by After a bout of inflation and “socialism-light”, we could end up with even more extreme inequality when the whole rotten structure collapses. Imagine owning a Buffett-Bezos fortune of bilious billions, or even 10% of these mega-fortunes, i.e. between billion and billion. Heck, imagine owning 1% of these mega-fortunes, i.e. 0 million to billion. You’re extremely rich so you can buy the best advice. Your capital is mobile, and so are you. You can live anywhere and shift your capital anywhere. Your advisors have noted an increase in media chatter on inequality, for example: The Bill for America’s Trillion Gluttony of Inequality Is Overdue, and they’re busy preparing plans to weather the storm and preserve your fortune come what may. It’s all too
Topics:
Charles Hugh Smith considers the following as important: 5) Global Macro, 5.) Charles Hugh Smith, Featured, newsletter
This could be interesting, too:
Eamonn Sheridan writes CHF traders note – Two Swiss National Bank speakers due Thursday, November 21
Charles Hugh Smith writes How Do We Fix the Collapse of Quality?
Marc Chandler writes Sterling and Gilts Pressed Lower by Firmer CPI
Michael Lebowitz writes Trump Tariffs Are Inflationary Claim The Experts
After a bout of inflation and “socialism-light”, we could end up with even more extreme inequality when the whole rotten structure collapses.
Imagine owning a Buffett-Bezos fortune of bilious billions, or even 10% of these mega-fortunes, i.e. between $5 billion and $20 billion. Heck, imagine owning 1% of these mega-fortunes, i.e. $500 million to $2 billion.
You’re extremely rich so you can buy the best advice. Your capital is mobile, and so are you. You can live anywhere and shift your capital anywhere.
Your advisors have noted an increase in media chatter on inequality, for example:
The Bill for America’s $50 Trillion Gluttony of Inequality Is Overdue, and they’re busy preparing plans to weather the storm and preserve your fortune come what may.
It’s all too obvious that a claw-back of the trillions plundered by America’s 0.1% is now inevitable as the pendulum has swung to extremes of looting and parasitic predation that have destabilized the social and economic orders.
|
So Job One is managing this claw-back politically and financially to leave the fortunes of the super-wealthy either unscathed or even more magnificent after the dust settles. The super-wealthy have two key weapons at their disposal: inflation and “socialism-light.” Once the world’s governments borrow and spend enough money supporting all the insiders, bread and circuses for the masses (Universal Basic Income) and giveaways to industry and construction (under the happy rubric The New Green Deal), inflation will be roaring higher in no time. What happens in runaway inflation? Tangible assets soar: land, timber, railroads, gold, mining companies and stocks of truly profitable enterprises (not zombies propped up with debt and bogus “profits” ginned up by accounting tricks). What do the super-wealthy own? Land, timber, railroads, gold, mining companies and stocks— all the tangible assets that will maintain or increase their value in runaway inflation. (Recall that “inflation” is not one dynamic; many are protected and others actually gain while the masses are impoverished: |
The Fruit of Financialization - Click to enlarge |
|
“Socialism-light” is equally beneficial to the super-wealthy. “Socialism-light” is my term for the Aristocracy’s management of the extreme inequalities of wealth, income, power and privilege. The basic idea of “socialism-light” is to spread a thick layer of gooey PR over the same old system of legalized looting, parasitic exploitation and neofeudal predation and then have the government borrow endless trillions to fund bread and circuses for the masses (Universal Basic Income).
The irony will not be lost on the super-wealthy. As the state borrows endless trillions to send every household $1,000 a month, this borrow-and-spend orgy will push inflation higher, stripping away the purchasing power of the household’s income. In no time at all the $1,000 in “free money” will only buy $500 of goods and services. The cries for “more stimulus” will reach a crescendo and the bread and circuses will double to $2,000 a month. But this money-printing-to-the-moon will only increase real-world inflation (as I explained in This Is Why Inflation Will Rip Everyone’s Face Off 9/17/20), so the end result will be the $2,000 only buys $200 of goods and services. |
Workers share of national income, 1994-2020 - Click to enlarge |
| Meanwhile, the super-wealthy are minting fortunes as everyone desperately seeks a hedge against inflation, which is wiping out cash, low-interest bonds, etc.
