Endless War & the FP Establishment’s Crack Up

Endless War & the FP Establishment’s Crack Up

Among veterans, 64 percent say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, according to a study by the Pew Research Center, slightly higher than the 62 percent of civilians who feel the same way. Disagreement with the conflict in Afghanistan is lower — 58 percent of veterans and 59 percent of the general public believe that was not a worthy war. While some veterans support continued military engagement in Syria, more than half — 55 percent — oppose it.

-       Trump’s Opposition to ‘Endless Wars’ Appeals to Those Who Fought Them – NY Times

By JM Hamilton (11-3-2019)

The news piece wasn’t something JMH would typically read.  But the Washington Post ran it, and as I went through it, I had a sense déjà vu.  Was I reading a horror story about child abuse, animal hoarding, and self-destructive adults - clearly w/ mental health issues - or was I reading about the insanity surrounding US foreign policy?

The story, Police found 3 children living with 245 animals. Among them: Rats, sugar gliders and a hedgehog, ran in the October 21, Washington Post.  The piece really put the hook in me.  Was animal hoarding analogous to nation-state hoarding or empire building?  And so I researched “animal hoarding,” as a mental health issue - w/in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or DSM) - yes, the Bible of the mental health community recognizes animal hoarding, as an illness. Hence, it caused me to research the US FP establishment’s mental health.  Searching megalomania, out popped narcissistic personality disorder & delusions of grandeur, also recognized by the DSM.  Which if one was to describe the US foreign policy establishment – and our nation’s global empire (800 military bases globally is often the estimate provided) – the mental health issues, narcissistic personality disorder & delusions of grandeur, are the first things that come to mind. 

Ironically enough, groupthink is another term (introduced by Psychologist, Irving Janis, in Psychology Today, circa 1971) that also appears to apply to the elites of the US foreign policy establishment. The term, groupthink, was originally coined to describe the experts in Washington, who ran the Vietnam War (& has Orwellian origin).

Let’s see, the parallels between animal hoarding (AH), or hoarding, and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), or delusions of grandeur, are both as frightening as they are numerous.  Both AH and NPD may involve: obsessive compulsive disorder; the aforementioned delusions; sociopathic tendencies; a lack of empathy; a failure on the part of the mentally ill to see that they are causing others great harm; a sense of entitlement; did I mention a lack of empathy (?); and an inability to be self-critical. 

Yes. Bingo. Elites, groupthink, the US foreign policy establishment, The DOD, and animal hoarders… a complete lack of empathy: this is the place.

For instance, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the desire to own and operate a global empire is a recipe for ruin.  In the 20^th Century, we saw the failure of Nazi Germany, as well as, the fall of the Soviet Union with its own hegemonic aims (building blocks of conquered or “aligned” states) … just as hoarding hundreds of animals w/in one’s home will result in ruinous consequences.  Several European empires also dissolved under the weight of their own hubris during the 20th Century.  The US empire seems to be facing similar consequences (see our $23 trillion national debt, and growing, and the Fed’s near zero rate bound monetary policy designed to mitigate the debt service load of same) – despite the groupthink espoused by the armchair warriors, who make up the US foreign policy establishment (FP) and their talking heads, ensconced w/in the MSM.   Let’s see, trillion-dollar defense budgets, per annum (more than the G8 combined), and $6 trillion, plus, wasted for our never-ending wars upon terror and global occupation forces.

Interestingly enough, animal hoarders actually believe they are helping the distressed and dying animals they possess; oddly enough, the FP establishment loves to trot out the story that the US is invading & occupying a country out of the benevolence & kindness of the nation’s collective heart, and to free said occupied country from a dictator or a highly embellished terror threat.  The FP community may, on occasion, state that the US is spreading freedom and democracy, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

But the reality is far, far different: AH participants do great harm to the animals under their control and has anyone taken a look at the countries the US has invaded, overthrew & occupied recently (?): arguably, failed state after failed state.  Hence, the need for US forces to stay indefinitely.  Hundreds of thousands of war dead or collateral damage, often played down – conveniently enough – by the DOD.  Abused and suffering US soldiers – not only suffering the afflictions, slings, and arrows of war - but suffering a pandemic of suicide, and poor VA care, once they return stateside. As for the countries the US invades, directly or by proxy, often in the name of fighting terror, corrupt puppet regimes are often installed, while US multinationals – Big Oil & Defense contractors – reap the rewards of the United States foreign policy malaise. Meanwhile, the regimes that spread real terror are our so-called allies & friends.

