Latest Articles From Ajax The Great (Pete Jackson)

By Ajax the Great (Pete Jackson)

(Originally posted on the True Spirit of America Party blog)

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE LITTLE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN 

A new book by Matthew Desmond, Poverty By America, is the latest book about the topic of why poverty persists in the richest country on Earth.  In it, he discusses what he feels is the root cause of poverty's persistence, namely all of the ways that the non-poor benefit at the expense of the poor by keeping them poor.  It is true that it is not always enough to comfort the afflicted, sometimes you need to "afflict the comfortable" as well, to paraphrase the famous author and filmmaker Michael Moore.  

While there is a great deal of truth to what he says, and he makes some great points, the TSAP feels that the author is unfortunately 1) engaging too much in zero-sum game thinking, where in for one person to win, someone else has to lose, 2) largely ignoring the "little man behind the curtain", that is, the oligarchs of the big banks and Wall Street who fundamentally rig the game, and the FERAL Reserve that they own and control.  By focusing on all of the ways that the middle class and somewhat rich benefit at the expense of the poor, it also has the effect of ignoring what the billionaire class has done and is continuing to do to the broader working class, which includes the poor, the near poor, and the ever-shrinking middle class as well.  In contrast, David DeGraw back in 2014 wrote Peak Inequality, that really sheds light on the "little man behind the curtain":  the top 0.01%.  And it applies a fortiori to 2023, as inequality has only gotten worse.  If reading that doesn't make you feel RIPPED OFF, check your pulse 'cause you might be dead!

While there a number of things that need to be done to solve these massive intertwined and synergistic problems of poverty and inequality, keep in mind that we can mathematically end poverty overnight with a Universal Basic Income (UBI).  And also another that our tax code is actually regressive at the very top, where thanks to numerous loopholes, the top 0.01% often pay only a fraction of what those below them pay, if anything at all.  Aside from closing loopholes and greatly hiking the top marginal tax rates for those making over $10 million per year, another idea that has yet to be tried is a financial transactions tax on stocks, bonds, derivatives, and stuff like that. Alternatively, essentially all taxes could be replaced by a tiny 0.1% or less Universal Exchange Tax (UET) on all electronic transactions, period.  With a tax base of most likely $5 quadrillion or more, a 0.1% rate would raise $5 trillion per year, enough for the entire federal budget and then some.  It would actually be quite progressive in practice, since the rich make far more transactions than the non-rich.  And such a tax would still be quite painless for literally everyone except perhaps speculators and money launderers.

And of course, we need to nationalize the private FERAL Reserve, and restore the power of money creation back to its rightful creators, Congress, who would then authorize the Treasury to do so.  Such power is far too important to leave to the big banks and they sycophantic lackeys and technocrats. 

So what are we waiting for?

HOW TO DEFUSE THE QUADRILLION DOLLAR DERIVATIVES BUBBLE 

"Beware the Ides of March!"

With all the talk about (so far) isolated bank failures and the potential for a real, wider financial crisis in the near future, no one wants to talk about the real elephant in the room:  the looming QUADRILLION dollar derivatives bubble just waiting to burst.  And if the FERAL Reserve keeps on hiking interest rates in a misguided attempt to fight inflation that is already cooling, it will burst catastrophically, making 2008 and possibly even 1929 look like a walk in the park.

This massive derivatives bubble was decades in the making, resulting from the ever-increasing "financialization" of the economy.  Wall Street has basically been gambling with other people's money, in the world's largest casino, all while getting bailouts.  Privatize the profits, and socialize the losses, basically.

There is still time to defuse this ticking time bomb though:

1. Cut interest rates, YESTERDAY!  Or at least stop raising them!
2. End Quantitative Tightening, YESTERDAY!
3. Pass a financial transaction tax (aka "Wall Street Gaming Tax") of 0.1% on all financial transactions, including stocks, bonds, and especially derivatives.
4. Repeal the "safe harbor" provision of bankruptcy law, particularly as it applies to derivatives. 
5. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act in full.
6. Ban the practice of "quote stuffing".
7. Ban stock buybacks by corporations.
8. Going forward, ban any and all types of new and exotic derivatives that are not completely transparent. 
9. No more bailouts OR "bail-ins" of the banks (but of course depositors should still be made whole per the FDIC, with  no apologies to ultra-purist libertarians or paleoconservatives).
10. Implement "Quantitative Easing For People" (that is, with direct payments to individuals, not banks) as needed.
11. And last but not least, all banks that are "too big to fail" are really too big to exist, and should thus be either forcibly broken up, or nationalized as public utilities.  YESTERDAY!

The first five items alone, or even the first four, would be enough to defuse it in the near term, while the remaining items would be to clean up the damage and/or prevent it form happening again in the future. 

In the meantime, we all need to brace ourselves for a possible financial crisis and recession in the future.  But don't fall for the idea that we should withdraw all of our money now, as that would literally be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The FDIC guarantees the first $250,000 per depositor per bank, so unless you have more than that (and didn't put it in multiple banks like you should have), it does not make sense to do so.

And let's not forget the role that the lockdowns played in all of this.  To paper over their predictable consequences, they printed trillions of dollars to do so (which increased demand for goods and services), at the same time that the lockdowns and their fallout constrained supply and snarled supply chains.  The resulting inflation was then belatedly papered over by raising interest rates and Quantitative Tightening, and the resulting whiplash has brought us where we are now with the banks, and making the bubble even more likely to burst.

Of course, things weren't exactly rosy for the financial system before the pandemic either.  Behind the scenes, a financial crisis was already subtly brewing, with the turmoil "repo market" in September 2019 being the first canary in the coal mine.  The FERAL Reserve kept printing more and more money to try to paper it over, but the problem wouldn't go away, even many months later.  They needed to do something BIG, and FAST.  It's almost like the pandemic was actually a PLANDEMIC, a big heist of the century to temporarily shore up the big banks in 2020 and make the rich richer, the poor poorer, and hollow out whatever is left of the middle class.  But hey, that's just a "conspiracy theory", right?

UPDATE:  The FERAL Reserve has raised the Fed Funds Rate by 0.25 percentage points.  Looks like they really, really wanna pop the "Everything Bubble".

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from Rasa, comments:

        OK, I know it's BRILLIANT & I read it but I don't UNDERSTAND IT as I don't have the education for this.  I know what you're saying is TRUE even though I don't get the terms, vocabulary & even some of the ideas, as to me, it's like 'legalese' of the lawyer to a lay person.  But the basic PRINCIPLES I do understand:  It benefits the rich to have the lower class, the lower the better so they can take advantage of them.  "Who will clean the horse shit off the streets?" Queen Victoria asked me when I channelled her. "We need the poor to do the dirty work.  Why don't we help them?  It's not our concern, we don't go there mentally, they are where they are, our minds are on keeping our wealth & status, at whatever cost."  Last night, I heard about this apparition of Our Lady.  Yes it is the Feminine Divine, Mother God as the person Mary, who has appeared to the human race so many times to save us in time of greatest need, crises, emergencies, war & poverty:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1ziOrzKuXk

    Thanks Ajax for all the great work you do.  It's important & much appreciated. 

AJAX THE GREAT SAYS:  Very well-said, Rasa.  Thank you very much, and you're very welcome.