Argentina, where so many WW II Nazis such as Eichmann fled. He can use the Qatari flying Palace since, as refurbished, it could serve as a decently secure bunker and criminal HQ site
CBO estimates that Public Law 119-21 will result in a net increase in the unified budget deficit totaling $3.4 trillion over the 2025-2034 period, relative to CBO’s January 2025 baseline updated to reflect enacted legislation. That increase in the deficit is estimated to result from a decrease in direct spending of $1.1 trillion and a decrease in revenues of $4.5 trillion. CBO; 21-Jul-25 https://tinyurl.com/htwwr2uw
This is a net increase in US debt of $3.4T: $1.1T saved by gutting USAID, the ACA and other “direct spending” and $3.4T in taxes avoided by billionaires. This is nothing but debt writ large - a deferred payment obligation except for interest needed to service it - for the benefit of billionaires, repaid for years, causing pain now and disadvantaging us and generations not yet born when these b*stards at last breathe their final breaths.
Yes 2x. Dems always manage to rebuild (FDR after Hoover; Clinton after Reagan / Bush1; Obama after Bush2) and get the engine purring again just in time for the GOP to destroy it. Why, because the Dems do not sell well what they have done. Over and over, they fall victim to the high tax screams of the richest of the rich and fail to demonstrate the the other 95% that this is as good as it gets for them
It's not just a lousy messaging and promoting their accomplishments where democrats tend to fail. Since Ronny Ray Guns conservatives always run on same things. Kitchen table issues. The rate of Inflation, the price of goods, immigration and crime. And their supremely skilled at using fear tactics like the Southern Strategy to motivate the rubes into voting.
IMHO Democrats need to counter this with affordability. Including healthcare for all, a fair tax code, including taxing the billionaires, a decent living wage, unions and employee protections, affordable education and training programs etc. as well as all the kitchen table issues that Americans need in order to be happy, productive and have a viable future.
I agree with all you said, but I think it it is at least as important that Dems help voters to understand how they are helping them than it is just helping quietly
Just heard Hegseth lie about how the news is reported concerning brave US solders losing their lives. He seems to be saying that those lives lost got more press than the bombing campaign to make Trump look bad. What an idiot!
He didn't say the rest of that sentence out loud this time, but he has before, many times: It's what happens to "losers." Truly astounding that any military personnel support Bone Spurs and a juvenile drunken idiot Sec Def.
Every other President has expressed personal grief for troop losses. His view: people die in wars; more will. Those words will haunt him when sleeper cells, likely near, awaken
For now. It's on the way home from Iran, near Cuba, en route to Columia. This is just a big hybrid game of "Risk" and Battleship," or at least it seems to be.
The FDIC is being dismantled, in accordance with Project 2025. Page 705 of Project 2025 discusses shrinking or restructuring federal financial protections, including the FDIC, under the justification of ‘market efficiency.’
Yikes! This was exactly my question after reading this piece. So the typical American with CDs and other bank savings will have no safety net if banks fail, correct?
To be merged with other agencies, not dismantled, as if there were any real difference:
"Merging Functions. The new Administration should establish a more streamlined bank and supervision by supporting legislation to merge the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Federal Reserve’s non-monetary supervisory and regulatory functions." (Project 2025, p. 705) https://tinyurl.com/3p68fpbj
The tightening of credit is already happening for me, Max. I have two credit cards with Chase, one for personal use and the other for business use. I always pay the monthly balances entirely. I've had these two credit cards for more than 25 years. A couple months ago, Chase notified me that it was reducing the amount of credit available on both cards, from the high teens to about $5000. BTW my credit score is 830. I'm not worried about the loss of credit because I now belong to a federal credit union who offers short term loans at interest rates that are far below those charged by Chase credit cards. But I was struck by these reductions in my credit limits shortly after I heard you mention it on Meidastouch.
Oh geeze..............substitute what I'm writing here with the seven words George Carlin said you should never say on TV. Guess it applies (or "should" apply) to media plus like ti applies to.well........you know.... Those regular columns and their "community guidelines" rules?