Within the Washington Post’s animal hoarding piece, the collateral damage is the children that are grossly abused and neglected, by the adults suffering, clearly, a mental break from reality.  Ditto the US FP establishment.  For as the nation wastes trillions on our global empire: one in five US children live in poverty, 40 to 50% of Americans can’t make a $400 emergency payment, and the American people and the US economy suffer endless austerity.  And the MSM, and their warmonger pundits, tells us that we should be worried about Kurds and Afghanistan women, while failing to mention the bottom half of American society that live in poverty.  (In a perfect world, we should all be worried about all of humanity, and the planet’s health.)  Before the US attempts to save the world, if that really is our aim, and it’s not   … shouldn’t we insist that the elites, who run US FP, try and save our own country first?  (And we wonder why the congress hasn’t the courage to debate these issues, and the US war machine relies upon an AUMF that’s nearly two decades old.)

Animal hoarders, it turns out, are often isolated from their communities, and offers of help or assistance are often viewed as a threat to the distressed animals and an insult to the hoarder’s delusion of providing expert care.  And so it is w/ the increasingly isolated US FP establishment: Here in the US, as the NY Times reported, the vast majority of veterans and American citizens now view the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as wars that should have never been fought.  Today, it's lonely being an elite pushing the endless war propaganda line, on behalf of Big Oil, MIC contractors, despotic allies, and Wall Street banks (who are all too happy to finance endless war).

And of course, these diseases of the mind lend themselves to additional comparisons.

Like the hoarding of animals, the US empire – consisting of hundreds of military bases around the globe, and endless regime change/nation building wars - is not only wrong but represents the failed logic of an amoral &, perhaps, ill mind.

The impact of US FP upon domestic & foreign lands --- the lives of innocent civilians (in the form of collateral damage), US taxpayers & citizens faced w/ austerity, the ever-growing national debt, and particularly, the pain suffered by US troops and their families --- is not to be underestimated.  Even if we were to stop fighting today, the fallout from the groupthink surrounding the US foreign policy establishment will be with us for generations to come.

US credibility in the world’s eyes takes a direct hit when our nation fights endless wars and allow our fighting women & men to become mercenaries for foreign governments, the MIC, US multinationals, and Big Oil.

Here, again, we see the breakdown & erosion of our democratic values, when foreign governments, Big Oil, and the MIC lobby our government to continue to fight endless wars (that the American people, clearly, no longer want to be a part of or anything to do with).

To put a stop to this mental illness: AUMFs should be required to be renewed & passed by a formal congressional vote every 24 months; K-Street, foreign governments, and the MIC should be – permanently - banned from lobbying for war & the execution of US foreign policy in support of their interests; wars & nation building requiring a commitment of greater than 24 months, should be put to the vote by an international body, and funded & fought by same; and a wedge should be driven into the revolving door between the US military brass and the numerous commercial interests, who have much to gain by placing our fighting women & men – and the US fiscal budget – into harm’s way. 

And finally, bringing back the draft would ensure that all stakeholders in society have skin in the FP game. With these reforms, and others, sanity just might return.

If congress doesn’t have the guts to vote for endless war & nation building every 24 months – in defiance of the voters back home and our fighting women & men – it should demonstrate to America and the world how amoral, corrupt, and mentally unstable US FP has become.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2019

Requiem for the American Dream & Capitalism?

Requiem for the American Dream & Capitalism?

Merchants have no country.  The mere spot that they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

-Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 17 March 1814

By JM Hamilton (10-20-2019)

By now many of us already know the private equity (PE) modus operandi.  The party line is that PE firms save businesses from themselves, rescues them, and after five years, the company is safely returned to the free market.  Perhaps flipped, via IPO, or to another PE firm, or sold to alternative private interests.

PE firms - and their ownership - are merely benevolent actors, looking after the free market economy, as the Goddess above intended.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  PE organizations take companies - the players on the American economy’s stage – and load them up with catastrophic debt.  By leveraging these companies with very little of their own money, PE: front loads profits; use acquired companies’ credit lines as personal cash dispensing machines; often strip companies of assets & land; rack up huge consulting fees, see 2/20; payout unearned dividends – to themselves; often take out derivative bets against the very companies they have acquired and said companies’ bondholders (moral hazard defined); and hyper-leverage returns.  

These PE companies are exceptionally adept at turning financial statements into fairy tales.

And the real result: bankruptcy after bankruptcy.  These names should sound familiar:  Gymboree, Payless, Shopko, and Toys R’ Us.  (Sears, too, was brought down by the PE model, deployed by a hedge fund billionaire.)  The companies that do survive are often rolled up in combination w/ other companies within the same industry.  Leading to – you guessed it – cartel and monopoly.  Every time a retailer goes down, thanks to private equity, Jeff Bezos’ & Walmart’s, respective, empires only grow stronger.

