I wouldn’t waste my time going to see their vision of America. Take a trip to middle America if you want to see that. Still hardworking, not jaded people. Most with smiles in their faces. But for inflation, we saw that jump to 40 year highs by 23. I suspect we are beginning to see cracks in those rates. I just renegotiated my cable rate and switched my car insurance. I see brighter days ahead regardless of a congress that’s uncivilized
I applaud you small victories and optimism, but from the birds eye view, the economy for the majority of citizens is far from OK. Two of the major indicators of financial health, insurance and housing, are increasingly burdensome to average Americans. Milken's "vision" is only meant to encourage the masses to continue investment into stocks and keep the corporate dreams rolling along. Age old phrases such as, "money is the root of all evil" and "follow the money" should never be disregarded, especially when discussing a snake oil salesman like Milken.
The question is - what is your baseline. Obviously, it was terrible as we came out of covid and Biden's initial economic policies were terrible. And of course how we measure inflation today vs years ago is different as well. Inflation hit around 10% in 22 - and probably would have been near 20% had we measured it like it was during stagflation's heyday - and has been creeping down. Housing and food (grocery stores, not restaurants) are running increases between 2.5% and 3%. But of course, we are working off of elevated rates from before. I too am finding savings by shopping for all sorts of things. There are ways to cut your bills, but you have to ask. Home ownership as a percentage of the population is still holding around two-thirds, its historical average.
Where you are seems to be the most important, because we can find good and bad based upon where you are.
Regardless of whether or not inflation rates are coming down, the sky-high rates of the Covid years means small inflation drops aren't going to amount to much. The damage is already done. Things may be looking up for the Investor Class, but for the rest of us it's still (and by most accounts will remain) a lousy economy.
I live in fly-over country too, and there's plenty of jaded people here. Brighter days is a bad joke for most of us.
In one stroke the repression of the American working man and our commoner culture has vanished AND expectations Soar… with very good reasons, Trillions invested pour into the country and the factories are running out of good real estate, our biggest drag on domestic manufacturing is our anemic labor force growth. These are problems you want to have….
However…
Lifting Repression + Rising Expectations
=Revolution.
The expectations of lifting repression after decades of economic repression and years of political repression cannot and never could be met, as you can read in comments herein.
I run my own educational consulting business (basically, I help students with the college search and application process), and my business is booming, even as I raised my prices this year. I'm not "wealthy" by any means, but I make a decent living because people see a need for help navigating "systems", particularly families who didn't grow up in the US. I'm far from alone. I'm seeing thriving practices around the country.
I live in the most expensive city, income-to-cost-of-living ratio-wise, and it's frustrating and difficult to see our state and local governments taxing us more and more, and utility companies raising their prices again and again.
Yet, I'm so thankful for my business and thankful that I'm able to help so many families. I'm with you.
Your willingness to question everything...and look beyond the glib words to a deeper underlying reality..is really impressive & important.
I'm not exaggerating or blowing smoke: writers and journalists like you and Glenn Greenwald ( and CJ Hopkins) are the last line of defense against complete globo-cap tyranny - and what you bring to the last vestiges of Western Democracy is an armor for populace. It's not making us impenetrable, but it keeps us alive in the fight...when we can see truth revealed.
Matt is indeed an amazing resource. Just imagine the state of the information commons without Racket News, Public News, The Free Press, Unherd, and—yes—Elon Musk? How can you march to the beat of a different drummer when there's only one, all-obliterating drumbeat? What if The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CNN, the BBC, etc., comprised the entire information menu? The 'news and analysis' landscape would hardly be worth surveying. “One Message to rule them all!”
Can we eliminate non/profit tax status across the board so that at least these assholes don’t get a free ride for these vanity and propaganda projects? Watching all these kinds of circuses is demoralizing and humiliating.
Agreed. What these so-called titans of financialization are offering is a story of success that belies the truth about what their sort have done to that dream. Not many people like this guy Schmidt from Google whose success, like many of the others, was predicated by a boost from government. Most people do not have access to TPTB to orchestrate their American Dream through back door contracts and access to power that are generally a result of political favors, not up from the boot straps success stories, that IS the American dream. This people are orchestrating paeans to themselves in an attempt to disguise the hidden evil of what they have done to hollow out that American dream.
