The Tyranny of Greed

The Tyranny of Greed 

Apollo Global Management Inc. has offered to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Intel Corp., people familiar with the matter said, providing the chipmaker with a vote of confidence in its turnaround strategy and an alternative to a potential takeover by larger rival Qualcomm Inc.

 

The alternative asset manager has indicated in recent days that it would be willing to make an equity-like investment in Intel of as much as $5 billion, one of the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.

 

-             Intel Gets Multibillion-Dollar Apollo Offer as Qualcomm Circles, Bloomberg

 

By Gregg Wall (9-28-2024)

 

The cornerstone of Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act, Intel, part of his efforts to make American manufacturing great again…especially chip and semiconductor manufacturing… has hit a roadblock.   Apparently, Intel, once a storied chip behemoth and envy of the industry, has fallen on hard times.  The company is poorly managed, poorly run, and to hear the MSM tell it, now a listless also-ran.  Presently, Intel is entertaining offers from competitor, Qualcomm, Inc, and a capital investment from Apollo Global Management… of private equity fame. 

 

So, what happened?  How was Intel eclipsed by Nvidia and several other chip manufacturers?  Well, what few of the current MSM articles reference is Intel management’s addiction to financial engineering and greed, spanning decades. Seems that it wouldn’t do to point out the obvious, that good old fashioned American avarice is responsible for a great many of the American chipmaker’s problems. Common Dreams pointed out in an article earlier this year, Intel ‘bragged’ that it had done $152 billion in stock buybacks over the last thirty-five years.

 

As Common Dreams points out, Intel would be the picture of prosperity if it had taken a considerable portion of that greed… ahem, buybacks… and invested in AI, CAPEX, and U.S. manufacturing facilities.  But heh, look at Boeing, Wall St banks, U.S. airlines by way of example, why would any CEO in his right mind plow profits during the good times into CAPEX, when a bankrupt United States federal government and the corrupt, useful rubes in congress are always eager to fund the next bailout?  For the proper amount of campaign contributions and kickbacks of course… bailouts, such as that offered under Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act?  Just switch on exorbitant privilege over at the Federal Reserve, add ink and paper, print money, and instant bailout.  In fact, activist investors, greedsters, shareholders might frown upon CAPEX and R&D, in lieu of buybacks and dividends.  CAPEX and R&D are for the future, the buyback and dividend are now… immediate gratification, the second chalet, the third yacht, more crypto, the fourth, well, you get the get the picture. 

 

Intel points to the sorry mess America is in today, where greed and short-term thinking dominates all other considerations, economically, financially, monetarily, and politically.  In terms of foreign policy, why engage in diplomacy and peace talks when America’s so-called leadership can burn through tens of billions in taxpayer dollars funding surreptitious campaign contributions, kickbacks, Nancy Pelosi’s next several million in net worth, and endless for-profit wars … that is, if you can ignore all the blood and the ever-soaring body count. 

 

So, what if American manufacturing has been decimated; 39% of labor works gig; 50% of Americans can’t afford a doctor; 66% can’t meet a $400 emergency; 70% live check to check… these are good times to hear the Biden Administration tell it, Happy Days, which explains fully why Biden was going down in flames against Trump and had to be replaced by Kamala.  How’s that working out?  One would have to consult with historians of course, but there’s probably never been two more loathed candidates for the presidency in the history of the nation.  Both highly compromised, both owned by AIPAC, the Deep State, SV, and Wall Street, neither offering substantive change or serious ideas on America’s catastrophic debt or deep economic malaise (except to make the rich richer still, by inflating crypto and via tax cuts).  Campaign 2024 is the status quo race to the bottom.  Neither with any ideas on how to reverse obscene wealth and wage inequality.  Or, if they have any, they aren’t talking, as that might upset the donor class. 

