Boomers, Let's Face It: The Math Doesn't Work

Triage means sacrifices will have to be made and distributed to those most able to afford them to spare those least able to afford them.

There are many consequential things we can't discuss factually because the topic upsets everyone. And since getting upset shuts down any direct discussion of difficult issues, these issues metastasize into problems that end up sinking the ship.

The Titanic has already struck the iceberg and is doomed, but since this upsets the passengers, we dance around the facts rather than take immediate action. Everything about the situation is upsetting, and so emotions dominate the zeitgeist: resentments, blame-game, accusations, the whole self-reinforcing dynamic leads to people shouting at others as they drown. The last word, indeed.

Federal deficit spending and the overweighting of entitlement spending on retirees is too upsetting to discuss factually, so we don't. But the math doesn't work, and so the ship will sink. This was obvious 20 years ago, when I posted this: Boomers, Prepare to Fall on Your Swords (June 2005), in which I suggested that well-off Boomers address the problem by gracefully making the necessary sacrifices rather than heap them on the younger generations.

It was even more obvious by 2013, when I posted this: Generation X: An Inconvenient Era (May 23, 2013), in which correspondent Eric A. explains how the math doesn't work.

Let's start with some necessary stipulations. When I suggest well-off Boomers accept the need to make sacrifices to save the ship from sinking, I suggest this as someone in this cohort.

I am a Boomer, drawing my Social Security benefit, which like my lifetime income, is close to the national median SSA benefit. I'm solidly in the middle of the pack. Being over the age of 65, I also have Medicare benefits. Like many others of my generation, I've lived frugally, saved money, worked hard, etc. Since I'm still working, I pay Social Security and Medicare taxes--15.3% of all earned income as I am self-employed.

Unlike others in my generation, I attribute only a modest percentage of my net worth to frugality and working hard, as the majority of whatever "wealth" I own is the direct result of the hyper-financialization credit-asset bubble that's been inflated since 2007.

Those who were able to buy assets such as houses and stocks decades ago saw their net worth rise to extraordinary heights in the bubble. Those who didn't or couldn't buy assets before the bubble did not see their net worth rise to extraordinary heights.

Let's go over how we got here. The current federal tax system and retiree benefits evolved in the 1930s to the mid-1960s. In the 1930s, retirement meant poverty for many workers who were unable to save a nestegg large enough to fund their no-earnings years. Social Security was enacted as a way of using the SSA (Social Security Administration) taxes (FICA to employers) paid by current workers (1% of wages in those days) to fund a modest retirement income for retirees.

Social Security was always a pay as you go system. Whatever SSA tax revenues that weren't distributed piled up in a Trust Fund. This Trust Fund was eliminated in the mid-1960s, and excess SSA taxes went into the federal general fund. The current Trust Fund is a useful fiction. When SSA runs a deficit, the Treasury funds the deficit by selling Treasury bonds, just as it does with all other deficit spending.

Political realities demanded that the program be universal to attract widespread support. So millionaires collect Social Security and Medicare benefits, too. As SSA's financial foundations erode, a modest reform was enacted: above a modest income, 50% of SSA benefits are taxed as regular income.

Back when the program was enacted, there were around 10 workers for every retiree. The demographics and economy were different then. The economy was mostly domestic, and the bubble of the 1920s had popped. Financialization and globalization were at low ebb. Everyone assumed there would always be 10 workers for every retiree.

But people started living longer, the disabled were added to Social Security, and Medicare ballooned from a modest program to an open-ended spending juggernaut. In other words, the economy changed, demographics changed, but the system has not been changed to reflect these realities. SSA and Medicare taxes have increased dramatically, but these programs are still funded by payroll taxes paid by employees and employers.

Capital (assets, income from capital gains, speculation and investments) only pays a thin slice of Medicare via the Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT) on capital gains incomes above $200,000 for single taxpayers and above $250,000 for couples filing jointly.

What we're actually discussing isn't just generational; it's 1) the open-ended nature of the SSA, Medicare and Medicaid programs, 2) the impossibility of relying on two workers to pay all the benefits for each retiree as the number of retirees and beneficiaries exceeds 69 million people while the full-time workforce is 135 million, and 3) the extraordinary wealth divide in the U.S. where the majority of the wealth is held by the top few percent and the retiree generation (Boomers) for the reasons stated above.

The solutions are as obvious as plugging a hole in the ship's hull.

