Some interviews about the economy (CFPB, USAID, etc.)

First up is a one-minute video by Slavoj Žižek about how capitalism is a lie.

Slavoj Žižek Explains How Capitalism Tricks Us (YouTube)

“Each of us is now a small capitalist. Let’s say you have €5,000. You can freely decide how to invest them: buy health care, go to a nice holiday, pay special studium. […] What is actually a new form of anxiety—permanent stress—is sold to you as a new form of freedom.”

Next up is a great interview by Ben Norton with Michael Hudson. The discussion is much more wide-ranging than the title of the video suggests.

Trump's tariffs could cause huge global crisis, warns economist Michael Hudson by Geopolitical Economy Report / Ben Norton (YouTube)

At about 31:00, Michael Hudson says,

“Other countries usually follow what president Xi of China does. He’s trying to do a win-win situation. China is not trying to militarily invade other countries. He’s trying to say, ‘we can invest money in developing your ports and your railroads for internal trade so that you don’t have to rely on export trade to achieve the financing to support your government-spending. You can trade with your neighboring countries all together in basically a Eurasian economic unit, so that you will not be dependent on the United States.‘ It’s a win-win.

“Well, to Trump, a win-win is a loss, because a win-win means some other country also wins, not only the United States. And, if some other country also wins, that means the United States has not grabbed everything there is to grab. And Trump wants to grab everything that is available—the entire economic surplus. So that is the confrontational characteristic of diplomacy in the United States today.”

At 32:45, Michael says,

“[…] peace is when the United States controls everything and no other country has any ability to fight back—that’s peace.

“Ben: Yeah, great point. That’s the Orwellian U.S. Empire’s view of peace.”

I include this video for the Richard Wolff portion, although the rest of the video is interesting, as usual. Lee Camp is a favorite.

Trump Wants To Take Over Gaza / Prof Richard Wolff Joins The Show! by Dangerous Ideas with Lee Camp (YouTube)

At 07:15, Wolff says,

“25% of Americans were screaming when the inflation rate was 9% in this country. We’re talking something orders of magnitude worse. So, we’re going to buy a lot less. We either do without, or we’ll go and buy equivalent—or maybe not so good things—from other countries where there isn’t a tariff that we have to worry about. Because Mr. Trump singled out Canada and Mexico. It’s not a general tariff that everything coming into the country might have to pay. You can do that, and Mr. Trump has threatened general tariffs that would apply to everybody but, in this case, because they are such long partners…it’s out of the blue! There was no preparation, there was no conversation, there were no meetings held.

“I want to remind everyone the United States is a signatory of the NAFTA agreement, which was rewritten and re-signed during Trump’s first presidency, between 2016 and 2020. Donald Trump’s signature is on the treaty. He just broke…any other country looking at this would be out of its mind to make treaties with the United States because, not only did the US break it, but no discussion, no meeting no preparation, nothing!

“He just came down on these two countries, with which we share thousands of miles of border, as if they were a hated enemy conveniently located on the other side of the ocean. I mean, no one will…only in America will there be mass media trying desperately to make this seem reasonable. For the rest of the world, this is another sign of a rogue, weird country and Americans who don’t see that will be missing half the story.”

Glenn Greenwald discusses the attacks on the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) in the context of understanding how CFPB is kind of collateral damage for the general mistrust of governments and self-nominated rulers.

Is MAGA Abandoning Economic Populism by Gutting CFPB? With Matt Stoller by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

At 16:00, Matt says,

“The kind of company that you’re talking about: the giant bank that has huge power over you, the payment utility—which is what PayPal is—the dominant airlines—the only one that flies from your city or on the route that you need—these are almost private governments right? They’re not just like businesses. They’re not a lemonade stand. It’s a company that is so powerful that it can dictate the terms by which you live your life in that particular industry. And that’s a real problem.

“[…]

“I think they’re [Republicans] having trouble transitioning from supporting these private businesses to […] we need to rethink the nature of the private/public distinction. And then, when you have powerful people like Elon Musk—who seems very appealing [to them]—and you have this old traditional Republican orthodoxy. We fear big government, which is legitimate to be skeptical of big government. Because, in many cases, these companies are fused with big government. But it’s very hard to think of a new framework for saying ‘look, we have rights as citizens, not just against the government, but against these private governments,’ and we’re going to need mechanisms to make those rights happen. And I think that the Republican party, the MAGA movement is sort of caught in the middle of those.

“[…]

“It’s just where America is right now. Where we’re very confused because we have a political order that feels out of touch.It feels like we’re ruled by distant masters and those distant masters aren’t just in government. They’re not just in corporate America. They’re not just in universities. It’s a kind of network of all of them together and we don’t quite have a means to address it.”

The final five minutes are also a great discussion of how the Democrats failed to control Obama is a cautionary tale for Republicans right now. When Obama swept into office on a mandate, he gave away the store to Wall Street and no-one held his feet to the fire. After that, there was no going back. The degree to which MAGA and Republicans are cheering on Trump right now looks like they’re going to make the same mistake. With no reins on him now, there will be no way to put them on when the honeymoon inevitably ends.

Finally, there’s a nearly two-hour show that ranges widely over a lot of economics-adjacent topics, with a very strong focus on the degree to which crypto finance has taken a prominent position in the zeitgeist.

Episode 432: Trump and Dump by TrueAnon (YouTube)

“The #1 Liberal Podcast in the World is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss Trumps coin, inaugural crypto, Justin Sun, blockchains and things of that nature.”

This is one of my favorite podcasts. I think it’s my favorite podcast. This episode was a tour-de-force review of the crypto bros and crypto-adjacent organizations positively saturating the Trump administration. It’s a scam from top to bottom, all whining the whole time about how regulation is crippling America while running one scam after another. Gambling and crypto. God bless America.