The Great Taxpayer Rip-Off

The Great Taxpayer Rip-Off

 

According to a company-wide memo obtained by Bloomberg, the Facebook owner is cutting around five percent of its staff. And interestingly, the directive is already in tension with what Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan last week about how the company was looking to replace "midlevel engineers" with AI. Instead — in a likely concession to AI just not quite being up to snuff yet — he says employees "who aren't meeting expectations" will be replaced in order to "bring new people in" (emphasis on the "people," for any AI zealots.)

 

ZUCKERBERG ANNOUNCES LAYOFFS AFTER SAYING CODING JOBS WILL BE REPLACED BY AI, THE BYTE

 

By Gregg Wall (1-18-2025)

 

Some folks are still stunned by this but the entire purpose of dereg, laissez-faire, and neoliberalism is to consolidate businesses into monopolies, utilities, with totalitarian power over the state, politicians, political parties, over prices and wages… but especially, exert hegemonic power over business’s greatest expense, labor (via crushing benefits, the number of well-paying jobs, opportunity, and wages themselves). 

 

Remarkable, seemingly nearly all business advancement & innovation in recent years including AI, is increasingly dedicated to crushing: you, dear reader.  Several stories caught my eye this week, where jobs are cut seemingly for the sake of cutting heads and instilling fear & pain in the workforce, despite astronomical profits (and transferring yet greater wealth to management and shareholders). 

 

The ultimate outcome of dereg, laissez-faire, neoliberalism, and the power amassed is to transfer wages, wealth, and power to the one percent.  Interestingly, no matter who is in power… Cons or Libs, Tory or Labour, GOP or Dems… the result is never in question: The transfer of greater wealth to a predatory few, the evisceration of an increasingly greater percentage of the population & workforce, and the elimination of public policies and services designed to remedy, or at least ameliorate, concentrated wealth, power, and the worst effects of neoliberalism.  Forget about the campaign lies & rhetoric, and examine the results.

 

Interestingly, America’s failed neoliberal paradigm, in particular the private sector hasn’t really racked up any major advancements as of late (preferring stock buybacks over the gamble that is R&D); but what little creativity & innovations that does exist appears increasingly & myopically focused on diminishing civil liberties, the power of employees, families, and labor. 

 

Let’s see if we can pick up a pattern. 

 

Many of the major innovations and technological breakthroughs have been brought forward by the government (that is to say, the taxpayer) and all too often, unconditionally handed over to the private sector.  Often to well-connected individuals, business leaders, or oligarchs - who are already tied up with the state - are the recipients.  And again, these breakthroughs always seem to have the ability to be turned against labor & the general public, whether it be the internet, the weaponization of the web, a ramped up police & mass incarceration state, gig platforms, data harvesting (where internet users are providing free data & time to power brokers and platforms in Silicon Valley), AI, fully automated warfare (both foreign & domestic, see Palantir), a panopticon of state surveillance, crypto tracking, collusion and price fixing on the web (here, think of rents), etc, etc. 

 

Gee whiz… and where did all this wonderful government techie-tech come from.  Well, if you read Whitney Webb and her blog & website, Unlimited Hangout, you quickly discover all these major innovations come from or are spawned by the government (that is you, taxpayer) and in particular, the alphabet agencies (who in turn, partner up with the private sector to bring these products online).  All too often with the purported goal of providing free stuff to the public (from entertainment and sports to social media platforms and information & news) and making our lives easier, workers labor less; but all too often, in reality, these same products & services end up producing highly detrimental consequences and results for civil-liberties, families, labor, the middle class and poor, and U.S. democracy, itself. 

 

Let’s run down the statistics that I find myself citing most:  38% of U.S. workers now find themselves working Gig; 66% can’t meet a $400 cash emergency; credit card debt is up at all-time highs; personal bankruptcy is soaring; deaths of despair & suicide are climbing; more than 50% of Americans are afraid to see their doctor and are foregoing healthcare (makes sense if you can’t afford a $400 emergency & your credit cards are maxed); and 70% of Americans live check to check. 

