Not Doing, But Consuming

The irony: the more we consume, the emptier we are.

One of the most difficult lessons to learn in life, because it is counterintuitive, is that if some is good, more may well be worse, even much worse. The whole of the American consumer advertising industry is dedicated to helping us forget that lesson, if we were ever smart enough to learn it.

What You're Worth

 

How the Ruthless Rich Underestimated their Idiot

“In ditching democracy for autocracy, (the billionaires) underestimated the autocrat. If you’ve created a trillion-dollar business, you might naturally think of Trump the serial bankrupt as merely a cartoon capitalist. You can recognize, and bow down to, Trump’s political genius while imagining that it is merely an exercise in branding, a big Trump sign placed over the door of a tower that’s actually owned by you and your confreres. Since everything else about Trump is an act, you can assume that he doesn’t really believe that he alone can will into existence a radically reshaped American capitalism. Surely he does not imagine that a single crude weapon — a blunderbuss of tariffs on all imports — will undo the effects of decades of economic globalization?

“But he does. He has been absolutely consistent over nearly five decades in his conviction that American capitalism is an ideal system that will work perfectly once there is a leader strong enough to stop foreigners from rigging it. That leader, of course, is his indispensable self. America’s destiny will unfold from his instincts and impulses, so long as they are unchecked by democratic processes or the petty rationalism of evidence-based decision-making.

“If capitalism is to be made personal, it would be a good idea to begin by understanding the person who is going to embody it. There is a reason Western capitalism ditched absolute monarchy: personal rule is rule by whim, prejudice, grudge, and tantrum. There are always opportunists who make money from chaos, and they will batten on the spoils of Trump’s bedlam. But capitalism as a system abhors uncertainty. Its beneficiaries are now ruefully remembering, far too late, that science, intellectual freedom, international cooperation, and social stability create wealth — and that giving untrammeled power to an autocrat bent on obliterating all of those things is a very efficient way to squander it.”

— Fintan O’Toole, the New York Review of Books

Wheels in the Night

As George and I finished our predawn walk this morning, we saw a homeless man wobbling by on a bicycle, burdened by the inevitable backpack, his lonely light probing the darkness.

Impoverished by Wealth

Americans seem to assume that the alternative to materialism is poverty. Ironic, because it’s clear to me that the result of materialism is emotional and mental impoverishment. 

The alternative to materialism is an indifference to wealth that provides a relative immunity to greed.

Like Water in a Sahara of Student Debt

I graduated from state university in 1977 with a student loan debt of slightly less than $500. Of course, that was when we all agreed that it was useful, even imperative, for members of an advanced, civilized society to have easy access to higher education.

That was before we decided to chuck all that and just let predatory Wall Street banks make a lifelong meal out of American students.

So why does the Washington Post Editorial Board choose to IGNORE that last point? I think you know.

The Post whines about Biden's student debt relief. You know what really takes money from that "broad tax base" that the Washington Post Editorial Board has suddenly discovered? The military-industrial complex squandering $1.7 trillion on some lame fighter jet.

Student debt relief, on the other hand, provides a cascade of social benefits both immediate and long-term. Do you think any of those people who didn’t go to college sell goods and services that those whose debt has been eased will now, for the first time, be able to AFFORD?

I presume, btw, that the Editorial Board includes a walrus and a carpenter.

I Call It 'Kleptocapitalism'

Whatever the “free market” economic theories, it’s clear that the de facto function of American corporate kleptocapitalism is to collude to make basic goods EVER MORE EXPENSIVE for ordinary citizens — health care, insurance, rent, cable TV, water, the internet, you name it. 

Corporations call it “anticipated earnings.” Criminals call it “vigorish.”

Corporate Criminals Now Go Free

Thom Hartmann: "In the 1980s, Reagan deregulated the Savings & Loan industry; predictably, within a few years, a handful of executives had made themselves multimillionaires while hundreds of thousands of families across America were wiped out. The Justice Department stepped in and prosecuted 1100 banksters, 839 were convicted, and over a hundred went to prison.