 

Ideas like an economic bill of rights, Medicare for all, a wealth and windfall profits tax, protecting American families and labor from relentless economic violence… perhaps antitrust turbocharged with a resurgent, well-funded regulatory regime, maybe even price controls… oh, but those ideas would invite charges of the c-word, Communism.  The reality?  The truth?  Americans are well-educated enough to fully understand who the true welfare queens are, who the true socialists are… why, they all reside in boardrooms, in the C-Suites, on Wall Street, Washington, they are the captains of industry running monopolies and sponging off the state, lobbying for the next CHIPS and Science Act – milking the taxpayer by privatizing the DOD, like Peter Thiel?  You know, Peter of venture capital fame, who rejects capitalism, which is for little people, marks, putzes.  It’s really interesting when you know history.  Libertarianism, in practice, is used to justify and rationalize all manner of supply-side freebees, socialism, and endless money printing for financial engineering.  Hell, libertarianism even justifies communism, that is monopolies, utilities, and Wall St (where the means of production are held by despots, oligarchs, and shareholders, who have eliminated competition, markets, price discovery, and resort to collusion, seemingly with no restraint).  But when it comes to protecting the income, the property, and wealth of 90% of population from greed -- really evil malicious greed with zero checks & balances -- well, that state backstop and support just isn’t there.  There is no Fed put to ensure that the net worth of American households doesn’t plummet because of layoffs (as a direct result of the latest financial engineering or private equity scam), or the soaring cost of food, fuel, insurance, and medicine doesn’t diminish and liquidate checking and savings accounts.  And if Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public have to work until they drop, because retirement is out of reach, well, that’s just the tyranny of greed?  The price America must pay, so that a predatory few have the freedom to loot with impunity.  Bailouts for 70% of the public?  Not happening.

 

Isn’t domestic, greed-based terror fun?  Austerity and true libertarianism are for the poor… communism, socialism, and tyranny lorded over others are for the rich. 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, where were we?  Oh yeah, Intel and the tyranny of greed. The tyranny of libertarian dogma that America just can’t seem to escape because it's rammed down our throats every day, in every manner, in our schools, by the Orwellian corporate media, via commission and omission by the political class.  The idea that the private sector is almighty, the state is evil, and with just a little luck, hard work, and reaching harder and harder for your dreams… you too, can make it, America.  More guns, hopiates & joy, that Kamala is presently peddling on the talk show circuit.

 

Right.  And the reality?  America is flat on its ass, spreadeagle, and being raped for the hundredth time by the pigs at the top of the pyramid… all of whom are wondering, how much longer will the public buy the great American lie?  The exceptional & indispensable fraud?  Buy the fiction of the American dream, the fiction that America is a democracy, the lie that is ‘American capitalism.’  With totalitarian monopolies, unaccountable, unelected CEOs dictating gov policy, prices, wages, and whether the economy sinks or swims… while they poison the air, land, and water (leaving the taxpayer to clean up nightmare, after nightmare)… because increasingly, the public isn’t buying.  Which explains the world’s largest police and mass incarceration state, the highest prisoner count, an ever-growing number of cop cities in development.

 

They know, the privileged and the powerful know… the center, the lies will no longer hold. 

 

And Intel?  It’s an example of the scam being pulled on the American people by ultra-corrupt capital, kleptocracy, and a deregulatory state, where greed rules.  What a hateful and vile country America has become … I write this in all earnestness, not out of anger, jealousy, or spite (a familiar comeback used by libertarians on the X platform), but because it never had to be this way and still doesn’t have to be this way.  But beyond any shadow of a doubt, greed is firmly embedded in our country’s necroeconomy, inside our country’s DNA.  Barring denazification, education, and revolution, America isn’t going to shake this. 

 

A bankrupt America in terminal decline, where tens of millions of Americans, approximately 70% of the population, suffer endlessly, needlessly, so that a predatory few can relentlessly prey upon the nation and the world, inflicting: The Tyranny of Greed.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024

DESPERATION TIME FOR CENTRAL BANKS?

DESPERATION TIME FOR CENTRAL BANKS?

