The casino economy is wild. Everything is a bet. Outcomes aren't even really registered or felt. They are just data.
Is financialized capitalism still capitalism or is it just what we are calling this thing we keep contributing to without understanding what it is? There's something deeper I can't quite name, almost like a disconnection from the physical world. People are taking medicine that makes them not want to eat (GLP-1s) or not feel (antidepressants etc.), living nearly entirely inside their phones and contacting a faceless void for insights into every aspect of their lives. Christianity without church seems to fit right in with this. Part of church is that feeling of community and the obligation of community (time and treasure), a grounding in the physical world.
totally - I definitely notice that disconnect bt digital and physical too. It's that friction idea I talked about a bit ago - just a weird dissonance and disinterest (which I think can be fixed)
in the work i do, i posit that the colonial mind (ideology, worldview, etc) is essentially a value system misaligned with nature. Therefore, it is anti-black, anti-woman, anti-human, anti-indigenous, anti-ecological and anti-animist. It's this last term that you are hinting at. Animism (the precursor to all religion that is not itself religious) is the integrated philosophy which humans have innately before it is colonized by the colonial value system.
Read some Ken Wilber. You’ll find that the animist level of consciousness is just one among many in the development of consciousness, and reducing everything to that level is just as dumb as any other form of reductionism.
What you are referring to with the “colonial mind” is also itself a stage of consciousness, which comes after animism (it destroys animism) but before the religious stage.
Every stage of consciousness is basically, at a deep level, a guess about how the world works. As you or your society develop up through the stages, your worldview becomes more and more complex and nuanced and all-encompassing of reality and what matters. Low stages of consciousness are deeply incomplete and crude, which leads them to either miss out on most of reality (e.g. the animists) or come into conflict with everything (the conquest stage).
The i- and k-shaped economies feel like an inadequate descriptor. I propose “j” wherein the dot is the 1% you spoke of and the balance are below the line or even going backwards a bit.
I am reminded of one of Warren Buffet’s last sermons, for lack of a better term, of how he was worried (at the start of 2025, I believe) of how the American economy was swinging too far to the casino end and away from the cathedral end. At what point will this economy start to swing back?
"The US is also paying troops (which is good and everyone in the government should get paid)"
I disagree and am a bit surprised this move isn't getting more attention. Military appropriations is part of Congress's purse-strings power and a foundational check on executive authority. Even if defense spending is mostly a rubber stamp these days (and even if Congress is totally abdicating its role in power-checking), for Trump circumvent this is, to my mind, as big a breach as him deploying state militias to other states.
Perhaps the government should re-open, but having lived and worked in the DC area I defiantly think most of those jobs should be eliminated and I’m glad they’re not getting paid. Hopefully they permanently quit and their jobs are eliminated.
Paying troops and other people with real jobs is fine.
Exceptional insight, as always. I think the most cutting phrase in here is when you mention that the decisions being made are about priorities, not constraints.
While almost all people would prioritize a growing and healthy economy in which the government simply plays the referee, it is worth calling out that the current administration (and a growing number of the public) simply disagree. Economic growth or health is not even a political consideration. The only consideration is making sure their chosen group or leader is able to stand above institutions and receives preferential treatment. These people are content with wrecking the economy as long as they can organize society in the way they see fit.
Long term, my biggest concern is monetary policy. I am afraid of the United States going the way of Turkey when it comes to monetary policy where experts are replaced by sycophants.
can someone make the casino less fun for the dealers? like by stopping trumpcoin, world liberty financial, etc., from generating billions of dollars of bullshit income for a family of grifters?
I've been saying this for years: the ladders of success that have been in place since the end of WW2 (at least for white middle-class kids and aspired to by everyone else) have been kicked away, and the promise of AI (not actual AI, which is crap at its job) are tearing out what rungs are left or causing the rich to pull up the ladders behind them. It's great to have actual data to back up my impressions.
there's heaps of data that shows productivity and GDP growth going along just fine and the bottom 40/50% going sideways. The business leaders and the business press cheer squad keep saying we need to lift productivity to grow the pie, no, they need to stop taking a greater and greater share
Great analysis! It has been interesting to watch how industries that have a lower propensity for financialization (meaning they have to be connected to the physical world), like energy, are responding to the speculative bets of AI. We’re seeing unbelievably high estimates of demand growth and soaring prices. Utilities and regulators are responding by squeezing out new supply (undervaluing renewables and cutting tax credits) and over-incentivizing data centers because they want to win the race too (more load = higher returns). I think we will see long term price increases because we are overbuilding new gas assets to meet inflated demand projects which will crowd out renewables when the bubble pops. Curious if you have seen anything on this topic!
“When belief itself becomes transactional, risk stops feeling like a financial concept and starts feeling like a moral one. People don’t just gamble with money anymore; they gamble with time, attention, identity - anything that might yield security or a sense of control. The markets are only the macro version of that instinct.”
Thank you for articulating my thoughts that I couldn’t find the right words for over the past few months until now. Great read
I hate what the government and the stock market have chosen to prioritize over sensible policies. If the AI bubble pops, this’ll be the fourth financial crash in my lifetime. We keep ending up at this point over and over again but with less guardrails and even riskier gambits each time it happens.
