Disarray, Entropy, & Revolution

Disarray, Entropy, & Revolution 

 

His record is not without controversy. In Italy and later, as a vice chairman for Goldman Sachs in Europe, Mr. Draghi was a proponent of nations and other institutions like pension funds using derivatives to more efficiently manage their liabilities. In some cases, many experts now contend, these transactions helped mask the finances of Greece and Italy before those nations were allowed into the euro.

 

-      Can Super Mario Save the Day for Europe? - NY Times

By Gregg Wall (7-23-2022)

 

Like a corpse festering in the road, everyone can see the failure that is libertarian industrial policy, everyone can smell the problem that is neoliberalism, but few leaders, if any, want to address or remove the problem… especially the privileged and the powerful that feed off & have grown catastrophically wealthy off a zombie economic model. 

 

In rapid succession they are falling… the old guard, the authors & cheerleaders of a failed neoliberal, globalist paradigm. 

 

Merkel and the CDU lost last year; 

PM Johnson and a Brexit strategy, designed to appeal to the baser demons of Great Britain, is out; 

Shinzo Abe, former PM of Japan, ultra-nationalist, recently gunned down; 

Macron… recently lost a legislative majority. 

Draghi, the banker, who was installed in Italy, not even elected… appears headed for the exits; and 

Biden is failing miserably, along with Democrats & the U.S. Congress. 

 

At the risk of being direct, it appears that we have a full house of failure.  Fate, poker -- and a spate of failed G7 leaders wedded to corruption & greed as their driving industrial policy -- it seems, are not without a cruel sense of irony. 

 

None of this is by accident.  The pandemic - and the fallout from same - continues to reveal all.  The legacy of the aforementioned generation of leaders is that they oversaw a massive transfer of wealth, and a massive accumulation of wealth into the hands of a few… transferred from citizens, future generations, & nation-states…  accruing to banks, billionaires, multinationals and oligarchs.  Neoliberalism – aka laissez-faire – means anything goes for the exceptionally wealthy, especially if they donated/kicked back to the corrupt centrist, corporatist political parties throughout the West.  But it wasn’t enough to just bailout the oligarchy, it wasn’t enough to make them arrogant & wealthy beyond all measure… citizens and labor must be habitually put down, preyed upon, and attacked relentlessly.   

 

In the U.S., in its most extreme form, we can see neoliberalism at its very worst with Biden attacking consumers & labor – the demand side of the equation – with austerity, higher interest rates, a regressive tax code, and reneging upon his campaign commitments (designed to address gross inequality and structural defects w/in the U.S. economy).  Simultaneously, Biden has done absolutely nothing to address the key supply side feature, or component, of inflation (aka consumer price gouging): big oil, billionaires, cartels, monopolies, and Wall St.  The biggest drivers of unscrupulous profit taking being food and fuel.  Meanwhile, Europe’s centrist, corporatist leadership got in bed with a fossil fuels despot under globalism… and now, European leaders have adopted the Jekyll & Hyde persona of begging Putin for more gas, while sending verbal support and weapons to Putin’s latest target, the Ukraine. 

 

The entire laissez-faire paradigm is rotted through.  The more greed rules, the more a predatory few accumulate power & wealth, the more disarray, entropy, and potentially cataclysmic failure sets in.  And no leader, that I’m aware of, is talking seriously about the 800-pound gorilla in the room, the Climate Crisis.  Carbon capture & credits, ESG, Net-zero have all been revealed to be more of the industry self-regulation – and Wall St. speculation - that placed the world into its present mess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Citizens, labor, and voters know it and they are reacting by kicking centrist and corporatist parties out of power, when and where they can.  But the system is so corrupt, so entirely rigged, they are often forced to pivot to political parties or alternatives that are also centrist, corporatist.  Those parties that aren’t initially centrist, corporatist all too often rapidly sellout and become co-opted by coalition and oligarchy. Money contaminates the entire process, causing many citizens to lose faith in democracy. 

 

One of the more interesting topics in the U.S., over the last twenty years, concerns the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, which holds up equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as sacrosanct, as inalienable rights & truths. The fact that America is about as far removed from these ideals as imaginable is no accident and speaks to the gross corruption & structural defects seen throughout the U.S. economy and government. 

