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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Brilliant analysis. Time to expose the truth!
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!
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.