 

Isn’t neoliberalism fun?  And look who is coming to Washington… Team Oligarch, Team Doge…  to protect their turf, and further enhance government for the Kleptocracy by doubling down on the aforementioned dereg, neoliberalism, further gutting those pesky regulatory agencies, crushing Medicaid and public services, furthering failed privatization schemes, protecting their business interests & the flow of taxpayer money to their businesses, and making sure the DOD and intelligence agencies… home of all that free techie-tech… remain untouched and flush with taxpayer cash.  All under guise of protecting your interests and tax dollars, my fellow Americans.

 

It's no accident that all this wonderful innovation, these late 20^th Century and early 21^stCentury discoveries and tech have also coincided with catastrophic wage & wealth inequality, the gutting and elimination of the middle class, the increasing commodification of human existence, ever increasing political unrest, catastrophic debt, increasingly more arcane & inscrutable products offered by BlackRock and Wall St, and the rise in the number of monopolies & oligarchy as the dominating force in the economy and government. 

 

One final thought, did our friends in Washington, in America’s ultra corrupt political duopoly… you know, the day traitors in Congress…  think for a moment.  Perhaps think… when they were handing out all that delicious taxpayer funded IT, IP, Tech, mRNA research, patents, software, the world wide web, AI, gain of function analysis to the wealthy and the powerful (apparently for free)… to, I don’t know, request royalties, revenue, stock shares in the company, a cut of the profits for the taxpayer, oversight, seats on the board, strong regulatory oversight & purview, input or a say in how all this tech was going to be used? 

 

No?

 

Why not?  Unless, per the usual, congress was bribed & receiving kickbacks to look the other way?  Or perhaps the cadre of crooks never thought the ask?

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2025

CARTER: REST IN EXCELLENCE

CARTER: REST IN EXCELLENCE

  

Earnings of the nation's major oil companies climbed by an average of 68.9 percent in the second quarter, and these gains have revived accusations of oil industry profiteering that promise to become a focal point as Congress debates President Carter's “windfall” profits tax.

 

-             Increase in Oil Company Profits Revives Criticism of the Industry, NY Times  1979

 

By Gregg Wall (1-4-2025)

 

The news of President Carter’s death last week brought back a flood of memories.  I was in grades 7 through 10 during his presidency… years spent in Bellevue, Nebraska and San Antonio, Texas.  I can still remember the Bicentennial flag flying from the flagpole; I can still remember sneaking over to a friend’s house, almost nightly, to party very late into the early morning hours and watch Ted Koppel’s Nightline and the Iranian hostage crisis.  Political junkie at the age of sixteen.  Good times.  Times America will never see again. 

 

I remember distinctly that Carter was not well liked by the end of his term.  A nation fed a steady diet of lies and propaganda about exceptionalism didn’t take kindly to double-digit inflation (inflation that started up with Nixon a decade earlier, with the decoupling of the dollar from gold), a Malaise speech, sky-high gas prices, high unemployment, and Iranian students burning the flag and holding dozens of Americans hostage for well over a year.  And along came a famous Hollywood actor, a slick salesman for GE, promising to make America great again… and talking some gibberish about a Shining City on the Hill.  And like that, Carter was gone.  Seemingly, a footnote in history, a bad president, a great post-president, who genuinely cared about those less fortunate, globally.  And the best part, or so I’ve long thought, a thorn in the side of the Establishment and Washington.  Constantly butting in and going entirely against the grain.  But with his death a chance, an opportunity to review President Carter’s legacy and discover, not only was President Carter a good president, but President Carter on many levels, a great many levels blew away the posse of presidential clowns that followed in Mr. Carter’s footsteps.

