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Saturday, June 22, 2024

Recession & Another Shade of Fraud

The US economy is in a "selective recession," as lower-income Americans are struggling to get by while upper-income consumers are doing just fine, according to JPMorgan analyst Matthew Boss.

Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, Boss pointed to the divergence in upper-income and middle-to-lower income Americans, the latter of whom are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living as prices remain elevated and savings dwindle.

"By our survey, over 70% of low-income consumers right now are saying that they're struggling to make ends meet."

- The US economy is in a 'selective recession' as lower-income consumers can't cover the cost of living, JPMorgan says

By Gregg Wall (June 22, 2024)

By now, many are keenly aware of the facts. The U.S. economy, indeed, many Western economies -- judging by the outright loathing the public and voters have for the current crop of presidents, prime ministers, centrist, corporatist, and neoliberal politicians -- are an absolute failure. With the bottom 60 to 70% already in crisis mode, that is one paycheck away from humility and unable to pay their bills, monthly.

To expand further: 66% of Americans can’t afford a $400 emergency; there is a rising homelessness epidemic; 41% of American parents… here in the land of forever chemicals & train derailments… struggle to feed their children; in Canada, poverty has been lowballed and it’s been revealed, one in four Canadians live in poverty (as Mr. Trudeau floods the nation with immigrants to crush wages, to the sheer delight of billionaires, robber barons, and multinationals); 7,000 companies -- hobbled by debt and all too often, greed & financial engineering -- can’t pay back their loans; 36% of Americans work Gig; 50% of Americans make less than $80,000 a year (giving soaring rents and with the application of the 30% Rule, my calculations indicate $80,000 a year is the poverty threshold); and credit card debt has soared to new highs.

Meanwhile, the fat cats, the monopolies, the utilities -- with an iron grip on essential products and services -- are making money hand over fist. All this, as Biden, Trudeau, many European politicians, and the corporate MSM do their absolute best to assure and gaslight the public, to wit: everything is going along swimmingly, the economy is grand, and why aren’t you ingrates worshipping the establishment. It’s a pretty sick display unless you’re into verbal sadism and lies.

What is most jarring is that so much poverty is baked into the economy and economic numbers. As in yeah, 60 to 70% of Americans – I suspect a similar ratio of Canadians – living on the edge is all perfectly normal, exactly as a well-run necroeconomy should run with suicides and deaths of despair climbing. Numbers like GDP, growth, and employment data, when half the United States makes less than $80,000… are absolutely meaningless, especially when fifty percent can’t afford a doctor. A job is worthless if it doesn’t pay the rent. And Biden, Trudeau, economists, and the MSM can’t figure out why the public holds them in so little regard. What is abundantly clear is that all this abuse, wealth & wages extracted from N. American and European labor, is being transferred into the hands of multinationals, monopolies, oligarchs, and utilities… there are no checks or balances against any of it. And it’s reflected in the polling. The economists, politicians, and their treasured GDP & growth merely another shade of fraud.

We are at or near the tipping point now. Not that many years ago, shortly after the 2008 crash & demolition, via Wall St. hedonism, it seemed that approximately 50% of Americans were struggling to survive, now that number is closer to 60 to 70%. In short, forty-four years of Reagan and Thatcher… trickle-down, supply-side lies have finally come home. Someone forgot to tell the public that all this financial engineering, consolidation, and utility formation is designed to do two things: one, allow a predatory few to amass unconscionable wealth and power (to the detriment of nation-states, democracy, and the economy); and two, gut labor and consolidate jobs… often big business’ largest expense. Now, the house of cards is propped up on endless bailouts, debt, deficits, and forever wars. Looting the credit lines of nation-states, stock manipulation, and financial engineering now appears to be the primary business model of the corporate elite, and their toadies, the political class. The business itself? Well, that’s just cover.

