42 Comments

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Thom, for doing such a great job of explaining how the billionaires exploit the system. The key is that you said it is difficult for most of us to understand how different a depression works for billionaires because it is the opposite of our lived experience where we suffer in a depression or recession. Musk and his ilk are salivating at the thought of Trump creating another deep recession or depression so they can go full-on predator on the American people again.

Expand full comment

And Trump isn't just planning to lock up his enemies in the media. An insight into what he plans to do if given the chance is what he said last night in a Tucker Carlson interview where he talked about how Liz Cheney will feel looking at nine rifles trained on her face. In his mind, he sees himself as Stalin purging all his enemies by killing them or sending them to Siberia. He is a mentally ill, paranoid, narcissistic maniac who should never have power again.

Expand full comment

First of all. should Trump win, he will be held accountable by all Freedom-Loving Americans who will not allow him to do anything "unconstitutional." You have said above that Trump would act like a "Communist." Should Kamala win, why should I believe that she and Walz and Bernie and Obama will not act like the Communists they are?

Expand full comment

Mechanically, speculators gamble, place bets (shorts) that the economy will fail, and thus CAUSE downturns.

After 9/11 some of us, including our late governor/senator Bob Graham, wanted to know who had short positions prior to the attack. I don't know this as a fact, but I bet Saudi princes had. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/503645

Same is true with other policy.

Expand full comment

When America has a Resection, the Top Ten percent see a Great Big For Sale sign. Amazing article this morning, Thom, Thank You and will reStack ASAP 💯💙🌊

Expand full comment

Use scalpels not sledgehammers when doing resections.

Expand full comment

No wonder my feelings about my country are starting to erode. Most of us never realize just how obsessed some are with having more, more, more, more !!!! Sad commitment to total greed and power.?And have you noticed…. They are the ones always complaining! Always!!!!!!! Never satisfied with gluttony .?Bored into evil because they sit around in their own mold trying to get it all…, just a thought…. Deport them.

Expand full comment

Mr. Hartmann, if the average person on a teacher's pension had this valuable information at the time of Reagan, Bush, and Trump's effort to tank the economy, what would your advice been at the time? Your newsletter today has a wealth of information I would never have known. I wouldn't have the ability to connect the dots. I fear most people are like myself, or was I just dumb to put it mildly?

Expand full comment

Eadie: The reason I am so grateful to Thom for putting this together and explaining it so well with references is that I stumbled upon how depressions and recessions work for the wealthiest accidentally in pieces beginning when I was a young teen and saw the movie, "The Carpetbaggers." I remember two things from the film: first, that the morbidly wealthy man was insecure and felt unloveable, and second, that he was so rich that the Great Depression did not harm him.

Then, a few years ago, I decided to write my memoirs and see if I could answer two questions: how much our lives turn out depends on where we are born and government policies, and do we really have free will? I found that there had been eleven recessions in my lifetime and that after each, inequality was greater than before the recession. This stark reality that economic downturns exacerbate social disparities was a profound revelation. I took free online courses about history, philosophy, economics, and finance, but nowhere does it say that recessions and depressions benefit the wealthy. Alan Greenspan stated in a Congressional hearing that he attributes his success as Fed Chair to employee insecurity. Bingo! The pieces came together.

Then, I took Robert Reich's 'Wealth and Poverty' classes and learned about Thom Hartmann and his Hidden History series. The world is coming into focus for me. I am so grateful that Thom can educate the way he does. His insights, particularly those shared in his essay today, have significantly deepened my understanding of economic disparities and the role of recessions and depressions in exacerbating inequality.

Expand full comment

Gloria, thank you very much for your thoughtful comment. I never connected the dots. Your interests were never mine growing up. I was a double major in education and classical civilization. My head was buried in the clouds. I followed the usual trajectory in life. I graduated with a Master's and took enough credits for a PHD. Instead of pursuing a PHD, I took the usual trajectory and got a PHT-putting hubby through medical school. Divorce came next and teaching at the time was my way of earning a living to support myself and two children. The rest is history. I don't come close to having the depth of knowledge you do. Again, thank you. I agree Thom Hartmann is a gift that keeps on giving.

Expand full comment

This reminds me of what Candy Crowley said last night on NPR. She said that everyone felt as if the world was on fire during the Viet Nam war era. Tens of thousands of American troops were dying. "But we got through it". Candy Crowley got through it, and the rest of us who didn't die in combat got through it. But tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese didn't get through it. Some of us will survive another Trump presidency. "We" will get through it. So don't worry. Be happy. It's just another horserace and another debate about tariffs and tax cuts. Keep telling yourself that. Maybe you will get through it.

