want elected governments to get out of their way - permanently," writes Pettifor. So they enable fascism. Musk was in a way predicted by Walter Benjamin
I wish this was much more widely read. It’s a phenomenon in most western “democracies”. Centrist parties (even those that see themselves as centre-left) do nothing to oppose the power and manipulation of the plutocrats which disappoints and then alienates those who have hitherto supported democratic rule, believing that now can change for the better. The failure of centrist governments to acknowledge problems or do anything about them drives those who feel powerless and put upon into voting for populist authoritarian politicians who acknowledge the problems and “promise” to do something about it. Noe evidence of misogyny lying or corruption matters if there is a prevailing view that things must change and mainstream politicians will not act.
“ By choosing JD Vance as his vice-presidential pick, Trump has made crystal clear his anti-globalisation, anti-establishment, anti-strong dollar, anti-democracy, anti-abortion and pro-Wall St. credentials.”
If one understands that Vance’s own personal alliances are with billionaire Peter Thiel, who labels himself as an anarcho capitalist, yet does not believe in democracy (he’s made statements directly to that effect), nor in marketplaces, it’s quite clear what the correct interpretation of all the sentiments really is.
These credentials are not focused on the liberation of the common man at all, but as plutocratic liberation from the constraints of the public’s sovereign curbs on their exploitation and wealth consolidation. This observation is hardly new. It’s been consistent down the centuries. Aristocracy cries for liberation either from tyrannical monarch or from the fetters a society places on them to prevent them from killing civilization.
—
Billionaires are again stepping into prominent positions in the Trump’s next administration, and they will, of course use that position to line their own pockets, but it will be very interesting to see the natural fault lines in this coalition of negatives emerge.
Two are quite evident.
The first would be between Elon Musk, who with his association with Peter Thiel, and his potential influence in the Trump White House runs aground of Bezos’ own interest in aerospace.
The second, conflict between the potential treasury, secretary, and other billionaire families, such as the Waltons.
Their aligned interests are only found in the creation of a permanent underclass.
—
Overall, the main themes of the new American Epoch are:
The GOP as the overt avatar of plutocracy.
GOP control of all branches of government they have control of the legislature of the executive, the federal courts, and they are working on gaining influence in the military, and of course they largely own or have caponized commercial media. That said the observation here is that the dog has finally caught the car. They have absolute control, and therefore it should be quite easy and I will emphasize explicitly important to underline going forward, they are responsible for everything happening.
They are explicitly and publicly in total control of US politics, law and the economy.
Christo fascism will also be in play. There will be, of course, a sort of “real” Christianity and heretical faiths.
Thanks Ann for your usual "higher altitude" analysis above the obscuring trenches of American politics. Two glaring features of the election which Dems don't explain very well. Exit polling shows those who voted for Trump picked the economy as their main complaint against Biden - a huge gap between the Krugman's, Summers and professional economists and "the people's experience of day to day living costs." Never closed; I was going to write to Alan Lichtman whose famous "tests" for winning the Presidency have done very well: because the economy was good according to him, it was in the column favoring incumbency - Harris. However, given what I just wrote about the gap between the famous quants and the Dem mainstreams fixation on not so high inflation and very, historically low unemployment - how could any formal equation find its way to all the disatisfaction on Main Street. It reminded me, Lichtman work did, of LTCM and the Nobels and quants betting on a direction of Russian bonds at the end of the 1990's. The best minds in mathematical econometric models couldn't cope with the markets uncooperative unruliness.
The second strange feature of the election was the Democratic bet that Latino immigration would register favorably with them at the ballot box - reward them for nearly open southern borders and the american service sector not too unhappy with all that new desperate labor - undocumented. How in the hell then did Trumpget 42% of the Hispanic vote and 47% of the Hispanic men according to Ruy Teixeira at substack "the Liberal Patriot" who test for being a true Dem I don't pass...? Ungrateful Latinos or a major cultural error on the Dems part, underestimating Latino cultural and religious conservatism? Culture issues over desparate economics of the working class?
Yeah, very apt observations. I think it’s fair to say that metrics that macro Economist care about have very little relevance to whether or not majority of the population is above or below water with respect their cost of living.
Values like CPI are garbage. There are mathematical underpinning faulty with respect to the nature of the composite average. Blair Fix wrote a proper rubbishing of CPI is the economic metric of any value. The more I’ve looked at GDP the more I am dissatisfied that the single number is more than a representation of the prospects of the financial sector. And in particular for the US labors, statistics have been largely made sensible since they were redefined in the 90s. Employment is defined is an absurdity.
