charles hugh smith-The Neoliberal Financial Skim

If the Status Quo is ultimately a distribution system, as correspondent Simon H. proposes, then we should focus our attention on the inordinate share of the system's profits being distributed to the financial sector. Frequent contributor B.C. has ably captured this perfection of Neoliberal economic order in five charts.

The essence of neoliberalism is that a liberalized financial sector will efficiently regulate itself via market mechanisms and make more profitable use of capital than either the State or the non-financial sectors of the economy.

1. Get out of the way so the financial sector is free to enrich the nation with market-based allocation of capital

3. Reduce the State's skim of the economy so more of the national income flows to the private economy, where the financial sector's can allocate capital according to profit potential rather than the State's cronyism and/or political corruption.

This is the classic theory, but in practice the Neoliberal financial sector is the ultimate perfection of cronyism and political corruption, as the Central Bank and State protect the financial sector's vast skim of the national income with a combination of toothless regulations and regulations that are only enforced for purposes of percetpion management (see Soviet Show Trials).

When the aforementioned benign neglect is insufficient to divert the national income to the parasitic finance-rentier sector, then the Central Bank and State actively transfer taxpayer monies to the financial sector via tax breaks, loopholes, and massive direct and indirect subsidies.

With this context in mind, please look at the following charts to grasp the scope and scale of the State-protected financial sector skim:

Precisely what benefits from this gargantuan parasitic skim flow to the general good? Into whose pockets does this gargantuan parasitic skim flow? Hint: not the lower 90% of the American populace.

The perfection of the Neoliberal order is a parasitic financial sector protected by the Central Bank and State. That is the U.S. Status Quo in a nutshell.

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify or understand. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism and the elimination of accountability
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy
Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).
We are not powerless. Not accepting responsibility and being powerless are two sides of the same coin: once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

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