Congress was bought. Trump wants loyalists. Pre-campaign, The Heritage Foundation threatened all representatives not to stand in Trump's way (their Project 2025) or they would lose their jobs. In Vance's words, they won't fare well.
All the Republicans Supreme Court were also bought out by the heritage foundation years ago to do their bidding. The billionaires want to run our country and they have the perfect idiot President Felon to do it. Now they are trying to protect him and his buddies crypto currency schemes. They want to drive us all into the financial ground.
Trump’s net worth has increased by billions since taking office. Now it’s time to crash the stock market so he can buy stocks for pennies on the dollar. Every person with a 401k loses and the crook in the White House profits. Way to go, MAGA. If it wasn’t that the rest of the country will suffer right along with you, I would be elated that you are going to pay for what you have done by putting a malignant narcissist in charge.
His family has already done that with their crypto venture and stable coins/meme coins. The Trump and Melania coins are virtually worthless at this point causing investors to lose thousands, but Trump made out like a bandit through collecting fees.
Also how ETF operators make money. Big money wills on ups/down and also with fees; he is fostering that environment by reduces taxes payable on gains and forcing down interest rates to make borrowing and leveraged acquisition easier and more financially attractive for the wealthy purchasers; not so much for the distressed sellers
Decreasing interest rates would further help him since he could borrow cheaper and use more leverage to purchase distressed assets that no longer can compete in this economic environment of rising prices, higher wages, greater unemployment, and stifling tariff/taxes
He's broken every thing else, why not? I can't fathom the GOP. They absolutely destroy the economy at every turn when in office. The democrats then scurry around to fix it. There may be a time when it's unfixable.
I don't follow all of the acronyms and descriptions of the various financial issues. What I do remember of the financial crisis was that I was a working class guy running my own small construction company and having put away, what I thought, was a reasonable amount into retirement with thoughts that I was 'on my way' to, perhaps, not a big nest egg, but, at least, working towards a little comfort. When the crash came and kept on getting worse, the guys on my crew, who I contributed into their own retirement plans, talked about the daily reports on the news the same way that other crews may have discussed sports. I ended up losing about 2/3 of my holdings. I'm semi-retired now and probably won't totally retire until the last shovel of dirt into my grave. If these yahoos do this to us all over again, they should rot in hell!
By providing financing to fledgling or struggling companies that may be unable to obtain bank loans or raise capital elsewhere, BDCs can expose investors to investments similar to those associated with private equity or venture capital firms. Because BDCs—which trade like stocks but are managed like funds—invest in higher-risk businesses, they can charge higher interest rates on their loans and, in turn, offer attractive yields for investors. ... As with other high-yield investments, however, BDCs should be approached with caution. ... BDCs are publicly traded companies—not bonds—and come with the same market risks as other equities, including increased volatility. Beyond that, BDCs:
• Are sensitive to interest rates. BDCs use borrowed money to provide financing to other companies at higher rates. As interest rates rise, a BDC's profit margins could suffer.
• Are subject to credit risk. The types of companies BDCs invest in may be more likely to default on their loans or even go out of business, which could undermine overall returns.
• Charge high fees. In addition to their relatively steep management and service fees, BDCs may charge incentive fees on profits earned as well as loan-servicing fees.
• Lack transparency. Although publicly traded BDCs offer daily liquidity, they generally hold illiquid, and often not investment-grade, investments in private companies, which aren't required to make public disclosures, making it difficult to assess a BDC's true risk-reward profile.
• Lack of diversification. BDCs often concentrate assets in small- to mid-size developing and distressed companies. Such companies may share risks in loan repayment and economic resilience. Each BDC invests across various companies but cannot hold more than 25% of its assets in one company.
• Are managed by a small team. A few key personnel drive BDC investments decisions, and the board of directors can vote to replace the external manager. Any changes or loss of expertise can adversely impact the company.