 

But the ideal of equality seems particularly loathed by the reactionary, the privileged, and the powerful.  At issue, does America insist upon equality of opportunity or equality of outcome?  As equality of opportunity is entirely cancelled, by captured & corrupt federal and state governments, and billionaires & monopolies that have wired and own every aspect of the economy and public policy… the only alternative, the only real option is equality of outcome. 

 

That is, the entire libertarian experiment is so tyrannical, that a basic standard of care must be provided for all American citizens, by birthright.  And in accordance with the nation’s founding document.  

 

The alternative, it appears, is nothing less than disarray, entropy, and revolution. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2022

Econ 101: Monopoly

Econ 101: Monopoly 

 

Outside of the public utilities field, monopolies are rare in the United States.  One reason is that federal antitrust laws generally prohibit monopolization. 

 

As a result of federal antitrust laws, most of the monopolies of the United States are now regulated monopolies.  The price of their products and certain other aspects of their business are controlled by various levels of government.  These monopolies are usually allowed to exist because of their substantial economies of scale. 

 

-       Economics, by Lila J. Truett & Dale B. Truett – University of Texas at San Antonio (Circa, Copyright 1982)

 

 

By Gregg Wall (7-8-2022)

 

All right, we need to make this short today.  Temptation is everywhere… the vodka is whispering sweet nothings from the freezer, there’s a box of maduros close by – that I’ve told my doctor I haven’t touched in years (almost entirely true), and sweet, sweet legal Canadian bud and edibles are in the drawer next to me.  In the distance, the Calgary Stampede.  Get thee behind me, Satan. 

 

It's been an interesting two weeks, notably the pissing match between Jeffrey Bezos, Big Oil & Gas and the President of the United States caught my attention.  Seems that Mr. Bezos and Big Oil & Gas didn’t like the POTUS - and/or staff - using the bully pulpit to educate consumers on how Big Oil was ripping off Americans at the pump.  The billionaire and Big Oil suggested the president, and/or staff, go take an Econ 101 course on markets. 

 

I don’t know what Econ course Mr. Bezos took … but this - then Republican - attended the University of Texas San Antonio and Austin, from ’82 through ’86.  Back then, we were taught that cartels & monopolies were about as close as one could get to communism without becoming the devil or Joseph Stalin.  My professors were clear on the topic, and I believe National Review and William F. Buckley were too (which at that time, I read religiously).  Absolutely key, the comparison between communism and monopoly is an axiomatic truth since both economic models call upon placing the means of production into a despot’s hands.  I can think of no more apt comparison or description, than between billionaire, American despots… and Joseph Stalin & Soviet dictators.  There’s a reason why Russia had all these oligarchs floating around, after the fall of the Soviet Union… it was a very smooth transition to place the means of production, and state assets, from one despotic regime to another.

 

In short, monopolies are communism by private proxy, that is to say authoritarian. That’s why, once upon a time in 1982, the US social compact said that any monopoly that existed was subject to very heavy control & regulation by the state, to ensure Americans were not ripped off by robber barons & utilities. 

 

Simply put, economic tyranny always leads to political tyranny.  And cartels and monopolies are tyranny defined, because they all too often end up - left unchecked & unregulated - exacting a predatory tax upon the consumer and labor.  That is why the only path to social justice is via economic justice.

 

So what happened between 1982, when I started attending college, and today, where we have billionaires yelling at the POTUS for not bowing to monopolistic corruption, decay, and ruin? 

 

Well, Americans had forty years of supply-side nonsense crammed down our throats; forty years of trickle-down tax policies; we have had thirty years of Clintonian neoliberalism and Larry Summers; we’ve suffered endless Wall St bailouts; and trillions of dollars of wealth transferred from the American taxpayer to billionaires, oligarchs, and Wall St.  Along with an unprecedented transfer of wealth, the national debt rose, catastrophically. The national debt was 1.4 trillion in 1982, today it’s 30 plus trillion.  (Imagine, President Reagan wringing his hands over a 1.4 trillion-dollar national debt?  I remember it well.)  We saw the arrival of private equity, the destroyer of businesses, innovations, jobs, and opportunity; along with all that cheap money, printed up by the FED, we’ve had unprecedented economic consolidation and the formation of cartels & monopolies in industry after industry. 

And the price for all this was only the impoverishment of Americans, endless austerity, and the elimination of the middle class. 