I’ve been writing about this for well over decade, starting with a piece entitled, Establishment. The catalyst for that piece: Mr. David Brooks at the New York Times - post 2008 - was calling for more grateful, respectful “followers,” after Washington and Wall St had leveled the economy in an orgy of derivatives and greed, crushed the residential housing market, and carried out the remains of the middle class in a body bag (while Wall St. criminals received taxpayer funded bailouts and the political class received kickbacks). No one was prosecuted. Meanwhile, back in the present, in Europe, a recent EU election has the fascist establishment… the centrists, the corporatists, the far-right ‘moderates’… wringing their hands over the voter’s shift away from their train wreck, the necro-neolib-neocon economy. As fed-up voters pivoted to third parties in Germany and particularly, in France. Seems the ultra-conservative Banker President, Macron, isn’t doing so well. It seems the far-right establishment is concerned, or feigning concern, that the far-right populists are coming to power… conveniently forgetting to mention the ignition for this peaceful revolution at the ballot box was at least forty-four years of establishment greed, looting, the gutting of the social contract & gov services, and endless austerity.

That, and the gross mismanagement of the economy, and a flood of immigration to crush wages on behalf of the economic royalists.

These duopolies, they are a very dirty business, and when they inevitably fail to deliver – except for the rich - and poverty rockets past the tipping point, the public naturally looks for choices elsewhere. How long before the public realizes these far-right populists are only another shade of fraud? How long before the public realizes that division, hate, and xenophobia won’t feed their families or solve their problems? And what comes next, revolution, a final pivot to the left? Will a greedy establishment… the source of all evil… pull up before it’s too late; will a greedy establishment start paying their fair share of taxes, or will they double down on burning down the planet and for-profit wars?

Cop cities, a mass incarceration state, and the lack of regard for the Constitution and student protest suggests that the oligarchy will not pullover or submit quietly. What is abundantly clear is that billionaires, monopolies, MSM, and establishment politicians are increasingly out of favor with the public and for very good reasons: forty-four years of fraud & failure.

Strap in, the ride is about to get interesting.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024

Saturday, June 8, 2024

Games central bankers & politicians play…

(Bloomberg) -- Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem led the Group of Seven in lowering interest rates, and his confidence may help reassure other central banks that they can launch into cuts before the Federal Reserve.

Macklem made it clear that Canada’s interest rate policy doesn’t need to move in lockstep with that of its southern neighbor, despite the potential for downward pressure on the loonie. It was a bold signal that divergence in rates isn’t a huge concern for one of the largest US trading partners.

- Bank of Canada’s Pivot Opens Path for Others to Diverge From Fed, BNN – Bloomberg

By Gregg Wall (6-8-2024)

Tiff Macklem, Governor of the Bank of Canada, moved big this week, kicking off a rate cutting cycle among the Group of Seven nations and effectively declared the war on inflation successful. The ECB followed suit in Euroland with provision/warning, that inflation is likely to remain elevated. Bourses, market mavens, the Wall St cognoscenti, the financial press, politicians, and central bankers were high-fiving, celebrating their ability to get the inflation monkey off their back. And return to the free money policies that ironically, had set in motion the rampant greed (masked as inflation) & monopoly price gouging that had bedeviled the economy and upset the public (since the start of the pandemic back in 2020 and 2021).

In the US an easily manipulated jobs opening number (JOLTS) seemed to spell out earlier in the week that the Federal Reserve would also be able to cast all doubt aside, cut rates, and declare ‘Mission Accomplished’ … only for that to come crashing down Friday, when the jobs and wage growth numbers came in much higher, much better than expected. Seems that the inflation monkey was very much alive and well.

By now, almost everyone is used to the gaslighting and lies central banksters, economists, politicians, scribes and pundits tell. We are told the economy is good, when 36% of Americans are dependent upon gig work to survive or not survive. We are told the economy is good when food bank usage skyrockets along with child poverty. The economy and growth are, indeed, good for the top 10%, but 70% of Americans cannot meet a $400 emergency. We are told, the economy is good, even though 50% of Americans are worried about seeing a doctor because they are afraid of the bills. And so it goes, the core inflation metric or core CPI (consumer price index) is often cited by elites for improvement in inflation … a number largely based upon fiction that excludes the essentials, food and fuel, and likely plays down another essential, catastrophically elevated rents. Core CPI is a bogus number, used by elites to justify policy changes that largely benefit themselves and the wealthy. Core CPI also is a snapshot that conveniently shows month to month and year over year… best not show the three, four, and five year cumulative inflation numbers, which might cause tempers to flare, torches to be lit, and pitchforks to march.

