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Daily Missive

What Went Wrong With Capitalism, Part Two

Loading ...Addison Wiggin

May 30, 2024 • 5 minute, 43 second read


What Went Wrong With Capitalism, Part Two

“When I read things like the foundations of capitalism are shattering, I’m like, maybe we need that. Maybe we need some time where we’re all walking around with a donkey with pots clanging on the sides.”

– Louis C. K.


[Special Reminder: In case you missed our recent announcement, The Essential Investor has merged with legacy contributors to Agora Financial. The new, larger, more inclusive project is called The Grey Swan Investment Fraternity. If you’re interested in the scope and benefits of our new endeavor, please see what prompted us to merge here. If you’ve been a member of The Essential Investor, please keep an eye out for your new benefits.]

May 30, 2024 – It wasn’t my intention to send you Bill’s follow-up to yesterday’s missive, but this one’s even better. It’s also worth a read. Enjoy. ~~ Addison

CONTINUED BELOW…




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CONTINUED…

Gaming the System

Bill Bonner, Bonner Private Research

Capitalism benefits no one in particular and everyone in general. Overall, things get better. Politics benefits specific groups—the elites— at the expense of everyone else. Overall, things get worse.

See that? That’s sh*t.
And this… this is Shinola.
— The Jerk

We are reporting on a remarkable essay in the weekend Financial Times. In it, Ruchir Sharma explained what’s really ailing capitalism — too much government.

As we saw yesterday, the ‘government’ — along with thought leaders in the press, politicians, academic economists, think tanks, the Deep State and Wall Street — have solved every problem that came our way… from the falling dominoes of Southeast Asia to the poverty and discrimination of Watts. But all this problem solving has left us with a much larger problem, $35 trillion worth of national debt.

How will they solve that one? At stake is the entire world economy… the dollar… U.S. prosperity… and the Primary Trend — the whole shebang.

Here’s a brief resume of what we learned yesterday.

Approximately 96% of the U.S. economy was ‘capitalist’ in 1930. That is, people went about their business, as best they could, offering goods and services to each other. Then, the government (including state, local, and regulatory agencies) grew so much that only about half of the economy is now still free to do what it wants.

The rest is dictated by government budgets and regulations. As we’ve seen, almost all of this spending is squandered… on bombs, bailouts, and bamboozles. Beyond that, the whole economy is twisted into grotesque shapes by another arm of the government, the Fed.

We saw that the much-criticized ‘small government era’ of the Tea Party Republicans… and the ‘deregulation’ following Ronald Reagan… never happened. Government spending and regulation increased steadily.

Military spending (funding the empire) and domestic spending (social programs) and welfare for rich and poor alike — all increased.

And it continues. Joe Biden has just given away $7.7 billion to voters who hadn’t paid their student debt. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is said to be offering tax cuts in exchange for campaign contributions. The Fiscal Times:

Trump Woos Wealthy Donors With Promises of Huge Tax Cuts

Who’s going to pay for Biden’s student loan forgiveness or Trump’s tax cuts?

You are, of course. That’s how politics works.

Capitalism benefits no one in particular… and everyone in general. Overall, things get better.

Politics benefits specific groups — the elites — at the expense of everyone else. Overall, things get worse.

Grosso modo, the more capitalism you have… the freer people are to get what they want honestly. The more politics you have, the more people ‘game the system,’ working out deals with politicians, and using the power of government for their personal wealth or aggrandizement.

It’s either one or the other. Capitalism or politics. Sh*t or Shinola. The idea that there is a happy balance of the two… or that adding more sh*t to the Shinola makes it even shinier… is just nonsense.

Large enterprises with lobbyists… and clerks… could manage Washington’s regulations and take advantage of its many bailouts, subsidies and other opportunities.

They grew bigger.

But big businesses represent past growth. Small businesses are the hope of the future. And with the weight of government on their backs, small companies can barely crawl, let alone sprint.

The rate of growth in productivity has been cut in half since the 1960s. At the top, big companies dominate major industries. At the bottom are the ‘zombies’ — companies that can’t even pay the interest on their debt. Weak and unproductive… like government itself, they waste valuable resources. In between, is a stagnant pool of mid-sized companies struggling to innovate and to survive in a hostile environment of laws, regulations, taxes, inflation and debt.

But wait… Wall Street got rich. The 1% got richer than ever. Surely all that ‘financialization’ and ‘inequality’ was capitalism’s fault, right? No, it wasn’t. Again, the feds are to blame. Sharma:

The spring from which capital flowed was governments and central banks. Including debt and equity, the size of financial markets grew from slightly larger than the global economy [world GDP] in 1980 to almost four times larger today…The driving force behind runaway financialization of capitalism was easy money flowing from the government.

Yes, it was the rotten money that ruined the barrel.

But what now? Sharma:

“Their [U.S. policymakers] overconfidence needs to be contained before it does more damage. Capitalism is still the best hope for human progress, but only if it has enough room to work.”

But there’s more to the story, isn’t there? It’s not just a matter of “overconfidence,” is it? The public may prefer Shinola, but neither Biden nor Trump really sparkle, do they? ~~ Bill Bonner

So it goes,

Turn Your Images On

Addison Wiggin,
The Wiggin Sessions

P.S. Bill promises to address those questions tomorrow at Bonner Private Research. Tomorrow, at Grey Swan, we’ll check in on Javier Milei’s progress in Argentina with the intrepid global traveler, Joel Bowman.

(How did we get here?  An alternative view of the financial, economic, and political history of the United States from Demise of the Dollar through Financial Reckoning Day and on to Empire of Debt — all three books are available in their third post-pandemic editions.)

(Or… simply pre-order Empire of Debt: We Came, We Saw, We Borrowed, now available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble or if you prefer one of these sites:Bookshop.org; Books-A-Million; or Target.)

Please send your comments, reactions, opprobrium, vitriol and praise to: addison@greyswanfraternity.com


Gold: The Only Thing Standing Still

July 11, 2025 • Dominic Frisby

Since the US confiscation of Russian assets in 2022, pretty much every pull back to 50-day moving average (red line) has been bought, and they continue to be bought. The average is now flattening out, as you would expect with this summer consolidation, rather as it did late last year. Some sideways consolidation is good. Ideally, you want to see the short-, medium- and long-term moving averages all flatten and converge. There often follows a big move higher.

Gold: The Only Thing Standing Still
Households Get It, Even if Governments Don’t

July 11, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

We know many consumers continue to live paycheck to paycheck. After spiking higher, the drawdown in savings—cash that can be used in an emergency—is back to pre-pandemic levels.

While the overall debt picture is ugly, in some ways it isn’t – and that it may take some more time for a debt crisis to reach a kitchen countertop near you.

Households Get It, Even if Governments Don’t
The Rally That Didn’t Flinch

July 11, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

As we knock off for the week approaching mid-summer, it strikes us how hard it is to distinguish signal from noise. Markets defying gravity gives us pause.

Don’t buy in at elevated prices.

Keep your asset allocation in full view.

Buy cheap.

Sell dear.

It’s a funny old world, isn’t it?

AI is buying engineers like they’re first-round picks. The military is investing in rare earths like it’s the 1950s space race. Tariffs are flying, cocoa’s getting scarce, and your cereal may soon come with a luxury markup.

None of it, likely, concerns your portfolio.

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July 10, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

This new wave of tokenized shares is exciting. It has the potential to break down walls and democratize access to pre-IPO giants.

But at the moment, it’s also risky, opaque, and largely unregulated.

So while we applaud the innovation, we urge caution — especially if you’re being offered something that seems too good to be true.

Matt Milner: Now You Can Buy SpaceX — Should You?