One of the problems with publicly traded companies is they rarely use the money raised by selling their stocks to fund their business. They are focused on their share price (are actually legally required to do so) and any money spent is counted against money gained, reducing their apparent profits, reducing their share price. So they borrow against their money raised from selling shares, giving the bank money for the rent of money they effectively already had. Overall, this reduces the amount of money invested in 'developing and distressed' companies.
Appreciate you know a lot more than me. Sorry, but I am going to get on my soap box now, but this is not in opposition to you.
I just know the system as designed is inherently messed up because it is all about money, playing games with money. It gets complicated, the legalities get complex, the price of lawyers gets high and the return on the litigants suit is poor in case of a lawsuit, which the company already factored into their business model. This is true for every company where the 'bean counters' are in charge, which of course includes all companies in the financial industry.
Money is a symbol, a construct, a concept. Economy is simply an extended barter system and there should be enough money in play at any given time to enable our resources to be used, developed, created, our people to be productive, cared for...
I remember the telecom boom, when several multibillion dollar startups tried to each corner the market. Not a good business plan as it worked out, but suddenly all these billions of dollars were poured into the economy, and nothing bad happened, until they realized they were not each of them going to corner the market, and they stopped pouring money into the industry. Money is not magic, it is not finite, the economy is not a zero-sum game. The amount of money goes up and down based on people's perception of value in land, stocks, etc...
'Trickle down' always retains most of the wealth at the top. Money introduced at the bottom cycles through many hands, effectively multiplying its value to the economy each time it does. Money held in stocks, bonds, savings, land, etc... disappear from the economy. Starving those at the bottom, literally.
Sorry, just upsets me that most people (not you of course) think the financial industry adds value. It only subtracts value. Why should we think of money as being separate from the government, owned by the bankers. Why think of money as being sourced from the banks, when it is our system, and we create money as a lubricant for our economy.
I do support the aspects of Capitalism that enables adaptability, motivation, redundancy... But greed beyond a certain point just gets toxic and equivalent to criminal harm upon others. We are all stake holders in the economy and nothing of significant value was produced all by one person, and most rich people got richer by using other people to make them richer...
Businesses focused solely on money, using money to create more money for the owners, attract people who think in terms of money having value, as opposed to people. They grow to think of rules as things to be bypassed, worked around, finding loopholes, dong calculations to determine the point at which it is more profitable to cheat, break the rules. It is in the nature of the financial industry as they have proven time and again. The reason we have as many regulations as we have is because of all the times they came close to destroying the system for everybody. It started off as Laissez-Faire Capitalism, and incrementally got adjusted over time. The Financial side of the system was never properly designed to solve OUR problems, to satisfy OUR needs, only the needs of the rich, who had to be restrained from breaking a system that was built for them.
Yeah, I know, most people will figure me for a crackpot. they will say something like, 'That's just the way it is'. but I made my living identifying, understanding all the complexities and factors of complex systems including customers, users, markets, vendors, technologies, resources, other specializations and finding solutions to solve the extremely complex problems including the design of the technology. I discovered that most people give up. Most people do not push through to answers. Most people define the problem in terms of solutions they have seen in the past, with adjectives. True innovation is rare because most management describes the problem (poorly) and the employees do what they are told. Making it faster, smaller, cheaper... which are all good, but so incredibly many opportunities are never explored.
Good point. And while our democracy has expanded, so should our perspective on the job of the economy. Our economy has a function to serve our needs.
I am not proposing communism, which was an amateurish effort by a philosopher, which got used because it was the only available alternative to the capitalism that was proven to have not worked for the people in those countries. The leaders were not bright enough to invent anything better, so they followed (vaguely) the only other choice they had.
Socialism has been used to describe almost every economy in the world, or at least aspects of it, such that it essentially means any government managed economy that tries to address the needs of the people.
