Is This the Last Bubble?

The consensus holds there will be another bubble after the Everything Bubble pops, but this might be misplaced confidence in the godlike powers of central banks.

The consensus holds that central banks--the Federal Reserve in the US--will gradually inflate away the world's rising debt burden while propping up assets and the economy with the usual bag of monetary magic: suppress interest rates so debt service costs ease, increase the money supply and credit to prop up asset bubbles in stocks and housing, and thereby generate growth in consumption via the elixir of "the wealth effect:" as assets loft higher, everyone feels richer and so they borrow and spend more.

Well, not everyone, because only the top 10% own enough assets to feel "the wealth effect," but since they account for 50% of all consumer spending, that's enough to maintain the status quo, in which the bottom 90% lose ground (especially the bottom 60%) and the top 10% are doing splendidly.

Should the bubble du jour pop, no worries, central banks will rush to the rescue as they have for 25 years, goosing money supply and credit, opening the floodgates of liquidity, pushing interest rates down so everyone and every entity can borrow and spend / speculate more, more, more.

This is a nice story, and proponents have the past 25 years of history to back it up. But beneath the surface appeal of this story--a Hollywood ending every time, as the Fed will inflate another bubble, one after the other in an endless loop--there are stirrings in the deep that suggest the Everything Bubble is the last bubble of its kind, and attempts to inflate another bubble when this one pops will collapse the entire rickety contraption.

In other words, everything is forever until it is no more. Let's consider some points that speak to the nature of speculative bubbles.

1. Speculative bubbles don't require central banks increasing money supply and manipulating interest rates. Recency bias leads us to imagine that central bank policies inflate and pop speculative bubbles via monetary levers, but the colossal South Seas Bubble in 1720 that popped with such devastating consequences arose and fell in the pre-central bank era. The madness of crowds--or more specifically, the greed-driven madness of greedy crowds is the core driver of speculative frenzies / bubbles.

2. Confidence is the foundation of speculative frenzies. Yes, confidence, as in a con. Back in 1720, the South Seas Company was supported by the establishment, and so confidence was high that it was a can't lose proposition. The riches skimmed by early investors encouraged this confidence.

Today, confidence that the Fed will rush to the rescue should the Everything Bubble pop is high, as is the confidence that the AI Bubble isn't a bubble because AI is going to change everything and that transformation will be immensely profitable--if not for the gold miners, then for those selling the miners picks and shovels.

3. Quasi-religious fervor, confidence, staggering gains and speculative frenzies all meld into one overflowing river, sweeping all before it. The primary force here is the belief that this isn't irrational, or speculative--it's all based on solid facts. That this was the exact same belief that powered bubbles in 1720, 1925-1929, 1998-2000 and 2004-2008 is brushed aside, for as we all know, this time it's different. Of course it is, but perhaps not in the way that the consensus anticipates.

Just as a break from all the fun and games, let's consider a chart of M2 money supply, generally conceded as the driver of stocks rising, and compare it to GDP--a measure of economic expansion--and the S&P 500 stock index (SPX).



It's interesting to note the ratio of M2 and GDP. That money supply and economic expansion would rise together qualifies as common sense, but what makes this interesting is the slippage in the ratio.

For two decades, GDP was roughly double M2. In 1981, M2 was $1.6 trillion and GDP was $3.1 trillion. In 2001, M2 was $5 trillion and GDP was $10.5 trillion. So far so good.

In Q1 2009, at the bottom of the stock market crash / Global Financial Crisis, there was bit of slippage: M2 was $8.4 trillion and GDP was $14.4 trillion--no longer 1 to 2.

By the pre-Covid high watermark of Q1 2020, M2 was $15.5 trillion and GDP was $21.7 trillion. After the Covid crash and stimulus, here in Q2 2025 M2 is $22.1 trillion and GDP is $30.3 trillion-- 1 to 1.37.

There's a phrase that describes this: diminishing returns. Goosing money supply is no longer goosing GDP to the same degree it once did.

