Sunday, July 20, 2025

Doom Report (Week 26: It's the Economy, Stupid)


I’ve often said that there’s nothing wrong with the concept of Communism; it’s just the implementations that tend to go badly.  It turns out that implementing communism in a pure form is basically an impossibility, because people are gonna people, and they will always pervert the system.

We, as good old capitalist Americans, can easily see this.  We even get to point to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the conversion of China to an at least partially capitalist system, and say “look! they failed—we were right all along.”  But you also have to consider that it’s difficult to get a clear picture of a system that you’re currently submersed in, just like Stephen Hawking’s goldfish trying to formulate scientific laws about objects moving outside their bowls.  The truth of the matter, I suspect, is that implementations of capitalism can also never be pure, and they too may inevitably fail.  If you hear people talking about “late-stage capitalism,” this is what they mean.  Critics of the term say it’s impossible to know whether capitalism is actually on its last legs, but it seems pretty clear to me that the American implementation of it, at least, is becoming increasingly unsustainable.

This was the topic of The Weekly Show this week, where Jon Stewart interviews two economists, Clara Mattei and James Robinson.  Throughout the interview, it becomes clear that Mattei is quite liberal, and Robinson is a secret conservative.  But the initial discussion about the capital class vs the working class—or, as some call them, makers and takers—is what really drew me in.  Because we don’t live in a pure expression of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations any more than the Soviets lived in a pure expression of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.  There is no “free market” in America, as Jon is quite fond of pointing out (and does so again quite articulately here).  There are earners and owners (which feels a bit more charitable than “makers and takers” to me), and the government intervenes on behalf of the owners constantly, while intervention on behalf of the earners is decried as socialism and moral hazard.

And this, it seems to me, is where the system must inevitably fall apart.  Because the owners have already been so successful at extracting all the wealth from the earners—as Mattei reminds us at one point, “three people own more than 150 million Americans”—that soon there will be no more wealth to extract, and no more earners to extract it from.  If the workers can’t make a living and can’t get sufficient healthcare, it sure does seem like we’re headed for a future shortage of workers.

Another thing they talk about is economic growth, and they point out that “capital accumulation, which is economic growth—we tend to call it economic growth because it sounds less political; it sounds more kind of neutral.”  And this dovetails nicely with my own thoughts from a year and a half ago when I wrote about vibecession.  All the economic indicators show that our economy is booming, because it is ... for the ultra-wealthy.  See, the problem with our traditional economic indicators is, they measure dollars.  If they were somehow measuring people, then the very tiny minority of billionaires would be statistically insignificant next to the rest of us.  But in terms of raw dollars, the growing inequality in our society means that the ultra-wealthy overwhelm the lower and middle classes (put together, even).  So the economic growth indicators can seem positive even while the majority of the people are starving.  In my vibecession post, I posited that we should probably start using different economic indicators.  So far, no luck on that.

Another topic essayed by Stewart and his guests is austerity.  And, as they point out, “austerity” always means austerity for the workers: no one ever seems to propose that the billionaires suffer any austerity.  Worse, austerity often means helping the capital class, because that supposedly stimulates the economy.  Forget the fact that nearly fifty years of trying trickle-down/supply-side economics has never worked.  Seriously: not once, in fifty years.  What other philosophy has failed so blatantly for so long and yet people still keep doing it?  And it doesn’t help that the capital class has managed to cloak its deeds in increasingly complex terms.  So when government passes all these laws and rules about “depreciations” and “capital gains” and “derivatives” (etc etc ad nauseum), it’s often difficult for the working class to figure out how badly they’re getting screwed.  This has nothing to do with the owners being smarter than the earners, of course; it’s just that the owners have nothing better to do than sit around and invent more and more byzantine financial instruments.  Meanwhile, the earners have actual work to do: they don’t have time to try and understand all this investment bullshit.