Our Founders did not even address the economy at all other than to declare our government could borrow money, and could coin money, regulating its value. So yeah, we have the power to 'print money', but that is considered 'evil' whereas it is right and proper for banks to profit off of money invented by the Fed and loaned to them, which they can then expand and loan multiple times at the same time, each time profiting from it. A system created by and for bankers to keep bankers rich at the expense of everyone else.
A person with wealth can build more wealth. It take no effort at all for a rich kid to grow their wealth - they hire people to do it for them. As long as they do not get too greedy, it is easy. For a poor person, growing wealth takes heroic effort.
Since the founders, as you say, were prosperous, they saw no need to change the nature of the system. For centuries our economy flourished as we expanded across the country and then the world, but the world has 'shrunk', the competition has grown, the system has grown ever more expert at cycling the money into the hands of fewer people, the industrial revolution has continued to remove more and more jobs every year, and now Trump is doing everything he can to break what was left, accelerating every destabilizing aspect of the economic system.
As a young man I realized the industrial revolution was not something from the history books, it was growing every day, and that was many decades ago, it only grows faster, now with AI and humanoid robots. Our solutions were to ignore it, deny it's effects, claim it would save us from such labor, as if we would all benefit from it when in reality it only benefited those who could afford to purchase the modern 'automated slave' to work in their fields, factories and offices.
Any who are out of a job, for long enough, simply become excluded from the economy, and so the overall economy shrinks, because we have created a system where the wealth and access to money defines the economy and people are both customers and expenses, and in each company the expenses are targeted to be removed as cost effectively as possible.
Later I saw a movement, organic, popped up everywhere with no backers, no organization, referred to as the 'Occupy Wallstreet' movement. It lasted for a while then faded away. I saw that as our society reacting to a problem they could not articulate properly. A reaction to an impending danger. Time has passed and it has only gotten worse.
The crash of 2008, Covid, both were separate economic crisis, masking the ongoing growing problem. I believe Trump got elected both times, partly because as a con-man, promising everything, people grabbed onto that hope whereas the democrats promised only more of the same, with a little tinkering around the edges to help, but never addressing their fundamental economic insecurity which is to be serious, matters of life and death.
Where I fail is in trying to understand the arcana of economics. The invented tools and devices of the Financial industry and the laws that are intended to protect wealth. I hear people talking in that language, and see that it makes sense to them, but all I can do is step back and see the fundamentals and work from there.
He needs to go. Do we have an extradition agreement with any of Trump’s shit hole countries?
El Salvador seems more appropriate. Perhaps Israel...
Argentina, where so many WW II Nazis such as Eichmann fled. He can use the Qatari flying Palace since, as refurbished, it could serve as a decently secure bunker and criminal HQ site
Dismantling government agencies like the IRS and the CPFB. Now who would benefit from that??
The wealthy could cheat on their tax returns and not worry about audits.
And do
CBO estimates that Public Law 119-21 will result in a net increase in the unified budget deficit totaling $3.4 trillion over the 2025-2034 period, relative to CBO’s January 2025 baseline updated to reflect enacted legislation. That increase in the deficit is estimated to result from a decrease in direct spending of $1.1 trillion and a decrease in revenues of $4.5 trillion. CBO; 21-Jul-25 https://tinyurl.com/htwwr2uw
This is a net increase in US debt of $3.4T: $1.1T saved by gutting USAID, the ACA and other “direct spending” and $3.4T in taxes avoided by billionaires. This is nothing but debt writ large - a deferred payment obligation except for interest needed to service it - for the benefit of billionaires, repaid for years, causing pain now and disadvantaging us and generations not yet born when these b*stards at last breathe their final breaths.
Conservatives have always been great at deficit spending and exploding the deficits.
The other thing they excel at is blaming democrat's afterwords.
Yes 2x. Dems always manage to rebuild (FDR after Hoover; Clinton after Reagan / Bush1; Obama after Bush2) and get the engine purring again just in time for the GOP to destroy it. Why, because the Dems do not sell well what they have done. Over and over, they fall victim to the high tax screams of the richest of the rich and fail to demonstrate the the other 95% that this is as good as it gets for them
It's not just a lousy messaging and promoting their accomplishments where democrats tend to fail. Since Ronny Ray Guns conservatives always run on same things. Kitchen table issues. The rate of Inflation, the price of goods, immigration and crime. And their supremely skilled at using fear tactics like the Southern Strategy to motivate the rubes into voting.