Meanwhile, back in Speculative Frenzy-Land, the SPX is up 10X, from the biblical low in Q1 2009 of 666 to today's high of 6660 (well, 6656, but close enough).

This suggests that the means of boosting GDP is now inflating bubbles, not actual economic activity. This is supported by the chart of money velocity, which is a measure of economic transactions across time. It's generally conceded that money velocity increases in good times and decays in not-to-good times. Here we see that money velocity has fallen off a cliff and never recovered the glory days of widespread, organically expanding economic activity.



It is not coincidental that the peak of money velocity in the mid-1990s Internet boom aligns with the peak of wage growth and the bottom 50%'s share of financial net worth. Simply put, the 1990s were the last era of widespread prosperity of the sort that actually "trickled down" to the bottom 90%. This was also the last era in which housing was broadly affordable to households with average incomes.



Saying that money velocity is an indicator of economic catastrophe doesn't go over well in polite company, but there it is. Somebody barfed in the punchbowl, sorry about that.

Lastly, consider this chart of debt and growth in the US, courtesy of Tim Morgan of the invaluable analytic site Surplus Energy Economics. Note that the blue indicators of growth are considerably smaller than the red indicators of debt.



Put all this together and it's clear that stock market and housing bubbles are the only sources of "growth," which is another way of saying that "growth" is a chimera masking the second-order effect of goosing money supply, credit, debt and speculative asset bubbles: extremes of wealth and income inequality as the top 10%'s wealth, income and spending have soared while the bottom 90% have fallen behind.



Consider the possibility that the AI Bubble is a close match for the 1720 South Seas Bubble, a bubble that sucked in the smart money (Sir Isaac Newton) and dumb money alike, and then collapsed in spectacular fashion wiping out true believers, gamblers, Wise Men and the credulous--everyone who participated other than those who sold early and stayed out as the bubble inflated to giddy heights. Due to the limitations of Wetware 1.0, the number of people who can manage to do that is so small that it's signal noise.

The consensus holds there will be another bubble after the AI Bubble / Everything Bubble pops, but this might be misplaced confidence in the godlike powers of central banks. If the Fed just gooses money supply, credit and crushes interest rates, the next bubble might be in the 2028 equivalent of Pet Rocks or Beanie Babies, it won't matter. There will always be another bubble because the Fed wills it to be so.

Or perhaps the limits of this serial bubble-blowing have already been reached, and this is the last, final bubble before the reckoning where the banquet of consequences has been set and Nemesis is catering what's served.


Check out my new book Ultra-Processed Life and my updated Books and Films.

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My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) audiobook     Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $16, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $15, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $15 print, $6.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $6.95, print $16, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $6.95, print $15, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $3.95, print $12, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $3.95 Kindle, $12 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


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The Moral Decay of Debt

Debt has moral implications, and in denying this, we're choosing a rendezvous with Nemesis

Let's start with a household analogy. A married couple have four fine children, and since expenses are higher than income, they borrow money in their children's names to fund their lifestyle and investments. Once the offspring reach 18 years of age, the debt their parents borrowed is theirs to service.

The offspring didn't get a say in how much money was borrowed or how it was spent, but the debt is now theirs to service (i.e. pay the interest) for their entire lifetimes, as the debt is simply too large to pay off with conventional wages.

The economy changed, and since wages don't go as far and costs keep rising, the four offspring borrow in their own children's names to afford the basics of a middle-class life.

The parents are now comfortably retired, drawing on their investments bought with borrowed money. The two generations behind them are now debt-serfs who funded their own lifestyles by borrowing even more money. Since the kind of house their parents bought for 3-times-income is now 6-times-income, the debt required to own a house and fund what is considered the minimum middle-class entitlements is multiples of their parents' borrowing.

Is anyone willing to call this offloading of ever-expanding debt onto future generations wrong, as in morally wrong, or have we lost the vocabulary and ability to declare the offloading of debt as morally disgraceful, a line that should never have been crossed?

Debt that cannot be extinguished and that is offloaded onto future generations is a manifestation of moral decay, a decay of the moral foundations of the economy and society that is terminal.