 

Underlying inflation unexpectedly picked up. The so-called core consumer price index — which excludes food and energy costs — increased 0.3% from July, the most in four months, and 3.2% from a year ago.

-       Pickup in US Housing Prices Drive CPI Gains, Bloomberg

 

Gregg Wall (9-14-2024)

 

The central banks and the establishment all appear to be on the same page.  The BOC, BOE, ECB have all cut rates and declared Mission Accomplished, and the battle over inflation nearly won or won.  And the Federal Reserve is widely expected to do so next week.  The BOJ, on the other hand… the godfather of Japanification & easy money… has been toying with actually raising interest rates (and possibly disrupting the carry trade in the process).  The BOJ is an outlier and never really raised rates, during the inflationary period.

 

But has the battle really been won?  And what to make of the central banks’ declaration of victory?  

 

In regards the first question, has inflation been conquered, the answer is most definitely NO.  Here, the establishment relies upon a specious core inflation number, that is month to month and year over year, and entirely discounts all prior years of greed and price gouging (as well as essentials: food & fuel).  And when that core number result is inconvenient, the establishment shifts over to CPI non-core.  How convenient, as some MSM papers and publications did this week.  Of course, the corporate MSM, the mouthpiece of the establishment, is quick to play its role and gaslight the public that inflation is coming down, when nothing could be further from the truth.  The reality is while the rate of inflationary increase may have climbed down… this is referred to as disinflation… there is no actual decrease in prices across the market basket of goods and services.  If such a decrease were to occur on a sustained basis, it would be called deflation.  Then the corporate MSM would be correct in declaring that inflation is coming down. 

 

And while, there has been some disinflation, and some early, minor signs of deflation on select goods and services… in the aggregate inflation continues to march higher, compounding upon four prior years of greed.   Wages, of course, have not kept up over the same four-year period, and were actually, for the most part, stagnant over the prior decades, pre-pandemic (and actually declining on an inflation adjusted basis).  In fact, given the shocking rise in housing and rents, and using the 30% rule of rents, the minimum wage needed to make it in America is roughly $80,000 a year; and a shocking number, roughly 50% of Americans, make less than $80,000 a year.  (Blame central banks, corporate consolidation, deregulation, easy money, financial engineering, globalization, M&A, monopoly, neoliberalism, and de facto government policy of siding with capital over organized labor for suppressed worker wages.)  Meanwhile, auto insurance, eating out, food, property insurance, rents, retail gas have all seen dramatic and sustained rises… and have shown little or no signs of coming down (with the exception of retail gas, which is still 35% higher than when Biden entered office, as of this writing). 

 

So, the second question, why the mad rush to declare victory, when predictable “upside surprises” … like that which occurred in the U.S. this week … can continue to be expected.  Much of the central bank rush to begin a rate cutting cycle is the business community has become highly addicted to cheap debt, easy money, and low interest rates, post 2008 financial collapse.  Many Western govs, too, have become addicted to cheap debt.  And the supplier of that cheap debt and money are the aforementioned central banks.  This is all done under the pretense of maintaining stable prices, stable employment, and presumably wages… but as anyone with two eyes can see:  ultra-accommodative monetary policy and the resulting economic & industry consolidation have produced neither stable prices or stable employment with appropriate wages (unless one considers a surfeit of lousy paying jobs, the gig economy, and indentured servitude a win).  The U.S. is said to be racking up a trillion in interest expense every 100 days, as a direct result of endless wars, endless business bailouts, financed tax cuts, fiscal insanity, and an entirely reckless trickle-down tax code.  And the Federal Reserve is to blame for enabling the aforementioned and monetary Japanification in the United States.  Japanification is a fancy way of saying, easy money and quantitative easing.