Just in case some may think private equity has had a bit of bad luck, let’s examine Julie Creswell’s (of the NY Times) article, from back in 2009:

A disproportionate number of the companies that were acquired during that (PE) frenzy are now struggling with the enormous debts.  More than half the roughly 220 companies that have defaulted on their debt in some form this year were either owned at one time or are still controlled by private equity firms, according to analysts at S&P.  Among them are household names like Harrah’s Entertainment and Six Flags, the theme park operator.

And when the next crash arrives, we all know that the debt-laden will be the first to enter crisis mode, once again (leading to further industry consolidation).

And who pays:

The American taxpayer.  The taxpayer not only subsidizes PE, via tax shenanigans, like the carried interest loophole, but when PE firms cut labor and wages, the taxpayer picks up the social services as former employees fall out of the labor force.  Once again, private equity proves the reality of American capitalism that profits are privatized, while real and social costs are passed onto the taxpayer (riches for the 1%, while everyone else bears the burden).

The credibility of democracy is damaged.  PE firms engage in whitewash, tapping Washington’s ever revolving door for future talent, and pouring hundreds of millions into lobbying to protect its interests… in essence, buying the government and subverting democracy.  And politicians wonder why the US government - all four branches, including the Fed - increasingly, has a credibility issue.

The consumer also pays. PE run companies are notorious for CAPEX cuts, and stingy in respects customer service and innovation.  And since employees suffer job cuts and lower salaries, this in turn lowers aggregate demand and the tax base (which in turn, adds to our ever-growing national debt).

And the grand enabler in all this: central banks and the Federal Reserve.  Central banks – as often noted by JMH – not only suppress interest rates and engage in MMT/QE for the elite, so as to suppress debt financing or debt service loads for the national debt, but the PE model has now become so ubiquitous (even companies that aren’t owned PE firms are in on the act… here’s a hint, it’s called "financial engineering") that central banks must continue to suppress interest rates to prop up zombie commercial enterprises and debt-laden PE owned companies.

Karl Marx once said religion is the opium of the masses; and I heard Tom Keene state last week - on my favorite news show, Bloomberg Surveillance - that central banks, suppressing interest rates (and via QE), are providing the opioid of the financial system.  Mr. Keene is pro-capitalism and known for astute market observations. 

I’ll afford one more observation, private equity returns are the opioid of the myopic. Private equity is the anti-capitalism, so destructive are its practices to capitalism, democracy, and social cohesion.

Not only do suppressed interest rates allow politicians to continue to finance endless war, tax cuts for the wealthy, and corporate welfare (while establishing a policy of austerity for the citizenry)… but central bank actions keep private equity rolling in cash, as investors – starved for yield – pour hundreds of billions of dollars into PE: bonds; funds; and stocks.  As pointed out by Bloomberg, PE has become the go to alternative investment, versus the stock market.  PE practices are so common place this same article noted there are now 8,000 PE firms.  As a consequence, PE firms have been called & compared to, among other things: barbarians, chop shops, locusts, pirates, robber barons, and JMH, within one writeup, compared PE to the antibiotic resistant super-bug: methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus.  

Gee whiz, Wally… you’d think an industry w/ this great a debilitating impact upon the American economy, government, and responsible for the death of the American Dream would draw some regulation and scrutiny?

But nope, Beav, our paid off, crony, Congress hasn’t much to say on the topic, and certainly no regulatory checks & balances - directly aimed at PE - have been passed into law.  Meanwhile, PE is the only industry that routinely pays out $100 million-dollar salaries, consistently… greatly exceeding the payouts of any other US industry (but apparently not to women --- does PE have a misogyny problem?).  Private equity bears significant responsibility for the ever-growing wage & wealthy inequality divide, and arguably, is a direct threat to a stable society.

If an ordinary American stole the identity of another American, or hacked a company's financial information, and liquidated their credit line…. Said criminal would do real time.  However, when PE does it, the executives are deified and feted. 

If a foreign government, systemically, obliterated US companies by draining their credit lines & assets for personal gain, w/ the resulting deleterious impact to the US economy… killing jobs, wages, innovation, and product & service improvement… we'd likely call such bellicose actions a declaration of war.

But for private equity & Washington, it’s just another day of making a killing, while raping what little remains of the American Dream.

And we wonder why a younger generation – and more than a few Republican voters – are so completely turned on by socialism.  Thanks to AI, automation, globalization, and private equity, future generations will have far less opportunity, and much less income, than baby boomers.

PE and greed are killing capitalism, liquidating America, and leaving millions with no alternative but government & socialism for answers. 

If the apogee of neoliberalism is predatory private equity, at some future date, America may reach a tipping point...  where those failed by the PE model significantly exceed a relatively small cadre of thieves at the top of the pyramid.

Such are the ingredients of a revolution…

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2019