Goodbye Mr. Greenspan…

Goodbye Mr. Greenspan… 

His predecessor, Paul A. Volcker, had established that the central bank could hold off political pressure for lower interest rates with a tight-money strategy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the process, Mr. Volcker gave the Fed tremendous credibility in the financial markets and bequeathed to Mr. Greenspan plenty of room to shape policy in Washington.

-      Alan Greenspan, Fed Chairman Through Prosperity and Crisis, Dies at 100, NY Times

 

By Gregg Wall (6-27-2026)

Mr. Greenspan, former FED chair... serving presidents Reagan, Clinton, and two Bush presidencies… died Monday.  Greenspan was 100 and said to be suffering from Parkinson's. Before Reagan, Greenspan advised Nixon and served as an economic advisor to Ford.  Greenspan was an Ayn Rand enthusiast and exhibited great fondness for economics, finance, markets, and laissez-faire capitalism.  After Fed Chair Paul Volcker demonstrated FED independence and strangled inflation… in response to a lost decade and weak predecessors, with double digit rate increases… POTUS Reagan replaced Volcker with someone who was a great deal more flexible, perhaps more of a politician. 

Greenspan’s fondness for deregulation and diminished regulatory controls dovetailed nicely with Reagan’s fondness for laissez-faire, and supply-side economics and Clinton’s deregulation, neoliberalism, and triangulation in the ‘90s.  Faced with the crashes in ’87 and the Dot.com bubble, Greenspan embraced a strategy that has by now become rote: easy money, a flood of liquidity, slashed interest rates, and lower capital/reserve requirements for Wall St banks.  This strategy, the Greenspan put -- essentially the bailout of banks, billionaires, and markets as too big to fail -- became the Bernanke, Yellen, and Powell puts. 

Mr. Greenspan, known as the maestro, nearly escaped all this unscathed and was highly regarded by many; but the 2008 financial crash did tremendous damage to his firm belief in self-regulating markets, easy money, lax oversight over Wall St banks, and his reputation.  Greenspan appeared to have fallen asleep at the wheel at a time of explosive growth in the derivatives industry, which were front and center, along with housing and moral hazard, as key causes of the 2008 financial crisis.

What then hath the maestro wrought?  His legacy is certainly worth knowing.

The Federal Reserve has not only become the banker/lender of last resort but today, it’s also the sugar daddy of last resort.  Thanks to the FED put, the consolidation of too big to fail Wall St banks, and America’s dependence upon the financialized economy (versus a real economy), the expectation is that the FED will wade into any crisis and save the day by printing money, slash rates, expand the balance sheet, monetize debt, and flood markets with a tsunami of cash. 

As a result of the FED put and an establishment playbook of papering over any crisis with a wall of money, placing any crisis in the rearview mirror as quickly possible, there’s never any assessment of blame, responsibility, accountability.  There is never any debate or discussion about America’s dependence upon Wall St greed, paper shuffling, algos, AI and program trading, arcane and hazardous financial products (that offer no intrinsic value to society), and derivative products.  Essentially a misallocation of public resources.  Nearly all of Wall St today is focused on gaming the system for short term gain, that is to say, a gambling den, a catastrophically leveraged & rigged casino.  Financial news media seemingly looks to shoehorn a narrative into justifying and rationalizing price movements and trajectory (fundamentals and the reality that the market is moved by broad economic trends that are harmful to labour, the public, and taxpayer are conveniently omitted or receive short discussion if any).  It’s assumed that this bailout cycle -- and taxpayer funded insurance program for banks, billionaires, and Wall St firms -- will continue indefinitely (some have argued that crashes, like SVB, are so lucrative that they are pre-planned and orchestrated).  Post crash, congressional involvement is diminished, seemingly no debate required.  Greenspan did this: privatized profits and socialized bailouts and losses.

With all this easy money sloshing around -- thanks to Greenspan, the FED, and fractional reserve banking -- the value of the dollar has shrank, asset values of the rich have skyrocketed.  To the best of my knowledge, no politician has ever run on easy money policies, no FED chair has ever been elected by the public on these policies, nor has the public ever voted on these policies.  This in turn has minted the world’s largest number of billionaires.  Billionaires flush with assets and cash behave with impunity, by purchasing judges and politicians to ensure that their privilege, policies, and protections are preserved (to the detriment and at the expense of the American people). 