We gave up our manufacturing to raise 400 million Chinese out of dirt-poverty (literally, they had dirt floors). Pat ourselves on the back, accept that China has no gratitude, pick up the pieces of our ruined towns, and move on.
We're the most generous people on earth, and it's time to turn that generosity inward for a while.
I don't much blame the Chinese. In a transactional world, we got what we wanted and the Chinese got what they wanted. Its called trade. Of course, our trade negotiators were looking after their benefactors who saw (and obtained) immense profits in moving manufacturing to China. Could trade terms have included looking after the consequences to Middle Americans? Of course. We did it to ourselves. Or those who did the deals did.
U.S. consumers used to have a choice between Made in the U.S.A. and cheaper foreign made goods. I bought as many of 'our' products as I could but now it has become harder. Craftsman tools are now made in Taiwan. Sam Walton promoted U.S. products but his kids did not. We the consumer have to bear some of the responsibility. Trumps tariffs will help level the playing field but when people buy something they have to take into account the true 'price' you pay. MAGA !!
Remember the early Wal-Marts? Prior to the supercenters, just the regular old Wal-Marts. They had signs hanging from the ceiling throughout the store reading Made In America! That was Sam. Then that spirit went away.
Nice way to look at it. What bothers me, is after lifting Chinese out of poverty, we want to go to war with them. Is that why we lifted them out of poverty, in order to have a worthy opponent?
The US does not want real friends and allies, they want to bully the world and take the scarce resources of other countries to profit the 1% only. It's imperialism writ large in the modern world.
Who is "We"? Have you got a mouse in your pocket or something? I, for one, never believed that. Their culture, cultivated over centuries, is vastly different than what is needed for a western style democracy. It was, and always has been, a globalist elite pipe dream to control the masses through economic manipulation. The US's dominance and freedoms for their citizens were a stumbling block that China was used for to begin to level the field.
A funny line, but the dream is still there. But it does require innovation and smart/hard work to "win". That said, most don't want to win, they just want to keep on keeping on. Which is noble in and of itself.
Are you a billionaire in the financial or tech industry? If no, then you are what the American Dream is about. These people have nothing to do with the American Dream, they are criminals with connections.
Walmart correctly read the room in the 90s, as our deindustrialization gathered steam, and it became clear that a newly impoverished working class would buy cheap over good because they couldn’t afford anything else. They also modernized their accounting and inventory systems, which left K-mart and Montgomery Ward floundering. When MW finally did a thorough computerization they discovered they’d been bankrupt for some time.
I worked corporate industrial jobs from 1980 to 2011, skating from plant closing to plant closing. What I saw from the plant floor was a generation of management terrified at having to do hard stuff like make things correctly, and keep skilled trades onboard. What they wanted to manage was an org chart and a budget, so they sold their factories, kept their offices, and became marketing departments for foreign goods sold under American trademark brand names. The smart ones formed monopoly trusts with their competitors and bought legislators. The old-fashioned ones followed Eastman Kodak into oblivion. They and their owners despise (it’s too mild a term) innovators like Jobs and Musk, and massively fund media and government efforts to establish and maintain permanent profits in a decayed but static feudal economy. The only purchases most folks even try to make anymore are coerced ones they can’t do without; food, clothes, housing, transportation, and network connection.
The positive response and only fix for this situation is cooperation, as it has been since prehistory. This explains to thinking people why we are under so much pressure to fear and loathe each other.
With the exception of food (at the retail end), all of the basics you mentioned are taxed shamelessly by government, nowhere more so than housing through property taxation.
Per capita Wisconsin leads in manufacturing jobs and we still like to 'make stuff' and it can be done but innovation is key. We even have robots milking cows and (assisted for now) driverless tractors. Farms/Food maybe our most underrated asset and also American ingenuity.
