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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.

The crapification of the U.S. economy is now complete. The only thing left is the tiresome waiting for the implosion of the entire travesty of a mockery of a sham. The U.S. economy has fundamentally changed, and not for the better. There are numerous dynamics behind this decay, and I’ll discuss a few of the more consequential ones this month.

When the state / empire loses the ability to recognize and solve core problems of security and fairness, it will be replaced by another arrangement that is more adaptable and adept at solving problems. From a systems perspective, nation-states and empires arise when they are superior solutions to security compared to whatever arrangement they replace: feudalism, warlords, tribal confederations, etc.

The bear has awakened, and it will not be limited to the stock market. The bear awakens from a long, uneasy slumber and the everything bubble is in trouble. I’m not going to make the bear case with charts or price-earnings ratios or sentiment readings or anything remotely financial.

We are in effect so busy arranging the beach umbrellas per our instructions that we don’t notice the approaching tsunami. Economists focus on what can be easily measured: sales, profits, prices, tax revenues, etc. Since the decay and failure of institutions isn’t easily quantified, this decay doesn’t register in the realm of economics.

The equity, real estate and bond markets all rode the coattails of the Fed’s ZIRP and easy-money liquidity tsunami for the past 13 years. As those subside, what’s left to drive assets higher?

The clear winners in inflation are those who require little from global supply chains, the frugal, and those who own their own labor, skills and enterprises. As the case for systemic inflation builds, the question arises: who wins and who loses in an up-cycle of inflation?

The number of traders who beat the indices soundly over both Bull and Bear markets are very few in number. The Bear’s broken clock is finally right. Those clock hands stuck at midnight–well, it’s finally midnight.

Surely the Fed gods will affirm the cult’s most revered articles of faith. But false gods eventually fail, even the Fed. Every once in awhile the zeitgeist sets up an either / or: either the zeitgeist is crazy or I’m crazy. (OK, let’s agree I’m crazy; see, it’s not that hard to find something to agree on, is it?)

The Empire is striking back, protecting what really counts, and the Billionaire Bubble sideshow is folding its tents. One of the most enduring conceits of the modern era is that the Federal Reserve acts to goose growth and therefore employment while keeping inflation moderate (whatever that means–the definition is adjustable).

Here’s “politics” in America now: come with mega-millions or don’t even bother to show up. Representational democracy–a.k.a. politics as a solution to social and economic problems–has passed away. It did not die a natural death. Politics developed a cancer very early in life (circa the early 1800s), caused by wealth outweighing public opinion.

This gives an extreme advantage to those few who move first, long before they must. The financial advantage for first movers is equally extreme. Moving is a difficult decision, so we hesitate. But when the window to do so closes, it’s too late. We always think we have all the time in the world to ponder, calculate and explore, and then things change and the options we once had are gone for good.

Revolutions have a funny characteristic: they’re unpredictable. The general assumption is that revolutions are political.The revolution some foresee in the U.S. is the classic armed insurrection, or a coup or the fragmentation of the nation as states or regions declare their independence from the federal government.

Try to find a developing-world kleptocracy in which the top few collect more than 97% of the income from capital. There aren’t any that top the USA, the world’s most extreme kleptocracy. We’re Number 1. Imagine a town of 1,000 adults and their dependents in which one person holds the vast majority of wealth and political influence. Would that qualify as a democracy?

If we no longer have the capacity to distinguish between moral legitimacy and self-serving corruption, then we might as well eliminate the Middleman and vote directly for Pfizer or Merck. There’s a fancy word for cutting out the Middleman: disintermediation. Removing intermediaries who take a cut but neither produce nor add value makes perfect sense, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.