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Farewell, Fugazy!
https://www.kunstler.com/ ^ | April 7, 2025 | James Howard Kunstler

Posted on 04/07/2025 1:55:36 PM PDT by little jeremiah

"Ah, the delicious smell of peak fear on Sunday/Monday...and max NOISE on X." —Raoul Pal

That ruckus you hear in the capital markets is the sickening howl of the Fugazy Economy meeting its extinction. Fugazy means fake, unreal, dishonest, misaligned to what societies need to thrive. Fugazy means mis-using the time-value of things that purport to be wealth to multiply fake wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the many. The pernicious effects of that system are visible all across the ruined landscape of our country, a nation of broken cities, failed towns, and a demoralized populace.

Mr. Trump apparently aims to convert the expiring Fugazy economy into a production economy — yikes! — based on making things of value, and perhaps more importantly, of people at all social levels having meaningful roles in the making and moving of things. The Trump tariffs are the first big step in a process that is already generating a whole lot of friction, heat, and ferment. The aim of the tariffs is straightforward: the end of a trade regime that punishes and cripples American production.

The response so far is heartening. Many other countries suddenly seek new trade arrangements with the USA, correctly sensing that Mr. Trump means bidness. (This ain’t no Mud Club. . . this ain’t no foolin’ around. . . .) It’s even possible that these readjustments will happen so swiftly that the tariff differentials will be a wash before summer, and everybody will be, at least, on a firm footing, knowing what the clear new rules say. This new disposition of things required forceful incentives to change entrenched, harmful practices.

Another angle on this process is the dynamic known as import-replacement. It means exactly what it sounds like: where you used to get stuff from other lands, you now make it here. It should be obvious that this can’t be accomplished overnight. But the question is: okay, when are you going to start? Part of the answer is: we can’t afford to put it off any longer. There’s an awful lot of stuff, from machine tools to pharmaceuticals to military equipment that we had better start making again — or else slide into collapse, perhaps even slavery to other powers.

That process starts with deploying real capital — as opposed to Fugazy capital — to re-start businesses and industries. That will take money away from hedge funds and other rackets that exist to play games with evermore abstract layers of things that only pretend to represent money. As that occurs, a lot of pretend money will vanish. Don’t be too shocked by this. That’s what happens when a society bends back toward reality: you start sorting out the real money from the fake money. That’s why the price of gold keeps marching up.

I sense that Mr. Trump and his colleagues knew full-well that the tariff play would rattle the markets badly, that these “corrections” are an unavoidable consequence, and are better gotten-over as quickly as possible. What else would you expect in a system that has dedicated itself for decades to mis-pricing the value of just about everything? The snap-back is sure to be harsh.

The psychopathocracy that drives the Global Left lost more traction last week in its quest to keep all of its old rackets running. Their foot-soldiers in the USA have been defunded effectively by Mr. Musk’s DOGE, starting with the immense network of rackets that were run around the USAID program. The Woke NGOs are no more and the fat paychecks are no longer going out to the nose-ring-for-lunch-bunch who came to infest the DC Beltway — and their satellite offices in Democratic Party controlled cities. Hence, the feeble turn-outs in last weekend’s street actions.

The Baby Boomers have gone especially psychotic. That’s why there are so many old folks waving those Soros-made placards in the astroturfed crowds of the “Hands-off” protests. After an eighty-year run of the most mind-blowing comfort and convenience enjoyed by any generation in world history, America’s Boomers stare into the abyss of their fading Fugazy fortunes as their stock portfolios tank. Kind of too bad. Maybe you shouldn’t have gone along for the ride. Maybe you should have cared for your country a bit more.

Here’s your poster-boy for that: the retarded slob rock-and-roller Neil Young, performing in support of the US Intel blob, the Covid-19 vaccine campaign, the degenerate Democratic party, Senator Adam Schiff, and BlackRock. Neil Young’s estimated net worth is about $200-million. He could lose ninety percent of that and still live a life of luxury. In 2022, he inveighed against Covid vaccine “misinformation” and promoted the shots. Guess, what? You were dead wrong about that, Neil, and now a lot of people are dead and dying because of those vaccines. He has many compadres in showbiz who took the same position against reality.

The time is not far-off when they will be revealed as disgraceful tools — Public vaxx champions such as Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Oprah Winfrey, Howard Stern, Ryan Reynolds, Lady Gaga. . . the list is long and discouraging. Meanwhile, they’re all out there rallying the Woke troops against the Golden Golem of Greatness as the Left’s leaky lifeboat goes down, gurgle, gurgle. In the process, they’ve destroyed Hollywood, rock and roll, and comedy. The country will recover from that, too. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to laugh at them in the years to come as the obituaries roll in.