You can trust Michael Milken he’s not like the others! Why just the other day he had his used car dealership annual pumpkin harvest fest and gave all the little kiddies helium filled balloons in the shape of a dollar sign. Come one come all to the new economy, what’s good for the PE firms is good for ‘Merica! Soon, because they are so honest and trust worthy they will manage your retirement dollars. Step right this way. The boat to Pleasure Island is getting ready to shove off! Pay no attention to the sounds of braying donkeys! Right Pinocolo!! Whilst they are modern day robber barons, like many baby boomers they need positive reinforcements for their oversized egos (stealing everything that isn’t nailed down isn’t nearly enough) and thus they built a shine! To themselves! How quaint. Do ya suppose it’s hard living in Palm Beach in the season and have to chose between the blue or the red Bugatti Venom to take to the Seminole Golf Club?? Decisions decisons wave to the little people, they make it happen everyday…then keep taking their money and opportunity and have them pay for the privilege of making the PE wizards wealthy beyond any Czar or King’s dreams. You could respect the original robber barons, they were unapologetic and they built stuff, like railroads and steel mills and mined minerals like gold and silver and told the world to kiss their backsides. This bunch? They need (wait for it) to be loved…don’t know about anyone else but this writer’s sh*t filter is full..but we can all trust Mike Milken. Give it to Mikey, he eats everything!
"Why?” was my biggest question when I left the MCAAD. Why would Milken and the other billionaires spend lots of money and time putting all this together?"
I'll venture to provide an answer: It's about image creation. Our world now has moved more towards the "public relations" model to attempt to create images and narratives that are intended to detract and redirect. The method of public relations style imagery control has expanded into just about everything. It's not what is true that matters, it's only what the public relations folks can convince the public of that matters. Narrative creation, imagery, story telling, is replacing reality
How big can the "lie" get? Two decades of Russia Gate--the manufactured War on Terror that crippled and maimed our National Guard while building a surveillance machine to strip Americans of their civil liberties -- (been to an airport lately)--the NAFTA promise that gutted American industrial cities and turned them into war zones--the Gulf of Tonkin? '08? The "lie" simply screams over the top of the human moral reason our founding fathers placed in our Constitution with no consideration for the human damage it causes and profits from. The straight faced Trump quote in this piece is hilarious. Reality is what the obviously bat s#!t crazy perps say it is. It is--at least in terms of American Constitutional reality--purely pathological not political--and definitely not human.
As a thought, remove the hysteria (psyop) from the Charlie Kirk murder: He was a truth speaking capable orator and political organizer who built a powerful political machine. He was removed for that reason. We the People will never know what actually happened.
The perps won't quit--and their fall back is the "great replacement/thought crime/digital services" nightmare that now defines Europe and Starmer's England. The USAID/CIA/State Dept. connection to the billionaire NGO grift laying waste to free societies around the world remains unrecognized by the vast majority of American citizens. We're on our own. Always have been--and it is exactly where We the People thrive best. There is the American Republic, the Constitution and the free citizen. Everything else is passing through. Depart the psyop and live.
"Depart the psyop and live." OK! I'm leaving the psyop...hang on, I've just gotta click over to Amazon to pick up a few things...OK, now I'm leaving... Wow, this is gonna be hard!
Entry is free, so look at it at its practical function level: it's a public restroom for passersby that need to take a leak. (who else is going to go in there?)
Untrue, Krugman's employer for decades the NYT , helped Paulie K cover his web cam for a little "me time" in between his appearances on MSNBC where he would share his wisdom of all things economic.
I've been cogitating a theorem on all this based on something I heard or read a few months ago, and I'm a long way from learning the arguments, but I'm certain it's true: "Capital" broke it's bond with "Labor", and that bond is really part of the "social contract". We mostly think of the social contract, at least here in the U.S., as being between the citizens and the government (I'll work hard, pay taxes, obey the law and in return the government will act within it's limits, make and enforce laws, and not tread on my rights); a contract clearly broken. The contract in the Capital/ Labor arena is simple: Labor is due a fair wage from Capital, and Capital is due a fair return on its investments. Capital has made nothing but insane returns on its invesments, and used much of those extracted funds to capture government and near government institutions to logarithmically increase those insane returns, all at the expense of Labor. That Milken & Friends installation isn't about the American Dream. At a minimum (as you describe it, I've never been), it's performative masturbatory art in deference to theft. "Payback's a bitch"? I'm in a bitchy mood.
With the (now defunct and forgotten) “Puritan work ethic” our forefathers worked hard, were thrifty, provided for their families, and were positively involved in their communities because it was the RIGHT THING TO DO. As believers we recognize an “Audience of one”. GOD. We strive for Him and His glory. Frequently this leads to “getting ahead” but that was not the primary goal. Seek first His Kingdom….