Why are food and fuel excluded? Answer: Because food and fuel have been commodified, are subject to outrageous Wall St speculation and taxation before retailers gouge the public harder still. It’s all part of the false narratives, word games, and statistical sleight of hand elites and economists play to slyly assure the public all is well: If you are not making it, it’s your fault.

Except, it’s not the public's fault. Here, in energy rich Canada a liter of gas is 40% higher than pandemic eve, January 2020. The BBC just did a piece on the outrageous cost of Canadian food and groceries, vis-à-vis, the UK and US… both countries, the UK and US, are no strangers to grocery price gouging. The BBC, correctly, blames grocery store monopolies, industry consolidation, and a complete lack of competition. Meanwhile, Canadian rents are flying higher to absurd, stratospheric valuations.

But rest assured, inflation is coming down the MSM, financial press, and politicians assure… which is a bald-faced lie. Inflation is not actually coming down, because if inflation was coming down, there’d be deflation, prices would actually drop. The lie the elites are telling the public is that the rate of inflationary increase is dropping (aka disinflation), but rest assured prices are climbing higher, and higher, and higher (otherwise, their own beloved core CPI number would be zero or negative). Meanwhile, Mr. Trudeau has opened the borders to record immigration to the delight of multinationals, Bay Street, Tiff Macklem, and wealthy donors… who exploit the influx of labor to keep wages down & enhance profits. So, at the same time the wealthy and the powerful are stealing from your purses & wallets at the grocery checkout, at the fuel pump, and when rent is due… the wealthy and the powerful are doing everything in their power to make sure your paycheck stagnates or rises as little as possible, thanks to Justin’s immigration blowout.

(Rest assured, as my family originally came from Europe, I am not anti-immigrant… I merely do not believe in an explosion of uncontrolled immigration with the sole purpose of suppressing wages, crushing labour, enriching CEOs and shareholders, and helping GDP and rents spiral ever higher. I also don’t believe that congress and parliaments should abdicate and punt to central banks to get them out of every jam that comes along.)

So why all the dissembling, the financial & statistical trickery, the lies? Why the games central bankers and politicians play? Answer, per the usual, follow the money. That is to say, aside from the monetization of life and death, and the cornerstone of systemic racism … the key characteristic of Western economies is that they have been financialized, that is to say, have grown highly dependent upon cheap debt, with low debt service loads and ultra-low interest rates. Cheap debt, of course, is not for you, dear reader. But free money welfare - provided by the FED, the BOC, and ECB – is for bankers, governments, the oligarchy, private equity, monopolies and cartels, financial engineering, M&A, and the perpetuation of crony government and war itself. Free money, low yield government debt masks a lot of bailouts, crimes, malfeasance, government corruption, boardroom and C-suite fraud and mismanagement… it perpetuates endless war, funds colonialism, and finances the consolidation of the economy into a totalitarian nightmare. Free money, especially in America, props up the house of cards.

And North America is staring down the barrel of several catastrophes, presently, and we very well can’t have the rich failing now, could we? Hence, the BOC and FED coming under tremendous pressure to bailout several industries - and yes, federal governments themselves - during these precarious times with the return of free money. Hence, the somber assurances that the economy is doing well, that terrible inflation has gone away… best to get back to central bank free money policies, posthaste. And the industries in trouble, in need of a backdoor central bank bailouts? First, there’s private equity, which is having trouble repatriating money back to investors. Things don’t work so well for private equity when they can’t levitate and flip zombie companies, loaded to the gills with debt … investors get upset when investment dollars, or principal, aren’t returned in full. Then, there’s the commercial and residential real estate markets. Looks like a lot of the failed financial shenanigans of the 2008 financial crisis, never truly went away. Yup, Wall St is up to the same old bag of tricks with derivatives, CDOs, and MBS or like instruments. Then, there’s the governments themselves, which are hugely dependent upon low interest rates and central banks. The US now, is said to be accruing interest on the national debt to the tune of a trillion dollars approximately every three months. Even Canada’s debt service loads are skyrocketing. Wall and Bay Streets also expect easy money so that investors channel greater sums of money into investment vehicles other than bonds and cash, like the stock market.

