Saturday, September 5, 2026

Game Theory

The Prisoner's Dilemma

The prisoner's dilemma is the most well-known example of game theory. Consider the example of two criminals arrested for a crime. Prosecutors have no hard evidence to convict them. However, to gain a confession, officials remove the prisoners from their solitary cells and question each one in separate chambers. Neither prisoner has the means to communicate with the other. Officials present four deals, often displayed as a 2 x 2 box.

1. If both confess, they will each receive a three-year prison sentence.

2. If Prisoner 1 confesses, but Prisoner 2 does not, Prisoner 1 will get one year and Prisoner 2 will get five years.

3. If Prisoner 2 confesses, but Prisoner 1 does not, Prisoner 1 will get five years, and Prisoner 2 will get one year.

4. If neither confesses, each will serve two years in prison.

The most favorable strategy is to not confess. However, neither is aware of the other's strategy and, without certainty that one will not confess, both will likely confess and receive a three-year prison sentence.

Ultimate Guide to Game Theory: Principles and Applications – Investopedia

By Gregg Wall (9-5-2026)

Game theory is the study of probabilities and decision making … where participants are not isolated but dependent upon one another. Game theory was originally devised in the 1940s by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. Today, it’s used in business, economics, energy policy, government, legal teams, politics and campaigning, etc. Academics, boardrooms, elites, lawyers, management teams, politicians may employ consulting firms, such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting, and Bain and Company, to run analysis, reports, and conduct live games (especially when the stakes are high). The classic scenario is the prisoners dilemma but there are many other games, war games, and AI and big data are and will remain key features in current and future gaming and analysis. For a more exhaustive explanation of game theory, see the Investopedia article highlighted above, and there are a great many other resources and videos to investigate online.

Assumptions of game theory are that the participants are rational actors that are seeking to maximize their benefit. Of course, humans are highly complex, with varying cultures, educational backgrounds, and morality in praxis, which is where the math and probabilities come in. The game struggles with the all too human elements, emotions, and motives of empathy, betrayal, greed, loyalty, love, integrity, honesty. The game involves two or more players and the game developer, the aforementioned army, corporation, government, or political party, etc. The players are given the scenario or game in advance, the options, and will want to formulate some expectation or anticipate what option or choice the other rational player will choose… as the ultimate outcome is dependent upon the joint decision. From the game developer’s perspective, the aim is to forecast an equilibrium or outcome where no player benefits by changing their decision. During the Cold War, game theory promulgated mutually assured destruction, the idea that America and the Soviet Union, as rational actors, were dependent on each other not to launch a first strike for fear of equally devastating retaliation.

Again, dependency is critical to the game’s outcome in game theory. I would also add understanding who is developing the game and insight into what their goals and motives are… is additionally extremely helpful to the participants, particularly in the real world. The game involves two or more players but the typical set up or scenario is binary, binary decision making, binary outcomes. This is fascinating because it’s no accident that we see binary decisions and dependencies presented to government officials, prospective customers, whether to buy products, corporations setting price for a products, services, or military hardware. For instance, Trump’s love of bilateral trade framing and negotiations is no accident (Trump loves to exploit the asymmetry of the United States and military dependency in Europe). The decision Americans make every other November at the ballot box is generally binary. Through no fault of their own, the majority of citizens are too busy with their daily lives to ever question why we are limited to two choices at election time. We are simply told the system, the US government, doesn’t work with more than two options. The winner takes all nature of American politics only increases the urgency and increases the participation of the players (i.e. the voting public). The ramp up to the US election by the MSM and two parties dives directly into the competitive nature of the races, the embellishment and instigation of fear, the manipulation of culture wars.

So, let’s pull “the game” into the real world.

