by Tony Wikrent
Strategic Political Economy
Pam Martens and Russ Martens, May 5, 2025 [Wall Street on Parade]
Last Wednesday, Congressman Sean Casten, Democrat of Illinois, stated the following in an open meeting of the House Financial Services Committee:
“For the first time in my memory, foreign investors are not only fleeing U.S. equities but are fleeing U.S. Treasuries. I met with banks last week – banks under our jurisdiction – who said that the international community is putting a risk premium on investments in the United States because of regulatory risk and because they question whether the rule of law that they depend on to execute contracts in the United States will be executed as it will be in European markets where that capital is running to.
“So, if you need to tell yourself before you go to bed that you’re a deficit buster, fine, but just acknowledge you’re lying. This is not about deficit busting. This is about making rich people richer, and that’s it.”
Has Asia just taken a step away from the US dollar?
Alice Li, 7 May 2025 [South China Morning Post]
Asia’s largest economies have broken new ground by approving an emergency financing tool using the yuan and other local currencies
[ChinaTalk, via Naked Capitalism 05-05-2025]
Trump not violating any law
‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’
Joe DePaolo, May 4th, 2025 [mediaite.com]
Full transcript: NBC News.
KRISTEN WELKER: And this is the point, sir, about due process. The Constitution says every person, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Why not push to have him come back, present all of that evidence in court, let a judge decide? ….
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: ‘I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials. We have thousands of people that are some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.’
‘We’re Not Stopping’: Trump Border Czar Vows to Ignore Judges
[The Daily Beast, via MSN 03-18-2025]
Julia Conley, May 06, 2025 [CommonDreams]
A memo released Monday by the Trump administration in response to a Freedom of Information Act request confirmed that U.S. intelligence agencies never agreed with President Donald Trump’s claim in March that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro controls the criminal gang Tren de Aragua—an assertion that was used to justify sending hundreds of migrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison.
16-Year-Old Violently Arrested for Trying to Stop Mother’s ICE ‘Kidnapping’ in Massachusetts
Julia Conley, May 09, 2025 [CommonDreams]
More than two dozen community members formed a human chain to try to stop immigration agents from taking the woman.
Trump says he ‘doesn’t rule out’ using military force to control Greenland
[Guardian, via Naked Capitalism 05-06-2025]
[Unherd, via Naked Capitalism 05-07-2025]
ICE Targets NY Farmworkers Union Leaders – SEIU 1199 Prez Ousted
Mike Elk [via Naked Capitalism 05-07-2025]
“THEY ACTUALLY HAD A LIST”: ICE ARRESTS WORKERS INVOLVED IN LANDMARK LABOR RIGHTS CASE
Noah Hurowitz, May 5 2025 [The Intercept]
…The raid did not appear to be a broad sweep but rather a targeted enforcement aimed at specific people, according to sources who have been in contact with the families and spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss a sensitive legal situation.
“At first we thought they were enforcing a deportation order, that they had one person that they’re looking for and then everyone else got dragged in — that’s kind of standard,” said one of the people with knowledge of the raid. “But this was strange because they actually had a list of most of the workers on the bus.”….
FBI opens formal investigation of NY Attorney General Letitia James
[Times Union, via Naked Capitalism 05-09-2025]
Men DOGEbags at Work
Conspiracy of Silence: How Trump is Covertly Strangling Billions in Disease Cure Research.
Josh Marshall, May 6, 2025 [Talking Points Memo]
…Back in late March and early April, the Trump administration announced grant freezes against a series of elite private universities, all notionally tied to charges of lax vigilance against antisemitism. The targeted universities eventually included Brown, Columbia, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern….
Here’s the deal: Soon after the White House announced the grant freezes, Northwestern received “stop-work” orders for a range of mostly Pentagon contracts. That’s by the book. The government agency is the customer or funder. So they send a message saying discontinue work and then they stop sending payments. That’s how the federal government shuts down a research project. But that didn’t happen with the National Institutes of Health grants. The stop-work orders never came. The university didn’t know and wasn’t able to find out what that meant, so they continued negotiating and did something between assuming and hoping that the money would continue to flow. After all, the NIH grants never received stop-work orders — and in the world of law and contracts that means the money has to keep flowing.
But it didn’t continue to flow….
…So they not only had no warning the payments were getting stopped, it’s not entirely clear to me that they had permission to stop the research at all.
There was one news report saying this would happen. Last month, Max Kozlov, a reporter for Nature, published an internal NIH email dated April 17th in which instructions were given to stop sending all money to the targeted universities. Critically it also included instructions not to “provide any communications to these schools about whether or why the funds are frozen.” So the strategy was intentional: create confusion about the status of grants and just have the money stop coming. [Emphasis mine]….
Why would the other schools be quiet about it? Well, that’s what’s happening at Northwestern. The university, both formally and informally, is itself remaining silent and doing everything it can to keep its researchers and faculty silent. Why? Because they’re still hoping something can be worked out with the administration to keep the money flowing….
following the same playbook as it did with Harvard. They’re refusing to say what it is they actually want and are thus making “negotiations” difficult or impossible. The White House already has its freeze. So they’re not in any rush to solve anything….
