Posted on 01/28/2025 5:06:08 AM PST by MtnClimber
“. . .once Trump runs out of easy ways to unf--- the federal government, his administration will hit a crossroads moment, probably sooner rather than later.” — Matt Taibbi.
That’s the sound of a swamp being drained. And much fetid water is still backed up over the 68.3 square miles that comprise the District of Columbia. You might be just realizing that the “Joe Biden” regime was not a government at all, but rather, a colossal racketeering operation. And let’s be clear and precise: racketeering is making money dishonestly. Thus: the grubby Biden Family itself at the top of that putrid food-chain, and their smalltime harvesting of mere table-scraps. Where trillions got creamed off by the big gators, the Bidens risked all for a measly few million, like newts gorging on gnats in a drainage ditch.
Are you so cynical— as the Marxians are in their so-called “critique” of capitalism — that you think all human transactions of making-and-doing are dishonest? That is yet another misreading of reality, which the recent years of nonstop official propaganda and gaslight have catastrophically aggravated to the degree that half of America can no longer think at all.
Capitalism is not a political ideology despite the “ism” incorrectly attached to it, like the tail pinned on a donkey. Capitalism is simply the management of surplus wealth. The catch is, in a hyper-complex society, the management itself becomes complex to an extreme. And that can easily lead to mismanagement, which will deform and pervert the very mechanisms that superintend wealth, sometimes so badly that the wealth disappears altogether.
These are the dynamics faced by the newborn Trump command. Both political parties, per se, have fallen into a dismal habit of racketeering in this sclerotic state-of-empire. But now Mr. Trump has seized control of the Republican apparatus, at least, and the Party’s entrenched ol’ crocs and pythons descry that under DJT the regular feeding frenzy is over. Hence: the hand-wringing over Pete Hegseth setting foot in the Pentagon, as he will sometime this dawning day. The dollars pounded down that rat-hole in this century could have funded start-ups of several empires, but instead the swag just landed in the index funds of countless board members parasitically lodged in a dark cosmos of G.I. procurement circle-jerks. A lot of that can and will be stopped. And the ones who just won’t quit are liable to be found out.
Now, the Democratic Party faces more perplexing quandaries. It, too, is constructed as a gigantic grift machine. But if you subtract the employees of the multitudinous NGOs and non-profit orgs set up in recent years to receive government largess — which have spawned like smelts in the San Joaquin delta — you would eliminate much of the party’s rank-and-file. (The rest are apparently embedded in government itself and the teachers’ union.) A whole lot of activists would lose their platforms for activism in the process.
These crypto-bureaucracies have become the places where the Democratic Party stashes the “elite over-production” of Woked-up Marxian semi-morons from America’s diploma mills — in which orgs they are lavishly paid to conduct the aforementioned propaganda and gaslighting operations that wrecked so many American minds. The funding spigot to many of those is getting shut down. It will result in an employment crunch for a large cohort of professional crybabies. They could possibly adapt to their new circumstances by ceasing to be crybabies, and finding other, more useful things to do. That would portend some very significant cultural shiftings, which might include the death of the Democratic Party as we’ve known it. Or, they could all just join Antifa (if they’re not already in it) and go make trouble in the streets.
The first seven days of Mr. Trump have been sheer razzle-dazzle. He and the people around him have torn through the zeitgeist like front-end-loaders through a homeless encampment. He has yet to meet a crisis. Some of the obvious traps are avoidable. For instance: seeking further injury to Russia as a way of ending the stupid Ukraine war — started by us in 2014, thanks a lot Victoria Nuland & Company — since both the US and Russia are just about unconditionally desirous of stopping the damn thing as soon as possible. It’s had no benefit for anybody but the Raytheon war lobby and the Zelensky regime’s legion of grifters. Mr. Trump’s recent tough talk has been entirely for show, just a mass of rhetorical lube to un-stick the lingering “Joe Biden” stasis in that sad-sack corner of the world.
If crisis awaits, it’s probably lurking in the financial realm, where the operations of debt have put nearly every country on Gawd’s Green Earth behind the eight-ball. There is just too much of it that everybody knows can’t possibly be paid back — or soon even serviced — and the grand managers of these matters are finally out of tricks for pretending things can go on.....SNIP
The democRATs seem to want to spend us into a Cloward-Piven economic collapse. And the more ridiculous the thing that money is squandered on the better. They are waiting to “Build Back Better” under marxism, but unfortunately the collapse did not happen soon enough for Pedo Joe to lead us to our glorious future as play things for the leftist elites.
James Howard Kunstler ping
Defunding the left. FULL SPEED AHEAD!
