No clearer indication of the economic times than the fact that people are saying Las Vegas is considerably empty. Locals claim that Canadians were perhaps a third of the former tourist traffic. It was killed by one perpetrator, Donald J. TRump. The loss started with the insults and talk of annexation. Then came tariffs and soon after the immigration and border Nazis with their concentration camps and rendition flights.
If you are Canadian, I'm pretty sure you are considered a traitor for giving us any of your tourist dollars. This is probably true of many other countries as well. You would have to be out of your mind thinking what has happened at our borders can't happen to you.
What is happening with the above policies, the loss of taxes paid by immigrants, the medical insurance losses, the hikes in rent and food, and now job losses don't make anyone feel like shopping. AND if that hurts the Republicans, it's a two-fer, because NOTHING is going to recover till we get rid of their ideology and their dictator. See you in the streets.
And don't forget the loss of researchers and foreign students. Parents would be nuts to send their kids to American universities. My friend''s daughter is doing brain research at the U of Wisconsin and their funding just stopped. She's at a conference in Berling and is interviewing for a position at the U of Hamburg. This is happening all over the place....
There are winners and losers. To many of us, everything looks manipulated.
The "smart" money is probably "shorting" the markets and especially the domestic stocks vulnerable to the tariffs. Trump set an arbitrary August date to effectuate tariffs and new tariff rates for trading partners who have not made deals with the U.S., including countries such as Switzerland, which now faces a 39% tariff, and Canada, which faces a 35% hike on all goods not covered by a U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
As I type, the market is down. To whose interest?
Short selling is a trading strategy commonly used by experienced traders who speculate to buy and sell shares, hoping the price will drop at a later date. It involves borrowing shares and selling them on the open market. This means you sell stocks or securities that you don't own.
You then buy the shares at a lower price and return them to the lender. This allows you to close your short position and make a profit, which you keep for yourself. Some investors may use short selling as a hedging strategy to curb the risk of other positions.
Soon, the rich will be masters of an overripe dung hill. When you hold all the cards but no one else can afford to play all those chips become meaningless.
Robert,it is probably worst than you mentioned.Mark Zuckerberg (Meta-Facebook) recently offered 1 Billion dollars toa tech worker to join his AI team. On Wednesday of this week,he warned that AI" superintelligence" could be a " force focused on replacing large swarths of society" There are several articles out there predicting 20-30% unemployment in the 2 yrs. The Techno Fascists want to take over the country.
The "Technate of America" refers to a proposed political and economic system envisioned by Technocracy Inc., a 1930s movement. This system aimed to reorganize North America (including Canada, Greenland, and parts of Central America) under the rule of scientists, engineers, and other technically competent individuals, eliminating traditional democratic governance
The world will be split, Orwelian like, between Eurasia dominated by Russia, East Asia dominated by China and the Caliphate or Sultanate.
Assuming Trump does't incinerate us all, the country is likely to fall into their laps. 20-30% unemployment will throw us back to the manorial system, an immediate consequence being that 60 or so million people will be out on the streets. Many of those are already armed to the teeth. Another large percentage in the military will become enraged that their parents and grandparents will be mimicking Gaza, and a very short later a bloodbath will ensue, ending with Zuckerberg, Bezos, and their ilk being lined up against a wall and shot
If nothing else the book should be best seller and the movie rights alone worth 10 miilion!
Robert,great post.You may be right,the "Nazi" in the White House has no concern for anyone but the Ultra rich. This is " Nazi Germany" 1933-1941. Maybe people will wake up soon.
Two interesting developements todays.PBS is shutting down next yr.most staff leaving end of Sept.The end of Sesame Street,NPR and others going away.
The head of the Bureau Labor Statistics fired by Trump for weak and revised job #s. Trump is starting to make " Hitler" look like a good guy.
It's the CPB, not PBS or NPR, that is shutting down. Both have multiple sources of income, the majority of which does not come from the federal government. Rural stations are the ones most likely to be severely impacted. I assume orograming is going to be significantly altered. In the end the survival of public broadcasting is up to the people who rely on it.
All we can do is tell the truth as an offering to the best of our ability. The main issue seems to be a rapidly evaporating ability not only to comprehend what is written but the very act of reading itself. Without an educated, literate populace there is nothing that can be done. It used to be that images held considerable power but withheld the advent of AI it is getting harder to see the difference between the truth and lies.
Mr. Solomon, I still remember how I felt when first reading about how "shorting" works. I was again impressed with how our unregulated capitalist system allows the most dangerous kinds of activities to pass as "business as usual."
At our next weekly faculty beer bash I brought up the topic with my colleagues in the Business School. They puffed up with pride as they recounted how they taught their students this kind of purely financial manipulation as "economics." I was astounded that they not only failed to see how this sort of thing, shorting, contributed nothing to the real economy of raw materials, labor, and markets; additionally, they were proud to be able to teach their young students how to enrich themselves using this technique. It is nothing more than a dangerous form of gambling on the hope that certain stocks will decline in value in the future. Shorting is immoral, dangerous, and should be outlawed.
gerald,I have no idea what planet you are coming from. It is ideas like your that are most damaging. Shorting is done when CEO 's lie about their earnings,when businesses who in many instances lie about sales,etc. It is done when the Wall Street computers take stocks to $150-200 per share that have no earnings,it is when CEO's promise the analysts bonuses for recommending their stocks,even when they are garbage.
Wake up,do some homework,Wall Street has become just as corrupt as their President.
Gerald,quite an intellectual response to my comment. You will never get it,because you will just never get it.It is a shame people like you never learn anything.
Do you remember the book Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis? It describes the author's experiences as a bond salesman on Wall Street during the late 1980s. It’s quite an eye opener.
Daniel,short selling especially@ this time since the market has been straight up since March is a cleansing issue. Wall Street aways bids up junk,the old phrase " Beat Expectations" is laughable and how the moderators on CNBC can sit there day after day and lie is beyond me. As you may have noticed the jobs report,today was a disaster,the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been cooking the books for yrs. Just so corrupt in every way.
