I will enthusiastically join the Bulls when we replace a guaranteed-to-bankrupt-us Sickcare system and we rebalance the extreme asymmetries of Capital and Labor.
Being permanently bullish is profitable because "markets go up." This is more than enough reason to be permanently bullish, of course, but being persnickety, I prefer there actually being some economic basis for being bullish other than memes (markets go up, the Fed has our back, AI, super-abundance is all around us, etc.).
Some things I consider super-bullish are impossible. Two come to mind:
1. We collectively conclude Waste isn't "Growth" and start rewarding durability and repairability rather than planned obsolescence and the Everything is Disposable Landfill Economy.
2. Creating more "money" out of thin air isn't actually a "solution" to every problem.
But since these two delusions are the foundation of the status quo economy / financial realm, replacing the Waste is Growth landfill Economy and we print our way to prosperity with a non-delusional alternative isn't going to happen.
So let's turn to what's a longshot but maybe, just maybe, possible if a revolution of clear-eyed sanity sweeps the land and rationality replaces fantasy... OK, these are impossible, too.
1. Sickcare is replaced by a sustainable, affordable system of healthcare that rewards health rather than profiting from illness, disease, needless procedures, outright fraud, legalized fraud, denials of claims, paper-shuffling, etc. As I've noted for two decades, "healthcare" will bankrupt the nation all by itself.
Bankruptcy U.S.A.: Medicare, Greed and Collapse (July 5, 2006)
A Partial Answer to National Health Care (November 11, 2006)
Sickcare Will Bankrupt the Nation--And Soon (March 21, 2011)
There are solutions, but they're "impossible" because they would take away the bottomless federal feeding trough.
The "Impossible" Healthcare Solution: Go Back to Cash (July 29, 2009)
While we as a nation can sleepwalk into Sickcare-induced bankruptcy, private enterprises cannot go quietly off the fiscal cliff without some attempt at self-preservation. Looking at $30,000 a year in healthcare insurance costs for family coverage of every full-time employee--costs that just keeping soaring higher--employers are quite rationally salivating at the prospect of slashing headcount with AI agents, gig workers with zero benefits / health coverage using AI agents, low-cost offshore workers using AI agents, etc.
The entire Sickcare system has to be tossed in the dustbin of history so we can start over from scratch. "Reforms" are just cover stories for adding more cash to the federal feeding trough for those managing the "reforms" through the auction of political favors of Congress.
Fee for service worked when it was the customer paying and employers paid insurance policies for low-cost hospital care at local community-owned hospitals, but that model was junked as absurdly unprofitable and replaced by Corporate America's federally funded profit-harvester which chews through everything to maximize profits by any means available.
Why Healthcare Is in a Death Spiral: Follow the Money (December 1, 2025)
It's not that complicated, folks: either replace the current "healthcare" system or bankrupt the nation--and all the employers who don't replace employees with no-healthcare-insurance AI agents.
It really boils down to a simple choice: is "healthcare" just another profit-maximizing "opportunity" that's maximized by buying political influence, corrupting "scientific research" and creating cartels so there is no competition left, or should healthcare be about fostering a healthy way of living at the lowest possible expense via common-sense incentives for healthcare institutions, caregivers, employers, patients and our economy and culture to do whatever can be done at low cost to foster health by avoiding preventable / lifestyle illnesses and diseases, starting by recognizing the adverse health consequences of designed-to-be-addictive ultra-processed foods, social media, AI and smartphones?
A modest profit and higher compensation to reward improved productivity / results are common-sense incentives. But what we have today is a system that incentivizes maximizing profits by any means available, regardless of consequences. That is not a healthy incentive system, that is pathological psychosis masquerading as a healthy incentive system. If we can no longer tell the difference between the two, we're doomed to reap the consequences.
Or shall we be "bullish" on the profitability of Sickcare because the federal feeding trough is unlimited? That seems to be the consensus choice at the moment. That this is delusional is not a problem, because we print our way to prosperity. Uh, yeah, sure. And if that should fail--perish the thought--we can always borrow trillions of quatloos from the Central Bank of Mars.
The second more-or-less impossible change that would make me bullish is rebalancing the extreme asymmetry of Capital and Labor that favors Capital over Labor. Capital is taxed at low rates, labor is taxed at high rates--and that's just the start of the asymmetries favoring Capital over Labor.
AI is shorthand for Capital. So invest capital in AI, get rid of costly (taxpaying) employees, profits soar and the asymmetrical inequalities of wealth and power will skyrocket to new extremes.
Never mind robots aren't consumers; because we print our way to prosperity, we'll just print up a couple trillion dollars every few months to fund Universal Basic Income (UBI), so the millions of laid-off workers can stare at screens all day or write bad poetry and still buy, buy, buy to their heart's content, generating Corporate profits that only go up, and a stock market that only goes up.
Welcome to FantasyLand!
I will enthusiastically join the Bulls when we replace a guaranteed-to-bankrupt-us Sickcare system and we rebalance the extreme asymmetries of Capital and Labor. If we have no incentive to do so because markets go up and we print our way to prosperity, then we're inviting a reversal to extremes at the other end of the spectrum, where markets stop going up, Capital changes places with Labor and printing delivers ruin rather than prosperity.
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