America’s Third Rail…

America’s Third Rail…

The benefits derived from the dollar being the world’s main reserve currency constitute the “exorbitant privilege” about which France’s then-finance minister, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, complained in the 1960s.

The greenback’s worldwide popularity enables the US to project power around the globe – to maintain military bases and facilities in over 100 countries, to keep naval battle groups afloat from the Mediterranean to the Pacific…

-  Trumping the Dollar, by Benjamin Cohen, @Project Syndicate

By J.M. Hamilton (5-28-2016)

Per Bloomberg, the World’s debt to GDP ratio (including public, private sector, and non-financial - corporate debt) has grown to an astronomical 240%; and America’s corporate debt to cash on hand ratio, in 2015, increased 50%.  Looks like global elites are binging on the free money pumped out by the world’s central banks…. Completely the opposite of what the Federal Reserve told us back in ’08.  That is to say, the Fed’s extraordinary efforts were to give everyone an opportunity to right size their balance sheets.  Instead, the American government and the corporate elite have loaded up on even more debt.  (Globally, zombie banks and debt burdened state owned - and commercial - enterprises are propped up by central banks’ printing presses, a la China, Europe, and Japan.)

But central bank largess does not extend to the 99%... for everyone else, there’s austerity.  If Central Bank largess actually filtered down to the people, that might ignite inflation; and so Wall Street banks act as hedge funds to jack up the stock market (all business fundamentals to the contrary), and finance job killing M&A.  Actual old-fashioned bank lending for ordinary Americans (?)… too much risk involved.  The Fed’s money creation must be sterilized, that is kept out of the hands of the American people to keep nascent inflation in check. Hence, parsimonious wages paid for an ever-shrinking pool of jobs, as the Monopoly Economy takes hold.  The net result of which is ever increasing wage and wealth inequality, all aided and abetted by centrals banks.

Meanwhile, the Japanese PM, Shinzo Abe, at the G-7 summit last week, rather cryptically warned his peers of a coming financial calamity (aka a Lehman event).  But the other G-7 leaders weren’t having it, all facts about the world’s growing addiction to the debt driven global economy notwithstanding. 

Who knew the Japanese PM was such a buzz-kill?  Shut up, Abe… just shut up already, the other G-7 leaders seemed to be thinking.  Poor Abe was sent to the time out chair, and his dire warning was excluded from the G-7 joint communiqué.

For students of economics and politics, and keen watchers of central banks, it’s interesting how the dialogue on debt always unfolds.  Notice here, the key dichotomy among the global political elite and their owners - the billionaire class - in all matters concerning debt.

Debt is good under certain scenarios:  Government debt, and debt monetization, to extend America’s global empire, protect world trade, finance frivolous MIC spending, and wars w/out end receive rave reviews from the Washington establishment.  Debt to finance tax cuts for the wealthy, and offshore tax havens…. Wonderful, the billionaire class loves it.  Debt for Wall Street bank bailouts, ahem… good.  Corporate debt to finance job killing M&A and financial engineering (aka stock buybacks) … if it makes the stock market soar, have at it!  Debt to finance privatized prisons and mass incarceration, and the new Jim Crow…. The elite are highly accepting of it.  There’s money to be made in jailing millions of people, and their subsequent disenfranchisement keeps democracy in check.

Debt, per the elite, is bad under alternative scenarios:  Whenever debt it mentioned to finance infrastructure improvements, job creation for the 99%, expanding the safety net, public financing of college education, or much needed fiscal stimulus to jump start the economy, the elite and their minions - the GOP and more than a few Dems – say, “pass.”  

 No mas!

In short, debt financing for the elite:  good, particularly when U.S. taxpayers are left holding the bag (that’s because the elite often pay no taxes).  Debt financing for programs favoring the 99%:  pound sand!  In fact, it’s America’s ever spiraling national debt that is repeatedly used as an excuse to shut down all conversation about fiscal stimulus or using government expenditures to assist those most in need, the 99%.  The same arguments extend across the pond to Europe, where the German owned and operated E.U. continues to mandate that Southern periphery nations adopt, repeatedly, nasty doses of fiscal austerity.   (Austerity that is strangling the economies and citizens of these Southern European nations.)  All the better to bailout German and E.U. banks, who recklessly lent money to these nations in the first place.