David, in my youth, as a social caseworker, I had clients who had been unemployed for such a long period of time that their unemployment compensation benefits were no longer being given to them. These people were, then, no longer counted by the Dept. of Labor as "unemployed." This, of course lowered the published statistic of the amount of unemployment in the country. Thus, misrepresenting the actual state of affairs.
Also, clients who were employed part time, ie. less than 40 hours per week, were listed as employed by the Dept. of Labor. Thereby, again misrepresenting the level of unemployment in the country.
It seems that even when the Dept. of Labor honestly publishes its statistics, in accordance with ITS OWN CRITERIA, it is overestimating the level of employment, underestimating the level of unemployment. The bias is built into the system by the rules of the data reporting in the bureaucracy.
Yeah, but in options trading, you’re leaving out the other half of the equation….the call option…going long the market. Options trading has been an integral part of stock markets for as long as there have been stock markets. What it’s a matter of is calculated risk based technical analysis. The money is simply trading hands. Every time a stock sale is made there is a buyer and a seller.
Check out the butterfly. It takes guts or insider info to go "bare".
To just play a put or call is gambling. Most of the big money is made hedging rather than specuating. There are many studies on the subject.
Many derivitives are unregulated.
These days, the human factor can be eliminated, and not only the markets but institutional investors can be "market makers."
I had clients (and unfortuately relatives) in the trade and I heard Sarbanes Oxley Dodd Frank whistleblower cases. I did not work for the SEC. After I retired, I held myself out as a mediator and a number of groups wanted me to be involved. I decided that my personal exposure would be humongous and because I haven't practiced law in many years, no insurance company in it's right mind would insure me.
The reason I say watch the shorts is Trump's history.
I'm watching the Fed Cir decision whether Trump has any tariff authority.
What is it called when members of Congress who know about a certain stock value going down take the money before it becomes public? Nancy Pelosi two years ago for example.
alis,so glad Canadians are fighting back,by not spending tourist dollars.So far as spending is concerned,we should all be trying to shop locally,boycott the large publicly owned cos like Amazon.It may cost a little more,but the message is important.
Thank you, again, for summarizing the economic scenario playing out under the felon president's regime. The key, as you suggest, is to inform the public about the class warfare: "Because billionaires don’t suffer in recessions: they buy everything at a discount and radically increase their own wealth when things rebound. For the morbidly rich, Republican recessions and depressions are “buying opportunities”: it’s class war, plain and simple."
Those of us who are committed to democracy and its fairness need to be part of the messaging, not just those running for office.
The Republicans seem intent on crashing the economy to justify giving Trump dictatorial powers; or maybe they really believe commodifying everything from the environment to human rights will make life better. Most likely, they don't know and don't care, as long as they can remain in control of everything forever. What sh*theels they are.
Not intent Jeffrey, accomplished, the federal government has been so destroyed, that it cannot be put back together again, and Pam Bondi is the new Heinrich Himmler she has control over the new GESTAPO (FBI), the Schutzstaffel and the Sturmabeitlung. I can see a reorganization of the Secret Service into the Schutzstaffel, and both have the same acronym SS.
And if the Hitler regime is too far a bridge, lets go for the east German STASI, or the Russian FSB.
Though to be "fair" it is not just Trump or one political party. We are dealing with long term policies from a Congress where far too many members are more concerned with their reelections than doing what is right for the country. When in 2011 for the first time in its history the US lost its AAA bond rating with one of the three rating services (S&P) I thought it would shock them into reason. Instead it was ignored. We lost it at Fitch in 2023 and then at Moody's this year. U.S. bonds are now a little shakier as an investment, but again nothing changed. And even something as obvious as properly funding Social Security is beyond them.
Then too much of the the public often doesn't have any idea about how economics works. (Heck, a lot of people don't understand that getting the lowest interest rate on a loan can save them a lot of money.) Inflation is up? Blame the president. The Federal Reserve? Never heard of it. The dollar is the "reserve currency"? Not a clue. And so they vote for empty promises every time.
There may be something in human nature that lets many people put off hard decisions, and being in a big institution like the U.S, government is a good way to hide from taking responsibility for an unpopular move. As I said, too many in Congress do this. But in the long run that doesn't change economic reality and at some point the well goes dry.
To the contrary, the Republicans I have observed are as committed as the portly predator in the Oval Office to sabotaging the superior "Biden economy." Good time to get out of the market as Trump levies tariffs on most of the World. Trump is not aware of things called 'consequences.'
From the fed. Monetary policy refers to the actions of central banks, including the Federal Reserve, to achieve macroeconomic policy objectives such as price stability, full employment, and stable economic growth. Fiscal policy refers to the tax and spending policies of a national government.
In the U.S., fiscal policy decisions are determined by Congress and the Administration; the Fed plays no role in determining fiscal policy.
IMHO, besides Keynsian economics, we could use monetary policy.
If we want to stimulate a sector, finance it via subsidies in interest rates.
In Japan, national debts and deficits are of no consequence. But the public can arbitrage, to make a living without working. They can borrow at about 1% and buy US debt at about 4.5%. Same with Switzerland and some Scandanavian countries.
I'm told a speculator can buy bonds in Russia paying 21%.
In the 1970's Daniel, Japan suffered a crippling depression. Japan's response was Keynsian. and among the things they invested in was free higher education, the result was, tha when Japan finally pulled out of the depression, they had a highly educated population and industry took off, Honda, Yamaha, Toyota, is the result.
And America's response is to retreat into darkness. Lesson learned from the 1929 Depression is that soup lines and apple sales on the street corner are for the gogs, the upper class got richer off the cogs. It was during this period and just prior to it, that Mansions like Mar a Lago were built, that millionaires and celebrities paid thousands for cars that have become classics like the Cord, the Auburn, the Packard, the Cadillac.
While Joe six pack was camped out on San Francisco pay, praying that a worker would fall to his death, building the Golden Gate Bridge,so he could take his job.
the Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Greta Garbo's were building mansions far from the eyes of the plebes.