Mr. Greenspan and his successors have wrought, via easy money and the FED put, explosive growth in the national debt: $2.35 trillion in ’87 when Greenspan started; $8.5 trillion in ’06 at the time of Greenspan’s retirement, Great Recession Eve; and today it’s $40 trillion.  The maestro did that.  Essentially enabling presidents and congress to spend like drunken sailors on shore leave. Trump, alone, is said to be responsible for approximately 20 to 25% of the national debt, enabled by successive FED chairs following Greenspan’s easy money template. The explosive growth in private equity and venture capital… that wage war against citizens, customers, families, labour, and the public daily… owes their entire business model to central bank easy money policies and cheap debt. The low yield or interest environment serves PE’s leveraged buyouts, while pushing institutional investors, in search of yield and return, into investing in their repugnant PE industry (private equity, of course, forever fixated on short term gain, the quick kill, instead of long-term success, sustainability, and sanity). 

Then there’s the matter of all that blood, colonialism, empire, genocide, Israel, and wars the FED’s monetary policies facilitate and in conjunction with the Treasury fund.  Who pays for all that?  The U.S. taxpayer is the correct answer, but the FED enables it all by effectively working with the Treasury, and via easy money finances the U.S. empire.  Essentially, FED easy money keeps the Imperial War Machine well lubricated, and our warmonger outpost in the Middle East, Israel and King Netanyahu, happy.

That’s some pretty grim stuff that rolls right up to the maestro, who set the bar.  Notice, the net effect of Greenspan’s easy money policies, often take the American public, taxpayer, and voter right out of the equation, discussion, decision making, and debate.  Which is precisely the way the billionaires, bankers, Wall St, and political class … aka the beneficiaries of easy money… like it.  While leaving the American public on the hook for debt, deficits, and a devalued US dollar... an American public with decades of austerity, a depreciated currency, inflation, and significantly diminished futures to look forward to.  Unless they revolt, as was done at the nation's founding?  Isn’t that convenient.

And perhaps the greatest irony of all… all this easy money, financialization, greed, oligarchy, and M&A… ultra-accommodative monetary policy, monopoly formation, and private equity… all of it is highly detrimental to the FED’s dual mandate.  A consolidated real economy, facilitated by Mr. Greenspan’s policies, means monopoly, monopsony, and totalitarian power over prices, especially the essentials, and extraordinary control over employment and wages.  So that if we are looking for price stability, we’ll find none of that today, thanks to easy money.  If we are looking for a functioning economy that produces well-paying jobs with a living wage, we’ll find none of that today (for 70 to 75% of individuals, at least), thanks to easy money.

 

 

 

The justification for Wall St, once upon a time, the tail and not the dog, was its ability to generate pools of capital for business, innovation, R&D and fund the government and programs.  But increasingly, this justification has been overshadowed by the fact that the rigged financial markets have become both the ends and the means (a principle means and the least resistant path of wealth extraction), a vehicle to launder exorbitant privilege and redistribute that ever-depreciating privilege to a very few individuals and institutions. 

Consider the risks involved in maintaining Mr. Greenspan’s extraordinarily leveraged financialized economy… AI automated trading, easy money benefiting predominately oligarchs, moral hazard, explosive growth in the money supply & dollar devaluation, soaring national debt, free reinsurance courtesy of the US taxpayer for Wall St, and the Greenspan put…  such as a derivatives market with 1.25 quadrillion dollars in notional value.  Is it worth it?  Is a system that is beneficial to so few… beneficial to some of the nastiest people on the planet, billionaires… worth it?  Finally, consider the hagiography surrounding Mr. Greenspan’s career, that has flooded the MSM and financial press.  Is it accurate?

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026

Zero Degrees of Separation: Alberta & Nigeria

Zero Degrees of Separation: Alberta & Nigeria 

 

In a post on the social media platform he owns, Elon Musk recently lamented, “Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they are talking about.”

-             Elon Musk Is World’s First Trillionaire After SpaceX IPO, Bloomberg

 

By Gregg Wall (6-13-2026)

Just as white America has more in common with wage slavery and indentured servitude in Africa today, than U.S. domiciled billionaires, Canada has far more in common with Nigeria, in terms of resource exploitation and environmental degradation, than it does the United States (which has largely become a holding company for extreme wealth).  That is to say, our leaders have failed the public, while serving and enriching a predatory few. 

