We live in interesting times… Much of it self-inflicted!

We live in interesting times… Much of it self-inflicted!

 

There’s so much evil to unpack, as a result of America possessing the world’s fiat currency, that I’ve just scratched the surface.  The spillover effects and impact of exorbitant privilege, from the dictators we prop up to the bloodshed, human rights abuses, & repression America supports, both domestic & foreign… in the furtherance of commercial dominance, to the make the oligarchy richer still, in the name of profits, and in order to be the world’s banking, corporate, and military hegemon sickens the soul.

 

-       Exorbitant Privilege- JM Hamilton

 

By Gregg Wall (12-24-2023)

 

When historians look back, 2023 may prove to be an inflection point like no other in recent years, save 2008.  And it can be argued that the sins of 2008… endless welfare for bankers, billionaires, and multinationals, and the resulting transfer of wealth… materialized in 2023 with a vengeance.

 

This was the year when elites laid it all on the table: their contempt for democracy; their animosity towards labor and the public; their dedication to endless war and mass murder.  To break it down further:  

 

It appears that Trump, a man dedicated to authoritarianism and dictatorship, as of this writing, will be the Republican nominee.  Biden, with extraordinarily bad polling, has dismissed rivals and declared there will be no primary.  America is essentially looking at a retread of the 2020 campaign, at a time that America needs so much more than the reactionary, status quo policies both candidates are willing to offer.  Call it democracy’s death rattle and the rise of oligarchy.  Hell, they’re not even going through the motions anymore.  Both Biden and Trump, Dems and GOP, showing authoritarian tendencies; both parties have zero respect for the American people.  And despite a difference in style, in terms of outcome & substance, there is little difference between how either man will actually govern.  America is looking at two entirely corrupt & evil political parties… all pretense about the lesser two of evils has disappeared into Biden’s genocide.

 

As for elite contempt for consumers, labor, and the public… this was a year like no other.  Prices continued to climb, compounding upon the inflation (aka price gouging) seen in ’20, ’21, and ’22.  The elite & Washington solution to supply-side price gouging, as in prior years, was not to go after greed, monopolies, and Wall St., but to continue to attack consumers & labor (who are one in the same… something U.S. antitrust law conveniently forgets).  But the U.S. economy is so encumbered by private and public debt, it appears that the Federal Reserve will pull up short on its inflation fight, by declaring victory based upon a specious core inflation number.  Gaslight, lie, repeat: Isn’t the Biden economy wonderful?  Easier money, which led to the consolidated economy, may return in 2024, but that doesn’t mean dereg, greed, neoliberalism, and the nation’s monopoly problems will be resolved (far from it).  In short, even if greed takes a vacation, the factors that have set off record profits and labor lining up in breadlines… consolidation, gov & regulatory capture, laissez-faire, monopoly, and Wall St speculation… remain and are alive and well. 

 

As for endless war and genocide?  Biden and his handlers, and donors, appear to be willing to risk all… American prestige and arguably, national security itself… by supporting genocide and mass - child - murder inside Gaza.  America’s reputation is drowning in blood.  And the elites in Washington appear to be at least forty years behind the times.  Israelis are no longer an oppressed people but, backed by the U.S., are a superpower in their own right.  Their treatment of the Palestinian people in 2014 was wretched… today, America’s and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people are war crimes.  The majority of Americans want no part of it.  They are sick of wars, a wartime economy, and the resulting austerity.  And Biden and the Democratic party, the GOP establishment as well, have demonstrated a total disregard for the will of the American people.  Try as they might, genocide - and Israel as a victim - simply does not sell (especially since Netanyahu funded and supported Hamas).  Why is the American taxpayer fighting these wars again?  Putin is no more a threat to the United States, than Hamas is.  Oh, and the Ukraine, just another war revealed for what it is, a fraud, another of America’s for-profit wars. 

 

These failures combined, the contempt for democracy, the slow rolling emergence of a totalitarian state, an oligarchy, a two-party system that is little more than a front for controlled opposition, and a U.S. economy now dependent upon debt & war… all point to a shift that Americans will have to deal with in the coming years.  The sooner, the better. 

