The Politics of Greed

The Politics of Greed

Mr. Powell said earlier this month that the episode continued to exert a significant influence on his management of monetary policy.

“The taper tantrum left scars on anybody who was working at the Fed at that time,” Mr. Powell said at a joint appearance in Atlanta with Mr. Bernanke and the former Fed chairwoman Janet L. Yellen.

-      Effects of the 2013 ‘Taper Tantrum’ Linger Over Fed Policy – NY Times

 

By Gregg Wall (7-22-2023) 

 

Inflation (i.e., price gouging) has been in the news the last couple of weeks.  America’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released their numbers on July 12, and Canada released its numbers this week.  And from all the cheering you’d thought the Allied powers had just defeated Germany, but alas, it was not to be.  Inflation still soars, the core inflation figure – which conveniently enough excludes food and retail fuel prices – climbs ever higher, as does the U.S. stock market despite the obvious pain felt by the majority of Americans. Interest rates remain at a highly accommodative historical norm, and Western leaders & politicians consistently fail to address the monopolies and utilities responsible for a global pandemic of greedflation. 

 

The U.S. financial press appears in on the act… the MSM dutifully, and w/out fail, reports out the party line. Seemingly, not a single member of the MSM questions how is it, that gas prices are 50% higher than when POTUS Biden entered the White House, despite America being the most prolific producer of oil & gas on the planet.  No one questions how rents continue to soar another 7.8%, food another 5.7%... all of which comes on top of the price gouging incurred in 2020, 2021, and 2022.  In fact, if anything, profits continue to soar, as America’s boardrooms, C-suites, and monopolists pocket lower cost inputs for steeper profits margins, or in the case of Wall St banks, hoard higher interest rates.  It’s quite the rape. 

 

But despite all the high-fives in the financial media, things apparently are not well: 

 

The oft cited jobs numbers frequently fall short of expectations, as Americans increasingly find themselves in jobs that fail to pay a living wage (let alone allow them to keep up with serial price gouging). 

 

Bankruptcies are rising.  As corporate entities that gorged on free money welfare & financial engineering for years, finally have discovered debt service loads and interest rates more commensurate with their credit and underwriting risks.

 

And the ultimate bellwether on how the economy is doing, POTUS Biden continues to bottom out in the polls.   Seems that many Americans are not drinking the Kool-Aid served up by Bidenomics and members of the MSM. 

 

Hence, the fear and loathing surrounding proposals from economists… at least one suggesting the path forward should be allowing companies to gouge harder, and that the Federal Reserve’s targeted inflation rate should be allowed to climb higher, from 2% to 3%.  After all, why kill a perfectly good stock market rally and a failed Biden presidency with a bummer like a recession?  Let the gouging continue, faster and harder. 

 

The other idea tossed out this week was that the U.S. dollar would weaken as the FED paused on interest rate hikes, because of the lower core inflation number, as central banks around the globe continued to hike. Clearly, a disaster for Americans who already struggle from a failed neoliberal economy, an import driven economy, and a further assault on the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar.  A weaker dollar and a collared FED would be an asset for the stock market, the rich, and asset classes of the rich… and the repatriation of foreign profits back into U.S. dollars by multinationals.   How convenient. 

 

The powerful and the rich always have an angle.  Don’t they? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conveniently omitted from the MSM analysis were two central questions.  First, if globalization, neoliberalism, and oligarchy are the end all, be all of economics, why are Western citizens so angry and upset, why all the strikes, the contrived shortages, the manipulated supplies, the ever-spiraling greedflation?  Why? Why? Why?  The silence is deafening.  Seemingly nobody – particularly the wise boys and girls in newsrooms – has any answers.  Or perhaps the question is indiscrete… after all, why anger the billionaire owners & sponsors of newsrooms?  Why stray from the neoliberal party line, particularly when reporters are getting axed?  

 

The other question that occurred to me, what happened to the tantrums?  I seem to recall the manipulated U.S. stock market went into a swan dive anytime former FED chairs, Bernanke & Yellen, even hinted at QT (quantitative tightening) or a return to normalized interest rates.  Which, shockers, meant that the free money welfare used to transfer wealth from the taxpayer & future generations to multinationals & oligarchs, via interest rate suppression & money printing (aka QE – quantitative easing), continued relentlessly.   The FED put, meaning the stock market was too big to fail, was the order of the day.  QE and easy money (aka welfare for Wall St.) led directly to the consolidated, monopoly economy Americans face today.  You know, the monopolies that are presently ripping off Americans at an alarming rate.  And yet, this time when the FED absolutely had to hike rates, no tantrum.  In fact, the stock market soars, once again, to obscene valuations.