Boy, oh boy… some free money welfare and backdoor bailouts from central bankers - Jerome and Tiff - sure would come in handy right about now. There’s just two problems. As mentioned, free money is the root of all evil. Free money fuels our hyper financialized, ultra-leveraged economy, free money mints oligarchy, elevates stock markets & asset classes of the rich to nosebleed valuations, fuels M&A and monopoly creation, funds endless wars, empire. Free money, courtesy of central bankers, printed money at low yields funds corporate welfare and the aforementioned Wall St bailouts. Tax cuts for the rich need financing? See your friendly neighborhood central banker for some of that printing press love. Backdoor bailouts, in the form of free money, fuels government corruption, encourages day trading in the halls of congress… free money quickly papers over crisis, after Wall St crisis, so politicians don’t have to make tough choices on whether or not to fund America’s empire, another Wall St bailout, or Social Security for us mere peasants. Free money from central banks receives little or no press attention… seemingly, it’s all sub rosa. Central banks, seemingly, give gravitas to bankruptcy, corruption, looting, and lies.

And the second problem… there is no such thing as free money. In America, our failed duopoly, the oligarchy, and the deep state have rung up $40 trillion in national debt and there appears to be no end to it, w/ Biden & Trudeau spending like drunken sailors. And the taxpayer is, in theory, on the hook for all of it… endless welfare for the rich, endless wars for the DOD, MIC, & Wall St, and endless austerity for Canadians and Americans. It’s not that I object to deficits spent on The People, but it’s all the transfer of wealth that I object to: Making the rich and multinationals obscenely wealthy, while robbing our children, grandchildren, futurity, even grandma and grandpa. (Interestingly, you’ll find no central bank mandate for any of this insanity: whether its financing & funding genocide in Gaza, endless wars globally, the American empire, systemic corruption and fraud in congress & parliaments, endless corporate welfare, or stripping retirees and savers of interest income… so that private equity and Wall St can use low yield debt to leverage up and loot companies, leverage up returns, and consolidate entire industries into predatory cartels and monopolies. Nope, not a peep in the FED’s charter.)

And now you know, dear reader, why central bankers and politicians lie, constantly. Billions and trillions are on the line. If only they can persuade you the failed status quo… our rotted out nercro – neolib – neocon economy… is working exactly as planned: With central bankers, the political class, and wealthy donors stealing nation-states, and the public, blind.

Nice.

Saturday, May 25, 2024

Ghost in the Machine

Leaving technical details aside, the implications are clear. Like any other human science, biochemistry can serve the powers of light or of darkness. Its dangers terrifying; but we are now concerned with its beneficial possibilities.

- The Ghost in the Machine, Arthur Koestler

By Gregg Wall (5-25-2024)

Finally knocked out this book. Not only is The Ghost in the Machine (GM) a great read, but written in 1967, it’s still timely and fresh. If you are interested in tackling this book, but don’t have a lot of time, I would recommend reading the third and final section of the book, first. The first two sections spend a lot of time on biology, hierarchies, holons… but the third section spends considerable time on psychology, the physical & psychological defects of humanity, and of course, Koestler offers a solution.

The central premise of the book is that humanity has plateaued and never really has advanced in terms of emotional intelligence and morality, whereas our technical capabilities have taken off exponentially, especially in terms of science, weapons, and war. Our feeble or primitive limbic system, governing emotions & morality, versus our neocortex with explosive capabilities, largely untapped, for creativity and invention. In short, humanity suffers from a huge emotional and moral deficit vis-a-vis our ability to create weapons that threaten humanity and the planet itself… and too many profit from endless colonialism, death, and war. Koestler notes this has placed humanity at an existential crossroads. Look at what’s going in the world today, where Biden, just in his first term, has started up cold wars with China and Russia, a hot war in the Ukraine, and is running a genocide out of Gaza with best buddy, Bibi. And the cries for bombing Iran have not died down.

