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