 

Crickets from American & Western newsrooms.  Best not turnover that rock… besides Mr. Bernanke just won a Nobel.  We can’t ask questions of a great American icon, who directly and indirectly oversaw & engineered, along with his peers, the greatest consolidation of the global economy & transfer of wealth the world has ever seen.  He saved us from a great recession, that is to say, Bernanke bailed out systemic corruption, greed, and failed neoliberalism. 

 

And we wonder why the United States and the West suffers so badly.  Americans, like the Hebrews in biblical times, have been wandering in an economic and political desert for forty-three years.  A desert of Reaganomics and failed trickle-down economics... despite the obvious failure, we cannot escape the desert’s and the pharaohs’ grasp.  Political discourse has devolved into culture wars, as Americans grow more destitute and homeless.  Bidenvilles, almost a century earlier called - Hoovervilles, dot the landscape.   

 

And the politics of greed and the great Americans swindle are everywhere.  Accountability, intellectual candor, & honesty are in very short supply.  Those who dare speak truth to power are condemned and silenced.  The American MSM has issued a de facto news blackout on the truth, and we are lost as the planet burns, so as to make the very worst of us obscenely wealthy. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023

 

Dog Days of Neoliberalism

Dog Days of Neoliberalism 

On behalf of JM Hamilton Air, it is my pleasure to welcome you aboard flight 777 with service to Washington, Ottawa, Paris and continuing service to Berlin. Federal regulations require that carry-on items are stowed prior to closing the aircraft door.

 

By Gregg Wall (7-8-2023)

 

The dog days of summer have arrived, the early July holidays are behind us in North America, and the airlines, per the usual, are a mess.

 

So rather than schlep to the airport, dealing with the crowds, the endless flight delays, lost baggage, kids kicking your seat, assorted headaches and theatrics …. climb on board JM Hamilton Air and let me take you on a quick political holiday.  And the best part, this ride is for free.  You don’t even have to get off the couch.  So, this is your captain speaking, buckle in, and let’s take a quick flight, starting in the U.S., briefly, before moving onto Canada, France, and Germany.   

 

Nothing to fear, these destinations are all democracies with friendly center-left, neoliberal governments, so we should all feel right at home in the chaos and malaise.  Alrighty then.  As the corrupt, petrified center gives way in these various governments, I’m going to ask you a question at the end of trip.  To wit, what is the common denominator of these various governments, aside from obvious failure?  So, let’s get started, wings up. 

 

As we flyover over the U.S., you’ll notice a failed Biden Administration in Washington.  Mr. Biden ran as a progressive and promised the nation Build Back Better, but instead, quickly handed out billons in corporate welfare to his wealthy friends, Wall St., and Big Oil (under the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act).  This was done by Biden, while delivering austerity and a brand-new war in the Ukraine to the American people.  As a result, Mr. Biden struggles in the polls.  For safety reasons… remember, safety first… we won’t actually be landing in the United States, as airports are a target for America’s ubiquitous mass shootings.

 

Moving onto Montreal and Ottawa, if you look out of the starboard or right side of the aircraft, you’ll see… oh my, endless big oil & gas fires… as the climate catastrophe burns up one of the most beautiful countries in existence.  Poor Mr. Trudeau.  His government appears to have stalled out.  As in America, prices on the basic necessities of life – food, fuel, rents, and utilities – are climbing higher and higher, in a price gouging orgy by monopolies, powerful financial interests, and utilities.  Also, as in America, the central bank has been called in to clean up a price gouging crisis caused by too much easy money, deregulation, a lack of antitrust enforcement, and a corrupt political class that, seemingly, can’t tell CEOs and robber barons, NO.  Add another scandal… no, not that scandal, another one… and this government appears to be coasting on past glories and fumes.  Sorry, we won’t be landing here either.  Poor visibility and ash & debris in our engines are risks we won’t be taking. 

 

After refueling in NYC, please don’t mind the smoke, we’ll be flying across the pond to Paris.  As we enter European airspace, you’ll notice London on the port side of the aircraft.  No worries, we won’t be stopping there.  Prices are spiraling out of control, as an endless parade of Tory and failed Thatcherite PMs have turned the UK into a bit of a failed state (characterized by the financialization and privatization of the economy, along with sewage… yes, sewage… contaminating the water ways and British coasts).  