It's time for a different conversation.---I'm not sure exactly what that is but We the People need--here I go again--a truth/fact based solutions oriented national conversation that will produce the truth/fact based reality our Republic deserves--and must have to survive.
Another "Hate America" author writes another "Hate America" article. This is the exact reason so many people think the American Dream is dead. From the education system to the media to politicians, nobody ever misses a chance to trash America. Meanwhile, everybody is getting fat off of America's milk and honey. The key part of the American Dream is "work". Fewer and fewer people are willing to work to "get ahead".
He is trashing people who were talking positively about the American Dream. I don't care who it is, or what other faults they have. Anybody and anything good about America must be trashed.
No, but when rich, sanctimonious pricks give you some bullshit about American Dream and up-by-your-bootstraps, it's not hating America to call out the pricks.
And the key part of the American Dream is opportunity, not work. A lot of people work really fucking hard and cannot get ahead.
Your comments come across as "America--love it or leave it!" and "those goddamn lazy kids..."
You are making my point with your vulgar trashing and hatred of America and of the American Dream and of my belief that they are not dead. You are the one who brought up "America--love it or leave it" and those "lazy kids". Not me. My comments definitely do not come across that way. You assumed that's what I meant with your prejudice against anybody who doesn't agree with you and your hatred. My only mistake is assuming that there are at least a few people who still believe the way I do. Apparently, I was wrong.
P.S. America is the Land of Opportunity. The American Dream is using that opportunity and working hard to get ahead. There never has been a guarantee that everyone will succeed.
So you do know how to write with words longer than four letters. I was beginning to wonder.
By the way, you don't have to actually say you hate America to show that you do. Trashing the people who believe in the American Dream is just a back door way to say you hate America. Your "Chamber of Commerce" comment is another way to say the same thing.
Also, You and Eric Salzman and anybody else are all free to hate America. Just be honest. Admit it.
I wouldn’t waste my time going to see their vision of America. Take a trip to middle America if you want to see that. Still hardworking, not jaded people. Most with smiles in their faces. But for inflation, we saw that jump to 40 year highs by 23. I suspect we are beginning to see cracks in those rates. I just renegotiated my cable rate and switched my car insurance. I see brighter days ahead regardless of a congress that’s uncivilized
I applaud you small victories and optimism, but from the birds eye view, the economy for the majority of citizens is far from OK. Two of the major indicators of financial health, insurance and housing, are increasingly burdensome to average Americans. Milken's "vision" is only meant to encourage the masses to continue investment into stocks and keep the corporate dreams rolling along. Age old phrases such as, "money is the root of all evil" and "follow the money" should never be disregarded, especially when discussing a snake oil salesman like Milken.
The question is - what is your baseline. Obviously, it was terrible as we came out of covid and Biden's initial economic policies were terrible. And of course how we measure inflation today vs years ago is different as well. Inflation hit around 10% in 22 - and probably would have been near 20% had we measured it like it was during stagflation's heyday - and has been creeping down. Housing and food (grocery stores, not restaurants) are running increases between 2.5% and 3%. But of course, we are working off of elevated rates from before. I too am finding savings by shopping for all sorts of things. There are ways to cut your bills, but you have to ask. Home ownership as a percentage of the population is still holding around two-thirds, its historical average.
Where you are seems to be the most important, because we can find good and bad based upon where you are.
Regardless of whether or not inflation rates are coming down, the sky-high rates of the Covid years means small inflation drops aren't going to amount to much. The damage is already done. Things may be looking up for the Investor Class, but for the rest of us it's still (and by most accounts will remain) a lousy economy.
I live in fly-over country too, and there's plenty of jaded people here. Brighter days is a bad joke for most of us.
Well I’ll stick with my optimisms, albeit small victories, because living in negativity never wins. And Wall Street , they’ve always got the cards .
In one stroke the repression of the American working man and our commoner culture has vanished AND expectations Soar… with very good reasons, Trillions invested pour into the country and the factories are running out of good real estate, our biggest drag on domestic manufacturing is our anemic labor force growth. These are problems you want to have….