You nailed it doc. Congress, Republican and Democrat, a feckless, useless lot, concerned only with their own employment and not the job that they were elected to do, politics is after all,a massive con job (with a few exceptions), politicians will say anything to get and keep their job. My rep is as quiet as a doormouse, except near election time, then I get emails, when I ask him something on his portal and ask for a reply, I get pablum. He has never stuck his neck out, and has been there 24 years since 2021, and the worthless critter has only one seat, the ranking member of the Transportation Committee, whoopdy doo.
He is a ghost, quiet, unobtrusive, holds no values, except re election, but at least he is one of the 212 Democrats in the House, so there is that.
I also believe that all of those in government I asked to stop the surveillance of me for more than two decades 24/7 did nothing to stop it -passed the buck, I guess because the surveillance that began targeting my husband and then me was not important to them.
Not until it became beneficial to them did they acknowledge it and began to join in targeting me.
Everything they say is the reason was not illegal and could have been verified in two weeks. I have no words to describe the destruction heaped on our family by the relentless violence of surveillance even in times of crisis in our personal lives.
As an artist it is impossible for me to be creative with them on my every stroke of the computer key or when I resorted to writing by hand, each and every word is made public. I am a writer and poet yet not very productive. The same people involved in the surveillance judge me for a lack of productivity yet are unwilling to stop the surveillance.
I believe you are 100% right in what you say. I’m not sure democrats have the spine or stomach to implement the needed policies and call the traitorous gop what it is, in the detail you described. I wish they would.
Wrong approach Daniel. Put some spine in the Democrats, who have been behaving either like pussy's or Republicans.
So long as bad behavior is condoned and not punished, then it will continue.. So the alternatives is not Whigs or Republicans but having the Dems grow a pair.
Individual Dems may not be perfect, but all are your allies. Psy ops has gotten you to emasculate youself.
It it were up to you, Dems would have to pass a litums test that only Bernie (who really is an independent) can pass. We haven't had any real power since the 1st 2 years of the Clinton administration and he was error prone and stepped on his appendage.
Damn Daniel, everything with you is psyops, and now you charge me with being emasculated. Well here is to you, the Democratic party by and large has been emasculated, Take Chuck Schumer for instance.
I am no fool, Daniel, and no sucker for psyops (either yours or theirs) and I can't be manipulated or intimidated by being called names either. I've shoved that shit up the asses of Putin trolls and HAMAS trolls.
Yeh, I do have a litmus test, and that test is to show some spine.
And to go back to the past in our discussions, Nancy Pelosi did kill Bernies Single Payor plan, she wouldn't let it come to the floor.
A single payor plan is simple, just changed the Medicare enabling act from eligible at age 65 to eligible at birth.
But that would not made the Association of Health Insurance Providers, a source of funding for the party, very happy.
And yes we did have a short period of power, remember the Respect for Marriage Act.
If the Democrats had a populist reputation and platform Daniel (a progressive populist,not right wing populist) then the Republicans would not be in power.
I bitch at the Democrats because I want them to show some fucking balls, not cringe at criticism from the right, to cower, and soft shoe, to act like the Republicans because people want to elect leaders,not soft shoe followers,.
That's it Daniel? I am a fool and also not accurate.
The first is a value judgement, an opinion and those are like assholes.
The second (also not accurate) begs clarification, examples and discussions.
Anyway I have already told you want I am, my inclinations are progressive (but they don't define me, they are not my identity), I am not a Democrat or any political party, though lately I have registered and voted as such, for the obvious reason, or maybe it isn't obvious.
You see I haven't had any motivation to vote for, but a hell of a lot of motivation to vote against. And I have voted against the Republicans, so in the minds of some that makes me a Democrat, and I ain't no fool to vote third party, especially when they are really disguised Republicans or like the
Now is our moment—tomorrow take action against this harmful government. They are:
Covering up a pedophile ring.
Ignoring court orders.
Spreading corruption.
The poor, the needy, and children are being abused—by our government. Healthcare, already a broken system, was canceled for 13 million. Take to the streets!
We must protest outright crooks and the pedophiles. They will start shooting us. Untrained ICE agents will shoot us. Protest until we go down or we oust these tyrants.
I made 54 protest signs to aid protest groups. I will make many more to share. You will see something different in these signs! Help yourself to this second batch, and share them as far as you can.
First, I must say that today's song brought tears to my eyes. Then I want to repeat one thing I learned from the 2012 book,"Why Nations Fail." "The analysis suggests that the constant threat of revolution motivates the wealthy to democratize." Notice Europeans have more of the "nice things" as Thom puts it, than we do. They make a whole lot more noise than we do.
The problem is the rich have no understanding that they are going to pay for everything that goes wrong. This was done intentionally and we are going to make sure those responsible actually pay for it this time. The day is over when the little guy pays for everything. We were not given any decision making process in this destruction. This time the rich will pay for fixing everything that needs fixing and it will done well and not cheap.
The so-called 'stock market' is a rigged casino. Nothing More. Nothing More. Study it. The shorts and buy backs and hedging are Built Into the Cake!!!!! Folks, WAKE UP.
DARE TO BE WOKE. The Brain DEAD are trolling anything that moves, leaves, rocks, clouds, litter, jaws, jaws and more jaws, all leading to the pre-designed train wreck the speculators wanted all along. Bail OUT and lose but not everything, then scramble. The parasites close in, buy back after selling short, inflate their bottom line and then sell high to the desperate.
Parasites LOOK FOR Road Kill. They gobble it up between semi trailer trucks at 80 mph. Seriously, the top ten percent do NOT give a F&&k about any of you, certainly not me. I rejected capitalism fifty years ago. I find it ironically telling that Vegas is mostly empty. Even the suckers are BROKE already. Soon, in the next six weeks, most of the rest of us will have dollars that are worth 33-50 percent LESS. That means we BUY 60 percent less.
Unfortunately many of our friends will go hungry. Share your saved resources, but first save some. I saw retail sales up while jobs down - sure indicator folks are buying bulk for this FOR CERTAIN very rainy six months to 2 years of nightmares. I have been stocking up for one year, and buying 40 percent less for two months.
