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The US Economy Is Completely Utterly Totally Screwed

PhysioProf

I’m sure many of you intentionally watch, or at least sometimes inadvertently are exposed to, the “financial” shows on channels like CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox Business News, etc. They have all these financial tickers streaming across the screen, and very professional looking men and women in business suits “on location” at various equity and commodity exchanges acting like they know what the fuck they are talking about. And they have “experts” on various financial and economic topics who “analyze” why the Dow rose 100 points yesterday, but is down 175 today.

Well, let me tell you something: These people are all scurrilous lying sacks of shit, selling you a bill of goods in service of their corporate masters. They are purposefully hiding from you the ugly ugly truth about the US economy, in order to “prevent panic”, which is code for “give the ultra-rich time to pocket their ill-gotten gains before the bottom falls out”.

“Maintaining Order In The Financial Markets” Means “Fucking Over Ordinary Americans To Protect The Superrich Corporate Oligarchy”. All these pudgy soft assholes in custom suits and garish neckties on teevee peddling “financial analysis” are total fucking liars. Whether they are intentional liars, or just blinded by their intrinsic biases, I can’t say. But it is a certainty that every single god damn word that passes through their lips is filtered through a system of finely ground lenses that warps everything towards supporting the financial interests they share with the corporate oligarchy and the big-money compulsive-gambler Wall Street playas.

They don’t give a single flying fuck about “the economy”, “the American people”, “financial analysis”, or any of the other happy horseshit they pretend they are talking about. They care about one thing–the continued viability of the corporate oligarchy and related socioeconomic elite classes of which they are all members.

When Jim Cramer looks into the camera and talks about what “we need” from the Fed, from the government, from the banks, do you really think that “we” includes ordinary working Americans? Fuck no!! It is him and his fellow Wall Street playas, and he and his fellow “financial analysts” are peddling a load of steaming horseshit designed to hornswoggle the rubes listening into doing exactly what will continue allowing the corporate oligarchs and their associates to continue robbing those rubes blind.

The “markets” want rate cuts and bailouts and buyouts to “maintain order” because it will allow them to “back out positions in an orderly fashion”–i.e., keep throwing bags of money in the back of the Hummer. Guess whose money that is? Yep: it’s yours.

All these craven asshole “financial analysts” talk about the current economic clusterfuck as if it is just the consequence of the operation of some unthinking, unfeeling force of nature, that policies, decisions, actions, and statements of human beings had absofuckinglutely nothing whatsoever to do with. It is one of those things that “just happens”, and now we have to react to it, without looking backwards.

Guess what? More grotesque fucking lies, specifically and intentionally designed to obscure one salient fact: This shit is going down as a clear consequence of intentional decisions made at the corporate and governmental levels to push the limits of how much money could be stolen from the vast overwhelming majority of American citizens and given to an elite few. And the ideological underpinnings of this massive theft of wealth are the clearly espoused principles of lassez faire free-market capitalism that are one leg of the depraved neo-feudal platform of the conservative political movement. Problem is, these fuckers got too greedy.

24 thoughts on The US Economy Is Completely Utterly Totally Screwed

  1. Word to this entire post.

    Also, Jim Cramer creeps me the hell out for reasons I can’t quite articulate. Perhaps it’s the yelling?

  2. Could you be a bit clearer and more precise about your reaction to financial pundits? Really – let us know how you feel. 😉

    Word, indeed. There’s not enough wood to build the gallows these horseshit hornswogglers deserve.

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  4. The final insult is that they try to make the financial portion of the news seem so intellectually over the head of the average person that no wonder people pay more attention when something stupid comes on TV news (i.e. “celebs” or sensationalized street crime). If our country’s and world’s true financial situation were being reported on by the news responsibly and for the benefit of its viewership, one would undoubtably see it painted in a more relatable and effective way- and by effective I mean for the benefit of most of us, putting blame where it’s due, thereby forcing government/corporate interests to face consequences for robbing the shit out of us. I’m really pissed that the media of my day has been made into such a tool for the them, stripped of its former power to actually hold criminals accountable!