America’s and Israel’s ongoing war with Iran, and the economic, monetary, and political costs involved… who wins and who loses is classic game theory in action. Trump exploits fear and constantly frames war with Iran, as nuclear containment, which in turn, is used to validate extreme for-profit U.S. military budgets and endless conflict (even though Trump assures us that the Iranian nuclear program was eliminated in 2025). Presentation of a binary outcome… die in a nuclear holocaust or continue fighting… is critical to Trump’s sales pitch to the American people. The American people are presented with a decision that is a foregone conclusion, no critical thinking or decision making is required (because the Trump admin, members of congress, and the Deep State are all over it). Notice, the binary dynamic, the either-or proposition. Notice, the consent is immediately manufactured. Notice, the sales pitch requires the suspension of both disbelief, a considerable amount of ignorance as to the actual facts surrounding the crisis, and for a considerable cross section of the public to be so overwhelmed with their daily fight for survival, so as to not even notice they are being misled (which is why the American public is kept on the edge of precarity, edge of poverty, poorly educated by the MSM, and overwhelmed as both parties and the MSM flood the zone). The American public is led to believe they are the winners in this game with Iran, as we are protected from nuclear Armageddon, while the true winners are the folks that framed or set up the game: Bibi Netanyahu, U.S. politicians who day trade stocks, Wall Street, for-profit military contractors, U.S. oil majors and soaring fuel prices, MSM - as advertising revenue and ratings often climb in wartime, warmongers, and McKinsey, et al. Notice, the American people are truly the losers: another forever war, catastrophic debt and deficits, austerity to pay for the war, another Trump promise broken, a FED who refuses to contain inflationary spending and soaring prices, devalued currency, lower standards of living.

Yet more winners, in the long march of history, are: China, Iran, and Russia who wiped out twenty US military bases in the Middle East; the asymmetrical warfare waged by Iran; the defeat of American military hegemony; another blow struck against the petrodollar; bond vigilantes… those who have longed for the end of the American century and the unilateral world order coming undone.

Again, it’s critical in these binary dynamics not only to understand the game, the choices presented (or the lack thereof via manufactured consent), but more importantly, who is framing the game, who is presenting the choices, and the framer’s motivations… who truly wins and who truly loses. Which brings us to today’s final game, the November elections.

The November elections for the most part fit into the classic game theory model of the prisoner’s dilemma, at least that’s what the framers want us to think. There’ll be whole lot less abuse if everybody remains evenly divided, votes for two parties that are entirely inimical to the public’s interests, two parties that work tirelessly on behalf of the oligarchy and run the public into the ground every two years. While Americans are keenly focused on affordability and the economy, the framers of the game -- the establishment, the ruling corpocracy and oligarchy -- want the public focused myopically on culture wars. American politics and Western politics are riddled with false dichotomies, political duopolies, binary options, decision making, and outcomes: winner take all. Believe it or not, some political campaigns used to educate, talk about meaningful issues like debt, deficits, tax policy, the economy and foreign policy… those days weren’t long ago but today they are long gone. Presently, the MSM and the two major parties beat the fear drum, campaigns are dumbed down, and culture wars proliferate campaign discourse. Which is nauseating because most culture wars boil down to choice, freedom, and individual liberties. As I’ve written before, if you want to be gay, a feminist, speak out on Israel’s genocide, please do so… or conversely, if you don’t want to be gay, want to be a fundamentalist Christian, or be pro-Israel have at it. Liberty is destroyed when a political party wants to impose their belief system, ideals, and values on everyone else.

The political game is presented as follows: both major parties take in massive contributions from billionaires and corporations, often the same contributors will give to both parties to hedge their bets, with the idea of protecting a failed status quo that has seen wage & wealth inequality soar. Both major parties make all kinds of vague promises to Americans to improve the lives of the public on affordability, the economy, and jobs… they promise the moon to get elected. Once in office the promises are ignored, excuses are made, and gridlock and the courts serve the big money contributors. But notice both sides, Dems and GOP, actually are dependent upon one another to keep culture wars alive and perpetuate manufactured differences between the two parties (that are otherwise identical in bending the knee to wealth, corporations, and Wall St.). Lesser evil framing and zero sum framing often amplifies fear in the run up to the election and encourages a surge in voter participation. High participation and turnout lend the political duopoly - as well as the political process and oligarchy that’s buying the candidates and government – credibility. The entire game is designed to keep the players, Dem and GOP voters, at each other’s throats, instead of society uniting to actually solve economic problems and addressing the source of human misery: wholesale corruption, the political parties themselves, the very nature of the dark triad individuals & personalities who are drawn into running for office, the oligarchy, monopolies, endless for-profit wars, lobbyist, and campaign finance rules that are continuously flouted by the uber rich, et al. And let’s not forget 250 years of structural defects within the Constitution, the US government, and the American economy. Those few brave enough to suggest real economic change, such as public healthcare, are castigated and demonized as “communists” and “socialists.” This, even though the biggest socialists in America today are the 1%. In this game theory model (aka Elite Theory) cultural, economic, educational, and political gridlock becomes the ideal (again for the preservation of a failed status quo, greater wealth for the predatory few, and an American public that is viciously attacked from all sides).

