Love Alex and his work to death, but I'd like to offer a slightly different perspective.
In 2019, nearly 24 million people worked across various government institutions in the United States, including the federal government, state and local governments, and the military. (This comes from a report by the Brookings Institution, and I am sure the number, following a decades-long trend, only grew since).
Combined, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, and Google (US employees) account for approximately 840,000 employees.
Combined, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Pfizer (PFE), AbbVie (ABBV), Merck & Co. (MRK), Eli Lilly and Company (LLY), Amgen (AMGN), Biogen Inc. (BIIB), and Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD) employ approximately 514,600 individuals.
Over 3,000 educational institutions across the United States receive federal funding, impacting over 17.5 million graduate and undergraduate students. Given another trend, that of bloated administration, it's safe to say that millions, tens of millions of people work for the government in our institutions.
I’d venture to guess over 50,000,000 million people, if not more (think all censored media, think subcontractors, think health care...) depend on the government and live well.
After all, take a look at Joseph Biden Robinette, Jr.’s approval. Despite the utter disaster that sad caricature of once a truly evil man, his numbers are staggeringly high.
I worry about the dependency and the mind virus and problems, multitude higher than what Alex deems. In my book "As America Crumbles...: A Grim Chronicle Exploring the Evil Source of America’s Catastrophic Decline" (https://amzn.to/3uP0EJm), I put some of those figures and more into numbers. Ever since, I am in a deep funk; not even Mr. Krainer's brilliant writing or sunny disposition is capable of moving an inch.
There is only one solution: the West must throw off the yoke of 'globalism' and the One World Order and the Cabal and the WEF, WHO... the true hegemons. Restore a world of sovereign nations who compete peacefully, not on battlefields.
There is still a way to go, but as we approach the Scare Event, I feel we are getting closer.
Friedman, an Ukranian jew, was crucial and a turning point. I wrote an investigation (in Spanish https://www.babab.com/no31/reinon31.php ) about who were his sponsors who turned out to be a bunch of billionaires close to the Dulles brothers ring whose most prominent individual was banker Mellon in the context of the capitalist counter offensive on Academia, media and the 60's peace movement. Friedman was a massive psyop operation (another one was Thatcher) totally backed by big money and the deep state who gained a totally undeserved prestige (Nobel prize, institutional awards, massive media visibility and book printing). As a result, trade unions and the real revolutionary left were crushed in America. To our days. The billions invested on an armada of authors like him created the libertarian economic paradigm which is still very active today at economics schools. Argentinian Javier Milei is a good example of this. With Friedman economic freedom became the excuse to kill the last remnants of ethics in business finance and the state. Deregulation, monetary expansion, currency debasement, full spectrum corruption, predatory wars, criminal inmunity for banking and finance and political and economic anarchy followed. Friedman was one of the most nepharious characters of the XXth century but he was just the incarnation of a historical process pertaining to the last stages of the death of capitalism, just like Marx predicted.
Golden age in the west ?? he should of said golden age of the powerful in the west.
From where I sit people have stopped thinking and learning and instead rely on coaching, this is very evident in universities and in the work place where people can speak confidently but have little thought behind what there saying.
Your writings usually make me think, which is probably a good thing.
Is the problem the "system", or those in it, both leadership and citizenry?
I can give several examples of current dictatorships or kingdons that work extremely well. (Singapore, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Bermuda, etc) But they are fake tax havens set up by the British to launder their global pilferage. And none have existed for 100 years. I don't think they are a model for anything.
China, Persia, and Russia are still here after 1-5000+ years. I don't think their past is a model for the future, however. But their continued existence may give us a few clues. They survived the British Empire. Will we?
Maybe culture matters over system, and that culture keeps ANY system in check.
In the west most have lost their moral compass. Until we regain that, I don't know if any system will be successful.
How do we regain that? Unfortunately history says things need to get really, really bad first.
Religion was always our compass, but the leadership of most major religions has been hijacked by the same ancient satanic belief systems that in later years hijacked our countries. They need a "Reformation" even more than our governments.
Every now and then someone asks me if this battle is between "good and evil". My answer lately is "the Evil side thinks it is".
At some point, maybe we should take them at their word.
