A strange but familiar refrain from the apologists for the US financial elite is always and forever “no more taxes,” or “don’t you dare raise taxes on our small businesses.” Of course, when it comes to lowering taxes it is always the largest corporations and the richest individuals who benefit most. Under the grifter I … More Party Like It Was 1955: And Tax Us Too
A great deal of angst has emerged over the huge amount of money, initially two trillion dollars, being conjured “out of thin air” to counter the economic collapse occurring under to stay-at-home orders and business closures as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated. The Two trillion dollars quickly proved to be wildly insufficient to stimulate the economy … More Phantom Wealth, Phantom Debt, and Viral Pandemic
Granted, the media frenzy over “The Donald,” as if he were some sort of political “outsider” riding in on a white horse to save the American people from all those “politicians” running for president, is rather astounding. Crass is in with the mass media. It is hard to find any genuine political process in all … More Political Pathology Trumps Political Democracy, or not?
The idea that the financial markets are the essential force that drives economic growth and progress, has dominated political thinking for too long. The financial markets and their agents have dominated politics and the Congress over recent decades more than ever before. After all, it took several decades for the financial elite to accomplish the … More The Upside-Down Economy
Ever wonder why the richest nation in the world, the U.S., has become a “debtor nation”? Oh, but they’ve already told you. It’s those politicians, especially the ‘liberal’ ones who just spend too much. You know, those “tax and spend” liberals. Well, I’m no apologist for the liberals. I agree with Chris Hedges that the … More The National Debt and Deficit Scam
The accelerating concentration of income and wealth in the upper 1% of the upper 1% of the population and the failure of the “growth” economy to serve the population that supports it, are not only moral questions of fairness. The distribution of income and wealth are also important elements of the health of the economy … More Why a Return to Progressive Taxation is necessary…and Right
The reality we face in the coming decades involves three integrated crises: 1) the consolidation of the corporate state driven by the debt-based endless corporate-growth economy, which increasingly damages populations by isolating them from economic resources and destroys the environment we all need, in service to short-term profit and political power; 2) accelerating resource depletion … More What It Will Take: Living in a World We Made But Never Expected to See, Part II
Last Hours is a scary video that presents the raw scientific facts of the impact of global warming reaching the tipping point where warming is accelerated by massive release of methane from the arctic tundra and below the sea beds, because it is melted from its frozen solid state. The result is an unstoppable positive … More Last Hours, Last Hope, Last Reality Check.
We all know that politics is rife with deceit of the public and deception of the self. Claims as to the reasons a senator or congressman supports or opposes a bill or a policy are often merely “cover stories” hiding the widespread real reason the politicians vote the way they do – money. The conflation … More Why Is Social Security So Insecure?
I used to wonder how it is that after generations of Americans spent their entire adulthood paying mortgages just as their parents had, only a tiny fraction actually owned their modest homes outright upon retirement. The next generation, in most cases, starts the process all over again with little if any inheritance. Where is the … More Clearances, Foreclosures, and Evictions
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 