 

Timing is everything… and after Tricky Dick, the endless Vietnam war, 58,000 dead American soldiers, the lies, and Watergate… America was ready for a straight shooter.  Carter wanted to bring integrity, honesty, and truth back to the White House and he delivered in spades.  An Annapolis graduate, a nuclear engineer, a farmer, a born-again progressive Christian (not to be confused with the Nazi MAGA kind), married for three quarters of century, the father of four (even after being exposed to radiation saving Canada from a nuclear meltdown), Governor of Georgia, not really into stroking egos & sucking up to the high & mighty, a workaholic…. Mr. Carter’s resume was unreal.  And so, he got the top job.  Among some of President Carter’s great achievements:

 

Passage of 14 pieces of environmental legislation… Carter was decades ahead of his time on green energy, and yet, he clearly saw the need for fossil fuels expansion & embraced deregulation (which some progressives are quick to criticize Carter for today).  America’s dependence on Middle East oil (Saudi and Iranian oil) drove that point home like no other, as the price of gas skyrocketed.  Approximately 52% of the nation’s oil supply would be imported by the end of the seventies, and the Iranians & Saudis spent the better part of the decade reminding Americans of that fact.  Dems, at that time, believed deregulation (sometimes regulation actually protects powerful interests and creates barriers to entry) would bring competition and drive down prices w/in highly concentrated industries.

 

President Carter was a fiscal conservative, a fiscal hawk… treating the nation’s budget and finances as if they were his own.  After four years, the national debt increased only $299 billion.  No president since has come anywhere near this achievement with every single one adding at least a trillion, and often more, to the nation’s debt pile.  Biden and Trump generating approximately $8 trillion, each, in national debt in just one term.  Pathetic.  Carter, on the other hand, was amazing, truly exceptional, a protector of the nation’s purse.

 

Carter was big on civil rights.  Carter hired a record number of minorities and women for jobs in the federal government, the federal judiciary, and a record number of women to his administration.  Carter broke ground on LGBTQ rights and was pro-ERA.  Gee, do you see why Dixiecrats, Republicans, and the Christian right had an axe to grind & loathed the president?  Carter even installed solar panels on the White House. 

 

On foreign policy, Carter ran with Nixon’s opening and formally normalized relations with & recognized China, further driving a wedge between China and Russia…  a wedge that Biden blew up over the course of the last four years, essentially bringing China and Russia together again (a teamed up China and Russia that now poses a direct threat to dollar hegemony).  Carter, extremely desirous of preventing another war, worked out the transfer of the Panama Canal.  A wise move, as the nation was fed up with war.  Carter was a champion of human rights and pushed human rights on dictatorships.  He delivered the Camp David Accords, bringing peace to Egypt and Israel and ultimately, winning a Nobel in the process.  Most unfortunately, Carter didn’t bring the Palestinians into that agreement… a problem, a big problem, that Carter would do his best to atone for, post-presidency, by championing the Palestinian cause and calling out Israel as an Apartheid state.  Per the usual, Israeli leadership conflated antizionism and allegations of apartheid Israel with their pet smear, antisemitism; and per the usual, Israeli leadership, forever proclaiming themselves the victim (despite being backed by the world’s preeminent empire), was wrong.

 

Carter never fired a direct shot in anger, and outside of losing eight service members in a botched hostage rescue mission, the President kept America out of wars, kept America’s fighting women and men out of harm’s way.  A major achievement given Congress’ and the War lobby’s endless thirst for blood, treasure, and war profits.  Carter would pardon Vietnam draft dodgers, albeit with strings attached.  All these were moves that infuriated the GOP, even though President Ford had offered a similar deal to young Americans who had fled to Canada.  Critics have attempted to pin Afghanistan and forty years of Islamic terrorism on President Carter, because late in his term, he sent in the CIA in response to the Soviet invasion.  But Carter’s foresight ultimately saw the Soviet retreat and its empire crumble in Afghanistan.  Moreover, this was during the height of the Cold War when communist & revolutionary movements had seen victory after victory throughout the developing world.  Carter’s hands were tied by the Cold War, and he often had to move on highly unpleasant scenarios, like backing the Khmer Rouge.  Still, he kept Americans from going directly into battle.