In the election game, the ideal is for both parties to attract voters who reflexively vote for the same parties, year after year. From the establishment’s perspective, unthinking, low information, and even lower expectation voters, who are perfectly content with “my team won” are the ideal. Once again, the people who pour millions into these races don’t think along those lines… they expect huge returns and without fail, they receive huge deals, no bid contracts, positions in government or the private sector. The winners: banks, billionaires, foreign governments, monopolies, multinationals, judges and politicians, Wall St, and war contractors. The losers: the American people, families, labor, children, public schools, democracy, freedom, hopes and dreams… wiped out.

Yet more winners are the Global South, that is countries have that been preyed upon by America and West for generations and centuries. For them, an America in man-made crisis and decline is a positive event, a defeated global hegemon brings hope for a better world.

Once you realize the culture wars are not meant to be won, they are meant to be continuous in the service of political duopoly, the Uniparty, and the oligarchy… it naturally follows that political duopoly and culture wars are game theory for the preservation of the ruling class.

To wrap this up, in game theory always be thinking about binaries, dichotomies, framing, decision making, politicians as salespeople pushing ideas and continuously probing & offering sales pitches. Be thinking about economic & political shocks, the flood the zone news flow presented by Western media and politicians. In the game presented to you, who ultimately benefits and who ultimately loses. Who always wins and who always loses. How do you win at game theory? How do you win at another money pit war presented to the public? How do you win every other November?

Answer: Don’t play the game, reject false dichotomies. Think outside the binary, box presented. Don’t support the political duopoly, don’t support the avarice surrounding the political process and the economy. Raise your expectations as to the possibilities and outcomes. Do not support the war effort. Don’t surrender to the unrelenting message of fear. Vote third party or if a reasonable option does not exist, simply don’t vote at all. Don’t lend the establishment your credibility every other November. If enough people do not vote, the system is revealed as a tyranny, the façade, the mask are removed. The dictatorship and lie are exposed. Protest continually, boycott political events for the duopoly, protest forever wars, engage in civil disobedience, labor strikes. Don’t ask, demand more. Sustained civil disobedience - and yes, even political revolution - have successful histories and bring about real change. These strategies work, the elite live in a constant state of fear… afraid of being found out as cheats, hypocrites, liars, pedos, and socialists with their faces forever buried in the government trough. The establishment wouldn’t be spending trillions on data centers, a police & surveillance state, the criminal justice industrial complex, and the prison system if they weren’t deeply worried.

Real resistance must be sustained. Democracy and freedom… and the creation of an economy that functions for all… are not preserved and created by voting for the Uniparty and a killer elite every other November. Expect and demand accountability and justice from the corpocracy, oligarchy, and politicians.

Warning: False binaries over time breed acceptance, apathy, celebrity & politician worship, codependency, despondency, fear & hate, flights into escapism, habitual and problematic substance abuse, etc. This is exactly what the establishment wants. Fight, stay focused, stay alive and fight for a better world. If you can imagine it, a better world, a better economy, and government are entirely possible.

It’s ours for the taking.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026

Saturday, August 22, 2026

$40 Trillion

Our debts aren’t going to just disappear. Absent a conscious effort, we are just waiting for an increasingly likely economic meltdown. The ancient world had a different understanding of the nature of money, which is why debt forgiveness became a standard feature of their cultures. We need to start seeing money and debt the way people saw it back then: As a system to distribute resources that, like any system, can be periodically reset.

- An Ancient Sumerian Solution to Our $40 Trillion Deficit, NYTimes

By Gregg Wall (8-22-2026)

This week was notable for: the U.S. crossing over the $40 trillion in national debt threshold; long term interest rates climbing and 30 year Treasury yields soaring north of 5.30% (a 19 year high); the Treasury intervening in markets with a token effort, swapping out long term debt for short term debt in an effort to calm markets and yields; AI and hyperscaler lending continuing to surge, expecting to climb well into the trillions; Trump’s man-made oil shock and inflation continuing; and crypto, on cue, began rising from the dead.

Treasury Secretary Bessent says America can grow its way out the debt, by which he probably means further US dollar debasement and inflation. When the world is tapped out and you cannot sell more units, one can always arbitrarily jack prices on the constant set of units or even the declining number of units sold to achieve magical growth. But the growth fairy has existed for decades, and nation state debt continues to climb, the oligarchy grows obscenely richer, and the peasantry grows poorer. At the moment, the only thing certain is death, manipulated markets, a burning planet, a soaring Gini coefficient, endless for-profit wars, and catastrophic national debt.

