The Politics of Greed

The Politics of Greed

Mr. Powell said earlier this month that the episode continued to exert a significant influence on his management of monetary policy.

“The taper tantrum left scars on anybody who was working at the Fed at that time,” Mr. Powell said at a joint appearance in Atlanta with Mr. Bernanke and the former Fed chairwoman Janet L. Yellen.

-      Effects of the 2013 ‘Taper Tantrum’ Linger Over Fed Policy – NY Times

 

By Gregg Wall (7-22-2023) 

 

Inflation (i.e., price gouging) has been in the news the last couple of weeks.  America’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released their numbers on July 12, and Canada released its numbers this week.  And from all the cheering you’d thought the Allied powers had just defeated Germany, but alas, it was not to be.  Inflation still soars, the core inflation figure – which conveniently enough excludes food and retail fuel prices – climbs ever higher, as does the U.S. stock market despite the obvious pain felt by the majority of Americans. Interest rates remain at a highly accommodative historical norm, and Western leaders & politicians consistently fail to address the monopolies and utilities responsible for a global pandemic of greedflation. 

 

The U.S. financial press appears in on the act… the MSM dutifully, and w/out fail, reports out the party line. Seemingly, not a single member of the MSM questions how is it, that gas prices are 50% higher than when POTUS Biden entered the White House, despite America being the most prolific producer of oil & gas on the planet.  No one questions how rents continue to soar another 7.8%, food another 5.7%... all of which comes on top of the price gouging incurred in 2020, 2021, and 2022.  In fact, if anything, profits continue to soar, as America’s boardrooms, C-suites, and monopolists pocket lower cost inputs for steeper profits margins, or in the case of Wall St banks, hoard higher interest rates.  It’s quite the rape. 

 

But despite all the high-fives in the financial media, things apparently are not well: 

 

The oft cited jobs numbers frequently fall short of expectations, as Americans increasingly find themselves in jobs that fail to pay a living wage (let alone allow them to keep up with serial price gouging). 

 

Bankruptcies are rising.  As corporate entities that gorged on free money welfare & financial engineering for years, finally have discovered debt service loads and interest rates more commensurate with their credit and underwriting risks.

 

And the ultimate bellwether on how the economy is doing, POTUS Biden continues to bottom out in the polls.   Seems that many Americans are not drinking the Kool-Aid served up by Bidenomics and members of the MSM. 

 

Hence, the fear and loathing surrounding proposals from economists… at least one suggesting the path forward should be allowing companies to gouge harder, and that the Federal Reserve’s targeted inflation rate should be allowed to climb higher, from 2% to 3%.  After all, why kill a perfectly good stock market rally and a failed Biden presidency with a bummer like a recession?  Let the gouging continue, faster and harder. 

 

The other idea tossed out this week was that the U.S. dollar would weaken as the FED paused on interest rate hikes, because of the lower core inflation number, as central banks around the globe continued to hike. Clearly, a disaster for Americans who already struggle from a failed neoliberal economy, an import driven economy, and a further assault on the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar.  A weaker dollar and a collared FED would be an asset for the stock market, the rich, and asset classes of the rich… and the repatriation of foreign profits back into U.S. dollars by multinationals.   How convenient. 

 

The powerful and the rich always have an angle.  Don’t they? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conveniently omitted from the MSM analysis were two central questions.  First, if globalization, neoliberalism, and oligarchy are the end all, be all of economics, why are Western citizens so angry and upset, why all the strikes, the contrived shortages, the manipulated supplies, the ever-spiraling greedflation?  Why? Why? Why?  The silence is deafening.  Seemingly nobody – particularly the wise boys and girls in newsrooms – has any answers.  Or perhaps the question is indiscrete… after all, why anger the billionaire owners & sponsors of newsrooms?  Why stray from the neoliberal party line, particularly when reporters are getting axed?  