 

 

 

 

 

Nor is this inflection point limited to America.  Throughout the West, center-left and center-right political parties are unwilling to challenge 43 years of failed Reagan & Thatcher, neoliberalism, supply-side and trickle-down fraud.  The beating incumbent parties – in North America and Europe - are taking right now is extraordinary; and yet, not a word on addressing corruption, endless war, economy & job killing utilities, and oligarchy that are responsible for the public’s complete dissatisfaction (nor do opposition parties have anything to offer).  As centrism & corporatism fail humanity, the world is drowning in fossil fuels flooding and flames. 

 

The billionaire response, the oligarchy response?  If we are to judge from Mr. Zuckerberg:  Dig deeper moats, build stronger fortresses and bunkers; but under no circumstances pullup from an economic model … the greed-based international order… that has completely failed the world.

 

The only positive in 2023 is the resurgence of labor, of unions, and the beating back of boardrooms, C-suites, and kleptocrats.  It’s about time.  

 

Happy New Year.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023

The Forces of Light and Darkness: America’s slide into Totalitarianism

The Forces of Light and Darkness: America’s Slide into Totalitarianism

 

“We will win, because our existence here is at stake,” he says, likening Hamas to Nazi Germany and calling the conflict “a war between forces of light and forces of darkness, between humanity and animalism.”

-       Netanyahu to Knesset, Times of Israel

 

By Gregg Wall (12-9-2023)

 

What a week it was for the United States.  And while I’d like to say it can only get better, I’m not a fan of deflection, frosting, Pollyanna narratives, and lies, that is to say, I’m not a member of America’s corporate MSM.  I’m a huge fan of the truth, of lifting up the hood, and exposing the defects, problems, and most of all, America’s rapidly accelerating, downward trajectory into authoritarianism, fascism, and yes, even totalitarianism. 

 

America’s genocide in Gaza continued unabated this week, with the slaughter of innocent civilians now numbering in the tens of thousands (mostly women and children).  America took a beating in the United Nations this week, for supporting the same genocide under the Orwellian premise that, get this: peace can only bring more war.  Amazing.  A premise and position that the United Nations Security Council unanimously rejected (save for our boot licking lackey, the UK, which in cowardly fashion, abstained).  The MSM and the Biden Administration did their part this week, as they do weekly now, by gaslighting and lying to the general public with a relentless campaign to tell us how great the Biden economy is.  This tsunami of propaganda, despite libertarianism/supply-side being an overwhelming disaster for the majority of Americans (as is also becoming increasingly clear throughout Western democracies).  And despite Biden’s public approval rating continuing to scrape rock bottom.

 

As for America’s slide into totalitarianism… it’s probably a good time to revisit some of the key characteristics of the totalitarian model. 

 

The model often revolves around cults of personality or a single leader.  At the moment, America has two elderly fossils, who compete for the top prize, Biden and Trump.  Neither leader is a fan of democracy. Trump has talked about becoming a dictator, while Biden and the Democratic party have openly declared the doddering, old Biden will face no democracy and competition in the coming year, that is to say, no primary. 

 

Both parties, as best exemplified by the congress, operate in open defiance and contempt for popular will.  While exhibiting blind faith and obedience to banks, the deep state, multinationals, & oligarchy that actually run the country.  (Imagine that, a U.S. economy and oligarchy that are repeatedly bailed out and on the government dole, deem it appropriate to run the United States government under the failed premise of greed first.)  This tyranny is further enforced by a deep, police, and surveillance state, and mind-numbing debt to finance it all.  The police state serves not to protect the public but to protect the totalitarian model, capital, and leadership itself, and the police state is also a source of chaos & terror.  Crushing national debt is carried on the backs of Americans in the form of a regressive tax code, a dearth of social spending, and austerity (all but guaranteeing economic stagnation).

 

The U.S. economy is so concentrated into the hands of a wealthy few oligarchs and monopolies, that upon careful examination it more closely resembles a command economy w/ little that resembles a healthy capitalist model.  That is to say, the so-called markets are performative & rigged (marked by collusion and price fixing); and as there is no competition and price discovery… there is only boardroom & C-suite despots dictating gov policy, prices, and wages.  To backstop this failed model, catastrophic money printing and deficit spending have become the hallmark of the failed neoliberal/trickle-down paradigm, with absurd & considerable sums directed at moral hazard defined: private sector mercenaries, in the form of defense contractors, and endless war.  Cronyism, corruption, and gerontocracy are the defining features of both the brittle U.S. economy and government, as the two are married & symbiotic. 