But more specifically, having spoken with individuals who look into the topic of cost of living it’s very evident to them that CPI is completely nonsensical. The topic of cost-of-living is actually quite complicated. Even heterodox economists whack the analytical sophistication to even approach this topic. It’s rather costly to maintain a proper cost of living. I say there’s only because I know somebody who undertook that analysis, but for lack of funding municipalities, I could have very good information understanding which sectors of their territories are above or below water economically.
Those metrics, of course, are not interesting to the financial sector, so no money will be invested in them.
I’ve long thought that the way the economy is dissected, discussed and presented to the non-economist public is almost completely divorced from the grocery store, body shop reality of most of us. It’s also generally dismissive of the very real emotions we feel when there’s not enough money/a financial emergency/“class” discrimination. I totally get the eff you attitude of many, and the ballot box is the vehicle for expressing frustration.
Steve Keen is brilliant and correct in his analysis of money and the economy. However, he's short and not very innovative with policy. People want and need something that hits them right in the pocket book and the policies I've tried to get him to advocate for years starngely go unheeded. As all new money is created with accounting (equal debits and credits that sum to zero) why not implement a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale where the retailer opts into giving the consumer a 50% discount on everything (credit) and the monetary authority rebates (debits) every cent of the discount back to the merchant making them whole on their entire price. However, the consumer (everybody) gets a 100% increase in their purchasing power, in other words $5k of earnings enbles you to purchase $10k of goods and services. This single policy also ends inflation by (astonishingly) implementing beneficial price and asset deflation. Holy economic orthodoxy destroyer! Paired with my other policy of a 50% gift of interest to the bank/debt jubilee to the borrower enables the consumer to purchase a $500k house for $250k at retail sale and then only incur $125k of debt at point of loan signing. If you can show me a better way to both reduce private debt and benefit both the indivual and commercial agent than these two policies I'm all on board.
I’ve generally works from the premise of demurrage tax. The short form is such a tax puts a time limit on the store of value of a currency. Think of a coupon, or loyalty points, which expire.
Classically such forms of currency provide a monetary system that’s immune from deflationary spirals because there’s no point in holding onto the money for too long. This erases the justification for inflation, which I generally treat as a wealth transfer. It’s just a different kind of rentier tribute.
The other consequence, isn’t automatic culling of the money supply, that does not affect people who are actively using their money for purchases, but does place an imperative to use it lended or lose value. Like a bunch of bananas, you either eat them make banana bread throw them in the compost. The imperative here is that individuals who had money with lend at zero or even negative interest rates simply to defray the tax burden. The central bank would be out of the business of fixing interest rates, I could focus instead on the appropriate provision of money to the economy.
There are some side issues of people hoarding property, but that can also be addressed with appropriate measures.
The idea is a monetary system that is not driven by interest or inflation has a lot of speculative air taken from its economy. a steep interest charge is an incentive for desperate speculative behavior.
At the bottom of the MAGA cult is long term grievance at the economic neglect/abuse by both parties since the 1970’s. That must end and the way to do that is to change the monetary paradigm with policies like a 50% Discount to the consumer at retail sale all of which discount is rebated back to the merchant granting it to the consumer. This mathematically doubles everyone’s purchasing power (you get $100 worth of grocries for $50) while slaying inflation by implementing beneficial price deflation. Add to this a gift to the banks of 50% of the interest on loans in return for a 50% reduction in principal and a $500k house is reduced to $250k at retail and $125k at point of loan signing. Likewise a $60k EV becomes $15k at loan signing. Finally, the true benefit of the new monetary paradigm of Gifting (an aspect of the natural philosophical concept of grace as in love in action which is the universally acknowledged highest spiritual value and experience) isn’t even an economic effect. Its the transformation of participating in the everyday universally participated in points of the economic process (retail sale & point of loan signing) from aggravating and painful experiences into the greatest opportunity to experience gratitude for a gift….since meditation and prayer. Visualize it.
Perhaps it's worth mentioning that several surveys showed that Trump's MAGA base was, surprisingly, amongst middle-income earners, including mid-level professionals. Vance's appeal to the "blue collar" workers while also retaining plutocrat support was, therefore, quite a good strategic move.
Why did middle income earners support Trump? A couple of stats from the US Debt Clock seem to sum it up. Since 2000, the US median wage has risen by 25%. In the same period the median cost of housing, healthcare, and education have all risen by 250-300%; the median cost of a new car rose 170%.