Expand full comment

I got through it, but the rest of my team didn't, Their four names are inscribed on the Wall in the area for Sep 67

Expand full comment

I hope no one thought I was implying that I was ever engaged in combat. I had cushy duty as an electronics technician at Nellis AFB and had a part time job on the las Vegas strip at the old Dunes Hotel. Two of my brothers-in-law served in Viet Nam. One who was Mexican btw had PTSD and had horrible screaming nightmares. Candy Crowley is a respected journalist but I thought her statement was blasé and indifferent to the crisis we face with fascism pounding on our front door.

Expand full comment

I wonder why some get PTSD and some don't, is it nature or nurture.

I've seen and been in the middle of shit, that no human should see or smell. And never had a bad night,or flashbacks or anything that emotionally disabled me.

And some people have PTSD because of a childhood incident,an accident or even employment.

Expand full comment

I suspect it is more about one's experience than one's genetic inheritance but both interplay from day one and both are surely factors. I don't think the one with PTSD was ever able to talk about his experiences and I didn't think I should ask. But the other brother-in-law told harrowing stories including about playing dead and being pinned down for over 24 hours with dead nearby and he seemed to be relatively unfazed. He was 6' 6" and had been beaten regularly by an abusive father as a child in the deep south, so maybe he was more hardened.

Expand full comment

I would like to see studies. But that's a touchy subject.

Expand full comment

My guess would be that they felt abandoned as a child?

Expand full comment

Watch the shorts. As of October 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,760,000 shares, an increase of 7.4% from the September 30th total of 4,430,000 shares. Currently, 1.5% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 2,140,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.2 days. https://www.marketbeat.com/instant-alerts/nyse-eqh-options-data-report-2024-11-01/

To calculate the return on a short sale, first determine the difference between the sale proceeds and the cost associated with selling off the position. Next, divide this value by the initial proceeds from the sale of the borrowed shares. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/05/maxreturnshortsale.asp#:~:text=To%20calculate%20the%20return%20on,sale%20of%20the%20borrowed%20shares.

As usual, watch but don't bet. But Trump Media & Technology Group’s share price plunged 22.3% on Wednesday. That marks Trump Media’s worst one-day loss since going public in March, narrowly exceeding a loss of 21.5% on April 1. At the open today, it's off -0.94 -2.66%.

The king of shorts was George Soros, who once broke the Bank of England. https://www.influencewatch.org/person/george-soros/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw-JG5BhBZEiwAt7JR6zehJKz-O7WKrAPUoWElCZC_MMlXJkWSWWLD_lEHH7XoGUxEC5_DHxoCT9YQAvD_BwE#political-activities

Expand full comment

Truly it is amazing how the immoral Repubs get rich by creating misery in society and destruction of jobs and industry. How Christian of them.

Expand full comment

This is one way the rich get richer. It's much easier to exploit the system when you have $$ to begin with. Not sure how to fix it without radically changing the system...

Expand full comment

After the crash of 1929, the journalists identified the predatory capitalists who profit from a financial collapse as “market crash millionaires”.

In Home Wreckers, Aaron Glantz says two years before the housing market collapsed in 2008, Donald Trump looked forward to a crash: “I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy, Glantz quotes Trump.

After the crash in 2008, these predatory capitalists were lionized. They were described with respect in Michael Lewis’ The Big Short as savvy investors. Indeed, they were. But Lewis failed to emphasize that the bailout money went to the banks through to the the multimillion dollar hedge fund members.

The bank claim there was no harm done because the bailout money was paid with interest. But where did the banks get their money except from customers by charging higher than would otherwise be necessary administrative and interest charges. This was a massive upward transfer of wealth from the salaried class to the billionaire class.

The most successful of the hedge fund owners was John Paulson. He is reported to have made $20 billion by shorting the market. We only have the details of one of his transactions. He paid Goldman Sachs to promote a CDO called Abacus and then bought a credit default swap which paid when the CDO tanked.

Paulson is honored with the book title, The Greatest Trade Ever. Harvard has a building named after him. New York University has named the lobby of Tisch Hall and the Stern School of Business auditorium in Paulson’s honor. So, the brightest and best of the land can see their role model every day.