The contrast between the two economists is extreme, and in many ways Jon is balanced between them.  While he agrees with Clara on most points, he thinks her alternatives to capitalism (such as those practiced by native peoples) are far too idealistic, and that her ideas can’t scale to an economy of our size.  And he’s probably right.  But James goes too far in the other direction.  I called him a “secret conservative” because he starts out agreeing with Jon—and even Clara, to a certain extent—and waits about half an hour (almost exactly halfway through the interview) to drop this gem:

And I think, like—I’m not denying anything that Clara says—but I think if you think about the big picture, you know, the United States has actually been better at solving those sort of problems than Nigeria, or Colombia, or any poor country in the world has been.  Any country in the world has elites that want to rig the game in their favor.  And boy, have they been more successful in Colombia, you know, than they have in the United States.  I think that’s the big picture.  You know, and, in fact, you know, there are all these problems.  I agree.  But if you look at the last 100, 150 years, yeah, you have to fight.  You have to fight for your rights.  You have to fight for wages.  You have to fight to get the government to pay attention to you.  But that fight has been much more successful for ordinary people in the United States than it has in Colombia.  And I guess that’s what I said here.

In other words, James is starting out from the perspective that “America’s not doing so bad” ...  which is just demonstrably untrue.  And his “proof” is logically unsound—in fact, in the clip, you can hear (and see) Clara snort and say “of course.”  Because “other places suck worse” is not proof that it doesn’t suck here.  “Sucks less” is a far cry from “doesn’t suck,” and the inability of people to distinguish between those two never ceases to amaze me.

But James really proves his perspective is suspect when he tries to sell us this line about Elon Musk:

What was it that drove him to take over this whole DOGE?  He was not trying to make money.  He actually lost enormous amounts of money.  He was doing it because he’s a libertarian, because he’s ideologically driven to oppose anything the government does, I think.

And, stunningly, neither Jon nor Clara calls him on this bullshit.  He wasn’t trying to make money?  I suppose it was just coincidence, then, that he just happened to quash 65 federal investigations into his companies, potentially saving him $2 billion in fines and liabilities? or that he used his time in the government to try to steal a $2 billion contract from Verizon and to award himself over $13 billion in Space Force contracts?  Somehow I think he’s coming out okay in the long run ...  Not to mention, “he lost money doing it”—even if that were true (which I doubt: see previous points)—is only relevant if Musk understood that he was going to lose money before he started DOGE.  Now, given everything that we all now know about President Musk (and we know way more than we ever wanted to, I’m sure we can all agree), do we honestly think that he said to himself “this is going to cost me a bunch of money, but I’m going to do it anyway, because of my principles!”?  Or do we think it more likely that, because he is a complete narcissist, it never even occurred to him that anyone would come to hate him so much that it might cost him money?  I refer you to the interview where Musk was pissed at Tim Walz for saying he had started watching the Tesla stock price drop to add a little pick-me-up to his day.  Listen to what he says there: the only explanation he can come up with as to why someone might be pleased to see his company’s stock in the toilet is that they must be “evil.”  He literally can’t think of any other reason.  But that guy predicted that cutting over three-quarters of a million jobs would get people upset at him?  Yeah, right.

So, it was a great show about our economy, and that was after Stewart interviewed Kyla Scanlon on Monday’s Daily Show; her new book In This Economy? is apparently a great resource for understanding economics at a very accessible level.  And you know what the one thing is that gets pointed out in both interviews?  The reason the working class is always the one that gets screwed is because they don’t have lobbyists.  Which is depressing enough.  But the real bombshell Scanlon dropped was this one, when Jon asked her why we can’t choose demand-side solutions vs supply-side ones:

Scanlon: It’s a tough sell, politically.  Like, it’s a tough narrative.
Stewart: So this is a political problem, not an economic problem?
Scanlon: Most economic problems are political problems, at the end of the day, yeah.
Stewart: That’s—but they never say that.
Scanlon: Why would they?

I can’t think of a more succinct summary of our system (both economic and otherwise).



Other things you need to know this week:

  • On Tuesday’s Daily Show, Nick Offerman does his first “In My Opinion” segment, and he talks about our National Parks.  In regards to Trump’s plan to charge foreigners more to visit the parks, which is estimated to bring in about $90 million, Nick had this response: “So let me get this straight, Mr. President: you cut 267 million to get back 90 million?  Now, I’m no mathematician, but I believe that’s called ‘shitting the bed’.”  Definitely worth the watch.