US middle-income earners can no longer afford a middle-class lifestyle. If you stiff the middle classes, the entire country declines and political unrest follows. Witness Trump, but also witness a weak and disunited Labour Party wining the 2024 election after 14 years of Tory austerity, dishonesty, and neglect. The UK has mitigated this effect to date by massively inflating house prices, though this is now its own problem. As Ann has pointed out on numerous occasions, the housing crisis is not a shortage of housing per se, it's a shortage of affordable housing in the face of ever declining living standards.
The Democrat's commitment was, in effect, to continuing decline and hollowing out of the US economy in order to inflate the wealth of plutocrats. This is not a deep state conspiracy, it's just the well-known long-term effects of liberal economics. Look, for example, at the Encyclopedia Britannica's summary of 19th century liberalism/laissez faire as leading to catastrophic levels of "social inequality, political corruption, and economic instability": https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberalism/Liberalism-in-the-19th-century#ref237359
The Democrats never took the complaints of the middle classes seriously. As a result, they lost both the White House and the Congress. There will be no impeachments in this administration and no interference from the West Wing, the Congress, or the SCOTUS.
With the supposed appointment of Musk and Vivek, I have to wonder what the hell is going to happen to nations with Dollar denominated debt, and all this chaos.
Because it looks like we’re going to get that nice round of inflation and a depression. History is rhyming. And I wonder what’s going to happen to these countries with denominated debt to service, win the world’s largest economy, decides to OD on steroids, ketamine crack, and then shoot itself in the foot.
I'm four square for science, i.e. analysis of problems, but we're way past due to analyze for and implement solutions, think paradigm change which intellectual phenomenon is the successful integration of opposites, and hence is synonymous with Wisdom.
Money and run away speculation are the deepest problems in economics. Integrate Monetary Gifting into the present Debt Only based money system, and realize that "free" market theoretics is a complete misnomer for the actual reality that is alternately goosed and strangled dominating financial chaos...and because there is no such thing in the human universe as total freedom figure out the known and enforcable barriers between which freedom with ethics and good sense is possible. Thats what I would call a Wisdomics-Gracenomics.
"Plutocrats ..
want elected governments to get out of their way - permanently," writes Pettifor. So they enable fascism. Musk was in a way predicted by Walter Benjamin
I wish this was much more widely read. It’s a phenomenon in most western “democracies”. Centrist parties (even those that see themselves as centre-left) do nothing to oppose the power and manipulation of the plutocrats which disappoints and then alienates those who have hitherto supported democratic rule, believing that now can change for the better. The failure of centrist governments to acknowledge problems or do anything about them drives those who feel powerless and put upon into voting for populist authoritarian politicians who acknowledge the problems and “promise” to do something about it. Noe evidence of misogyny lying or corruption matters if there is a prevailing view that things must change and mainstream politicians will not act.
“ By choosing JD Vance as his vice-presidential pick, Trump has made crystal clear his anti-globalisation, anti-establishment, anti-strong dollar, anti-democracy, anti-abortion and pro-Wall St. credentials.”
If one understands that Vance’s own personal alliances are with billionaire Peter Thiel, who labels himself as an anarcho capitalist, yet does not believe in democracy (he’s made statements directly to that effect), nor in marketplaces, it’s quite clear what the correct interpretation of all the sentiments really is.
These credentials are not focused on the liberation of the common man at all, but as plutocratic liberation from the constraints of the public’s sovereign curbs on their exploitation and wealth consolidation. This observation is hardly new. It’s been consistent down the centuries. Aristocracy cries for liberation either from tyrannical monarch or from the fetters a society places on them to prevent them from killing civilization.
—
Billionaires are again stepping into prominent positions in the Trump’s next administration, and they will, of course use that position to line their own pockets, but it will be very interesting to see the natural fault lines in this coalition of negatives emerge.
Two are quite evident.
The first would be between Elon Musk, who with his association with Peter Thiel, and his potential influence in the Trump White House runs aground of Bezos’ own interest in aerospace.
The second, conflict between the potential treasury, secretary, and other billionaire families, such as the Waltons.
Their aligned interests are only found in the creation of a permanent underclass.
—
Overall, the main themes of the new American Epoch are:
The GOP as the overt avatar of plutocracy.
GOP control of all branches of government they have control of the legislature of the executive, the federal courts, and they are working on gaining influence in the military, and of course they largely own or have caponized commercial media. That said the observation here is that the dog has finally caught the car. They have absolute control, and therefore it should be quite easy and I will emphasize explicitly important to underline going forward, they are responsible for everything happening.