IMHO Democrats need to counter this with affordability. Including healthcare for all, a fair tax code, including taxing the billionaires, a decent living wage, unions and employee protections, affordable education and training programs etc. as well as all the kitchen table issues that Americans need in order to be happy, productive and have a viable future.
I agree with all you said, but I think it it is at least as important that Dems help voters to understand how they are helping them than it is just helping quietly
100% They need to blow their own horn. But it needs to be a ships horn.
Like Joe Biden promoted … and bailed Teamsters out nationwide. Greatest president for the American people in recent times.
Good point, but overall, this century, I put Obama first (both terms)
Just heard Hegseth lie about how the news is reported concerning brave US solders losing their lives. He seems to be saying that those lives lost got more press than the bombing campaign to make Trump look bad. What an idiot!
Trump and Hegseth pay lip service to those lost servicemen and women. Trump's attitude, "it's what happens".
trump's attitude part ll: Lives will be lost, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
It reminds me of what he said in 2020 during covid in an interview..."Yes, they're dying. It is what it is". He has zero regard for human life.
He, Trump, should be in the Front Line with Service Members he sent to Fight The Trump War in Iran.
He didn't say the rest of that sentence out loud this time, but he has before, many times: It's what happens to "losers." Truly astounding that any military personnel support Bone Spurs and a juvenile drunken idiot Sec Def.
Every other President has expressed personal grief for troop losses. His view: people die in wars; more will. Those words will haunt him when sleeper cells, likely near, awaken
Trump only knows how to financially fail, this time as president, with our stolen money in the billions.
He's failed forward all his miserable life, thanks to his Daddy's millions.
And Russian oligarchs, whom he helps launder their money.
Likely Panama too
I'd forgotten that he threatened Panama. They must have acquiesced to his closed door demands, since he stopped threatening to take the Panama Canal.
For now. It's on the way home from Iran, near Cuba, en route to Columia. This is just a big hybrid game of "Risk" and Battleship," or at least it seems to be.
Don't forget that Ecuador is now on the tantrump itinerary:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/us/politics/us-ecuador-trump-military-operations.html
And now the taxpayers' trillions
He's the King of Bankruptcies who's lived on credit his entire life.
Exactly! He brags about being "The King of Debt":
"Trump: 'I'm the King of Debt'"
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-king-of-debt-224642
Now he's working on bankrupting our country.
It's the only thing he excels at.
Now ours
The FDIC is being dismantled, in accordance with Project 2025. Page 705 of Project 2025 discusses shrinking or restructuring federal financial protections, including the FDIC, under the justification of ‘market efficiency.’
https://criticalresistance.substack.com/p/the-fdic-is-being-dismantledmost?r=m8e1o&utm_medium=ios
Yikes! This was exactly my question after reading this piece. So the typical American with CDs and other bank savings will have no safety net if banks fail, correct?
Should that progress much further, I imagine my mattress will have to muscle out my bank for the foreseeable future.
I.e., vacuuming everyone's money into the .01%s hands.
I read this in another post as well...scary...
To be merged with other agencies, not dismantled, as if there were any real difference:
"Merging Functions. The new Administration should establish a more streamlined bank and supervision by supporting legislation to merge the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Federal Reserve’s non-monetary supervisory and regulatory functions." (Project 2025, p. 705) https://tinyurl.com/3p68fpbj
The tightening of credit is already happening for me, Max. I have two credit cards with Chase, one for personal use and the other for business use. I always pay the monthly balances entirely. I've had these two credit cards for more than 25 years. A couple months ago, Chase notified me that it was reducing the amount of credit available on both cards, from the high teens to about $5000. BTW my credit score is 830. I'm not worried about the loss of credit because I now belong to a federal credit union who offers short term loans at interest rates that are far below those charged by Chase credit cards. But I was struck by these reductions in my credit limits shortly after I heard you mention it on Meidastouch.