…it is a way to strangle as much disease cure research as possible while keeping it out of the news. The universities can’t say the grants have been canceled because they in fact have not been canceled. And they’re scared to say they’re not being paid because they’re hoping the White House or the NIH will relent….
This is how the Trump White House is currently strangling billions in cancer, Alzheimer’s and other disease and cure research in real time while mostly managing to do it with near-perfect radio silence.
Why Do They Have It In For Biomedical Research?
Josh Marshall, May 7, 2025 [Talking Points Memo]
… Trump wants to dominate and control the universities and eliminate them as what people in his world see as a seedbed for liberal ideologies. Russ Vought has a long-pre-existing and similar aim within the federal government. At a basic level, at universities, scientific research is where the money is. The humanities don’t have big research and grant budgets. If you want to bring the universities to heel and diminish their power that’s just where you go.
This part is fairly straightforward, pretty easy to understand, and it’s one of the most common explanations. A number of separate factors are also in the mix that, together, have added immense energy, focus and power to this push.
First, you have Elon Musk, the belief that AI can and will essentially replace research scientists and the related belief that AI-backed tech has essentially achieved a kind of escape velocity from government-supported science. So AI will soon replace research scientists. I, Elon (or tech generally) own the AI. So there’s no big harm shutting down this research apparatus. And since I own the AI, not only will we cure all the diseases but I’ll own all the cures! What’s not to like? This may seem like hyperbole but it is at most only a hyped up version of what these people think. This informs A LOT of the thinking behind the cuts. The aim of knocking the eggheads off their perch is easy to understand. If there’s also no downside (in terms of lost cures, lost leads in the sciences) why not?
Related to this is something I’ve picked up in discussions with a friend who is a very close and shrewd observer of the tech world. That’s the Silicon Valley class war between the folks with tens or hundreds of millions or more and the working stiffs on salaries of $400,000 or $500,000 a year. That tech “working class” salary point may sound absurd. But it really captures a big part of this. The dynamic is intensified by the ossification of tech. It used to be that the half-a-million-a-year folks might be one great start-up move away from hitting super wealth themselves. That’s not happening anymore. Meanwhile, the Elons and sub-Elons have super wealth and it’s annoying to have to listen to the gripes, the borderline-woke thinking and everything else, from the guys who fuel your wealth. A Thorstein Veblen type could explain it better than I can, but, for present purposes, we’ll settle for this thumbnail version….
Second, you’ve got COVID. There’s always been a deep strand of anti-intellectualism on the right and hostility toward the academic world.
Heather Cox Richardson, May 7, 2025 [Letters from an American]
Alarm appears to be rising about how the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is consolidating data about Americans. Hannah Natanson, Joseph Menn, Lisa Rein, and Rachel Siegel wrote in the Washington Post today that DOGE is “racing to build a single centralized database with vast troves of personal information about millions of U.S. citizens and residents.” In the past, that information has been carefully siloed, and there are strict laws about accessing it. But under billionaire Elon Musk, who appears to direct DOGE although the White House has said he does not, operatives who may not have appropriate security clearances are removing protections and linking data.
There are currently at least eleven lawsuits underway claiming that DOGE has violated the 1974 Privacy Act regulating who can access information about American citizens stored by the federal government.
Musk and President Donald Trump, as well as other administration officials, claim that such consolidation of data is important to combat “waste, fraud, and abuse,” although so far they have not been able to confirm any such savings and their cuts are stripping ordinary Americans of programs they depend on….
The Ash Center also explains that U.S. government data is an extraordinarily valuable treasure trove for anyone trying to train artificial intelligence systems. Most of the data currently available is from the internet and is thus messy and unreliable. Government databases are “comprehensive, verified records about the most critical areas of Americans’ lives.” Access to that data gives a company “significant advantages” in training systems and setting business strategies. Americans have not given consent for their data to be used in this way, and it leaves them open to “loss of services, harassment, discrimination, or manipulation by the government, private entities, or foreign powers.”
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo suggests Musk’s faith in his AI company is at least part of what’s behind the administration’s devastating cuts to biomedical research….
On Monday the White House fired Alvin Brown, the Black vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the agency that investigates civilian aviation accidents. Former FAA and NTSB investigator Jeff Guzzetti told Christopher Wiggins of The Advocate: “This is the first time in modern history that the White House has removed a board member.”….
Today Jeff Stein and Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post reported that the administration has been telling nations that want to talk about trade that it will consider “licensing Starlink” as a demonstration of “goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. businesses.” India, among other nations, has rushed through approvals of the satellite company. Just 1% of India’s consumer broadband market could produce almost $1 billion a year, the authors report….
The attempt to gain control over artificial intelligence and human communication networks regardless of the cost to ordinary Americans might have a larger theme. As technology forecaster Paul Saffo points out, tech oligarchs led by technology guru Curtis Yarvin have called for a new world order that rejects the nation states around which humans have organized their societies for almost 400 years. They call instead for “network states” organized around technology that permits individuals to group around a leader in cyberspace without reference to real-world boundaries, a position Starlink’s terms of service appear to reflect.
Mastering artificial intelligence while dominating global communications would go a long way toward breaking down existing nations and setting up the conditions for a brave new world, dominated by tech oligarchs.