However…
Lifting Repression + Rising Expectations
=Revolution.
The expectations of lifting repression after decades of economic repression and years of political repression cannot and never could be met, as you can read in comments herein.
I get (and applaud) your intention, but not the logic. Yes, Wall Street will always control things. So where is the optimism coming from?
Optimism comes from me . My preference in how I conduct my life. I can always find affirmations that will contradict the negatives.
I run my own educational consulting business (basically, I help students with the college search and application process), and my business is booming, even as I raised my prices this year. I'm not "wealthy" by any means, but I make a decent living because people see a need for help navigating "systems", particularly families who didn't grow up in the US. I'm far from alone. I'm seeing thriving practices around the country.
I live in the most expensive city, income-to-cost-of-living ratio-wise, and it's frustrating and difficult to see our state and local governments taxing us more and more, and utility companies raising their prices again and again.
Yet, I'm so thankful for my business and thankful that I'm able to help so many families. I'm with you.
Your willingness to question everything...and look beyond the glib words to a deeper underlying reality..is really impressive & important.
I'm not exaggerating or blowing smoke: writers and journalists like you and Glenn Greenwald ( and CJ Hopkins) are the last line of defense against complete globo-cap tyranny - and what you bring to the last vestiges of Western Democracy is an armor for populace. It's not making us impenetrable, but it keeps us alive in the fight...when we can see truth revealed.
Matt is indeed an amazing resource. Just imagine the state of the information commons without Racket News, Public News, The Free Press, Unherd, and—yes—Elon Musk? How can you march to the beat of a different drummer when there's only one, all-obliterating drumbeat? What if The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CNN, the BBC, etc., comprised the entire information menu? The 'news and analysis' landscape would hardly be worth surveying. “One Message to rule them all!”
Can we eliminate non/profit tax status across the board so that at least these assholes don’t get a free ride for these vanity and propaganda projects? Watching all these kinds of circuses is demoralizing and humiliating.
Agreed. What these so-called titans of financialization are offering is a story of success that belies the truth about what their sort have done to that dream. Not many people like this guy Schmidt from Google whose success, like many of the others, was predicated by a boost from government. Most people do not have access to TPTB to orchestrate their American Dream through back door contracts and access to power that are generally a result of political favors, not up from the boot straps success stories, that IS the American dream. This people are orchestrating paeans to themselves in an attempt to disguise the hidden evil of what they have done to hollow out that American dream.
Well said, Cosmo
Hey Cass,
Thanks. I got your earlier messages, I just haven't had a chance to respond.
We gave up our manufacturing to raise 400 million Chinese out of dirt-poverty (literally, they had dirt floors). Pat ourselves on the back, accept that China has no gratitude, pick up the pieces of our ruined towns, and move on.
We're the most generous people on earth, and it's time to turn that generosity inward for a while.
We didn't do that for the Chinese. We did that for shareholders of American corporations. And NO other reason.
I don't much blame the Chinese. In a transactional world, we got what we wanted and the Chinese got what they wanted. Its called trade. Of course, our trade negotiators were looking after their benefactors who saw (and obtained) immense profits in moving manufacturing to China. Could trade terms have included looking after the consequences to Middle Americans? Of course. We did it to ourselves. Or those who did the deals did.
That comment is a royal flush laid down. Turns out 'ol Ross Perot and his "giant sucking sound" were right about on the money.
U.S. consumers used to have a choice between Made in the U.S.A. and cheaper foreign made goods. I bought as many of 'our' products as I could but now it has become harder. Craftsman tools are now made in Taiwan. Sam Walton promoted U.S. products but his kids did not. We the consumer have to bear some of the responsibility. Trumps tariffs will help level the playing field but when people buy something they have to take into account the true 'price' you pay. MAGA !!
Remember the early Wal-Marts? Prior to the supercenters, just the regular old Wal-Marts. They had signs hanging from the ceiling throughout the store reading Made In America! That was Sam. Then that spirit went away.
Nice way to look at it. What bothers me, is after lifting Chinese out of poverty, we want to go to war with them. Is that why we lifted them out of poverty, in order to have a worthy opponent?
We thought they'd join the Washington consensus, open up to a more democratic system, and be friends and allies.
Nobody who knew anything about the CCP ever believed that, but noone asked.