  6. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are, in actuality, the best of the mainstream newsources (despite the loonyness of the back pages of the WSJ). The problem is oversimplification, lazyness, and outright lying in MSM, as regular readers of Tanta’s little windmill tiltings at Gretchen Mortenson can attest to.

    A couple of further points:
    1) The biggest underlying crisis is the dying out of margin…from global climate change to resource extraction peaks (oil ain’t the only peaking, for instance, crucial rare earth metals are in decline). The reason this is important is that the politics of a society is all.about.the.margins. From graneries in ancient times, to oil reserves today, whoever has the extra margin, has the gold, has the leverage, and they can use it to collect the wealth of society into their class. The ever-increasing press of global warming (CAFE standards and the like), and the greater ability of suppliers to get more for their resources (Iran is about nuclear plants, not nuke bombs). Right now, the process is obscured by financialization, and using the banks which were once fattened during an era of real power (<1980) to maintain the power structure. This is what’s failing now, and all the tax bailouts are exactly for what PP is ranting about…securing the rights of the “right people”.

    2) What we really have to watch out for is an increase in reactionarianism. Just because the peasants among us are finally getting too pressed to follow the priests all the time, does not mean that they won’t return to authortarianism and asshattery once the immediate pressure is off. So much of what human nature is about, is defying the consequences and appearing that we are more wealthier and powerful than we are by conspicious waste and cruelty. This is not restricted to some small 28%. Find the right issue, and a manipulative soul can turn the supermajority of us into asshats. Which is why a civil society is so crucial, and a true enforcement of the minority against a tyranical majority is so important. So as society is strained by economic declines, what we must face and suppress/defeat will be the attempt of some people to “sell the right to oppress” to other people. You don’t need to be productive, nor do you have to control assets, all you have to do tell people that it’s okay to do what they “really” want to do, even if it’s wrong or evil–for a small fee, of course. High heels for babies is just part of the message, baby!

  7. “Problem is, these fuckers got too greedy.”

    That’s not the problem- that happens every recession. The problem this time is that, for the first time since April 1917, the rest of the world has decided that it doesn’t need America anymore.

    China and India are still growing just fine, thank you very much, as are interconnected economies. So if America goes into a tailspin, they’ll just invest their money at home.

    So the problem isn’t the greedy fuckers, the problem is the arrogant fuckers who have been telling the rest of the world “my way or the highway” for the past 7 years. ’cause door number 2 is exactly what has happened. So long, uncle Sam, and thanks for all the fish.

    technical point: There is no shortage of REE. Rather, historically low demand means that production has been dominated by a few high grade mines that are just now starting to tail off- and nobody has done REE exploration for the same reasons. “Rare because nobody’s bothered looking” is different than “rare because we’ve already explored all the best basins on the planet”.

  8. I’ve been watching the American financial crisis with interest – since it’s the nation that goes around telling everyone else to lower its tariffs, stop government assistance and let the US take over our markets, it’s rather exciting to see the big dogs of the US financial turn around and cry for bailouts.

    Then again, the hypocrisy is not surprisings – I remember a deal they offered Australia, which went along the lines of “You let us dismantle your pharmaceutical benefits scheme which enables every Australian to access medicine at fair prices, and in return we’ll raise tariffs on your lamb and keep you out of our markets at all costs. Sound good?”

  9. Love this thread.

    Also disappearing, and being fought over.

    Water.

    H2O.

    Phreakin water is disappearing, the equator is expanding, the polar ice caps are shrinking.

    Financially, we ain’t BEGUN to see the end of any downturns.

    Resource wise, we are gonna continue to get stretched year by year, resource by resource.

    Check your IRA’s, and 401k’s weekly folks. Craps happening, and you are likely losing your retirements, day by day . . .

    Water, you can’t do much about, now, can ya . . .

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  11. China and India are still growing just fine, thank you very much, as are interconnected economies. So if America goes into a tailspin, they’ll just invest their money at home.

    This is totally false. As the US economy goes down, the entire world is going with it.