They are explicitly and publicly in total control of US politics, law and the economy.
Christo fascism will also be in play. There will be, of course, a sort of “real” Christianity and heretical faiths.
Thanks Ann for your usual "higher altitude" analysis above the obscuring trenches of American politics. Two glaring features of the election which Dems don't explain very well. Exit polling shows those who voted for Trump picked the economy as their main complaint against Biden - a huge gap between the Krugman's, Summers and professional economists and "the people's experience of day to day living costs." Never closed; I was going to write to Alan Lichtman whose famous "tests" for winning the Presidency have done very well: because the economy was good according to him, it was in the column favoring incumbency - Harris. However, given what I just wrote about the gap between the famous quants and the Dem mainstreams fixation on not so high inflation and very, historically low unemployment - how could any formal equation find its way to all the disatisfaction on Main Street. It reminded me, Lichtman work did, of LTCM and the Nobels and quants betting on a direction of Russian bonds at the end of the 1990's. The best minds in mathematical econometric models couldn't cope with the markets uncooperative unruliness.
The second strange feature of the election was the Democratic bet that Latino immigration would register favorably with them at the ballot box - reward them for nearly open southern borders and the american service sector not too unhappy with all that new desperate labor - undocumented. How in the hell then did Trumpget 42% of the Hispanic vote and 47% of the Hispanic men according to Ruy Teixeira at substack "the Liberal Patriot" who test for being a true Dem I don't pass...? Ungrateful Latinos or a major cultural error on the Dems part, underestimating Latino cultural and religious conservatism? Culture issues over desparate economics of the working class?
Yeah, very apt observations. I think it’s fair to say that metrics that macro Economist care about have very little relevance to whether or not majority of the population is above or below water with respect their cost of living.
Values like CPI are garbage. There are mathematical underpinning faulty with respect to the nature of the composite average. Blair Fix wrote a proper rubbishing of CPI is the economic metric of any value. The more I’ve looked at GDP the more I am dissatisfied that the single number is more than a representation of the prospects of the financial sector. And in particular for the US labors, statistics have been largely made sensible since they were redefined in the 90s. Employment is defined is an absurdity.
But more specifically, having spoken with individuals who look into the topic of cost of living it’s very evident to them that CPI is completely nonsensical. The topic of cost-of-living is actually quite complicated. Even heterodox economists whack the analytical sophistication to even approach this topic. It’s rather costly to maintain a proper cost of living. I say there’s only because I know somebody who undertook that analysis, but for lack of funding municipalities, I could have very good information understanding which sectors of their territories are above or below water economically.
Those metrics, of course, are not interesting to the financial sector, so no money will be invested in them.
I’ve long thought that the way the economy is dissected, discussed and presented to the non-economist public is almost completely divorced from the grocery store, body shop reality of most of us. It’s also generally dismissive of the very real emotions we feel when there’s not enough money/a financial emergency/“class” discrimination. I totally get the eff you attitude of many, and the ballot box is the vehicle for expressing frustration.
Unfortunately, the method leaves much to be desired.
Steve Keen is brilliant and correct in his analysis of money and the economy. However, he's short and not very innovative with policy. People want and need something that hits them right in the pocket book and the policies I've tried to get him to advocate for years starngely go unheeded. As all new money is created with accounting (equal debits and credits that sum to zero) why not implement a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale where the retailer opts into giving the consumer a 50% discount on everything (credit) and the monetary authority rebates (debits) every cent of the discount back to the merchant making them whole on their entire price. However, the consumer (everybody) gets a 100% increase in their purchasing power, in other words $5k of earnings enbles you to purchase $10k of goods and services. This single policy also ends inflation by (astonishingly) implementing beneficial price and asset deflation. Holy economic orthodoxy destroyer! Paired with my other policy of a 50% gift of interest to the bank/debt jubilee to the borrower enables the consumer to purchase a $500k house for $250k at retail sale and then only incur $125k of debt at point of loan signing. If you can show me a better way to both reduce private debt and benefit both the indivual and commercial agent than these two policies I'm all on board.
I’ve generally works from the premise of demurrage tax. The short form is such a tax puts a time limit on the store of value of a currency. Think of a coupon, or loyalty points, which expire.
Classically such forms of currency provide a monetary system that’s immune from deflationary spirals because there’s no point in holding onto the money for too long. This erases the justification for inflation, which I generally treat as a wealth transfer. It’s just a different kind of rentier tribute.