I have no idea what "system" is best. Maybe it doesn't matter until we fix "us".
We need to transition the ‘Military’ Industrial Complex into an ‘Infrastructure’ industrial complex. In a system run off of public debt, graft, sweetheart contracts, and budgets to congressional districts, I’d rather have a 16 lane highway across Montana and a dozen bridges to nowhere than tanks, bombers, and foreign military bases.
'On the money' as usual Mr. Krainer. Profit motive over engineered into all of the clearly useless Western wunderwaffen being exposed on a daily basis currently. The 'tale of two carriers' being the exemplary story... It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... What the Dickens? 😜
We need to make our own 'stuff', to become an actually productive society. In ways, we already do, (small farms and ranches, organic)....but I would suggest that the future for us will look much more like the late 1800's than it will the late 1900's.
In the case of this essay’s subject... particularly the point of the Western MIC being built for profit and not for purpose... can we find the road that leads back to London?
Is it as simple as the London banking centre’s financial profit motives corrupting an essential industry required for national interests? Or does the road have more twists and turns than that?
This is an extraordinarily insightful and important commentary.
The key difference between the US and Russia indeed is the fact that the entire US system is set up for profit-making by the business owners. Thus the advantage in spending power is an illusion. What good is it when the already filthy rich rake so much off the top, thievery which has increased exponentially with stock buy-backs and executive compensation kick-backs, and other tricks by the hedge fund owners like BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard?
I am also remembering the days when that genius Peter Drucker sold American business on the practice of "just-in-time" inventory management. It's not looking too good today, is it?
Lenin was right. Capitalism has sold the rope by which it is being hung.
Also see my own new article: "Election 2024: Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic."
Love Alex and his work to death, but I'd like to offer a slightly different perspective.
In 2019, nearly 24 million people worked across various government institutions in the United States, including the federal government, state and local governments, and the military. (This comes from a report by the Brookings Institution, and I am sure the number, following a decades-long trend, only grew since).
Combined, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, and Google (US employees) account for approximately 840,000 employees.
Combined, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Pfizer (PFE), AbbVie (ABBV), Merck & Co. (MRK), Eli Lilly and Company (LLY), Amgen (AMGN), Biogen Inc. (BIIB), and Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD) employ approximately 514,600 individuals.
Over 3,000 educational institutions across the United States receive federal funding, impacting over 17.5 million graduate and undergraduate students. Given another trend, that of bloated administration, it's safe to say that millions, tens of millions of people work for the government in our institutions.
I’d venture to guess over 50,000,000 million people, if not more (think all censored media, think subcontractors, think health care...) depend on the government and live well.
After all, take a look at Joseph Biden Robinette, Jr.’s approval. Despite the utter disaster that sad caricature of once a truly evil man, his numbers are staggeringly high.
I worry about the dependency and the mind virus and problems, multitude higher than what Alex deems. In my book "As America Crumbles...: A Grim Chronicle Exploring the Evil Source of America’s Catastrophic Decline" (https://amzn.to/3uP0EJm), I put some of those figures and more into numbers. Ever since, I am in a deep funk; not even Mr. Krainer's brilliant writing or sunny disposition is capable of moving an inch.
Well written Alex. Great perspectives. We live in dangerous times.
There is only one solution: the West must throw off the yoke of 'globalism' and the One World Order and the Cabal and the WEF, WHO... the true hegemons. Restore a world of sovereign nations who compete peacefully, not on battlefields.
There is still a way to go, but as we approach the Scare Event, I feel we are getting closer.
Friedman, an Ukranian jew, was crucial and a turning point. I wrote an investigation (in Spanish https://www.babab.com/no31/reinon31.php ) about who were his sponsors who turned out to be a bunch of billionaires close to the Dulles brothers ring whose most prominent individual was banker Mellon in the context of the capitalist counter offensive on Academia, media and the 60's peace movement. Friedman was a massive psyop operation (another one was Thatcher) totally backed by big money and the deep state who gained a totally undeserved prestige (Nobel prize, institutional awards, massive media visibility and book printing). As a result, trade unions and the real revolutionary left were crushed in America. To our days. The billions invested on an armada of authors like him created the libertarian economic paradigm which is still very active today at economics schools. Argentinian Javier Milei is a good example of this. With Friedman economic freedom became the excuse to kill the last remnants of ethics in business finance and the state. Deregulation, monetary expansion, currency debasement, full spectrum corruption, predatory wars, criminal inmunity for banking and finance and political and economic anarchy followed. Friedman was one of the most nepharious characters of the XXth century but he was just the incarnation of a historical process pertaining to the last stages of the death of capitalism, just like Marx predicted.