I’m not sure exactly when Nigeria came to mind, except that I’ve been focused on Alberta separation, the glorification of oil & gas by separatist traitors, and the cold hard reality that the wealth of Alberta & Nigerian oil and gas has been transferred to the United States & the West (while Canadians and Nigerians are left holding the bag on known costs, externalities, environmental degradation, and massive subsidies).  Some academics call this the “resource curse.”  Nigeria, of course, is often the primary producer of oil and gas in Africa… Its gas reserves are enormous.  Starting there, the parallels with Alberta begin to snowball.  Both Nigeria and Alberta’s governments own their resources but have leased those resources out to the private sector, U.S. and multinational Oil & Gas majors… and the all too familiar pattern plays out.  The oil majors syphon off the lion’s share of the profits, the governments collect a pittance in royalties and taxation (relative to Norway), slash their respective labour costs, trash the environment, and then flee their obligations and responsibilities, after selling off their leases to smaller bit and regional players (in Alberta we see this with abandoned wells and 1.5 trillion liters of tailings).  Corrupt Alberta and Nigerian governments fail to collect adequate bonds, collateral, and security for clean-up efforts. 

There are zero degrees of separation between Alberta and Nigeria.

Per my recent write up, Alberta separatist leaders (seppies) push energy as the provincial savior, push a product that is drowning Alberta in cleanup costs and hundreds of billions in liabilities.  The separatist leaders have ties to the Americans and have conveniently adopted the talking points of oil industry CEOs.  It’s all a pack of lies.  What seppies conveniently leave out: 

Alberta O&G, via leases & licenses, is essentially American owned;

US O&G is laying off the Alberta workforce; 

US O&G is sending massive profits to America; 

US O&G is leaving Canada with hundreds and billions in liabilities; 

US O&G treats Alberta like Nigeria… exploits and dumps contaminated air, water, and land on Canada… leaving Alberta far, far poorer than ignorant seppies will admit or acknowledge; 

The industry is lethal and murders one in five;

The O&G industry, in part, is responsible for endless middle east wars, as wars taking supplies offline is a sure-fire way to increase prices and profits. 

 

  Alberta’s high priestess of failure?  

So, the rational response?   Why can’t governments, Alberta and Nigeria, work together with the private sector oil utilities to produce oil and gas responsibly, pay for cleanup, healthcare costs for the citizen injured by cancer alleys and contaminated air, land, and water, damages to the environment, burning towns and cities like Jasper, Alberta and Los Angeles???   Or the Niger Delta which has been destroyed by oil & gas? 

Answer: If the oil and gas majors were properly assessed for their damages… bodily injury, economic damages, misallocation of taxpayer funded subsidies, and property damages in real time… gas & derivative products prices would soar.  Renewable energy, the competitor, is increasingly producing both free and reliable energy.  Oil and gas simply cannot compete.  Here lies an O&G industry on its death bed that is entirely dependent upon a lie, systemic government corruption, and politicians that refuse to assess this industry for its damages, past, current, and future.  Because the politicians are simply corrupt.  Alberta seppies believe they pay extraordinary taxes to the Feds… but they pay at the same federal tax rate as every other province.  (Alberta seppies feel like they are being shortchanged on so-called equalization payments/wealth-sharing arrangements.  But when we consider that both Alberta and Canada are accruing hundreds of billions in liabilities on behalf of the private sector, American owned oil and gas utilities, and Alberta will need a bailout from the Canadian federal government when the bill comes due… the equalization/wealth-sharing myth simply evaporates… becomes an even greater fairy tale.)

The bottom line:  The O&G industry receives trillions in subsidies and cover for wars & environmental violence… paid for by the Canadian, Nigerian, and Western taxpayer (and less directly by the accumulation of nation-state debts to prop up this repugnant and disgusting industry).  This industry is only viable by perpetuation of a lie and a swindle:  Privatized profits and socialized corruption, externalities, liabilities, and subsidies. Oil royalty and oligarchs grow richer, while the Canadian, Nigerian, and Western taxpayer gets nailed to a cross made of debt, gas, oil, and tar.