1) The tax burden has to be shifted from labor to capital via financial transaction taxes and ending the multi-trillion dollar exclusions on capital gains.

2) Social Security and Medicare benefits must be means tested; those collecting $10,000 a month in other pensions and investment income don't need Social Security benefits, which should be reserved for those with no other substantive source of steady income in their retirement years.

3) The open-ended entitlement programs must be limited in some fashion, and there is no way to do this that will not upset everyone. Hard choices--triage--must be made, as doing nothing is choosing to let the ship sink.

Let's feast on the facts of the matter. Those who need a calming agent, please do so now.

Here's household/non-profit net worth. The household sector has a net worth of $160 trillion. Notice that the total is far above the inflation rate. This is a credit-asset bubble on steroids.



Here is total debt. Borrow a bunch of money into existence and dump it into financial speculation, and voila, a debt-fueled asset bubble for the ages.



Here is total public debt. Is a parabolic rise really sustainable? No, the math doesn't work, especially as interest rates rise: the debt costs nothing to service at 0%, but the interest payments are huge at 4%.



Apologists love to attribute the debt to inflation or "growth," but that's misdirection. As a percentage of the nation's GDP (gross domestic product), the debt has risen 4-fold since president Reagan shepherded Social Security reforms in the early 1980s, and doubled as a percentage of GDP since 2007, before the Federal Reserve bailed out the status quo with hyper-financialization.



Here is a pie chart of federal spending. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are 44%. Toss in the other mandatory spending--a big chunk of which is interest paid on federal debt--and there's not much left to cut. The reality is there is no way to slow the runaway debt train without tackling open-ended retirement / healthcare programs.



The vast majority of projected growth in federal spending stems from these programs and the interest paid on funds borrowed to fund them. Unfortunately, these facts don't disappear because we don't like them.



Boomers hold the majority of net worth. So it follows that increasing taxes on capital will impact the Boomers who are wealthy--and younger folks who are wealthy, too, of course.



It's interesting how debt and the net worth of the top 1% have soared in tandem. Could it be that soaring debt-asset bubbles have benefited the top 1% far more than the debt bubble has benefited the bottom 50%? And if that's the case, then what does this suggest in terms of saving the ship from sinking?



The passengers on the Titanic arguing with each other can't stop the ship from sinking by "winning the argument." Silencing those willing to discuss the issues factually doesn't actually make the factual realities go away.

Those of us who run businesses / are self-employed don't have the luxury of not dealing with financial realities. Triage comes with every enterprise. We need a national discussion of triage that doesn't immediately degrade into denial or histrionics. And no, AI and stablecoins aren't going to make all this go away, any more than hoping the Central Bank of Mars will emerge to give us a 36 trillion-quatloo bailout.

Boomers--and Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z--let's face it: the math doesn't work. Triage means sacrifices will have to be made and distributed to those most able to afford them to spare those least able to afford them. The ship is not just taking on water; it's loaded with third rails and sacred cows that can't be touched, and so it's doomed to sink if we do nothing.

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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.

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, 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 $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 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 Real American Dream: Starting Over

It seems to me the real American Dream is not measured solely by money, it's more a measure of the freedom to Start Over.

The conventional definition of The American Dream is anyone can achieve middle-class security if they work hard, work smart, persevere and are frugal / prudent / save and invest a healthy chunk of their earnings.

I don't consider it demeaning to call this ordinary success: the whole point of The American Dream is that ordinary people can achieve middle-class security through their own efforts.

For some, The American Dream is to achieve extraordinary success of the sort reserved for the few: fame and fortune.

What struck me about the early 1800s was the great mobility of the non-slave populace in an era where roads were mostly muddy tracks and travel was slow and arduous. Americans were constantly on the move seeking better opportunities elsewhere, buying and selling farmland, starting home-based enterprises, finding a different employer or kind of work and so on, often far from their previous home base.

Being on the make / enrepreneurial was part and parcel of American culture, and this has continued in varying ways to the present.

European visitors to America in the early 1800s commented on how every conversation soon turned to making money. Though Charles Dickens observed many positive traits in American culture, he also noted this obsession with obtaining material wealth:

"All their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues, and associations, seemed to be melted down into dollars."

"Men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars."

This latter quote expresses the reductionist quality of the conventional conception of The American Dream: how to make more money?

There is of course an element of human nature in this desire, which Alexis de Tocqueville described: "Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort." How do we increase our comfort? By making more money.

But de Tocqueville too observed Americans' obsession with increasing their material wealth:

"As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?"