Golden age in the west ?? he should of said golden age of the powerful in the west.
From where I sit people have stopped thinking and learning and instead rely on coaching, this is very evident in universities and in the work place where people can speak confidently but have little thought behind what there saying.
Thanks from Ireland.
Money, like the mind, is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. When the servant becomes the master you lose both money and your mind.
Your writings usually make me think, which is probably a good thing.
Is the problem the "system", or those in it, both leadership and citizenry?
I can give several examples of current dictatorships or kingdons that work extremely well. (Singapore, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Bermuda, etc) But they are fake tax havens set up by the British to launder their global pilferage. And none have existed for 100 years. I don't think they are a model for anything.
China, Persia, and Russia are still here after 1-5000+ years. I don't think their past is a model for the future, however. But their continued existence may give us a few clues. They survived the British Empire. Will we?
Maybe culture matters over system, and that culture keeps ANY system in check.
In the west most have lost their moral compass. Until we regain that, I don't know if any system will be successful.
How do we regain that? Unfortunately history says things need to get really, really bad first.
Religion was always our compass, but the leadership of most major religions has been hijacked by the same ancient satanic belief systems that in later years hijacked our countries. They need a "Reformation" even more than our governments.
Every now and then someone asks me if this battle is between "good and evil". My answer lately is "the Evil side thinks it is".
At some point, maybe we should take them at their word.
I have no idea what "system" is best. Maybe it doesn't matter until we fix "us".
We need to transition the ‘Military’ Industrial Complex into an ‘Infrastructure’ industrial complex. In a system run off of public debt, graft, sweetheart contracts, and budgets to congressional districts, I’d rather have a 16 lane highway across Montana and a dozen bridges to nowhere than tanks, bombers, and foreign military bases.
Alex, a great article as always!
Just one little correction: in Polish peace is 'pokój' and world is 'świat'. It would be impossible for Morawiecki to mix them up.
In Russian 'mir' is both peace and world.
'On the money' as usual Mr. Krainer. Profit motive over engineered into all of the clearly useless Western wunderwaffen being exposed on a daily basis currently. The 'tale of two carriers' being the exemplary story... It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... What the Dickens? 😜
We need to make our own 'stuff', to become an actually productive society. In ways, we already do, (small farms and ranches, organic)....but I would suggest that the future for us will look much more like the late 1800's than it will the late 1900's.
Perhaps the dominant western elite faction would rather not be than loose their privileges? Better dead than red updated.
In the case of this essay’s subject... particularly the point of the Western MIC being built for profit and not for purpose... can we find the road that leads back to London?
Is it as simple as the London banking centre’s financial profit motives corrupting an essential industry required for national interests? Or does the road have more twists and turns than that?
The West Elites went to war for profit and loses catastrophically .
What I never hear is the west elites structured the economy for their benefit killing the human spirit of its people.
No spirt is a catastrophic loss rippling through the elites ability to do anything .
Amen. If only our enemies within would heed your advice!
This is an extraordinarily insightful and important commentary.
The key difference between the US and Russia indeed is the fact that the entire US system is set up for profit-making by the business owners. Thus the advantage in spending power is an illusion. What good is it when the already filthy rich rake so much off the top, thievery which has increased exponentially with stock buy-backs and executive compensation kick-backs, and other tricks by the hedge fund owners like BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard?
I am also remembering the days when that genius Peter Drucker sold American business on the practice of "just-in-time" inventory management. It's not looking too good today, is it?
Lenin was right. Capitalism has sold the rope by which it is being hung.
Also see my own new article: "Election 2024: Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic."
https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/election-2024-rearranging-the-deck-chairs-on-the-titanic/