8 Comments

First I've heard of all this. Followed a recommend on Substack and became a subscriber kinda 'by accident, in that way. Seems I have been missing out on what seems to be the most crucially important facts of today. Who knew?

Where else is all this covered?

Are there any solutions offered anywhere?

Expand full comment
author

With respect to rebuilding the industrial strength of the US, the last CNBC video pretty much covers the required "if you cant beat China copy them" strategy.

With the stock market and mass rentier and profit extraction activities of US corporations, that would require a functioning anti-trust division, together with getting rid of the related tax advantages for carried interest, stock options and share buybacks (and perhaps the re-instituting of the previous ban on the last two) and raising capital gains taxes to equal what wage earners pay.

With respect to Ukraine, surrender and make a peace agreement, as such an agreement will only have worse terms as the days pass.

With respect to China, make peace and work out how to live in a multi-polar world. The terms will only get worse as the days pass.

All of the above require the ruling Western elites to give up their short term gains of the past decades for longer term survival. Their other option is to double down on their extractive activities, which is why I am investigating non-Western countries to live in.

Other sources? Simplicius, The Duran, Cyrus Jannsen, Jimmy Dore, The Grayzone, Thunderf00t, they will lead to others.

Expand full comment

Thanks for all that. I was referring specifically to the 'stock market, mass rentier...' etc. etc.

Sorry I didn't make that clear.

That's the part that alarmed and astonished me that I'd 'been missing out on'.

The way it is put it seems deeply systemic to where radical changes in US economics would be required.

And it is with respect to that I ask about solutions. More or less querying which economists have recognised and addressed the problem and wondering if there's as yet a generally known path that should be followed. Or is an area of fierce contention with no sure way forward known?

Expand full comment
Jul 4Liked by Roger Boyd

To put a very complex matter in crude terms: the changes that the US economy needs amount to socialism. What China has shown is that, as recognised from the beginning of the system, Capitalism destroys society and is therefore unsustainable.

The era of neo-liberalism has restored capitalism in its unregulated form, removing all the protections that society built against the cannibalism and greed in the capitalist mode of production. These protections were necessary to prevent society from imploding which is what is taking place now in, for example, the UK and the United States.

The problem that these imperialist powers face is that imperialism has been found out, in all its disguises, and is crumbling away, leaving the metropoles naked in the face of their primary victims the working class.

Expand full comment
author
Jul 4·edited Jul 4Author

Michael Hudson is the best one on that subject. Also Maria Mazzucatto on the "Entrepreneurial State".

I also covered the neoliberal period when the financiers and corruption took full control in my piece "US: From Morning in America to Making America Great Again (1979 to present)" https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/us-from-morning-in-america-to-making.

Expand full comment

Okay, thanks. Don't know which of their books go straight to our point do you?

Expand full comment

Didn't the CEO of NASA quit, recommend dissolving NASA and join Tesla? Guess there's a lot of cash to be made leeching off the government dole as a billionaire.

Expand full comment
author

Yes she did, and only after awarding the main contract to only Tesla. Her successor brought back in the other contenders like Bezos' venture. Absolutely corrupt as hell.

Expand full comment