So here we are, cheering on a big reduction in the Fed Funds Rate to encourage an expansion of debt, as more debt means more spending and that means more taxes and corporate profits. The manipulation of interest rates and the financial machinery to encourage more debt is viewed as bloodless, absolutely devoid of moral judgment: when it comes to "growth" of asset prices, spending, taxes and profits, there is no wrong, as "growth" is the only good anyone cares about.

This is the perfection of moral decay. Offloading debt onto future generations--money borrowed to prop up a self-serving status quo that focused on expediencies, not future consequences--and then telling the debt-enslaved generations, "we'll inflate away the debt, and your wages will buy less and less, but no worries, we'll just borrow more to pay the interest due"--how is this not morally repulsive?

Here is Federal debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is a better measure of consequences, for it illustrates the Federal government's ability to counter a deep recession by borrowing and spending trillions of dollars is now limited by extreme debt levels.



Those who track the history of government debt generally draw the red-line at 100% of GDP, so 120% is already deep in the danger zone. History is rather decisive: any attempt to add trillions in additional debt at these levels has zero chance of working as intended, i.e. a pain-free way to boost "growth."

Note the debt-to-GDP ratio actually declined during both the stagflationary 1970s and the 1990s Internet boom. In both eras, the economy was still largely organic, i.e. unmanipulated enough that natural forces (supply, demand, risk aversion, writedowns of bad debt, etc.) could work through excesses of speculation and debt and restore not just balance sheets but legitimacy.

The Federal Reserve no longer trusted the system's self-correcting capacity and leaped into full-blown manipulation of financial and mortgage markets in 2008-09. The debt-to-FDP ratio soared from 60% to 100% in the post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC) "save" of the Federal Reserve, which inflated the money supply and pushed ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) and QE (quantitative easing) to boost borrowing.

As a result, private-sector borrowing also skyrocketed. Now that households and enterprises have borrowed up to their capacity to service debt, their ability to "borrow their way to prosperity" is also constrained.

Here is total debt, public and private (TCMDO). In Q2 1975, total debt was $2.5 trillion. If this had tracked inflation, it would have reached $15 trillion by Q2 2025. ($1 in Q2 1975 is $6 in Q2 2025.) (BLS Inflation Calculator)



Let's say that debt can double the rate of inflation if it's being invested productively. That would put today's total debt at $30 trillion.

But total debt isn't close to $30 trillion; it's $104 trillion and climbing, suggesting 70+ trillion is "excess debt." As for all this borrowed money being invested productively--given "waste is growth" planned obsolescence and rampant asset appreciation / speculation, it seems obvious that most of this borrowed money was consumed by ephemeral products and services or squandered chasing asset bubbles.

Debt has implicit moral implications, and in denying this, we're choosing a rendezvous with Nemesis--a rendezvous with Destiny that will be arranged by Nemesis, not the Federal Reserve or the Treasury.

Yes, debt can be productive, but it can also be exploitive, and therein lies the moral implications. Debt can never be amoral or bloodless; its moral nature cannot be extinguished. We appear to be destined to discover this truth the hard way.


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My recent books:

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Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) audiobook     Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $16, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $15, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $15 print, $6.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $6.95, print $16, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $6.95, print $15, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $3.95, print $12, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $3.95 Kindle, $12 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

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Precarity and the Point of No Return

Or maybe it's just me, and all is well. Time will tell.

I often wonder if others feel the precarity of this era, or is it just me? It's hard to tell, as economic statistics don't measure precarity, they mostly measure averages and aggregates, all of which are glowing: GDP and profits up, unemployment low, and so on.

If precarity makes the news, it's the financial precarity experienced by many American households as costs rise and wages don't keep up, regardless of what the aggregate statistics are indicating.

This precarity is real, but it's not what's being featured. It's reflected in mirrors, not in headlines. In this mirror, we see millions of people pursuing side hustles and crowding into speculative casinos. If this isn't a reflection of desperation, it's something close to it. But this isn't news.