As we reach $40 trillion, it’s instructive to talk about how we got here; the ramifications; and the fallout.

In the beginning, there was Greenspan’s legacy, the FED put, the 2008 market crash, and Ben Bernanke. The 2008 crash was notable not only for the finger pointing that transpired, but the trillions in transactions and bailout money that sloshed around (a congressional audit pegged it at $16 trillion, but the number ultimately climbed as high as $29 trillion), and for the fact that no responsibility and accountability ever transpired. Millions of Americans were laid off and millions lost their homes – the opioid epidemic that started in the late 90s gathered steam. Billions in profits were made off bailout money, with sweetheart lending deals from the banker of last resort. The FED adopted easy money policies, zero bound rates, and QE… monetizing problematic debt instruments, reinflating markets, and expanding the FED balance sheet with eight to nine trillion dollars printed out of thin air. No wonder the badly mauled U.S. dollar is no longer what it used to be.

But the worst part, seemingly few lessons were learned, no serious reforms enacted (Dodd Frank and the subsequent roll back are a joke), technocratic elites, like the FED chair, continued to operate behind closed doors, and the national debt detonated into a supernova (Trump, of course, being responsible for approximately 30% of the national debt). The key lesson: Congress, the two-party system, Wall St, the pathocracy, private equity would learn that they could now get away with just about anything… the sugar daddy of last resort would switch on the printing presses and make it all right: no risk, all reward, privatized profits, tax free bailouts. The only people who paid were the 99%. Ben Bernanke, who would get his Nobel in economics, along with subsequent FED chairs, financed for-profit wars that would continue aimlessly through the decades, and bailouts would become profit centers unto themselves: including Trump’s first term Wall St/COVID bailout, and Peter Thiel’s SVB bailout under Biden. Financialization, private equity, venture capital, greed-first, national debt and the money supply exploded and with-it moral hazard. GFANZ would commodify and monetize planetary collapse. Successive FED chairs adopted the Greenspan put, the idea that Wall St was too big to fail. Only exorbitant privilege could offer such a squandered & wasted gift and deliver such a curse: an Epstein class, a kleptocracy, and what increasingly looks like a banana republic. Deregulation returned with a vengeance, always with the promise of delivering the great panacea, the holy grail: economic growth. And yet, the crisis in America grows.

And the ramifications of greed, debt, exorbitant privilege, and money supply gone wild?

The number of billionaires climbed from 329 in 2007 to 935 in 2025.

The world’s richest man possesses as much wealth as the bottom 45% to 50% of the population.

35% to 40% of Americans work gig;

70% of Americans can’t afford the basics;

90% of Americans put off healthcare, doctors’ visits, and medical procedures because they cannot afford them.

DOGE and Trump slashed and burned services, like SNAP, not because people didn’t need it, but because they could.

Local, state, and federal spending now make up between thirty-five to forty percent of GDP.

America’s real economy has been offshored over the span of decades, and Trump’s tariffs program has done very little to bring the factories back.

Meanwhile, financialization is a money pit, which relies upon greater and greater amounts of private and public debt to sustain it.

The US economy is reliant upon consumer spending, and the top ten percent make up 50% of consumer spending.

A top-heavy economy… characterized by oligarchy, totalitarian monopolies with absolute control over prices and wages, massive debt and deficits, stripped down public services, massive consumer debt, endless wars, and ubiquitous wage slavery… all but ensure that Mr. Bessent’s fabled growth fairy will appear desiccated, emaciated, and flying on one wing & a prayer.

The US economy increasingly looks like a command economy with monopolies and oligopolies dominating various sectors of the economy, the wartime economy and police state juicing GDP and soaking up surplus labor, and of course, financialization and big tech rounding out sectors that need fewer employees as AI and automation grabs hold. Stir in gerontocracy and essentially a Uniparty and American looks a great deal like the Soviet Union in its final days.

Trump, at a time that America needs allies and friends more than ever, has managed to alienate the world, as only Trump can manage. Bessent’s pitiful plea, this Friday, for friends and foes to rally around the U.S. in crushing the Iranian economy, comes across as obscene, pathetic, and weak.