By Confirming Bisignano, Senate GOP Greenlights ‘DOGE Destruction of Social Security’
Jessica Corbett, May 06, 2025 [CommonDreams]
Bisignano “is a Wall Street CEO with a long history of slashing the companies he runs to the bone, including massive layoffs,” she noted. “He is also a liar. He claims he was not involved in all the chaotic and destructive changes at the Social Security Administration: the hollowing out of the agency, the stealing of our most sensitive data, the harmful and poorly rolled out policy changes, their sudden reversals, and more. However, there are well over a dozen long-serving civil servants, identified by a brave whistleblower, who can validate that he is lying.”
How DOGE Plans to Use AI to Cut 70,000 Jobs
[Inc., via Naked Capitalism 05-07-2025]
A DOGE Recruiter Is Staffing a Project to Deploy AI Agents Across the US Government
[Wired, via Naked Capitalism 05-06-2025]
DOGE software engineer’s computer infected by info-stealing malware
[Ars Technica, via Naked Capitalism 05-09-2025]
Gates on Musk: ‘World’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children’
[The Hill, via Naked Capitalism 05-09-2025]
Inside the Trump Assault on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Nate Weisberg, May 6, 2025 [Washington Monthly]
An agency lawyer and union representative opens up about the Trump/Musk rampage on the CFPB, what happens next, and why he’s still optimistic.
Global power shift
China is killing Boeing, Part II: As a major Pentagon contractor
[Inside China / Business, via Naked Capitalism 05-05-2025] Part I.
Gaza / Palestine / Israel
Israeli TV producer calls for ‘Gaza holocaust, gas chambers’
[New Arab, via Naked Capitalism 05-07-2025]
Israel’s Smotrich says victory means Gaza fully ‘destroyed’
[DW, via Naked Capitalism 05-07-2025]
Let Them Die Alone, and Hungry
Abby Zimet, May 06, 2025 [CommonDreams]
“Drunk on impunity,” Israel has grandiosely labeled its latest genocidal move “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” wherein, moving from siege to seizure, it plans the bloody conquest, ethnic cleansing, and permanent recolonization of Gaza, using the rhetoric of holy war to justify unholy mass destruction – this, even as many of the Palestinian children who’ve somehow survived their savage 18 months of carnage now slowly starve to death. “We are complicit,” says one angry, grieving doctor. “It is an abomination.”
Having gotten away with so many atrocities while the international community looks away, Israel just unveiled the latest escalation of its illegal collective punishment of Gazans by finally declaring out loud, “We are occupying Gaza to stay.” Unanimously approved by Netanyahu’s far-right Security Cabinet, the new “conquering of Gaza” formalizes Israel’s plan for the indefinite occupation, forced expulsion and incorporation into “sanitized” Israeli zones of an already long-besieged civilian population “for its own protection.” The expansion of an onslaught that has left more than 185,000 Gazans dead, wounded, or missing and millions homeless, hungry, maimed and traumatized is being ludicrously framed as a final mission to dismantle Hamas and retrieve hostages, even though Israel repeatedly failed at each before breaking a ceasefire that would have accomplished both.
Nearly 290,000 Gaza children on ‘the brink of death’ amid Israeli blockade
[Al Jazeera, via Naked Capitalism 05-05-2025]
Netanyahu And His Extremist Collaborators Have Completely Undermined Israel’s National Legitimacy
Howie Klein, May 7, 2025 [downwithtyranny.com]
Barak Ravid reported that Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a plan Sunday night to gradually reoccupy all of Gaza and hold it indefinitely if no deal is reached by May 15. Plans for the operation call for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to flatten any buildings that remain standing and displace virtually the entire population of 2 million people to a single ‘humanitarian area.’” Straight out of George Orwell. “The alternative to remaining in the humanitarian zone is for Palestinians to leave the enclave ‘voluntarily’ for other countries “in line with Trump’s vision for Gaza,”an Israeli official said. Such departures could hardly be considered voluntary, and no country has agreed thus far to accept displaced Palestinians. Israeli officials claim there are ongoing negotiations with several countries on that front.” No doubt El Salvador would be happy to— if the price is right.
The Establishment Slowly Wearies of Netanyahu and Israel
Simplicius, May 10, 2025
The past few days have come alive with news that the Trump administration has had enough of Israel’s intransigence, and is veering toward a ‘hardball’ Plan B in its goal to stabilize the Middle East.
First came reports that Trump is allegedly readying to recognize Palestine as a state, then take over Gaza with a temporary ‘American administration’ in imitation of the British Mandate of the early 20th century….
Now there have been reports that “AIPAC is getting shut out” of Trump’s administration entirely….
Oligarchy
The Dark Money Game (w/ Alex Gibney) | The Chris Hedges Report
Chris Hedges, May 07, 2025
Chris Hedges speaks with filmmaker Alex Gibney about Gibney’s documentary series The Dark Money Game, which examines the “labyrinth of mirrors” that facilitates untraceable corruption through the American political system. Although both the Democratic and Republican parties have served the interests of the billionaire class since well before the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court ruling in 2010, the removal of restrictions on political spending created a system by which corporations could route millions of dollars in bribes through an intricate, opaque network of nonprofit organizations and super PACs.