Enter one, Mr. Donald Trump.   Mr. Trump always keeps it entertaining, and as a novice to the political world, and a bit of an expert on bankruptcy, recently shared some insights into America’s national debt.  Fortunately, Mr. Trump was not told in advance that professional American politicians don’t venture where angels and demons fear to tread, that is in discussing on the campaign trail American politics’ third rail, our colossal corporate and national debt.  Mr. Trump knows that debt can weigh down a troubled commercial enterprise, and even nation states.  Possibly w/ the best of intentions, he suggested that America renegotiate some of it long-term debt. 

We can see where The Donald was going w/ this.  If America is freed up of some, or part, of its national debt, the political establishment’s objections to fiscal stimulus begin to vanish.  Mr. Trump – an admitted crony capitalist (and presumably a closet Keynesian) - knows that in order to make America great again, he’s going to need government spending - and government debt - to employ Americans (particularly with the pending world economic calamity Mr. Abe warned us about at last week’s G-7).

Predictably, the outcry over Mr. Trump’s proposal - from the academic, economic, and political establishment - was deafening.  Mr. Trump was deemed a neophyte, and a threat to America’s role as a world leader.  If America renegotiated our debt, how would America’s elite enjoy the exorbitant privilege that comes with holding the world’s fiat currency?  Our 800 to 900 military bases around the globe, war w/out end, tax breaks for the wealthy, and general looting of the federal government by the elite…. Might be placed in jeopardy.  How dare Mr. Trump even suggest such a thing.  Our heavily mortgaged global empire might crumble.

But Mr. Trump, who your humble blogger disagrees with on many things, maybe onto something.   America must address its third political rail, and so must world leaders.  The global economy is stalling under its crushing debt burden.  (And the elite & academics are delusional if they think this debt will ever be paid back; and if the debt is paid back, it will be on the backs of the poor and the shortened life spans of same.)  Moreover, global central banks have suppressed interest rates, often with negative yields, to mitigate debt service payments for nation states and corporations leveraged to the hilt.  One can see this spiraling on for decades or more - see Japan and its lost decade(s).  Seems that Mr. Abe is very much in the know, as is Mr. Trump, who’s gone through several bankruptcies himself.

What to do?  What to do?  And as important, how to protect America’s perks associated with possessing the world’s fiat currency?

Well, if we have learned nothing in the last eight years, it is this:  If all the central banks are engaged in a race to the bottom, simultaneously, through all manner of financial chicanery or fraud, then it’s really a zero sum game.  Isn’t it?  In other words, what we’ve learned is - despite debt monetization, smoking up the central bank printing presses, expanded central bank balance sheets, QE uber alles, and suppressed interest rates - as long as all central banks are doing it, the U.S. dollar, seemingly, suffers no harm.  America’s dollar, in fact, remains preeminent, despite the abuse heaped upon it by the Federal Reserve.  It’s interesting to note that despite the BOJ adopting negative yields, the Japanese Yen, counter intuitively and against all economic understanding, actually grew stronger recently.  Alas, financiers and the carry trade could give a rat’s ass about current economic dogma.



 
Photographer Steven Siegel:
A daredevil kid poses on the tracks kneeling above the infamous third rail for Siegel at Whitlock Ave subway station, The Daily Mail.

So how do we get rid of this debt hangover, and kick start federal spending again and boost aggregate demand, preferably for the 99%?  Global central banks with expanded bank balance sheets, should – multilaterally – agree to take a debt hair cut on their respective government bond portfolios.  That is to say, in order to get rid of this massive debt hangover, globally, central banks – in a coordinated fashion - must all agree to write down some of their massive holdings of government bonds.  In this manner, the debt disappears, and governments are free to spend again.  If all central banks do it, incrementally, no single currency or country is advantaged, or disadvantaged, over its peers.  Hell, create a SPV, and dump the bad debt there.  It’s monopoly money anyway, w/ faith based value.  If all currencies/central banks are engaged in the same practice, it’s not like the citizens of the world are going to migrate to an alternative currency.

In short, America’s exorbitant privilege is protected, if all central banks are doing it.  Start small, coordinate, and go from there.

Japan, China, European southern periphery nations, and the U.S…. all could use a considerable write down.  And the nations that don’t need a write down, such as Russia and its ruble, are hardly in a position to become the world’s fiat currency.  JMH doesn’t give Mr. Trump much credit, but for jumping on America’s third rail… kudos and accolades! 

Both Democratic Candidates should be entering into this discussion, as well.  It’s probably the key issue of our times, and it took a political outsider to bring it up.  No wonder Americans are fed up with the establishment, career politicians, and biz as usual w/in Washington environs.  Apparently, group think abounds among the Ivy grads, who run our country.