The fallout is obvious, domestically the stock market benefits the predatory few, even though when the bailouts inevitably arrive, the establishment says they’re looking out for the pension funds and the little guy’s 401K. A vehicle that used to be a way for businesses and startups to raise cash for CAPEX has become the tail that wags the dog, smothering the American economy and government. And financialization and the stock market (shareholder value uber alles) have become an abomination, that is entirely at odds with fiscal sanity, responsible foreign policy and governance. Just this Friday, the stock market was rising again, despite lousy fundamentals and a dollar that is wilting.

Put simply, excessive leverage, financialization and Wall Street are dependent upon an ever-rising pool of private and public debt… essentially a Ponzi scheme. Therefore, Wall St, oligarchy, and private equity, at least in their present incarnation, must perish.

Nor does the fallout from catastrophic national debt and money printing – unlike America’s failed leadership – operate in a vacuum. People forget, Trump has clearly forgotten: The quid pro quo in allowing the U.S. to possess exorbitant privilege is the U.S. would be a reliable and responsible financial center and military force, the dollar would retain its worth as a storehouse of value… and the U.S., in turn, would enjoy all the benefits that accrue, like seemingly unlimited power, dollar hegemony, inflated financial markets (thanks to the petrodollar), and cheap financing.

But the U.S. hasn’t lived up to its side of the bargain: It’s trashed the dollar, deflated the dollar, run up obscene debt, its military hardware is grossly overpriced and defeated by China/Russia, via Iran. The rule of law that anchors the system is shredded, see Trump's attack on the ICC/ICJ and the revolving door bribes and pardons emanating from the White House. America’s ability to protect client states and allies is increasingly in question. Worse, a rogue POTUS has taken over, who is not only incompetent, myopically focused on self-enrichment, and is emotionally & mentally unstable, but is clearly willing to shakedown anyone and any nation for a buck.

The corrosive effects of all this… the $40 trillion in national debt; a burgeoning oligarchy with nothing but contempt for the U.S. government, democracy, and its people; and the transference of the nation’s credit line into the pockets of bankers, billionaires, multinationals, the oil & gas industry, and war contractors… is one of the greatest disasters to ever befall a nation.

In short, the United States is exactly what you get when insatiable greed, monopolies, rigged markets, a foreign government, and the Epstein class rules the nation: crony democracy is a ruse, entertainment, and a sideshow scam in a circus of lies.

Saturday, August 8, 2026

A Declaration of War

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

- Warren Buffett, In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning, NY Times

By Gregg Wall (8-8-2026)

Warren Buffett said it best, the billionaire class has been waging war against America and humanity… and winning… for a long, long time. As such, the American people, indeed humanity, have not just a right, but a responsibility, to do more than defend themselves but should go on a counter-offensive.

This war is not always fought in the conventional or traditional military sense… although if we examine the militarization of ICE, the American police & surveillance state, the world’s largest prison/slave labor industrial complex… military forces are used against the American people as well. But rather, this class warfare is often fought from a wide variety of asymmetrical fronts, most often economic, and by our employers, healthcare, via the corporate MSM and schools, and by our own government’s fiscal, monetary, and public policies. Note, the battle is largely one-sided. We essentially are under attack in our body, mind, and soul, continuously. It’s the necro economy. Resistance is futile or so the billionaire class would like us to believe.

Most lethal however are economic policies, our livelihoods and professions, and the economy itself. War is waged via data sets, spreadsheets, in AI, actuarial tables, the statistics forever recited to the public like GDP, growth, the number of jobs created (which are largely meaningless and do not measure economic wellbeing for the vast majority of the population). The war is waged by something as mundane as tax policy.

Let’s drill down, Our World in Data states that 37 million people have died fighting in wars, since 1800, excluding civilians killed and mortality from hunger and disease because of war. This places deaths from war at roughly 165,000 annually. By way of comparison, The Lancet Global Health places deaths from economic sanctions at 564,000. Not a shot fired in anger, but rather, the stranglehold the United States places upon economies around the globe, via trade embargos, freezing assets, cutting off healthcare, destroying the economy and livelihoods. See Cuba and Gaza by way of example. Those most often affected are brown, impoverished, and children. That’s 165,000 that die annually due to military conflict, versus 564,000 deaths caused by economic violence waged on nations because they do not bow down to United States diktats or surrender their land and natural resources to Western multinationals and oligarchs. For every person who dies by a bullet or bomb, 3.42 die from economic policy or economic sanctions. And that excludes the highly lethal and predatory domestic economy, economic policies, healthcare, and public policies that Americans face daily.

