In 2019, prior to the Black Swan event of COVID-19 and the subsequent market crashes globally, the GINI Coefficient, or the Lorenz Curve had reached extremes not seen since the late 1920s in the United States. In March, as the markets were crashing with unemployment making historic spikes, the big question was, how long will this down move last and what kind of ‘recovery’ can we expect? One HUGE difference between 1929 and 2020 is that there was no Federal Reserve intervention in the late 1920s and 1930s. In today’s modern economy, one dominated by a corporate plutocracy that has full ownership of the United States government…immediate and critical resuscitation was required.
The Fed To The Rescue: Ready, Shoot, Aim
Enter the Federal Reserve. Riding a white horse, the Fed unleased a torrent of trillions of dollars of cash in order to prop up the financial markets….including their “Unlimited Bond Buying Program!” From the literal date that the Fed announced this program, US Equity markets have been on an historic tear to the upside…now accumulating one of the fastest and most mind-boggling rallies since we have had equity markets. So, there was talk of a “V-shaped” recovery, an “L-shaped” recovery or a “W-shaped” recovery…but what was NOT discussed is what has occurred…a “K-shaped” recovery.
In a K-shaped recovery, the richest part of the population sees their wealth go exponentially higher, while the people at the bottom get poorer and more destitute. In America, over 20% of all households are now food insecure. Everywhere, from major cities to rural areas, we have food lines stretching for miles as people line up to get food for their families. During this same time, America’s top one percent have become over $600 billion dollars richer!
The parallels between the United States economy today and late 18th century France are alarming to say the least. Not only is the cupboard bare, as US outstanding debt climbs to insanely high levels, now sitting at a staggeringly high $27 trillion dollars. America has added over $6 trillion dollars in debt in just the past two years and basically ALL of that debt has gone to the top one percent of the country.
Ubiquitous Addiction
The real problem is that this debt addiction is not limited to the USA. Governments around the world have been opening up the magic cash drawer and pumping trillions and trillions of dollars into their sinking economies, resulting in a flash-point that now FAR EXCEEDS the excesses seen in late 2019. The world’s richest population has become grossly opulent while the working class plebeians are sitting for hours in food lines. Global debt is now climbing well above $250 Trillion dollars and the debt-to-GDP ratio is setting new all-time highs.
Now, consider the fact that this ocean of debt is being floated by world banks and central banks in the form of derivatives. The derivatives markets are estimated to be anywhere from 5-6 times that of the current global debt outstanding….so, somewhere well above a Quadrillion dollars. That is a one and fifteen zeroes tacked on. There is no lender of last resort and the banking industry is sitting on a virtual time bomb just waiting to explode. There is no amount of currency devaluation, no amount of sleight of hand or magic money drawers that can rescue the banking industry from this massive debt addiction.
If you are white working class, all you know is heartache, and the ability create wealth has been decimated in the past five decades. If you are black, brown, Latino or native…you have NEVER had the opportunity to build any wealth as you have been subjected to red-lining, shit education, shit health care, food deserts and shitty minimum wage jobs. In America today, 400 people own more wealth than the bottom 150 million citizens. And this was 2019 dollars, the profligate raping of the COVID economy has only made these extremes even more pervasive.
There's no way out of here, when you come in you're in for good
The rich are raiding the hen house. They don’t pay taxes. They do not contribute to society, and they have sank the entire global economy in a planet of unpayable debt that ultimately will consume everything in its path. The general population is no longer “Fat, dumb and happy,” fat and dumb, yes…but add to this the reality that they no longer participate in the wealth of the country. How long can this be sustained? How long until the guillotine blades are sharpened?
