Picking Winners & Losers: Davos 2024

Picking Winners & Losers: Davos 2024

 

As we finish up this year’s World Economic Forum confab and the security barriers start coming down, it’s worth reflecting on the main takeaways. The vibe was unbridled optimism in every corner of finance and business. Bankers from Stifel Financial Corp. to JPMorgan Chase & Co. offered grand dreams for a rebound after a drought of initial public offerings, mergers and riskier debt sales.

 

-       Bad News Behind Davos Optimism Is That It’s Usually Wrong, Bloomberg

 

By Gregg Wall (1-20-2024)

 

Another billionaire, masters of the universe confab has come and gone, hosted by Ubermensch, Klaus Schwab.  The winners of a planet in flames, a world choking on private jet exhaust were all here, in Davos, Switzerland.  Having entirely bought out Western governments in Europe, Great Britain, and North America… and having reduced democracy to ash… the banker and business leaders of the world had all come together this week (along with second class, managerial class politicians, many of whom are absurdly & mysteriously wealthy in their own right) to give themselves a big, fat pat on the back. 

 

This year’s theme: Rebuilding Trust.  Which is an interesting enough theme, given that billionaires are all gods among us mere mortals.  What could have given these rarified creatures, these unicorns of wealth & privilege, pause, given their infallible status?

 

Surely, it couldn’t be a burning planet, a flooding Earth, as a direct result of the fossil fuels the Davos grandees absolutely refuse to stop pumping from the ground. 

 

Perhaps it’s the division and distrust surrounding corporate media outlets they own.  You know.  Corporate media more noted for disinformation, selling the elite narrative, selling wars & propaganda, spawning fear & loathing, fear of missing out, and dread… and keeping the world & societies conspicuously divided…. than imparting accurate news and information about our epically failed Davos gods and goddesses.

 

Maybe it’s the failed neoliberal paradigm, the greed-based international order, which have caused Western workers to organize and go on strike (with broad public approval).  Price gouging, corporate greed, and monopoly formation have taken a catastrophic toll upon global economies, as has Davos man.

 

Who knows…  maybe it’s the gutting of public services, like the NHS in Great Britain or Medicare for All in Canada, to pay for tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, and privatization schemes that has caused the public to lose trust in the billionaire class and the politicians & judges they own?

 

It couldn’t be endless, for-profit wars and record arms sales… the masters of evil at Davos are all cashing in on.  Genocide, land grabs, colonialism, mangled children’s bodies in Gaza and blatant Israeli white supremacy are altogether common… the public couldn’t possibly be upset about this?  Surely, the public understands, if the private sector and neoliberalism no longer can hit the GDP mark, best to pivot to more catastrophic spending and that great socialist endeavor: endless, for-profit war?

 

Austerity?  Is austerity a threat to trust and the oligarchy's stewardship?  Endless war and catastrophic private & public debt…. a/k/a the great transfer of wealth to the Davos elite… provides an outstanding excuse for endless austerity.  Peace dividend?  Not a chance, the Davos gang and their errand runners, the political class, have another for-profit war to fund.  Endless austerity for the poor, endless socialism for the rich couldn’t have set the public on edge?

 

Rebuilding trust?  Please.  Davos man and the multinational utilities have destroyed all trust, burned the bridges of trust, lay torches to the ships of trust in the harbor: the fraud that is the Western political duopoly; corporate MSM’ unremitting support for the slaughter in Gaza, the Ukraine, and parts of Africa; endless socialism and welfare for billionaires & corporations… all of it exposed. 

 

So, in the end, it should come as no surprise, given the merry band of psychopaths that attend Davos every year, that they all decided to shrug it off, sip champagne, and declare victory.  And embrace eternal optimism.  No need to modify a thing.  Let the polycrisis roll. 

 

After all, when you commodify & monetize every catastrophe on the planet, when humanity is your chew toy… life is sweet for the monsters of Davos. 