 

With that said, the FED and other central banks are being hemmed in by fiscal and monetary excess that is now several decades old… which again has spawned cartel, consolidation in the private sector, monopoly, monopsony, and has spawned untrammeled corporate power over: prices, wages, gov policy, governments, politicians, and regulators.  Fiscal and monetary excess also spawned, as mentioned, governments that are significantly weakened, also burdened by: catastrophic debt, welfare states for corporations and the obscenely wealthy, and a labour base and tax base that has been crushed by corporate greed.  Labour is actually being crushed in two distinct ways by central bank monetary policy and resulting industry consolidation: first, in terms of higher prices paid for good and services (money exiting purses & wallets), and secondly, corporate greed yet again, via monopsony power over wages (money entering purses & wallets).  In short, when labour & retirees need backstop and support from their governments most, politicians are crying austerity, poormouth, and are tapped out by catastrophic debt.  At least that’s the excuse provided… notice, the USA and UK are never tapped out, when it comes to war, war spending, and maintaining a welfare state for banks, multinationals and oligarchy.  All the while, public services are stripped to the bone to pay for the overhead that is the bank bailouts, the billionaire class, the kleptocracy, national debt service loads, and the shifting of known - private sector - costs and expense onto the taxpayer, like the climate catastrophe happening before our eyes in real time.

 

All this central bank money printing has had the pernicious causal effect of increasing debt, leverage, and the money supply… and has directly led to the inflation of asset classes of the rich, the multinational, and the catastrophic transfer of wealth into the hands of the establishment and boomer generation.  Money and power that is used, in turn, to buy influence and political power in Washington and nation-states to double down on fiscal, monetary, regulatory, and tax policies that all serve to make the rich richer, and the majority of the population increasingly left out and struggling to survive.  So much for social stability surrounding central bank monetary policy: the West and the world are a virtual powder keg of instability, directly as a result of central bank policy.  Here, and by way of example, see the empire and multiple wars central banks finance. 

 

And the real villains… the folks who allegedly are supposed to respect the will of the people… and defend the public?  Well, in democracy, that’s supposed to be our elected representatives & yes, judges, all of whom constantly fail.  Apparently, being reduced to little more than puppets for corporations, foreign governments, greed, lobbyist, and oligarchy.  But I digress.   

 

Increasingly central banks & monetary policy are hemmed in by: the catastrophic debt they’ve created, the debt service load, politicians and political parties desiring to get re-elected, entire sectors of the economy addicted to leverage and cheap debt (see private equity and real estate) … and the great fiction that inflation is defeated.  When no such thing has occurred or is likely to occur (barring a really nasty economic depression), because why???  Nobody has addressed the Monopoly/Monopsony problem.  It’s still with us… ready to pounce, with an insatiable lust for profits, financial engineering, stock manipulation, and feeding the ravenous shareholder value beast.  Meanwhile, the public is up in arms over affordability, corporate greed... captured, corrupt, and crony 'democratic governments'...  a plethora of lousy paying jobs, immigration waves (that are permitted to drive down wages), the eradication & systemic underfunding of public services, and more than likely, a pending recession (that, although hasn’t officially been declared by the establishment, is a very real reality for the majority of citizens throughout the EU and North America).  For while a low to moderate rate regime may slow an economy, vis-a-vis free money… nothing quite kills an economy like greed and price gouging (as tapped out labour increasingly has less money to spend throughout the economy, businesses fail in record numbers, as prices on essentials continue to climb higher and higher, unemployment further rises, producing a doom loop that is likely to continue until there is a recession or worse).  In fact, despite the central banks’ and the establishment’s declarations, all the elements that drive greed and price gouging are very much with us, unhindered, unimpeded, & unregulated.  Again, I present to you, the aforementioned monopoly, monopsony, and utilities.

 

Next time you see Messrs. Bailey, Macklem, Powell and Madame Lagarde be sure and give them all a warm hug or maybe not (as they are likely to be surrounded by a phalanx of security).  For they and their predecessors are ultimately responsible for this terrible, terrible mess.  How can something that has the potential for so much good, fiat currency, be so entirely damaging to the global economy, the majority of workers, and the world?

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024

Trudeau’s contempt for Canadians & Labour…

Trudeau’s contempt for Canadians & Labour… 

 

A final report by UN investigator Tomoya Obokata concludes that Canada’s temporary foreign worker program is a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.