 

Up ahead lies Paris, the City of Lights, and oh my, as we descend through the clouds, it appears that Paris is burning.  Best to pullup to avoid the riots.  It appears that Mr. Macron… a political chameleon at best, a banker & a neoliberal at worst… has jacked up the retirement age in France with dictatorial powers and presides over an out-of-control, authoritarian police state (very much like America’s out-of-control, authoritarian police state).  And no, many of the very fine citizens of France do not like their despotic leader and his neoliberal reforms one little bit.  Nope, not at all.  Youth unemployment, the virtual return of a caste system in France, along with disenfranchised immigrant & minority communities have turned the country into a powder keg.  

 

Well, we’ll push on to Berlin then… sorry, this whole itinerary has turned into a disaster.  Germany, of course, is where yet another center left government -- headed up by Olaf Scholz & the Social Democratic Party -- came to power, under a coalition government.  This government came to power, as well, with high hopes; but quickly ran into a buzz saw of high fuel costs, a Ukrainian war, an assertive Russia, over a decade of neoliberal failures – under Angela Merkel, spiraling inflation, labor unrest, and fears over migratory waves of humanity (fleeing a fossil fuels climate inferno).  

 

Yuck.  With Euroland vaca like this, let’s refuel and make tracks.   

 

 

 

 

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain from the flight deck, and I do apologize that Western democracy has turned into a bit of a sham.  These nations are mired - to varying degrees - in chaos, greedy politicians, price gouging monopolies & utilities, manipulated energy supplies and prices, decades of failed libertarian & neoliberal economic policies, a commitment to endless war & police states, and an out-of-control oligarchy.  Not to mention, angry, divided, and highly restive populations.  So, as we return to North America, other than the commonalities described… from failed center left politicians engaged in bait & switch politics, and the collapse of deregulation and neoliberalism… are you ready for it… your pop quiz question:  What are we witnessing in all the aforementioned countries on our journey today?  

 

Put another way, what have failed centrists, corporatists, endemic corruption, and pretend progressive politicians delivered for the West?  You’ll be given five minutes to answer.  

 

Bing, Bing.  

 

That was quick.  Yes, the passenger in seat 27A, please move forward to the front of the cabin to give your answer over the PA. 

 

What is your name?  Raina. 

 

Okay, Raina.  What is your answer… to the question: What have failed centrists, corporatists, endemic corruption, and pretend progressive politicians delivered for the West?  

 

Raina’s response:  The rise of fascism. 

 

Raina, that is correct.  

 

In the United States, we see Donald Trump rising in the polls versus hapless Joe Biden, and in Canada, we see Pierre Poilievre rising in the polls against Mr. Trudeau.  And yes, in France … oui, oui… we see Ms. Le Pen taking full advantage of Mr. Macron’s missteps and ongoing failures.  And in Germany, of course, we are seeing a resurgence in what… far-right, fascist parties.  That’s right. 

 

None of this is good and we only have failed centrists, corporatists, globalization, and neoliberalism to blame.

 

Raina, and your grand prize, a first-class flight to the destination of your choice.  Please be sure and book early, Raina, because the world… thanks to out-of-control elites… is in a state of collapse. 

 

Thanks for playing Raina. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023

Death Wish

Death Wish 

 

Stockton Rush, founder of the company that owns the missing submersible craft that was on its way to view the Titanic wreckage, has said safety is “pure waste.”

“I mean if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything,” Rush said in a 2022 podcast with CBS reporter David Pogue. “At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question.”

That mindset is now coming into focus as rescuers race to find the Titan, which has Rush and four other passengers on board and is likely running out of oxygen, with estimates of about 16 hours left. Ocean scientists and at least one former employee of Rush’s company, OceanGate Inc., have been sounding alarms about its safety procedures for at least five years.

-       Titanic Tour Leader Loved Risk and Called Safety a ‘Pure Waste’ - Bloomberg

 

By Gregg Wall (6-24-2023)

America received sort of a Sicilian message or wakeup call this week.  Stockton Rush, with four passengers on board his submarine, Titan, sleeps with the fishes.  And along with Mr. Rush, and likely his company OceanGate Inc., rests laissez-faire, a reckless disregard for the safety and lives of others, and America’s deregulatory state at the bottom of the Atlantic.

 

It’s not just libertarianism that took another hit this week, neoliberalism and laissez-faire are continuously being bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer … but the myth that billionaires and high-net-worth individuals are so much brighter than the rest of us mere mortals also lies in a watery grave.  Likely, not for the last time.  The intrepid Mr. Rush and four tourists…  apparently, w/out doing their due diligence or homework on OceanGate’s complete contempt for safety and regulatory review… went down to roughly 12,000 feet below sea level before the submarine was said to implode.  The Atlantic swallowed the five into complete darkness, unimaginable ocean pressure, and Davey Jones’ locker.  The debris field mere yards away from a mass grave, the Titanic.  The catastrophe, probably, entirely preventable if OceanGate spent more time on safety.  So close and yet so far.

