The most effective means of transferring wealth from the productive classes to the plutocrats is inflation. Government is now dealing with the inevitable consequences of long-term inflation. Of course, the only thing they can do about it is what the US is in fact doing: inflate more.

All the bad behavior by Wall Street, the banks, and the other usual suspects was subsidized, hence encouraged, by the US government, whose partners in crime they were. (The US is massively subsidizing such behavior again, under the guise of "stimulus," i.e. direct transfer payments to the rich.)

How much of this is "capitalism" is a matter of semantics. I'm inclined to agree with Kevin Carson's "free-market anti-capitalism" formulation myself.

The collapse certainly has nothing to do with the markets being "too free." They've been manipulated every step of the way. Meanwhile it was the hard money and real free market types (not the neocons and their conjoined equally-evil twins, the neoliberals, passing off their mercantilism-warmed-over as "free markets) who predicted the meltdown all along.

Mainstream economists, who cheer-led the inflationary bubble and predicted it would expand forever, now tout the Bush/Obama Rich-Only Recovery as "green shoots." One wonders how much of this is innocent stupidity, and how much is paid.

The above is a slightly-edited version of a comment I dropped on John Robb's excellent Global Guerrillas blog. Robb is a most insightful and incisive writer on the continuing collapse of centralization. He really is a good guy, convinced he's doing good work - although he seems sadly unable to recognize that what he's really doing is struggling desperately to preserve centralized power for the ruling class by somehow incorporating decentralization into top-down hierarchy.

Fortunately for us all, that's self-contradictory, and thus can't work for any length of time (indeed in the longer term it hastens the very thing it's intended to forestall.) Unfortunately, by adopting some of his suggestions our rulers could inflict substantial additional harm on us. So it's fortunate they won't listen to him.

Ultimately, Robb makes the same mistake as everyone who uses "we" when they mean the United States: he thinks that means all of us, but it really means those who operate the government for their own private interests. Which is everyone involved in running it.

Postscript: if he's bothered reading any of the several comments I've left on his blog, Mr. Robb probably thinks I'm a total lunatic and dangerous. As a nameless North Vietnamese colonel allegedly said to Colonel Harry Summers, "That may be true, but it is also irrelevant."

Good one.

Given that what DeLong and Paul Krugman and their fascist troll ilk are peddling - economic "stimulus" and the nonsensical notion that we can spend ourselves rich - is nothing more than a slathering of whore's makeup over history’s greatest known transfer of wealth to the very wealthy. Which wealth, by the way, is going to be ripped off our bodies like skin, through the miracle of hyperinflation.

To be sure, the Republicans clamoring in opposition to the bailout are ethics free hacks. Leaving aside the fact that's a truism - nobody gets elected to national office without being one - let's recognize their stance for the cheap ploy it is. The Republicans know the American people are largely wise to the fact this is all egregious socialism for the rich (a tautology anyway); they're just pandering. Of course they favor the bailout: they're employed by the same people the Democrats are, and that isn't the voters.

And after all, the bailout was one of the final pet projects of George W. Bush.

This is a trick the Democrats have proven adept at: vocally opposing Bush's war against American liberties at home and todo lo mundo abroad - and then voting for every stinking scrap of it, from funding the war waged against Iraq in total opposition to US strategic interests, to the confirmation of whatever torture monkey the Busheviks threw up to be Attorney General. Few were more assiduous at that than the new puppetoon President - whose definition of change, you should be realizing now, means "more of the same, only bigger and harder."

It's possible the Republicans in Congress will make a show of voting against the transfer of wealth to their masters - in full knowledge it'll pass pretty much no matter what they do.

Certainly the Krugmans and DeLongs and all the rest of their choir are fascists - the polite term being Keynesians. The question is, are they idiotic enough to believe what they're saying? One almost hopes they're simply bought.

And that they had the sense to demand to be paid in the traditional silver.

Ethics-free hacks, indeed.

The good news is, the United States - the Empire - can't afford him either.

Of course the O-Bomber is a "post-partisan uniter," as reason puts it, snarkily and correctly. That's because there's no difference between the parties - not in practical terms. Not in terms of what they actually do.

Both parties do what governments are instituted among men to do: to preserve and increase the power, privilege, and profit of the ruling classes. What rational reason is there to suppose government would do anything but serve the interests of its proprietors?

And as if there was any doubt that, as I've told you before, "Change" means "More of the same, only harder and worse," recall that the newly anointed Dear Leader has voted for or otherwise endorsed pretty much all of the evil things his predecessor did - when he hasn't outdone him in militaristic zeal, as when he proved himself far to the right of even the rabidly anti-freedom Sarah Palin on issues like killing brown people in Afghanistan and Iran to make them better.

He endorsed war, torture, spying, and the real war which is being waged against American liberty - not to mention American property and American lives.

And most of all he, like his mentally-deficient sock puppet of a predecessor, vigorously supports a "bailout" of 8.5 trillion dollars, and rising. Which constitutes history's greatest known transfer of wealth to the very wealthy.

