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Donald Trump and Depression Economics

Somewhere in the universe is a man known as Donald Trump. He has residences in New York, Palm Beach, Florida, and a white columned house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. From these well-furnished bungalows, where supplicants meet to greet, monarch butterfly Trump governs his territory ─ planet earth. When the monarch desires a change […]
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Defusing the Derivatives Time Bomb: Some Proposed Solutions
The “protected class” is granted “safe harbor” only because their bets are so risky that to let them fail could crash the economy. But why let them bet at all? This is a sequel to a January 15 article titled “Casino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another ‘Lehman Moment’?”, discussing the threat of […]
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Lawfare and Covert Action: An Interim Hypothesis

by T.P. Wilkinson Economic history has its overt and covert sides. Now the State has been almost completely privatized, i.e., conveyed to the so-called hedge funds. It may be safe to say that the West has been converted into one huge financial derivative system. To understand this without drowning in jargon it is easiest to […]
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Casino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another “Lehman Moment”?
Reading the tea leaves for the 2024 economy is challenging. On January 5th, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said we have achieved a “soft landing,” with wages rising faster than prices in 2023. But critics are questioning the official figures, and prices are still high. Surveys show that consumers remain apprehensive. There are other concerns. On December 24, 2023, Catherine […]
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Holstering a Career: Wayne LaPierre Resigns from the NRA Executive
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The now departed chief executive of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) should know. Wayne LaPierre’s time had come to resemble a dictatorship in a hurry, pinching the silver and stomping on the dissenters on its way out. Allegations were already being made at the NRA’s annual […]
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“The Great Taking”: How They Can Own It All
“’You’ll own nothing and be happy’? David Webb has gone through the 50-year history of all the legal constructs that have been put in place to technically enable that to happen.” [Oct 2 interview titled “The Great Taking: Who Really Owns Your Assets?”] The derivatives bubble has been estimated to exceed one quadrillion dollars (a […]
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Is KPFA Transitioning from Antiwar to Peacewashing?
Early morning radio listeners might’ve thought they’d tuned into the wrong station. No, they had the right one — KPFA at 94.1 FM. But yes, something was strange, weird, and even downright wrong. Listeners were hearing a pitch for improving the Military Industrial Complex, a need to build up U.S. defense industries in order to […]
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What Will Happen When Banks Go Bust?
Financial podcasts have been featuring ominous headlines lately along the lines of “Your Bank Can Legally Seize Your Money” and “Banks Can STEAL Your Money?! Here’s How!” The reference is to “bail-ins:” the provision under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act allowing Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs, basically the biggest banks) to bail in or expropriate their […]
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The Progenitor of Inequalities: Corporate Personhood vs. Human Beings
The word “inequality” is everywhere in the media. It usually refers either to race, gender, rich vs. poor, or other differences between human beings. Absent from the public debate is the biggest perpetrator of “inequality” against human beings – the corporate entity itself. Ever since 1886 when a U.S. Supreme Court reporter, in a headnote […]