 

Prof. Obokata is the United Nations’ special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery and a professor of international human-rights law at the University of York in Britain.

 

“The special rapporteur retains the view that the temporary foreign worker program serves as a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery, as it institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights,” states the final report, which is dated July 22 and was recently posted online.

 

-             Canada’s temporary foreign worker program a ‘breeding ground’ for slavery, UN reports concludes - Globe & Mail

 

By Gregg Wall (8-31-2024)

 

When I first moved to Canada, I noticed that parliamentary democracy is unique, relative to the American government, in its ability to actually get things done.  But like two-faced Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, parliamentary democracy is also capable of exhibiting another side or face, incredible amounts of corruption from its leaders.  Mr. Trudeau has been caught in scandal after scandal, since his rise to power 2015, but his latest scandal, abusing Canada’s immigration and labour programs… essentially, abusing a flood of immigrants and Canadian workers… may prove to be his costliest scandal yet.  The final straw.

 

At issue, the United Nations has called out Canada for abusing immigrants, under its temporary worker program, calling it contemporary slavery … as reported in the Globe & Mail:  

 

“The special rapporteur received reports of underpayment and wage theft, physical, emotional and verbal abuse, excessive work hours, limited breaks, extracontractual work, uncompensated managerial duties, lack of personal protective equipment, including in hazardous conditions, confiscation of documents and arbitrary reductions of working hours. Women reported sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse.”

 

The program has exploded under the Trudeau government leading to 2.8 million immigrants (sizeable given Canada’s population of 40 million).  Trudeau having recently doubled the annual quota to 500,000 immigrants per year.  All this at a time when healthcare, affordable housing, and infrastructure have been underfunded and it clearly shows.  As pointed out by Tony Keller in the Globe & Mail, there were two primary - unspoken - purposes to the foreign worker program: the first, is crushing Canadian wages at the bottom of the wage scale; and two, employing desperate immigrants, who will pay colleges, employers, and middlemen for the privilege of working in Canada.   

 

But as pointed out by a younger Trudeau, back in 2014, when he was crucifying the prior Harper government for many of the same issues, it’s not just low wage workers impacted - when wages are held down by employers, exploiting a huge pool of desperate immigrant labour - but all Canadian wages are impacted.  And with the explosive growth in immigration, of course, came the middle men, the racketeers, the labour pimps…. Who exploit desperate labour for huge fees ($10,000 to $180,000 CAD, as reported in Bloomberg), sometimes an immigrant’s life savings, to get them into Canada and expedite the process with jobs that don’t pay a living wage and may lead to indentured servitude.  Absolutely appalling and disgusting conditions all too often accompany these jobs.

 

Even the Bank of Canada and its leader got in on the act.  Tiff Macklem, bank governor, called for growth in immigrant labor, for employers to suppress wages, and not cave into labor demands, when the inflation crisis started up during the COVID pandemic.  Tiff wholly subscribed to the nonsense that inflation was demand driven… but we now know, greed, monopoly power, and price gouging have played a huge role in soaring prices and profits.  The Bank of Canada’s and the Trudeau gov’s answer to the inflation crisis wasn’t to rein in greedy employers but crush labour, with an influx of immigrants, which juiced corporate bottom lines.  It seems that an immigration wave was no longer used to fill farm jobs, but low wage jobs across the economy (jobs many Canadians rely upon during times of high unemployment) … its seems that the resulting wage suppression for Canadians and immigrants didn’t translate into lower prices but greater greed, prices, and profits.   

