Thursday, March 12, 2020

Any Silver Linings?

Everyone knows what is going on, but behind this coronavirus hysteria one should not forget that oil "wars", coronavirus, wide-spread chronic constipation or Joe Biden being a senile imbecile, there is a much larger reality of what I (and many people who are much smarter than me) write about for years--a systemic severe crisis of the so called liberalism.  Those factors listed above are just primers, the needles which help to puncture the bubble. The so called liberal, a euphemism for wholesale financial speculation, economic model doesn't work. It never, actually, did. Here is a small reminder: Glass-Steagall Act, aka 1933 Banking Act which separated commercial and investment (euphemism for speculation and robbing people) banks. It was a good idea, to leave commercial banks to customers, both individual and corporate, to make deposits, take out loans, what have you. So called "investment" banks were left to those who had too much money and time on their hands to play. And then came 1999. 

Gramm-Leach-Biley Act (GLBA) which removed Glass-Steagall, was this nail in the coffin of the American market and industry. Bill Clinton signed it into law. Make no mistake, when 2008 hit--there were many US "economists" who argued that this crisis (driven by the subprime mortgage fraud by banks) had nothing to do with all the removal Glass-Steagall. Oh, well, maybe it didn't, may be it did but GLBA had a metaphysical influence on the US and global economy by helping to shift the meaning of "economic growth" squarely to the simulacra of "earnings". You see, "earnings" do not necessarily mean actual economic growth, in fact, as you all can observe "earnings" in the United States were doing just fine in the last 12 years, because in 2008 American "elites" bailed out people (and their banks) which were the MAIN reason for 2008 crisis. They gave them even more money and told them to keep the "earnings" gravy train rolling. They did. It resulted in further de-industrialization of the United States which, inevitably, brought about this:
This year, as part of the Spring 2017 edition of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Professors Case and Deaton are following up on that research to further investigate the rise and its causes, examining midlife mortality rates of white non-Hispanics in the U.S. by geography, education, birth cohort, and more. Dividing the country into 1,000-plus regions, the authors find that the rate of “deaths of despair” (deaths by drugs, alcohol, and suicide) in midlife for white non-Hispanics rose in nearly every part of the country and at every level of urbanization—from deep rural areas to large central cities—hitting men and women similarly. In 2000, the epidemic was centered in the southwest. By the mid-2000s it had spread to Appalachia, Florida, and the west coast. Today, it’s country-wide.
And this: 
So, how can one reconcile these startling facts with constantly declared "recovery" from 2008 and "earnings" going up, and up, and up? Very simple: remove actual economy from considerations, you know, the economy where people go to work, earn money by producing things and providing necessary services, and completely substitute it with false equivalency of the so called "banking" which deals with things, for the most part, which have no relation to reality. Recall this? Moreover, there were even cretins who wrote a truckload of books on "investing" (another simulacra for covering for speculation) promising Dow Jones hitting 40,000. There was only one problem--the "earnings" providing good ROI (Return of "Investment") could be achieved only in the world of virtual money and virtual speculation with the so called "financial instruments" which are nothing more than pseudo-financial snake oil packaged into the shiny vessel of promises and BS about more, more, more--an institutionalized and praised, and encouraged, greed and failure of human decency. One couldn't make "earnings" of this scale if one was involved in actual productive labor and business. Things work differently in those fields where one, actually, has to consider actual costs and care about people and main capital. In general, margins are lower there. In "finances" one has to have a degree in some self-contained fraudulent field known today as "economics" and be able to devise ways to defraud everything that is still capable to produce value. Wall Street won, America lost. 

Now we observe a collapse of this whole house of cards based on virtual reality, but it was going to happen ANYWAY, no matter the factors accelerating this bubble's demise. Once the whole ocean of bankruptcies, misery, political turmoil and possibly violence recedes, we will be able to see the actual US economy, or whatever is left of it, assessed not in fraudulent petrodollar but in terms of its actual worth and I can predict confidently--the picture will be ugly. But enough with gloom and doom. What are those possible silver linings. I think the first, most important one, could be a complete bankruptcy of current US "elites" who are responsible for this chaos and a chance (just a chance) of new people coming to remove them. It is a chance, but a good chance since current US "elites" are not capable to fix something that cannot be fixed and they will fvck it up one way or another, no matter a number of political and media demagogues they will release on population, or number of genders they will discover, or number of woke imbeciles they will recruit to support the status-quo, because objective reality as was stated long time ago by none other than Lenin today IS reducible to a major signs of revolution  which is in progress, two of them are already in place:
(a) A crisis in the upper classes, a crisis in the policy of the ruling classes, when it is impossible to maintain their rule without any change,
(b) The suffering of the oppressed classes and their wants has grown more acute. That is, suffering would be intolerable,
No, there will be no "socialist revolution" in the United States, plus American population and especially millennials are brainwashed and were made addicted to drugs and wokeness to such a degree that it is impossible, and that is for the better, but election of Donald Trump and undeniable prominence (despite sabotage from DNC) of such a fraud as Bernie, designed to let the steam off the actual left economic aspirations of the American youth, which will have to pay for the greed and insanity of baby boomers, are very important signs of the above mentioned points (a) and (b). So, the coming of new people is not only possible, but it is inevitable. That is, of course, if the United States preserves itself as a country. And let's hope that those new people will bewith the instinct of self-preservation, everything else may follow.

The United States, if it emerges from this intact and without unleashing a global war, will be a much poorer nation (it already is) than it is being perceived by many, but  it will be forced to live within its means and that means no more wars. Neither China nor Russia, let alone Iran plan to attack the United States. The United States itself is a very resources rich country and it can fully support itself, especially if there will be desire to convert (Russia is already doing this) large parts of the US military-industrial complex from making mediocre but extremely expensive weapons, which are not really needed, to production of things people really need for living--from kitchen combines to sophisticated medical and manufacturing technology. In the end, I am sick and tired of buying Chinese-made socks, or hauling a load of those 100% cotton ones from Russia.  In the long run that means a return of at least some industries to the United States and that gives me some hope to be buried in a goddamn US-made coffin instead of one made in China or wherever COSTCO buys those nowadays. So, you see, there are some benefits in the long run for the United States. So, do not despair. Reality is not only wrought with suffering but with opportunity, but learning from mistakes is a must. This current American political class is not capable of learning but the next very well may be. Voices of reasons are heard from many quarters today. Like this:
We thought the Cold War vindicated our political system. Instead it only began an age of illusions.
It is, in the end, time to learn something valuable from American experiences and real (I underscore it--real) history and this learning is in itself a silver lining. We all may yet be all right in the long run.

No comments:

Post a Comment