 

Social authoritarianism and coercion - and a unifying ideology centered around greed - are growing more rife throughout the country, along with attacks upon the other: LGBTQ, blacks, minorities, women, Islam, and those of Jewish faith and patrimony.  For many white males this attack upon minorities and women serves as a balm for a criminal oligarchy and economy that has failed them, as it has failed sixty percent of the U.S. population.  And, as the economy fails, the atomization and social cohesion fall further and further into disarray.  The nation’s oligarchy loves endless societal war, and the corporate MSM caters to division and social-acceptance of the two far-right political parties (Dems & GOP), because it keeps the nation distracted and divided.  All the better to keep attention directed away from the 1% that are stealing the nation blind.  Warning: This societal entropy often leads to great violence.  Violence… economic, political, and societal… that is already rampant.

 

Totalitarian nations often set a specific goal, and here, America elites appear particularly centered & focused on global hegemony, both economic and militarily.  We can see this best characterized in the United States empire, commercial colonialism, genocide, in excess of 800 military bases around the globe, and endless wars & nihilism.  As mentioned above, the U.S. wartime economy is both critical & essential, as it backstops a libertarian/supply-side economic model that concentrates wealth and wages into the hands of few and fails to offer a living wage or an increasing standard of living to the majority of Americans.

 

Yet, another signpost on America’s highway to hell is illiberalism or the attack upon basic freedoms, such as freedom of assembly, protest, and speech.  Americans should continue to expect the steady erosion of civil liberties, as our economy, government, oligarchy continue to decay and grow more intolerant, like the dying gerontocracy itself.  As these civil liberties die, as democracy dies, hope is replaced by fear… this is currently best exhibited by ever rising deaths of despair, a national mental health crisis, and a general sense of societal malaise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And what of the corporate media itself?  Like all other facets of the economy, the media is becoming more concentrated, more uniform in putting out a party line or position, rather than actually investigating, uncovering, and holding the deep state, government, monopolies, politicians, and multinationals accountable. Like the government & regulatory agencies, the news media has become captured, owned.  The consolidation of news organizations, in the end, may actually be the greatest threat and slide Americans have seen over the last 43 year on the road to authoritarianism and totalitarianism.  It's all about controlling the narrative. 

 

News has, all too often, become anodyne, torpid, centered around consumerism, and a showcase for the 1%.  More noted for what the nation’s papers of record choose not to report, than what they do report.  And in the process, fails to educate and inform.  At its worst, the U.S. media normalizes fascism, the drift to authoritarianism, aids in the atomization of society, and becomes a source of government misinformation. 

In short, abandon all hope ye who seek the truth.

To borrow from Malcolm X:  If we are not careful, the corporate MSM will have We, The People hating the poor, the disenfranchised, and loving billionaires & politicians... who are, generally, evil, vicious killers. 

Billionaires & politicians, who profit from: destroying democracy, greed, human misery, mass child murder, a violent assault upon individual freedoms, & planetary extinction. 

The corporate MSM will have us loving these repugnant individuals, or Americans are so ground down, by a totalitarian economy & government… that We, The People don’t have the time to notice how evil our country has become. 

And that’s the corporate MSM’ job as well… to do anything and everything but report the news.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023

Fifth Annual Neoliberal Darwin Awards

Fifth Annual Neoliberal Darwin Awards 

 

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. 

 

-       James Madison, Fourth POTUS

 

By Gregg Wall (11-25-2023)

 

Greedy boomer pigs.  

 

It’s something I’ve never quite forgiven my parents for.  If I had been born a year or two later, I could have been Gen X, instead the dreaded B-word.  Mom more than made up for it, however, by being Canadian.  Dual citizenship is something I find myself increasingly thanking the Goddess above for. 

 

It wasn’t bad enough that boomers - & the silent generation - gave us Reagan, the Clintons, forty years of trickle-down, supply-side fraud, and $37 trillion in national debt… but it turns out, the entire economy has been rigged in their favor: Bank of America reports boomer balance sheets have ballooned a massive $129 trillion.  This transfer of wealth came by looting the federal, and in some instances, state governments: the aforementioned $37 trillion in federal debt, the explosive growth in money supply, leverage, compounding tax cuts for the uber rich and the merely rich, a regressive tax structure, monetary policy & interest rate suppression policies that juiced real estate & asset classes of the wealthy, endless Wall St bailouts, and the FED put.  The boomer trash couldn’t lose.  A U.S. economy, at least in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, that still functioned for Americans… where M&A, private equity, and Wall St. had not yet destroyed competition, markets, pensions, company after company, and price discovery.

