"The Rise And Fall Of I, Clownius"
By the end, the American dream had been sold down to a hunger games Powerball lottery, running on the glue fumes of past history. The crash of 2008 and its Corporate Shock Doctrine aftermath had nearly killed off the Republican base of reliably useful carbon. America's "exceptional" exploitation model had exacted a heavy carbon tax and was at risk of yielding to socialist mediocrity - a world in which workers get paid what they are worth, and billionaire robber barons are forced to make an honest living sans recurring bailouts. The extant criminal class were beside themselves with panic.
But as fate would have it, the Banana Republican party, guardians of criminality, had one more trick up their sleeve - fake nationalism. For that they recruited a well known con man, skilled in Reality TV and expert at recycling abject failure into fake success. He became known as the Manchurian Candidate, because he had business conflicts of interest in Russia and the Russians helped him get elected. The FBI never proved direct Trump collusion despite indicting half a dozen campaign operatives. Trump, knowing that he faced presidency or prison for the next election, threw the door wide open to any country willing to help him rig the election in exchange for quid pro quo. Democrat efforts to impeach Trump were stymied as Republicans blocked all efforts to subvert their subversion of democracy.
The whole operation was going swimmingly until the Manchurian Candidate lost the script and started an existential trade war with America's largest supply chain vendor and source of cheap capital. The loyal Republican base had inconveniently jumped the shark from their traditional fake values and found nationalist kinship with their Russian-installed con man - doubling down on fraud and criminality. Unfortunately, Trump and his loyal Twitter mob got locked in a demented death spiral that inadvertently imploded the global economy via their out-of-control trade war.
While all of this carnival was playing out, the real looting was of course taking place in the background, with all of the ill-gotten-gains safely absconded to the Cayman Islands well ahead of the inevitable meltdown.
Trump's main achievement during this period was to deplete all of the fiscal and monetary reserves that would be needed in the next recession, in order to amplify his economic con job. Which worked fantastic - most people were thoroughly conned. Then he de-regulated conflict of interest in the financial services crime syndicate for maximum fraud and profit, essentially legalizing criminality.
By the Fall of 2019, the looting of the Treasury had inadvertently caused a liquidity meltdown in global markets starting in overnight repo markets, cascading to momentum tech, IPOs, Biotechs, Bitcoins, pot stocks, emerging markets, oil futures - domino collapsing Trump's entire bigger, fatter "everything bubble". For their part, the Fed was typically clueless and reactive, not wanting to depart from tradition. Sticking with their same failed backward looking econometric models for fear of looking like they don't know what they're doing.
As the global economy collapsed, central banks panicked, flooding the system with record amounts of monetary heroin and charging people to save money - which pushed investors out of cash and into the riskiest assets. All of which had the net effect of putting the populace under a drug-induced state of monetary euthanasia ahead of the final collapse. It was "easy money".
When the crash arrived, "no one saw it coming". Both sides were too glued to their own version of what wasn't going to happen aka. "Politics". Corporate Mad Men were making the quarter by every layoff possible. Zombies were binge watching Netflix and otherwise becoming an accessory to Dumbphone. The incumbent party had done their level best to conceal the implosion of the economy as long as possible. Rightly fearing that any amount of truth would prevent re-election.
Sadly, the Republican useful carbon got wiped off the financial map by their very own trusted criminals, due to maximum exposure to fraud at the point of maximum implosion. Having served their purpose, they were unceremoniously discarded in the American tradition.
Criminality as a political movement had reached its end in America.
No clowns were laughing when the circus ended.
The whole operation was going swimmingly until the Manchurian Candidate lost the script and started an existential trade war with America's largest supply chain vendor and source of cheap capital. The loyal Republican base had inconveniently jumped the shark from their traditional fake values and found nationalist kinship with their Russian-installed con man - doubling down on fraud and criminality. Unfortunately, Trump and his loyal Twitter mob got locked in a demented death spiral that inadvertently imploded the global economy via their out-of-control trade war.
While all of this carnival was playing out, the real looting was of course taking place in the background, with all of the ill-gotten-gains safely absconded to the Cayman Islands well ahead of the inevitable meltdown.
Trump's main achievement during this period was to deplete all of the fiscal and monetary reserves that would be needed in the next recession, in order to amplify his economic con job. Which worked fantastic - most people were thoroughly conned. Then he de-regulated conflict of interest in the financial services crime syndicate for maximum fraud and profit, essentially legalizing criminality.
By the Fall of 2019, the looting of the Treasury had inadvertently caused a liquidity meltdown in global markets starting in overnight repo markets, cascading to momentum tech, IPOs, Biotechs, Bitcoins, pot stocks, emerging markets, oil futures - domino collapsing Trump's entire bigger, fatter "everything bubble". For their part, the Fed was typically clueless and reactive, not wanting to depart from tradition. Sticking with their same failed backward looking econometric models for fear of looking like they don't know what they're doing.
As the global economy collapsed, central banks panicked, flooding the system with record amounts of monetary heroin and charging people to save money - which pushed investors out of cash and into the riskiest assets. All of which had the net effect of putting the populace under a drug-induced state of monetary euthanasia ahead of the final collapse. It was "easy money".
When the crash arrived, "no one saw it coming". Both sides were too glued to their own version of what wasn't going to happen aka. "Politics". Corporate Mad Men were making the quarter by every layoff possible. Zombies were binge watching Netflix and otherwise becoming an accessory to Dumbphone. The incumbent party had done their level best to conceal the implosion of the economy as long as possible. Rightly fearing that any amount of truth would prevent re-election.
Sadly, the Republican useful carbon got wiped off the financial map by their very own trusted criminals, due to maximum exposure to fraud at the point of maximum implosion. Having served their purpose, they were unceremoniously discarded in the American tradition.
Criminality as a political movement had reached its end in America.
No clowns were laughing when the circus ended.