  13. “As the US economy goes down, the entire world is going with it.”

    Indeed. Annual growth in China has already been downgraded from 10-11% to 9%. And here in Australia, the fed has said that it may not have to raise rates again after all, as the fallout from the US might cool the overheated economy to a healthy temperature. That would be nice- maybe they’ll even cut interest rates, and my mortgage payments will drop to only double what they were before the economy took off.

    The assumption that the world has no choice but to follow in America’s footsteps is exactly what has turned everyone else off. Fact is, America hasn’t been leading anywhere a rational person would want to go for the past 6 years, and everyone else is figuring this out. The USA is still more influential than any other country or block, but for the first time in 90 years, its direction is no longer irresistible. The rest of the planet can- and will- work around it if they have to.

  14. The “markets” want rate cuts and bailouts and buyouts to “maintain order” because it will allow them to “back out positions in an orderly fashion”–i.e., keep throwing bags of money in the back of the Hummer. Guess whose money that is? Yep: it’s yours.

    Ours? Not really. Its China’s and Saudi Arabia’s and so on.

    We are just holding onto it for safekeeping until they find a stronger market.

    Also it isn’t them taking our money. It is rather about enabling them to continue taking our money. They have been taking our money for the last 10 years.

  16. Interesting post. I do find some of the analysis from some of the shows and especially the WSJ and Barrons very good and informative. As a working stiff I’ve been able to earn quite a bit in the market using little more than a library card to educate myself and starting extremely small and building over time. I agree there is a lot of bullshit out there and many economists get things terribly wrong but how well researched is your stuff? The MSM on this issue is the same as it is with many others, idiotic. But there are a lot of other resources out there and people calling whats happening for what it is, those people just arent jim cramer. Its a complicated thing but on no other topic have I seen my fellow progressives send out so much hatred while having little knowledge of how things actually work, such as berating exxon for making 10 billion in a quarter despite oil being a 1.5 trillion dollar industry and having less return on dollar invested than big pharma, defense, or a number of other sectors/markets. I don’t get it.

  17. *sigh* while I join in your irritation for most of the economists in the mainstream media…the US economy is not in such dire straights as of yet. We’ve been in much worse situations before and our economy recovers mainly because money moves to profit and even in a down market there are investment and expansion opportunities. Do we have some long term problems…absolutely, but I don’t understand the need to panic. Panic makes people look to their short term needs rather than working on long term solutions (hence that stupid gas tax holiday).

  18. dananddanica, I think most progressives have even less love for big pharma than for Exxon.

    I do wish I knew what exactly PhysioProf is talking about even though I agree with the overall point. Is he talking about actual corporate crime or just the generally shady nature of modern structured finance?

    Also have to take issue with this: “And the ideological underpinnings of this massive theft of wealth are the clearly espoused principles of lassez faire free-market capitalism that are one leg of the depraved neo-feudal platform of the conservative political movement.”

    I have no time for free-market dogma either, but that’s not what this is. The analogy is a casino, not an open marketplace; the financial elites get to be the house (which always wins).

  20. Who let you post?

    All you did was call financial news anchors liars for several paragraphs with a complete lack of evidence. You didn’t advance a single argument for your thesis. when asked for a solution you laughed.

    It’s reads like a troll.

  21. Last Sunday I watched the McLaughlin Group and was a bit alarmed about their discussion on the economy. It was a roller coaster ride of panic and reassurance. It was ridiculous. But one thing that annoyed me was they kept mentioning if you have over $100,00.00 in the bank spread it around. I am really not into economics and have never had a bank account with that amount of money in it. So, I was confused until someone educated me that the FDIC only insures money up to that amount. I wonder who really benefits from these types of show? They seem coded for the rich. If Enron or mortgage companies going bankrupt and CEOs walking off with billions were to occur in the late 1700s things would not be tolerated like they are today.

  24. What’s really pathetic is those hold-outs that still think that the ruling elites, news anchors who are more politicians than journalists, elected politicians, corporations, the feds, and the government ever gave a flying fuck about anyone other than their little 1% of the world.

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