 

It's all gone now.  A functioning economy, that is actual competition, markets, a living wage, and price discovery… vanished, disappeared by greed, M&A, the formation of a monopoly economy, the elimination of rules & regs, and globalization.  U.S. labor reduced to a mere commodity… the middle class also disappeared.  No wonder Millennials & Gen Z are upset.  Price gouging, shareholder value, ongoing dollar depreciation, and offshored labor have crushed North American labor’s earnings.  And federal government debt is catastrophic.  (Which doesn’t mean our highly corrupt congress won’t bailout Wall St again and again, or finance another for-profit war, but it does mean: opportunity & job killing austerity for the American people, as far as the eye can see.  Unless the younger generations demand that the national debt be written down, as they should.)  The latest deficit is two trillion dollars and the national debt is $37 trillion, including Trump’s 2020 Wall St. bailout.  Our great, libertarian, capitalist utopia is addicted to government spending, government welfare, privatization schemes, zombies & debt, and endless war.  Federal government spending is 25% of U.S. GDP, and a sizeable chunk of that is defense and security state spending. 

 

And nobody wants to address the elephant in the room: failed Reaganomics, Clintonista neoliberalism, oligarchy, trickle-down, and supply-side fraud.

 

With wage & wealth concentration - firmly entrenched into the hands of few oligarchs - growing more burdensome, with consolidation, technology, and the monopoly economy requiring fewer well-paid workers … government spending & debt to keep the American economy upright can only be expected to grow & undoubtedly will grow.  Which brings us to the American defense industry, this year’s Neoliberal Darwin Award winner.  

 

It's no accident that America finds itself constantly at war, that defense & security state spending grows ever higher.  It’s also no accident that GDP growth tracks with deficit spending (with deficit spending as a percentage of GDP coming in higher than actual GDP growth). The fallout from wage & wealth inequality, globalization, and a monopoly economy is a permanent under-class, catastrophic credit card debt, and a regressed & stagnating private sector economy… this means that in order for America to have growth or maintain GDP, federal government spending must pick up private sector slack.  

 

And, in Washington, what better way to grow the economy and create jobs than our repugnant arms industry.  Defense spending is a never-ending source of campaign contributions, kickbacks, stock appreciation, and stock buybacks for our day traders in congress.  As the defense industry grows and as the military is increasingly privatized… and as the private sector consolidates and shrinks the number of well paying jobs… the moral hazard and temptation to embrace conflict & war as the one-size-fits-all solution to all American & Western economic & foreign policy needs will only increase and grow.  And our morally bankrupt congress has shown zero appetite to rein it in.

 

This likely means Americans can expect to be treated to the spectacle of more genocides, more war, more U.S. troops placed into harm’s way, as well as more proxy wars.  To defray out-of-control defense spending and the monopolization & corruption of the defense industry, the U.S. pushes its allies to buy armaments that sometimes, to put it nicely, don’t even function.

 

And the quid pro quo for the American people?  More debt, more austerity, more culture war politics, more divide & conquer politics to distract from gross fiscal & monetary mismanagement in Washington.  The post-boomer generations enslaved & indentured to catastrophic national debt.  Exorbitant privilege slipping from our grasp?  And an ever-growing police & surveillance state to maintain law & order as the American people come to discover they’ve been lied to & ripped off (by vicious boomer & the silent generations).  We can also expect the corporate MSM to do its part: by blasting the latest War & Washington narrative from our television sets, instead of doing a deep dive into gross, abject political fraud in Washington. 

Alas, it's complex they tell us.  But not really.  At the center of all this, who does the U.S. economy serve: a handful of oligarchs (in which case, everything is perfect), or the American people (in which case, the economy is a disaster)?

 

And there you have it America… an economic, fiscal, foreign policy update… and this year’s Neoliberal Darwin Award winner:  

 

The Military Industrial Complex. 

 

All for want of honesty & integrity in our leadership.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023