Herman Melville's under-appreciated 1857 novel The Confidence-Man explores the porous border between entrepreneurial endeavors and perpetrating a con.

I explored this fascinating portrayal of Americans on the make in a blog post: The Con in Confidence (October 4, 2006).

Mobility is not just of value to the individual conception of The American Dream, it's also a key dynamic in the economy, which depends on the mobility of the workforce to move locales and careers to increase productivity.

The book mentioned in last week's Musings Report, Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity by Yoni Appelbaum, discusses how the financialization of housing has reduced household's ability to move even if opportunities await them elsewhere.

This chart from the US Census Bureau shows the peak of mobility was between 1985 and 1999, and has since declined significantly.



It seems to me the real American Dream is not measured solely by money, it's more a measure of the freedom to Start Over, to make a fresh start, to take an opportunity, pull up stakes and move to another locale, another profession, another circle of contacts and friends and another mode of living. This has both material and internal qualities worth exploring.

The material qualities boil down to the liberty of mobility in place and priority. We can physically move, or move careers without physically moving, or we can make travel--constant mobility--our priority. Moving has its costs--often high in money and sacrifices--but stripped down to the basics--a suitcase and a few boxes-- the majority of people have access to Starting Over.

Any move has risk, and we have to accept risk as the nature of change. As I've noted in blog posts, The Chinese characters for the English word crisis are famously--and incorrectly--translated as danger and opportunity. The more accurate translation is precarious plus critical juncture or inflection point.

Many of us only embrace Starting Over when we have no other options left. Many people Start Over after they've been wiped out financially by bankruptcy, divorce, illness, etc.

The internal quality of Starting Over is an manifestation of self-expression and the pursuit of happiness: we seek to Start Over to leave dead-end jobs and situations for an opportunity to find some way of living / livelihood that's a more fulfilling match for who we are and what we want to do with our lives.

This may not generate more productivity in the economy when measured in money, but it certainly enhances the productivity of the individual.

The other manifestation of The American Dream is to retire early and escape the drudgery of work via assembling enough wealth to generate an income without doing paid work. This dream-goal is the source of the FIRE meme: financial independence, retire early.

The question then becomes: what do we do with this leisure? Some people make travel their new "job," basically replacing work goals with travels goals (visiting 50 countries, etc.). Others do work that they enjoy but that doesn't generate an income.

Others discover that a life without work is boring and dissatisfying, as leisure / vacations only have value as breaks in a purposeful life. Endless vacations are not a replacement for a purposeful life, and some who have the financial means to never work again go back to work for this reason.

The desirability of FIRE reflects not just the high demands made on workers but also the prevalence of work that isn't fulfilling, i.e. lacking in meaning, what author David Graeber called BS work--jobs that serve a role in the economy but are detached from sources of meaning.

It seems to me that meaningful work is a core feature of The American Dream and Starting Over: yes, we want to increase our wealth and comfort, but we also want to increase the quality of our lives in the non-material realms of work, meaning and purpose.

This is why I subtitled my book A Radically Beneficial World "The Future Belongs to Work That Is Meaningful," as meaningful work has an irreplaceable role in our life satisfaction.

There is another source of "wealth" in Starting Over--the value in having a variety of life experiences, including those that may not lead to financial success. I often ponder the gulf between the experiences of those who stayed in each place that I left and my own experiences, which generally featured financial disappointments or failure but a fortune in unique experiences.

In terms of experience, I've piled up a kind of wealth I wouldn't trade for money, even if that were possible, just as I wouldn't trade my mobility or opportunities to Start Over for money, or control of my enterprises for money. Each of these is priceless in ways that we cannot measure in money.

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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.

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, 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 $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 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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Living on Meds, Vitamin C and Ibogaine: American Precarity

Favoring capital over wage earners is the long-established policy of both political parties.

Cribbing a line from a Grateful Dead song ("ain't it a shame") seems appropriate when discussing the prospects of America's burgeoning Precariat Class who are increasingly depending on tips, side hustles, credit cards and buy now, pay later schemes to survive in a stupidly high-cost economy where all the media-hyped "GDP growth" benefits the few at the top, a fact well-documented here courtesy of FRED-Federal Reserve charts.

Living on Meds, Vitamin C and Ibogaine is not a high quality of life, and the only thing that has any real meaning is the quality of life of the majority of the citizenry, particularly the bottom 60% who own the fewest income-producing assets (i.e. capital).

