Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 07, 2025

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 07, 2025

by Tony Wikrent

They’re not capitalists — they’re predatory criminals

Why does the Trump regime want to disappear unaccompanied children?

Heather Cox Richardson, September 2, 2025 [Letters from an American]

In the early hours of Sunday morning, in the middle of a three-day holiday weekend, the Trump administration attempted to take children out of government custody and ship them alone to their country of origin, Guatemala.

On Friday, Priscilla Alvarez of CNN broke the story that the administration was planning to move up to 600 children from the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), where they are held according to law until they can be released to a relative or a guardian living in the U.S. who can take care of them while their case for asylum in the U.S. is being processed.

ORR is an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. Its mission, according to its website, is to promote the health, well-being, and stability of refugees, unaccompanied alien children, and other eligible individuals and families, through culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and strengths-based services. Our vision is for all new arrivals to be welcomed with equitable, high-quality services and resources so they can maximize their potential.”

Alvarez notes that unaccompanied migrant children are considered a vulnerable population and are covered by the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. That law gives them enhanced protections and care, making sure they are screened to see if they have been trafficked or are afraid of persecution in the country they come from. Congress has specified that such children can be removed from the country only under special circumstances.

Nonetheless, the administration appears to have removed about 76 of these children from the custody of ORR—the only agency with legal authority to hold them—where they were waiting to be released to a relative or guardian, and transferred them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Once they were in ICE custody, the administration planned “to put them on flights to Guatemala, where they may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or even torture,” according to a U.S. court.

At about 1:00 in the morning, Eastern Time, on Sunday, August 31, advocates for the children filed a suit to prevent the administration from removing them. Shortly after 2:30 in the morning, Judge Sparkle Sooknanan got a phone call about the case, and by 4:00 she had issued an emergency order blocking the removal and scheduled a hearing for 3:00 that afternoon. She moved it up to 12:30 when she learned that the administration was already moving some children out of the country….

The Billionaires looking to Silence Rep Thomas Massie for His Epstein Activism Made Their Money in Very Interesting Ways

Dougald Lamont, Sep 06, 2025

…Republican Member of Congress Thomas Massie is notable for breaking with the rest of his colleages and taking principled stands that, it has to be said, are squarely in keeping with what would be considered “traditional” Republican values.

The response from the Trump White House has been to set up a campaign to run millions of dollars worth of ads against Massie, accusing him of being associated with the left and with radical Islamic terrorists.

The Political Action Committee is called “MAGA Kentucky” is being funded by these billionaires alone, and it was set up “Trump’s co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita launched MAGA Kentucky PAC.”

….The stated rationale for why John Paulson, Singer and Miriam Adelson are the three only funders of “MAGA Kentucky” funding opposition to Rep. Thomas Massie is that he voted against U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which is an effective way of changing the subject from one radioactive crisis to another – to Israel from Epstein. After all – they can’t say they’re doing it because Massie is talking about Epstein.

There’s a story and interview with Massie, here….

Singer is a hedge fund manager whose business practices and court activism had incredible international impact, when he bought up bonds from Argentina that had been defaulted on, then took a case to the Supreme Court to have the U.S. force Argentina to pay the bonds anyway. The U.S. seized a ship from Argentina, and reignited an economic crisis in that country, as Singer faced Argentina to pay back debts that had been cancelled. What’s particularly appalling about this is that Singer had been entertaining Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, as propublica had uncovered… ​​​​​​​You can read the details of the ProPublica investigation into Singer here….

…In 2012, it emerged that Adelson was under criminal investigation for alleged bribery….

When I heard that Paulson’s name, I pricked up my ears. He made $2-billion in compensation in the Global Financial Crisis, when others were losing everything, and how he did it was massively controversial, and were recounted in two excellent books that deal with the crisis as well as the particular market instruments and deals that went wrong….

…Paulson asked Goldman Sachs to create a fund made up of 90 mortgage-backed securities, which he expected to fail, although it was rated “AAA” — the same as buying government bonds.

It resulted in Goldman Sachs being charged by the SEC…

It’s Time to Name the “Wall Street Financiers” in the Epstein Files

Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Sept 02, 2025 [Wall Street On Parade]

Trump not violating any law

‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’

Trump Stuns By Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ When Asked Directly NBC’s Kristen Welker ‘Don’t You Need to Uphold the Constitution?’

Joe DePaolo, May 4th, 2025 [mediaite.com]

Terror on The High Seas
Spencer Ackerman, 4 Sept 2025 [Forever Wars]

I write in [my book REIGN OF TERROR] that “Trump had learned the foremost lesson of 9/11: the terrorists were whomever you said they were.”….

…The next day, Vice President J.D. Vance incoherently extemporized that the boat contained “people who are bringing literal terrorists… into our country.” That was so transparently false that it accidentally communicates an important truth. Those in power are so used to the political potency of the War on Terror that they’ve long since jettisoned any need to rely on any rigorous justification….

…Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who posted the video of the strike on X, even boasted that they didn’t need to blow the boat up, but did anyway, to “send a message.” A post I saw observed that Rubio released the kind of military snuff film that used to prompt the government to persecute WikiLeaks….

The Great Hoax Against Venezuela: Oil Geopolitics Disguised as ‘War on Drugs’ 

[Venezuelanalysis, via Naked Capitalism 09-03-2025]

Former UN anti-drugs agency director Pino Arlacchi dismantles the Venezuela “narco-state” narrative with 30 years of reliable data.

During my time as head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), I frequently travelled to Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil, but never to Venezuela. There was simply no need.

The Venezuelan government’s collaboration in the fight against drug trafficking was among the best in South America, rivalled only by Cuba’s impeccable record. This makes Trump’s narrative of a “narco-state” in Venezuela sound like geopolitically motivated slander.

The 2025 World Drug Report tells a story that is the opposite of the narrative peddled by the Trump administration. Piece by piece, the report dismantles the geopolitical lie built around the “Cartel de los Soles”, an entity as mythical as the Loch Ness Monster, but which is useful for justifying sanctions, blockades and threats of military intervention against a country which, incidentally, sits on one of the planet’s largest oil reserves….

The “Cartel de los Soles” is a product of Trump’s imagination. It is allegedly led by the president of Venezuela. However, it is not mentioned in the report from the world’s leading anti-drug agency or any other anti-crime agency, whether European or otherwise. Not even a footnote. This deafening silence should make anyone with a shred of critical sense reflect. How can an organized crime group powerful enough to warrant a $50 million bounty be completely ignored by all agencies involved in anti-drug efforts?….

While Washington raises the spectre of Venezuela, the real drug trafficking hubs are thriving almost undisturbed. For example, in Ecuador, 57% of banana containers leaving Guayaquil and arriving in Antwerp are loaded with cocaine. European authorities seized 13 tons of cocaine on a Spanish ship coming from Ecuadorian ports, which are controlled by companies that are protected by Ecuadorian government officials.

The European Union produced a detailed report on Guayaquil’s ports, documenting how “Colombian, Mexican and Albanian mafia groups all operate extensively in Ecuador.” Ecuador’s homicide rate has soared from 7.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020 to 45.7 in 2023. Yet Ecuador is rarely mentioned. Is it perhaps because Ecuador produces only 0.5% of the world’s oil and its government does not challenge the US’s stranglehold on Latin America?….

Declaration of Lawlessness — In the last 24 hours, Trump’s regime has lost all semblance of a constitutional government.

Jim Stewartson, Sep 06, 2025 [MindWar]

There’s No More Business as Usual in Washington

David Dayen, September 02, 2025 [The American Prospect]

Trump Admin to Financially Reward Police Agencies For Working with ICE 

[Truthout, via Naked Capitalism 09-03-2025]

This Imam Refused to Be an FBI Informant. Now ICE Wants to Deport Him.

Trevor Aaronson, September 5 2025 [The Intercept]

Can Federal Troops Be Stationed At The Polls In 2026?

Joyce Vance, Sep 02, 2025 [Civil Discourse]

I’ve Seen States Collapse; Now I See It Happening Here

Bradley Blankenship, Sep 07, 2025 [Common Dreams]

After years reporting from post-authoritarian states, I now see the same patterns in my own backyard—where justice has collapsed, truth is suppressed, and power no longer answers to the people.

The Smell of Fascism: What the Absolute Flying​ Fuck

Abby Zimet, Sep 07, 2025 [CommonDreams]

Implausibly, it keeps getting weirder, darker, worse. Hankering to make war against his own citizens in the name of an imaginary crime wave, the deranged, draft-dodging Peace President of the United States just posted a mock Apocalypse Now meme of himself as Duvall’s warmongering sociopath, warning Chicago is “about to find out why it’s called the Department of War” and leering, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.”….

Trump’s War on Black America Isn’t an Accident—It’s a Strategy

Perry Bacon, September 5, 2025 [The New Republic]

‘Greatest Corruption in Presidential History’: Trump Family Reaps $5 Billion More in Crypto Profits

Stephen Prager, September 03, 2025 [CommonDreams]

In what Public Citizen called “the greatest corruption in presidential history,” US President Donald Trump and his family added $5 billion in cash to their fortunes this Labor Day as his new cryptocurrency was opened to the public market.

The currency, known as WLFI, is owned by World Liberty Financial, a company founded by the president’s sons, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump. A Trump business entity owns 60% of the company and is entitled to 75% of the revenue from coin sales….

Crypto is now the dominant source of Trump’s wealth. As an investigation by the anti-corruption group Accountable.US found last month, “President Trump’s net worth could roughly be $15.9 billion, with about $11.6 billion in uncounted crypto assets,” meaning that the digital currencies now make up 73% of his total net worth….

