Paul Shattuck made a good point. He suggested I didn't name names and motivations clearly enough in my piece. So here you go.
Paul, you're right I don't mean to imply an evil plot. It's more of a collection of self interest and self preservation. Motivations that range from political to economic to reputational.
I think the through-line here matters way more than catching individual people being villains. You don't need an evil cabal at BLS, BEA, Treasury, or the Fed if you've got institutional capture plus an ideological framework that justifies and drive these decisions.
Some of the worst of this started in 1983. Volcker had raised rates to 20%, the CPI exploded because it measured what was actually happening to mortgage costs. So Reagan looks like he's failing. Janet Norwood ran the BLS. She finds an academically defensible solution which was switching to measuring what you'd theoretically rent your house for instead of what it costs to buy (OER). The measurement gets bent. Not because she's evil. Because of political pressure and opportunity.
Then in 1995. Republicans want to cut Social Security without voting to cut it. Good ole Greenspan testifies the CPI is overstating inflation and providing generous COLAs. Gives Gingrich cover. Same time Gingrich threatens to defund the whole dang agency. Clinton's White House asked if they could fire the commissioner. They can't so they create the Boskin Commission instead.
They hand pick five economists. Zvi Griliches is one of them. Chicago School guy who pioneered hedonics. It wasn't evil but it also wasn't random, Paul. Griliches was there because his theoretical framework lets you say a car that costs five grand more isn't really more expensive if it's "better." Which is just markets are always right dressed up in equations. Further detaching our measures from reality.
That's the backbone. Milton Friedman's Chicago School. Markets are perfect, government is the problem. So the braintrust provides the measurements needed to prove it. Griliches's hedonics were the perfect tool because they're theoretically rigorous and elegant and they justify making inflation look lower. Which validates the entire Reagan-Volcker axis. Which becomes the framework for how we measure everything going forward.
Once that's embedded, you don't need anybody making conscious choices anymore. New economists learn it in school. Think it's sound methodology. Implement it thinking they're doing good technical work. The system keeps producing numbers that make the economy look better than it is. Benefits the people who built the framework in the first place.
And this instinct to manipulate the measurement didn't stop in the 80s or 90s. In 2010, they tried to reclassify "factoryless manufacturers" like Apple and Nike as U.S. manufacturing. It would have counted their offshore production as part of our own, inflating manufacturing numbers overnight and shrinking the trade deficit on paper. The public caught it and it was blocked, but the attempt shows it's still active. The reflex is always the same when reality doesn't fit the narrative, rewrite the measurement.
That's your cultural hegemony. More powerful than conspiracy because nobody has to agree to it. People are just doing what they genuinely think is right work inside a framework that was designed under pressure to serve a specific vision. A vision that served people with power.
The effect is forty years of measurements that hid the actual cost of things, hid the real decline in what work is worth, made extractive policies look successful. And nobody had to meet in a room about it. It just became the water everybody swam in.
I reckon I am a little obsessed with this because even if we elect a hundred AOCs or Bernies or Mamdani’s; folks with genuine intent to fix this system, nothing changes if they walk into office and start working off these same bad measurements.
You can't fix what the data says isn't broken. Know what I mean?
Thanks, Corbin for adding this. That last note is the crux - people's lives, wants, and needs are not all that complicated. The only numbers people care about are the ones that tell them how many sleepless nights they spend trying to figure out how to care properly for their loved ones, how many missed opportunities for a fun outing or two, to save the money for a "need", how many meds (and the cost) to make up for the wracking stress on their bodies due to work and worry. And bad food. The folks you described above may not be mean or dishonest, just good at double-self-talk in order to perform as the boss requires. In the end, I fully believe most people want government that makes their lives easier to live. Why in Earth would we develop a civilization or two, then expect absolutely nothing from them?
My husband and I tried last year to find a modest home or pre-fab we could afford. Every last home was sold to people who do not plan to live in them. No joke. For hundreds of thousands of dollars. They weren't mean, either.
Absolutely on target! The institutions of a society create a framework for how citizens understand their society. And academia teaches conformity not critical thinking. So it is up to us to shed our blinders and build the compassionate communities we long for. This cannot come from the top down because that is not how power works.
I read somewhere that you can't solve a problem using the same matrix that created the problem in the first place. That makes sense to me. You make sense to me and right now making sense of things is like oxygen.