 

Companies no longer existed to serve Americans, they were there to serve, exclusively, management and shareholders.  With the transfer of wealth came an explosion of billionaires, from only thirteen in 1982 to in excess of seven hundred American billionaires today.  What a scam.

 

America went from a legitimate, rational form of capitalism in 1982 … one that actually still cared about a social compact… to the most predatory form of economic fascism the world has ever seen and will likely never see again (due to its highly destructive, planet killing nature). After the Soviet Union fell in the early 90s, America’s plutocrats felt liberated, unconstrained, and used their wealth to capture: academia, economics, government, the MSM, politicians, and think tanks.  Now, all the experts and talking heads would sing from the same greed-based hymnal: the supremacy of markets uber alles and of ultimate importance, the economy and economics taught strictly from the vantage point of capital, shareholders, and the supply-side.  Screw the public & the public good. 

 

Labor didn’t even register, in fact it was to be crushed and put down, jobs and the economy to be offshored along with the tax base. After all, American labor was a threat to profit maximization and American labor was far too costly, vis-à-vis global labor.  Market rule and commodification said that labor costs should be equal globally… so Asian & Indian labor must not be lifted up, American labor must be put down, wages must stagnate.   And indeed, they did. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So yes, Mr. Bezos… yes, Mr. Planet Killing Big Oil … we did take Econ 101.  And yes, we can remember a time when the wise words of Messrs. Hayek & Smith were still heeded… with the simple admonishment that capitalism – rather than serve the public – can easily metastasize into that greatest of tyrannies: cartel and monopoly.  Separately, monopoly isn’t the only tyranny.  The dual side of monopoly is … monopsony, which attacks labor, suppliers, and vendors.  Let us all remember that to attack labor is to attack the consumer. 

 

And finally, Mr. Bezos, Mr. Oil… there is no market when it is dominated by one, two, and three players (or any number of members from a cartel) … there is only looting and stealing.  And Goddess save humanity if said monopoly uses cost inputs subject to Wall St speculation, because then the economy & public really takes a bath.  I believe that’s called demand destruction. 

 

Politicians, thankfully, are beginning to address the scam.  It’s not effective enough to address rampant consumer price gouging with state aid, which inevitably ends up in said monopoly’s bottom line.  No, that only emboldens the thief.  Crucially, it’s important to do both … help the consumer with aid… and also tackle the monopoly head on.  And that means, if the industry/monopolist refuses to compete, or accept price controls, the state itself must enter the market & provide direct competition.  

Antitrust enforcement and windfall profits taxation are also remedies to monopoly's reign of terror. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2022

  

Is it time for an American Forced Labor Prevention Act?

Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act?

 

Is it time for an American Forced Labor Prevention Act? 

 

The law, called the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, presumes that all of these goods are made with forced labor, and stops them at the U.S. border, until importers can produce evidence that their supply chains do not touch on Xinjiang, or involve slavery or coercive practices.

Evan Smith, the chief executive at the supply chain technology company Altana AI, said his company calculated that roughly a million companies globally would be subject to enforcement action under the full letter of the law, out of about 10 million businesses worldwide that are buying, selling or manufacturing physical things.

-       Companies Brace for Impact of New Forced Labor Law, NY Times

Incarcerated workers in the US produce at least $11bn in goods and services annually but receive just pennies an hour in wages for their prison jobs, according to a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Nearly two-thirds of all prisoners in the US, which imprisons more of its population than any other country in the world, have jobs in state and federal prisons. That figure amounts to roughly 800,000 people, researchers estimated in the report, which is based on extensive public records requests, questionnaires and interviews with incarcerated workers.

-       US prison workers produce $11bn worth of goods and services a year for pittance, The Guardian.

 

 

By Gregg Wall (6-25-2022) 

 

Let’s hear it for America… seems that we are finally going to address China’s slave labor problem, concerning the long abused, and suffering, Uyghur Muslim community.  No doubt, a highly worthy cause.  But American crony-capitalism, globalization and neoliberalism are so addicted to slave labor -- as are the nation’s oligarchy and Wall St. -- that we are not talking about tens of millions of dollars of Chinese goods being blocked from import into the U.S., but rather, billions.  

 

The article, from the NY Times, reminded me of a story that I had recently read in the Guardian, where modern day slaves… in the world’s largest penal system, right here in America… produced $11 billion in goods and services, often at pennies or zero compensation, per hour.  But oddly enough, no mention from the Biden administration about shutting down this slave labor colony, right here in the United States. 