 

The fact that the masters of the universe, the Ubermensch, have created headwinds of catastrophic debt, entirely corrupt governments, financial engineering & speculation, top heavy oligarchy, banker thieves, monopolies, a burning, flooding planet, endless wars, endless austerity… is just a means for further profit taking at humanity' expense.  And if fiat currencies become abused, debased, mauled…  no problem.  The wealthy have already arbitraged that risk by purchasing the planet. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a final note, academics, business leaders, even Davos man… sometimes become upset when governments pick winners and losers, showering businesses and billionaires with vast sums of public money (say for a new sports stadium, free land, or tax concessions).

 

But these same critics & individuals do not wince, when billionaires… many grown catastrophically wealthy by means of the state & socialism… pick winners and losers.  When these Davos gods select governments to place an ever-shrinking pool of businesses, jobs, monopolies, and utilities with (say Alberta, Florida, or Texas).  Invariably, not only does the oligarchy extract socialism and welfare from a government, but they also demand ideological & neoliberal purity.

 

Creatures of the state, billionaires & multinationals are the state.  Products of the state, made obscenely wealthy by the state, Davos man has distorted & mauled: democracy, free will, free speech, our news and information systems, the economy, social media, and universities to serve their own ends.  Oligarchy/Kleptocracy has contaminated and polluted everything… not just the air, water, and the planet… in the name of greed. 

 

If only citizens throughout the West… the public, labor… could pull it together long enough (stop attacking one another) to address the ultimate threat to humanity: Davos man and their cult of greed. 

 

It’s time for the public to stop worshipping wealth and the wealthy…  and pick their own winner.  That would be themselves.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024

Mr. Democracy

Mr. Democracy 

 

 

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. 

 

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. 

 

-        POTUS John F. Kennedy 

 

By Gregg Wall (1-6-2024)

 

POTUS Biden kicked off his campaign this week… interestingly enough running on democracy, when perhaps it’s never been clearer to the majority of Americans that our democracy has flatlined.  Co-opted and owned by Wall St, K-Street, the Deep State, Silicon Valley, and Oligarchy… and apparently, AIPAC… both political parties show little or no interest in debating the bread & butter issues of our failed libertarian economy and repugnant colonial empire (which is a major drain on discretionary spending and is the excuse for endless austerity).

 

Culture wars, binary battles between cults of personality, identity politics are always on the table, they keep the nation divided and the American people apart.  When in reality the majority agree on a great deal: taxing the exceptionally wealthy, greater labor rights, making sure Americans are paid a living wage, affordable housing, and Medicare for All.  Americans also overwhelmingly support a ceasefire and the end of Biden’s genocide in Gaza.  So, is it any surprise both parties, entirely corrupt and owned, are overwhelmingly and diametrically opposed to the American people on the very issues Americans agree upon.  How’s that bipartisanship… from an ultra-hideous duopoly… working out America? 

 

Is it any surprise that the American people believe the American economy is lousy; and in fact, as pointed out by Senator Sanders’ staff director, Warren Gunnels, it is lousy, pathetically so.  Here in the land of the free, in the richest country in the world, per Mr. Gunnels: child poverty is up 138%, homelessness up 12%, 13.3 million Americans have been kicked off Medicaid, 43.6 million owe $1.77 trillion in student debt, 100 million citizens are buried in medical debt, real weekly wages are $45.83 lower than 1973 (so much for the lies of endless growth, neoliberalism, supply-side and trickle-down), and 62% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. 

 

Meanwhile, the corporately owned and controlled MSM, and economists, continue to cram and push the lie, that Bidenomics is the greatest thing since Wonder Bread.  Americans, of course, are tired of being lied to and gaslighted by the media and talking head experts.  The economy is indeed good for those at the tippy top, it’s entirely rigged in their favor, with many sponging off the state.  And a great deal of corporate profit margins are significantly enhanced by endless corporate welfare, monopoly, monopsony, price gouging, regulatory capture, tax policy & wage suppression.

 

No wonder Biden is running on democracy and freedom… especially when Americans are waking up to the reality, that America’s foreign policy revolves around colonialism, exploiting the global south, for-profit wars, debt & extortion, chronic & pathological subjugation of indigenous peoples, and DOD/MIC spending that is entirely off the rails. In short, America’s foreign policy has absolutely nothing to do with spreading peace, love, and understanding… and absolutely, everything to do with billionaires, days traders in congress, multinationals laundering taxpayer cash through endless for profit wars, privatization schemes, jacking up commodities prices – such as oil & gas, and stealing land & resources.