If crisis awaits, it’s probably lurking in the financial realm, where the operations of debt have put nearly every country on Gawd’s Green Earth behind the eight-ball. There is just too much of it that everybody knows can’t possibly be paid back — or soon even serviced — and the grand managers of these matters are finally out of tricks for pretending things can go on.....SNIP
Yep! The piper must be paid sooner or later and it’ll probably happen on Trumps watch.
On the subject of the debt:
1) You can’t pay it back.
2) You can’t not pay it back (You can’t default).
One of these statements is untrue.
Yes, you can inflate the currency so much that paying $33T can be done with pocket change.
Or, you can screw the Central Bankers and jump out their rigged global economy and just start over.
We do have choices — but we are going to have to do one of the things that “you can’t do”.
Thank you for posting.
I like the line, “Capitalism is simply the management of surplus wealth.”
It draws the obvious, “Communism is the management of surplus poverty.”
As always - Great commentary by Kunstler! If Hunter Thompson and PJ O’Rourke had a kid...
>The democRATs seem to want to spend us into a Cloward-Piven economic collapse
Um, ‘Magic Mike’ has been Speaker for...HOW long now? From what I can remember he handed over blank checks to the Biden admin w/ new roaring applause from BOTH sides of the aisle
Hell, he’s the one that conceded during the last ‘shutdown’ instead of pushing for concessions.
Yet, “somehow”, Mike & rest get re-elected > 95% of the time. So, ultimately, the blame lies w/ the base voter *shrug*
We will default - but so creatively many will not realize we have defaulted.
Well, as A1S10 has NEVER been Amended & Congress cannot (legally) bequeath its authority (Weights & Measures+) to any other entity, esp. a private one such as the Fed...
Lastly, as much of the ‘debt’ is govt’s left-hand pocket ‘owing’ the right-hand pocket, much can be simply negated.
But, BOY would that cause a puckering of starfish even here on FR as many raspily croak, “But, but, I *paid* into (nothing @ all in reality)...”
The Uniparty, & bases of the faux dichotomy, LOVE ‘em their Socialism+
Precisely
This is why we need "guardrails" on Our Democracy™ - because if voting carries the day, there are not enough bunkers in New Zealand to save the money boys.
“It’s had no benefit for anybody but the Raytheon war lobby and the Zelensky regime’s legion of grifters.”
A silly statement. The major beneficiary of the Ukraine-Russia war is the Chinese Communist Party.
To ignore this obvious fact shows a willingness to avoid reality.
There is also the option that both statements are true - which is where we are, now. You don’t pay it back and you don’t default, you keep borrowing.
Truth be told, you can “dig your way out”. Cut spending, maximize growth and begin paying down the debt.
Most people, however, are Grasshoppers and not Ants.
The “Joe Biden” regime was not a government at all, but rather, a colossal
racketeering operation. As we all know: racketeering is making money dishonestly.
<><>the grubby Biden Family stationed itself at the top of that putrid food-chain,
<><>trillions got creamed off by the big gators,
<><>the Bidens risked it all for a measly few hundred million,
<><>Biden Democrats gorging in foreign drainage ditches
<><>conniving Hunter making it all happen.
If Trump can turn off all of the free stuff fountains round the world, we will be able to find out who was benefitting from it, and what they were doing with it.
This is a gross simplification: The Pharaohs had surplus wealth, but they managed it by putting in in granaries. They didn't have capitalism.
Capitalism requires a reserve banking system and a high-trust society where contracts are enforced without too much graft or interference by the state. This developed mainly in the Italian city states in the 14th century and then spread to Europe with large financing arranged by letters of credit issued by international banks.
The current situation is somewhat unique: every major economy (the US, China, Europe, Japan) uses fiat currencies and is in debt up their eyeballs. You would think the US dollar would depreciate but it does not because everyone else is also borrowing like there's no tomorrow, so you have mutual depreciation and worldwide inflation.
And the inflation doesn't become hyperinflation because of the unparalleled ability of the central banks to soak up liquidity by raising interest rates. It's a very strange situation.
I've seen comments by Bessent about a return to gold, but that would require a drastic revaluation of the dollar and probably a severe haircut for US bondholders.
“We will default - but so creatively many will not realize we have defaulted.”
The Feds and .gov will use a blizzard of big words—and invent some new ones—to hide what is happening.
This is what our universities have trained them to do.
<>Now, the Democratic Party . . . is constructed as a gigantic grift machine.<>
President Trump cut off their funding. Today.
Heh, heh.
President Trump cut off their funding. Today.
Heh, heh.
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