roughly $9 trillion… today, as Pelosi exits stage right, the national debt, so we are told, is $31 trillion.  That’s quite an achievement.  To think, all that money went to funding endless bloodshed, bailing out billionaire welfare queens and Wall St., funding obscene amounts of corporate welfare, and endless privatization schemes (which is little more than the transfer of public wealth to serial private sector predators).  And let us not forget, tax cuts for the rich. 

 

Which leads us to the fact that - despite forever identifying herself as a liberal and a progressive - Pelosi loved her GOP.  And the former Speaker was known for pushing through omnibus spending measures, that basically consisted of the GOP's greatest hits.  Omnibus spending measures that always & conveniently instilled & perpetuated globalization, neoliberalism, libertarian industrial policy, neocon foreign policy, failed supply-side economics, and trickle-down tax policies.  I do not recall the insider trading diva ever challenging any of this, when it came time to push the mega-spending bills through the House… do you?  The reality is Nancy, initially, had nothing but contempt for the Green New Deal and saving the planet.  Her memory will be forever soaked in blood for funding wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, and goddess only knows where else… and the American people are expected to pay for this fraud.  Lost in the rubble of her majesty’s Speakership, there are the broken campaign promises… of both Presidents Obama and Biden… that, like magic, never managed to make it through the congress, as the American people suffered endless austerity.

 

Oh yes, the American people, who saw jobs offshored, the economy offshored, wages stagnate, and the middle class destroyed under Nancy’s watch and the Democratic party’s blind subservience to free trade and globalization.  We saw child poverty soar, the middle class destroyed, the abomination of a monopoly economy, and the formation of evil oligarchy, which systematically preys upon Americans.  The Federal Reserve’s printing presses roared.  I never heard The Speaker of the House question a word of it, as the US credit line was transferred to the least deserving of Americans: billionaires, the day traders in congress, the MIC, Silicon Valley, and Wall St.  (Admittedly, Pelosi doesn’t own all this.  But she played a significant role and her power, as House Speaker & Opposition leader, cannot be underestimated.)

 

Repeat.  The Speaker never questioned a word of it… except to chide the press that endemic corruption and day trading in the U.S. congress was about participating in the ‘free market’.  Part of the horror show was sheer arrogance … as in, this is the way it is, and this is the way it will always be.  Is there any doubt that the new generation of leaders will be equally corrupt?  Undoubtedly, much of the hubris stemmed from the knowledge that Americans really have only two right-wing choices every other November.  Both parties are wholly own subsidiaries of oligarchy.  Conveniently enough, the compromised leader never got around to addressing money in politics. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the first woman speaker, and aside from the aforementioned, Nancy Pelosi will forever be associated with the broken promise of identity politics… the idea that representation matters.  But what good is representation if all it does is stonewall against progressive reform, destroy the planet, and act as a guardian for: plutocracy; systemic misogyny & racism; the world largest penal - and slave labor - colony; the ugliest libertarian economic model the world has ever seen; endless bloodshed & war; and limitless taxpayer funded welfare for wealthy donors and utilities?  While the American people suffer and the world suffers endlessly, needlessly in the name of greed.  

Satan in a suffrage white pants suit?  You better god damned better believe it. 

 

The former Speaker will forever be associated with power's coercive insistence upon civility.  Civility in the service of billionaire, corporate, and monopolistic oppression, and mind-numbing corruption.

 

Someday, Americans may, perhaps, actually get the leadership they deserve -- women, blacks, gays, first nations, & immigrants from all faiths & backgrounds -- that aren’t bought off and corporately controlled.  

 

That is to say, leadership that will be nothing like Representative Pelosi. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2022