It’s like there’s a duopoly…

Mr. Market doesn’t need the American people anymore.

He’s got their financial institutions.

America is going to rely on this swamp creature to direct the financial system for the good of the entire society?

Okey dokey.

Right, but what you’re taking about is a conditioned reflex now.

The USA goes from one crisis to the next (2008, QE, 2020, 2023 (SVB)). Crisis is part of the system — and the Fed provides free insurance for the passengers.

Does it ever make sense to not buy the dip?

Take it the other way around: is there any conceivable scenario (post-2008) in which the US government/Fed allows a 40% sustained drawdown of SPX?

Any scenario?

Academics all know the drill: Stand in the right lines for a long (long) time, keep your yap shut, collect prizes.

The entire system perpetuates class inequality. Students can have a $100,000 “conversation” about almost anything — except the bill. 💸 💸 💸

Money is a real abstraction.

So, it’s not real in the way you mean, but it is real in the sense that the Americans will kill you for it.

True, but like a lot of Americans, Trump thinks the stock market is god -- and god must be obeyed.

By now, Trump has scared enough people into forgetting that Democrats will just deliver a more subdued version of the neoliberal economics that elected Trump — twice.

Trump is the very life of the Democratic Party.

Without him….

Trump administration orders dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service Late Tuesday afternoon, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and the morality of a foreclosure notice, the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the agency’s 121-year history. Not a budget cut. Not a policy shift. Not a “reorganization.” An execution.

Selling off the national lands is a one-way, dead-end street.

But what the hell, anything for a buck.

www.hatchmag.com/articles/tru...

This is portfolio brain. In America, everything is evaluated based on what happens with the stock market. If it's bad for stocks, then it's bad.

Markets down 1% today, so genocidal threats are --within the range of normal volatility.

Unless the stock market goes down a lot; there will be no change.

America has a terminal case of portfolio brain: every event, even war crimes, is evaluated only by its impact on 401k savings.

Even then, only if the stock market goes down a lot.

This is a very weird country.

America is a portfolio cult.

So, other than the sheer nastiness of it, does this phenomenon have any historical significance?

I can let go of the enclosure thesis but, after that, I’m not clear why this is important.

Just tough luck?

Ten years into this insanity and Democrats still have absolutely no idea who they are -- other than not Trump.

There is a preparation, but it's not intellectual. I grew up among rapture evangelicals in the deep south. We all read "Chick Tracts" (about a billion of these are in print now) and this was our map of the Middle East. Read a few of those Tracts -- and Hegseth will snap into plain view.

Sure, but first the Ugabuga.

The only thing wealthy liberals actually care about is asset prices.

They will clutch their pearls about other issues but, deep down, their hearts are with their portfolios — endlessly compounding off gains from the exploitation of labor.

That is late-stage capitalism.

All countries in this form of decline shift from profit by productive expansion to profit by rentier extraction.

The US is just cannibalizing itself.

That is late-stage capitalism.

All countries in this form of decline shift from profit by productive expansion to profit by rentier extraction.

The US is just cannibalizing itself.

Will do. Thanks again.

Thank you, good point on Bacon.

I took Caliban to mean that the witch trials were an enclosure (under the rubric of suppressing magic) of fields of female autonomy/ownership — midwives, herbalists, etc.

Do you think that’s wrong as well?

Is there a book or non-paywalled refutation of Caliban, that you can recommend?

That looks great!

Sure. But, for a decade, Democrats have won by not being Trump — and then lost by not being anything more than — not Trump.

I worry they’ll win and the cycle will just repeat. All their energy seems to come from Trump.

Trump was elected twice — each time preceded by a Democratic President.

So, what are these lovely people going to do differently next time?

Or does the wheel just keep turning to right, with little pauses?

Maybe not. Americans as a people are conditioned to "save the system."

The Fed could buy all that junk and there wouldn't be even a street-corner protest.

Just tell the Americans that it's "for the system" and then -- anything goes (see 2008, QE-infinity, 2020, 2023).

I remember a fellow who stole George Custer’s jockstrap from the Little Bighorn museum in Montana.

As I recall, he wanted to use the jockstrap to channel Custer — for an interview.

America is marvelously diverse.