Yeah, I believe the quote originally came from Albert Einstein: "You can't solve a problem from the same level of thinking/consciousness that created it."
Paradigms tend to be self-perpetuating. Case in point: we are currently all up in arms over the Democrat's failure to save Obamacare, when what we actually need is a healthcare system that is not designed to siphon off hundreds of billions that should go toward providing healthcare and instead redirecting to the profits for private health insurer's shareholders.
The ACA is a patch--it opens health insurance to those with pre-existing conditions. Alas, we have some political pre-existing conditions that make reform problematic. For instance, would current Medicare recipients support Medicare for All? Would current beneficiaries of employer provided health insurance support major reform? We need clear answers to these questions before we submit proposals.
It's all because economics is a closed system that's been designed by the wealthy. They fund the schools, the think tanks, and institutes that provide us with the economists. They all then sing from the same songbook. They help design the system.
Indeed. Look at the history of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (“Nobel Prize in Economics” which was not part of the original behest). And look at the winners, their ideologies.
"One of the most often used weapons of the elite is to make even simple things as complicated as possible. Layer complexity on top of complexity. Hide simple truths under mountains of jargon."
I had to stop right there, because there's an excruciatingly important detail missing: It's not a weapon of only the elite!!! Saying it is makes it convenient to blame the elite and miss the truth: It is the weapon of incompetents masquerading as superiors, and those folks exist within every level of society, not just within the elite level. If we want change to LAST, we must have the courage to see the painful truth instead of going for the luscious target.
When I look back at my various jobs and previous career, I got a good hard look and hands on experience of those who are toxic as hell, slowing everything down, making things harder than they ever needed to be, and never doing the right thing unless forced to, and they are what you speak about the elite, but they were far from elite: They made even simple things as complicated as possible, with jargon being their crutch because they have astute memory ability, so jargon comes easy to them even though they know not what they speak other than superficially. I know, because I redid their work at every opportunity, omitting all the duplication, unnecessary, and flawed steps, leaving flawless efficiency in its place.
Quite frankly, our governance system is complicated and slow by design, allowing all manner of criminality, corruption, and greed to satiate the toxic, who see what I see and laugh because most people don't or won't. But the "cutting" the current regime and it's moronic minions propose is the opposite of a solution, and they delight in destruction, because they are who I said they are: Incompetents masquerading as superior, who just happened to have conned their way up the ladder, because good people refuse to see the painful ugly truth of the toxic.
When I was a young single mom on welfare, I discovered this sort of mind manipulation to make you think that somehow your inability to make an impossible budget work was your failure. I called it welfare math and it never added up. There was no actual money available in this budget for food outside of food stamps, yet food stamps were supposed to only "supplement" your food budget. According to the "thrifty food plan" (the basis for food stamp budgets and a marker for the official poverty level) relying solely on food stamps could result in long term malnutrition for your family. If you actually succeeded in feeding your family and keeping a roof over your head you were then subjected to a program called SLAM (Suspected of Living Above Means). I called it SPAM (Suspected of Performing a Miracle). We have been gas lit for too long.
This is a brilliant dissection and analysis of our economy. As you laid out in the essay, the powers that be bury the true status of the economy under layers of convoluted and intentionally misleading information and statistics. I wish there was a way to simplify the truths you reveal so that the average, hoodwinked citizen would pay attention and understand. But, of course, that is the whole point of making things complicated and inscrutable - so that we don't understand.
"We’re layering desperation on top of manipulation and calling it growth." Corbin - this is why people read you and learn. You are an example of the detective who follows the clues. Just an incredible expose' on the Newspeak and gaslighting that has drowned the entire world in filth.
The functional term for this, the root causal agency, is avarice. Not just greed, but greed with an attitude, a bad attitude. Toxic narcissism layered with perverse sadism meant to injure, to disrupt, to not only control, but harm the very foundation of what capitalism is all about - indentured servitude.
This is a return to Dark Ages feudalism managed by a gaggle of Caesars. Same O Same O. Only the gadgets have changed from the years of the Inquisition. Usury comes from a twisted and sickened mind. At its foundation is, of course, Fear. The ubermen of our human world have the tightest sphincters in all of creation. Cringe is their middle name. The terror of freefall failure is so enormous in these types it makes one wonder if the ordinary person's fears are somehow made up. This is the gaslighting that pervades our culture, most cultures.