Meanwhile, brace and rejoice! Great changes are set in motion. Roll with the turbulence. You’ll come out the other end, stronger, wiser, steadier, perhaps even happier. And, mark ye, the silence emanating from the DOJ and the FBI these budding spring days. The New York Times is nervous as all git-out.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: commerce; economy; kunstler; qtardnonsense; stockmarket; tarrifs; trade
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Great new word: psychopathocracy
1 posted on 04/07/2025 1:55:36 PM PDT by little jeremiah
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To: little jeremiah

bfl


2 posted on 04/07/2025 2:00:34 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy
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To: little jeremiah
A great one as usual. I just wish he'd call POTUS President Trump.

Image at the end of the article:


3 posted on 04/07/2025 2:00:41 PM PDT by little jeremiah (https://qalerts.app/)
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To: little jeremiah

The creeps above are just a small handful of the many more.


4 posted on 04/07/2025 2:01:17 PM PDT by little jeremiah (https://qalerts.app/)
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To: little jeremiah

I thought fugazi was a type of pasta. As in look I just made a fugazi jerry.


5 posted on 04/07/2025 2:01:52 PM PDT by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: little jeremiah

Yes. It is a good article
I read most of it.
But the article would have been just as good had he used the term “Fake” instead of the term “Fugazi”. At first I thought this was about that musical group that did a successful cover of Roberta Flacks hit “Killing Me Softly”.
Obviously, I was wrong


6 posted on 04/07/2025 2:04:40 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: lee martell

He likes odd words.


7 posted on 04/07/2025 2:05:17 PM PDT by little jeremiah (https://qalerts.app/)
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Is that like the fuckawi tribe?


8 posted on 04/07/2025 2:06:30 PM PDT by bankwalker (Repeal the 19th ...)
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To: little jeremiah

(Here’s your poster-boy for that: the retarded slob rock-and-roller Neil Young, performing in support of the US Intel blob, the Covid-19 vaccine campaign, the degenerate Democratic party, Senator Adam Schiff, and BlackRock)

😃😄🤣🤣🤣🤣😜😜🤪


9 posted on 04/07/2025 2:06:48 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: little jeremiah
EXCELLENT!!


10 posted on 04/07/2025 2:08:17 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: little jeremiah

Sho” nuff!


11 posted on 04/07/2025 2:08:22 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: little jeremiah
Kunstler doesn't like the popular San Francisco theater?


12 posted on 04/07/2025 2:11:50 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (PDJT doesn’t just walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He swaggers.)
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To: Larry Lucido
I thought fugazi was a type of pasta.

Nope. It was a WWII Italian fighter plane. Powered by the 12-cylinder Ricotta Freschetta Assaggio engine.

13 posted on 04/07/2025 2:12:11 PM PDT by Sirius Lee ("Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”)
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To: little jeremiah

My very first thought upon reading the headline was Dan Bongino and 8:8.


14 posted on 04/07/2025 2:15:37 PM PDT by Ronaldus Magnus III (Do, or do not, there is no try)
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To: little jeremiah
Bill Ackman (a billionaire former backer of Trump, of Pershing Square Capital Management) had a screed out talking about how Trump's tariffs will scare away foreign "capital investment."

I am old enough to remember when "capital investment" meant building a blast furnace or a factory. But of course what Ackman means is putting more money in to the US stock markets for his hedge fund ponzi schemes.

Trump's tariffs mean, in fact, that more money will be put into direct investment like the steel plants being built by SK and the chip fabs being built by TSMC. This is what happened in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Now we just have to get rid of the insane regulations that require years to get something like a foundry "environmental" approvals and strip the right of private action over enviro-kook laws so manufacturing and natural resource extraction can pick up without endless lawsuits by the Sierra Club et alia.

15 posted on 04/07/2025 2:15:53 PM PDT by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens" )
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To: pierrem15

Absolutely, the environazi garbage has to get undone.


16 posted on 04/07/2025 2:24:45 PM PDT by little jeremiah (https://qalerts.app/)
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To: Ronaldus Magnus III

8:8?


17 posted on 04/07/2025 2:25:04 PM PDT by little jeremiah (https://qalerts.app/)
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To: little jeremiah

Just for fun:

https://www.kitco.com/charts/silver Currently $30

https://www.kitco.com/charts/gold Currently $2982

Be different at the end of the day I assume.


18 posted on 04/07/2025 2:27:55 PM PDT by little jeremiah (https://qalerts.app/)
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To: little jeremiah
Also spelled "fugazi". Made famous by Donnie Brasco.

Johnny Depp #24 - Donnie Brasco (1997) - Fugazi (Starring Al Pacino
19 posted on 04/07/2025 2:31:48 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen (Beat your plowshares into swords. Let the weak say I am strong)
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To: Kid Shelleen

I’m odd...have hardly ever watched movies my whole life.


20 posted on 04/07/2025 2:43:17 PM PDT by little jeremiah (https://qalerts.app/)
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