 

The other question that occurred to me, what happened to the tantrums?  I seem to recall the manipulated U.S. stock market went into a swan dive anytime former FED chairs, Bernanke & Yellen, even hinted at QT (quantitative tightening) or a return to normalized interest rates.  Which, shockers, meant that the free money welfare used to transfer wealth from the taxpayer & future generations to multinationals & oligarchs, via interest rate suppression & money printing (aka QE – quantitative easing), continued relentlessly.   The FED put, meaning the stock market was too big to fail, was the order of the day.  QE and easy money (aka welfare for Wall St.) led directly to the consolidated, monopoly economy Americans face today.  You know, the monopolies that are presently ripping off Americans at an alarming rate.  And yet, this time when the FED absolutely had to hike rates, no tantrum.  In fact, the stock market soars, once again, to obscene valuations.

 

Crickets from American & Western newsrooms.  Best not turnover that rock… besides Mr. Bernanke just won a Nobel.  We can’t ask questions of a great American icon, who directly and indirectly oversaw & engineered, along with his peers, the greatest consolidation of the global economy & transfer of wealth the world has ever seen.  He saved us from a great recession, that is to say, Bernanke bailed out systemic corruption, greed, and failed neoliberalism. 

 

And we wonder why the United States and the West suffers so badly.  Americans, like the Hebrews in biblical times, have been wandering in an economic and political desert for forty-three years.  A desert of Reaganomics and failed trickle-down economics... despite the obvious failure, we cannot escape the desert’s and the pharaohs’ grasp.  Political discourse has devolved into culture wars, as Americans grow more destitute and homeless.  Bidenvilles, almost a century earlier called - Hoovervilles, dot the landscape.   

 

And the politics of greed and the great Americans swindle are everywhere.  Accountability, intellectual candor, & honesty are in very short supply.  Those who dare speak truth to power are condemned and silenced.  The American MSM has issued a de facto news blackout on the truth, and we are lost as the planet burns, so as to make the very worst of us obscenely wealthy. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023

 

Dog Days of Neoliberalism

Dog Days of Neoliberalism 

On behalf of JM Hamilton Air, it is my pleasure to welcome you aboard flight 777 with service to Washington, Ottawa, Paris and continuing service to Berlin. Federal regulations require that carry-on items are stowed prior to closing the aircraft door.

 

By Gregg Wall (7-8-2023)

 

The dog days of summer have arrived, the early July holidays are behind us in North America, and the airlines, per the usual, are a mess.

 

So rather than schlep to the airport, dealing with the crowds, the endless flight delays, lost baggage, kids kicking your seat, assorted headaches and theatrics …. climb on board JM Hamilton Air and let me take you on a quick political holiday.  And the best part, this ride is for free.  You don’t even have to get off the couch.  So, this is your captain speaking, buckle in, and let’s take a quick flight, starting in the U.S., briefly, before moving onto Canada, France, and Germany.   

 

Nothing to fear, these destinations are all democracies with friendly center-left, neoliberal governments, so we should all feel right at home in the chaos and malaise.  Alrighty then.  As the corrupt, petrified center gives way in these various governments, I’m going to ask you a question at the end of trip.  To wit, what is the common denominator of these various governments, aside from obvious failure?  So, let’s get started, wings up. 

 

As we flyover over the U.S., you’ll notice a failed Biden Administration in Washington.  Mr. Biden ran as a progressive and promised the nation Build Back Better, but instead, quickly handed out billons in corporate welfare to his wealthy friends, Wall St., and Big Oil (under the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act).  This was done by Biden, while delivering austerity and a brand-new war in the Ukraine to the American people.  As a result, Mr. Biden struggles in the polls.  For safety reasons… remember, safety first… we won’t actually be landing in the United States, as airports are a target for America’s ubiquitous mass shootings.

 

Moving onto Montreal and Ottawa, if you look out of the starboard or right side of the aircraft, you’ll see… oh my, endless big oil & gas fires… as the climate catastrophe burns up one of the most beautiful countries in existence.  Poor Mr. Trudeau.  His government appears to have stalled out.  As in America, prices on the basic necessities of life – food, fuel, rents, and utilities – are climbing higher and higher, in a price gouging orgy by monopolies, powerful financial interests, and utilities.  Also, as in America, the central bank has been called in to clean up a price gouging crisis caused by too much easy money, deregulation, a lack of antitrust enforcement, and a corrupt political class that, seemingly, can’t tell CEOs and robber barons, NO.  Add another scandal… no, not that scandal, another one… and this government appears to be coasting on past glories and fumes.  Sorry, we won’t be landing here either.  Poor visibility and ash & debris in our engines are risks we won’t be taking. 