All that matters is making the obscenely rich even richer and making companies look like they’re always growing. Lying, cheating, destroying institutions, selling out infrastructure, and turning functional services into barely usable crap is all well and good as long as the numbers keep getting higher.
"Illinois wants to exempt homeowners who’ve lived in their houses 30+ years." Ehhhhh....yea a few state senators did introduce a bill to that effect. That's all though -- it hasn't gone anywhere (not even a committee hearing) and does not have the endorsement of any legislative leaders nor the governor.
Lots of make-a-nice-campaign-soundbite bills are introduced in every legislative session, everywhere, which are DOA and everybody involved knows it. Illinois regarding property taxes doesn't seem much similar to the Florida effort which involves the state's governor and his party's legislative leaders.
Faith + 1, the rich getting richer has been a thing since Reagan Thatcher nomics, it's just accelerated the last 10 yrs, the GFC was probably the thing that kickstarted it, socialism for the rich.
We should just have a UBI but good luck getting that in the US of A
Rather than using new terms I think market dependence and Market imperatives are how I see today's economy and why the markets or capitalism has gotten into everything.
First everything is a market now. Everything is a commodity. There fewer and fewer systems or institutions in America that insulate us from the market. Need health care? Gotta have insurance from the insurance market. Need a house? Think again because you'll be competing against investors looking for more assets. Need food? Think again because farming doesn't grow food, it grows commodities(we grow some food but the ratio is insane). Need Money? Think again because the labor market is depressed to the extent that its almost impossible to find one amongst the ghost jobs and unlivable pay most offer.
The list goes on. Making us dependent on the market is what Capitalism does, now that its completely isolated us from our communities where we live there is no floor to how far we'll sink as they continue to revel in their riches of exploitation.
Capitalism wants to turn everything into a market and will continue to look for ways to exploit people. This is exacerbated by the ease of new technologies and systems to fake income, like the circular deals with the top AI companies.
They've given up industrial capitalism's inherent realness to play in a world of appearances, a post-fact world where anything can be conjured up in spreadsheets that become reality. The economy is built on this fakeness, and it has now finally invaded our government.
The casino economy is wild. Everything is a bet. Outcomes aren't even really registered or felt. They are just data.
Is financialized capitalism still capitalism or is it just what we are calling this thing we keep contributing to without understanding what it is? There's something deeper I can't quite name, almost like a disconnection from the physical world. People are taking medicine that makes them not want to eat (GLP-1s) or not feel (antidepressants etc.), living nearly entirely inside their phones and contacting a faceless void for insights into every aspect of their lives. Christianity without church seems to fit right in with this. Part of church is that feeling of community and the obligation of community (time and treasure), a grounding in the physical world.
totally - I definitely notice that disconnect bt digital and physical too. It's that friction idea I talked about a bit ago - just a weird dissonance and disinterest (which I think can be fixed)
in the work i do, i posit that the colonial mind (ideology, worldview, etc) is essentially a value system misaligned with nature. Therefore, it is anti-black, anti-woman, anti-human, anti-indigenous, anti-ecological and anti-animist. It's this last term that you are hinting at. Animism (the precursor to all religion that is not itself religious) is the integrated philosophy which humans have innately before it is colonized by the colonial value system.
Fine, I'll say it; this sounds like nonsense.
doesnt matter what you think.
Read some Ken Wilber. You’ll find that the animist level of consciousness is just one among many in the development of consciousness, and reducing everything to that level is just as dumb as any other form of reductionism.
What you are referring to with the “colonial mind” is also itself a stage of consciousness, which comes after animism (it destroys animism) but before the religious stage.
Every stage of consciousness is basically, at a deep level, a guess about how the world works. As you or your society develop up through the stages, your worldview becomes more and more complex and nuanced and all-encompassing of reality and what matters. Low stages of consciousness are deeply incomplete and crude, which leads them to either miss out on most of reality (e.g. the animists) or come into conflict with everything (the conquest stage).
I dont care about kenny’s ripped off theory from jean gebser who did it better in the first place anyway.
So youve read wilber and gebser but still said what you said? might wanna read them again, seems like you didnt get it.
“…which is cool because I totally forgot there was a third branch of government.”
LOL… zing!
The i- and k-shaped economies feel like an inadequate descriptor. I propose “j” wherein the dot is the 1% you spoke of and the balance are below the line or even going backwards a bit.
I like that
I am reminded of one of Warren Buffet’s last sermons, for lack of a better term, of how he was worried (at the start of 2025, I believe) of how the American economy was swinging too far to the casino end and away from the cathedral end. At what point will this economy start to swing back?
he's usually correct. I don't know to be honest.
"The US is also paying troops (which is good and everyone in the government should get paid)"
I disagree and am a bit surprised this move isn't getting more attention. Military appropriations is part of Congress's purse-strings power and a foundational check on executive authority. Even if defense spending is mostly a rubber stamp these days (and even if Congress is totally abdicating its role in power-checking), for Trump circumvent this is, to my mind, as big a breach as him deploying state militias to other states.
sorry! I wasn't clear- the government should REOPEN and everyone should get paid. it is not good that they are getting paid illegally.