We rise in the morning and drop into fitful sleep at night to the Giant Sucking Sound that is avarice. Megalomania is the penultimate terminal disease, actual cancer is just one of a thousand sidebars, all of which are gaslighted by the overlords into the 'junk economics' you describe.
And to remove oneself, one's family, tribe, community, etc., from this toxic slime is virtually impossible. Even the 'homeless' are imprisoned inside this bubble of forced extraction/consumption/excretion and toxification. The more grandiose the Newspeak glorifies, the more deadly reality becomes.
This is the wetiko Death Wish of much of humanity, an entrenched behavior so addictive virtually no human can sense, feel, articulate, and isolate its source, its impact, its ultimate consequences - extinction. But extinction is the primal Fear of these uber-addicts, that paranoid Fear of Nothingness, with the personality of any being realizing that consciousness Must be intertwined with a reliable, sustainable association with Something that gives it Substance.
For the frightened, that means massive accumulation and consumption - hoarding on a scale unfathomable in logical terms. How many chairs can Musk or Bezos sit in at any one time? How many caviar eggs will fit in their bellies before engorgement? How many gallons of jet fuel must be burned before bedtime to justify sleep?
Napoleon is credited with reflecting that 'religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.' Some fantasy god was never the epitome, the word came first, and then the god. The epitome of Fear is drowning it in lavish consumption and hoarding, to bury Fear under a Jupiter-sized mountain of toxic filth and dead corpses, a scene constantly repeated throughout human history.
Even IF the 'majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation,' they cannot escape the raw Fear of the uber-class. The 'religion' of humankind is Unkind, it is the raging violence of the paranoia of the cult of personality.
If you Corbin can find a cure for that, I will crown you king, but only for one day. To unmask the deceptions is one thing - to cure a terminal cancer is quite another.
Noticed a slight error in the admin to student ratios you cited. In the cited article it said that Admins and Staff went from 1:84 and 1:50 respectively to 1:68 and 1:21, where you cite and overall 1:68 to 1:6 change, which seemed way to small if it was read as a decimal or way too big as whole numbers. In actuality it's 2.4x the professional staff and 1.3x the administrators. I did notice it was using 2005 numbers, so if the 2025 numbers came from somewhere else you might want to add that citation. Just threw me when I clicked the link and the highlighted paragraph didn't line up. This article is full of very important data that is rarely analyzed this clearly, so it's important to get it right!
Thank you for the deep dive into this - and for exposing the fraud behind the numbers. Figures lie and liars figure...or my favorite, 'lies, damned lies, and statistics'. You are correct that the average worker knows the truth of his situation and, consequently, loses faith in government, economists and themselves. There is so much to fix and exposing the manipulation we are subject is paramount.
Thank you for doing all our homework for us, with this clearly stated and thorough explanation of the multi-layered sleight of hand that is American Economics! These lies are parroted by mainstream media, so no wonder most Americans don't get what's going on. I'd love to see the Great Economy Project work with you in their work w/ folks in Red Rural areas around understanding the economic grift, and helping them organize to fight for their economic rights. Will be passing this on to them. This info needs to be amplified in all media, and to be infiltrated into Economics programs, (and for sure into High School curricula). You've provided a perfect primer for anyone debating the Prosperity/Abundance fraudsters in the Dem party.
We need a new way of thinking. If we do not find and widely share a new way of thinking we condemn ourselves to the self-destructive path we are on. We must collectively become more psychologically self-aware or we will remain on the hamster wheel of tyranny and rebellion that humanity has been engaged in for centuries. Humanity could survive that cycle when we lacked the technology of self-destruction. Those days are over.
* Our beliefs and behavior are strongly influenced by the social structures and institutions we are born into.
* Power corrupts.
* Wealth is power.
* Therefore the rich and powerful, both people and nations, cannot help but be corrupt.
* Elitism is the belief that some people are inherently better (better because they are stronger, whiter, richer, male, prettier, smarter, better educated, better genes, born in "this" country, etc., etc.) people and therefore more deserving of having more of everything than everyone else, even more deserving of life itself.