The political scene around the world has begun to abandon Western liberal-democracy as the fleecing of the world’s population has led to more and more emotional distress, which in turn leads to a sheep-like affinity for authoritarian figures. South America, Eastern Europe and now the United States have moved, or are moving, toward full-fledged dictatorships. They thrive in division and distraction. The current Vichy-like Republican party has become completely and totally morally and intellectually bankrupt. It is better to “live on your knees than die on your feet.” Once the “party of ideas,” the current GOP could not even muster a platform in 2020. The platform is, bow down to the Dear Leader, undying support for an authoritarian leader. A “leader” who has the emotional maturity of an eight-year-old, is intellectually lazy and morally decrepit.
Dominionism and the End of US Liberty
Last week, Michelle Obama gave the warning: ‘If You Think Things Can’t Get Worse, They Will.’ If you think that is just political hyperbole, the you are NOT paying attention. We have an autocrat that has coddled and kissed the asses of the world’s most dangerous dictators. A man who slept with a copy of Adolf Hitler’s “My New Order” speeches next to his bedside. And a cabinet of corrupt theocrats that have spent the last seven decades plotting for a takeover of the US government, in order to form their theocratic doctrine and thrust it upon the nation.
If you are not familiar with the Council for National Policy, you best get acquainted with it fast. Kelly Anne Conway, Bill Bar, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, Betsy DeVos and countless others in this Vichy regime are “Dominionists,” a radical theocratic ideology that wants to build an America in ‘their’ image. If the populace is weakened enough from within, they may be able to succeed in finally taking over the government of the United States and turning it into their polluted and hypocritical world view of Christianity. Look no further than Jerry Falwell’s pool boy to see how that will work out.
This inflection point is identical to the Great Depression and the resulting political outcomes for Europe versus America. Europe chose dictatorship and World War, America chose to empower the working class and to begin to create wealth for the majority of the country. The sad reality is that it took America getting into WWII before the pendulum started to swing back toward the working class and allowing them to participate in the nation’s wealth building.
Author Kurt Anderson, in his book: Evil Geniuses, The Unmaking of America: A Recent History lays out the history of how the ‘market class’ has taken over the economy and made it work for ‘them,’ all while the working class of the country has been pushed further and further into lives of desperation. Lives where a half million people live on the streets, lives where there is no health care, lives where insecurity is the norm. The plutocracy has built a system of wealth transfer that has allowed them to create a level of inequality that rivals France in the late 18th century.
We are heading toward an American Revolution, one that most likely will not be solved by political means. While we may move toward a more egalitarian political environment, the strangle-hold that the plutocracy has on the country will not go quietly. COVID has exposed how fucked up this situation truly is. Witness the absolute and totally FUBAR response to COVID in this country…one that pressed the working class to “get back to work” and “Re-open America” without ever actually addressing the actual health care crisis. Layered on top is the call to “open the schools” to “get the economy going” again. Putting America’s children, teachers, administrators, and families in harms way…all to serve the plutocracy and the ravenous hunger for more and more wealth.
As George Carlin famously said: “They don’t give a fuck about you.”
“They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table to figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it.”
While the plutocrats celebrate the “new highs” on Wall Street, the rest of the country is suffering through the worst economic crisis in a century. Real wages have risen 2-3 percent for the working class in the last fifty years…while the ‘owners’ of the working class have seen their share of the wealth increase by 300-400 percent.
Economy for the One Percent: Unprecedented Global Wealth Disparity. The Richest 1% have More Wealth than the Rest of the World Combined.
The coming class war will make late 18th century France look like a picnic. If you think civil unrest sparked by the masses speaking up to the non-stop murdering of black bodies by police is bad, strap yourself in. We need to stay in the streets, there needs to be organized labor movements that have the power to shut down the economy and choke the plutocrats at the jugular. Teachers need to organize a massive strike against the government until it stops gaslighting the reality of the pandemic. In a gig economy, getting a mass shutdown will be more difficult…but with the use of social media there is the opportunity for the working class to stand up to the plutocracy and stiff arm them to produce some social benefit. If not, “Off with their heads.” The great societal reckoning is coming. Bastille Day, American style.