America's Becoming Something Monstrous, or, Finance, Economics, Fascism, and Self-Destruction

It’s hard to look at pictures like the above, of five year olds being abducted by masked men and not be overwhelmed. With anger, despair, and betrayal. It’s hard not to see the obvious parallels to the 1930s. Hard, too, not to use words like Gestapo.

We are going to talk about what America’s becoming, what it means, where it’s going, and the price to be paid. I mean that in hard terms, economically and financially.

The world will now begin to ask: am I to seriously lend my money to an America in which Trump will simply squander and waste it on obscenities like building Gestapos? And that question answers itself.

A society that can proffer images like the above is in grave condition. Let’s not mince words, and perhaps too few Americans still understand the gravity of the situation. For masked Gestapos to be abducting little children is no small thing. This a society now being transformed institutionally, normatively, and sociopolitically.

America is having a fascist collapse. Having. We aren’t speaking of a distant future anymore, nor is anyone making some kind of grad school level critique. Just observing what’s before us. In this case, we have a severe case, an advanced one, of fascist collapse. 

The picture the image tells is this one. America isn’t just dysfunctional anymore. It is now far beyond that. Shadow institutions have arisen, which pervert the ideals of justice, truth, and freedom. They’re under the iron grip of authoritarian power—wielded as its fist. They occupy cities, and have begun to do the unspeakable: attack little children. For what crime? For the crime of being subhuman, of course, of being “brown” or “illegal” or what have you. Children are children, my friends, and in any civilized society, this is the most crimson of red lines. 

What is the picture the image above tells us? America is not a civilized society anymore. Perhaps it never fully was one, but now, it is something else. It is becoming something monstrous. 

What you feel looking at the above is what is necessary to feel. And it is a guide about how all this ends, too. A sense of obscenity, the bile rising in you, the flash of anger. These are all the correct and proper things to feel. To feel anything less is to fail the moment, to fail history, morality, truth, and reason, all. 

The loss of the soul is what we’re confronted with in America now. I won’t dwell on that, because I have before. I will just say that a society which has lost its moral conscience to the degree that images like the above emerge is one that the world watches in horror. We’re going to talk about the price. Sadly, I have to safeguard you in times like these. Wealth, finance, economics. I called it Havens for a reason.

What does the world see when it looks at the picture above? It sees what I’ve just described of course. But it sees something more, too. Especially where finance and economics are concerned. I don’t wish to boil matters of the soul down to money, and indeed, part of what I am trying to teach you is that there is a place where money and morality converge. That’s contrary to what American thinking tells you, but look where it has led

Where is the place money and morality converge?

The world, looking at the obscenity above, sees this. Here is a nation that is living off of us. We are its credit card, its bank. We are its largest investor, its largest creditor, and its largest trade partner. In this, think of Europe in particular.

And what is this nation doing with all of our capital, which we have worked so hard for? It was one thing, yesterday, when the answer was: consuming, consuming, consuming. That was OK, at least under the rules of capitalism, if not wise. But now the answer is much, much more difficult, to say and to hear.

This nation is taking our capital—ours—and using it to do obscene and grotesque things. Which have no value, create nothing, only destroy, ruin, and devastate It is not doing positive and meaningful and beneficial things with it. When we lend to it, what does it do? It builds Gestapos, which abduct children. Where is the return on that, lesser minds will ask. Wiser ones will say: that is a horrific way to squander what we have worked so hard for.

Perhaps you begin to see my point. Let me now make it clearer, brutally so. This is how wealth is squandered. Do you think the world wants to waste its wealth on Trump’s Gestapos, expansionism, hatred, violence, and rage?

The world lent to, invested in, traded with America. And often, it wasn’t quite comfortable with the terms. Over the years, it began to ask questions, about how functional America really was. And yet because America was the world’s largest market, it put its concerns to one side. But now things are changing, and they are changing fast.

The world is beginning to say: here is a country that takes our capital, and not only isn’t doing much useful with it, but now is using it to do terrible, foolish, things, which have no returns whatsoever, which destroy wealth, just as they destroy trust, prosperity, and the future. What has it accomplished? It can’t provide for its own people, whether healthcare or retirement or education. It hasn’t built functional modern systems for anything. Its institutions were dysfunctional and now they are shattered and broken. It has slunk into authoritarianism, and what does that mean for our capital?

Now, when the world lends America money, it begins to wonder: hey, now I’m funding a Gestapo which disappears five year olds. Is that a good idea? Of course not, it’s obscene and repellent and wrong. And because it is, there are far better uses of capital.

The world is now, when it lends to America, when it invests in America, basically helping Trump build his shadow institutions. Gestapos, occupations, militarization, intimidation, coercion. It’s supporting things like the loss of its own sovereignty, in meltdowns over Greenland and so forth. The credit it extends to America is more and more being used to construct an authoritarian fascist state, replete with the perverse institutions of one.