Band together where possible. Buy NOTHING you do not really need. What you really need, BUY 4 of each. Get lean. Get hungry. Get straight, Get angry and then Get Furious, and then take 7 deep breaths and then GET SMART. Asymmetrical Warfare, in the shadows, guerilla style. The real gorilla, Ishmael. Do MORE with 60 percent less. You will see it is possible.
Get out of stocks and futures. Get into food, fuel, medicine, water, simple transportation and staying at home. Find grounding. Find something really worth living for and protecting, and then protect it. Wait for weaknesses, and then strike hard and fast and leave no trail.
"This must be at the core of the platform Democrats run on this fall and during next year’s midterms." THE FALL AND THE MIDTERMS! That will be too late. I hate to use the term, but how about Republican congresspeople getting some BALLS and join the Democrats NOW to stop the insanity. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is gone TODAY. Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to let the Criminal keep Air Force One after he leaves the golf course, oooppps office, and the American public will have spent close to $1 billion. WE CAN'T WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR
The "calvary" is, unfortunately, "The Three Stooges". As the disasters pile up, the people who we have historically relied upon to help us with help are gone. They have been replaced with incompetent and uninformed decision makers that will not be able to marshal the forces necessary to help the American people recover. Instead, the Republicans are creating their own private army and locking them into a false sense of financial security that probably 90% of them have never even dreamed of having. $50,000 sign up bonus and $175 million to play with in the future. The chaos that the Republicans are creating will become the fuel for justification of the use of the military forces on the American people. Throw into the mix the immediate rise of AI and the massive loss of jobs on the horizen and as we say in Texas..."You dun pissed in your whiskey." Hopefully, the administration. or whoever is actually running this country into the ground, will have overplayed their hand with assuming that the military will go along with the ruse.
My mother survived the Great Depression as well as World Wars 1 and 2. Her political wisdom: "If you want a war, vote Democratic. If you want a depression, vote Republican." Of course, that's no longer true. You get a war no matter which party is in power, but, yes, the Republicans still specialize in depressions.
Oh my ! ....this is so much a must read....every sentence, every paragraph illuminates what the "Shit Stain GOP" has produced and accomplished for this country over the past 100+ years.
Just one example in this amazing article.
Quote : "The horrible jobs report just released hours ago highlights not only how bad things were in July, but they had to “revise downward by 285,000 jobs” previous reports; it looks like Trump’s people have been cooking the books."
Trump just fired the director of labor statistics this afternoon, basically accusing her of "cooking the books" because he didn't like the numbers! Truly unbelievable....
"...it looks like Trump’s people have been cooking the books."
Ya' think?! Let's see -- Trump convicted on 34 counts of fraud for "cooking the books", and Trump's former CFO Allen Weisselberg now serving time for fraud, i.e., "cooking the books". So, yeah, Trump's people have been, and will continue to, cook the books.
There is no disputing that demand side Keynesian economic policy works, in the best of all possible worlds that is. We are no longer in the Roosevelt era and things are different now. Demand side economics will drive us into a conflicting problem that is a combination of overpopulation, climate change and diminishing resources. Climate change is already rearing its ugly head with floods, higher temperatures, warming seas, loss of wildlife, peak oil and more.
The fact is that we need to reduce spending but not the way that krasnov wants, rather in an equitable manner. The upper 10% of earners in the USA, those making at least $250,000 per year, account for nearly 50% of all consumer spending, which is the highest share recorded since data collection began in 1989. This is not equitable.
How do we fix this? First of all we need to make sure that no one has more money than they deserve, meaning tax cheats. Secondly, no more billionaires! There is no rational reason for anyone to be sitting on a pile of money like that. Set a 90% income tax on anything over x amount and 100% over y amount.
Education, especially teaching climate change and over-consumerism to the young. They are the ones who will have to deal with what's left of the planet. We need to try to mitigate all of the problems facing us before it's too late.
Sorry to be a curmudgeon but the clock is ticking.
Off topic but I just had to post this bit. On July 26, an embryo frozen in 1994 was born, and by the logic of the meme of life begins at conception, this lad, Thaddeus, is 31 years old and eligible to vote.
A baby boy born in Ohio on July 26 has set a world record as the oldest baby ever born from a frozen embryo. Thaddeus Daniel Pierce was conceived from an embryo created and cryopreserved in 1994 by Linda Archerd during an in vitro fertilization cycle.
Now 62, Archerd donated her remaining embryos after menopause through a process known as embryo adoption, in which donors have input on where embryos are placed and which are often handled by Christian agencies. Lindsey and Tim Pierce adopted the embryo, which had been stored for over 30 years in a slow-frozen plastic vial. Archerd previously gave birth to a daughter from the same IVF procedure—that daughter is now 30 and has a 10-year-old child.
Since the first IVF baby was born in 1978, over 13 million babies worldwide have been born through IVF or similar technologies. In the US, about 2% of babies—one in every 42—are born using IVF.
Remember Bush telling everyone to go shopping?
No clearer indication of the economic times than the fact that people are saying Las Vegas is considerably empty. Locals claim that Canadians were perhaps a third of the former tourist traffic. It was killed by one perpetrator, Donald J. TRump. The loss started with the insults and talk of annexation. Then came tariffs and soon after the immigration and border Nazis with their concentration camps and rendition flights.
If you are Canadian, I'm pretty sure you are considered a traitor for giving us any of your tourist dollars. This is probably true of many other countries as well. You would have to be out of your mind thinking what has happened at our borders can't happen to you.
What is happening with the above policies, the loss of taxes paid by immigrants, the medical insurance losses, the hikes in rent and food, and now job losses don't make anyone feel like shopping. AND if that hurts the Republicans, it's a two-fer, because NOTHING is going to recover till we get rid of their ideology and their dictator. See you in the streets.
And don't forget the loss of researchers and foreign students. Parents would be nuts to send their kids to American universities. My friend''s daughter is doing brain research at the U of Wisconsin and their funding just stopped. She's at a conference in Berling and is interviewing for a position at the U of Hamburg. This is happening all over the place....