If the quality of life of the majority is tanking, all the glowing economic statistics in the world are nothing but the self-serving bleating of financial toadies, apparatchiks and sycophants who are part of the problem, not the solution, as all the statistics they tout are misdirections.

My focus on the quality of life of America's Precariats is rooted in my own experiences as a Precariat. Construction is notoriously boom and bust, and when work dries up, precarity is the order of the day. In the brutal 1973-74 recession, work dried up and I emptied my boyhood piggy bank to buy a few gallons of gas.

In the brutal recession of 1980-82, I was down to around $100 cash, which in today's money is equivalent to about $25.

Small business owners face a particularly intense level of precarity due to their responsibilities for employees and high fixed costs. When work finally picked up in 1983, cash flow didn't, as banks only release construction loan payments after the work has been done, so my partner and I had to take cash advances on our own credit cards to make payroll for our crews. We couldn't afford to pay ourselves so we lived on fumes until the cash flow increased--often a couple of months.

This is common in the world of small businesses: after paying your crew, there's nothing left for you.

The reality is even outwardly successful small businesses are going broke and the owners are burning out. Expenses are increasing in leaps and bounds, but there's only so much you can charge customers. So small business owners sacrifice themselves to try to make it work--something that is increasingly impossible.

'Doesn't make financial sense': Michelin-starred SF restaurant calls it quits. "Even with the busiest the restaurant's ever been, it just doesn't make financial sense," Stowaway said. "We've done a lot of great things and we're proud, but the financial instability starts to affect everyone, and you have to make big changes."

Free-lance writing has always been poorly paid, and being paid $150 or $250 for an article was typical in the go-go 1990s. I was so far below "poverty level" (generally considered 80% of median income in one's region) in the high-cost, high-income San Francisco Bay Area that to me a "poverty level" income was like a king's ransom.

We hear that high-paying jobs are stressful. Yes, they are, but precarity is stressful without the reward of ample compensation. Most people working for a living are stressed out, and so anti-anxiety / anti-depression meds, pain-killers, etc., are part of the self-medication menu, along with supplements (Vitamin C, etc.). But no med or supplement can fix what's actually broken--our economy and society.

Ibogaine makes the list because it's being studied as a treatment for PTSD / traumatic experiences, addiction and severe depression. These have a high correlation with precarity, for those with these conditions have a difficult time escaping precarity, and precarity is itself a low-level trauma that few economic cheerleaders acknowledge.

Ibogaine Inspires New Treatments for Addiction and Depression: Targeted Molecules Are More Powerful Than SSRI Antidepressants and Avoid Dangerous Side Effects.

What to Know About Ibogaine: Some researchers hope the drug, still illegal in the United States, may be considered as a treatment for addiction, PTSD and brain injuries.

Beneath the endlessly hyped "growth" of the economy, precarity and immiseration are the order of the day for the bottom 60% as wages' share of the national income has continued its 50-year decline.



Where did the trillions of dollars of "growth" go? To those who own capital, not wage earners. That's the only possible outcome of the system in its current configuration. The Winners and Losers in 21st Century America.



The reality of the American economy is people earning $22/hour and $24/hour are living in their cars/vans because rents are unaffordable. In a Snow Paradise, They Live in This Parking Lot: People experiencing homelessness can sleep in their cars in this wealthy ski town in Colorado, but only if they have a job.

So much for trickle-down: the Federal Reserve gooses M3 money supply, and guess who gets the "free money": $1 Trillion of Wealth Was Created for the 19 Richest U.S. Households Last Year The richest of the rich in America control record slice of nation's wealth. (WSJ.com)



Here are the facts: the bottom 50% own a wafer-thin $4 trillion (2.5%) of the nation's $160 trillion in household net worth. The top 10% own $107 trillion and the top 1% own $49.4 trillion--more than ten times the net worth of half the households in America.



The bottom 50%'s share of income-producing assets is signal noise. The real money is made not by owning a depreciating vehicle or a family home, it's made by owning income-producing assets such as stocks, bonds, rental housing, etc., and 90% of income-producing assets are owned by the top 10%.

Since the bottom 60% earn such a modest share of the nation's income, they pay only a sliver of the total federal income tax. So cutting taxes doesn't boost the bottom 60% at all; it simply diverts more of the national income to the 10% who collect the lion's share of both income and capital gains.

Favoring capital over wage earners is the long-established policy of both political parties. This study found that $80 trillion in capital gains has been sheltered from taxation by policies that reward the already-rich. The distribution of capital gains in the United States.