What will lending to or an investing in an America like this now return? It won’t return much positive, if history is any guide. When we lend money to, invest in, fascist authoritarian regimes, what tends to happen? We increase the likelihood of war, violence, and conflict. We amplify the probability of attacks on us, enmity against us, and hostility towards us. The long-term returns are negative. 

Don’t kid yourself that American bonds paying a 4% interest rate is going to somehow offset all those costs for very long. Would you accept a 4% interest rate…from someone who was setting fire to your house? Would you look the other way for that trifling amount? You’d be a fool to, because you’d lose something much more valuable along the way. Would you lend to someone who wanted to abduct the kids in your neighborhood, wait, create a whole Gestapo, just because they promised you 4%? Does abducting kids tend to return more money than doing intelligent and noble and thoughtful things, from science to art to research to innovation? Is child abduction a business you think the world wants to be in? Where does it end?

Let’s get fucking real, my friends. Painfully, brutally fucking real.

This dance isn’t going to continue. The world isn’t going to continue to play along and smile and extend America credit and investment and trade just so that Trump can build Gestapos, SS’s, kidnap five year olds, and attack it.

Wise international investors always want to see the same things. Functioning institutions. A vision for the future. A long term roadmap for prosperity, shared broadly enough that it generates social stability along the way. 

What wise international investors do not want to see—ever—is fascism and authoritarianism. They don’t want to see pictures of five year olds being abducted by masked men. This is the place where money and morality converge. Because such an investment returns less than nothing. It is unsafe, unwise, and foolish, no matter how is promised.

You may ask the question yourself. I suggest, strongly, that you do. If I invest in a dictator building a Gestapo, what return will I get, in the end? It’s not just that I’m participating in horror, it’s also that no real investment is happening here. Nothing constructive, positive, or beneficial is being built. No good can come of it. Nothing lasting can result from it. No living standards can improve because of it, and no economy that yields lasting prosperity can be built on it.

You would be a terrible kind of fool to say: backing a fascist who wants to build Gestapos and SS’s is a wonderful investment! It is the worst investment you can possibly make, for all the reasons above, and the last one of all, which is that you will get burned. How can you even ever return the promised 4% if an economy is just Gestapos and occupations and threats of war against your friends and neighbors? Where’s it going to come from? Do you see my point?

The correct conclusion is: my hard-earned capital is being burned to ashes if someone says, thank you, I would like to build Gestapos with it. And so is my fucking moral soul.

Meanwhile, the world is full of positive and constructive investments. Really. Even now. And soon enough, that is where capital will be oriented. That’s part of Havens, too, by the way.

That’s too many words to make a simple point, so let me boil it down.

America lives off the world’s largesse, from credit to investment to trade. Now America is asking it to fund Trump’s Gestapos, every time it buys a T-bill, to subsidize his fascist occupations, to prop up its own loss of sovereignty and self-determination.

How long do you think the world is going to want to do that? How long do you think buyers of American bonds are going to say, my hard-earned capital being used to build something useless, ugly, and obscene, like a Gestapo that takes kids, is perfectly fine with me! Instead of saying: I am going to put my capital somewhere far more stable and productive? Do Gestapos produce the kinds of returns that create long-term wealth? Don’t kid yourself.

Americans will pay the price for all this. That is sad, because many disagree with it. But it is inevitable now. It’s often said now that the world doesn’t “trust” America. That’s true, but it misses the point.

There are far, far better things to do with your money than give it to Trump, so he can waste and squander it on history’s great obscenities, like making Gestapos with it.

America’s becoming something monstrous. What your finance guys don’t seem to understand is that the price is very real. Because the cost of this monstrosity to the world is altogether very real. Please ask them the question above: how long do you think the world will go on happily letting its capital be used to do something pointless, ugly, and grotesque, like building Gestapos? Won’t it seek real returns elsewhere, as all this builds to a climax? Where’s the 4% going to come from, if all that’s left is the Fourth Reich? Has a single prosperous economy in modern history been based on gulags and secret polices and masked men abducting children? Ever?

If they don’t have an answer for you, my friends, understand that you are being failed. You must think through on your own now. It is a lie that money and morality don’t converge. They can diverge, that is true. But I can’t imagine a single fool in the world, apart from the MAGA kind, who will say: please, take my hard-earned money, and use it to make Gestapos. If your finance guys aren’t smarter than that, and many of America’s aren’t, then you need new ones. Sadly, even most of America’s intellectuals aren’t this smart, and you’ve been serially failed in terms of warning about how bad this was to get. 

Understand where you are now. America is becoming something monstrous. Dragons guarded hoards of gold. But not because the kingdom willingly gave it to them. Because if it could, that very kingdom would snatch it back in an instant. The price will be ruinous for America.

Don’t be the one left paying it.

That isn’t a threat. It’s finance and economics. The hard-nosed kind. I am teaching you out of respect and care. 

PS My God. Just after I wrote this? The latest headline was that they’d taken a two-year old. 

Love, with sadness, for all the hurt children in the world,

Umair (and Snowy)