The world's global debt problem is crushing the world economy, and it must be addressed before it comes to a very bad end.  If the debt itself, doesn't bring us down, think of the hundreds of trillions (notional value) in derivatives and swaps products that are used to insure and gamble on world debt?  Mr. Abe was right... a possible Lehman event is drawing nearer.  In order to the make the proposed central bank write downs feasible, some derivative and swap bets will need to be unwound.

So a few vulture capitalist and predators do not make a killing on the write down.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2016

Accountability

Accountability

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

-       Ballad of a Thin Man, by Bob Dylan

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy. 

-       Peterson and variations Messrs. Tytler, Tocqueville, and Reagan

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.

-       F. Scott Fitzgerald

By J.M. Hamilton (5-14-2016)

When does one begin to cross over from middle life to old age? 

Some have said, it is when your friends start dying off, and you no longer recognize those around you; but for me and perhaps others, it is when society’s values and the times change, and they are no longer recognizable or relatable.

Watching the news feed over the last couple of weeks, I could feel my hair turning silver, that is the few remaining strands.  Ah, the perils of being an economics and political junkie.

Old middle-class values of truth, honesty, integrity, and accountability trampled under foot, and the U.S. government looted and pillaged for decades.  In fact, a complete lack of accountability, and not by - as Mr. Peterson suggests – the great unwashed masses; but rather, by the elite and the wealthy.

Money printing by global central banks props up nation states, and keeps heavily indebted corporations, the global banking cartel, and shadow banking afloat, in a universal Ponzi scheme.  As long as all the central banks are in engaged in a race to bottom, how can the dollar fair any worse, despite constant abuse heaped upon it by the Federal Reserve?  Money printing also sponsors and pays for tax cuts for the wealthy, offshore tax havens, and war w/out end.   All the better to enrich the robber barons, and their minions, the political class. 

But for every dollar printed up comes an obligation, or debt.  And the entire global economy is choking under the weight of it all.  In Japan, the debt driven economic malaise is referred to in terms of Lost Decade(s); and in America and Europe, we are a full eight years into this mess of subpar economic growth, trickle down monetary policy, stagnant wages, and ever increasing wage & wealth inequality.  (Seems that Comrade Obama turned out to be the plutocracy’s best friend.)

The politicians love it.  Money printing saves them the hassle of governing, and in turn, they and the elite can act with a complete lack of responsibility.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was correct.  The billionaire class really are different than us.  They are completely without morals.  And as they own the political class, if something is amoral (Malum in se), they can legislate away its illegality and give it the U.S. government’s imprimatur.  Time and time again, we see the elite’s stranglehold on SCOTUS, the U.S. Congress, and even in presidential politics.  The various branches dancing like puppets on a string, while our global empire does the big swirly down history’s lavatory.  Much of it due – as history shows time and time again - to a complete lack of ethics, responsibility, and accountability.  Or corruption by any other name.

Here now, a few examples that recently caught my eye:

SCOTUS

It’s not bad enough that nation’s highest court has placed the entire government up for sale, via Citizens United and assorted rulings, but they are presently considering legalizing outright graft and corruption.  Seems that the former governor of Virginia was helping out a business buddy, after receiving gifts and a loan, in a classic pay-to-play scandal.  The lower court correctly ruled the governor was a corrupt political hack, and a stain on the state.   But now, as the nation crumbles, SCOTUS may allow the governor to walk, expunge his crime, and legitimize pay-to-play.  Per Mr. McDonnell’s attorneys, as reported in NPR, these are “routine political activities.” 

No doubt.  But that doesn’t mean they should be made legal.

Congress of the United States

The latest Congress has to be near the top of the charts in terms of the least amount of legislation passed, and perhaps, the fewest days in session.  Legislating is such a chore, and so is breathing and exhaling hot air.  Besides if the House is owned – and we know they are, not unlike a toy poodle – if they are not legislating that is because their owners told them not to.  In short, the nation is on cruise control, and the elite like it that way.  Criminal Justice, tax, and campaign finance reform?  Forget about it.  Voting up or down on the President’s on-going wars in the Middle East, and globally… nah, the elite aren’t having it.   

Damn near every member of the House and the Senate should be sued for political malpractice, gross negligence, and a complete abdication of responsibility. 

Unfortunately, none of these things are a crime or a civil offense, and that’s by design.

