Listen to my December 27, 2024 Alternative Visions radio show’s annual review of the critical events–economic & political, USA and global–for the past year. (Check out this coming Friday, January 3, 2025 show for my predictions for 2025). GO TO:
https://alternativevisions.podbean.com/e/alternative-visions-2024-year-in-review-show/
SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT
Today’s show is the annual year end summary of the more important events and developments for 2024 for the economy and politic: A review of the US economy inflation trends, Fed rate policies, US goods sector recession, USA’s runaway budget deficit and national debt, Longshore union negotiations, Artificial Intelligence & Tech trends, pending 2025 Austerity social program cuts & Musk’s DOGE, Biden sanctions on Russia and China, BRICS expansion, the state of Europe & China economies, and the emerging global currency instability as prices and US $ rise. Political review includes the US election of 2024, Trump’s victory, Biden’s coup & Democrat party confusion, and globally the War on the ground in Ukraine, Israel wars in Lebanon-Iran-Yemen, and the collapse of Syria and its consequences. (NEXT WEEK: Annual economic and political predictions for 2025 and review of last year’s predictions for 2024)
Dr. Jack Rasmus @drjackrasmus









The summary of the past year points to a deepening economic and political decline in the US deepens and it may help to place Jack Rasmus within the broader context of the history of ideas. Rasmus is not isolated within the straightjacket of a labor economist; rather he belongs to an ignored part of German economics which acknowledges that policies must change as economic circumstances change. Thus Rasmus ranges from the origins of US monetary policy by Alexander Hamilton to the looting of Greece by the EU to the Scourge of Neoliberalism.
The modern successful proponents of changing economic policies to meet changing economic challenges are exemplified by the Asian tigers whose economies race ahead of the US which remains mired in Neoliberal theology. The most articulate proponent of this strain of economic thought was Deng who famously said: “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, it only matters if the cat catches mice. “ Thus, the Asian tigers use an ever changing mix of state run and privately run enterprises to meet the every changing challenge of new circumstances. Meanwhile, the aging US economic cat, arthritic and suffering bouts of dementia, can only catch a mouse if it is thrown half dead in front of it. Rasmus has pointed out that the aging US economic cat failed to produce anything but meager results when about $10 trillion in fiscal and monetary spending was recently thrown at it.
But the linked danger of this tired theology, is that it “doubles down” as its economic policies fail and the US drifts downward into deeper decline. The response by failed theologies is not to wake up and smell the coffee but to engage in purges, which recalls the Spanish inquisition and Mao’s cultural revolution: both murdered thousands who did not toe the party line. So Spain and China continued to decline until the death of Mao and Franco. What Trump represents is not only the failure of Neoliberal theology but linked political purges: the attempted assassination of Nancy Pelosi is not a one off but a warning flare that more is to come: the Trumpsters are busily creating lists of “Libtards” who will either be dismissed, jailed, or worse. Thus it is his role as a flexible independent thinker that Rasmus points to a better direction—–unlike the vast majority of his contemporaries who wallow in the mental mud of the Fortune 500 and call decline prosperity.