Today’s show focuses on the Neocon/Trump strategy to escalate the war with Russia. Why the August 2025 Anchorage agreement between Trump and Putin was just a PR event. And why Trump’s MOU with Iran last month was also just a tactical deception as well. The Empire’s two forever wars now continue. What’s behind the recent gains by Social Democrats in recent Dem party primaries and how both the Dem party leaders and Trump are gearing up to stop it.
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While the capitalist system has undergone numerous restructurings throughout its history, capitalist elites purpose in restructuring has remained the same: to restore and/or extend their hegemony. The current restructuring, operative since 1978, is called Neoliberalism. The book examines Neoliberalism as both an Idea and an historical practice composed of a particular mix of fiscal-monetary-trade-industrial policies that began with the latest US capitalist restructuring in the late 1970s, continuing to evolve to this day. The book further explains the deeper material forces giving rise to - as well as now undermining - the Neoliberal policy regime, with special focus given to the crisis of Neoliberalism in the wake of the 2008-09 global crash, Obama's failure to resurrect it, and Trump's current doomed effort to restore it in a new, more aggressive form. Evidence why Neoliberalism is destroying US Democracy concludes the book's analysis.
NEW BOOK
Describes how US federal governments, often in cooperation with the largest US private banks, introduced and expanded central banking functions from 1781 through the creation of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Based on an analysis of the evolution of the US banking system - from pre-1781, through the 1787 US Constitutional Convention, Congressional debates on Hamilton's reports to Congress, the rise and fall of the 1st and 2nd Banks of the United States, and through the long period of the National Banking System form 1862-1913, the book shows how central banking in the US evolved out of the private banking system, and how following the financial crash of 1907 big New York banks pushed through Congress the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, creating a central bank which they then managed for their interests.
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(Click on image) CENTRAL BANKERS is a comprehensive critique of central banks’ policies in the 21st century, explaining why the massive injections of free money to the banking system since the 1970s enabled the creation of excess corporate debt that has led to financial bubbles and repeated crises. The book addresses the growing contradictions of central banking, why they are failing in their functions, targets and tools, and proposes a radical democratization and restructuring to transform them to serve the public interest and not the private banks.
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(Click on image) LOOTING GREECE, A New Financial Imperialism Emerges. This book - Reveals clearly who calls the shots in the Eurozone—the hardliners, not the remnants and political residue of what was once European social democracy, - Follows the negotiations in their excruciating detail as the Troika tightens the screws from 2009 to the present, - Shows how Europe’s financial elite enriches itself on Greek debt, privatizations and financial manipulations, turning Greece into an Economic Protectorate.
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(Click on image): This book offers a new approach to explaining why mainstream economic analyses have repeatedly failed and why fiscal and monetary policies have been incapable of producing a sustained recovery. It explains why the global economy is slowing long term and becoming more unstable, why policies to date have largely failed the trend, and why the next crisis may therefore prove even worse than that of 2008-09.
Book plus DVD and Powerpoint slideshow
(Click on image) Obama's Economy: Recovery for the Few, explains how the weakest and most lopsided economic recovery since 1947 has been the direct outcome of failed economic policies of the Obama administration and US Federal Reserve bank since February 2009. Includes a detailed 'alternative program' in the final chapter. Includes the book, a video DVD presentation, and 66-slide PPT slideshow.
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(Click on image) Obama's Economy: Recovery for the Few, explains how the weakest and most lopsided economic recovery since 1947 has been the direct outcome of failed economic policies of the Obama administration and US Federal Reserve bank since February 2009. Includes a detailed 'alternative program' in the final chapter.
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(Click on image) A theoretical analysis, with historical case examples, of origins, causes and future evolution of the recent--and continuing--economic crisis in the U.S. and global economy. Includes predictions in 2009 of the inevitable failure of Obama policies and more serious crisis to come, 2013-15.
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(Click on image) Seven specific reasons why economic recovery under Obama since 2009 has failed for all but the wealthiest few and largest corporations. The book spells out eight specific areas as an Alternative Economic Recovery Program.
