Of Two Minds

As for all those automated systems we have to navigate–do any of them work so well that those profiting from them actually use them? Of course not. In Marc Andreessen’s memorable phrase, “software is eating the world.” Unfortunately, it now has indigestion.

Unbeknownst to the giddy participants, they’re not just betting on the omnipotence of the Fed Politburo, they’re also making a max-leverage bet that “the madness of crowds” will never end. Imagine an economy so dominated by its central bank that all markets hang on every word of its priesthood as life or death.

That the neofeudal lords and their lackeys offer the debt-serfs “choices” of forced labor would be comic if the results weren’t so tragic. We know we’re close to the moment when Everything Solid Melts into Air when extraordinary breakdowns are treated as ordinary and the “news” quickly reverts to gossip.

One might anticipate that the bottom 50%’s meager share of the nation’s exploding wealth would have increased as smartly as the wealth of the billionaires, but alas, no. America’s economy has changed in ways few of the winners seem to notice, as they’re too busy cheerleading their own brilliance and success.

Four monster waves are about to crash onto the Fed’s beach party and sweep away the unwary revelers. Hey, is the water in the bay receding? Never mind, free drinks are on the Federal Reserve, so party on, life’s a beach, asset bubbles will never pop, we’re safe. Of course you are.

The era of abundance was only a short-lived artifact of the initial boost phase of globalization and financialization.Global corporations didn’t go to all the effort to establish quasi-monopolies and cartels for our convenience–they did it to ensure reliably large profits from control and scarcity.