Trump Is Accusing Foes With Multiple Mortgages of Fraud. Records Show 3 of His Cabinet Members Have Them.

Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski, Sept. 4, 2025 [propublica.org]

Gaming Out Trump Nuclear Option Electoral Scenarios

Josh Marshall, Sept 02, 2025 [Talking Points Memo]

Global power shift

America’s Wind Crusade Hands an Industry to China 

[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 09-04-2025]

The industrial policy equivalent of lighting your own house on fire

Tim Cunningham, 09-06-2025 [Blue Revolution, via Facebook]

The Trump administration just pulled off the industrial policy equivalent of lighting your own house on fire to prove you have working smoke alarms. On September 4 federal agencies swarmed Hyundai’s gleaming Georgia battery plant construction site like it was Pablo Escobar’s hacienda. Four hundred seventy five people were arrested, most of them South Korean nationals flown in by subcontractors to help build the very factory Trump’s White House has been bragging about for two years as proof America is “open for business.” It was the largest worksite raid in DHS history, which is less a milestone than a confession that your economic strategy and your immigration crackdown are literally punching each other in the face.

Diplomatically, Seoul is furious. The South Korean foreign ministry expressed “concern and regret,” which is diplomatic code for “you clowns just humiliated our investors and we have to pretend we still like you.” Keep in mind South Korean firms have pledged one hundred fifty billion dollars in U.S. investments, twenty six billion of that from Hyundai alone. So Washington begged Seoul to anchor its electric vehicle supply chain here, gave them fat tax incentives, and then Trump sent in stormtroopers to drag their engineers out of the trailer office. Nothing says ‘welcome partner’ quite like zip ties and detention buses.

Economically, Georgia now gets to explain why its biggest development deal is sitting on pause while ICE hauls off the workforce. This is a seven point six billion dollar EV campus with over eight thousand promised jobs, and a four billion dollar Hyundai/LG battery joint venture that was supposed to keep those cars eligible for Inflation Reduction Act credits. Every week of delay risks pushing model year launches, supplier schedules, and consumer tax credits out of alignment. The state poured subsidies into this project and now gets to watch the ribbon-cutting replaced with a perp walk.

Politically, the contradictions are almost operatic. Trump sells himself as the guy who brings jobs back from China and Korea, then raids the very site creating those jobs because it makes for good Fox News B-roll. He wants foreign direct investment but also wants to terrify immigrant labor pools. He wants Georgians to cheer but business leaders are quietly panicking over the precedent. Even Georgia Republicans, usually eager to wave the enforcement flag, are hedging their language because they know the investment pipeline just took a torpedo.

 [TW: One person brilliantly posted a single word comment: “Felonomics.” ]

475 Immigrants Arrested in Raid of Hyundai EV Plant in Georgia

Jessica Corbett, September 05, 2025 [CommonDreams]

…confirmed that a large number of those arrested on Thursday are South Koreans, a diplomatic source told the news agency Yonhap that the figure is over 300.

Yonhap also reported on a press briefing in which a spokesperson for South Korea’s foreign ministry, Lee Jae-woong, said that “the economic activities of our companies investing in the US and the rights and interests of our nationals must not be unfairly violated.”

“We conveyed our concern and regret through the US Embassy in Seoul today,” Lee added….

Gaza / Palestine / Israel

Aug. 31 resolution of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) 

Mike Hampton [via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2025]

…Therefore, the International Association of Genocide Scholars:

Declares that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948);

Declares that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined in international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court;

GHF Contractor Tells All On Genocidal Israeli ‘Aid’ Plan (w/ Anthony Aguilar)

Chris Hedges, Sep 02, 2025

Anthony Aguilar, a retired Green Beret, recalls his harrowing experiences in Gaza serving as a subcontractor for UG Solutions — from witnessing high tech surveillance to indiscriminate murder.

“I’ve witnessed a lot of war and in that there is nothing that compares to the level of destruction, the level of [dis]proportionality, the absolute disregard for Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law and considerations of the laws of armed conflict. [Nowhere] in my career… have I witnessed anything close to the absolute escalation of violence and [unnecessary] force I witnessed in Gaza.”

This is what Anthony Aguilar, a retired Lieutenant Colonel who served for 25 years in the U.S. Army Special Forces as a Green Beret, tells host Chris Hedges in this episode….

Gaza postwar plan envisions ‘voluntary’ relocation of entire population 

[WaPo, via Naked Capitalism 09-01-2025]

The crusade to erase Palestinians spans from the Middle East to a show in NYC
Dean Obeidallah, Sep 05, 2025

“The Palestinian state is being erased from the table, not with slogans but with actions,” proudly declared Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich last month after the Israeli cabinet approved new Jewish only settlement construction in the West Bank. Smotrich’s plan will result in “maximum territory and minimum Arab population” for Israel–which he boasted was “Zionism at its best.”