The taboo that can't be acknowledged lest the status quo collapse is that the only way to reduce the precarity of the bottom 60% is to restore the balance between labor and capital by shifting the gains of the economy to wage earners at the expense of the owners of capital.

If we can't manage this restoration, then the status quo will collapse anyway. When people can no longer make enough to pay for essentials, history is rather definitive on the outcome: the status quo is overthrown, and nobody will care whether the nobility is Democrat or Republican.

New podcasts:

Dismantling the Economic Divide (1 hour) (hosts Emerson and Amy)

Retirement Lifestyle Advocates w/ Charles Hugh Smith (host Dennis Tubergen)

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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.

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, 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 $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 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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The One Real Economic Indicator: "Upgrade to Premium"

If you want to escape immiseration, that option is available--upgrade to Premium.

I propose we set aside the conventional economic measures (GDP, unemployment, corporate profits, etc.) in favor of a more real-world metric: how many times we're hectored to "upgrade to Premium" to regain services that were once part of what we already paid for.

I submit that this metric is a far better measure of what's really going on in the economy than abstractions like GDP which say nothing about our real-world quality of life or whose getting the lion's share of the spoils.

If we track how many times we're hectored to "upgrade to Premium," it's clear the economy is in some terminal stage of decay beneath the happy story of soaring corporate profits. Or perhaps more accurately, the economy is in a terminal stage of decay in which corporate profits depend on reducing the quality of daily life as the last remaining means of pushing profits higher.

Consider a subscription to a major national newspaper. A subscription was once simple: you paid the publisher a monthly fee and you received the entire newspaper in print or online. Now you pay the monthly fee, click on a recipe link, and are nagged to "upgrade to Premium" to regain access to the Food section.

OK, forget the recipe, let's check the sports section. Click on a story, and voila, we're nagged to "upgrade to Premium" to access the "premium" sports section.

When did the Sports and Food sections become available only to those paying First Class rates? Please tell me this is a parody of corporate greed. Oh, it's now the New Normal. If that's the case, isn't our economy now a parody of a functioning economy?

Next up, a bulk email service. As we set up the email, we're prompted to select "send email now" or "schedule email to be sent later." If we choose the latter, we're prompted to "upgrade to Premium" for what was once part of the service we're already paying for.

Anti-virus software was once a complete set of tools with a single price. Not any more. Now when we run a scan, we're prompted to "clean up all the junk files." If we click on that link, surprise, we're prompted to "upgrade to Premium."

If you want to book a specific seat on an airline flight, that's extra now, too. And so on.

This immiseration of the quality of our lives is extraordinarily profitable. Here is the FRED (Federal Reserve) chart of corporate profits' share of domestic national income. Note that corporate profits' share of the national income poked above 7% in the go-go 1960s and 2000s, but only poked above 6% in the go-go 1990s.



Corporate profits' share of the national income in the 6% to 7% was good enough for the economy to expand smartly. Now corporate profits are around 9% of the national income and we're hovering on the edge of stagflation and immiseration as wages' share of the national income has continued its 50-year decline.



Here's a chart showing the decline of the entirety of wages, including high earners.



Corporate profits have soared far beyond historic averages.



A reader suggested the recent leap in corporate profits was the result of the money supply expanding. M3 money supply rose 40% from February 2020 ($15.45 trillion, pre-Covid) to July 2022 ($21.7 trillion). Meanwhile, corporate profits jumped from $2.3 trillion to $4.3 trillion in that time--an 87% increase, twice the percentage increase in M3 money supply.



To state the truth--that corporate profits are now dependent on the immiseration of wage earners who continue to lose ground--is taboo because we now worship a two-headed god: increasing profits and accumulating wealth by any means available--including the slow drip of immiseration and the erosion of the quality of the citizenry's lives.

After all, we don't need no stinkin' quality of life--all we need is soaring corporate profits. If you want to escape immiseration, that option is available--upgrade to Premium.

New podcasts:

Dismantling the Economic Divide (1 hour) (hosts Emerson and Amy)

Retirement Lifestyle Advocates w/ Charles Hugh Smith (host Dennis Tubergen)

---

My recent books:

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

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF)

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Tariffs Are Not Enough

The tariff sledgehammer has a role, but it's a limited one.

