To some people, the passion we have against the Fed can seem almost cultlike. Not every problem is caused by the Fed. They claim.
Now, the Fed causes a lot of problems — inflation, recessions, bank panics. But one of the biggest is the role it plays in financing new crises. In essence, the Fed plays venture capitalist to the crisis industrial complex. Financing each crisis in that vulnerable early stage when voters might not be up for paying $14 trillion to run around Afghanistan, or $7 trillion to pay people not to work, or the $50 to $90 trillion — not a joke — they want for a New Green Deal.
This bridge financing is important in that start-up stage of a new crisis, when the product’s not off the ground yet. Like offering a free trial to get somebody to subscribe, it has to be free long enough for the parasitic supporting infrastructure of academics, activists, media, and crony companies to build up, to metastasize. That venture stage manufactures the consensus, identifies and censors the dangerous conspiracy theories, keep sthe money flowing to the opportunists who will sustain it as a permanent parasite.
The venture capital life-cycle of a crisis, brought to you by your local central bank.
How does the Fed do this? By buying up government bonds, which hides the deficits so the cost of the war, the pandemic, the green new deal is all just numbers. For now.
If they do it well, like in 2008 or 2020, this money-printer funded astroturf campaign can get voters to literally demand government fix the crisis. That government take yet more of their treasure, yet more of their rights, yet more of their blood. Anything to make the pain go away, to make the fear subside.
Crisis is a Racket
Throughout American history, these crises have shifted the balance to ever-growing government. The Tax Foundation keeps a tracker for all the gory details.
World War I was their debut, a war of choice kicked off just months after the Fed was founded. The war bumped the federal take from 2% of 6% of GDP — a tripling in just 4 years. Then the depression, World War II, wars in Korea, then Vietnam, then the Middle East, fortified with a permanent environmental crises all drove the take up past 20%.
Despite the fall of the Soviet Union — their best-selling crisis — the new century has delivered a bumper crop for the industrial complex. Starting with 2008 when yet another Fed-engineered financial crash took down the global economy. Then, of course, our most recent blockbuster crisis as the Covid panic led to amazing growth in both budget and power of governments around the world. Covid was a flex of truly epic proportions.
Yes but did it sell? Oh, did it ever. In just 3 years the feds grabbed 7% of GDP — almost what you spend on food — with 33% of GDP now going to the Feds. Testament to the hard work of millions upon millions of dedicated parasites.
Where do we go from here?
In a sense, the Covid Lockdowns were too good for them: they took too much too fast. Leading to potentially catastrophic economic and financial disruption that we’re only now waking up to in inflation, recession, spreading bank panics, and policymakers frozen like deer in the headlights, itchy trigger fingers fondling the giant money printer that’s the only tool they’ve got.
Even if we do come out of this in one piece, the crises will keep going so long as central banks exist. Climate, systemic racism, wars of choice without end.
Perhaps a crisis big enough to impose a UBI to turn voters into obedient clients, and enforced with a CBDC that rewards one’s friends and punishes one’s enemies. An endless ratchet taking our freedoms, our prosperity, even our social peace.
All of this, and so much more, brought to you by your friends at the Federal Reserve.
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The Fed may be the implement used but the actual cause is more culturally and politically derived. End-stage democracy (Alexander Tytler), Marxist march through the institutions, post modern nihilism, identity politics, neocons, and leftist cultural vandalism all play a role. Sound money and laissez faire banking (and all other commerce) would be a solution but leviathan and its voting Eloi masquerading as sentient citizens will likely face something extreme to move beyond.
I call it jumping from one fake emergency to another. So much better than a real emergency because there’s no wrong move.