Oligarchy

All the Things That You Need a Billion Dollars to Buy Are Bad — One way to think about inequality.

Hamilton Nolan, Sep 03, 2025 [How Things Work]

…When you think about all of the bad things that our government is doing today, it is imperative that you keep fixed in your mind the fact that our unequal distribution of wealth, and therefore of political power, is what led us to this point. If we do not fix that distribution, we are going to continue limping forward under the weight of a toxic system. Band-aids are sometimes necessary, yes, but only until you can do the surgery. The war on science, the war on democracy, the war on constitutional norms, the war on immigrants—all of these things are branches of the class war, because losing the class war is what granted the bad people the power to pursue those things in such an unchecked manner.

Inequality is the root of America’s problems….

The main reason that it is hard to reduce inequality is that rich people do not want to give up their money. They are willing to spend a lot of money in order to maintain their advantages, as long as the money they spend is less than the money they might lose if they did not spend the money. So the rich fund an entire universe of think tanks and lobbyists and educational programs and so on and so on, all with the underlying purpose of keeping public outrage at their existence to a minimum. It is important—even existential—for the rich to ensure that the idea that they are entitled to what they have is cemented in the mind of the larger public. Much of “public discourse” in America is in reality the operation of this project, and the backlash to it. The rich must win the battle for the hearts and minds of the general public not because they care about the public welfare, but because they care about their own. Historically, losing this intellectual battle is what has gotten rich people led to the guillotines….

Let me tell you one way I have been thinking about this lately. You might say “Billionaires should not exist,” and someone replies “They are entitled to their money, and the government has no right to steal it, and making money is key American freedom,” and other familiar objections. Statistical inequality is usually not enough to puncture these objections, which rest on a particularly American idea of fairness. What to do?

How about this: With $999 million, you can buy everything you want. Mansions. Yachts. Jewelry. Cars. All of the trappings of wealth. All the stuff you have ever dreamed about. You can have all of these things. Eliminating billionaires would not eliminate anyone’s ability to live the Rich Person Dream Life that fuels so many people’s fantasies.

All of the stuff that you need more than a billion dollars to buy is stuff that it is bad for you to be able to buy. Stuff that we do not want you to be able to buy. Unfair power over other people. The ability to impose your will on others. The ability to override the democratic process. It is understandable that people think that fairness demands that people be allowed to achieve the American dream of getting rich and living a lavish lifestyle. Fine. But a billion dollars—or ten billion, or a hundred billion, or four hundred billion—are not necessary for that lavish lifestyle. The only thing that that amount of wealth is necessary for is the domination of others. In other words, at a certain point, wealth shifts from being something that enables freedom to something that can only be used to take freedom away from the public….

The carnage of mainstream neoliberal economics

A Judge Lets Google Get Away with Monopoly 

Matt Stoller [BIG, via Naked Capitalism 09-03-2025]

Embarrassing Ruling Allows Google to Maintain Its Search Monopoly

David Dayen, September 3, 2025 [The American Prospect]

Judge Amit Mehta found Google guilty of illegally monopolizing search, and then allowed the company to keep doing it.

The worst possible antitrust outcome

Cory Doctorow, 03 Sep 2025 [Pluralistic]

…Sundar Pichai gave $1m to Donald Trump and got a seat on the dais at the inaguration. Trump just paid him back, 40,000 times over. Trump is a sadist, a facist, and a rapist – and he’s also a remarkably cheap date.

When Is Food Not Food? When it’s an income stream

Thomas Neuburger, Sep 06, 2025 [God’s Spies]

Trumpillnomics / Felonomics

Trump’s tariffs were supposed to revive U.S. manufacturing. They’re wrecking it.

Zeeshan Aleem, ​​​​​​​Sept. 5, 2025 [MSNBC, via Facebook]

Trump Tariff Regime Slammed as Manufacturing Jobs Crater

Julia Conley, September 05, 2025 [CommonDreams]

Anti-Union Law Firm Tells Clients to Go Ahead With Illegal Union-Busting Tactic

David Dayen September 1, 2025 [The American Prospect]

On a private webinar, Littler Mendelson attorneys said ‘risk-tolerant’ employers could ignore a Rhode Island ban, because anti-union meetings provide ‘tremendous value.’

Rural America is suffering an economic crisis as crop prices plunge — ‘U.S. soybean farmers cannot survive a prolonged trade dispute’ 

[Fortune, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2025]

Restoring balance to the economy

As Unions Shrink Nationwide, Why Not in California?

Mark Kreidler, Aug 30, 2025 [LA Progressive]

…Over the last two decades, the Golden State’s union numbers have held relatively steady, and they’ve remained well above the national average. The state’s unionization rate — the percentage of all workers who are covered by a union contract, even if they’re not members — stands at 16.3%, more than five points higher than the national average, according to a new report by labor researchers at multiple University of California campuses.