Most of the people there seem to appreciate it (from my limited experience during my travels to the region. Their government doesn't though.
The US does not want real friends and allies, they want to bully the world and take the scarce resources of other countries to profit the 1% only. It's imperialism writ large in the modern world.
Who is "We"? Have you got a mouse in your pocket or something? I, for one, never believed that. Their culture, cultivated over centuries, is vastly different than what is needed for a western style democracy. It was, and always has been, a globalist elite pipe dream to control the masses through economic manipulation. The US's dominance and freedoms for their citizens were a stumbling block that China was used for to begin to level the field.
Lifting the Chinese out of poverty was a consequence not a purpose. The purpose, always, was to put more money in select American wallets.
They did not realize on their way to their billions that China would not play by what we thought were the rules.
good points!
To quote George Carlin, “ it’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it”…
A funny line, but the dream is still there. But it does require innovation and smart/hard work to "win". That said, most don't want to win, they just want to keep on keeping on. Which is noble in and of itself.
It is absolutely not still there and available for all Americans. And hasn't been in some time.
All Americans can't agree on what it even is.
Not to mention access to the people who make it happen and they tend to be in government.
I disagree here. I do a great business with almost no government connections other than paying taxes.
Are you a billionaire in the financial or tech industry? If no, then you are what the American Dream is about. These people have nothing to do with the American Dream, they are criminals with connections.
Walmart correctly read the room in the 90s, as our deindustrialization gathered steam, and it became clear that a newly impoverished working class would buy cheap over good because they couldn’t afford anything else. They also modernized their accounting and inventory systems, which left K-mart and Montgomery Ward floundering. When MW finally did a thorough computerization they discovered they’d been bankrupt for some time.
I worked corporate industrial jobs from 1980 to 2011, skating from plant closing to plant closing. What I saw from the plant floor was a generation of management terrified at having to do hard stuff like make things correctly, and keep skilled trades onboard. What they wanted to manage was an org chart and a budget, so they sold their factories, kept their offices, and became marketing departments for foreign goods sold under American trademark brand names. The smart ones formed monopoly trusts with their competitors and bought legislators. The old-fashioned ones followed Eastman Kodak into oblivion. They and their owners despise (it’s too mild a term) innovators like Jobs and Musk, and massively fund media and government efforts to establish and maintain permanent profits in a decayed but static feudal economy. The only purchases most folks even try to make anymore are coerced ones they can’t do without; food, clothes, housing, transportation, and network connection.
The positive response and only fix for this situation is cooperation, as it has been since prehistory. This explains to thinking people why we are under so much pressure to fear and loathe each other.
With the exception of food (at the retail end), all of the basics you mentioned are taxed shamelessly by government, nowhere more so than housing through property taxation.
Reminds me of a joke in small business.
1st generation builds the business
2nd generation makes all the money
3rd generation blows it all
Per capita Wisconsin leads in manufacturing jobs and we still like to 'make stuff' and it can be done but innovation is key. We even have robots milking cows and (assisted for now) driverless tractors. Farms/Food maybe our most underrated asset and also American ingenuity.
BTW I thought OBAMACARE was going to solve all the healthcare issues?????
socialism IS the answer amirite? Ignore the fact that it has always failed and led to starvation - it just hasn't been tried quite the right way yet!
Obamacare wasn't socialism. If it was, how did all the health insurance companies stay in business?
The average family will save $1500/year! If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor!
You can trust Michael Milken he’s not like the others! Why just the other day he had his used car dealership annual pumpkin harvest fest and gave all the little kiddies helium filled balloons in the shape of a dollar sign. Come one come all to the new economy, what’s good for the PE firms is good for ‘Merica! Soon, because they are so honest and trust worthy they will manage your retirement dollars. Step right this way. The boat to Pleasure Island is getting ready to shove off! Pay no attention to the sounds of braying donkeys! Right Pinocolo!! Whilst they are modern day robber barons, like many baby boomers they need positive reinforcements for their oversized egos (stealing everything that isn’t nailed down isn’t nearly enough) and thus they built a shine! To themselves! How quaint. Do ya suppose it’s hard living in Palm Beach in the season and have to chose between the blue or the red Bugatti Venom to take to the Seminole Golf Club?? Decisions decisons wave to the little people, they make it happen everyday…then keep taking their money and opportunity and have them pay for the privilege of making the PE wizards wealthy beyond any Czar or King’s dreams. You could respect the original robber barons, they were unapologetic and they built stuff, like railroads and steel mills and mined minerals like gold and silver and told the world to kiss their backsides. This bunch? They need (wait for it) to be loved…don’t know about anyone else but this writer’s sh*t filter is full..but we can all trust Mike Milken. Give it to Mikey, he eats everything!