FirstEnergy, a failing Ohio nuclear power operator, exploited this network to pay $60 million to former Ohio State Representative Larry Householder, in exchange for his support of a “Clean Energy” bill that would award FirstEnergy $1.3 billion in benefits. Ohio Confidential, the first documentary in Gibney’s series, follows the affair, which was subject to an FBI investigation, and which offers a view into mechanisms of illegitimate influence which are rarely visible to the public. Nonetheless, Hedges notes, the FirstEnergy story is likely a “microcosm of the whole system.”
The second film in the series, Wealth of the Wicked, portrays the contradictory but effective partnership between the anti-abortion Christian right and the billionaire class, which has used a variety of sordid tactics to sway the Supreme Court towards conservative and pro-corporate decisions. For example, Gibney describes how wealthy donors would “engage in a kind of romance” with justices, offering expensive gifts and pursuing “friendships that ultimately would have the effect of turning their perspectives…”
The faster the dark money flows through the American political system, the greater the power of the billionaire class to oppose regulations and steal wealth. “It’s a series of interlocking favors,” Gibney observes, “but all these interlocking favors, which—let’s face it—are traditional tools of the political system… are made possible and made far more corrupt by the application of tens of millions of dollars, which to the public is completely invisible.”
No Revolution without Counter-Revolution
Peter Turchin [via Naked Capitalism 05-06-2025]
Maga’s era of ‘soft eugenics’: let the weak get sick, help the clever breed
[Guardian, via Naked Capitalism 05-06-2025]
The Anglo-Nazi Global Empire That Almost Was
Kit Klarenberg, May 4, 2025
…In reality though, from Britain’s perspective, the Munich Agreement was intended to be just the start of a wider process that would culminate in “world political partnership” between London and Berlin. Two months prior, the Federation of British Industries (FBI), known today as the Confederation of British Industry, made contact with its Nazi counterpart, Reichsgruppe Industrie (RI). The pair eagerly agreed their respective governments should enter into formal negotiations on Anglo-German economic integration….
In April 1938, journeyman diplomat Herbert von Dirksen was appointed Nazi Germany’s ambassador to London. A committed National Socialist and rabid antisemite, he also harboured a particularly visceral loathing of Poles, believing them to be subhuman, eagerly supporting Poland’s total erasure. Despite this, due to his English language fluency and aristocratic manners, he charmed British officials and citizens alike, and was widely perceived locally as Nazi Germany’s respectable face.
Even more vitally though, Dirksen – in common with many powerful elements of the British establishment – was convinced that not only could war be avoided, but London and Berlin would instead forge a global economic, military, and political alliance. His 18 months in Britain before the outbreak of World War II were spent working tirelessly to achieve these goals, by establishing and maintaining communication lines between officials and decisionmakers in the two countries, while attempting to broker deals.
Dirksen published an official memoir in 1950, detailing his lengthy diplomatic career. However, far more revealing insights into the period immediately preceding World War II, and behind-the-scenes efforts to achieve enduring detente between Britain and Nazi Germany, are contained in the virtually unknown Dirksen Papers, a two-volume record released by the Soviet Union’s Foreign Languages Publishing House without his consent. They contain private communications sent to and from Dirksen, diary entries, and memos he wrote for himself, never intended for public consumption.
Documents And Materials Relating To The Eve Of The Second World War Ii
21.6MB ∙ PDF fileThe contents were sourced from a vast trove of documents found by the Red Army after it seized Gröditzberg, a castle owned by Dirksen where he spent most of World War II. Mainstream historians have markedly made no use of the Dirksen Papers. Whether this is due to their bombshell disclosures posing a variety of dire threats to established Western narratives of World War II, and revealing much the British government wishes to remain forever secret, is a matter of speculation.
Immediately after World War II began, Dirksen “keenly” felt an “obligation” to author a detailed post-mortem on the failure of Britain’s peace overtures to Nazi Germany, and his own. He was particularly compelled to write it as “all important documents” in Berlin’s London embassy had been burned following Britain’s formal declaration of war on September 3rd 1939….
The carnage of mainstream neoliberal economics
[Down to Earth, via Naked Capitalism 05-09-2025]
Trumpillnomics
Brian Romanchuk [via Naked Capitalism 05-06-2025]
..The problem with the current trajectory of the United States is that President Trump has effectively taken control of the economy, and it appears that he is getting no useful feedback on the consequences. We would need to go back to historically disastrous central planning episodes to find parallels….
- Anecdotes point to what should be expected: small and medium firms are about to be obliterated by having key markets cut off. However, these firms are too small to bribe Trump, are not traded in public markets so that they will not generate analyst coverage, and are so small that news reports on their demise can easily be dismissed. Trump was predictable dismissive of a question about the troubles of some small firms. Their failures will only leave a footprint in data when it is too late: job and bank credit losses due to firm failure….
- Trump has now appeared to offer clarity on what he counts as a “trade deal”: his setting or changing American tariffs counts as a “deal.” (The White House has promised 90 trade deals in 90 days.) As I predicted in my immediate post-election musings, these “deals” are about bribing Trump, and not the economic interests of the American economy in aggregate. As such, there is no reason to expect these “deals” to reflect what is happening to the economy on the ground…..