Meanwhile, Norway did it correctly. Norway placed its citizens first. Norway owns its oil and gas fields and uses state owned production companies to harvest the oil and gas.  Profits and taxes accrue to a sovereign wealth fund, so that Norway holds $2 trillion in assets for the people, while Alberta and Nigeria hold $32 billion and $3.4 billion, respectively.  The difference, Norway used the state and integrity to accumulate assets on behalf of its citizens… while corrupt Alberta and Nigerian governments allowed the private sector to loot natural resources on behalf of shareholders and oligarchs, exacerbating boom & bust cycles.  Canada and Nigeria are swimming in natural resources, rely heavily on the private sector for extraction, and yet, both countries have poverty problems, food insecurity, and failed neoliberal economic policies… the U.S. is facing similar problems.  Reliance on greed-first policies, growth, market based solutions, and shareholders before all have trashed all three economies.  For Norway’s citizens, on the other hand, resources are extracted by the state, wealth is extracted for The People, and poverty is virtually nonexistent (at 10%).   Essentially, the private sector FAILS the 99% in Alberta, Nigeria, and the U.S., while a well-managed Norway government and sovereign wealth fund WINS… in a pattern that plays out throughout the world. 

The Norway economic model, indisputably, is a world leader. The United States and rabid greed should be ignored at all costs.  It’s time to give billionaires the boot and give state intervention, management, planning… the Norway model… first priority.

Presently, there are zero degrees of separation for humanity, from Alberta to Nigeria and back again, to the United States.  Humanity and labour are being massively exploited, and given the shaft, by a global oligarchy.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026

Dismantling Separatist Arguments…

Dismantling Separatist Arguments… 

I would also remind all Canadians that we should not dismiss the legitimate grievances of Albertans.

-             Premier Smith

Separatist concerns are illegitimate, their concerns are easy enough to dismantle… and they are ill advised and poorly led.

-             J.M. Hamilton, X post

 

By Gregg Wall (5-30-2026)

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks here in Alberta.  Premier Smith, head of the separatist party, head of the rebellion… professes unflinching devotion to Canada, while bending over backwards to enable a fringe minority demanding Alberta separate from Canada.  The leaders of separatist traitors have reportedly, and by their own admission, been to Washington to talk to Trump administration officials about leaving Canada.  In January, separatist leader Rath was said to be seeking funding for a mini revolution, a cool $500 billion credit line.  And of course, Premier Smith, a former oil and gas lobbyist, spent weeks in Washington during the Trump inauguration. 

The separatists have taken over the Alberta UCP government with some members of the elected body openly supporting separation.  Separatist grievances and talking points are as egregious as they are specious.  Easy enough to accept if one has been fed an endless diet of right-wing and oil & gas industry talking points, but easier still dismantled upon closer scrutiny.  Nevertheless, what the separatist lack for in credibility, they more than make up for in energy and passion. 

Separatist leader, Dani Smith, who believes the world sets and rises on Alberta, summed it up best, when she recently attempted to ram a new British Columbia pipeline (w/ no private sector financial backing to date, and no backing from the BC provincial government) through a Canadian premiers’ meeting: 

“Let's remember these ports are not British Columbia's ports, they're Canada's ports, and in being Canada's ports, that means they’re our ports too," Smith said. "In the spirit of collaboration, that's the attitude that all premiers should take to this."

By that very same Dani logic, it could be said: Let’s remember these Alberta tar sands are not Alberta’s tar sands, they’re Canada’s tar sands, and in being Canada’s tar sands, that means under Canadian control.  In the spirit of cooperation and respect for the rule of law, the separatist party, UCP, should resign and turn themselves in for adjudication.

The separation craziness never ends… like all culture war conflicts… serving to keep the public divided and distracted from a laundry list of corruption, gross mismanagement of provincial affairs, gross incompetence, privatization schemes, and scandal after scandal… most recently, data harvesting from the list of Alberta voters, via an application linked to the US Ambassador to Canada.

Here then, separatist grievances: 

Oil and Gas… apparently all separatists have huge holdings in the oil and gas industry because they behave as if they are all oil and gas robber barons. Their blind worship for the industry, however, conveniently omits the following facts:  Alberta oil and gas is American owned; the American owned O&G industry is gutting its Alberta workforce, even as production explodes; the American owned Alberta O&G industry realizes profits in America and will continue to realize profits in America no matter where Alberta O&G is exported; and the chef’s kiss, the American owned Alberta O&G industry is dumping hundreds of billion in liabilities on Canadians and Albertans with the full complicity and the abject failure of the Alberta and Canadian governments. 

If you believe American O&G is your messiah then the separatist messiah is the devil.  Given US oil and gas history, one can expect the industry will have no problem walking off if called upon and ordered to pay their obligations.