It's the best of all possible worlds!
"Why?” was my biggest question when I left the MCAAD. Why would Milken and the other billionaires spend lots of money and time putting all this together?"
I'll venture to provide an answer: It's about image creation. Our world now has moved more towards the "public relations" model to attempt to create images and narratives that are intended to detract and redirect. The method of public relations style imagery control has expanded into just about everything. It's not what is true that matters, it's only what the public relations folks can convince the public of that matters. Narrative creation, imagery, story telling, is replacing reality
How big can the "lie" get? Two decades of Russia Gate--the manufactured War on Terror that crippled and maimed our National Guard while building a surveillance machine to strip Americans of their civil liberties -- (been to an airport lately)--the NAFTA promise that gutted American industrial cities and turned them into war zones--the Gulf of Tonkin? '08? The "lie" simply screams over the top of the human moral reason our founding fathers placed in our Constitution with no consideration for the human damage it causes and profits from. The straight faced Trump quote in this piece is hilarious. Reality is what the obviously bat s#!t crazy perps say it is. It is--at least in terms of American Constitutional reality--purely pathological not political--and definitely not human.
As a thought, remove the hysteria (psyop) from the Charlie Kirk murder: He was a truth speaking capable orator and political organizer who built a powerful political machine. He was removed for that reason. We the People will never know what actually happened.
The perps won't quit--and their fall back is the "great replacement/thought crime/digital services" nightmare that now defines Europe and Starmer's England. The USAID/CIA/State Dept. connection to the billionaire NGO grift laying waste to free societies around the world remains unrecognized by the vast majority of American citizens. We're on our own. Always have been--and it is exactly where We the People thrive best. There is the American Republic, the Constitution and the free citizen. Everything else is passing through. Depart the psyop and live.
"Depart the psyop and live." OK! I'm leaving the psyop...hang on, I've just gotta click over to Amazon to pick up a few things...OK, now I'm leaving... Wow, this is gonna be hard!
:) Yes indeed Sir. Free you mind and your ass will follow.
The Why is just self-congratulatory masturbation. It's ego and justification for manipulating monetary systems to the benefit of the manipulator...
It's always been so.
Entry is free, so look at it at its practical function level: it's a public restroom for passersby that need to take a leak. (who else is going to go in there?)
I'd bet that it's, more than likely, part of a money laundering scam.
Hey Eric do yourself a favor and don’t quote Krugman. That guy has a worse batting average than Bob Uecker.
I believe he was quoting Krugman sarcastically.
I hope so. No one in their right mind takes Krugman seriously.
Untrue, Krugman's employer for decades the NYT , helped Paulie K cover his web cam for a little "me time" in between his appearances on MSNBC where he would share his wisdom of all things economic.
Sounds like a Corporate Circle Jerk to me. Corporations have seized the power and they’ll never give it back willingly!!!
I really appreciate your work. Crucial stuff, and I don't know where else I would find it or anything like it. Thanks.
Milken was hired as an advisor by Ted Turner when he sold Turner Broadcasting to Time-
Warner in 1996.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/09/29/Report-Turner-to-pay-Milken-50-million/3454812347200/
I ended up sitting next to Milken at the bar in a Place called The Tavern at Phipps that Summer.
Looking into his eyes was like looking into the eyes of a Bull Shark.
Met him at a Drexel Burnham conference (remember them?) Personable guy…but agree about the eyes. And The Tavern was a great place!
https://youtu.be/fk7JuqsQKV8
Land shark!
