After decades of denial, the mainstream has finally conceded that rising income and wealth inequality is a problem–not just economically, but politically, for as we all know wealth buys political influence/favors, and as we’ll see below, the federal government enables…
Everyone knows the middle class is fading fast. I’ve covered this issue in depth for years, for example: Honey, I Shrunk the Middle Class: Perhaps 1/3 of Households Qualify (December 28, 2015) and What Does It Take To Be Middle…
Globalization (a.k.a. “free” trade) has become an election issue for two reasons: many voters blame “free” trade with China and other nations for job losses in the U.S. and rising income inequality as globalization’s “winners” in the U.S. outpace its…
The basic idea of a balance sheet recession (attributed to Richard Koo) has been well-publicized: when the liability (debt) side of household and business ledgers reach danger heights, stakeholders respond by reducing debt and increasing savings rather than increasing spending…
If we define Christmas as consumer spending going up while earnings are going down, 2015 will be the last Christmas in America for a long time to come. In broad brush, Christmas (along with all other consumer spending) has been…
Consider this clipping from the August 1932 San Francisco Chronicle newspaper: “Reduction of salaries of municipal employees and limitation of city positions to only one member of a household will be sought by (Supervisor) Adolph Uhl in two amendments to…
The Status Quo would have us believe that America and its Empire are one entity. This is handy for those with Imperial designs but it is false: America could be untangled from its Empire, and many of us believe it…
The all-powerful Federal Reserve is a mere minion of the stock market, a kitten absurdly claiming in public to be a tiger. If the market threatens to drop, the Fed quickly prostrates itself and does the bidding of its Lord…
Why is wealth/income inequality soaring? The easy answer is of course the infinite greed of Wall Street fat-cats and the politicos they buy/own. But greed can’t be the only factor, for greed is hardly unknown in the bottom 90%. The…
Disagreement is part of discourse, and pursuing differing views of the best way forward is the heart of democracy. Disagreement is abundant, democracy is scarce, despite claims to the contrary. If you think you can surgically extract Empire from the…
A rising tide raises all boats, from rowboats to yachts–this is the narrative of “prosperity.” A rising tide is also the political cover for rising inequality: if the guy in the rowboat makes $100 more a month, he feels like…
With authentic growth scarce, there’s no other way to reap huge profits but cannibalism. When people say “capitalism has failed” or “capitalism has succeeded,” we have to ask: what type of capitalism do you mean? Authentic capitalism, in which capital…
The nation is wallowing self-piteously in a fetid trough of denial and adolescent rage/magical thinking now that the nation’s bogus, debt-based “prosperity” has crashed and cannot be restored. If you type Deep State into the custom search window in the…
This erosion of opportunities to complete life’s stages and core dramas is rarely recognized, much less addressed. The consequences of economic stagnation are not limited to finance: stagnation is causing a social depression. We can best understand this social depression…
Real political representation must be bought, just like everything else in a market economy. Mike Swanson (Wall Street Window) and I were discussing the difference between the 1% who earn $360,000 annually and up and those in the Oligarchy class–the…