No more taxes:  In the separatist libertarian Xanadu, the wayward leadership and followers believe they’ll never pay any taxes… despite the O&G industry’s reluctance to pay taxes, despite the American O&G industry having even greater leverage over the locals should it separate; despite having no retirement plan, no military, no foreign policy, no scale on pensions, no backroom infrastructure to run a nation-state.  Despite Alberta presently being in debt $109 billion, despite the separatists seeking a loan from the Americans for half a trillion (which translates into roughly $690 billion Canadian), despite being in the hole by some estimates for O&G cleanup and tailings $250 billion, that’s right: no taxes.  So much for the great separatist libertarian - no tax - fantasy. 

And, for sake of time, I’ve omitted the private sector tax for American healthcare, which will absolutely crush Albertans.

Jobs and opportunity will rain down from the heavens… except that won’t happen.  The O&G industry, despite explosive growth and profits, has been (and continues to be) automating and gutting its Alberta workforce.  And the industry that is seeking to hire, significantly, was run off by Premier Smith, that is the renewables industry. 

Trust me… when separatist leaders are confronted with the economic realities of their plan, they invariably fallback on trust us.  Let’s put it this way, if landlocked Alberta is getting a bum deal from the sale of O&G to the Americans now… what’s in store for Alberta when the new country is all by its lonesome?  What leverage will Alberta have then?  Zero.  If anything, the ruthless American owners of the Alberta tar sands will drive down prices even lower in the states, so they can reap fatter profits on the refined/finished product.  Nothing says “bend over” like the Alberta separatist.

Brexit comes to Canada:  While the separatists do not bring up Brexit a great deal, the parallels are not dissimilar, especially when we wipe out all the arguments for separation.  What we find, like Brexit, is a great many angry white bigots, racists, haters, misogynists, and xenophobes.  In both instances, Brexit and Alberta insurrection, the glue that binds appears to be hate.  Here, it’s particularly worth noting that just as the dereg, financialization, globalization, neoliberalism, and the Thatcher economy were and are a disaster in the UK, pre and post Brexit… if the Alberta separatist wish ever comes true, undoubtedly they’ll find themselves in quite similar UK like economic conditions, pre and post separation, if not markedly worse.

 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper with Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, January, 2008 

Abject failure to hold Conservative gov accountable: Moving on from separatist talking points, interestingly enough the separatists have often built their entire identity around hating and owning the Libs. Which means the insurrectionist leadership have done their jobs of dividing the province and Canada, as well as polarizing their base and the counter response.  Undoubtedly, Liberals, in power since 2015, bear some responsibility for placing Alberta and Canadian families last and Alberta and Canadian corporations and oligarchy first.  But this same separatist tribe turns a blind eye to the failings of fifty years of conservative rule in Alberta.  Smith and United Conservatives have trashed the provincial economy, and yet, seemingly, not a derisive word is uttered against the UCP gov, unless said government is deemed insufficiently supportive of the separatist movement.  

Right out of the divide and conquer playbook.  

As for far-right PM Carney?  His actions speak for themselves.  Mr. Carney is likely the most conservative politician Canada has ever seen.  As I’ve written previously, Carney has gutted rules, regs, embraced deregulation, and is fast tracking corporate projects and supply-side economics at the expense of charter, indigenous, and provincial rights.  Carney is not walking, he's sprinting, and achieving a great many things conservatives, likely, could have never achieved in the same amount of time.  The Carney gov is going after labour and he’s bent over backwards to build a pipeline that the private sector has shown little interest in funding.  Turns out, "elbows up" is aimed at attacking Canadian families, labour, and the environment?  In dealing with the Alberta Premier, who is attacking and dismantling the Canadian Health Act, Carney has done absolutely nothing.  And in fact has come running to offer memorandums of understanding, and drum up support for the pipeline, seemingly, every time some new revelation of UCP corruption or scandal comes to light. 

It’s all reminiscent of Carney’s bait and switch on the environment and his “middle powers” speech at Davos… only for Carney to land on the side of American oil and gas and wanting to make America great again.

PM Carney, based upon his actions to date, appears to be here to ensure corporate domination and hegemony moves forward.  Advance corporate rule, tear down public services, push a campaign of austerity on Canadians, and ensure the shift right in Canadian politics continues apace.  It doesn’t get any more authoritarian and conservative than a private equity chairman and a Goldman Sachs banker.  Carney follows in the direct path of several bankers who came to power in Europe with neoliberal agendas.  

Ultimately, separatists love to whine and play victim, especially when they are the victim of the conservative ideology they ironically preach.  Whenever greed is given free rein or maximum freedom… massive poverty inevitably follows, as does its corollary endemic corruption.  The moral of the story: be careful of what you wish for, boys.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026