  • In this week’s Coffee Klatch, Robert Reich tries out the line that Trump is the Deep State.  Despite bringing a few receipts, I’m not sure that message is going to break through.  Still, I gotta respect the hustle.
  • It’s a longer video, but if you want a really articulate—and also hilarious—summary of the Trump-Epstein debacle, Josh Johnson has you covered.

I wish I had a note of hope to end on, but in reality the item I must leave you with is one of defeat.  Stephen Colbert announced this week that The Late Show has been cancelled by Paramount.  He’ll finish out his contract through May of next year, then the entire show will be dismantled.  Now, Paramount is claiming that their reasons are strictly financial, but it sure does seem related to Paramount’s decision to pay (at least) $16 million to settle a meritless lawsuit, a move that many (including Colbert himself) called a bribe.  Certainly Adam Kinzinger thinks the two are related.  We may never know, and I certainly hope Colbert finds a new outlet, but this is not particularly encouraging for an informed populace.  The Daily Show is also owned by Paramount, so they could be next on the chopping block, and honestly, no one is safe.  Brian Tyler Cohen has started pointing out that YouTube could shut off access to his videos at any time, and Google is certainly pro-Trump these days.  Jimmy Kimmel’s bosses at Disney have already showed a predilection to doing as Trump asks, and the jury is still out on Warner Bros (owners of HBO Max and consequently Last Week Tonight).  Once upon a time, you could only trust the big corporations when it came to accurate news; now we’re entering a time when you can only trust anyone else.  And, since Joe-Blow-with-a-blog could be a MAGA nutjob just as easily as a crusader for truth, you can’t really trust them either.

They used to say “democracy dies in darkness,” but then the Washington Post got bought by Jeff Bezos.  Now it seems we’ve passed democracy’s twilight and are moving into dusk.  I don’t think we’ll miss these things until they’re gone—isn’t that always the way?—but I feel pretty confident we will miss them.  So let’s make the most of Colbert while we still have him.  The future is looking kind of dim.









Sunday, July 13, 2025

Doom Report (Week 25: You Got a Bit of Epstein Conspiracy Slop on You There)


So, obviously the biggest news this week was the Trump regime suddenly proclaiming that, in fact, there are no Epstein files.  Now, on the one hand, this is more amusing than newsworthy: the Epstein files are a conspiracy theory invented by right-wing nutjobs, and now many of those right-wing nutjobs are in charge of the government, and they’ve kind of been forced to admit that there are no Epstein files, and so the right-wing nutjobs who didn’t get into the government are now convinced they’ve been co-opted by the Deep State or some such twaddle.  So, it’s a bit of cosmic irony to hear people like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino—who, in both cases, derive their qualifications to run the FBI from their experience doing MAGA podcasts—go from spewing this nonsense to now having to try to quash it.  But, I gotta tell ya: I never belived there were any Epstein files ... until Trump said there weren’t any Epstein files, and now I know they exist.  Or, if you’d like to hear that put with more gravitas (and some legal perspective), you can listen to Brian Tyler Cohen and his frequent guest, litigator Mark Elias.  It’s weird times we live in.

And, also, the doom predicted in last week’s report has now come to pass: the Outlandish Bloated Beastly Buttfuckery is now law.  The Daily Show has a good summation of the consequences, and Christopher Titus summed it up rather succinctly as “Republicans kill people”.

Sadly, I have no time to inform you further, or depress you further (which at this point is just redundant), but I will point out that this week’s Strict Scrutiny contains this gem:

So, I know a lot of folks saw—and we have mentioned—the eyepopping statistic that political scientist Adam Bonica compiled a week or so ago, finding that from May 1st to June 23rd, federal district courts ruled against the Trump administration 94% of the time, and the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration the same 94% of the time.  Just, like, pretty stunning data.  And, look: there are some caveats to the data, in that the administration only asked the Supreme Court to take up a small subset of the cases that they lost, ones where they thought they could make some kind of procedural argument that they could notch a win on.  But it’s still, like, that track record and this big win at CASA is hugely emboldening.