The other consequence, isn’t automatic culling of the money supply, that does not affect people who are actively using their money for purchases, but does place an imperative to use it lended or lose value. Like a bunch of bananas, you either eat them make banana bread throw them in the compost. The imperative here is that individuals who had money with lend at zero or even negative interest rates simply to defray the tax burden. The central bank would be out of the business of fixing interest rates, I could focus instead on the appropriate provision of money to the economy.
There are some side issues of people hoarding property, but that can also be addressed with appropriate measures.
The idea is a monetary system that is not driven by interest or inflation has a lot of speculative air taken from its economy. a steep interest charge is an incentive for desperate speculative behavior.
At the bottom of the MAGA cult is long term grievance at the economic neglect/abuse by both parties since the 1970’s. That must end and the way to do that is to change the monetary paradigm with policies like a 50% Discount to the consumer at retail sale all of which discount is rebated back to the merchant granting it to the consumer. This mathematically doubles everyone’s purchasing power (you get $100 worth of grocries for $50) while slaying inflation by implementing beneficial price deflation. Add to this a gift to the banks of 50% of the interest on loans in return for a 50% reduction in principal and a $500k house is reduced to $250k at retail and $125k at point of loan signing. Likewise a $60k EV becomes $15k at loan signing. Finally, the true benefit of the new monetary paradigm of Gifting (an aspect of the natural philosophical concept of grace as in love in action which is the universally acknowledged highest spiritual value and experience) isn’t even an economic effect. Its the transformation of participating in the everyday universally participated in points of the economic process (retail sale & point of loan signing) from aggravating and painful experiences into the greatest opportunity to experience gratitude for a gift….since meditation and prayer. Visualize it.
Perhaps it's worth mentioning that several surveys showed that Trump's MAGA base was, surprisingly, amongst middle-income earners, including mid-level professionals. Vance's appeal to the "blue collar" workers while also retaining plutocrat support was, therefore, quite a good strategic move.
Why did middle income earners support Trump? A couple of stats from the US Debt Clock seem to sum it up. Since 2000, the US median wage has risen by 25%. In the same period the median cost of housing, healthcare, and education have all risen by 250-300%; the median cost of a new car rose 170%.
US middle-income earners can no longer afford a middle-class lifestyle. If you stiff the middle classes, the entire country declines and political unrest follows. Witness Trump, but also witness a weak and disunited Labour Party wining the 2024 election after 14 years of Tory austerity, dishonesty, and neglect. The UK has mitigated this effect to date by massively inflating house prices, though this is now its own problem. As Ann has pointed out on numerous occasions, the housing crisis is not a shortage of housing per se, it's a shortage of affordable housing in the face of ever declining living standards.
If you disrupt the lives of blue collar workers they'll vote for a fascist. Everyone should read Dr Karen Stenner's insightful essay on this: https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/2020/11/01/authoritarianism/
The Democrat's commitment was, in effect, to continuing decline and hollowing out of the US economy in order to inflate the wealth of plutocrats. This is not a deep state conspiracy, it's just the well-known long-term effects of liberal economics. Look, for example, at the Encyclopedia Britannica's summary of 19th century liberalism/laissez faire as leading to catastrophic levels of "social inequality, political corruption, and economic instability": https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberalism/Liberalism-in-the-19th-century#ref237359
The Democrats never took the complaints of the middle classes seriously. As a result, they lost both the White House and the Congress. There will be no impeachments in this administration and no interference from the West Wing, the Congress, or the SCOTUS.
Thank you for these insights…excellent.
With the supposed appointment of Musk and Vivek, I have to wonder what the hell is going to happen to nations with Dollar denominated debt, and all this chaos.
Because it looks like we’re going to get that nice round of inflation and a depression. History is rhyming. And I wonder what’s going to happen to these countries with denominated debt to service, win the world’s largest economy, decides to OD on steroids, ketamine crack, and then shoot itself in the foot.
I'm four square for science, i.e. analysis of problems, but we're way past due to analyze for and implement solutions, think paradigm change which intellectual phenomenon is the successful integration of opposites, and hence is synonymous with Wisdom.
Money and run away speculation are the deepest problems in economics. Integrate Monetary Gifting into the present Debt Only based money system, and realize that "free" market theoretics is a complete misnomer for the actual reality that is alternately goosed and strangled dominating financial chaos...and because there is no such thing in the human universe as total freedom figure out the known and enforcable barriers between which freedom with ethics and good sense is possible. Thats what I would call a Wisdomics-Gracenomics.