The Oligarchy is Global… the Decay & Rot of Neoliberalism is Global
No matter how the invasion ends, a new Cold War appears inevitable. While many commentators now accept that NATO expansion to Russia’s borders helped stir Putin’s aggression, new plans for bolstering NATOare already underway. Germany has announced a major military expansion. The Baltic states demand increased protection — meaning more NATO forces on Russia’s border. There’s talk of bringing Finland and Sweden into the alliance.
- How to avoid a new Cold War and focus on what America really needs, Washington Post
By Gregg Wall (March 19, 2022)
Hand it to the man in the Kremlin, if for nothing else. Not only has he brought the global oligarchy problem into sharp relief, but he’s exposed the West’s shear hypocrisy and descent into madness as never before. Most of all, the complete failure that is neoliberalism -- that is to say, anything goes for the wealthy -- has come into clear view.
But don’t look for Western MSM to go there, just yet. Many media outlets are billionaire owned and rely upon support and ad revenue from ultra-wealthy individuals, multinationals, and monopolies (who have a vested interest in maintaining a failed, oligarch status quo). Besides, if the majority of Western govs are good at anything, it’s at deflecting blame and attention away from the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. And yet, by drawing so much attention to Putin’s War, and the conversation surrounding Russian oligarchs, the Western MSM is, in fact, calling attention to our global billionaire problem.
Exhibit A: London or, as I like to call it, Saint Petersburg on the Thames. Basically, Russian oligarchy central. The UK was all too happy to launder money for ultra-wealthy Russians, allow them to launder their reputations – for robbing the citizens of Russia – with philanthropic donations, hell, both Labour and the Conservative parties accepted money from Russian plutocrats.
But in the ensuing brouhaha – and discussions on Putin’s obvious criminality - very little has been said about the West’s war criminals, Messrs. Blair and Bush. I guess it’s perfectly acceptable for the West to destroy a country and murder tens of thousands, based upon a pack of lies… but fair-skinned Ukraine?
Too many Western governments are so buried in hypocrisy, it’s appalling. And the UK’s, and America’s, involvement with Russian oligarchy, as well as, their own oligarchs, is just the tip of the iceberg. This slippery slide into hell has been going on in America and the UK for decades and directly correlates with Western decline.
Exhibit B: America’s approximate national debt at the close of the Cold War was $4.065 trillion (December 1991). Today, the national debt stands at a staggering $30 trillion. Amazing. Where did it all go wrong? The Cold War was over… I remember something about a peace dividend, but that didn’t last long. From financing endless wars, endless Wall St. bailouts, to endless tax cuts for the billionaires and oligarchs … America’s national debt is a calamity. And there’s limited doubt, America’s national debt & forever wars, likely, factored into Putin’s decision to invade the Ukraine.
To say that America ‘pissed it all away’ on wars without meaning and fiscal, monetary, tax, and foreign policies that are nothing less than a billionaire welfare state (rather, let’s call it an oligarchy welfare state) is no exaggeration. Dare we call it looting by a privileged few, in the single greatest transfer of wealth in humanity's history? Breathtaking in its audacity, conception, & execution … but an even greater indictment stems from how little coverage America’s own oligarchy problem receives from the MSM.
When’s the last time ABC, CBS, CNN, or NBC ran a story on America’s billionaire problem?
Exhibit C: The Pentagon dumps its own plane, the F-35? That’s right, the mother of all money pits, the DOD, has cut back on the purchase of F-35s, by approximately 33 jets in the coming fiscal year. Lockheed’s F-35 is notorious for repeated failures and not living up to expectations & specifications. At one point, Bloomberg news reported 800 defects in the aircraft.
Apparently, it’s a plane so incompetently built and engineered that it’s too frivolous for the boys & girls at the Pentagon. You know, the institution that hasn’t passed a successful audit in decades, that is since Congress mandated audits way back in 1990. And now, the Pentagon is doing what our corrupt US congress fails to do… cut back on this dog with projected operational costs of a trillion, plus.
Then again, the Germans picked up 35 of these F-35 paperweights… so perhaps the generals in D.C. felt they could dump this problem on another nation or nations?