The Presidential Campaign

Hillary (& Billfriend) was on the take, and apparently used her position at the State Department to cash in, and grant favors for some of the world’s nastiest actors (who just happened to make timely donations to the Clinton Foundation).  That’s old news, but the fact that Hillary’s Wall Street campaign contributions, per the WSJ/Marketwatch, are spiking right about now is current news.  The Clintons, like any good Republicans, have been Wall Street’s BFF for some time.  The Clinton’s high regard for the plutocracy, and GOP policies, helps explain why they hired right-wing campaign advisor, Dick Morris, in the 90s, and Hills is presently working with another right-wing eminento, David Brock.  Mr. Brock is running a SuperPAC for Hillary, and is ready to go endsjustifythemeans on anyone who gets in Hillary’s way.   

So much for Ms. Clinton’s newly found progressive values… watch them vanish the second she receives the nomination. 

The plutocracy and the corporate run news media have already picked the next POTUS, and she waffles like… well…. Mr. Trump.  Mr. Trump, believe it or not, had several redeeming qualities, among them:  he wasn’t a career politician; Mr. Trump was self-financed; he was upsetting the apple cart on a bankrupt - and bankrupting - U.S. foreign policy, that is a theatre of the absurd; and The Donald recognizes U.S. free trade – as presently practiced - for what it is, a U.S. middle class and economic wrecking ball.  But Mr. Trump has more than a few warts - and as with his base - bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia are high on the list.  Moreover, anytime we scratch the surface and go beyond the campaign rhetoric (e.g. Mr. Trump’s tax policy) – we find it’s more of the same.  In the case of Trump’s tax policy, it's a Grover Norquist wet dream, that is to say, even greater tax cuts for the wealthy.  Now that Mr. Trump is the GOP nominee, he’s no longer self-financing, and he immediately ran to a hedge fund manager to start raising money from The Street.  How very Trump.  At least he’s consistent: say one thing, do another, and repeat.

That leaves us with the only respectable, honest, loved (can you believe it, this guy actually has a positive public approval rating…. how very novel for a presidential candidate), and consistent candidate still in the running, Mr. Sanders.  Perhaps it’s because of his old school/middle-class values, the candidate’s integrity, and his commitment to being accountable to his base, that the mainstream news media – and the plutocracy - despise the man.  Mr. Sanders could set himself on fire, and he’d still obtain a tenth of the coverage The Donald & Shillary receive on any given news day.  And yet, there he is winning state after state, and standing in the way of the faux-progressive’s imminent pivot to GOP-Land. 

God Bless Senator Sanders!  Can you imagine for a moment a president that actually shares your values:  that government shouldn’t be looted by the elite, but should work for everybody, and a president that does not pathologically engage in doublespeak? 

This maybe the last chance we get… imagine, if you will, a president that is not perennially under investigation, and that is both accountable and honest.  Ponder that a second longer, please, because if the HRC 13.0 gets in the White House, hell will assuredly follow.

The Panamanian Papers leak is just another in a long line of scandals illustrating that the billionaire class, and the political elite, are completely unaccountable and entirely rogue.  In short, these are not people we would want our children to grow up to be or emulate.  This latest leak shows that trillions have been hidden away in offshore tax havens, via shell companies, and hence, pay no taxes.  (The U.S. too, has become a haven.)  You see, paying taxes are for patsies, obeying laws are for suckers, and being a billionaire – or a connected politician – makes you above the law.

David Cameron, the British PM, has called an anti-corruption summit to begin dialogue about the problem.  But with Western Democracy subject to a corrupt campaign finance system(s) throughout Europe and in the Americas, do honest and law-abiding citizens actually believe anything will be done?  Mr. Cameron’s concern is that the public, via the Panama Papers leak & assorted sordid revelations, is waking up and growing very upset with the ruling establishment.  And the public is considering their options, whether it be very un-establishment political candidates, or Brexit or Grexit.

The aristocracy – a la Mr. Romney – sneers at half the population: we are all a bunch of takers, or beholding to their special powers for deal making.  The irony is the biggest takers, and welfare queens, on the planet happen to be an ultra-wealthy one-tenth of one percent.  That sucking sound is the wealthy pulling unaccounted for wealth out of what remains of our bankrupt Western governments, via: tax loopholes; legitimized tax havens; government & regulatory capture; privatization; war profiteers - milking endless Middle East conflict; paying a non-living wage and leaning on the government to subsidize one's profits - through welfare for the working poor; and bypassing governments and our court systems altogether, through free trade agreements.

Who knew the uber-wealthy were such parasites and big government addicts?

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2016

2020 & Beyond

2020 & Beyond

In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy, a new poll shows that most young people do not support capitalism.

