Real US corporate profits are a function of the dollar

The Long Now, Pt. 4 – Snip! (or Ben Hunt nails it)

"This is a picture of the billionaire CEO of a government-supported too-big-to-fail megabank, telling his 60 Minutes interviewer that he has no control over his compensation, as that’s determined by the CEO’s board of directors. Interestingly enough, this is also a picture of the billionaire Chairman of that board.

And it’s not just the billionaire CEO bank manager. It’s his centimillionaire lieutenant bank managers. It’s the dozens of decamillionaire sub-lieutenant bank managers. All of them made generationally rich from stock-based compensation in a company where the government guarantees their success. None of them entrepreneurs. None of them risk-takers with their own skin in the game. All of them … lifer managers of a too-big-to-fail bank.

But, hey, the stock is up! They’ve done a good job! What’s the problem, Ben?

That’s exactly the problem. The problem is that we have redefined capitalism to mean “the stock is up”. We have redefined capitalism to NOT mean Smith’s invisible hand or Schumpeter’s creative destruction or productivity-enhancing and risk-taking investments in the real economy. We have redefined capitalism to ONLY mean financial asset price inflation in the here and now. By any means necessary. So that’s what we get. From the Fed, from the White House, from corporate management … that’s what we get in the Long Now … an endless series of policies and decisions in service to capitalism-as-financialization, where capital markets are maintained as a political utility."

Link here.

Quantitative easing is MMT for the wealthy

Where is the Public Outrage About our Deadly $2 Trillion Quagmire Fueled with Lies?

"In the wake of 9/11, unblinking support for an ever-growing military became a fundamental part of patriotism and questioning it became treasonous. This sentiment was further fueled by our growing defense contractor industry, which received nearly half our military budget by 2018 ($358 billion). Our civilian foreign affairs resources turned into military assets. And with its 2001 Authorization of the Use of Military Force (AUMF), Congress traded in its oversight role for that of enabler."

Link here.

Corporate tax cuts fund corporate profits with Federal/public debt

Top 1.0% of earners see wages up 157.8% since 1979

"Over the last four decades since 1979, the top 1.0% saw their wages grow by 157.8% and those in the top 0.1% had wages grow more than twice as fast, up 340.7%. In contrast those in the bottom 90% had annual wages grow by 23.9% from 1979 to 2018. This disparity in wage growth reflects a sharp long-term rise in the share of total wages earned by those in the top 1.0% and 0.1%."

Link here.