Oh geeze..............substitute what I'm writing here with the seven words George Carlin said you should never say on TV. Guess it applies (or "should" apply) to media plus like ti applies to.well........you know.... Those regular columns and their "community guidelines" rules?
I'll have to look at ours.
HELLO CONGRESS, ANYBODY THERE? grow some and impeach this nightmare!
Congress was bought. Trump wants loyalists. Pre-campaign, The Heritage Foundation threatened all representatives not to stand in Trump's way (their Project 2025) or they would lose their jobs. In Vance's words, they won't fare well.
All the Republicans Supreme Court were also bought out by the heritage foundation years ago to do their bidding. The billionaires want to run our country and they have the perfect idiot President Felon to do it. Now they are trying to protect him and his buddies crypto currency schemes. They want to drive us all into the financial ground.
They have none........they are all stored in the top drawer of the Orface Office desk
They're pretty much the rich asshats who will profit from this Ponzi scheme.
Trump’s net worth has increased by billions since taking office. Now it’s time to crash the stock market so he can buy stocks for pennies on the dollar. Every person with a 401k loses and the crook in the White House profits. Way to go, MAGA. If it wasn’t that the rest of the country will suffer right along with you, I would be elated that you are going to pay for what you have done by putting a malignant narcissist in charge.
His family has already done that with their crypto venture and stable coins/meme coins. The Trump and Melania coins are virtually worthless at this point causing investors to lose thousands, but Trump made out like a bandit through collecting fees.
Also how ETF operators make money. Big money wills on ups/down and also with fees; he is fostering that environment by reduces taxes payable on gains and forcing down interest rates to make borrowing and leveraged acquisition easier and more financially attractive for the wealthy purchasers; not so much for the distressed sellers
Decreasing interest rates would further help him since he could borrow cheaper and use more leverage to purchase distressed assets that no longer can compete in this economic environment of rising prices, higher wages, greater unemployment, and stifling tariff/taxes
He's broken every thing else, why not? I can't fathom the GOP. They absolutely destroy the economy at every turn when in office. The democrats then scurry around to fix it. There may be a time when it's unfixable.
Grifters On Parade and Guardians of Pedophiles.
It will take three Dem presidents to create any semblance of post-apocalyptic normalcy:
2028: damage control; stanching bleeding; stop digging debt holes; destroy 47 idolotry
2032: renovate, rebuild; establish stability: economic, social, political, infrastructure
2036: regain world trust and rejoin the world community of nations (as we are diminished)
He’s following through with the plan as told, bankrupting the country, destroying the economy and making out like a dictator on the run!
Hegseth makes idiots look good!
Trumpus Ignoramus is playing with the US / global economy like he managed his casinos.
The man bankrupted 4 casinos, a business where the house always wins. Is there anything more you need to know about his financial prowess?
He can throw 50 bucks at an underage girl that he just fucked to go and get an abortion.
What a guy, right?
Its all there in the Miami Grand Jury testimony files.........unless they redacted it by now.
Well that statement is not a prediction, more like recognition of the obvious
Sad but true!
I don't follow all of the acronyms and descriptions of the various financial issues. What I do remember of the financial crisis was that I was a working class guy running my own small construction company and having put away, what I thought, was a reasonable amount into retirement with thoughts that I was 'on my way' to, perhaps, not a big nest egg, but, at least, working towards a little comfort. When the crash came and kept on getting worse, the guys on my crew, who I contributed into their own retirement plans, talked about the daily reports on the news the same way that other crews may have discussed sports. I ended up losing about 2/3 of my holdings. I'm semi-retired now and probably won't totally retire until the last shovel of dirt into my grave. If these yahoos do this to us all over again, they should rot in hell!
No bailouts this time!!!!