The precarity extends into the realms of public trust. Expertise backed by credentials--presented as evidence the public could trust the credentialed experts to serve the public interest with disinterested competence--have been eroded by self-interest. Public trust is as precarious as household budgets.

Faith in our future prospects is equally precarious. We're presented with an endless series of science-fiction fantasies brought to life--flying motorcycles, driverless taxis, household robots, energy so cheap we won't even bother metering it--but the mirror is reflecting a much different future, one of precarity, uncertainty and decay of what can't be measured like GDP or profits.

We all sense when we've reached a Point of No Return, a river like the Rubicon that should we cross it, there's no going back. There's another type of Point of No Return: the point in the journey where we realize we no longer have the resources to retrace our steps and return to the safety of what we left behind.

At this point, we can only go forward into an uncertain future, one without guarantees and one in which trust is diminishing as steadily as the water in our canteen. This is when the temptation to grasp at straws and seek scapegoats looms large, and the potential of losing our grip is a greater threat that the unknowns ahead.

There's a bad moon rising, and this makes our journey forward more precarious. We like to believe we're in control of our destiny, but the world around us has its own destiny, and we're making choices on a stage with its own gearing.



The gearing of precarity is guiding the machine, whether we're aware of it or not. I fear for the nation, as the journey ahead is faintly illuminated by a bad moon rising. I fear the dwindling sandbar between the raging currents of partisanship will disappear beneath my feet.



Or maybe it's just me, and all is well. Time will tell.


Check out my new book Ultra-Processed Life and my updated Books and Films.

Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com

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My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) audiobook     Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $16, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $15, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $15 print, $6.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $6.95, print $16, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $6.95, print $15, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $3.95, print $12, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $3.95 Kindle, $12 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

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"Upgrade Now" To Get What Was Previously Included At No Extra Charge

In this realm of extraction, exploitation, artifice and illusion, "growth" is garbage.

Tube of toothpaste: $4. Tube of toothpaste with cap: $5. You may reckon this is an exaggeration of the trend to coercing us to "upgrade now" to get what was previously included at no extra charge, but rest assured some marketing maven is reading this and thinking, hey, this is brilliant: we can make the cap leak or fall off, and then offer a Premium version with the cap they currently get for no extra charge.

We're being dimed to death by "Upgrade Now" to get what we once received at no extra charge. As I note in my new book Ultra-Processed Life, it's now impossible to parody the excesses of "upgrade now to Premium" because they're already self-parodying.

I didn't say nickel and dimed to death because inflation has already consumed the nickel. As costs soar, the nagging to "upgrade now to Premium" only intensifies.

The US Postal Service now offers Premium Tracking for a few extra dollars. When did regular tracking become so deficient that we now need Premium Tracking?

Airlines have squeezed more seats into the coach class to immiserate passengers to the point that they cave in and pay extra for an extra comfort seat which is only slightly more roomy than the standard coach seats of the 1980s.

The software you could buy once and use for years is now a subscription-only service. This is of course what Cory Doctorow has aptly called ensh*tification, the process of snaring customers which high-value offerings that are degraded once the hook has been set. Now that the sunk costs of switching are painful, the corporation squeezes more cash out of the immiserated customer.

If ensh*tification doesn't work, Corporate America doubles down with outright coercion and deception. Mr. Softee (MSFT, Microsoft) is a master of the this process. For example, the unwary customer discovers everything they've been saving hasn't been saved to their own drive; it's been saved to Mr. Softee's OneDrive, and guess what, Honored Customer, your OneDrive is now full and you need to pony up monthly cash to expand your OneDrive capacity.

As for transferring all your saved data from OneDrive to the drive you own, fuhgeddaboudit-baby, no dice.

In a similar fashion, every digital action now launches a nag to "upgrade to Premium." Do you want to schedule a bulk email to be sent later? Now that requires upgrading to Premium. The virus scan found a gazillion trackers that could be threatening everything you hold dear, but now the standard antivirus software doesn't fix that problem, you're prompted to upgrade to Premium to protect your precious digital life.

