The 1% are triggered

The 1% love disruption … as long as it is they that are doing the disrupting. Let them be disrupted though, and disruption is a very bad thing.

The 1%’s wealth and power have been taken down a peg, after having been on the receiving end of a government gravy train at least since Ben Bernanke set his “wealth effect” barreling down the track. Stock prices have soared. Now stock prices are down, and unless they prudently diversified into non-US stocks, treasuries, and gold, they are giving some back.

Their cries can be heard throughout the media they control. Virtually every other story is, indirectly or directly, a hit piece on tariffs, immigration, and other disruptions emanating from the Trump administration. Since he took on the daunting task of streamlining the federal government, attacks on Elon Musk have become routine. A story on Bloomberg today openly exhorts “business leaders” to speak out against the administration’s agenda. Tariffs are now the whipping boy for every even remotely tenably linkable negative development. The possibility that world peace might break out has the military industrial establishment up in arms.

This is hardly an unqualified endorsement of everything the Trump administration is doing. I’ve written critically of its using government to promote crypto, cutting corporate tax rates below individuals, a crackpot and potentially communist sovereign wealth fund, scapegoating of federal workers for the excesses of government, and excessive and combative tariffs. Trade barriers are a problem not just for the 1%. But trade speed bumps that reduce the influence of governments on voters who have no representation are not.

Be wary of media claims that policies that deflate the stock market bubble a bit will harm “the economy”. Exactly whose economy are they worried about? The mantra that tariffs are inflationary may seem to be in defense of the 99%, but these media make no attempt to justify their claims beyond vague assertions that “economists say” so. Meanwhile the Wall Street and Silicon Valley economies have taken a mild but decidedly non-theoretical hit.

And even if there is a so-called “recession”, there is no attempt to analyze whether it might be to the longer run benefit of the broader economy. It’s just a big scary word that is the final arbiter of all things economic.

Financology has long been critical of the corporate media, but they have descended to new lows. No wonder public trust in them is disappearing.