It's as if this book could have been released yesterday. Truly, the neolibs and neocons… the ever-aging gerontocracy running America… are the biological and psychological dead-end Koestler was warning us about.

Koestler also appears to nail it on the danger of mobs. Noting that individuals are far less dangerous than the self-transcendence that all too often accompanies crowds. That ‘flocks’ and ‘sheep’ easily lose themselves in the hands of religion - and the mullah, priest, or rabbi – as well as, organized political parties and the skillful demagogue. The cults of personality surrounding America’s two fascist choices this November, Biden and Trump, immediately come to mind. Koestler identifies the self-transcendence that accompanies crowds or groups as having two common denominators: often, low intelligence and high emotion. Note: These are Koestler’s observations not mine. He goes on to note the delusional, paranoid streak in humanity is often exhibited within crowds and amplified by crowds, nothing on a similar scale within the individual. Counter to Koestler's observations on concentrated humanity, consider the wonderful things peace and student protestors are doing presently... organized humanity can be channelled into enlightened humanistic endeavors and goals.

As interesting, GM offers that primates are not naturally wired for violence, but that stress over environment, food, natural disasters, overcrowding will ignite violence. And the same can be said of humanity, that our economy drives aggression, anger, crime, rage, violence… that and the “schizophysiology” within the brain described above. The economy and environment acting as a tripwire to our human nature or biology and our bipolar and schizophrenic mind.

Koestler states, by and large, humanity does not learn from history and so, repeats the same mistakes over and over. To which I add, a failure to learn from the past might have been acceptable a hundred or two hundred year ago, but due to the exponential rise in weapons and killing capacity… the ability to set off a nuclear winter… humanity’s inability to learn, more to the point, leadership’s & the oligarchy’s inability to learn, leaves humanity running out of runway and time. The same can be said of the climate crisis, Big Oil & Gas, and spineless Western leadership that keeps kicking the can down the road in the name of greed.

And the cure for extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds… the cure for our paranoid streak, the battle between our primitive brain governing emotion and morality, versus the highly advanced neocortex that wants to monetize death and planetary destruction (at least some of us)???

Well, it was the ‘60s. Koestler is not convinced that a dramatic evolutionary leap or genetic mutation will suddenly arrive and give mankind enough compassion, empathy, and morality to dominate greed. In short, don’t count on that to save the planet. Instead, Koestler recommends better living -- and a chance or opportunity at survival -- through chemicals and chemistry. Koestler noting, we have chemicals and compounds that can completely control humanity. Given the prevalence of mood - & mind - altering medications and America’s insatiable appetite to escape through drugs our necro/neolib/neocon reality… would it really be a leap? Pump empathy and love right into the water supply along with fluoride? With an extra ration for the Wall St. & Washington crowd? Way ahead of his time, Koestler mentions future RNA technology as a way to modify the brain, bring about a truce within the mind, and give emotion, morality, and selflessness greater standing. RNA technology that’s no longer a dream.

Unfortunately, as with political parties and religion… better living through chemistry can go sideways in a heartbeat if the chemicals/medicine we are given are decided by unsavory characters (like our current Democratic and GOP leadership or the oligarchy they answer to). Here, think of both the rational & legitimate concerns, as well as, some of the paranoia surrounding the COVID vaccines. Chemicals and medicine, it seems, can be manipulated, like AI, algos, software code, with bad intent and malicious design (try this on: creating, what Huxley called, a "painless concentration camp of the mind"). GM takes the high road, however, and Koestler believes chemicals, compounds, and chemistry can bridge the chasm between humanity’s emotional and moral bankruptcy and our insatiable desire to profit from human misery and suffering. That is, medicine/vaccines can be engineered to better strike equilibrium for humanity & justice, versus the insane world we presently find ourselves living in.

Before the planet gives up the ghost.