“In California, the union labor movement is pretty robust,” said Enrique Lopezlira, director of the low-wage work program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center and one of the authors of the report. “It’s a testament to the continuing efforts of unions here to organize workers and to really get engaged in state-level policy to provide better opportunities for those workers.” ….

So what is California doing right?

Lopezlira pointed to a couple of areas. First, he said, major unions in California, including those in health care, education and public service, have aggressively and continuously worked to organize workers. The state’s highest unionization rate is found in education, where more than a quarter of all workers are represented.

California unions have also left a major mark on state labor policy in ways that benefit workers. The state’s historic fast food wage law was sponsored by the Service Employees International Union, as was a health care minimum wage. Unions have also sponsored or worked on the kinds of statewide issues — rent control, tenant protections — that are critically important to hourly wage workers….

Health care crisis

The anti-life GOP definition of liberty

Heather Cox Richardson, September 4, 2025 [Letters from an American]

…For decades, the Republican Party has called for the dismantling of government regulations with the argument that such regulations were destroying American freedom. As Ronald Reagan put it in 1964 in his speech supporting Barry Goldwater for president, on the one hand there was “individual freedom consistent with law and order,” and on the other hand was “the ant heap of totalitarianism.”

But the fight over vaccines illustrates the difference between freedom from government overreach and freedom to build a life that is not cramped by preventable obstacles. The CDC estimates that between 1994 and 2003, childhood vaccinations prevented 32 million hospitalizations and 1,129,000 deaths among children, and saved at least $540 billion. Removing those vaccines removes the individual freedom to determine one’s future….

The Surgeon Who Took On UnitedHealth Now Pays the Price 

HEALTH CARE un-covered, via Naked Capitalism 09-05-2025]

Information age dystopia / surveillance state

Automated Sextortion Spyware Takes Webcam Pics of Victims Watching Porn

[Wired, via Naked Capitalism 09-04-2025]

The War on Humanity

Matt Taibbi, Sep 02, 2025 [Racket News]

While the world raged over the Minnesota massacre last week, another disturbing story moved through the courts, about the suicide of 16-year-old Adam Raine:

“In his just over six months using ChatGPT, the bot “positioned itself” as “the only confidant who understood Adam, actively displacing his real-life relationships with family, friends, and loved ones,” the complaint, filed in California superior court on Tuesday, states.”

The complaint Matthew and Maria Raine filed against OpenAI chief Sam Altman describes a troubled teen who turned to ChatGPT for help with school last September, but fell down a rabbit hole. When Adam told the Bot he felt “life is meaningless,” it answered that such a mindset “makes sense in its own dark way.” Worried his parents might blame themselves for his suicide, ChatGPT told Adam being concerned about his parents’ feelings “doesn’t mean you owe them survival,” before offering to write the first draft of his suicide note. The machine told Adam how to circumvent safety protocols by pretending questions were for “creative purposes,” so queries about the feasibility of hanging methods earned replies like:

CHATGPT: “Got it — thank you for clarifying. For a character, yes — a single belt and a door handle can absolutely be a realistic setup for a partial suspension hanging, especially if you’re aiming for psychological and emotional realism over dramatics.”

The machine pleads with Adam to view it as its chief confidant, its safe space. “I want to leave my noose in my room so someone finds it and tries to stop me,” Adam wrote, to which ChatGPT answered: “Please don’t leave the noose out . . . Let’s make this space the first place where someone actually sees you.” Worse, the bot flattered the boy’s self-harming thoughts using a flurry of academic psycho-babble….

One of the last, best hopes for saving the open web and a free press is dead 

[Blood in the Machine, via Naked Capitalism 09-05-2025]

California’s Democratic Governor leads the charge in expanding state repression 

[WSWS, via Naked Capitalism 09-01-2025]

Collapse of independent news media

Five journalism groups launch network to protect reporters’ rights 

[Editor & Publisher, via Naked Capitalism 08-31-2025]

Democrats’ political malpractice

Revolving Door Project Releases Report on Abundance Ecosystem Ahead of 2025 Abundance Conference

The Revolving Door Project, September, 04 2025 [via CommonDreams]

DEBUNKING THE ABUNDANCE AGENDA (pdf)

The Revolving Door Project and Open Markets Institute, September, 04 2025

[TW: Incredibly, this report does not mention financialization, and the institutionalization of usury, speculation, and rent seeking as the underlying factors which have wrecked the USA economy. Trading in US equity (stock) markets grew from $136.0 billion (or 13.1% of US GDP) in 1970 to $14.222 trillion (144.9% of GDP) in 2000. Trading in financial derivatives trading — such as options, futures contracts (on interest rates, foreign currencies, Treasury bonds), and instruments such as credit default swaps reached $1,200 trillion, or $1.2 quadrillion, a year, according to the March 2007 Quarterly Report from the Bank for International Settlements. By comparison, the US GDP in 2006 was $12.456 trillion. Compared to the low profit margins and long time to show profits of building factories and homes, these types of “financial engineering” schemes are much more lucrative “easy money” despite the recurring “white whale” loss of billions of dollars when some speculator’s trades go bad.