The elites and billionaires - America’ criminal oligarchy – decided to allow our entire economy to metastasize into that apogee of failed neoliberalism, monopoly and cartel, and, as a result, the taxpayer and consumer price gouging knows no end. Neither does diseconomies of scale… that is, forget planned obsolescence, systemic failure is built into the laissez-faire business model for profit maximization. Just ask Boeing.
Exhibit D: When Silicon Valley and Tech monarchs screw up, royally… you know, by selling off chip operations, spinning off chip operations, handing America’s tech/chip preeminence off to the island nation of Taiwan (which is under constant threat from totalitarian China)… you can always count on American politicians to shower unlimited welfare on our Tech oligarchy and utilities.
That’s exactly what Congress did recently, when they passed $52 billion in corporate welfare for Silicon Valley. You guessed it, so billionaires can collect billions to return chip manufacturing to US shores. Because being an entirely unaccountable branch of government, like Congress, one that is always cashing in on the latest corporate welfare legislation… means the American oligarchy never has to explain itself and are never held accountable for doing insane stuff, like handing off chip preeminence to the target of a totalitarian superpower.
It’s all good Intel and Oracle, the check is in the mail.
But there’s more to this story, because it so clearly illustrates the assumption that the failed libertarian model is the only industrial policy for the United States, despite the endemic corruption, failure, and concentrated evil and wealth associated with libertarianism. Conveniently, never discussed, never debated: the export of the US economy, jobs, and tax base offshore, in the name of maximum profits obtained via labor, government, regulatory, and tax arbitrage. Basically, a failed libertarian model that has impoverished tens of millions of Americans and completely destroyed her once vibrant middle class.
As Speaker Pelosi, not so long ago, callously remarked: It’s the free market. Odd, I don’t recall Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, calling systemic racism, abuse of labour, and stealing from the government the free market.
Exhibit E: Being a CEO and well-loved American multinational that caters to children, apparently means you can, endlessly, talk out of both sides of your mouth. Enter Disney… creator of fairy tales for children and adults, the mega-entertainment behemoth (that hosts Gay Days at its Florida theme park).
But a funny thing happened to Disney, when its CEO attempted to sidestep Florida’s far-right, Don’t Say Gay legislation, that is now sitting on fascist governor, Ron Desantis’ desk.
There was a backlash, when the Disney CEO said he didn’t want to become a political football on the matter… and there was even more backlash when it came to light that Disney contributed to the extremist, right-wing politicians that inhabit Florida’s legislature.
But let’s not single out Disney, oh what the hell… let’s. Disney is just another in a long line of billionaires and multinationals – monopolies under the failed neoliberal paradigm – that constantly say one thing and then turnaround and shower money on some of the most vile politicians in the United States. Americans saw this after the January 6th coup, when the wealthy and CEOs cut off the GOP, only to begin funding the party of coup, insurrection, and white supremacy shortly thereafter.
We’ll likely see the very same shenanigans when the Ukraine crisis settles down or becomes far less of a story. America’s multinationals & oligarchs will make a show of stiff-arming Putin and the Russian economy, only to return when the coast is clear?
And that’s it… I don’t even have time to go into the entirely manufactured energy crisis, as American oligarchs, oil despots globally, neoliberalism (aka anything goes for the criminally wealthy), and a highly corrupt congress gouge American consumers (while the corporate MSM attempts to cast blame upon Russia and inflation). It’s just another example of the grotesquery surrounding America’s decaying, rotting – neoliberal - economic system and the US government’s utter failure to take basic remedial action, like enforce antitrust, exact a windfall profits tax, and heavily regulate America’ most brutal monopolies & utilities. Congress, of course, can’t do these things because they’re too busy cashing in & managing their stock portfolios.
What’s so amazing about all this is that the minting of American oligarchs, and the failure of neoliberalism (to the complete detriment of the American people), has been going on for several decades now. The big lie that Reagan sold us – a rising tide raises all boats – was not only false but the criminal elite no longer make any attempts to justify or rationalize failed libertarian industrial policy. As America’s national debt soars, the number of billionaires rises and the greater the austerity foisted upon the American people... the greater the attacks against labour, indeed the planet.
It’s all a recipe for disaster, emboldening America’s worst enemies… namely, the global oligarchy.
And if we owe Putin a debt for anything, it’s for, inadvertently, ripping the tourniquet off the globe’s festering, septic billionaire problem.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2022
