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Loving Our Debt-Serfdom: Our Neofeudal Status Quo
Loving Our Debt-Serfdom: Our Neofeudal Status Quo Democracy (i.e. political influence) and ownership of productive assets are the exclusive domains of the New Aristocracy. I have often used the words neoliberal, neocolonial and neofeudal to describe our socio-economic-political status quo. Here are my shorthand descriptions of each term: 1. Neoliberal: the commoditization / financialization of […]
Financialization and The Destruction of the Real Economy
Financialization and The Destruction of the Real Economy Strip an economy of capital, productive incentives, talent and yes, ethics, and what are we left with? An economy spiraling toward an inevitable collapse. Financialization is destroying the real economy, but few in power seem to notice or care. The reason why is painfully obvious: those in […]
What Is Real Wealth?
What Is Real Wealth? As for acquiring capital–the most important types of capital don’t require much money. What is real wealth? Money, right? Currency, gold, quatloos, you name it.Money is real wealth because you can use it to buy whatever you want. I would argue money in any form is only the means to acquire […]
Dear Jamie Dimon: Predict the Crash that Takes Down Your Produces-Nothing, Parasitic Bank and We’ll Listen to your Bitcoin “Prediction”
Dear Jamie Dimon: Predict the Crash that Takes Down Your Produces-Nothing, Parasitic Bank and We’ll Listen to your Bitcoin “Prediction” This is the begging-for-the-overthrow-of-a-corrupt-status-quo economy we have thanks to the Federal Reserve giving the J.P. Morgans and Jamie Dimons of the world the means to skim and scam the bottom 95%. Dear Jamie Dimon: quick […]
Housing Bubble Symmetry: Look Out Below
Housing Bubble Symmetry: Look Out Below Housing markets are one itsy-bitsy recession away from a collapse in domestic and foreign demand by marginal buyers. There are two attractive delusions that are ever-present in financial markets: One is this time it’s different, because of unique conditions that have never ever manifested before in the history of […]
On Repairing/Rebuilding 100,000+ Damaged Houses
On Repairing/Rebuilding 100,000+ Damaged Houses Almost lost in all the dollar estimates of property damage is the human loss, suffering and stress. I am not an expert in repairing flood damage, or in dealing with insurance companies, FEMA or all the other pieces that will go into homeowners getting the funding needed to repair or […]
The Real Reason Wages Have Stagnated: Our Economy is Optimized for Financialization
The Real Reason Wages Have Stagnated: Our Economy is Optimized for Financialization Labor’s share of the national income is in freefall as a direct result of the optimization of financialization. The Achilles Heel of our socio-economic system is the secular stagnation of earned income, i.e. wages and salaries. Stagnating wages undermine every aspect of our […]
The Insanity of Pushing Inflation Higher When Wages Can’t Rise
The Insanity of Pushing Inflation Higher When Wages Can’t Rise In an economy in which wages for 95% of households are stagnant for structural reasons, pushing inflation higher is destabilizing. The official policy goal of the Federal Reserve and other central banks is to generate 3% inflation annually. Put another way: the central banks want to […]
The Trouble with Asset Bubbles: If You Stop Pumping, They Pop
The Trouble with Asset Bubbles: If You Stop Pumping, They Pop The idea that authorities can massage their pumping to keep asset bubbles inflated at a permanently high plateau is currently being tested. The trouble with inflating asset bubbles is that you have to keep inflating them or they pop. Unfortunately for the bubble-blowing central […]
Why We’re Doomed: Stagnant Wages
Why We’re Doomed: Stagnant Wages The point is the present system cannot endure. Despite all the happy talk about “recovery” and higher growth, wages have gone nowhere since 2000–and for the bottom 20% of workers, they’ve gone nowhere since the 1970s. Gross domestic product (GDP) has risen smartly since 2000, but the share of GDP […]
Why Wages Have Lost Ground in the 21st Century
Why Wages Have Lost Ground in the 21st Century The problem with stagnant wages is our socio-economic system requires ever-higher incomes to function. One of the enduring mysteries for conventional economists is why wages aren’t rising for the bottom 95% even as unemployment is low and hiring remains robust. According to classical economics, the limited supply […]
Systemic Uncertainty, Meet Fragility
Systemic Uncertainty, Meet Fragility That’s the problem with fragility: everything looks fine on the surface until a crisis applies pressure. Then the whole rickety contraption collapses in a heap.. Life is inherently uncertain, but systems that were once considered certainties have increasingly become uncertain. Social Security is one example; recent polls reflect widespread doubts among Millennials […]
The 5 Steps to World Domination
The 5 Steps to World Domination You don’t need an army to achieve World Domination; all you need is enough cheap credit to buy up everything that generates the highest value and/or income. World Domination–it has a nice ring, doesn’t it? Here’s how to achieve it in 5 steps: 1. Turn everything into a commodity […]
Ideology as Addiction
Ideology as Addiction Solutions abound, but they aren’t one size fits all ideologies. It isn’t just coincidental that ideology shares so many dynamics with addiction. Though ideology is a faith-belief dynamic rather than a chemical process, both require constant reinforcement/renewal and both demand a painful withdrawal procedure of those who decide to free themselves of the […]
Did the Economy Just Stumble Off a Cliff?
Did the Economy Just Stumble Off a Cliff? The signs are everywhere for those willing to look: something has changed beneath the surface of complacent faith in permanent growth. This is more intuitive than quantitative, but my gut feeling is that the economy just stumbled off a cliff. Neither the cliff edge nor the fatal misstep […]