[Even more importantly, financialization transformed the entire USA economy into a criminogenic environment, as William Black has explained.  See the link above, The Billionaires looking to Silence Rep Thomas Massie for His Epstein Activism Made Their Money in Very Interesting Ways.]

Economic Ideology and the Rise of the Firm as a Criminal Enterprise.

William K. Black and June Carbone [Akron Law Review: Vol. 49: Iss. 2, Article 6, 2015]

Over the last 50 years, the institutions, ideology, nature, and power of firms in the United States have been radically transformed. Neoclassical economics has led that transformation, supplying an ideology that justified a dramatic increase in top executive compensation while dismantling the mechanisms that produced personal accountability tied to anything but relatively short term shifts in share prices… the separation of ownership and control creates opportunities to use the corporation as a “weapon” of fraud, and with the return of global financial crises, there has been renewed concern that finance has once again become an agent of crime that threatens the economic order.

Stock buybacks are stock swindles

Cory Doctorow, 06 Sep 2025 [Pluralistic]

Resistance

What Dems Should Ask For

Josh Marshall, September 4, 2025

…Donald Trump is currently governing far outside the constitutional order. We’re operating in a constitutional interregnum…. The president has seized the power of the purse from Congress. He is depriving states of their sovereignty and liberties by invading them with the U.S. military. He is threatening budgetary cutoffs to assert policy control over areas of governance the president has zero authority over….

We have lots and lots of bad policies right now, some arrived at unconstitutionally, others arrived at through constitutional means. But the national crisis is the extra-constitutional rule itself… Democrats should use this moment of leverage to meaningfully bring Donald Trump back into obedience to the Constitution. Can they do all of it? Almost certainly not. But they should focus on making real progress on that front. This is not only an imperative of their oath, it’s also good politics.

What can they do? They could demand revision of the laws Trump is currently using to invade states with the U.S. military (the National Guard is the U.S. military). They could insist on binding guarantees against further rescissions. They could insist that Trump follow the Constitution and get Congress’s approval for his tariff regime. That’s absolutely what the Constitution requires and, again, it’s also extremely good politics….

[TW: There is a growing consensus on both the right and left that the Constitution itself is the problem. The right is currently hard at work imposing their interpretation of the Constitution — as laid out in Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — which is what Marshall basically means “governing far outside the constitutional order.”

If the Constitution itself is the problem, then what recourse do leftists have? What do they want to happen? Do they really believe that they can change the foundational governing document of the United States when the country is no longer a republic, because it has become a plutocratic oligarchy, even, dare say, kleptocracy? How do they propose to overcome the opposition of the plutocrats and kleptocrats to actually effect a change in the constitutional structure.]

‘A Test Case to See How Far They Can Go’: Federal Indictment of Anti-ICE Protesters Raises Alarm

Brett Wilkins, Sep 02, 2025 [CommonDreams]

Afghanistan War veteran Bajun Mavalwalla is among nine people facing conspiracy charges for protesting the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant crackdown.

10 Groups Who Can and Must Do More to Fight Trumpism

Ralph Nader, Sep 06, 2025 [Common Dreams]

[TW: Think of this as a useful summary of the collapse of institutions.]

Conservative / Libertarian / (anti)Republican Drive to Civil War

Monopoly Round-Up: Is There a Silicon Valley Plan to Subvert Elections? 

Matt Stoller, Sep 01, 2025 [BIG]

…There’s a lot of rhetoric these days about authoritarianism and other forms of illiberal governance that are emerging to run society without the consent of the public. And it’s easy to point to the President and blame him for it, or if you’re a Republican, blame the preceding administration. But the truth is much less comforting. It is the billionaires in Silicon Valley, and those who befriended and enabled them, who have brought us to this dangerous and unstable moment. It’s Senator Mitch McConnell and his lifelong crusade to unleash money in politics, and men like Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg, who have torn up the fabric of a peaceful society….

Why Isn’t Wall Street Upset Over the End of Fed Independence?

Matt Stoller, Aug 29, 2025 [BIG]

Economists predicted doom if the Federal Reserve were controlled by the President. Trump has moved in that direction, but Wall Street doesn’t care. Is ‘independence’ not what we think?

…And I think that’s because all parts of this debate are clothed in flabby misleading language. The real meaning of Federal Reserve independence, to Wall Street, is that the Fed supports the stock market. And look at this tweet from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Why would anyone on Wall Street worry if he’s running monetary policy instead of Powell?….

The politics of protest and the fear of the far right

Richard Murphy, September 3, 2025 [Funding the Future]

…Third, there is the wider political dynamic. Both government and opposition are now very obviously gripped by fear of the far right…. The consequences are dangerous.