I've been cogitating a theorem on all this based on something I heard or read a few months ago, and I'm a long way from learning the arguments, but I'm certain it's true: "Capital" broke it's bond with "Labor", and that bond is really part of the "social contract". We mostly think of the social contract, at least here in the U.S., as being between the citizens and the government (I'll work hard, pay taxes, obey the law and in return the government will act within it's limits, make and enforce laws, and not tread on my rights); a contract clearly broken. The contract in the Capital/ Labor arena is simple: Labor is due a fair wage from Capital, and Capital is due a fair return on its investments. Capital has made nothing but insane returns on its invesments, and used much of those extracted funds to capture government and near government institutions to logarithmically increase those insane returns, all at the expense of Labor. That Milken & Friends installation isn't about the American Dream. At a minimum (as you describe it, I've never been), it's performative masturbatory art in deference to theft. "Payback's a bitch"? I'm in a bitchy mood.
With the (now defunct and forgotten) “Puritan work ethic” our forefathers worked hard, were thrifty, provided for their families, and were positively involved in their communities because it was the RIGHT THING TO DO. As believers we recognize an “Audience of one”. GOD. We strive for Him and His glory. Frequently this leads to “getting ahead” but that was not the primary goal. Seek first His Kingdom….
It's time for a different conversation.---I'm not sure exactly what that is but We the People need--here I go again--a truth/fact based solutions oriented national conversation that will produce the truth/fact based reality our Republic deserves--and must have to survive.
Another "Hate America" author writes another "Hate America" article. This is the exact reason so many people think the American Dream is dead. From the education system to the media to politicians, nobody ever misses a chance to trash America. Meanwhile, everybody is getting fat off of America's milk and honey. The key part of the American Dream is "work". Fewer and fewer people are willing to work to "get ahead".
I didn't really see any America-hating. Oligarch-hating, yes.
He is trashing people who were talking positively about the American Dream. I don't care who it is, or what other faults they have. Anybody and anything good about America must be trashed.
No, but when rich, sanctimonious pricks give you some bullshit about American Dream and up-by-your-bootstraps, it's not hating America to call out the pricks.
And the key part of the American Dream is opportunity, not work. A lot of people work really fucking hard and cannot get ahead.
Your comments come across as "America--love it or leave it!" and "those goddamn lazy kids..."
You are making my point with your vulgar trashing and hatred of America and of the American Dream and of my belief that they are not dead. You are the one who brought up "America--love it or leave it" and those "lazy kids". Not me. My comments definitely do not come across that way. You assumed that's what I meant with your prejudice against anybody who doesn't agree with you and your hatred. My only mistake is assuming that there are at least a few people who still believe the way I do. Apparently, I was wrong.
P.S. America is the Land of Opportunity. The American Dream is using that opportunity and working hard to get ahead. There never has been a guarantee that everyone will succeed.
There you go again...with the "hatred of America." Neither the writer of the piece nor any commenters--save yourself--have even nodded at this.
Are you a local Chamber of Commerce guy?
So you do know how to write with words longer than four letters. I was beginning to wonder.
By the way, you don't have to actually say you hate America to show that you do. Trashing the people who believe in the American Dream is just a back door way to say you hate America. Your "Chamber of Commerce" comment is another way to say the same thing.
Also, You and Eric Salzman and anybody else are all free to hate America. Just be honest. Admit it.
His "dream" is to fleece the public through the markets. That is hardly "good".
“Fewer and fewer people are willing to work at Home Depot for not enough to cover the rising and rising cost of living.” There. I fixed it for you.
A smart aleck remark to a serious point doesn't prove a thing.
He made your point. He "works" at the Home Depot. He has never gotten dirt under his fingernails...
He did not make my point. My point is that we pay too many people not to work. That's why fewer and fewer people won't work.
I sure as hell didn't see that point. If that's what you wanted to express, then you sure went the long way around. That was some neocon BS for sure.
Here we go! Welfare queens driving around in Cadillacs will be the next comment.
Is this Arthur Laffer under a pseudonym?
You are like the rabid chihuahua in the room. Snapping at everyone.LOL
You all must be a bunch of liberals, all you do is hate and insult anybody who disagrees with you.
Wrong. My profile: “Farmer, Mother, Wife”.
I wasn't talking about you. Helloooo.
You sound like your sugar levels are too low. May I suggest some Honey Nut Cheerios?
Bow wow wow wow fk'n wow.
Your point didn't seem that serious.