 

The MSM ate it up, of course.  Days spent counting down the oxygen supply of the sub, governments giving grave assurances that no expense would be spared to rescue the brave – wealthy – explorers…  only to learn later, that the Navy thought they heard the sub crumple in the depths days earlier.   Extraordinary sums of money spent by Canada, the EU, and America on the precious billionaire cargo, off on a joy ride, a kiddie ride to the Titanic.  While in Europe, off the coast of Greece, hundreds and hundreds of immigrants drowned at sea.  Apparently, allegedly, with the Greek coastguard standing idly by for hours, as the immigrant death ship floundered at sea and sank?  No expense spared for five people exhibiting crazed behavior, perhaps a death wish… versus malign neglect for hundreds of immigrants lost at sea looking for the chance at a better life and fleeing what exactly?  Were the immigrants fleeing Western colonialism, economies imploding under the crushing weight of IMF austerity and Western debt… or perhaps, they were escaping another dictator propped up by the West, maybe they were fleeing a failed state?  The point of embarkation for the doomed vessel was Libya.  Or perhaps, these brave souls were merely attempting to escape the catastrophic heat and the climate crisis, caused by the West’s fossil fuels addiction and greed?

 

Western media, corporate media couldn’t dump the immigrant story or the Biden crime family stories fast enough for the submarine story.

 

The money spent by Western governments on gifting and perpetuating obscene wealth, while essential workers & citizens suffer endless abuse and austerity, is repugnant.  The only thing more depraved is the manner in which Western governments come running every time a - government hating - libertarian needs another bailout or rescue.  And make no mistake about it, this week’s quest to save a sub, the Navy most likely knew had already crumpled, was little more than yet another backdoor bailout for the fatuous rich. 

 

 

 

 

As I’ve written many times on these blog pages, capitalism has been reduced to little more than privatized profits for a few insiders, endless state welfare for a few insiders, while the disenfranchised pick up the known costs, expense, socialism for the rich, taxes, and the unintended consequences.  

 

The great mass of humanity carrying billionaires - sitting on ornate, rococo thrones - upon their backs.  What possesses such men, these libertarians… the sun sets and rises on their shoulders, they believe they are the center of the universe (because their sycophants have told them so).  These masters of the universe truly believe their good fortune is entirely due to their singular efforts.  And all the libertarians deliver is endless pain and suffering.  The world is increasingly a hellish place, and these men and their failed ideology are entirely responsible… they and the politicians they own.  To distract from their libertarian crimes, these wealthy monsters support far-right politicians, divide and conquer politics, endless culture wars, and co-opt and control all sources of power (to the complete detriment of children, essential labor, families, minorities, the planet, and women).  As societal class, they are toddlers: endlessly discovering their id, endlessly pushing ‘me, me, me’ to the next level, with zero regard for the limitless collateral damage left in their wake.

 

But there’s something more, these individuals appear to exhibit what Freud called a death wish or a death drive (one of the father of psychoanalysis' most controversial theories).  And seemingly, the billionaire class really doesn’t care who or what gets crushed, as they take excessive risk (whether it be, gambling with taxpayer money, kiddie rocket rides into space - paid for by the taxpayer, running the planet into the ground, or lobbying government for endless, for - profit wars, etc.).  They are complete nihilists, except for the worship of their own egos, thrill seeking, and money. 

 

Their perceived glories, their failed religion - neoliberalism - burning on a funeral pyre of hypocrisy and lies… and as a direct result, humanity drowning under the crushing pressure of elite failures, beneath the waves at the bottom of the sea.  Which begs the question, when will science discover the genetic defect in such men and eliminate it entirely from humanity, before it is too late?  

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023

Fossil Fuels Gates of Hell

Fossil Fuels Gates of Hell 

 

New York City’s air quality index of 183 remained the worst of any major world city Thursday morning, but the conditions were far better than Wednesday’s record-setting air pollution in the boroughs — as hundreds of US firefighters rushed north to Canada to tackle the still-raging wildfires that caused it.  At its peak in the afternoon, the air quality index (AQI) for the city reached 405 out of 500 — the highest since records began, according to an analysis of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data by FOX Weather.

In a twisted irony, the record-smashing dire conditions came from Canada on what was supposed to be its national Clean Air Day — with this year’s tagline: “Clean Air Everywhere.”