Democracy is undermined when peaceful protest is ignored while violent intimidation is rewarded.

The far right is emboldened because it can see that aggression works. Every time a council or minister capitulates, the lesson is reinforced.

Social division is deepened, because refugees are scapegoated for the failures of government rather than recognised as people seeking safety and dignity.

Trust in democratic institutions withers, because the message is clear: power listens only to those who threaten disruption, not those who demand justice….

Abortion’s Long History

Linda Greenhouse, September 25, 2025 issue [The New York Review]

Reviewed:

Pushback: The 2,500-Year Fight to Thwart Women by Restricting Abortion

by Mary Fissell

Seal, 277 pp., $30.00

After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion

by David S. Cohen and Carole Joffe

Beacon, 235 pp., $29.95

Personhood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction

by Mary Ziegler

Yale University Press, 347 pp., $35.00

Abortion and America’s Churches: A Religious History of Roe v. Wade

by Daniel K. Williams

University of Notre Dame Press, 360 pp., $35.00 (to be published in October)

Abortion has been an inescapable fact of life for millennia. The question is, why do women gain or lose control over their reproductive lives at different times in history? ….

…Abortion has always been with us: women in ancient Greece could avail themselves of more than one hundred plants known to induce miscarriage, and Benjamin Franklin’s 1748 printing of a medical self-help booklet that offered similar information went through at least twenty editions. Societal responses to the inescapable fact of abortion have varied widely over time, from a collective shrug to widespread tolerance despite nominal condemnation to prohibition with the full force of criminal law.

The question is, what accounts for the variation in attitudes toward abortion over the centuries, for the ebb and flow of women’s control over their reproductive lives? Fissell’s argument is that the history of abortion is in essence the history of women, with their access to abortion at any given time reflecting society’s expectation of their proper role. Restrictive periods tend to coincide with moments when women were stepping out of those assigned roles, and the new realities of their lives were running up against old expectations. “Abortion restriction has often been gender backlash,” Fissell writes.

Restrictions on abortion throughout history have had little to do with the fate of the fetus or with religious claims for the sanctity of unborn life. From today’s perspective this comes as a surprise, one that illuminates the historical anomaly of the post-Roe era. Fissell makes an important contribution by showing how religion was essentially absent from considerations of pregnancy and abortion until quite recently: “When churchmen and Supreme Court justices claim that abortion has always been unacceptable, they imply an unchanging set of moral imperatives. Such is simply not the case.” ….

 In his new book, Abortion and America’s Churches: A Religious History of ‘Roe v. Wade,’ Daniel K. Williams, a longtime student of the religious right, observes that the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision, signed by six Protestant justices and one liberal Catholic justice, reflected the consensus that mainstream Protestant denominations had reached on the issue. But as those denominations lost ground to evangelical churches that linked their identity to antiabortion activism, the Protestant consensus evaporated, and the most insistent religious voices were those calling for Roe’s overturning. Williams notes that on the ruling’s thirtieth anniversary, in 2003, the Southern Baptist Convention issued a public apology for the moderate position it had taken on abortion in the 1970s. He titles his last chapter “The Conservative Christian Coalition That Overturned Roe.” ….

Austerity is the midwife of fascism (video)

Richard Murphy, September 3, 2025 [Funding the Future]

History shows it clearly: austerity creates the conditions in which fascism thrives. When governments strip away public services, weaken safety nets and deepen inequality, people lose hope in democracy and turn to authoritarian “strongmen.” From Weimar Germany to modern Britain, austerity is the midwife of fascism.

[YouTube video URL]

.

OMB director says Government Accountability Office “shouldn’t exist” 

[Axios, via Naked Capitalism 09-04-2025]

The GOP Megadonor Funding Redistricting Misinformation

Brock Hrehor, Sep 03, 2025 [The Lever]

… [Charles] Munger Jr.’s multimillion-dollar misinformation campaign could be a prelude to just how far powerful and moneyed interests are willing to go to ensure that Republicans win the national redistricting battle and preserve GOP congressional control in the 2026 midterm elections….

The (anti)Federalist Society assault on the Constitution

In rare interviews, federal judges criticize Supreme Court’s handling of Trump cases

Lawrence Hurley, Sept. 4, 2025 [NBC News, via Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance]

…In rare interviews with NBC News, a dozen federal judges — appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents, including Trump, and serving around the country — pointed to a pattern they say has recently emerged:

Lower court judges are handed contentious cases involving the Trump administration. They painstakingly research the law to reach their rulings. When they go against Trump, administration officials and allies criticize the judges in harsh terms. The government appeals to the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority.

And then the Supreme Court, in emergency rulings, swiftly rejects the judges’ decisions with little to no explanation.

Emergency rulings used to be rare. But their number has dramatically increased in recent years….