- Washington Post, Max Ehrenfreund

By J.M. Hamilton (4-28-2016)

Today, let’s kick it off with a quick quiz, and we’ll make it multiple choice.

Question:  Which political party supports: an Ayn Rand style economic policy, which leads to job killing monopolies and cartels; war without end; unlimited money flowing into political campaigns, from SuperPACs and 501(c); an opaque government, where a tremendous amount of information is classified and shielded from the public’s view; free trade agreements that export U.S. jobs offshore, and establish extra-judicial courts, where multinationals can sue sovereign nations for threatening or harming corporate profits; mass incarceration for victimless crimes, like drug possession; Wall Street uber alles; job crushing M&A fueled by hyper-accommodative Federal Reserve policy; the surveillance state and the military industrial complex that consumes more than half of Federal discretionary spending; and Federal Reserve monetary policy driven by the stock market and the financialization of the American economy???

Answers:

a)  The Republican Party;

b)  The Democratic Party;

c)   The Plutocratic Party; or

d)  All the above

If you answered, “d) All the above,” you’d be correct.  The idea that we live in a one party state, owned and operated by the plutocracy, should not be foreign concept to any keen observer of Presidents Clinton, Bush (W), or Obama.  In other words, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Namely, thanks to neoliberal economic policies, the ends always justify the means when it comes to M&A, concentration, dereg, government and regulatory capture, tax cuts for high net worth individuals and corporations, offshore tax havens, and free money for the connected, courtesy of the Federal Reserve.

The second a politician pushes back on the Business Roundtable, the Chamber of Commerce, and any other trade organization, or lobbyist, out comes the same refrain: any action contrary to Big Biz’ demands will kill jobs, make U.S. companies uncompetitive, harm stockholder value, and/or crush quarterly profits.  And politicians from both political parties – due to the campaign finance system – swallow it and run with it, that is if they want to remain viable for re-election.

Outside of fifty to sixty-year-old social battles over reproductive rights, LGBTQ, and race issues (which the plutocracy continuously stirs up at the local, state and the federal level, via owned politicians), there is little difference between the two political parties when it comes to economic and foreign policy.  To keep the public distracted, and the illusion/pretense of choice between the two political parties  - the corporate run news media keeps the hot button social issue of the day front and center, meanwhile the nation is run by and for the aristocracy.

If you doubt me, examine closely the right-wing Clintons and their policy of triangulation, essentially adopting and co-opting the GOP’s pro- big business push.  Still doubt me, examine the plaudits Madame Hillary Clinton has received from right-wing conservatives and neocons, among them:  Dr. Kissinger, Richard Perle, Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch, & Lord Vader himself, Dick Cheney.  How bad is it when the elites are abandoning their party, for an, alleged, Democrat?   Pretty bad.   The GOP elite have always used white evangelical protestants, during the election season; and once in power, conveniently abandoned their base, only to stir up both the base and the aforementioned social issues at the next election.  Notice how these social issues never quite get resolved:  race, gender, reproductive issues, gay and civil rights.  That’s by design.  It’s called divide & conquer, or misdirection, and it is a strategy as old as time. 

The reason why these highly worthy social issues are never quite put to bed is they provide a distraction from the true prize:  economic and civil liberties - combined, or what FDR labeled as the four freedoms.

Read my post released prior to the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election, calling the race for Obama – when by all rights he should have lost due to the economy.  In Richard Nixon and the Southern Strategy, JMH correctly noted that the demographic trends in this country would yield Richard Nixon's, and the GOP’s, Southern strategy useless and inoperable in future national elections.   Doubt me still?   Read my post from 2012, titled ESTABLISHMENT, predicting that through maleovent neglect, and evisceration of the middle class, voters would rise up and turn against the economic and political establishment, and seek out outsider candidates.

How did my prediction turn out?  See Messrs. Sanders and Trump.  Witness the rise of fascism in Europe.

Where are we going w/ all this?  The point of today’s piece is, it’s really not too late.   The Plutocracy can save itself from its worst impulses and tendencies, and restore the social contract.   Crony-capitalism and the exploitation of government, by the private sector and the elite, can be reverse engineered for the greater good.  The solution to the neoliberal economy (aka the Ayn Rand economy) is called a mixed economy, the best of both worlds:  real capitalism, w/ competition strictly enforced and monitored by the government (even free market deities, Smith & Hayek, acknowledged the need for government to set capitalism’s rules of the road), and social benefits paid to the people (the 99%), instead of those least in need (the 1%).  As James Carville said, it really is all about the economy.