* Any institution, any social, political or economic structure that creates or supports rule by a small group has always been, is now and will always be corrupted by their power.
* Representative democracy is not democracy, it is another formulation of rule by an elite class. Representative democracy is unavoidably corrupt.
* Capitalism is an economic system that redistributes material wealth from most people to a few because the end goal of capitalism is monopoly. Capitalism is inherently and unavoidably corrupt.
* Fear is a necessary survival drive. Malignant fear is the insatiable fear of not having enough. Malignant fear is contagious and spreads through fear mongering.
* No matter how much one has, a person suffering from malignant fear never feels safe so they will accumulate as much wealth as they are allowed to, organize the murder millions of people if they are allowed to, do whatever society at large will allow them to in their unconscious quest for safety.
* Tyrants always fear monger to gain the social power to do what they want, thus infecting society with the same malignant fear that drives them.
* The essence of democracy is equal sharing of political power.
* The essence of socialism is equal sharing of material wealth.
* Universal Human Rights are the antidote to tyranny.
* Utopia is unattainable. But utopian goals are necessary if we are to get closer to what is possible.
Every form of elitism is ultimately a death cult. This is literally a time when humanity is choosing, mostly unconsciously, between life and extinction.
This is what is needed. Clear, concrete discussion, with data to back it up, of how the “ economists” have “cooked the books” to continue to explain away the reality of what is actually going on. This is what people need to hear, and see. Then people can begin to understand exactly how they’ve been screwed.
All true, but here is another aspect of the problem you need to address. Even if the insanity of hedonics made sense, it doesn't matter.
In a democracy the demos, the people, have to benefit fairly from the increase in national wealth.
If everybody is living well and has plenty of housing and healthcare and education, WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY NOT THE CASE NOW, but even if that were the case, a democracy still can't function for very long if the wealth created by the whole society accumulates mostly at the top.
No society will believe in democracy for very long if it exists to enrich the few. Democracy is about making things better for the people, when it serves only the few, then, pretty much by definition, it will start self destructing.
I would say that democracy is simply a tool for every adult member of a community or nation to share political power equally. Representative democracy is just another system of rule by an elite class not democracy.
When you have money in politics to the extent the US has—funding campaigns before elections or funding special interest lobby groups after them—you can call this a kleptocracy, a plutocracy, an oligarchy or in plain English an auction, but by definition you cannot call it a democracy.
@VermontRobbyPorter like never before have young adults faced a future of such bleak uncertainty—the inability to own a home, support a family or retire comfortably—despite being born into a wealthy Western country. Their discontent stems not from greed, but from the stark reality that each new generation faces greater challenges than the last. How does this align with the notion of progress? What's the point of a country’s riches if each succeeding generation endures greater hardships?
Among the younger generations, a growing disillusionment prevails—a quiet yet profound realisation that the system they inherited neither disperses power equitably, safeguards individual liberties, nor makes a palpable effort to prevent individual disenfranchisement. What they value, with fervent clarity, are peace and security, economic sustainability, and a future rooted in restored international relationships. These priorities stand in stark opposition to the trajectory of Western politics as it has unfolded over the past seven decades, rendering the political establishment's promises hollow in their eyes.
I encourage you to take a look at the column I wrote over the weekend:
I've tried telling people for years the way we measure economic success is more by the bottom line of corporations than anything and that doesn't actually show what our real economy is like. If you take all the criteria in this article, instead, it will show the true picture of an economy in the toilet. Maybe it would have worked back when the companies spread the wealth to the employees and CEOs and owners had a reasonable piece of profits while sharing it with those that made them the money, but it doesn't when CEOs make 400%, 500%, or more than the average person that actually does the work and makes the money.
Paul Shattuck made a good point. He suggested I didn't name names and motivations clearly enough in my piece. So here you go.
Paul, you're right I don't mean to imply an evil plot. It's more of a collection of self interest and self preservation. Motivations that range from political to economic to reputational.
I think the through-line here matters way more than catching individual people being villains. You don't need an evil cabal at BLS, BEA, Treasury, or the Fed if you've got institutional capture plus an ideological framework that justifies and drive these decisions.