Because that’s just what we needed: Trump to be emboldened.  He was such the shy wallflower before.

In terms of hope, you’ll have to settle for something aspirational I happened to catch from an unusual source this week.  While listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, I was struck by something said by guest Jan Jensen, college women’s basketball coach who has mentored many WNBA stars, including Caitlin Clark (jump to about 23:35 for the quote):

I believe the best thing in life is, if you can get a team—I’d like to think if you can get a society—to be celebrators of each other, that’s the hardest thing.

It surely must be the hardest thing, but just the concept of our society becoming celebrators of each other is quite encouraging.  I think we might have to kick a few people out first, but surprisingly few.  At least I continue to believe that to be true.









Sunday, July 6, 2025

Doom Report (Week 24: Another Rough Week)


Everyone else has come up with their funny takes on the ridiculous name of the “One Big Beautiful Bill”—from the “One Big Ugly Bill,” which just feels lazy, to the “One Big Bullshit Bill,” which is only mildly better, to ever more convoluted wordplay—but so far I haven’t personally settled on one.  How about ... the “Outlandish Bloated Beastly Buttfuckery”?  What—too much?

Well, in case you still don’t have sufficient concept of just how bad this will be, Hank Green has a good explainer on its financial impact, while John Oliver on Last Week Tonight explains the rest in his inimitably entertaining fashion.  Meanwhile, Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse on the Coffee Klatch this week give even more context, including making the point that the (at least!) 11 million people who will lose access to Medicaid won’t actually lose it until after the next mid-terms, which is a level of political cynicism that’s shocking even in today’s climate.

And, since this bill will make ICE’s budget bigger than the entire military of Israel (and, excepting only 15, every other country in the world too), Jesse Thorn recently repeated his call to donate to Al Otro Lado, which I originally reported on in Week -4.  Especially if you both feel helpless to effect any change and also have some money to spare, please consider donating.  It could mean the difference in people getting lawyers or being held in concentration camps.

On Election Profit Makers this week (jump to around 28:45 for the exact quote), David Rees used the OBBB as the backdrop to the the juxtaposition of Mamdani winning in NYC and Jeff Bezos’ conspicuous-consumption wedding.  It’s quite a contrast between the class strata in our country.  As David put it:

... this budget is the perfect document that kind of summarizes, or codifies, the vibes that we get when we see a socialist win the primary in New York and then we see Oprah Winfrey and Ivanka Trump having fun at a foam party in Venice ...

It’s a startling mental image, for sure, and reminds us that Left and Right is not nearly so interesting a division in our country as Ultra-Rich and Working Class.



Other things you need to know this week:

  • Be sure to check out the Zeteo panel on the deportations in LA.  Mehdi Hasan hosts Brian Tyler Cohen, Van Lathan, and LA city councilwoman Nithya Raman.  Among many others, Mehdi’s comment on masked ICE agents is quite incisive: “Am I the only one who thinks it’s absolutely insane and also weirdly hilarious that the people who screamed about not wanting to wear masks for 5 years are now wearing masks all the time?”

  • Michael Ian Black (now of the American Have I Got News for You) had a great video this week on the Daily Beast where he explains the bizarre position that MAGA has put us liberals in: while we want to be the iconoclasts, now we’re reduced to defending the institutions: USAID, the IRS, the Post Office, etc.  Weirdly, we’ve become the conservatives.

Not a whole lot of room for hope this week, sadly.  The best I can muster is this: in the Zeteo video I mention above, Van points out:

We’re living in times of kidnappings and gulags.  We’re living in times of bodily autonomy being gone.  We’re living in genocidal times.  We’re living living in times of blockades and starvations ...

And, while it’s not a direct response to the above, I can’t help but find this exchange between Mehdi and BTC a useful and inspiring counterpoint:

MH: What advice are you giving them when you’re doing your monologues, when you’re interviewing people?  What do you
want them to hear?
BTC: Fight, fight, fight, fight.

Good advice, if difficult to follow.  Still, one could do worse than to donate to Al Otro Lado, and prepare to fight.