Can Powell and Yellen Thread the Needle?

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Trying to disguise the US economy’s virulent case of stagflation by alternately increasing interest rates and printing multi-trillions of dollars of phony money seems to be a very difficult balancing act.  Lately it has resulted in a string of large banks failing as the depositors pull out their cash to find interest bearing government bonds.

Now I hear they’re talking again about minting some “trillion-dollar coins” to get around a battle with the Republican House leadership about balancing the budget.

Will Biden and company be able to blame the crash of the economy on the Republicans?  Well, it wouldn’t surprise me too much.  Do I care?  No, not really.  There doesn’t seem to be any limit to how much damage the Democrats do to this country without any noticeable consequences to their re-election chances.

But it is interesting to speculate on exactly when the economy may collapse catastrophically.  Banks collapsing, even somewhat large ones doesn’t seem to worry the Masters of the Universe.  Apparently, we only need five or fewer ludicrously large banks to handle all the corrupt financial operations needed to facilitate wealth being sucked out of the rest of the country and into the coffers of the obscenely rich.

So, if it’s not collapsing banks, what will signal the final chapter of the country’s death spiral?  I suspect it will occur when the last of the middle-class disappears into poverty.  After all that was always this county’s strength.  And in fact, all the way back to 5th century BC Athens a large flourishing middle class was the engine of a healthy democracy.  Now that we’re no longer a democracy it makes sense that the priorities of the aristocracy will sooner or later kill off the golden goose that created their wealth.

And when that happens, I expect the aristocracy to start reducing their ranks to make their shrinking rents from the serfs stretch a little farther.  That’s going to be a rude shock for the bugmen who have groveled and scraped to remain in the various concentric circles of the outer hive.  Being forced out of the hive as winter sets in will be truly sad.  But the death by freezing of drones is a fact of life.

Of course, it’s likely the House Republicans will fold before much damage is done and give Biden his trillions out of fear but I have an almost morbid fascination with guessing when the death blow will fall.  Maybe the day is close now when the rot to the commercial sector becomes so pervasive that even the major banks like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America just can’t make the math work any longer.

At that point will the “people” finally revolt and beyond the scope of even ballot harvesting norms could the Democrats be hurled out of power?  I guess it could happen.  At that point probably the ultra-rich will gather up their assets in the form of tons of gold and platinum ingots and fly off to New Zealand to ride out the cannibal zombie apocalypse and plan their return to a pristine continent swept clean by the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Well anyway, let’s just enjoy the spectacle of “experts” explaining how bank runs are really a sign of strength in the banking sector.  And someone please put Jim Cramer out of his misery.

Who Runs This Country?

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Of course, that title question is a joke.  Everyone knows who runs this country.  Just ask the people who thought they were protesting on January 6th.  The managerial class runs this country.  They control the federal bureaucracy, almost all of the private corporations, the non-profits, the media, the colleges and the schools.

Using the federal bureaucracy, they can crush any resistance regardless if the threat is a well-financed opposition party or a single citizen speaking his mind against tyrannical overreach.

I was reading an article that speculated that the Supreme Court was likely to rule against the long-established precedent that allowed federal agencies to essentially write laws by utilizing “expertise” to decide how a law allows them to regulate some aspect of life in America.

For instance, the EPA gets to decide that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.  The gas that is emitted by every living thing on earth is a threat to the planet that needs to be taxed, banned and demonized.  This ignores the fact that fire has been a human tool that produces light, heat and power for eons while producing a carbon dioxide as a necessary part of the combustion reaction.  It also ignores the fact that penalizing the use of fossil fuels is already bankrupting western countries and threatening the health and well-being of poorer individuals.

So, there is the chance that the Supreme Court could decide that Congress and the courts should be allowed to overrule unelected lawmakers in the federal bureaucracy when they decide to promulgate laws that no one voted on and most people don’t want.

But the first thing that came to my mind was that this will push the next Congress to add six more justices to the Supreme Court and in the meantime the agencies will just ignore whatever the Supreme Court says that they don’t like.

The Trump administration proved to me that the managerial class can and will game the system to resist any attempt by the common people to wrest power away from them.  It’s as simple as that.

Now that might sound both horribly pessimistic but I think the happenings of the last few administrations bears it out.  No outrage by anyone working for a federal agency has caused the least harm to that individual.  Even the one guy who was convicted of perjury during the Russia-gate scandal was reinstated and had his conviction reduced to a misdemeanor that didn’t even cause him to lose his law license.

And on the flipside every enemy of these bureaucrats has been put through a meat grinder where just waiting for a trial is made an ordeal that may include imprisonment in a dungeon with unbelievable abuse heaped on innocent Americans.

So, our enemies are immune from punishment for any and all offences and at the same time they can destroy the reputations, livelihoods and even lives of anyone who dares to challenge them.

I’d like to think that disgust at the tyrannical methods being used by this junta would eventually rally enough Americans to vote the Democrats out of office and allow the Republicans to defang the FBI, CIA, IRS and the other enforcers of the regime.  But I no longer think that likely.  The younger people in the country are mostly brain-washed to obey their masters.  And a huge chunk of the country is made up of people dependent on the federal government to continue a lifestyle that doesn’t include work.

I realize this is a pretty depressing post.  But I also think it’s necessary to face facts.  As far as any bright side, well, I guess the only advantage is you’re almost completely immune to horrible surprises.  You can basically see these things coming a mile away.  And alternatively, if anything goes unexpectedly right, you’re always pleasantly surprised.

I hope I haven’t ruined anyone’s week.  As I’ve been writing about lately it’s still possible to work around these odious people but expecting the feckless Republicans to beat them is laughable.  And America isn’t united in wanting them gone.  For the foreseeable future they own the country.