Some of the worst of this started in 1983. Volcker had raised rates to 20%, the CPI exploded because it measured what was actually happening to mortgage costs. So Reagan looks like he's failing. Janet Norwood ran the BLS. She finds an academically defensible solution which was switching to measuring what you'd theoretically rent your house for instead of what it costs to buy (OER). The measurement gets bent. Not because she's evil. Because of political pressure and opportunity.
Then in 1995. Republicans want to cut Social Security without voting to cut it. Good ole Greenspan testifies the CPI is overstating inflation and providing generous COLAs. Gives Gingrich cover. Same time Gingrich threatens to defund the whole dang agency. Clinton's White House asked if they could fire the commissioner. They can't so they create the Boskin Commission instead.
They hand pick five economists. Zvi Griliches is one of them. Chicago School guy who pioneered hedonics. It wasn't evil but it also wasn't random, Paul. Griliches was there because his theoretical framework lets you say a car that costs five grand more isn't really more expensive if it's "better." Which is just markets are always right dressed up in equations. Further detaching our measures from reality.
That's the backbone. Milton Friedman's Chicago School. Markets are perfect, government is the problem. So the braintrust provides the measurements needed to prove it. Griliches's hedonics were the perfect tool because they're theoretically rigorous and elegant and they justify making inflation look lower. Which validates the entire Reagan-Volcker axis. Which becomes the framework for how we measure everything going forward.
Once that's embedded, you don't need anybody making conscious choices anymore. New economists learn it in school. Think it's sound methodology. Implement it thinking they're doing good technical work. The system keeps producing numbers that make the economy look better than it is. Benefits the people who built the framework in the first place.
And this instinct to manipulate the measurement didn't stop in the 80s or 90s. In 2010, they tried to reclassify "factoryless manufacturers" like Apple and Nike as U.S. manufacturing. It would have counted their offshore production as part of our own, inflating manufacturing numbers overnight and shrinking the trade deficit on paper. The public caught it and it was blocked, but the attempt shows it's still active. The reflex is always the same when reality doesn't fit the narrative, rewrite the measurement.
That's your cultural hegemony. More powerful than conspiracy because nobody has to agree to it. People are just doing what they genuinely think is right work inside a framework that was designed under pressure to serve a specific vision. A vision that served people with power.
The effect is forty years of measurements that hid the actual cost of things, hid the real decline in what work is worth, made extractive policies look successful. And nobody had to meet in a room about it. It just became the water everybody swam in.
I reckon I am a little obsessed with this because even if we elect a hundred AOCs or Bernies or Mamdani’s; folks with genuine intent to fix this system, nothing changes if they walk into office and start working off these same bad measurements.
You can't fix what the data says isn't broken. Know what I mean?
Thanks, Corbin for adding this. That last note is the crux - people's lives, wants, and needs are not all that complicated. The only numbers people care about are the ones that tell them how many sleepless nights they spend trying to figure out how to care properly for their loved ones, how many missed opportunities for a fun outing or two, to save the money for a "need", how many meds (and the cost) to make up for the wracking stress on their bodies due to work and worry. And bad food. The folks you described above may not be mean or dishonest, just good at double-self-talk in order to perform as the boss requires. In the end, I fully believe most people want government that makes their lives easier to live. Why in Earth would we develop a civilization or two, then expect absolutely nothing from them?
My husband and I tried last year to find a modest home or pre-fab we could afford. Every last home was sold to people who do not plan to live in them. No joke. For hundreds of thousands of dollars. They weren't mean, either.
Housing is a basic human need. It has to be strictly regulated, and land speculators should be kept out of it.
Absolutely on target! The institutions of a society create a framework for how citizens understand their society. And academia teaches conformity not critical thinking. So it is up to us to shed our blinders and build the compassionate communities we long for. This cannot come from the top down because that is not how power works.
I read somewhere that you can't solve a problem using the same matrix that created the problem in the first place. That makes sense to me. You make sense to me and right now making sense of things is like oxygen.
Yeah, I believe the quote originally came from Albert Einstein: "You can't solve a problem from the same level of thinking/consciousness that created it."
Paradigms tend to be self-perpetuating. Case in point: we are currently all up in arms over the Democrat's failure to save Obamacare, when what we actually need is a healthcare system that is not designed to siphon off hundreds of billions that should go toward providing healthcare and instead redirecting to the profits for private health insurer's shareholders.