The American right has built a culture of obedience to Trump, and created a closed information system that rejects anything critical of him. Although Trump himself had decent political instincts for avoiding unpopular policies, there is no sign that he is now receiving any useful evidence if his policies are unpopular.
A collapsing stock market is probably one thing that might penetrate the information wall around him — but the stock market refuses to collapse. Although this might look crazy, it reflects a belief in the pattern of the first Trump term: he will backpedal on foolish policies quickly, not creating long-term damage for equity prospects. Unfortunately, this efficient forward-looking behaviour short-circuits the main information path that would cause a policy reversal.
Tax Evasion or Student Debt? The US Chose the Wrong Crackdown
[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 05-08-2025]
Predatory finance
The Private Equity Time Bomb Is About To Blow
Veronica Riccobene, May 8, 2025 [The Lever]
The recession is about to get worse. Private equity’s buy-and-burn model of investing is hitting a breaking point: PE buyouts were behind seven in 10 major corporate bankruptcies in the first quarter, finds a recent report from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project. After ultra-low interest rates gave private equity a boom during the pandemic, PE returns are growing increasingly volatile, plunging to “global financial crisis levels” in 2023 before rebounding. With all this uncertainty, PE firms are increasingly bankrupting their portfolio companies — jeopardizing the livelihoods of some 12 million American workers employed by PE-backed firms.
Buy, buy, buy. In recent years, private equity investment has exploded, growing tenfold in the last two decades, with current assets estimated to reach $3.5 trillion. The private equity industry, a collection of high-fee, high-risk investment firms currently plundering the economy for parts, now owns roughly 20 percent of all U.S. corporations, including 75 percent of those considered at risk of failing. In the first quarter of 2025, 79 percent of corporate defaults among high-risk companies tracked by Moody’s involved so-called “distressed exchanges” in which failing companies sell their debt or equity to outside investors — private equity’s preferred method of acquiring capital. Distressed exchanges, which lead to re-defaulting about half the time, hit a record high last year and accounted for as much as 60 percent of all defaults, up from 29 percent in 2014.
Restoring balance to the economy
Democrats’ Bill Would Extend Social Security and Medicare Solvency ‘As Far as the Eye Can See’
Julia Conley, May 09, 2025 [CommonDreams]
…The bicameral bill, the Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act, was reintroduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), with the aim of requiring people with yearly incomes of more than $400,000 to contribute a fairer share of their wealth to the two programs.
Currently the maximum amount of earnings for which American workers must pay Social Security taxes is just over $176,000.
The bill would lift the Social Security tax cap “to ensure that no matter the source of their income, high-income taxpayers would pay the same tax rate on their income exceeding that threshold,” said the lawmakers in a press statement.
It would also increase the Medicare tax rate for income above $400,000 by 1.2% and include a provision ensuring owners of hedge funds and private equity firms can no longer avoid Medicare taxes….
KLG, May 9, 2025 [Naked Capitalism]
Disrupting mainstream economics
President Trump’s Proposal to Eliminate Income Taxes: Can It Be Done?
Ellen Brown, May 8, 2025 [ScheerPost]
…Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, avoided a crippling national debt by resorting to the funding mechanism of the American colonists: let the government print the money directly, not through a banker-controlled central bank but through the Treasury. The government could buy back its debt with U.S. Notes or “Greenbacks,” as permitted under the Constitution (Article I, Section 8) and declared legal by the Supreme Court. These new currencies could then be used to repurchase maturing Treasury securities debt- and interest-free.
Critics will cry “hyperinflation,” arguing that the newly-issued currency would flood the economy, spiking demand and prices. But if new money is directed to productive investments — for example infrastructure, energy, and healthcare — supply and demand will rise together, stabilizing prices. The Chinese demonstrated this in the 25 years from 1996 to 2025, when their domestic money supply was inflated from 4,840 CNY (Chinese yuan) to 320,526 CNY, or by 5500%; yet the price level remained stable and low. For a fuller explanation with data, see my earlier article here.
To ensure that the Greenbacks finance growth, a national infrastructure bank could channel funds into projects such as affordable housing, high-speed rail, broadband, the power grid and large water and transportation projects. China is again the modern model. It has three giant “policy banks” assigned to implement the policies of the government, including China Development Bank, the world’s largest infrastructure and development bank. A U.S. version could prioritize projects with high economic returns, vetted by transparent, DOGE-like algorithms to prevent waste and cronyism.
We desperately need infrastructure funding, and the current federal budget has no room to adequately address those needs. A viable proposal for a national infrastructure bank, H.R. 4052, currently has 47 cosponsors. The bank would use off-budget financing on the model of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the federal financial agency that rebuilt the country’s infrastructure during the banking crisis of the 1930s. For more information, see the NIB Coalition website.
For state and city governments, public banks on the model of the Bank of North Dakota could address local infrastructure needs. See my earlier article here and the Public Banking Institute website.
