Of Two Minds

America’s financial system is nothing more than a toxic waste dump of speculation, fraud, collusion, corruption and rampant profiteering. What Poisoned America? The list of suspects is long: systemic bias, special interests dominating politics, political polarization, globalization and the offshoring of productive capacity, over-regulation, the rise of rapacious cartels and monopolies, Big Tech’s gulag of the mind, the permanent adolescence of consumerism, permanent global war, to name a few.

The lifestyle you ordered in the euphoria will be out of stock in the panic. Humans running Wetware 1.0 (which is all of us) love to gamble, and we are entranced by the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. When there’s a market for speculation, these wild swings of emotion manifest as euphoria (I’m winning!) and fear (I’m losing).

Regardless of our opinions about President Carter and his legacy, his Farewell Address is worthy of our attention and study. On Presidents Day 2021, I invite you to read/watch President Carter’s Farewell Address from 40 years ago. As a Washington outsider, Carter was relentlessly mocked and undermined by the Establishment, as insiders’ loathing of outsiders knows no bounds.

Why would anyone sell when further gains are guaranteed? Because the gains are unreal but the losses are real. When markets are soaring and your portfolio is rocketing higher, the gains seem unreal. Did I really make that much in one day, week, month? Wow!

The middle class has already collapsed, but thanks to debt and bubbles, this reality has been temporarily cloaked. What collapsed the middle class? In many ways the answer echoes an Agatha Christie mystery: rather than there being one guilty party, a number of suspects participated in the collapse of the middle class.

Unfortunately for those at the top who’ve benefited immensely from speculative bubbles, speculative bubbles don’t create a vibrant middle class–they push what’s left of the middle class off a cliff. What exactly is the Middle Class and what unique role does it serve in the economy?