The ACA is a patch--it opens health insurance to those with pre-existing conditions. Alas, we have some political pre-existing conditions that make reform problematic. For instance, would current Medicare recipients support Medicare for All? Would current beneficiaries of employer provided health insurance support major reform? We need clear answers to these questions before we submit proposals.
Agreed. Corbin introduced this idea a week ago I believe making democrats "noble prerogative" a moot point in the shut down. Save Obamacare, for whom?
United Healthcare Inc (just ask Luigi Mangione)
It's all because economics is a closed system that's been designed by the wealthy. They fund the schools, the think tanks, and institutes that provide us with the economists. They all then sing from the same songbook. They help design the system.
Indeed. Look at the history of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (“Nobel Prize in Economics” which was not part of the original behest). And look at the winners, their ideologies.
Good point!
"One of the most often used weapons of the elite is to make even simple things as complicated as possible. Layer complexity on top of complexity. Hide simple truths under mountains of jargon."
I had to stop right there, because there's an excruciatingly important detail missing: It's not a weapon of only the elite!!! Saying it is makes it convenient to blame the elite and miss the truth: It is the weapon of incompetents masquerading as superiors, and those folks exist within every level of society, not just within the elite level. If we want change to LAST, we must have the courage to see the painful truth instead of going for the luscious target.
When I look back at my various jobs and previous career, I got a good hard look and hands on experience of those who are toxic as hell, slowing everything down, making things harder than they ever needed to be, and never doing the right thing unless forced to, and they are what you speak about the elite, but they were far from elite: They made even simple things as complicated as possible, with jargon being their crutch because they have astute memory ability, so jargon comes easy to them even though they know not what they speak other than superficially. I know, because I redid their work at every opportunity, omitting all the duplication, unnecessary, and flawed steps, leaving flawless efficiency in its place.
Quite frankly, our governance system is complicated and slow by design, allowing all manner of criminality, corruption, and greed to satiate the toxic, who see what I see and laugh because most people don't or won't. But the "cutting" the current regime and it's moronic minions propose is the opposite of a solution, and they delight in destruction, because they are who I said they are: Incompetents masquerading as superior, who just happened to have conned their way up the ladder, because good people refuse to see the painful ugly truth of the toxic.
When I was a young single mom on welfare, I discovered this sort of mind manipulation to make you think that somehow your inability to make an impossible budget work was your failure. I called it welfare math and it never added up. There was no actual money available in this budget for food outside of food stamps, yet food stamps were supposed to only "supplement" your food budget. According to the "thrifty food plan" (the basis for food stamp budgets and a marker for the official poverty level) relying solely on food stamps could result in long term malnutrition for your family. If you actually succeeded in feeding your family and keeping a roof over your head you were then subjected to a program called SLAM (Suspected of Living Above Means). I called it SPAM (Suspected of Performing a Miracle). We have been gas lit for too long.
would a $40/hr wage make it a livable wage?
Thank you for sharing your story.
This is a brilliant dissection and analysis of our economy. As you laid out in the essay, the powers that be bury the true status of the economy under layers of convoluted and intentionally misleading information and statistics. I wish there was a way to simplify the truths you reveal so that the average, hoodwinked citizen would pay attention and understand. But, of course, that is the whole point of making things complicated and inscrutable - so that we don't understand.
Brilliant analysis. Time to expose the truth!
"We’re layering desperation on top of manipulation and calling it growth." Corbin - this is why people read you and learn. You are an example of the detective who follows the clues. Just an incredible expose' on the Newspeak and gaslighting that has drowned the entire world in filth.
The functional term for this, the root causal agency, is avarice. Not just greed, but greed with an attitude, a bad attitude. Toxic narcissism layered with perverse sadism meant to injure, to disrupt, to not only control, but harm the very foundation of what capitalism is all about - indentured servitude.
This is a return to Dark Ages feudalism managed by a gaggle of Caesars. Same O Same O. Only the gadgets have changed from the years of the Inquisition. Usury comes from a twisted and sickened mind. At its foundation is, of course, Fear. The ubermen of our human world have the tightest sphincters in all of creation. Cringe is their middle name. The terror of freefall failure is so enormous in these types it makes one wonder if the ordinary person's fears are somehow made up. This is the gaslighting that pervades our culture, most cultures.