By providing financing to fledgling or struggling companies that may be unable to obtain bank loans or raise capital elsewhere, BDCs can expose investors to investments similar to those associated with private equity or venture capital firms. Because BDCs—which trade like stocks but are managed like funds—invest in higher-risk businesses, they can charge higher interest rates on their loans and, in turn, offer attractive yields for investors. ... As with other high-yield investments, however, BDCs should be approached with caution. ... BDCs are publicly traded companies—not bonds—and come with the same market risks as other equities, including increased volatility. Beyond that, BDCs:
• Are sensitive to interest rates. BDCs use borrowed money to provide financing to other companies at higher rates. As interest rates rise, a BDC's profit margins could suffer.
• Are subject to credit risk. The types of companies BDCs invest in may be more likely to default on their loans or even go out of business, which could undermine overall returns.
• Charge high fees. In addition to their relatively steep management and service fees, BDCs may charge incentive fees on profits earned as well as loan-servicing fees.
• Lack transparency. Although publicly traded BDCs offer daily liquidity, they generally hold illiquid, and often not investment-grade, investments in private companies, which aren't required to make public disclosures, making it difficult to assess a BDC's true risk-reward profile.
• Lack of diversification. BDCs often concentrate assets in small- to mid-size developing and distressed companies. Such companies may share risks in loan repayment and economic resilience. Each BDC invests across various companies but cannot hold more than 25% of its assets in one company.
• Are managed by a small team. A few key personnel drive BDC investments decisions, and the board of directors can vote to replace the external manager. Any changes or loss of expertise can adversely impact the company.
Is a Business Development Company Worth the Risk?; August 7, 2025; Charles Schwab https://tinyurl.com/msr3ftnj
One of the problems with publicly traded companies is they rarely use the money raised by selling their stocks to fund their business. They are focused on their share price (are actually legally required to do so) and any money spent is counted against money gained, reducing their apparent profits, reducing their share price. So they borrow against their money raised from selling shares, giving the bank money for the rent of money they effectively already had. Overall, this reduces the amount of money invested in 'developing and distressed' companies.
Appreciate you know a lot more than me. Sorry, but I am going to get on my soap box now, but this is not in opposition to you.
I just know the system as designed is inherently messed up because it is all about money, playing games with money. It gets complicated, the legalities get complex, the price of lawyers gets high and the return on the litigants suit is poor in case of a lawsuit, which the company already factored into their business model. This is true for every company where the 'bean counters' are in charge, which of course includes all companies in the financial industry.
Money is a symbol, a construct, a concept. Economy is simply an extended barter system and there should be enough money in play at any given time to enable our resources to be used, developed, created, our people to be productive, cared for...
I remember the telecom boom, when several multibillion dollar startups tried to each corner the market. Not a good business plan as it worked out, but suddenly all these billions of dollars were poured into the economy, and nothing bad happened, until they realized they were not each of them going to corner the market, and they stopped pouring money into the industry. Money is not magic, it is not finite, the economy is not a zero-sum game. The amount of money goes up and down based on people's perception of value in land, stocks, etc...
'Trickle down' always retains most of the wealth at the top. Money introduced at the bottom cycles through many hands, effectively multiplying its value to the economy each time it does. Money held in stocks, bonds, savings, land, etc... disappear from the economy. Starving those at the bottom, literally.
Sorry, just upsets me that most people (not you of course) think the financial industry adds value. It only subtracts value. Why should we think of money as being separate from the government, owned by the bankers. Why think of money as being sourced from the banks, when it is our system, and we create money as a lubricant for our economy.
I do support the aspects of Capitalism that enables adaptability, motivation, redundancy... But greed beyond a certain point just gets toxic and equivalent to criminal harm upon others. We are all stake holders in the economy and nothing of significant value was produced all by one person, and most rich people got richer by using other people to make them richer...