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, the well has run dry on the democracy and freedom schtick for Mr. Biden.  Dems… who inconveniently, controlled the House, Senate, and WH… have no excuses for their abysmal performance, including, but not limited to: a failure to pass BBB, a failure to bump up minimum wages, a failure to legalize cannabis, to fund and maintain the pandemic era child tax credit.  Dems shot themselves in the foot on student debt, doing the classic bait & switch, to lather up the youth vote in 2022, only to pull the rug out from under them.  Dems… Chuck, Nancy, and Biden… blew it on abortion. Instead, choosing to run on and raise money on their own failure to codify Roe. Instead, choosing to run on the fear of a Trump dictatorship, when Dems failed to even charge & prosecute Trump with insurrection.  ‘Dems blew it’ could be their 2024 campaign theme, and I could go on and on. 

 

And Americans, increasingly, see through the scam: the two parties are blood brothers, singing kumbaya, and engaged in all too familiar bipartisan orgies, the second their donors need another bailout or there’s more corporate socialism & welfare to be passed into law… but conveniently, Dems and GOP are at poorly scripted, choreographed odds, the second it comes time to do something for the American people. 

 

Let’s face it.  Democracy, especially at the federal level, is dead.  Long purchased, long bought out (with taxpayer money, no less, and the great transfer of wealth), long devolved into oligarchy and corporate tyranny & terror. Totalitarianism by greed and monopoly with unelected boards & C-suites dictating gov policy, prices, and wages.  The only thing congress excels at is day trading, grandstanding, impeachment hearings, payola, & proffering performative legislation that has zero opportunity to pass. 

 

It’s gotten so bad, that the Washington Post just did a piece on threats to public servants are spiking.  And POTUS Biden seems to know where this is headed… at his Valley Forge speech, he said: ‘Political violence is never, ever acceptable in the United States.’ 

 

Alas, last I checked, political violence is how the United States was created.  Americans pushed back on a despotic king, the tyranny of monopolies, and egregious taxation from a British government, that openly defied the American colonists.  Giving them no say.  Something about taxation without representation?  (And Americans paying taxes to support the debt service load on $38 trillion in national debt... debt accumulated to benefit the rich... meets the definition of 'taxation without representation.')

 

Exactly like the deplorable government Americans find themselves trapped in today.  Ironically enough, and thanks to bought out and corrupt political duopolies throughout the West… the problem, the potential for political violence, appears to be drawing ever nearer.  Desperate citizens do desperate things and at times, commit heroic acts. 

 

President Kennedy’s remarks serve as both a reminder and a warning.  Mr. Jefferson, another President, also had some thoughts on fertilizing the Tree of Liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants.  Biden’s remarks appear to be wishful thinking on behalf of the kleptocracy & tyrants he serves.  Revolutions can be bad for corporate profits and clearly, aren’t always easy to monetize.  Just ask King Louis XVI.

 

Am I supporting violence?  Absolutely not, nor is a revolution in my interests.  But given history, human nature, and our despotic economy and government, a new revolution – nonviolent or violent - would not be surprising.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024

We live in interesting times… Much of it self-inflicted!

We live in interesting times… Much of it self-inflicted!

 

There’s so much evil to unpack, as a result of America possessing the world’s fiat currency, that I’ve just scratched the surface.  The spillover effects and impact of exorbitant privilege, from the dictators we prop up to the bloodshed, human rights abuses, & repression America supports, both domestic & foreign… in the furtherance of commercial dominance, to the make the oligarchy richer still, in the name of profits, and in order to be the world’s banking, corporate, and military hegemon sickens the soul.

 

-       Exorbitant Privilege- JM Hamilton

 

By Gregg Wall (12-24-2023)

 

When historians look back, 2023 may prove to be an inflection point like no other in recent years, save 2008.  And it can be argued that the sins of 2008… endless welfare for bankers, billionaires, and multinationals, and the resulting transfer of wealth… materialized in 2023 with a vengeance.

