Of Two Minds

Let’s call this financial system what it really is: the MetaPerverse, a conjured world of self-serving cons. We live in a peculiar juncture of history in which truth has been banished as a threat to the maximization of private gain, i.e. the hyper-pursuit of self-interest. Evidence that supports a causal chain has been replaced by cherry-picked data that supports a self-serving narrative: both the evidence and narrative are manufactured to serve the interests of the few at the expense of the many.

The unprecedented credit-fueled bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate are popping, and America’s corrupt leaders can only stammer and spew excuses and empty promises. Unbeknownst to most people, America’s leadership made a pact with the Devil: rather than face the constraints and injustices of our economic-financial system directly, a reckoning that would require difficult choices and some sacrifice by the ruling financial-political elites, our leaders chose the Devil’s Pact: substitute the creation of asset-bubble “wealth” in the hands of the few for widespread prosperity.

Meanwhile, back in the wintry real world, everyone facing a dime in higher costs is jacking up their price by a dollar. We’re constantly assured everything’s on the mend but this trying-too-hard marketing has the opposite effect: it confirms everything’s unraveling.

So when the gambler ends up juggling lit sticks of dynamite, he’s confident nothing bad can happen because nothing bad has ever happened, no matter how much risk he takes on. The problem with constantly being saved from the consequences of our actions is this fatally distorts our sense of risk.

Addiction is deadly, and no amount of artifice can obscure that this monetary addiction and collapse is the result of one Pusher: the Federal Reserve. To talk about the Federal Reserve raising rates and reducing “easing” as a policy error is like saying the fentanyl addict who reduces his daily dose is making a policy error.

Ponder what a clawback of the $50 trillion might entail, and the immense benefits of returning to producing quality goods and services by completely unwinding financialization and globalization. The happy story that’s been ceaselessly promoted for 45 years is that financialization and globalization have been wunnerful for all of us, boosting wealth and saving a small fortune as the cost of products fell.