 

It can be easily argued that anyone, in the U.S., who doesn’t make a living wage is not only impoverished, but is also indentured to merely survive, which by itself meets the definition of slavery.  The U.S. spends roughly $7 billion a year, in government aid, just to keep its fast-food workers alive, which is nothing less than a backdoor profits subsidy to their fast-food, fast-profits employers (especially if said employer has gamed the tax code in a given year).  Such irony in the ‘land of the free’, and with Thirteenth Amendment (prohibiting slavery) to the Constitution being passed January 31, 1865, that so many Americans are enslaved, impoverished to a penurious existence.  Wasn’t Reaganomics and Supply-side economics supposed to raise all life rafts?

 

Of course, if Mr. Biden is going to go after U.S. multinational abuse and exploitation of Sino-labor, he’s going to have to dig a lot deeper than the Uyghur community.  China’s average yearly wages only add up to roughly 110,000 Yuan… or less than $16,500 USD.

 

And if Biden is going to crack down on Chinese slave labor, shouldn’t he crack down on U.S. slave labor here at home?  It’s estimated that 36% of American labor is participating in the Gig Economy, as independent contractors, often facing wage theft and abusive work conditions (and those numbers are only expected to grow).  Bloomberg reported in 2021 that half the full-time American work force made less than the median US income of approximately $50,000, which – in most American cities – isn’t enough to live on.  And given the recent surge in consumer price gouging (aka ‘inflation’) $50,000 isn’t going to get an American worker far with soaring rent, fuel prices, and ever escalating food costs.  

Then there's the 1.7 trillion-dollar student debt crisis, another form of indentured servitude and slavery.  No doubt, student debt should be eliminated in its entirety or assessed exclusively to employers, the beneficiaries of an educated workforce.

 

Seems there’s plenty of poverty and workplace abuse for Mr. Biden to tackle, not only in Asia, but America too.  While the donor class has raked in trillions of dollars, in large part, due to Congressional and Federal Reserve intervention in the debt and equity markets, throughout the pandemic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The entire premise of neoliberalism, aside from shareholder value and profit maximization, is based upon labor exploitation and crushing organized labor and unions.  Labor is often a business’ greatest expense.  Since Reagan, Thatcher and the Clintons… globalization, over the last forty years, has led to maximum exploitation of labor, stagnant US wages, and the destruction of the American dream.  Even recent wage increases, much heralded by the MSM, after adjustment for inflation, still remain negative for many Americans.  Contrary to the line we are often fed about a growing middle class in Asia, India and Mexico (i.e. the globalist narrative), the bulk of workers in developing nations and emerging markets remain desperate and impoverished (see China’s average wage).  It’s all a global race to the bottom, with billionaires and multinational boardrooms and C-suites collecting the spoils. 

 

And if we really want to go there and discuss unpaid labor, who toil in slavery… what about all the American women that SCOTUS just turned into baby production machines and incubators with zero pay?  Don’t they deserve to be justly compensated for carrying children, against their will? 

 

Many of these unwanted pregnancies will grow up in highly challenged economic & social environments, a fate often suffered in poorer American communities.   Childhood poverty, last I checked, increased by more than 40% earlier this year... thanks to SCOTUS, and its abortion ruling, those childhood poverty numbers will likely grow.  If Biden was serious about tackling SCOTUS’ abortion ruling, Dems could levy a mandatory tax against America’s multinationals and any foreign multinational operating – or selling goods - on U.S. soil.  The very same multinationals that, all too often, thrive off independent contractor and slave labor; the very same enterprises, run by well-heeled management & ownership, that donate billions to America’s far-right GOP (the same GOP fanatics, who in turn, have stacked SCOTUS with the Christian Taliban and highly dangerous ideologues).  

 

These wealthy actors will be the beneficiaries of America’s pending baby boom of unwanted pregnancies… and these children will often grow up to become badly abused and exploitable labor.

 

Shouldn’t the wealthy pay these mothers to produce these children and future labor?  Can you imagine the screams emanating from corporate, ivory towers (if they were to be taxed, appropriately, for unwanted pregnancies)?

 

But alas, we all know Biden’s M.O. by now, and the Democratic establishment’s standard political operating procedure…  which is to talk a great game but deliver absolutely nothing to their voter base: the gay community, labor, minorities, students, and women. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2022