Other areas in desperate need of attention:  Crony-capitalism, monopolies and cartels can be broken up, which in turn should create more jobs and opportunity (if M&A is largely designed to eliminate expense and labor redundancies, the reverse is also true).  The idea of utilizing financial engineering to buy back stock to boost ROE, and management pay, can be reverse engineered, turned around, and utilized to enhance worker pay and aggregate demand across the economy.  Big Biz can insist upon a tax overhaul, where they pay at a lower published tax rate (instead of no rate), and lift some of the tax burden off the middle and upper middle class.  Free trade agreements could be negotiated, and rewritten, with a bottom-up focus, instead of a top-down approach.  The separation between money and state is key.  As for the massive global (private and public) debt, there’s two choices:  write downs, or negative yields to eliminate the debt service load and principal.  Neither is appealing, but the alternatives are continued stagnation, subpar economic growth, or worse, default.  And finally, government privatization, and our global wars, and our drug war, must all come to end.... they are a huge drain upon the nation's resources.

Why would the wealthy do all this?  It’s called self-preservation.

Millennials aren’t afraid of socialism and seeing as how the elite pig-out at the government trough, daily…. Well, socialism seems to work pretty damn well for the 1%.  Millennials aren’t afraid of Big Government or government programs.  Again, the youth are only following the legacy of Wall Street bank bailouts, and multinational handouts courtesy of free trade agreements.  Bank CEOs strutted around like the world owed them something, or were they merely doing the Goddess’ work(?), while their Great Recession destroyed the global economy.  The public saw all this but the millennials paid a disproportionate price.

If we continue on our present course, if the neoliberal/laissez faire economy fails to produce jobs and opportunities (which it will), the latest generations will insist that a living wage be paid to all citizens – by the government, whether they are employed or not.  After all, how long will millennials tolerate unconscionable & usurious college debt, non-living wages, and cohabitating w/ their parents?  (Maybe it's destiny: Even with real capitalism – with real competition enforced by the government – increasingly relying upon robotics, automation, globalization, and A.I., perhaps it's only a matter of time before we are all unemployed?)

Think Messrs. Sanders and Trump are novel, and outside the political norm?  If the establishment blows this election off as an anomaly, and continues on its present course, the political extremes will, more than likely, only amplify and magnify, in 2020 and beyond.  

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2016


Correction: Richard Nixon and the Southern Strategy was released on election day, not on election eve, as previously described.

Political Risk Management

Political Risk Management

“Caligula was serious, and he had no use for journalists.”

- Hunter S. Thompson: Better than Sex, Confessions of a Political Junkie 

By J.M. Hamilton 4-14-2016

Presumably Mr. Caligula had no use for whistle-blowers either, but that’s beside the point.  If you get a chance, I recommend that you read Mr. Thompson’s highly illuminating book about the ’92 Presidential campaign,  a campaign that ushered in the Clinton era.  Admittedly, Mr. Thompson was past his prime in ‘92, but his insights and wisdom were often spot on.   Hunter pegged Mr. Clinton right from the get-go as a hustler, and in the political arena, purely out for himself; but when it comes to politicians is that really such a hard guess or news?  Take a close look at Madame Hillary Clinton and you’ll find yourself staring into the eyes of a stone cold superpredator and a political opportunist, rivaled by none.  The handful of politicians that actually give a damn about the people are few and far between, and usually get run over in the passing lane (witness the pounding Mr. McGovern took at the hands of then President Richard Milhous Nixon, Circa 1972).  And surely that defeat was on Hunter’s mind as he wrote this book.

 H.S.T. and Candidate, Mr. McGovern, via the Washington Post.

It must have also been of Mr. Clinton’s (aka Slick William’s) mind, as well.  Mr. Clinton was no fool, and despite all the ‘90s GOP bashing about Bill being a “liberal,” he ushered in an entirely new era for the Democratic Party.  Clinton personified Mr. Thompson’s famous maxim, from the aforementioned book: “Politics is the art of controlling your environment.”  You better believe it, Bubba.  Many have died trying to do that very thing, the majority of course, have crashed and burned.  The Lords of Karma have a way of totally ripping up the script, the best laid plans of both mice and men, and the graveyards are filled with indispensable men.  Fate has a really nasty way of humbling the greatest among us…. So always keep a careful watch over both shoulders, at all times.  There is no such thing as paranoia, and as any citizen who has run in a U.S. Presidential election will attest to… they really are coming to get you.

That’s why only true adrenaline junkies run for the White House.