We rise in the morning and drop into fitful sleep at night to the Giant Sucking Sound that is avarice. Megalomania is the penultimate terminal disease, actual cancer is just one of a thousand sidebars, all of which are gaslighted by the overlords into the 'junk economics' you describe.
And to remove oneself, one's family, tribe, community, etc., from this toxic slime is virtually impossible. Even the 'homeless' are imprisoned inside this bubble of forced extraction/consumption/excretion and toxification. The more grandiose the Newspeak glorifies, the more deadly reality becomes.
This is the wetiko Death Wish of much of humanity, an entrenched behavior so addictive virtually no human can sense, feel, articulate, and isolate its source, its impact, its ultimate consequences - extinction. But extinction is the primal Fear of these uber-addicts, that paranoid Fear of Nothingness, with the personality of any being realizing that consciousness Must be intertwined with a reliable, sustainable association with Something that gives it Substance.
For the frightened, that means massive accumulation and consumption - hoarding on a scale unfathomable in logical terms. How many chairs can Musk or Bezos sit in at any one time? How many caviar eggs will fit in their bellies before engorgement? How many gallons of jet fuel must be burned before bedtime to justify sleep?
Napoleon is credited with reflecting that 'religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.' Some fantasy god was never the epitome, the word came first, and then the god. The epitome of Fear is drowning it in lavish consumption and hoarding, to bury Fear under a Jupiter-sized mountain of toxic filth and dead corpses, a scene constantly repeated throughout human history.
Even IF the 'majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation,' they cannot escape the raw Fear of the uber-class. The 'religion' of humankind is Unkind, it is the raging violence of the paranoia of the cult of personality.
If you Corbin can find a cure for that, I will crown you king, but only for one day. To unmask the deceptions is one thing - to cure a terminal cancer is quite another.
Noticed a slight error in the admin to student ratios you cited. In the cited article it said that Admins and Staff went from 1:84 and 1:50 respectively to 1:68 and 1:21, where you cite and overall 1:68 to 1:6 change, which seemed way to small if it was read as a decimal or way too big as whole numbers. In actuality it's 2.4x the professional staff and 1.3x the administrators. I did notice it was using 2005 numbers, so if the 2025 numbers came from somewhere else you might want to add that citation. Just threw me when I clicked the link and the highlighted paragraph didn't line up. This article is full of very important data that is rarely analyzed this clearly, so it's important to get it right!
Hey thanks for the heads up. The change from 1975 in average admin:students ratio should be 84:1 (1975) and 6:1 (2024)
I’m updating the links to articles. There is also tables at NCES that outline all this but I decided to use articles. It’s updated.
Updated the link, thanks!
Thank you for the deep dive into this - and for exposing the fraud behind the numbers. Figures lie and liars figure...or my favorite, 'lies, damned lies, and statistics'. You are correct that the average worker knows the truth of his situation and, consequently, loses faith in government, economists and themselves. There is so much to fix and exposing the manipulation we are subject is paramount.
Thank you for doing all our homework for us, with this clearly stated and thorough explanation of the multi-layered sleight of hand that is American Economics! These lies are parroted by mainstream media, so no wonder most Americans don't get what's going on. I'd love to see the Great Economy Project work with you in their work w/ folks in Red Rural areas around understanding the economic grift, and helping them organize to fight for their economic rights. Will be passing this on to them. This info needs to be amplified in all media, and to be infiltrated into Economics programs, (and for sure into High School curricula). You've provided a perfect primer for anyone debating the Prosperity/Abundance fraudsters in the Dem party.
We need a new way of thinking. If we do not find and widely share a new way of thinking we condemn ourselves to the self-destructive path we are on. We must collectively become more psychologically self-aware or we will remain on the hamster wheel of tyranny and rebellion that humanity has been engaged in for centuries. Humanity could survive that cycle when we lacked the technology of self-destruction. Those days are over.
* Our beliefs and behavior are strongly influenced by the social structures and institutions we are born into.
* Power corrupts.
* Wealth is power.
* Therefore the rich and powerful, both people and nations, cannot help but be corrupt.
* Elitism is the belief that some people are inherently better (better because they are stronger, whiter, richer, male, prettier, smarter, better educated, better genes, born in "this" country, etc., etc.) people and therefore more deserving of having more of everything than everyone else, even more deserving of life itself.