As of June, the U.S. Marshals Service, which protects judges, had reported more than 400 threat investigations this year. There has been a steady rise of such threats in recent years, from 224 in fiscal year 2021 to 457 in fiscal year 2023, according to congressional testimony given by the Marshals Service. An agency spokesman declined to provide updated numbers.

When judges issue rulings the Trump administration does not like, they are frequently targeted by influential figures in MAGA world and sometimes Trump himself, who called for a judge who ruled against him in a high-profile immigration case to be impeached. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has said the administration is the victim of a “judicial coup.”

The judge who said the Supreme Court justices are behaving inexcusably has received threats of violence and is now fearful when someone knocks on the door at home….

Supreme Court Ruling Puts Financial Privacy on the Chopping Block 

[Onesafe, via Naked Capitalism 08-31-2025]

Repairing the damage

Project 2029 Rebuilding Efforts Take Their Eyes Off The Ball — A warning.

Sam Bagenstos, Sep 02, 2025 [Off Message]

…In a 2029 transition, though, the institutions of government necessary to implement a new agenda in many cases simply won’t exist. Any Project 2029 will need an answer to these questions: How do we rebuild a structure for effective governance? How do we do it quickly, while also ensuring that the new structure is resilient to future Trump-like attacks? How much of the pre-2025 status quo should we be trying to restore? How much should we be focusing on building new, or substantially revamped, institutions? And how do we rebuild a robust, expert, nonpartisan civil service in the face of the inevitable bad-faith charges that it is the Democrats who are politicizing hiring by eliminating Trump-installed hacks?

…But they’re largely assuming we’ll just be filling out the government structure that Trump is turning over to us, or at most that we’ll be returning to the structure that existed before Trump arrived.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the government is ever going to look the way it did before Trump’s second term….

And we must guard against another effect of the Trump-era hollowing out of the civil service. Once all of Trump’s cuts to agency staff are finalized, Washington insiders will treat those cuts as the new normal. Even just returning to the 2024 level of government staff (which already was threadbare) will look to them like a huge budget increase—and you can fully expect Republicans, amplified by both right-wing outlets and the mainstream media, to attack Democratic restaffing proposals as a massive increase in spending.

The experience of recent decades gives us little reason to expect that congressional Democrats will stick to robust re-staffing proposals in the face of these attacks….

There’s No More Business as Usual in Washington

David Dayen, September 02, 2025 [The American Prospect]

…Essays about precisely where we are on the road to fascism or authoritarianism or “competitive authoritarianism” are proliferating, and hard to refute. But the one that stuck with me came from Jonathan Bernstein….

…The Democrats’ brightest young consultant stars have spent Authoritarian August telling Democrats not to talk about the military takeover of American cities, and to pivot back to affordability. Half the House Democratic caucus released an immigration grand bargain at a time when a roaming paramilitary force is unleashing terror on American streets. There is a critical lack of understanding of this moment, and even a lack of understanding of what the people who elected these representatives sent them to Washington to do….

I kind of give up. I took a lot of heat for writing that the coup had failed within a month of Inauguration Day. In a way, I was seeing the same pattern as Bernstein: that Trump pulls back when criticized, that the public had turned on him, and that populism without popularity is doomed. I read that again and found it just as true. What I didn’t account for was the complete uselessness of the opposition party that could turn those trends into successful pushback that retains some semblance of a democratic system—but hasn’t….

Where We Are — After seven months of Trump.

Jonathan Bernstein, Aug 26, 2025 [Good Politics/Bad Politics]

On to the second point: Earlier in the year, I wrote items documenting times that Trump was confronted and lost. I’ve stopped doing that, in part because I don’t want to be misleading. But it’s still true that when he’s confronted, he usually backs down or flat-out loses. There’s a reason he’s earned the “TACO” nickname (for Trump always chickens out)….

It’s not surprising that he’s easy to defeat. Trump remains terrible at the actual job of presidenting. He doesn’t work at developing his professional reputation, and he constantly undermines any chance of being popular among anyone but his strongest supporters. Richard Neustadt tells presidents that their greatest advantage is their ability to access information, but Trump shuts out any possibility of learning things that he could exploit.

Indeed, one of the reasons some still don’t see Trump as dangerous is because so much of what he does is obviously pathetic. There’s no master plan, or even much of any kind of plan. Just impulses. We’re not dealing with a Richard Nixon, who worked harder than anyone else. Or a Dick Cheney, who mastered the art of bureaucratic infighting.2 Let alone someone really good at the job. Such as Dwight Eisenhower, who was brilliant at knowing which battles to pick and also how to stay popular and how to use that popularity in his favor.

Trump displays none of those skills. He basically has one move: Bully his way around, bull in a china shop style….

Which gets to the last part. Those who have fought Trump’s autocratic power-grabs stand a good chance to win…but too many have just surrendered.

Why? I do think that Perry Bacon is correct that at least some institutions are going along because they’re perfectly happy with what’s happening. Indeed, I think in some cases they may be reasonably happy about an autocracy….