 

After refueling in NYC, please don’t mind the smoke, we’ll be flying across the pond to Paris.  As we enter European airspace, you’ll notice London on the port side of the aircraft.  No worries, we won’t be stopping there.  Prices are spiraling out of control, as an endless parade of Tory and failed Thatcherite PMs have turned the UK into a bit of a failed state (characterized by the financialization and privatization of the economy, along with sewage… yes, sewage… contaminating the water ways and British coasts).  

 

Up ahead lies Paris, the City of Lights, and oh my, as we descend through the clouds, it appears that Paris is burning.  Best to pullup to avoid the riots.  It appears that Mr. Macron… a political chameleon at best, a banker & a neoliberal at worst… has jacked up the retirement age in France with dictatorial powers and presides over an out-of-control, authoritarian police state (very much like America’s out-of-control, authoritarian police state).  And no, many of the very fine citizens of France do not like their despotic leader and his neoliberal reforms one little bit.  Nope, not at all.  Youth unemployment, the virtual return of a caste system in France, along with disenfranchised immigrant & minority communities have turned the country into a powder keg.  

 

Well, we’ll push on to Berlin then… sorry, this whole itinerary has turned into a disaster.  Germany, of course, is where yet another center left government -- headed up by Olaf Scholz & the Social Democratic Party -- came to power, under a coalition government.  This government came to power, as well, with high hopes; but quickly ran into a buzz saw of high fuel costs, a Ukrainian war, an assertive Russia, over a decade of neoliberal failures – under Angela Merkel, spiraling inflation, labor unrest, and fears over migratory waves of humanity (fleeing a fossil fuels climate inferno).  

 

Yuck.  With Euroland vaca like this, let’s refuel and make tracks.   

 

 

 

 

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain from the flight deck, and I do apologize that Western democracy has turned into a bit of a sham.  These nations are mired - to varying degrees - in chaos, greedy politicians, price gouging monopolies & utilities, manipulated energy supplies and prices, decades of failed libertarian & neoliberal economic policies, a commitment to endless war & police states, and an out-of-control oligarchy.  Not to mention, angry, divided, and highly restive populations.  So, as we return to North America, other than the commonalities described… from failed center left politicians engaged in bait & switch politics, and the collapse of deregulation and neoliberalism… are you ready for it… your pop quiz question:  What are we witnessing in all the aforementioned countries on our journey today?  

 

Put another way, what have failed centrists, corporatists, endemic corruption, and pretend progressive politicians delivered for the West?  You’ll be given five minutes to answer.  

 

Bing, Bing.  

 

That was quick.  Yes, the passenger in seat 27A, please move forward to the front of the cabin to give your answer over the PA. 

 

What is your name?  Raina. 

 

Okay, Raina.  What is your answer… to the question: What have failed centrists, corporatists, endemic corruption, and pretend progressive politicians delivered for the West?  

 

Raina’s response:  The rise of fascism. 

 

Raina, that is correct.  

 

In the United States, we see Donald Trump rising in the polls versus hapless Joe Biden, and in Canada, we see Pierre Poilievre rising in the polls against Mr. Trudeau.  And yes, in France … oui, oui… we see Ms. Le Pen taking full advantage of Mr. Macron’s missteps and ongoing failures.  And in Germany, of course, we are seeing a resurgence in what… far-right, fascist parties.  That’s right. 

 

None of this is good and we only have failed centrists, corporatists, globalization, and neoliberalism to blame.

 

Raina, and your grand prize, a first-class flight to the destination of your choice.  Please be sure and book early, Raina, because the world… thanks to out-of-control elites… is in a state of collapse. 

 

Thanks for playing Raina. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023