How the COVID-19 Bailout Gave Wall Street a No-Lose Casino
May 14th, 2020American capitalism.
*chortle* That’s a really good one.
Plutocrats create fiat money, by typing some number, followed by nine to twelve zeros, into a computer. Then they send it around to each other, with the help of their kleptocratic minions in the government. Finally, they nail a bill into the backs of the victims and demand payment.
The scale of the fraud is inconceivable.
Via: Rolling Stone:
At least one in three can’t make their rent, millions more can’t afford groceries, and workers in supermarkets, medical clinics, warehouses, and other professions are now in a macabre race to see if they’ll turn blue and die before corporate employers decide to slash their salaries or retirement benefits — which has already happened to front-line caregivers in some cities.
There are no projections of record earnings in the futures of such people. The best case is survival, and the grim reality of diminished economic horizons. Yet for the tiny sliver of people whose fortunes depend not on salaries, tips, and commissions, but upon the prices of financial products like stocks and bonds, the coronavirus response heralds a brave new world.
The $2.3 trillion CARES Act, the Donald Trump-led rescue package signed into law on March 27th, is a radical rethink of American capitalism. It retains all the cruelties of the free market for those who live and work in the real world, but turns the paper economy into a state protectorate, surrounded by a kind of Trumpian Money Wall that is designed to keep the investor class safe from fear of loss.
This financial economy is a fantasy casino, where the winnings are real but free chips cover the losses. For a rarefied segment of society, failure is being written out of the capitalist bargain.