"When the so-called "Dot-com Bubble" burst around the turn of the century, dozens of bigshot executives from Enron, WorldCom, Qwest and Tyco, among others, were prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned. We were still occasionally sending executives to prison as late as 2005.

"Not anymore.

"After Glass-Steagal was repealed in 1999, banksters spent the next decade lying to investors around the world about the value of their "Collateralized Debt Obligations" and other recently legalized "exotic" financial instruments that were packed full of "liar loans" and bad mortgages.

"That led straight to the Bush Crash of 2008, when guys like Steve Mnuchin (who threw over 30,000 California families out of their homes) and Jamie Dimon got fabulously richer. America bailed out the Wall Street banksters to the tune of over a trillion dollars.

"But only one guy went to jail for the thousands of lies, frauds and outright crimes that occurred during the Bush years and led to the Bush Crash. He was a mid-level banker born in Egypt (who grew up in Michigan), has brown skin, and his name was Kareem Serageldin."

How Banks Feast on American College Students

Because this nation cozies up to ignorance and no longer values education, college students have become nothing but a cash cow to be milked dry by our predatory financial sector.

Students do not deserve to be enslaved to Wall Street greed for life because they had the temerity to want an education. 

I graduated from state university in 1977 with a student loan debt of slightly less than $500. Of course, that was when we all agreed that it was useful — in fact, even imperative — for members of an advanced, civilized society to have easy access to higher education. That was before we decided to chuck all that and just let greedy banks make a lifelong meal out of American students. 

As for paying for loan forgiveness, take it all out of the Pentagon's worthless, obscene budget.

Now About All That 'Free Stuff'

The rich have benefited vastly from the infrastructure, the educational system and the legal protections afforded them by this society. And it's LONG past time for them to PAY THAT BACK, and WITH INTEREST.

The Consumer Consumed

One of the most difficult lessons to learn in life, because it is counterintuitive, is that if some is good, more may well be worse, even much worse. The whole of the American consumer advertising industry is dedicated to helping us forget that lesson, if we were ever smart enough to learn it.

The Consumers Are the Consumed

 

When they were called “citizens,” Americans were reminded of their responsibilities as stewards of a democratic republic. But for some time, they’ve been called “consumers,” and that describes what Americans are now: mere disposable economic resources for corporations.

The USA: Demented and Dickensian

Kleptocapitalism: The philosophy promoted by American corporate billionaires who insist the working class and the middle class pull themselves up by Daniel Boone's bootstraps while the wealthy help themselves to tax cuts, trillion-dollar taxpayer-funded bailouts, fat no-bid government contracts and hostage-citizens who are forced to buy their shoddy products.

Why "Socialism" Is Necessary

When 40 percent of American citizens don’t have the money to cover a $400 emergency, your consumer-driven economic system has been smashed — and to hell with the stock market.

A Snapshot of Murka

The United States of America is the graveyard where empathy goes to die.

The Obscenity of the Pentagon Budget

Students do not deserve to be enslaved to Wall Street greed for life because they had the temerity to want an education. I graduated from state university in 1977 with a student loan debt of slightly less than $500. Of course, that was when we all agreed that it was useful, even imperative, for members of an advanced, civilized society to have easy access to higher education. That was before we decided to chuck all that and just let predatory Wall Street banks make a lifelong meal out of American students. As for paying for it, take it all out of the Pentagon's worthless, obscene budget.

I Call it 'Kleptocapitalism'

I keep hoping we might someday achieve something that we could refer to as “civilization” without laughing in derision.

The Rich and Their Slaves

The Republicans say they’re “shocked” and “disturbed” that the American system is being blown to pieces by the time bomb that they crafted so carefully and set to ticking.

The Bottom of the Barrel, That's Where We Are

Our entire society is corrupted by money, top to bottom, so completely that even the fig leaf of respectability it used to wear has been torn away.

Time to Fleece the Rich

The rich have benefited vastly from the infrastructure, the educational system and the legal protections afforded them by this society. And it's past time for them to PAY THAT BACK.