Banks–a core source of wealth and power for the super-wealthy–also anticipate this, which is why they immediately sell all the loans they originate to pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other bagholders whose losses will be stupendous once inflation shreds the value of low-interestrate debt. Banks won’t be able to survive unless they 1) grab the most valuable collateral underlying their loan portfolios and 2) move their lending into short-term debt so they can jack up interest rates to match inflation. Meanwhile the gooey, easily digestible PR will include a “wealth tax” that ends up being a pinprick on the total wealth of the super-wealthy who have sequestered their wealth in philanthro-capitalist foundations that are nothing but power grabs by other means, and various other forms of legalized looting. The “wealth tax” will end up stripmining professionals and entrepreneurs, not the super-wealthy. Those earning $1 million with a net worth of $20 million will be gutted, while those worth $5 billion will pay a pittance. This is the inevitable result of the best government money Eventually the entire house of cards collapses and if there is no replacement of the current political power structure that actually changes the way currency is created and distributed, the pathways to ownership of capital and labor’s share of the economy, then the system will simply return to the existing inequality with a new currency. As I often say: if you don’t change the way money is created and distributed, you’ve changed nothing. If you don’t change the means of acquiring capital and political power, you’ve changed nothing. If you don’t change labor’s share of the economy, you’ve changed nothing. Money-printing, inflation and “socialism-light” are just what the super-wealthy ordered: so by all means spark runaway inflation with “free” (heh) bread and circuses, provide trillions in “stimulus”to corrupt insiders, industry giveaways (New Green Deal, carbon credits, etc.), and slap a feel-good “wealth tax” that mysteriously misses the super-wealthy but guts the tattered remains of the productive class. After a bout of inflation and “socialism-light”, we could end up with even more extreme inequality when the whole rotten structure collapses. Be careful what you wish for and cui bono–to whose benefit? To answer that, look beneath the gooey layer of PR. It doesn’t have to be this way. My new book outlines a much different way of organizing capital, labor and the creation of money: check out the free bits: |
Wealth Inequality, 1910-2010 - Click to enlarge |
You Might Also Like
An Interesting Juncture in History
Just as the rewards of central-bank bubbles have not been evenly distributed, the pain created by the collapse of the bubbles won’t be evenly distributed, either. We’ve reached an interesting juncture in history, and I don’t mean the pandemic. I’m referring to the normalization of extremes in the economy, in social decay and in political dysfunction and polarization.
The American Economy in Four Words: Neofeudal Extortion, Decline, Collapse
Our society has a legal structure of self-rule and ownership of capital, but in reality it is a Neofeudal Oligarchy. Now that the pandemic is over and the economy is roaring again–so the stock market says–we’re heading straight back up into the good old days of 2019. Nothing to worry about, we’ve recovered the trajectory of higher and higher, better every day in every way.
How Do We Change the Leadership of our Quasi-Sovereign Big Tech Neofeudal Nobility?
You better bow low and pay up, peasant, or your voice in the digital world will disappear just as quickly as your democracy’s control over Big Tech. Who’s the junior partner in global hegemony, Big Tech or the U.S. government?
This Is a Financial Extinction Event
The lower reaches of the financial food chain are already dying, and every entity that depended on that layer is doomed. Though under pressure from climate change, the dinosaurs were still dominant 65 million year ago–until the meteor struck, creating a global "nuclear winter" that darkened the atmosphere for months, killing off most of the food chain that the dinosaurs depended on.
A Vaccine May Not Be the “Magical Cure” Everyone Anticipates
Few appear willing to follow the probabilities of a future in which a vaccine cannot possibly be the "magic cure" everyone wants. Let’s attempt the impossible and set aside all preconceptions we might have about a vaccine for Covid-19, and think it through somewhat dispassionately.
If the “Market” Never Goes Down, The System Is Doomed
“Markets” that never go down aren’t markets, they’re signaling mechanisms of the Powers That Be. Markets are fundamentally clearing houses of information on price, demand, sentiment, expectations and so on–factual data on supply and demand, shipping costs, cost of credit, etc.–and reflections of trader and consumer emotions and psychology.
The Economy Is Mortally Wounded
A fully financialized, totally debt and speculation-dependent economy is terminal once leverage and debt stop expanding exponentially. We all know the movie scene in which the character is wounded but dismisses it as no big deal, and then lurches into the closing sequence where we discover the wound was not inconsequential, it was mortal, and the character expires.
Intolerance and Authoritarianism Accelerate Disunity and Collapse
Scapegoating dissenters only hastens the disunity and disarray that accelerates the final collapse. Authoritarianism is imposed on us, but its sibling intolerance is our own doing. Intolerance and authoritarianism are two sides of the same coin: as intolerance becomes the norm, the intolerant start demanding that the state enforce their intolerance by suppressing their enemies via increasingly heavy-handed authoritarian measures.
Tags: Featured,newsletter