Perhaps the government should re-open, but having lived and worked in the DC area I defiantly think most of those jobs should be eliminated and I’m glad they’re not getting paid. Hopefully they permanently quit and their jobs are eliminated.
Paying troops and other people with real jobs is fine.
Correct!
What's in a name? Our last two presidents, (Bid)en and Trump, a couple card game words.
the universe loves a good satire.
Exceptional insight, as always. I think the most cutting phrase in here is when you mention that the decisions being made are about priorities, not constraints.
While almost all people would prioritize a growing and healthy economy in which the government simply plays the referee, it is worth calling out that the current administration (and a growing number of the public) simply disagree. Economic growth or health is not even a political consideration. The only consideration is making sure their chosen group or leader is able to stand above institutions and receives preferential treatment. These people are content with wrecking the economy as long as they can organize society in the way they see fit.
Long term, my biggest concern is monetary policy. I am afraid of the United States going the way of Turkey when it comes to monetary policy where experts are replaced by sycophants.
can someone make the casino less fun for the dealers? like by stopping trumpcoin, world liberty financial, etc., from generating billions of dollars of bullshit income for a family of grifters?
I've been saying this for years: the ladders of success that have been in place since the end of WW2 (at least for white middle-class kids and aspired to by everyone else) have been kicked away, and the promise of AI (not actual AI, which is crap at its job) are tearing out what rungs are left or causing the rich to pull up the ladders behind them. It's great to have actual data to back up my impressions.
there's heaps of data that shows productivity and GDP growth going along just fine and the bottom 40/50% going sideways. The business leaders and the business press cheer squad keep saying we need to lift productivity to grow the pie, no, they need to stop taking a greater and greater share
Great analysis! It has been interesting to watch how industries that have a lower propensity for financialization (meaning they have to be connected to the physical world), like energy, are responding to the speculative bets of AI. We’re seeing unbelievably high estimates of demand growth and soaring prices. Utilities and regulators are responding by squeezing out new supply (undervaluing renewables and cutting tax credits) and over-incentivizing data centers because they want to win the race too (more load = higher returns). I think we will see long term price increases because we are overbuilding new gas assets to meet inflated demand projects which will crowd out renewables when the bubble pops. Curious if you have seen anything on this topic!
“When belief itself becomes transactional, risk stops feeling like a financial concept and starts feeling like a moral one. People don’t just gamble with money anymore; they gamble with time, attention, identity - anything that might yield security or a sense of control. The markets are only the macro version of that instinct.”
Thank you for articulating my thoughts that I couldn’t find the right words for over the past few months until now. Great read
Bazinga!
“why build or invent when you can just optimize?”
Thanks for your insight as always.
I hate what the government and the stock market have chosen to prioritize over sensible policies. If the AI bubble pops, this’ll be the fourth financial crash in my lifetime. We keep ending up at this point over and over again but with less guardrails and even riskier gambits each time it happens.
All that matters is making the obscenely rich even richer and making companies look like they’re always growing. Lying, cheating, destroying institutions, selling out infrastructure, and turning functional services into barely usable crap is all well and good as long as the numbers keep getting higher.
"Illinois wants to exempt homeowners who’ve lived in their houses 30+ years." Ehhhhh....yea a few state senators did introduce a bill to that effect. That's all though -- it hasn't gone anywhere (not even a committee hearing) and does not have the endorsement of any legislative leaders nor the governor.
Lots of make-a-nice-campaign-soundbite bills are introduced in every legislative session, everywhere, which are DOA and everybody involved knows it. Illinois regarding property taxes doesn't seem much similar to the Florida effort which involves the state's governor and his party's legislative leaders.
Faith + 1, the rich getting richer has been a thing since Reagan Thatcher nomics, it's just accelerated the last 10 yrs, the GFC was probably the thing that kickstarted it, socialism for the rich.
We should just have a UBI but good luck getting that in the US of A
Rather than using new terms I think market dependence and Market imperatives are how I see today's economy and why the markets or capitalism has gotten into everything.
First everything is a market now. Everything is a commodity. There fewer and fewer systems or institutions in America that insulate us from the market. Need health care? Gotta have insurance from the insurance market. Need a house? Think again because you'll be competing against investors looking for more assets. Need food? Think again because farming doesn't grow food, it grows commodities(we grow some food but the ratio is insane). Need Money? Think again because the labor market is depressed to the extent that its almost impossible to find one amongst the ghost jobs and unlivable pay most offer.
The list goes on. Making us dependent on the market is what Capitalism does, now that its completely isolated us from our communities where we live there is no floor to how far we'll sink as they continue to revel in their riches of exploitation.
Capitalism wants to turn everything into a market and will continue to look for ways to exploit people. This is exacerbated by the ease of new technologies and systems to fake income, like the circular deals with the top AI companies.
They've given up industrial capitalism's inherent realness to play in a world of appearances, a post-fact world where anything can be conjured up in spreadsheets that become reality. The economy is built on this fakeness, and it has now finally invaded our government.