 

-       New York City recorded worst-ever air quality Wednesday, which was national Clean Air Day in Canada, NY Post

 

By Gregg Wall (6-10-2023)

 

Choke on it Wall Street… you’ve ignored your own disease forever and now, it's kicking in your front door.  Karma, it seems, is not without a cruel sense of irony. 

 

BLAME CANADA! blared the headline from the New York Post, a Murdoch rag, which might have been amusing … but for the fact, that nearly all the reputable Western news organizations echoed the same thought.  These news organizations blamed the apocalyptic death cloud --that descended upon the East Coast, Manhattan, and Wall St this week -- on “Canada wildfires,” as well.  These same news organizations have been warning about a climate catastrophe for years.  So, it was interesting.  Rather stating the obvious and placing the blame squarely on Big Oil & Gas, climate change, our day trading governments, and Wall St. investors, these MSM publications all conveniently blamed, “Canada wildfires.”  Read here, here, here, and here, for starters. 

 

Like the Canada wildfires happened in a vacuum and haven’t incinerated towns in Canada and California.  It’s all a big mystery.  Even as Canadian provinces have been sucking on America’s fossil fuel’s tailpipe and wildfire smoke for seemingly every summer I’ve lived in Alberta, starting in 2020.  Yes indeed, U.S. smoke has filled the air here in Canada’s western provinces for several years, vomited up from America’s fossil fuels gates of hell. 

 

Which drills home the obvious, the climate catastrophe knows no borders.  Big Oil & Gas knows no borders, corrupt government officials – who are overseeing and underwriting the death of the planet – know no borders.  And Greed … well, that’s universal.  The lies this industry, and their quislings, have been telling the pubic are relentless and know no borders, even now.   

 

And yet, as the great American gas guzzling, death machine rolls on down the road, blowing through stop light after stop light, warning of impending climate disaster...  the twin failures in Washington - the Dems & GOP - keeping coming up with excuse after excuse for not addressing the crises.  The latest conveniently enough being gridlock.  Does the MSM hold either party accountable?  No way, blame Canada, blame "Canada wildfires."  America’s media is so entirely corrupt, so owned by billionaires, multinationals, and Wall St that it should come as no surprise that all the major news organizations were singing from the same satanic hymnal.  In all fairness, many covered their tail with the obligatory editorial, paragraph, or story linking the Canadian wildfires to climate change, but why not lead with that?  Why not take the opportunity to hammer the point and call for the end of fossil fuels? 

 

And it all goes back to money.  Big Oil, the politicians, Wall St, the West… they're all on the same page.  They plan on making money on fossil fuels for years and years to come, planet and its inhabitants be damned.  And no expense will be spared to keep fossil fuels alive.  Here’s an industry that prints billions and billions in record profits, that prematurely murders one in five of the Earth’s human inhabitants, that is burning and flooding the ground right out from under humanity’s feet, that produces thick death shrouds of toxic smoke… that wars are fought for, and civilians & soldiers die for.  An energy source managed, owned, and run by despots and dictators and fully supported by the United States and the West. 

 

The subsidies, tax relief, and externalities (like socialized expenses and societal costs) are said by the IMF to have run to $5.9 trillion in 2020.  And as the planet is carried out in a body bag, those subsidies will only grow and grow.  In short, there’s a whole lot of suffering on the planet, so a handful of people can become filthy rich.  Does this figure even include the despotic price at the pump, the economic drag at the pump, that weighs upon global economies?  The foregone opportunity costs?  One thing is for sure, if the study came from the IMF, it likely lowballed the true global subsidies for this repugnant industry. 

 

And yet, despite this week… when all the oil field derricks, greed, wars, corruption & lies, and the resulting pollution...  came washing up in Manhattan and Wall St, all the financial news networks could talk about was the stock market.  Business as usual.  The financial media couldn’t change the topic fast enough. 

 

It’s like the Martian haze didn’t even exist.  Get used to it.  Nope.  Nothing can be done.  The irony then should be lost on no one, just as billionaires and the captains of industry all seek to flee to the red planet, Mars, to escape responsibility for their crimes here on Earth…  they and their greed have created a red planet right here at home.  Our would-be human gods then, have created a planet bathed in human blood and awash in vermilion man-made clouds.  Isn’t it wonderful?

 

What to do with these would-be gods that deliver nothing but bailouts, catastrophic national debt, death, the destruction of democracy, failed economic constructs, intransigence, planetary collapse, systemic poverty and forever wars? 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023