There are winners and losers. To many of us, everything looks manipulated.
The "smart" money is probably "shorting" the markets and especially the domestic stocks vulnerable to the tariffs. Trump set an arbitrary August date to effectuate tariffs and new tariff rates for trading partners who have not made deals with the U.S., including countries such as Switzerland, which now faces a 39% tariff, and Canada, which faces a 35% hike on all goods not covered by a U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
As I type, the market is down. To whose interest?
Short selling is a trading strategy commonly used by experienced traders who speculate to buy and sell shares, hoping the price will drop at a later date. It involves borrowing shares and selling them on the open market. This means you sell stocks or securities that you don't own.
You then buy the shares at a lower price and return them to the lender. This allows you to close your short position and make a profit, which you keep for yourself. Some investors may use short selling as a hedging strategy to curb the risk of other positions.
Recently several House members were cited for using insider information. In 2020 there was a scandal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_congressional_insider_trading_scandal
Soon, the rich will be masters of an overripe dung hill. When you hold all the cards but no one else can afford to play all those chips become meaningless.
Robert,it is probably worst than you mentioned.Mark Zuckerberg (Meta-Facebook) recently offered 1 Billion dollars toa tech worker to join his AI team. On Wednesday of this week,he warned that AI" superintelligence" could be a " force focused on replacing large swarths of society" There are several articles out there predicting 20-30% unemployment in the 2 yrs. The Techno Fascists want to take over the country.
Here you go, map of Technate of America. A fever dream of the 1930's Technocracy movement, finally coming to fruition https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:34227574
The "Technate of America" refers to a proposed political and economic system envisioned by Technocracy Inc., a 1930s movement. This system aimed to reorganize North America (including Canada, Greenland, and parts of Central America) under the rule of scientists, engineers, and other technically competent individuals, eliminating traditional democratic governance
The world will be split, Orwelian like, between Eurasia dominated by Russia, East Asia dominated by China and the Caliphate or Sultanate.
I haven't gotten very far reading the comments and I already need a drink....
The world is full of evil people.... original sin.
In Adam's fall we sinned all? What about the Neanderthals?
Assuming Trump does't incinerate us all, the country is likely to fall into their laps. 20-30% unemployment will throw us back to the manorial system, an immediate consequence being that 60 or so million people will be out on the streets. Many of those are already armed to the teeth. Another large percentage in the military will become enraged that their parents and grandparents will be mimicking Gaza, and a very short later a bloodbath will ensue, ending with Zuckerberg, Bezos, and their ilk being lined up against a wall and shot
If nothing else the book should be best seller and the movie rights alone worth 10 miilion!
I'm going to be rich!
Oh...
Robert,great post.You may be right,the "Nazi" in the White House has no concern for anyone but the Ultra rich. This is " Nazi Germany" 1933-1941. Maybe people will wake up soon.
Two interesting developements todays.PBS is shutting down next yr.most staff leaving end of Sept.The end of Sesame Street,NPR and others going away.
The head of the Bureau Labor Statistics fired by Trump for weak and revised job #s. Trump is starting to make " Hitler" look like a good guy.
It's the CPB, not PBS or NPR, that is shutting down. Both have multiple sources of income, the majority of which does not come from the federal government. Rural stations are the ones most likely to be severely impacted. I assume orograming is going to be significantly altered. In the end the survival of public broadcasting is up to the people who rely on it.
The problem with writing about all this, whether as novelist or historian or simply commentarian, is this: How do you make any of it believable?
All we can do is tell the truth as an offering to the best of our ability. The main issue seems to be a rapidly evaporating ability not only to comprehend what is written but the very act of reading itself. Without an educated, literate populace there is nothing that can be done. It used to be that images held considerable power but withheld the advent of AI it is getting harder to see the difference between the truth and lies.
I didn't get into cybertheft. Trump grifting is open and obvious. They control the Treasury. I've discussed the GENIUS bill.
This stuff used to be science fiction. 2001. I Robot.
I've been following the NIH projects re brain mapping. Many years ago scientists predicted that silica would be replaced by DNA in computers.
Been that way...
Mr. Solomon, I still remember how I felt when first reading about how "shorting" works. I was again impressed with how our unregulated capitalist system allows the most dangerous kinds of activities to pass as "business as usual."
At our next weekly faculty beer bash I brought up the topic with my colleagues in the Business School. They puffed up with pride as they recounted how they taught their students this kind of purely financial manipulation as "economics." I was astounded that they not only failed to see how this sort of thing, shorting, contributed nothing to the real economy of raw materials, labor, and markets; additionally, they were proud to be able to teach their young students how to enrich themselves using this technique. It is nothing more than a dangerous form of gambling on the hope that certain stocks will decline in value in the future. Shorting is immoral, dangerous, and should be outlawed.
gerald,I have no idea what planet you are coming from. It is ideas like your that are most damaging. Shorting is done when CEO 's lie about their earnings,when businesses who in many instances lie about sales,etc. It is done when the Wall Street computers take stocks to $150-200 per share that have no earnings,it is when CEO's promise the analysts bonuses for recommending their stocks,even when they are garbage.
Wake up,do some homework,Wall Street has become just as corrupt as their President.
David, your reply is a non sequitur. You must have a reading deficiency.
Gerald,quite an intellectual response to my comment. You will never get it,because you will just never get it.It is a shame people like you never learn anything.
Do you remember the book Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis? It describes the author's experiences as a bond salesman on Wall Street during the late 1980s. It’s quite an eye opener.
Thank you Ms. Newton. I intend to read LIAR'S POKER. I just bought it. It sounds like an insider's view. A man who woke up.
Gambling is right. But what real players do are "butterfly" straddles and spreads. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/butterflyspread.asp
Theoretically, they can't lose. In practice, brokers stael the trades and commissions cut into profits.
Daniel,short selling especially@ this time since the market has been straight up since March is a cleansing issue. Wall Street aways bids up junk,the old phrase " Beat Expectations" is laughable and how the moderators on CNBC can sit there day after day and lie is beyond me. As you may have noticed the jobs report,today was a disaster,the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been cooking the books for yrs. Just so corrupt in every way.