But enough about all that because I have been writing about politics way too much, when J.M.H., as my readers are aware, likes to go deep on finance on occasion.  With that intro, today’s topic is risk management.  Yeah, please bear with me as we Tee this up.  Risk management is actually an old school business, some might say insurance, term, whereby a manager is constantly analyzing the various risks the enterprise they are managing may come across.  Moreover, how should those risks be managed, priced for, mitigated, and/or eliminated.  The term, risk management, really took off after the 2008 financial crash.  You remember, the 2008 crash when bankers and financial types under-priced debt securitization (such as CDOs and MBS), derivatives and swaps, and many other financial products in general.

How do we know the bankers and said financial types under-priced these products?  Because they had to be freaking bailed out - that’s how we know.  Wall Street had become Too Big to Fail, and the taxpayer and the Federal Reserve came calling, after the financial Hiroshima hit.   The key takeaway here, is that in a sense Wall Street had been practicing a form of risk management all along.  That is to say, the Street/Banks took the profits of the under-priced and under-collateralized financial products they sold, and the taxpayer assumed the risk and the bailout of said under-priced financial products.  In short, all went according to plan, as The Street essentially owns both political parties.

An alternative risk management play, one our hapless Congress and their owners – The Wall Street banks – halfheartedly attempted to put into place, post-Crash, was where The Street actually would price their products at an appropriate level for the risk assumed; true risk management, also, attempted to set up a cash buffer or equity position (aka collateral), so that the risk was incurred by the banks & their ownership – instead of the taxpayer – should it hit the fan, again.  But where’s the fun in that?  Where indeed?

Do you think for one nanosecond Wall Street banks are going to forego one fraction of a cent in profits (actually practice real risk management), by actually appropriately pricing and setting up collateral, or an equity buffer, for the financial fraud they sell daily?  Why would they do that when they own the Congress of the United States?  The banks like the way 2008 played out…. The banks are practicing risk management:  They pocket the profits, and you, dear taxpayer, get to bend over and assume the risk.  It’s called socializing the costs of Wall Street fraud, while profits are privatized; and it happens 24/7/365.

In short, Wall Street’s risk management, indeed the wealthy’s risk management plan, is best summed up in Mr. Thompson’s famous maxim: Once again…. Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? … Politics/Finance is the art of controlling your environment.   And the environment Wall Street controls is the political environment: The U.S. Congress, the Executive Branch, and increasingly the courts, themselves.

That said, the GOP has always been owned by Wall Street, but the Democratic Party, with its liberals and progressives, was an entirely different animal, particularly in the late 60s, 70s and very early 80s.  It wasn’t until President Reagan pointed the country hard right, less than a decade after Mr. McGovern took his savage beating, and Mr. Carter’s dreams were limited to one term, that the Democratic Party turned, as well, hard right.

Enter President William Jefferson Clinton.

Sly Willy traded in the progressivism of the New Deal and Great Society for “Triangulation,” which is fancy way of saying Mr. Clinton adopted/co-opted GOP policy.   Suddenly gone were the days when Dems looked out for ordinary Americans, the poor, and the disenfranchised.   In the 90s, the new Dems were looking out for themselves and the wealthy.  Besides, who were blacks, minorities, and lower rung whites going to turn to, if the Dems started adopting polices that were antithetical to middle class interests?  The Republicans?

Just as it took Nixon, a right- wing anticommunist, to embrace Red-China – pulling off perhaps the biggest foreign policy coup of the 20^th Century, it took an allegedly, Liberal-Dem to gut welfare, at the very same time the Clintons were pushing NAFTA and free trade. 

That is the greatest irony of President Clinton’s two terms: many of Clinton’s economic, social, and fiscal policies were conservative in nature, despite continuous vilification from the Republican Party.

Caught in the middle – with no one to champion their cause – were the poor and minorities.  Jobs being shipped offshore, via Free Trade, heh – no problem, let’s gut the social safety net.  President Reagan and the CIA looked the other way, as crack cocaine was sold to minorities in Southern California to finance Reagan’s proxy wars in Latin America…..    What a great time for President Clinton – in the midst of a crack cocaine epidemic – to clamp down on crime, ramp up the war on drugs, help establish the criminal justice industrial complex, and embrace mass incarceration.  Besides, the country had to house the unemployed somewhere after all the jobs were shipped offshore – via free trade – so why not institutionalize broad swaths of the minority community (w/in privatized prisons)?  Particularly, African-American men.  It’s no coincidence that just as Mr. Clinton had words with #BlackLivesMatter protestors this week, in the 90s, Mr. Clinton also had a Sister Souljah moment.  And it’s good to remember that Mr. Clinton attacked candidate Obama in 2008, as unelectable.  In short, our so-called “first black president (aka Mr. Clinton)” isn’t above playing the race card to obtain the white vote.