When did Corporate America veer so close to bankruptcy that it must now squeeze a few more dollars out of every customer lest it dry up and blow away? Well garsh, poor Corporate America must be barely scraping by. But if we look at corporate profits, they're at record highs, far above where they'd be if they'd only tracked inflation.



The propaganda of "free markets" promised that corporations would seek higher profits by increasing the value of products and services and reducing prices. The opposite is what's actually true: corporations are maximizing profits by reducing the durability and value of products and services and relentlessly immiserating customers to herd us into paying more for what we once received at no extra charge.

Let's call this what it actually is: the garbage time of history, a travesty of a mockery of a sham of "value," a ruthless exploitation of trapped consumers, who are already being bled dry as either debt-serfs or tax donkeys, or if particularly unlucky, both debt-serfs and tax donkeys.

In this realm of extraction, exploitation, artifice and illusion, "growth" is garbage.



The Garbage Time of History Is Global (9/5/25)


Check out my new book Ultra-Processed Life and my updated Books and Films.

Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com

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My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) audiobook     Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $16, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $15, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $15 print, $6.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $6.95, print $16, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $6.95, print $15, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $3.95, print $12, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $3.95 Kindle, $12 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

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NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.

Thank you, Larry M. ($200), for your beyond-outrageously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.		Thank you, Robert S. ($70), for your marvelously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Thank you, Wandering Minstreli ($7/month), for your superbly generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Thank you, XX ($7/month), for your splendidly generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Read more...

The Garbage Time of History Is Global

The key insight of "let it rot" and "the garbage time of history" is the inauthenticity of all "reforms."

The Chinese culture has a rich trove of apt, often humorous expressions that summarize a situation with imaginative metaphors. For example, let it rot (bai lan) summarizes the realization that the present era is the garbage time of history (lishi de laji shijian), and the appropriate response is to "actively embrace a deteriorating situation, rather than trying to turn it around."

The garbage time of history was "coined by essayist Hu Wenhui, that describes a period of prolonged societal decline or stagnation where a nation's system is no longer viable but hasn't collapsed, characterized by individuals being powerless and the future being set on a downward trajectory. The term is a metaphor for the final, inconsequential minutes of a sports game where the outcome is already decided, and any effort is futile."

The garbage time of history is not unique to China; the entire world is mired in the garbage time of history because we're all enmeshed in financial and globalized feedbacks and tightly bound subsystems that are the gearing of the world-system.

The gearing can't be changed, as that might disrupt those gorging at the money-trough, so cause-and-effect are limited to garbage in, garbage out: inputs are modified for show, spectacles are performed as a substitute for substance, and illusory solutions are batted around, as if the core problem is "money" rather than the gearing of the system.

The problems are far deeper than "money." A system geared for "growth at any cost" finds real advancement is limited, so a pretense of growth is favored: growth of "money," growth of gamed statistics, growth of waste, etc.

Since the gearing is fundamentally financial, everything else is for show. For example, "healthcare" in the U.S. is an extractive financial machine which operates behind a screen of providing medicine. Big Tech is an extractive financial machine operating behind a screen of search, social media and AI agents. Higher education is an extractive financial machine operating behind a screen of research, virtue-signaling and going through the motions of offering coursework and credentials.

The key insight of let it rot and the garbage time of history is the inauthenticity of all "reforms", as the "reforms" never change the gearing of the machine, they only modify the garbage being fed into the machine.

The score is Extractive Financial Machine, 103, Workers, Customers and Citizens, 17. There's four seconds left, so by all means launch the ball from 3-point land, and as spectacular as a bucket at the buzzer would be, it won't change the outcome of the garbage time of history.



The whole point of "reforms" is to leave the gearing unchanged behind a gaudy show of going through the motions of reforms that change nothing.


Check out my new book Ultra-Processed Life and my updated Books and Films.

Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com

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My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) audiobook     Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $16, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $15, (Kindle $6.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $15 print, $6.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $6.95, print $16, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

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Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
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The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $3.95 Kindle, $12 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

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