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(Click on image) The War At Home: The Corporate Offensive From Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, is a 534 page, extensively researched, nonfiction book that describes the evolution of corporate-government policies from 1980 to 2005 that have shifted more than a $1 trillion dollars a year, every year, from 90 million American middle and working class households to the wealthiest 10% and corporations.
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Dr. Jack Rasmus @drjackrasmus
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1. This post is a nightmare in that it describes the slow motion march toward a third European war against Russia and thus WWIII. Of course there is an alternative: Keynes was emphatically right: you can spend your way out of Recession/Depression if you spend money in such a way that it actually employs people and does not prop up investors. The US spent it’s way out of The Great Depression when some 40% of GDP was used to employ millions during WWII.
2. But you don’t need another goddamn war. We have a climate crisis and if we really converted to clean energy it would employ tens of millions of people in the US alone. But the oligarches in Europe and the US would prefer WWIII to clean energy even if it leads to WWIII or climate catastrophe or both.
3. I understand that the MOU with Iran has fallen apart but I do not understand why oil prices have remained relatively low. I was led to believe by every commentator that there would be a major price spike in oil if the MOU falls apart. For example, I understand that the oil executives told the WSJ that they had only 2-3 weeks of oil reserves. So is there some side deal with the oil companies to keep prices down until after the November elections?
The oft quoted global crude oil prices are for spot market prices. That is driven by speculative investors in large part. What they psychologically think supply and demand will define oil prices in time X. I suspect that global crude prices now up again to around $80 a barrel (from low $73 in early days after the MOU) haven’t risen more sharply for two reasons: 1. speculators in spot markets don’t believe Trump will continue to escalate much longer 2. slowing global demand for oil is becoming more a factor in price determination. As for US gasoline/diesel pump prices, the US has no shortage. THere should be no price hikes since March. But US oil companies use the crisis as an excuse to price oil at the global spot market level. As for the US SPR release of oil, the oil companies keep their oil in the ground and buy the government’s SPR oil which is sold to them at below market prices. So they profit from buying the US govt oil and keep their supply stored for later. It’s just a big govt subsidy and a PR for the public. US oil companies manipulate US retail prices for oil by controlling the refinery bottleneck. The US hasn’t built a new refinery in the US for 50 years, despite the obvious growth of economy and demand during that time.
As I’ve argued on this show–and do so in more detail in my forthcoming book ‘Twilight of American Imperialism’, CLarity Press, 2026 (out in Sept), the MOU with Iran was just a typical US imperial deception. It was all about bringing the oil price down for a longer period of time (Trump manipulated it short term 18 times from March through April). He needed a longer manipulation to satisfy the oil CEOs who warned him in early June something more was needed. The MOU was (now completely dead per both Iran and US) written vaguely on purpose re. the language about the strait of Hormuz. It said the strait would be opened. It also said Iran would open but administer the passage. The US chose to interpret this as it would open as before the war with no Iran administration. So the US tested its interpretation by having three tankers try to pass through the strait near the UAE/Oman shore, instead of near the Iran shore as was happening. Iran shot at the tankers, damaging some. That was the signal for the US navy to intervene and to attack Iran with more than 80 missiles for three days in a row each. Iran responded back attacking US bases. The war was on again. But this time with oil prices at $73 a barrel. Trump believes he has another couple weeks to continue bombing Iran before the oil price moves back up to $100-$120. When it does, he’ll stop again. THis kind of maneuvering will go on up to the US november elections, I predict. BTW, Trump believes he can win the House in November so long as he gets Congress to pass the SAVE act. If it’s not enough, he’ll refuse to accept a Democrat House majority and we’ll have a Congressional constitutional crisis like we had a presidential constitutional crisis in 2020-21. If the House impeaches, he’s prepared to argue the Georgia Senate seats can’t be counted in any Senate hearing on impeachment since they were illegally won in 2020. THey’ll never succeed in removing him from office. And he’ll govern by Exec Order.