Prosperity Without Debt
It has been argued that “just printing the money” would jeopardize the federal government’s credit rating. Perhaps, but we wouldn’t need credit if we could create our own, debt-free. To repeat an editorial directed against Lincoln’s debt-free Greenbacks attributed to the 1865 London Times, which may be apocryphal but nevertheless demonstrates the possibilities:
“If that mischievous financial policy which had its origin in the North American Republic during the late war in that country, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without debt. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”
Health care crisis
Partnership formed to confront rise in illness, premature death in young Americans
[Insurance Newsnet, via Naked Capitalism 05-08-2025]
Reacting to a troubling rise in chronic illnesses among younger Americans, two organizations—GoMo Health and Insurance Collaboration to Save Lives (ICSL)— have joined forces to form a new initiative, dubbed the ForwardLiving Partnership, to help insurers better support policyholders before they become critically ill.
The ForwardLiving Partnership is a proactive push to adapt the insurance industry to a stark new reality: more Americans in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are developing serious conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease—conditions once associated with aging. Insurers are taking note, as these early-life diagnoses lead not only to higher claim volumes but also to increased disability and premature death across multiple lines of insurance.
“The health trajectory of increasingly younger adults has changed dramatically since COVID-19,” said Bob Gold, Chief Behavioral Technologist at GoMo Health, which offers personalized patient and consumer engagement solutions using behavioral and cognitive science to improve outcomes and reduce costs. “Our partnership with ICSL gives insurers a way to address this shift head-on—by supporting their members with programs designed to prevent illness, manage chronic disease, and ultimately extend healthy years of life.”
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 05-08-2025]
Insurance companies always know about population health. Their profits depend on it. So the population should be interested in their reports.
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 05-08-2025]
You know how they say the 3rd generation to inherit wealth squanders it? That is what we are doing with public health right now. People living with all the benefits of it are dismantling it because they think it’s just natural to not have constant disease and death… about to FIND OUT aren’t we?
Information age dystopia / surveillance state
NSO Group Must Pay More Than $167 Million In Damages To WhatsApp For Spyware Campaign
[TechCrunch, via Naked Capitalism 05-07-2025]
On Tuesday, after a five-year legal battle, a jury ruled that NSO Group must pay $167,254,000 in punitive damages and around $444,719 in compensatory damages.
This is a huge legal win for WhatsApp, which had asked for more than $400,000 in compensatory damages, based on the time its employees had to dedicate to remediate the attacks, investigate them, and push fixes to patch the vulnerability abused by NSO Group, as well as unspecified punitive damages.WhatsApp’s spokesperson Zade Alsawah said in a statement that “our court case has made history as the first victory against illegal spyware that threatens the safety and privacy of everyone.”
Andrew P. Napolitano, May 8, 2025 [consortiumnews]
Among the lesser-known holes in the U.S. Constitution cut by the Patriot Act of 2001 was the destruction of the “wall” between federal law enforcement and federal spies.
The wall was erected in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which statutorily limited all federal domestic spying to that which was authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The wall was intended to prevent law enforcement from accessing and using data gathered by America’s domestic spying agencies.
For 24 years, government spying has been rampant in the U.S., and the feds regularly engage in it as part of law enforcement’s well-known antipathy to the Fourth Amendment.
Here is the backstory….
Fast forward to the weeks after 9/11 when, with no serious debate, Congress enacted the Patriot Act. In addition to permitting one federal agent to authorize another to search private records — contrary to the Fourth Amendment — it also removed the wall between law enforcement and spying….
In the last year of the Biden administration, the F.B.I. admitted that during the first Trump administration it intentionally used the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency to spy on Americans about whom the F.B.I. was interested, but as to whom it had neither probable cause of crime nor even articulable suspicion of criminal behavior.
AI-Based Fraud: Criminals Are 2 Years Ahead of Defenders
[GovInfo Security, via Naked Capitalism 05-07-2025]
Collapse of independent news media
A Student Journalist Covered a Pro-Palestine Protest. Soon, Her Graduation Came Under Threat.
[Columbia Journalism Review, via Naked Capitalism 05-07-2025]
Climate and environmental crises
Two-thirds of global heating caused by richest 10%, study suggests
[The Guardian, via Naked Capitalism 05-09-2025]
The state of renewable energy dashboard
[Environment America, via Clean Power Roundup, May 7, 2025]
Democrats’ political malpractice
Spineless In the Face Of Authoritarianism: The Curse of the Corporate, Careerist Democrat
Howie Klein, May 9, 2025 [downwithtyranny.com]
Democrats have largely failed to embrace a clear, bold moral vision and instead, too many so-called moderate Democrats— conservatives in all but name— have clung to a cautious, donor-friendly centrism that alienates their base while doing nothing to counteract the GOP’s descent into authoritarianism. These conservative Democraps fancy themselves pragmatists, but their “pragmatism” consists mostly of punching left, triangulating toward corporate interests and watering down any legislation that might actually inspire working-class enthusiasm. They fetishize bipartisanship in a political era where one party has openly embraced fascism. In doing so, they weaken the Democratic brand, demoralize the base and fuel the very polarization they claim to oppose. While Republicans consolidate around extremism and power, conservative Democrats cling to a fantasy of 1990s politics—refusing to recognize that the center they’re chasing no longer exists. They are not a moderating force. They are an anchor, dragging the party down, preventing it from becoming the clear, moral alternative this moment demands.