The financial instrument used to do this was called the credit default swap (CDS). Yet, how many understand what a credit default swap is; that it contributes nothing to society and only permits the super-rich to become impossibly richer?

The solution is to ban the credit default swamp.

Expand full comment

I have been reading lately about how Tesla is very shortly going to be in deep trouble--too much EV competition coming in, particularly from China. The stock is inflated. Shorting that stock would probably be a good idea.

Expand full comment

We have to remember there is a bell curve representing people’s tendency for caring about others and only caring about one’s self. There are as many who will behave like proper citizens as there are those who grab selfishly. We’ve had too many of the latter in power so we’re leaning bad.

When Reagan came to power I was relatively young. My father who was earning a lot of money and in a very high bracket became so upset with Reagan’s tax policy he wrote a letter saying this is going to destroy our country. He was okay with paying high taxes because he wanted a healthy country.

Rather than dwell on the people from the selfish side of that bell curve, we must empower the people on the giving side of that curve. There are equal amounts. It’s what we as a society do with what’s given us that creates these problems.

This is why I became a teacher. I knew teachers prepared citizens. The problem is our schools are corrupt and I have been trying to expose this since 1995 with no success because our country doesn’t value teachers. I’m powerless yet was so powerful in the classroom. The corruption is what has made teachers worthless, not their intent. The crooks running so many of our schools don’t want people like me anywhere near their wrongdoing. So the only way to stay employed is go along to get along. That killed real teaching.

We will always have selfish billionaires and a few unselfish ones but we must see this like a teeter totter and build up the good people to maintain balance. That’s what schools used to do. Check out WhiteChalkCrime.com. Read my book that explains this and has a solution for schools. Put me and others called to teach on the other side of that teeter totter rather than dwell on the selfish. We can’t change people’s souls. We can only balance bad eith good. Great teachers make a difference. Corrupt schools have not let most of us caring teachers do our thing for decades now. This is what we must dwell on!

Expand full comment

When well fed, animals share, when starving they become vicious.

Watch a nature show. The hungry lion, wolf, coyote hovers over and guards their food.

The rich and powerful are that way with their money. Money is only a tool to obtain power, and getting it is an addiction, just like gambling. Once they have it they jealously guard it, like a lion does it's prey,

The more you have of wealth and power, the more insecure you are because the higher you are on the social ladder, the further and harder you fall.

When a billionaire is philanthropic and altruistic it is for public relations image, not who they are. Carnegie left a huge charitable endowment, because he had no heirs and wanted to leave a legacy in history.

When the wealthy attend charity functions they are competing with others of their class, and their contribution has nothing to do with charity.

It is those at the bottom or near the bottom of the social ladder, who share, even when they are without, the same way that if you spill a sack of sunflower seeds in a field, a crow that finds it will caw (come and get it) and the next thing every crow in the neighbor hood has descended upon the field. (That one I learned from personal experience).

In this case altruism is motivated by the instinct for survival. I take care of you, in the hope that you will return the favor.

Expand full comment

Thank you for your explanation of just how scarily dangerous tfg is…

Expand full comment

What they love more than a recession is a depression.

The German hyper inflation of 1922 hurt the finance industry hard. Workers were getting paid daily, and they could take their wages and pay off their mortgages and debts with one days, later one hours pay.

On the other hand they love depressions, tumble, and they can then foreclose on debts, hold the property wait for recovery and then sell it at a huge profit, and start all over again

Manufacturers, those that survive prosper during depressions and recessions: the cost of labor and resources needed in production , goes down, and once down almost impossible to rise, absent organized labor.

Those classic automobiles that fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars, like the Cord, the Auburn, the Packard were produced during the depression. The Depression was the heyday for luxury goods, while the populace stood in soup lines, hopped freight cars and sold apples or like my mother, gave out samples of Beechnut chewing gum, our of a basket that looked like a drum while dressed as a drum majorette.

Expand full comment

Bankruptcy to creditors is legalized theft.

FDR/LBJ built a safety net.....

People in rural areas can be subsistence farmers....and revert to hunter gathering.

Expand full comment
20 hrs ago·edited 19 hrs ago

Republicans will "message" to Blame all economic woes on at the Democrats, Liberals, Big Government, and Deficit Spending. They will use any downturn as yet another "reason" to cut taxes on "the wealthy" and "the job creators."

This will play in the MSM like yet another episode of "The Vast Right Wing Blame Show."