 

Are you not impressed?  No?  

 

Try on Paul Volcker.  Paul Volcker, Chairmen of the Federal Reserve, was picked by President Carter to crush and defeat inflation… after our ultra corrupt & entirely useless Congress, President Ford, and President Nixon failed to do so.  For over a decade Americans saw their savings, hard earned wages, and dollar purchasing power vanish, evaporate before their very eyes. Carter finally put a stop to it with the appointment of Volcker… a decision that ultimately, when combined with the hostage crisis, would cost Carter a second term.  Who the hell does that in Washington?   Deliberately solves a problem at the cost of political expediency and one’s career?   NO ONE.  Volcker caught all manner of hell, sent interest rates to 20%, basically shut down the economy and slammed it into recession, eradicated demand and jobs, but ultimately, defeated the economic plague: Inflation.  Even Reagan was scared of Paul Volcker’s independence and willingness to do the job that must be done.  Again, we have Carter to thank for that... who does that in Washington(?)… Washington, the most self-serving pack of jackals & scum the world has ever seen. 

 

As an aside and within the late 70s inflation drama: Not so ironically, Big Oil, the American Oil majors, once again, were scoring record profits and setting up Carter to be a one term president (via Greedflation, sound familiar?) … not unlike Biden/Harris.  Isn’t that something.  Very much in keeping with what I love to write about most… the outsized, totalitarian, unaccountable, unelected power of cartel and monopoly.  And in particular, the Great Satan: Big Oil & Gas.  This industry ensured Carter would fall and Reagan would rise.  Of course, to seal the deal, Reagan pulled a Nixon, and struck a hostages deal with the Iranians, which saw the hostages freed (held for 444 days) on the very same day Reagan took the oath of office.  A slick move that would repeat itself and leave an indelible stain on, Reagan and yet another illegal deal struck by his administration, Iran-Contra.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the day, Carter is and was a hero.  Let’s recap: held the nation’s finances in check; kept American troops out of war; restored honesty and integrity to the White House, after Nixon’s dark passage; champion of the environment; hired the man who would finally destroy inflation (after Dick Nixon, Gerry Ford, and our disgusting U.S. congress failed); and hired record numbers of minorities and women.

 

And the events that brought Carter down?  How is Carter responsible for destroying Iranian democracy in ’53 and installing a blood thirsty Shah, so that Anglo-American oil interests could rob Iran blind?  Carter doesn’t own any of that and yet the entire debacle was hung around President Carter’s neck like a noose.   

 

Sky-high oil prices and soaring inflation, blame incompetent Dems, Republicans, and the Oil monopolies … and too much dependence upon foreign oil. 

 

If President Carter had one weakness, it wasn’t in ethics, honesty, morality, and raw intelligence… it was that Carter didn’t stroke the right egos, he didn’t play ball with the establishment & lobbyists.  Carter didn’t like to schmooze with: the losers in Congress, the scum in the MSM (all looking to repeat the success of Woodward/Bernstein and drag Carter down), Carter simply refused to kiss establishment bottoms.  He was brilliant and felt that hard work, and the effectiveness of that work, would see his administration through to a second term.  Carter didn’t count on a duplicitous Reagan, a vengeful Washington establishment, a hateful MSM… and evil fossil fuels companies… to take his administration out in a body bag.  In some respects, Carter was too damn good.  Think of this, how would America receive a President today, who snubbed America’s despised & reviled corporate MSM … a President who pushed back, today, upon a day trading, scandalous Congress with a 13% or 14% approval rating?   

 

The American public, today, would love Carter for that… Carter, forever ahead of his time, was quite the populist.

 

Such a shame for a man that won on nearly every other level: Carter’s gain, America’s loss.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2025