Robert Kuttner May 9, 2025 [The American Prospect]
…The ideology of neoliberalism—deregulation of finance, globalization on corporate terms, fiscal conservatism—ruined the Democrats as a credible tribune of working people and set us on the road to Trump. There was a real-time test of neoliberalism as economic policy for all but the rich, and it failed. But neoliberalism is the zombie that won’t die.
We see that on an intellectual level with forays like that of Jason Furman, the sidekick of Larry Summers and Robert Rubin, with a widely quoted piece in Foreign Affairs magazine attacking Biden’s industrial policy as ineffective and inflationary. The piece, which could win some kind of award for sheer intellectual dishonesty, was demolished by several point-by-point rebuttals, most effectively by Jared Bernstein.
The New York Times, in an appalling roundtable piece titled “How Four Democrats Who Saved the Party Before Would Do It Again,” gave space to four architects of the Clinton neoliberal strategy to argue that the road back to power for the Democrats was to learn from Clinton’s “New Democrat” success. Please. Clinton, in the words of the title of a definitive book co-authored by Nelson Lichtenstein was a “Fabulous Failure.” Aided by Rubin and Summers, Clinton brought us financial deregulation, which in turn brought us the 2008 financial collapse.
And then Obama, having fatally brought back the Rubin-Summers-Furman economic team, understimulated a deeply depressed economy, bailed out the banks rather than cleaning them out, pivoted to deficit reduction in 2009 long before the economy was back to full employment, and tried to double down on corporate free trade. Obama was admirable in many ways, but his economic program was not one of them. And the economic wreckage for regular people led directly to Trump….
Voting Records Show Exactly Why Primaries Are So Crucial For The Democratic Party
Howie Klein, May 5, 2025 [downwithtyranny.com]
Maya Miller’s report for the NY Times over the weekend, Republicans in Congress Use Obscure Law to Roll Back Biden-Era Regulations is mostly about how Republicans are pushing their agenda by getting around the Senate filibuster that requires 60 votes to pass anything. “In recent weeks,” she wrote, “the GOP has pushed through a flurry of legislation to cancel regulations on matters large and small, from oversight firms that emit toxic pollutants to energy efficiency requirements for walk-in freezers and water heaters. To do so, they are employing a little-known 1996 law, the Congressional Review Act, that allows lawmakers to reverse recently adopted federal regulations with a simple majority vote in both chambers. It is a strategy they used in 2017 during Trump’s first term and are leaning on again as they work to find ways to steer around Democratic opposition and make the most of their governing trifecta of the House, the Senate and the White House. But this time, Republicans are testing the limits of the law in a way that could vastly expand its use and undermine the filibuster, the Senate rule that effectively requires 60 votes to move forward with any major legislation. Because resolutions of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act need only a majority vote, they are some of the only legislation that can avoid a filibuster in the Senate. This allows them to circumvent the partisan gridlock that stands in the way of most significant bills. So far this year, Trump has signed three such measures: one overturning Biden-era regulations on cryptocurrency brokers, another canceling fees on methane emissions and a third doing away with additional environmental assessments for prospective offshore oil and gas developers. Another five, including one that eliminates a $5 cap on bank overdraft fees, have cleared Congress and await Trump’s signature.”
But Miller missed the conservative House Democrats who have been working with the Republicans to pass these shitty congressional disapproval resolutions for Trump….The GOP understands power— and how to wield it. They aren’t afraid to break norms, exploit obscure laws or bulldoze their agenda through any available crack in the system. Meanwhile, too many Democrats still act like decorum is a strategy, clinging to a status quo that no longer exists. As Republicans gleefully dismantle what’s left of the regulatory state, Democrats tiptoe around the feelings of donors and pundits, terrified of rocking the boat. It’s a losing strategy— not just electorally, but morally.
That’s why the Democratic Party must embrace competitive primaries. Not the hollow theater of “safe” challenges, but real, insurgent contests that force the party to choose between serving corporate interests and serving the people. Without the pressure of a vibrant progressive flank, the party calcifies— drifting ever rightward, led by consultants and Super PACs instead of grassroots energy. Robust primaries aren’t a luxury; they’re a lifeline. They remind the establishment that power flows upward from voters, not downward from the donor class. If Democrats want to avoid being steamrolled by a GOP that’s weaponizing every tool in the box, they need a base that’s awake, angry and unafraid to demand more. Primaries are how we sharpen our tools— and our spine.
The party is stewing with tension between young blood and their decorated elders. But the real fault line may have more to do with vigor than with age.
Trump’s transactional regime
You Won’t Believe How Much Richer the Trumps Have Gotten This Year
Michael Tomasky, May 9, 2025 [The New Republic]
Conservative / Libertarian / (anti)Republican Drive to Civil War
The GOP Is Already Planning to Win the Midterms… by Suppressing Your Vote!
Bill Blum, May 10, 2025 [Truthdig, via CommonDreams]
…The SAVE Act would require all Americans to provide a birth certificate, passport, or some other documentary proof of citizenship in person every time they register or re-register to vote; require each state to take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote; and remove noncitizens from their official voter lists. It would also create a private right of action, after the fashion of the Texas anti-abortion law, to allow disgruntled individuals to sue election officials who register voters without obtaining proof of citizenship and establish criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for election officials who violate the act.