 

This was the year when elites laid it all on the table: their contempt for democracy; their animosity towards labor and the public; their dedication to endless war and mass murder.  To break it down further:  

 

It appears that Trump, a man dedicated to authoritarianism and dictatorship, as of this writing, will be the Republican nominee.  Biden, with extraordinarily bad polling, has dismissed rivals and declared there will be no primary.  America is essentially looking at a retread of the 2020 campaign, at a time that America needs so much more than the reactionary, status quo policies both candidates are willing to offer.  Call it democracy’s death rattle and the rise of oligarchy.  Hell, they’re not even going through the motions anymore.  Both Biden and Trump, Dems and GOP, showing authoritarian tendencies; both parties have zero respect for the American people.  And despite a difference in style, in terms of outcome & substance, there is little difference between how either man will actually govern.  America is looking at two entirely corrupt & evil political parties… all pretense about the lesser two of evils has disappeared into Biden’s genocide.

 

As for elite contempt for consumers, labor, and the public… this was a year like no other.  Prices continued to climb, compounding upon the inflation (aka price gouging) seen in ’20, ’21, and ’22.  The elite & Washington solution to supply-side price gouging, as in prior years, was not to go after greed, monopolies, and Wall St., but to continue to attack consumers & labor (who are one in the same… something U.S. antitrust law conveniently forgets).  But the U.S. economy is so encumbered by private and public debt, it appears that the Federal Reserve will pull up short on its inflation fight, by declaring victory based upon a specious core inflation number.  Gaslight, lie, repeat: Isn’t the Biden economy wonderful?  Easier money, which led to the consolidated economy, may return in 2024, but that doesn’t mean dereg, greed, neoliberalism, and the nation’s monopoly problems will be resolved (far from it).  In short, even if greed takes a vacation, the factors that have set off record profits and labor lining up in breadlines… consolidation, gov & regulatory capture, laissez-faire, monopoly, and Wall St speculation… remain and are alive and well. 

 

As for endless war and genocide?  Biden and his handlers, and donors, appear to be willing to risk all… American prestige and arguably, national security itself… by supporting genocide and mass - child - murder inside Gaza.  America’s reputation is drowning in blood.  And the elites in Washington appear to be at least forty years behind the times.  Israelis are no longer an oppressed people but, backed by the U.S., are a superpower in their own right.  Their treatment of the Palestinian people in 2014 was wretched… today, America’s and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people are war crimes.  The majority of Americans want no part of it.  They are sick of wars, a wartime economy, and the resulting austerity.  And Biden and the Democratic party, the GOP establishment as well, have demonstrated a total disregard for the will of the American people.  Try as they might, genocide - and Israel as a victim - simply does not sell (especially since Netanyahu funded and supported Hamas).  Why is the American taxpayer fighting these wars again?  Putin is no more a threat to the United States, than Hamas is.  Oh, and the Ukraine, just another war revealed for what it is, a fraud, another of America’s for-profit wars. 

 

These failures combined, the contempt for democracy, the slow rolling emergence of a totalitarian state, an oligarchy, a two-party system that is little more than a front for controlled opposition, and a U.S. economy now dependent upon debt & war… all point to a shift that Americans will have to deal with in the coming years.  The sooner, the better. 

 

 

 

 

 

Nor is this inflection point limited to America.  Throughout the West, center-left and center-right political parties are unwilling to challenge 43 years of failed Reagan & Thatcher, neoliberalism, supply-side and trickle-down fraud.  The beating incumbent parties – in North America and Europe - are taking right now is extraordinary; and yet, not a word on addressing corruption, endless war, economy & job killing utilities, and oligarchy that are responsible for the public’s complete dissatisfaction (nor do opposition parties have anything to offer).  As centrism & corporatism fail humanity, the world is drowning in fossil fuels flooding and flames. 

 

The billionaire response, the oligarchy response?  If we are to judge from Mr. Zuckerberg:  Dig deeper moats, build stronger fortresses and bunkers; but under no circumstances pullup from an economic model … the greed-based international order… that has completely failed the world.

 

The only positive in 2023 is the resurgence of labor, of unions, and the beating back of boardrooms, C-suites, and kleptocrats.  It’s about time.  

 

Happy New Year.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023