(I recall Republicans blaming the 2008/2009 recession on big government's Fannie Mae.)

Elon Musk being a Republican capitalist idol is a great irony, and an appalling insult to all non-wealthy Americans. With his fortune including a spare $44 Billion coming from tax rebates, low tax rates, special favors, etc., he purchased Twitter, and he immediately fired 80% of the work force.

Not quite a "job creator". But few seem to notice.

He is what is known as a "So-C-E-O-Path".

Expand full comment

I saw this in action in my home province of Saskatchewan in the late 60s. Wheat was piling up and farmers were desperate, selling as low as $0.25 per bushel. People with money, car dealers, machine dealers, wealthy farmers (yes. they exist) bought up hundreds of thousands of bushels and stored it. In 1974 the USSR cornered the wheat market and the price went through the roof, up to $4.50 per bu. Money was made, as my mother would say, "Them that has, gets". I never thought about it pplying to the economy the way Thom explained it. Crashing the world economy would be great for the billionaires.

Expand full comment

Sadly, it's all too true! Most Americans live in the United States of Amnesia. Thank you, Thom, for reminding us that the Trump years weren’t about us; they were about the “morbidly rich.”

As a transparency activist in elections and the director of the 501(c)(3) organization AUDIT USA, I’ve dedicated my life since 2004 to rooting out corruption in elections and protecting democracy. I also happen to have ADHD—driven to fix things by understanding why they break in the first place. I've traveled the country to understand the problems. Back in the early 1970s I was Psychotherapist after going through the program in Maine called Elan One, I rose to be senior troubleshooting director over all facilities.

In April 2021, I served as deputy liaison for the Maricopa County Arizona recount, under Ken Bennett, former Arizona Secretary of State and now Ken is my brother from a different mother because of what we went through together. Initially, we entered the audit with an open mind, but it wasn’t long before we recognized that we were surrounded by “Parrot Election Experts”—talkers, not doers. The Cyber Ninjas excel at putting on a show, pushing out real experts, and pretending to know what they’re talking about while collecting donations to “protect the republic.” They don’t hold press conferences; they run infomercials—like the propaganda film The Deep Rig and the closed Senate hearings—avoiding any real questions from the public or media.

I learned from my attorney and best friend and co-founder Bill Risner, that Truth is a public service! A grifter is someone who swindles you through deception or fraud. Synonyms include fraudster, con artist, cheater, confidence man, scammer, hustler, swindler, etc. by the they make great Fake Experts.

Looking back, the Maricopa audit launched with an 11-hour public hearing that felt more like the ‘Rudy Giuliani Grifter Show.’ These so-called experts misled and exploited people, siphoning millions from Americans who were vulnerable to their misinformation. They even ran a daily grifting routine, broadcasting on all nine audit cameras and mobilizing supporters on Telegram with morning prayers to lull them into parting with their money.

It’s painful to admit, but the Democratic Party, which recognized my election work by naming me runner-up for state Democrat of the Year in 2006, turned against me for my role in this audit. I didn’t go into it as a Democrat; I went in because, after 17 years of studying election issues, I knew I had to observe it firsthand. That’s a story for another time, which I plan to write up after the election. By the way, since when has simply annoying a large group of people being led by grifters ever been a idea or real solution?

We at AUDIT USA are known for stimulating public debate and trying to break up groupthink. Groupthink is a way of thinking where members of a cohesive group accept a viewpoint, or a conclusion, whether it is correct or not, which then becomes a group consensus.

Groupthink stifles debate and ridicules other viewpoints. It is, sadly, effective because other ideas, facts, and opinions are shut down. The dangers of Groupthink: and Wikipedia

For those who haven't read my op-ed on the morbid rich called: “Democracy in Peril: A Well-Orchestrated Decline?” here is the link: https://johnrbrakey.substack.com/p/democracy-in-peril-a-well-orchestrated

Excerpt: Many people attribute the root of our current political crisis to polarization and tribalism, driven in part by social media algorithms.

This "Mirror Effect" intensifies the divide:

Republicans view Democrats as an existential threat, and vice versa. However, polarization may be a symptom rather than the cause. The real cause could be a well-funded, strategic takeover of key institutions—the GOP, the Supreme Court, state legislatures, redistricting processes, and Congress—with the ultimate goal of establishing rule by the wealthy.

Hope, Peace, Love, & democracy. John Brakey

Expand full comment