Trump’s executive order is no less extreme. Among its directives is a mandate for the Election Assistance Commission, an independent nonpartisan agency created by Congress, to require voters to submit documentary proof of their citizenship when using national voter registration forms. It would also stop states from counting mailed-in ballots votes that are sent in by Election Day but are delivered afterward, require recertification of all state voting systems to meet new security standards set by the EAC, and halt election assistance funding to states that do not comply with the terms of the order within 180 days. Perhaps most alarming, the order would allow the Department of Government Efficiency and the Department of Homeland Security to subpoena state records and use federal databases to review state voter registration lists….
The Legal Theory Behind Trump’s Power Grabs
Pema Levy, May 5, 2025 [Mother Jones]
It all started with Richard Nixon. It was the summer of 1974, and Watergate was closing in on his presidency. A grand jury had subpoenaed secret recordings of Nixon and his aides that would show the president had been involved in the criminal conspiracy. A judge had ordered Nixon to honor the subpoena. The president’s lawyers faced a daunting task: block the release of those damning tapes.
Led by Boston trial attorney James St. Clair, Nixon’s legal team cooked up a theory that rejected nearly 200 years of consensus about the separation of powers and the Constitution. They argued the president controls the entire executive branch such that no individual member of that branch—including the federal prosecutor pursuing Watergate—can take any action that the president disagrees with. In short: The executive branch, c’est Nixon….
GOP may be closer than ever to enacting a massive rule-busting bill
Andres Picon, 05/05/2025 [politico, via downwithtyranny.com]
Brendan Carr Is Turning the FCC Into MAGA’s Censoring Machine
[Wired, via Naked Capitalism 05-06-2025]
The Republicans Haven’t Been Able To Pass Any Of Their Priorities Yet— Will The Byrd Rule Stop Them?
Howie Klein, May 4, 2025 [downwithtyranny.com]
The Texas-Sized Plan To Shut You Up
Luke Goldstein, May 8, 2025 [The Lever]
A corporate-led attack on free speech in Texas is making odd bedfellows and tearing the state’s GOP apart.
Elite impunity
The Smear That Started It All, Part 1
Christian Schneider, May 9, 2025 [downwithtyranny.com]
I’ve spent the last six years in a legal battle I never expected— and never deserved.It started with lies. It escalated into courtrooms. And somewhere in the middle, I lost my home, my career, and most of what I thought was stable in my life. But what I didn’t lose was the truth. And now, with one final shot to hold this system accountable, I’m ready to tell the story in full.Because what happened to me didn’t just expose local corruption— it revealed how far institutions will go to protect themselves.
In 2018, I helped run a reform campaign for sheriff in Monterey County. We weren’t backed by a party machine or big money— just a group of people, many from inside law enforcement, who wanted to see a department plagued with secrecy and retaliation do better.That was enough to make me a target.
It started with anonymous emails and social media posts. I later learned they were coming from inside the Sheriff’s Office— senior law enforcement officials, on duty, using County resources to launch a campaign of false allegations….
KT Chong
No mention of the India-Pakistan war?
1. The US provoked India to attack Pakistan — i.e., the US wanted to use India to wage a proxy war against China. The US had thought that India would easily defeat China’s ally Pakistan on the battlefields, which would cause an realignment of the regional power balance. That is why, soon after the war had broken out, JD Vance initially said (or pretended) that the war is none of America’s business and the US would stay out of it (because he thought India would easily win over Pakistan.)
However, the US seriously miscalculated, and its whole scheme to undermine China via the proxy war backfired… which led to the Trump administration did a 180 and quickly put an end to the war.
2. The miscalculation is Chinese weaponry. Before last week, Chinese modern military platform has never faced a real battle. Chinese modern weaponry has never been field-tested in a real-world battle situation against any Western military platform.
Last week, for the first time, Chinese fighter jets and missiles (which are of recent but older generations used by Pakistan) went up against the Western fighter jets and missiles (which are of newer generations used by India.) And, Chinese weapon platforms, of older generations, have outperformed newer-generation Western weapon platforms. I think even Chinese themselves are (pleasantly) shocked by the outcomes. The unexpected battlefield outcomes were hurting the Western military industry complex, (i.e., hurting their prospect for selling weapons to other countries,) which is why the Trump administration quickly pulled the plug on the proxy war on China before letting the prospect further deteriorate.
Here is a good analysis of the implications and consequences of last week’s India-Pakistan war:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30sh7u-max0
Such a discussion is completely absent in the Western media (understandably) and being drown out by all the Indian propaganda and denialism on social media like YouTube, (i.e., “Pakistan is not winning. China is not winning. FAKE NEWS! FAKE NEWS! India is winning!”)
KT Chong
My point is:
For the very first time, Chinese weapon platform was field-tested in a real battles, against Western weapon platforms. Chinese weaponry went head-to-head against Western weapon in the India-Pakistan war… and Chinese jets and missiles came out ahead.
AND, the Chinese jets are roughly 1-2 generations older than the Western jets.
That’s the “DeepSeek moment” of Chinese military tech. That really should have been a much bigger news. It should have caused a shockwave in the West. However, the Western media has completely buried and ignored, (they don’t want to hurt their weapon sales, I suppose.)
One exception in Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y50NEzshir8