There's an inherent tension in State-Corporate Capitalism. Proponents of the free market hold that any state Industrial Policy will fail because the State cannot pick the winners and losers as effectively as The Market. Yet Corporate Capitalism continually lobbies the State to lower interest rates and taxes, weaken the currency to make corporate products cheaper in overseas markets, erect tariff / trade barriers against mercantilist global competitors, etc.

In other words, the State should butt out of the free market except when it serves our purposes.

The other source of inherent tension is the State's responsibility for more than boosting private-sector profits. Enterprises have the luxury of focusing on one thing: boosting profits and "shareholder value." Governments have responsibilities far broader than boosting profits--for example, national security, which has been gutted by de-industrialization and the wholesale transfer of supply chains overseas.

Steep tariffs are now being deployed to correct the corporate offshoring that boosted profits so wondrously. The problem is tariffs are not enough to reverse offshoring to reshoring. Tariffs act as a useful sledgehammer but a sledgehammer has a limited scope of utility.

There are more moving parts in the decision to reshore than tariffs. What few realize is every State has a de facto Industrial Policy set by the entirety of State policies and regulations. This Industrial Policy is implicit rather than an explicit set of goals and policies, and so various pieces of this implicit Industrial Policy may actually be contradictory.

Just as the State doesn't have the luxury of focusing solely on profit, corporations don't have the luxury of gambling the company's future based on one State policy that's likely to change. Enterprises must consider a great many factors before committing billions of dollars to moving supply chains and production facilities. These include:

1. Tax structures

2. Regulatory burdens

3. Environmental requirements

4. Workforce availability and cost

5. Cost of capital

6. Availability of credit

7. Cost of healthcare for the workforce

8. Automation / AI

9. Domestic and global market conditions and competition

10. Public sentiment

The State's policies set many parameters that affect decisions about reshoring: the complexity of tax codes, the cost of healthcare, the cost of capital, environmental regulations, the relative ease or difficulty of doing business, the availability and skills of the workforce, and so on.

The de facto Industrial Policy of the U.S. has incentivized hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization, to the detriment of the national interests and security. Wall Street, the political class and Corporate America benefited from these de facto policies while the bottom 90% lost ground.

The New Cost of American Inequality: $80 Trillion

Measuring the Income Gap from 1975 to 2023 (RAND)

$1 Trillion of Wealth Was Created for the 19 Richest U.S. Households Last Year The richest of the rich in America control record slice of nation's wealth. (WSJ.com)

These are not the result of "market forces," they're the result of State policies.



The point is all of these State policies have to be changed if we as a nation are serious about reshoring critical supply chains. Tariffs are not enough. I have long advocated here for a radically simplified corporate tax structure that's a flat tax of 5% paid on whatever profits are reported pro forma quarterly.

Corporate taxes could be reduced for companies that source all components and assembly of their products in North America. There many ways to incentivize reshoring that are more reliable and actionable than tariffs alone.

I've advocated shifting the tax burden from workers and employers (Social Security and Medicare taxes paid by all workers and employers) to capital via transaction fees on all capital transactions and the elimination of tax giveaways / breaks for capital. Since the top 10% own / control 80% to 90% of all income-producing capital, a policy shift from labor / employers to capital would transfer the tax burden to the wealthiest Americans, those who have benefited so richly from the de facto policies of hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization.

I've also noted here many times that the current healthcare system will bankrupt the nation all by itself. Radical reforms are required to improve the overall health of Americans and reduce skyrocketing costs, many of which qualify as profiteering, fraud or needless paper-shuffling.



The tariff sledgehammer has a role, but it's a limited one. If we're serious about reshoring strategic supply chains, we have to tackle all the hard stuff that the wealthiest class wants to leave as-is because they've benefited so mightily from existing policies.

None of these reforms will be easy. There are many competing interests and complex trade-offs that must be negotiated so whatever pain is required will be distributed primarily to those who can best afford it.

These are the folks with the wealth and incentives to lobby the hardest for their exclusion from any pain, and therein lies the political challenge: do we leave the status quo intact because it favors the most powerful few, or do we put national security above private-sector spoils?

New podcasts:

Dismantling the Economic Divide (1 hour) (hosts Emerson and Amy)

Retirement Lifestyle Advocates w/ Charles Hugh Smith (host Dennis Tubergen)

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My recent books:

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The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, 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 $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 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, Mark S.C. ($70), for your wondrously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.		Thank you, Jeff T. ($70), for your marvelously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Thank you, Tempos L. ($70), for your magnificently generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

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

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