David, in my youth, as a social caseworker, I had clients who had been unemployed for such a long period of time that their unemployment compensation benefits were no longer being given to them. These people were, then, no longer counted by the Dept. of Labor as "unemployed." This, of course lowered the published statistic of the amount of unemployment in the country. Thus, misrepresenting the actual state of affairs.
Also, clients who were employed part time, ie. less than 40 hours per week, were listed as employed by the Dept. of Labor. Thereby, again misrepresenting the level of unemployment in the country.
It seems that even when the Dept. of Labor honestly publishes its statistics, in accordance with ITS OWN CRITERIA, it is overestimating the level of employment, underestimating the level of unemployment. The bias is built into the system by the rules of the data reporting in the bureaucracy.
To accept that is to accept that markets are rational.
I don't believe in the random walk in the universe theory application to economics. They're more likely manipulated to benefit "smart" money.
Yeah, but in options trading, you’re leaving out the other half of the equation….the call option…going long the market. Options trading has been an integral part of stock markets for as long as there have been stock markets. What it’s a matter of is calculated risk based technical analysis. The money is simply trading hands. Every time a stock sale is made there is a buyer and a seller.
Check out the butterfly. It takes guts or insider info to go "bare".
To just play a put or call is gambling. Most of the big money is made hedging rather than specuating. There are many studies on the subject.
Many derivitives are unregulated.
These days, the human factor can be eliminated, and not only the markets but institutional investors can be "market makers."
I had clients (and unfortuately relatives) in the trade and I heard Sarbanes Oxley Dodd Frank whistleblower cases. I did not work for the SEC. After I retired, I held myself out as a mediator and a number of groups wanted me to be involved. I decided that my personal exposure would be humongous and because I haven't practiced law in many years, no insurance company in it's right mind would insure me.
The reason I say watch the shorts is Trump's history.
I'm watching the Fed Cir decision whether Trump has any tariff authority.
So, though what you say it true regarding hedge funds, I have to disagree on your second point. And anyway, your response entirely misses the point.
What is it called when members of Congress who know about a certain stock value going down take the money before it becomes public? Nancy Pelosi two years ago for example.
alis,so glad Canadians are fighting back,by not spending tourist dollars.So far as spending is concerned,we should all be trying to shop locally,boycott the large publicly owned cos like Amazon.It may cost a little more,but the message is important.
I can't believe anyone thought the talk of the annexation of Canada was serious, nor even possible.
Trump did, and probably still does.
Thank you, again, for summarizing the economic scenario playing out under the felon president's regime. The key, as you suggest, is to inform the public about the class warfare: "Because billionaires don’t suffer in recessions: they buy everything at a discount and radically increase their own wealth when things rebound. For the morbidly rich, Republican recessions and depressions are “buying opportunities”: it’s class war, plain and simple."
Those of us who are committed to democracy and its fairness need to be part of the messaging, not just those running for office.
The Republicans seem intent on crashing the economy to justify giving Trump dictatorial powers; or maybe they really believe commodifying everything from the environment to human rights will make life better. Most likely, they don't know and don't care, as long as they can remain in control of everything forever. What sh*theels they are.
Not intent Jeffrey, accomplished, the federal government has been so destroyed, that it cannot be put back together again, and Pam Bondi is the new Heinrich Himmler she has control over the new GESTAPO (FBI), the Schutzstaffel and the Sturmabeitlung. I can see a reorganization of the Secret Service into the Schutzstaffel, and both have the same acronym SS.
And if the Hitler regime is too far a bridge, lets go for the east German STASI, or the Russian FSB.
Though to be "fair" it is not just Trump or one political party. We are dealing with long term policies from a Congress where far too many members are more concerned with their reelections than doing what is right for the country. When in 2011 for the first time in its history the US lost its AAA bond rating with one of the three rating services (S&P) I thought it would shock them into reason. Instead it was ignored. We lost it at Fitch in 2023 and then at Moody's this year. U.S. bonds are now a little shakier as an investment, but again nothing changed. And even something as obvious as properly funding Social Security is beyond them.
Then too much of the the public often doesn't have any idea about how economics works. (Heck, a lot of people don't understand that getting the lowest interest rate on a loan can save them a lot of money.) Inflation is up? Blame the president. The Federal Reserve? Never heard of it. The dollar is the "reserve currency"? Not a clue. And so they vote for empty promises every time.
There may be something in human nature that lets many people put off hard decisions, and being in a big institution like the U.S, government is a good way to hide from taking responsibility for an unpopular move. As I said, too many in Congress do this. But in the long run that doesn't change economic reality and at some point the well goes dry.
To the contrary, the Republicans I have observed are as committed as the portly predator in the Oval Office to sabotaging the superior "Biden economy." Good time to get out of the market as Trump levies tariffs on most of the World. Trump is not aware of things called 'consequences.'
Why not leave it at "Trump is not aware"?
So relieved to have gotten into physical gold and silver before the 2008 crash....
We pit fiscal versus monetary policy.
From the fed. Monetary policy refers to the actions of central banks, including the Federal Reserve, to achieve macroeconomic policy objectives such as price stability, full employment, and stable economic growth. Fiscal policy refers to the tax and spending policies of a national government.
In the U.S., fiscal policy decisions are determined by Congress and the Administration; the Fed plays no role in determining fiscal policy.
IMHO, besides Keynsian economics, we could use monetary policy.
If we want to stimulate a sector, finance it via subsidies in interest rates.
In Japan, national debts and deficits are of no consequence. But the public can arbitrage, to make a living without working. They can borrow at about 1% and buy US debt at about 4.5%. Same with Switzerland and some Scandanavian countries.
I'm told a speculator can buy bonds in Russia paying 21%.
In the 1970's Daniel, Japan suffered a crippling depression. Japan's response was Keynsian. and among the things they invested in was free higher education, the result was, tha when Japan finally pulled out of the depression, they had a highly educated population and industry took off, Honda, Yamaha, Toyota, is the result.