How quintessentially, GOP!

If it all sounds very Republican, that’s because it was.  Riding shot gun with President Clinton was the Speaker of the House, the beady-eyed, Newt Gingrich.  And President Clinton would score three, coveted, annual balanced budgets, an event that has not been achieved since.  Meanwhile, much of the Reagan and Bush tax cuts for the wealthy remained in place for President Clinton’s two terms.  To his credit, and true to the Keynesian model, Mr. Clinton did raise taxes ever so slightly.  The Clinton tax increase, coupled w/ the unprecedented Dot.com boom, helped in no small way to balance the federal budget. 

President Clinton blazed a trail, and the economic and political elite couldn’t have been happier.  Now, the wealthy had two political parties working for them.  The Plutocracy owned both political establishments, and hence, the government itself.  It is also no coincidence that the 2008 financial crisis struck under President Bush’s (W) watch, but President Obama – beholden to Wall Street – and the current incarnation of Clintonian politics – continued with the Wall Street bank bailouts set in motion by a Republican administration.   And the beneficiaries of the Bush/Obama bailouts?  Well, that’s obvious…  thanks to the bailouts and the Federal Reserve, wage and wealth inequality have reached proportions last seen during the Gilded Age.  The Wall Street banks are more concentrated and powerful than ever before.  The banks, private equity, and shadow banking own everything, including the souls of politicians.

As with all things extreme, and in line with Newton’s third law, there was eventually blowback.  Blowback in the form of an anti-establishment backlash seen during this 2016 Presidential campaign season, where outsider candidates, Sanders and Trump, are leading insurgencies that the American public has largely embraced.  Both Sanders and Trump stomping all over formerly sacrosanct free trade agreements; both Sanders and Trump calling for America to pull back from its many - go it alone - wars, and a Pax Americana foreign policy.  And the American public – much to the frustration and fear of the establishment – is eating it up.  Hillary, stuck in the 90s, cannot believe her eyes.  Volumes could be written about how the “mainstream” GOP candidate is now the Molotov Cocktail devotee, U.S. Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz.

In the parlance of our times, WTF(reak)!

Which brings us to my final point.  Mr. Thompson was 100% correct, politics is the art of controlling one’s environment, and good political risk management – in the year of our Lord 2016 -  calls for dramatic action.  That’s why President Obama, a cold hearted pragmatist, must throw Madame Hillary Clinton under the wheels of the populist bus, running at preternatural speed towards destiny. 

Grandma Clinton has reversed herself on so many of her 90s Establishment policies that she is literally morphing into Senator Sanders before our very eyes.  Why the sudden change within the Clintonian heart?  In short, the public has woken to realize the political interests of the plutocracy are absolutely crushing the middle class.  Sorry to say, no one, and I mean no one, believes Madame Clinton is going to “get ‘er done,” with a Republican held House of Representatives (unless “getting ‘er done” means bringing back Slick Willy’s Pro- Plutocracy agenda).   Moreover, Hillary attracts voters, who will likely be dead w/in the next generation (then again, the Clintons aren't above digging up the dead to increase voter turnout).  I know that’s cold, but the calculus of political reality is colder still.  Besides POTUS Obama's legacy is at stake.  Meanwhile, Senator Sanders is the future… not only does he attract the youth vote by both exceptional and extraordinary margins, but women (particularly single-women), and increasingly minority voters, too.   

Does President Obama want to saddle his legacy with the GOP loving Clinton?  Or does he go with the future, POTUS Sanders?  Cool, analytical risk management, and poll after poll, demonstrates the obvious choice.  As events have overtaken the GOP Establishment in real time, the Democratic Party’s civil-war is already underway and being waged.  And it’s long overdue… call it blowback for neglecting and screwing over the nation, to further profits for the few.  What Mr. Romney, I believe, referred to as the "takers."  The only "takers" I know – the true socialist – are the 1%, caught w/ their hand in the government till, time and time again.

Sorry Bill and Hillary, but you are a political liability, a liability that should be subject to prudent political risk management.  The Establishment’s time, to run this country into the ground, has reached its inevitable conclusion, and a political revolution is overtaking both political parties.  That leaves us with the question of the moment, one of great import:  Does Obama possess the courage to pull the indictment trigger?  

Many would say count the indictment out, but this campaign season - and the great chess game that is presidential politics - has been turned on its head.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2016