 

It appears Tiff and his policy prescriptions were wrong.  Not only did wage-spirals not appear, but in fact, the entire episode points to at least two doom loops.  Part of the case Trudeau attempted to make to justify record immigration is lack of population growth… but why aren’t Canadians breeding?  Canadians aren’t breeding because the neoliberal economy is a disaster, wages are suppressed by monopoly and monopsony power, and labour and families are squeezed harder by outrageous profit taking and supply-side price spirals.  Lower wages, plus higher prices equal a baby bust.  Few younger Canadians can afford to bring a child into this world under the neoliberal regime, the Trudeau government, and the monopoly economy…. Successive waves of exploited immigrants, further suppressing wages, does little to help the libido of Canadian families or population growth.  And so, the loop is complete: more exploitable, grossly underpaid immigrants are allegedly required.   Thanks to Conservative and Liberal government mismanagement… and the BOC… 25% of Canadians now live in poverty.  At the moment, blame rests squarely on Trudeau and Tiff Macklem. 

 

The second doom loop concerns consolidation in the economy… one of my favorite topics, of course this is a problem seen throughout Western economies… and the totalitarian power of monopoly and monopsony.  Depending upon the elasticity of demand, Monopoly can and does dictate price; and depending upon the number of employment options, monopsony can and does dictate wages.  And guess who wins, guess who always wins… and guess who loses, guess who always loses: Canadian families, immigrants, and labour.  And the more consolidated the economy becomes, resulting in fewer employment opportunities and fewer places to shop, the more Canadians will become impoverished.  A process that has been underway for several decades, ever rising wage & wealth inequality.  The more the Trudeau government sides with business interests and wealthy donors, against labour and Canadian families, the more Canada will become impoverished (Liberals increasingly becoming known as the political party that transfers wages & wealth to a handful of greedy corporations).  The more Tiff Macklem feeds financial engineering, M&A, monopoly formation, and PE with easy money policies, the more Canadians will, again & again, become impoverished in increasingly greater numbers.  The more monopolies seek growth, from an impoverished public, the more they turn to & seek out further consolidation and arbitrarily jack up prices to achieve growth, inorganically.  A seemingly never-ending spiral or doom loop that folds in on itself, until it’s forced to stop, breaks the economy, or worse.  Seems that Trudeau, Tiff, and Canadian oligarchs really don’t care where Canada gets its labour, as long as it’s exploitable and highly inexpensive.

 

There’s not enough time today to get into Trudeau cutting the legs out from under the Teamsters Canada and Canadian railroad workers… just chock it up to another example of the Liberal Party screwing labour, Canadian families, and coming down in favor of Railroad monopolies & utilities.   Reminiscent of President Biden screwing railroad workers.  Coincidence?  Many of the problems described in this write up are alive, festering, and virulent in Europe, the UK, and the U.S.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What does it all add up to?  Trudeau, a scandal plagued government, screwing Canadian families, exploiting immigrant and foreign workers, slavery, indentured servitude… the Liberal gov siding with monopolies, oligarchs, & utilities, who already enjoy an economy entirely rigged in their favor?  Well, it points to a complete collapse in leadership, great ethical and moral failings by the Trudeau government.  To such an extent that Trudeau and the Liberal gov’s numbers are in free fall.  

 

Now, it’s really Mr. Singh’s call, the federal NDP’s call.  Trudeau and liberals are entirely dependent upon the NDP to remain in power.  With NDP numbers also in free fall, does Mr. Singh ride it out with a Trudeau government until the 2025 election?  Or does Mr. Singh pull the plug?  Mr. Singh having achieved all that he could apparently squeeze out the Liberal government, under a deal to keep the minority, Liberal government in power… To wit, incrementalism on dental care, incrementalism on pharma care.  Incrementalism being shorthand for ‘failure.’  I hope it was worth it, Mr. Singh.  Clearly, you don’t drive a hard bargain.  

 

Ultimately, I’m not sure that the Conservative government will be any better for Canada, Canadian families, and labour (likely worse) … but how can anyone allow the Trudeau government to continue to wear, like Janus, two faces, two masks: one as a pretend benevolent actor, the other as a fraud and no friend to the Canadian people, immigrants, or the nation?  The federal NDP is already smeared & tarred by its association with Justin, and the federal NDP is seen as Trudeau’s enabler and lackey.  A problem that is only going to grow worse with time. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024