And America's response is to retreat into darkness. Lesson learned from the 1929 Depression is that soup lines and apple sales on the street corner are for the gogs, the upper class got richer off the cogs. It was during this period and just prior to it, that Mansions like Mar a Lago were built, that millionaires and celebrities paid thousands for cars that have become classics like the Cord, the Auburn, the Packard, the Cadillac.
While Joe six pack was camped out on San Francisco pay, praying that a worker would fall to his death, building the Golden Gate Bridge,so he could take his job.
the Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Greta Garbo's were building mansions far from the eyes of the plebes.
You nailed it doc. Congress, Republican and Democrat, a feckless, useless lot, concerned only with their own employment and not the job that they were elected to do, politics is after all,a massive con job (with a few exceptions), politicians will say anything to get and keep their job. My rep is as quiet as a doormouse, except near election time, then I get emails, when I ask him something on his portal and ask for a reply, I get pablum. He has never stuck his neck out, and has been there 24 years since 2021, and the worthless critter has only one seat, the ranking member of the Transportation Committee, whoopdy doo.
He is a ghost, quiet, unobtrusive, holds no values, except re election, but at least he is one of the 212 Democrats in the House, so there is that.
As usual, docrhw Weil, your comments are correct because they are factual. Well done!
Thank you, Carol.
I also believe that all of those in government I asked to stop the surveillance of me for more than two decades 24/7 did nothing to stop it -passed the buck, I guess because the surveillance that began targeting my husband and then me was not important to them.
Not until it became beneficial to them did they acknowledge it and began to join in targeting me.
Everything they say is the reason was not illegal and could have been verified in two weeks. I have no words to describe the destruction heaped on our family by the relentless violence of surveillance even in times of crisis in our personal lives.
As an artist it is impossible for me to be creative with them on my every stroke of the computer key or when I resorted to writing by hand, each and every word is made public. I am a writer and poet yet not very productive. The same people involved in the surveillance judge me for a lack of productivity yet are unwilling to stop the surveillance.
I believe you are 100% right in what you say. I’m not sure democrats have the spine or stomach to implement the needed policies and call the traitorous gop what it is, in the detail you described. I wish they would.
You're right, as most Dem leaders are centrists, and are afraid to buck
Trump and the Republicans, and so, have effectively joined them.
Hate Democrats? Support Whigs?
Wrong approach Daniel. Put some spine in the Democrats, who have been behaving either like pussy's or Republicans.
So long as bad behavior is condoned and not punished, then it will continue.. So the alternatives is not Whigs or Republicans but having the Dems grow a pair.
And the Whigs became the Republican party.
Individual Dems may not be perfect, but all are your allies. Psy ops has gotten you to emasculate youself.
It it were up to you, Dems would have to pass a litums test that only Bernie (who really is an independent) can pass. We haven't had any real power since the 1st 2 years of the Clinton administration and he was error prone and stepped on his appendage.
Damn Daniel, everything with you is psyops, and now you charge me with being emasculated. Well here is to you, the Democratic party by and large has been emasculated, Take Chuck Schumer for instance.
I am no fool, Daniel, and no sucker for psyops (either yours or theirs) and I can't be manipulated or intimidated by being called names either. I've shoved that shit up the asses of Putin trolls and HAMAS trolls.
Yeh, I do have a litmus test, and that test is to show some spine.
And to go back to the past in our discussions, Nancy Pelosi did kill Bernies Single Payor plan, she wouldn't let it come to the floor.
A single payor plan is simple, just changed the Medicare enabling act from eligible at age 65 to eligible at birth.
But that would not made the Association of Health Insurance Providers, a source of funding for the party, very happy.
And yes we did have a short period of power, remember the Respect for Marriage Act.
If the Democrats had a populist reputation and platform Daniel (a progressive populist,not right wing populist) then the Republicans would not be in power.
I bitch at the Democrats because I want them to show some fucking balls, not cringe at criticism from the right, to cower, and soft shoe, to act like the Republicans because people want to elect leaders,not soft shoe followers,.
UB a fool. Also not accurate.
That's it Daniel? I am a fool and also not accurate.
The first is a value judgement, an opinion and those are like assholes.
The second (also not accurate) begs clarification, examples and discussions.
Anyway I have already told you want I am, my inclinations are progressive (but they don't define me, they are not my identity), I am not a Democrat or any political party, though lately I have registered and voted as such, for the obvious reason, or maybe it isn't obvious.
You see I haven't had any motivation to vote for, but a hell of a lot of motivation to vote against. And I have voted against the Republicans, so in the minds of some that makes me a Democrat, and I ain't no fool to vote third party, especially when they are really disguised Republicans or like the
Green party.. Russki's.
Now is our moment—tomorrow take action against this harmful government. They are:
Covering up a pedophile ring.
Ignoring court orders.
Spreading corruption.
The poor, the needy, and children are being abused—by our government. Healthcare, already a broken system, was canceled for 13 million. Take to the streets!
We must protest outright crooks and the pedophiles. They will start shooting us. Untrained ICE agents will shoot us. Protest until we go down or we oust these tyrants.
I made 54 protest signs to aid protest groups. I will make many more to share. You will see something different in these signs! Help yourself to this second batch, and share them as far as you can.
https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/more-free-protest-signs?r=3m1bs
First, I must say that today's song brought tears to my eyes. Then I want to repeat one thing I learned from the 2012 book,"Why Nations Fail." "The analysis suggests that the constant threat of revolution motivates the wealthy to democratize." Notice Europeans have more of the "nice things" as Thom puts it, than we do. They make a whole lot more noise than we do.
The problem is the rich have no understanding that they are going to pay for everything that goes wrong. This was done intentionally and we are going to make sure those responsible actually pay for it this time. The day is over when the little guy pays for everything. We were not given any decision making process in this destruction. This time the rich will pay for fixing everything that needs fixing and it will done well and not cheap.
The so-called 'stock market' is a rigged casino. Nothing More. Nothing More. Study it. The shorts and buy backs and hedging are Built Into the Cake!!!!! Folks, WAKE UP.
