This and That
Everybody's desperate trying to make ends meet
Work all day still can't pay the price of gasoline and heat
Alas, their lives are incomplete
Don't it make you want to rock and roll all night long
Mohammed's Radio
It’s hard to talk about broken systems, take American politics and the economy. When you write about them in any way other than they're broken, you give them a legitimacy they don’t deserve. Such writing on any given topic inherently implies if certain things were only done this way or that, they would still function well. Such wrong headed belief has resulted in ever growing reactionary politics across America, best represented by Maga, but just as much by let’s call it our neo-progressive reactionaries. Both share the idea we can still make ________ work (choose whatever), if we just do this or that.
So with that caveat, which would make a wiser person stop there, here you go.
There were two interesting things from Tuesday's Florida elections. First, Angie Nixon won decisively in the Dem primary for Senate. I only bring this up because she received 750 thousand votes spending a little over one million dollars and almost no advertising. For those interested in election organizing, there must be something to learn here. She was outspent 16 to 1, but then her opponent was a National Security stiff, who was in part responsible for American Ukraine policy, which should have disqualified him from all office in the first place. But again, these are overwhelming reactionary times and nothing better says reactionary than National Security State Dems.
As an African American woman, there was a large demographic element to Nixon’s win. Don’t get me wrong, I got no problem with demographic politics, but they only get you so far. Look at AOC, she took her demographic victory over a white male stiff eight years ago and since claimed all sorts of politics her election never represented.
Where a broken economy and a broken politics come together is where the action will be. I have no problem with sloganeering like “Tax the Billionaires” and “Medicare for All,” but when you scratch the surface and the solutions are simply ever greater concentration of power in a corrupt and dysfunctional DC, well, this is our concern Dude. The biggest takeaway from the election was the Democratic establishment once again spending tens of millions can’t even get half the Democratic vote.
From an issue stand point, there was a county election of greater interest. In Republican Polk county, a Republican challenger came within a hair of upsetting the two-term Republican incumbent county commissioner. The challenger ran on AI and data centers, issues requiring and allowing a complete and necessary redefining of democracy in America.
Let's move to the global financial system, which makes American politics look like a fount of public weal. The farcical Treasury Secretary Bessent made a ridiculous move with treasuries yesterday, following a ridiculous move with the Yen a couple weeks ago. Both already unraveled. Remember Bessent’s background is failed hedgefunder and disreputable currency trader. He was one of currency manipulator George Soros’ boys in their 1992 raid on the hapless Bank of England. Soros has since used his ill gotten gains in political matters across the globe, including playing an influential role funding Democratic impotency on all money matters, as if they needed any help.
As financial waters grow more turbulent, I recommend both Yves at Naked Capitalism and John Authers at Bloomberg. I found them both in summer of ‘08. Both taught me a lot at that time about the then en vogue money system machinations.
Finally, I recommend this piece, They Don’t Care and They Lie to Themselves. It goes into greater detail than the recent piece I wrote concerning this era’s reign of the clever and the tyranny of group think awash in ignorance. In many ways, it’s hard to argue there’s any greater political problem we face.