More close to home, what’s the difference between Mark Carney’s economic policies and Mr. Buffett’s open acknowledgement in the NY Times, that the wealthy are waging open warfare against humanity. Just today, Team Carney rang the bell because 75,000 jobs were created, but lacking from this data set was any indication as to how many of these jobs pay a living wage, what the government considers to be a living wage, how many of these jobs were gig, how many of those employed were underemployed. We do know approximately half the jobs were part time, with the other half being full time.

Moreover, Canadian and American citizens are conditioned to believe politicians have our best interests at heart, when nothing could be further from the truth. The political machinery and the corporate MSM wants us to love our political leaders (and loathe the opposition with equal energy) and project onto them our dreams, wishes, and desires (despite the fact that for the overwhelming majority living standards, real wages, and the purchasing power of the dollar are in decline). While the people Messrs. Carney and Trump truly serve… the aforementioned Warren Buffett and Company… grow richer, and richer.

Consider again, my proceeding point, that economic and energy policies, classrooms and the curriculum we are taught, our healthcare systems and the privatization of same, the conditioning and indoctrination that we are surrounded by… all can be and are collectively more deadly than standing armies.

American economic sanctions… that Five Eyes nations play an economic, strategic, and tactical role in implementing (see Canada) … are designed to push the public in a target nation, out of desperation and fear, to overthrow their very own heavily armed governments. These economic sanctions are often portrayed as a peaceful, positive way to deal with problematic regimes and push regime change. But as the numbers demonstrate by the Lancet, economic sanctions are anything but peaceful and are quite often most lethal and savage. Think of all the years, the West was told that Israel was in the right, fighting forces of terror against all odds, and think of the pictures and videos that exposed Israeli hasbara and lies on social media, since October 2023.

Think of the children murdered in Gaza, simply by withholding humanitarian aid and healthcare (under economic sanctions).

And the final point, how exactly do you measure an economy based upon a Mafia State, private equity theft, billionaire looting and crony contracts, catastrophic debt and deficits, financialization & Wall St (which often celebrates macro and micro trends that are damaging to the real economy and sound government), and colonialism and war crimes. We know the establishment metrics, GDP and growth, measure each dollar spent on the aforementioned, as contributing to GDP and growth, in the same manner a farmer grows an apple or an orange and sells it. No distinction. GDP and growth ignore completely immoral acts that often do tremendous harm to the economy, humanity, labor, and social cohesion. GDP and growth conveniently don’t subtract or eliminate monetary transactions betting on speculative derivative products, Wall St laying on bets that juice the price of gas and oil into the stratosphere. There are no GDP and growth deductions for the monetization and profiteering from endless wars, genocide, and violence, Epstein banking transactions, a private equity bust out, M&A, Wall St. bailouts and welfare for the rich… it’s all included.

So, as we can see, even the establishment’s preferred statistics and metrics of choice are a lie and deeply harmful to society, along with its economic policies. The public is told by the establishment’s mouthpiece, president, or PM… look GDP and growth are up, thanks to this war I manufactured, thanks to the nation’s credit line being robbed, thanks to the latest billionaire bailout, or currency manipulation… the public needs to accept this as prima facie evidence of economic success and move on. That’s the framing provided by the political duopoly and state run MSM. Except it’s not a success, it’s gaslighting, it’s fraud, and these metrics are false. Economic growth is highly disingenuous when we consider growth, gains in real GDP, most often translate into incredible wage and wealth inequality; and this “growth” transfers directly into the bank, corporate, and trading accounts of the kleptocracy, the oligarchy. These false gods, GDP and growth, particularly when they measure so much of what is wrong with the economy and are presently presented as the sine qua non of economic achievement, fail to measure: the erosion of democratic norms in exchange for oligarchy; the suppression of aggregate demand as financialization concentrates wealth into the hands of a predatory few. Aggregate or headline GDP and growth do not make a distinction between financialization, the real economy, and economic policies that spawn the breakdown of society. When leaders lean on GDP and growth -- while failing to acknowledge and ignoring flashing economic and societal warning signs -- these heads of state contribute to making divide and conquer so much easier to execute, and often deliver fascism, the rise of fear, hate, and scapegoating.

GDP and growth fail to acknowledge a burning and collapsing planet, and the economic and energy policies that gave rise to a planet in flames and underwater.