* Any institution, any social, political or economic structure that creates or supports rule by a small group has always been, is now and will always be corrupted by their power.
* Representative democracy is not democracy, it is another formulation of rule by an elite class. Representative democracy is unavoidably corrupt.
* Capitalism is an economic system that redistributes material wealth from most people to a few because the end goal of capitalism is monopoly. Capitalism is inherently and unavoidably corrupt.
* Fear is a necessary survival drive. Malignant fear is the insatiable fear of not having enough. Malignant fear is contagious and spreads through fear mongering.
* No matter how much one has, a person suffering from malignant fear never feels safe so they will accumulate as much wealth as they are allowed to, organize the murder millions of people if they are allowed to, do whatever society at large will allow them to in their unconscious quest for safety.
* Tyrants always fear monger to gain the social power to do what they want, thus infecting society with the same malignant fear that drives them.
* The essence of democracy is equal sharing of political power.
* The essence of socialism is equal sharing of material wealth.
* Universal Human Rights are the antidote to tyranny.
* Utopia is unattainable. But utopian goals are necessary if we are to get closer to what is possible.
Every form of elitism is ultimately a death cult. This is literally a time when humanity is choosing, mostly unconsciously, between life and extinction.
Perhaps Homo Sapiens Sapiens should stop breeding to abandon.
Corbin you're a diligent stalwart pragmatic Journalist...
Thanks for the deep dive into the political investor class grift
Given the shift in Academia over the last 40 Yrs toward corporate and charitable benefactor sponsored research...
It's hard not to attribute the chicanery used to spin the story for their principal constituent's to gaslight the American public!
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and Propaganda is an effective tool to shift the narrative...
Casino Capitalism is a grift!
This is what is needed. Clear, concrete discussion, with data to back it up, of how the “ economists” have “cooked the books” to continue to explain away the reality of what is actually going on. This is what people need to hear, and see. Then people can begin to understand exactly how they’ve been screwed.
All true, but here is another aspect of the problem you need to address. Even if the insanity of hedonics made sense, it doesn't matter.
In a democracy the demos, the people, have to benefit fairly from the increase in national wealth.
If everybody is living well and has plenty of housing and healthcare and education, WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY NOT THE CASE NOW, but even if that were the case, a democracy still can't function for very long if the wealth created by the whole society accumulates mostly at the top.
No society will believe in democracy for very long if it exists to enrich the few. Democracy is about making things better for the people, when it serves only the few, then, pretty much by definition, it will start self destructing.
I would say that democracy is simply a tool for every adult member of a community or nation to share political power equally. Representative democracy is just another system of rule by an elite class not democracy.
When you have money in politics to the extent the US has—funding campaigns before elections or funding special interest lobby groups after them—you can call this a kleptocracy, a plutocracy, an oligarchy or in plain English an auction, but by definition you cannot call it a democracy.
@VermontRobbyPorter like never before have young adults faced a future of such bleak uncertainty—the inability to own a home, support a family or retire comfortably—despite being born into a wealthy Western country. Their discontent stems not from greed, but from the stark reality that each new generation faces greater challenges than the last. How does this align with the notion of progress? What's the point of a country’s riches if each succeeding generation endures greater hardships?
Among the younger generations, a growing disillusionment prevails—a quiet yet profound realisation that the system they inherited neither disperses power equitably, safeguards individual liberties, nor makes a palpable effort to prevent individual disenfranchisement. What they value, with fervent clarity, are peace and security, economic sustainability, and a future rooted in restored international relationships. These priorities stand in stark opposition to the trajectory of Western politics as it has unfolded over the past seven decades, rendering the political establishment's promises hollow in their eyes.
I encourage you to take a look at the column I wrote over the weekend:
https://typerider.substack.com/p/the-failure-of-fiction?r=2ywal
I've tried telling people for years the way we measure economic success is more by the bottom line of corporations than anything and that doesn't actually show what our real economy is like. If you take all the criteria in this article, instead, it will show the true picture of an economy in the toilet. Maybe it would have worked back when the companies spread the wealth to the employees and CEOs and owners had a reasonable piece of profits while sharing it with those that made them the money, but it doesn't when CEOs make 400%, 500%, or more than the average person that actually does the work and makes the money.