DARE TO BE WOKE. The Brain DEAD are trolling anything that moves, leaves, rocks, clouds, litter, jaws, jaws and more jaws, all leading to the pre-designed train wreck the speculators wanted all along. Bail OUT and lose but not everything, then scramble. The parasites close in, buy back after selling short, inflate their bottom line and then sell high to the desperate.
Parasites LOOK FOR Road Kill. They gobble it up between semi trailer trucks at 80 mph. Seriously, the top ten percent do NOT give a F&&k about any of you, certainly not me. I rejected capitalism fifty years ago. I find it ironically telling that Vegas is mostly empty. Even the suckers are BROKE already. Soon, in the next six weeks, most of the rest of us will have dollars that are worth 33-50 percent LESS. That means we BUY 60 percent less.
Unfortunately many of our friends will go hungry. Share your saved resources, but first save some. I saw retail sales up while jobs down - sure indicator folks are buying bulk for this FOR CERTAIN very rainy six months to 2 years of nightmares. I have been stocking up for one year, and buying 40 percent less for two months.
Band together where possible. Buy NOTHING you do not really need. What you really need, BUY 4 of each. Get lean. Get hungry. Get straight, Get angry and then Get Furious, and then take 7 deep breaths and then GET SMART. Asymmetrical Warfare, in the shadows, guerilla style. The real gorilla, Ishmael. Do MORE with 60 percent less. You will see it is possible.
Get out of stocks and futures. Get into food, fuel, medicine, water, simple transportation and staying at home. Find grounding. Find something really worth living for and protecting, and then protect it. Wait for weaknesses, and then strike hard and fast and leave no trail.
"This must be at the core of the platform Democrats run on this fall and during next year’s midterms." THE FALL AND THE MIDTERMS! That will be too late. I hate to use the term, but how about Republican congresspeople getting some BALLS and join the Democrats NOW to stop the insanity. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is gone TODAY. Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to let the Criminal keep Air Force One after he leaves the golf course, oooppps office, and the American public will have spent close to $1 billion. WE CAN'T WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR
The "calvary" is, unfortunately, "The Three Stooges". As the disasters pile up, the people who we have historically relied upon to help us with help are gone. They have been replaced with incompetent and uninformed decision makers that will not be able to marshal the forces necessary to help the American people recover. Instead, the Republicans are creating their own private army and locking them into a false sense of financial security that probably 90% of them have never even dreamed of having. $50,000 sign up bonus and $175 million to play with in the future. The chaos that the Republicans are creating will become the fuel for justification of the use of the military forces on the American people. Throw into the mix the immediate rise of AI and the massive loss of jobs on the horizen and as we say in Texas..."You dun pissed in your whiskey." Hopefully, the administration. or whoever is actually running this country into the ground, will have overplayed their hand with assuming that the military will go along with the ruse.
My mother survived the Great Depression as well as World Wars 1 and 2. Her political wisdom: "If you want a war, vote Democratic. If you want a depression, vote Republican." Of course, that's no longer true. You get a war no matter which party is in power, but, yes, the Republicans still specialize in depressions.
Oh my ! ....this is so much a must read....every sentence, every paragraph illuminates what the "Shit Stain GOP" has produced and accomplished for this country over the past 100+ years.
Just one example in this amazing article.
Quote : "The horrible jobs report just released hours ago highlights not only how bad things were in July, but they had to “revise downward by 285,000 jobs” previous reports; it looks like Trump’s people have been cooking the books."
Trump just fired the director of labor statistics this afternoon, basically accusing her of "cooking the books" because he didn't like the numbers! Truly unbelievable....
"...it looks like Trump’s people have been cooking the books."
Ya' think?! Let's see -- Trump convicted on 34 counts of fraud for "cooking the books", and Trump's former CFO Allen Weisselberg now serving time for fraud, i.e., "cooking the books". So, yeah, Trump's people have been, and will continue to, cook the books.
There is no disputing that demand side Keynesian economic policy works, in the best of all possible worlds that is. We are no longer in the Roosevelt era and things are different now. Demand side economics will drive us into a conflicting problem that is a combination of overpopulation, climate change and diminishing resources. Climate change is already rearing its ugly head with floods, higher temperatures, warming seas, loss of wildlife, peak oil and more.
The fact is that we need to reduce spending but not the way that krasnov wants, rather in an equitable manner. The upper 10% of earners in the USA, those making at least $250,000 per year, account for nearly 50% of all consumer spending, which is the highest share recorded since data collection began in 1989. This is not equitable.
How do we fix this? First of all we need to make sure that no one has more money than they deserve, meaning tax cheats. Secondly, no more billionaires! There is no rational reason for anyone to be sitting on a pile of money like that. Set a 90% income tax on anything over x amount and 100% over y amount.
Education, especially teaching climate change and over-consumerism to the young. They are the ones who will have to deal with what's left of the planet. We need to try to mitigate all of the problems facing us before it's too late.
Sorry to be a curmudgeon but the clock is ticking.
Off topic but I just had to post this bit. On July 26, an embryo frozen in 1994 was born, and by the logic of the meme of life begins at conception, this lad, Thaddeus, is 31 years old and eligible to vote.
A baby boy born in Ohio on July 26 has set a world record as the oldest baby ever born from a frozen embryo. Thaddeus Daniel Pierce was conceived from an embryo created and cryopreserved in 1994 by Linda Archerd during an in vitro fertilization cycle.
Now 62, Archerd donated her remaining embryos after menopause through a process known as embryo adoption, in which donors have input on where embryos are placed and which are often handled by Christian agencies. Lindsey and Tim Pierce adopted the embryo, which had been stored for over 30 years in a slow-frozen plastic vial. Archerd previously gave birth to a daughter from the same IVF procedure—that daughter is now 30 and has a 10-year-old child.
Since the first IVF baby was born in 1978, over 13 million babies worldwide have been born through IVF or similar technologies. In the US, about 2% of babies—one in every 42—are born using IVF.