Businesses focused solely on money, using money to create more money for the owners, attract people who think in terms of money having value, as opposed to people. They grow to think of rules as things to be bypassed, worked around, finding loopholes, dong calculations to determine the point at which it is more profitable to cheat, break the rules. It is in the nature of the financial industry as they have proven time and again. The reason we have as many regulations as we have is because of all the times they came close to destroying the system for everybody. It started off as Laissez-Faire Capitalism, and incrementally got adjusted over time. The Financial side of the system was never properly designed to solve OUR problems, to satisfy OUR needs, only the needs of the rich, who had to be restrained from breaking a system that was built for them.
Yeah, I know, most people will figure me for a crackpot. they will say something like, 'That's just the way it is'. but I made my living identifying, understanding all the complexities and factors of complex systems including customers, users, markets, vendors, technologies, resources, other specializations and finding solutions to solve the extremely complex problems including the design of the technology. I discovered that most people give up. Most people do not push through to answers. Most people define the problem in terms of solutions they have seen in the past, with adjectives. True innovation is rare because most management describes the problem (poorly) and the employees do what they are told. Making it faster, smaller, cheaper... which are all good, but so incredibly many opportunities are never explored.
Good point. And while our democracy has expanded, so should our perspective on the job of the economy. Our economy has a function to serve our needs.
I am not proposing communism, which was an amateurish effort by a philosopher, which got used because it was the only available alternative to the capitalism that was proven to have not worked for the people in those countries. The leaders were not bright enough to invent anything better, so they followed (vaguely) the only other choice they had.
Socialism has been used to describe almost every economy in the world, or at least aspects of it, such that it essentially means any government managed economy that tries to address the needs of the people.
Our Founders did not even address the economy at all other than to declare our government could borrow money, and could coin money, regulating its value. So yeah, we have the power to 'print money', but that is considered 'evil' whereas it is right and proper for banks to profit off of money invented by the Fed and loaned to them, which they can then expand and loan multiple times at the same time, each time profiting from it. A system created by and for bankers to keep bankers rich at the expense of everyone else.
A person with wealth can build more wealth. It take no effort at all for a rich kid to grow their wealth - they hire people to do it for them. As long as they do not get too greedy, it is easy. For a poor person, growing wealth takes heroic effort.
Since the founders, as you say, were prosperous, they saw no need to change the nature of the system. For centuries our economy flourished as we expanded across the country and then the world, but the world has 'shrunk', the competition has grown, the system has grown ever more expert at cycling the money into the hands of fewer people, the industrial revolution has continued to remove more and more jobs every year, and now Trump is doing everything he can to break what was left, accelerating every destabilizing aspect of the economic system.
As a young man I realized the industrial revolution was not something from the history books, it was growing every day, and that was many decades ago, it only grows faster, now with AI and humanoid robots. Our solutions were to ignore it, deny it's effects, claim it would save us from such labor, as if we would all benefit from it when in reality it only benefited those who could afford to purchase the modern 'automated slave' to work in their fields, factories and offices.
Any who are out of a job, for long enough, simply become excluded from the economy, and so the overall economy shrinks, because we have created a system where the wealth and access to money defines the economy and people are both customers and expenses, and in each company the expenses are targeted to be removed as cost effectively as possible.
Later I saw a movement, organic, popped up everywhere with no backers, no organization, referred to as the 'Occupy Wallstreet' movement. It lasted for a while then faded away. I saw that as our society reacting to a problem they could not articulate properly. A reaction to an impending danger. Time has passed and it has only gotten worse.
The crash of 2008, Covid, both were separate economic crisis, masking the ongoing growing problem. I believe Trump got elected both times, partly because as a con-man, promising everything, people grabbed onto that hope whereas the democrats promised only more of the same, with a little tinkering around the edges to help, but never addressing their fundamental economic insecurity which is to be serious, matters of life and death.
Where I fail is in trying to understand the arcana of economics. The invented tools and devices of the Financial industry and the laws that are intended to protect wealth. I hear people talking in that language, and see that it makes sense to them, but all I can do is step back and see the fundamentals and work from there.