Make no mistake about it: under O-Bomber's management the US will become even more overtly fascistic: more madly avid to with impose the will of the Empire's rulers not just on foreigners, but on their American cattle. It's every bit as messianic and non-reality based as the last team.

That's why none of us can afford it. The plutocracy's icy grip will touch us, every one, in adverse and probably terrible ways.

But here's the good news - and granted, it's highly qualified. Dear plutocrats: you can't afford him either.

The government is beyond broke: it's tens of trillions in the hole. It can't afford the mad schemes it's carrying out now. And the plutocracy and its current puppet are deranged enough to desire to try doing far, far more of what they already can't.

We are witnessing the fall of Empires. Not just this one, but of the possibility of Empire. There's real hope.

Audacity too, if you like.

But it's going to hurt. Aside from the fact that our rulers and their overseers will do as much as possible to shift the pain to us - what is now called concentrating benefit and socializing loss (which is a thumbnail of what government does, after all) - the only arrow the State has left in its quiver now is hyperinflation. Which means: Zimbabwe here we come.

This will hurt. A lot. But it also means that the government cannot fulfill the promises it's made in the past, whether it's to enrich the rich and powerful under the guise of stimulus, to extend hegemony to the entire world, or to monitor our every action in real time. Much less the even more grandiose agenda of aggrandizement the plutocrats are going to announce through their shiny new mouthpiece. And are probably beginning to implement as I write. (I predict some hideous surprises right quick.)

They can't do it. They will only fail faster.

Prepare to duck.

And then prepare to live in a world which, while it will not be perfect, will be better: the world of freedom.

That, ultimately, is why the ruling class cannot afford their gaudy new front man: by carrying out their will he will cost them everything.

Here's a safe prediction:  by tomorrow a devout fascist will have been elected president.

Because that's all that's running. Of the two who have a chance, anyway.

Much may be made of election shenanigans: "rigged" votes, "stolen" votes. No doubt they'll happen; and no doubt fraudulent accusations will be made. It's crooks squabbling over the proceeds of crime. What different should we expect?

The national elections are a lot like the World Series:  there's vast money and perqs riding on the outcome, serious enough that people will kill and die over it; and you have no influence over the outcome, and the outcome means nothing practical for you.

Of course the elections are rigged. Long before the herd gets allowed to make its hoofmarks on ballots. Because by the time a candidate is anointed by one of the allegedly distinct parties, they've already been thoroughly vetted by the people who really rule us, whoever they may be. It literally doesn't matter to them who gets elected.

Either way, they win.

Guess who loses.

You don't believe me? Don't believe in "conspiracy theory"? (Ooh, do you have a mocking coming for that nonsensical non-thinking!)

Hope you loved the bailout. Both "bitter rivals" for Presidency did. So did the plutocrats who received the greatest single transfer of wealth from the many to the few in human history. And are continuing to reap more by the supertanker load. It's the gift that keeps on giving! And taking.

You've heard the bad news:  more fascism ahead (although it'll only be called that if McInsane wins the toss.) Now hear the worse.

It's being smugly predicted by the Government/Media Complex glossfaces that this'll be the biggest voter stampede in history. That's tragic. It'll mean people continue to buy the lie - when that spurious legitimacy is, functionally, all that government has. Remember:  no matter who you vote for, even if it's for a third party, a write-in, or a blank, you're voting for More of the Same. And you shall assuredly get it, good and hard. And so will the rest of us.

If you're actually still thinking about whether to go and endorse your enslavement, impoverishment, and quite likely physical destruction, here's a link to a last-hour plea for you not to be a wool-bearing even-toed ungulate from Alex Ryan's Fear of Freedom blog, entitled, tellingly, "Please don't vote". (Hat tip to the invaluable Wendy McElroy.)

Just say "bah." Instead of "baa."

This one's marketed as "the most important election in history." Which it is.  The winner's going to have a chance to preside over the implosion of the US empire.

And all he'll really have is a front row seat.

Sanctify Yer Slavery Day Update, 3:03:53 PM MST: Big corporations are bribing people to vote, regardless of whom for.

Still think your vote means anything?

Update, 8:03:56 PM: here's another perspective.

Judging from the evidence on his "Hooligan Libertarian" blog, Kent McManigal is another New Mexican, who lives in Clovis.

Our second hat tip to Wendy McElroy for this one.

Why, indeed?

Really, could he be any worse than McInsane or O'Bomber? How?

They both stand four-square for war, torture, domestic spying, and massive welfare for the rich. Or hadn't you noticed?

Anyway, click on the link to buy the swell shirt. I'm happy, at least, to be able to plug my pals Ray and Barb van Tilburg and their wonderful Offworld Designs. Ray's an excellent artist who does tee-shirt designs for a lot of Midwest cons, including Archon. Plus they have tons of non-con specific designs, such as the above, which are nifty and wicked clever.

Even if they're distressed by my usage of their design, if, like most people, they cherish the belief there's an actual difference between the sock puppet on Leviathan's left claw, and the one on His right.

But relax. It's nothing to the pain that your guy will cause if elected. No matter which he is.

(And then again ... not even a Great Old One can prevent the implosion of the Unitedstatesian Empire.)