*** “Wooden-headedness consists of assessing a situation in terms of preconceived, fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting to wish while not allowing oneself to be confused by the facts.”
[ historian. Barbara Tuchman ]
Watch YOUR wallet, YOUR job, YOUR home, America’s financial stability.
First: read two articles: Thom Hartmann’s “The Coming Republican Depression: How the GOP Turned. America Into a Powder Keg, and Is About to Light the Match” [The Progressive Populist, September, 2025], and Colby Smith and Stacy Cowley’s “Critics see risk in Fed cuts to oversight” [ New York Times, November 19, 2025].
Second; Pray. And hope patriotic American officials will overcome Trumpian stupidity and corruption.
Consider these excerpts from Thom Hartmann’s “The Coming Republican Depression:
1]. “Republicans may be fixing to crash the economy again – Republican presidents oversaw 10 of the last 11 recessions and the Republican Great Depression – and they’re doing it to satisfy the greed of the billionaires they serve…..in 1929, Republican deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, financial speculation, and an all-out assault on labor exploded into the Republican Great Depression. Today, every one of the fuse lines that set off those explosions is once again being laid by a Republican president and Party…They are actively destabilizing the pillars of our economy, undermining our democracy, and gutting the social contract that has held us together for nearly a century.”
2]. “We are now living under a Republican president whose party has:
– Repeatedly held the full faith and credit of the United States in debt ceiling standoffs designed to force cruel cuts to programs that serve ordinary people;
– Demanded the Fed lower interest rates in a way that could push the nation into an inflationary spiral even as wages stagnate and housing becomes unaffordable for the bottom 90%;
– Pushed for an end of regulations on banks, fossil fuel companies, tech monopolies, and Wall street speculators, even as their recklessness increases systematic risk;
– Championed massive tax cuts for billionaires and multinational corporations, ballooning the deficit while cutting benefits and raising taxes on working people;
– Enabled trade wars and supply chain disruptions while cutting support for green manufacturing and public investment
– Promoted and made billions from crypto;
– And perhaps most grotesquely, embraced an open authoritarianism and white nationalism, eroding the rule of law and the very stability on which economic confidence depends.
Every one of these moves destabilizes the foundation of modern prosperity. And every one of them echoes the warning signs of past collapses.”
*** “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentration in the hands of a few. But we can’t have both.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]
Consider these excerpts from Smith and Cowley’s. “Critics see risk in Fed cuts…”:
1] “..a list of directives for Fed examiners and supervisory staff across the country that significantly curtailed how closely they scrutinized lenders. It followed a host of changes made by Michelle W. Bowman [Trump appointee]..”
2] “current and former policy-makers and legal experts were already worried hat those changes would encourage exactly the kind of risk-taking that could sow the seeds for the next crisis….hat supervisors will be less equipped to spot such a crisis in advance, risking deeper damage to the economy.”
3]. “The memo also outlined changes that sought to limit the oversight power of two groups created by the Fed’s board after the 2008 financial crisis.” [stupidity, ideology, corruption?????]
4] “The Fed is not the only financial regulator undergoing upheaval to align with the Trump administration’s vision. The president wants more sway over how the central bank and other independent institutions, like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, oversee Wall Street.” [dictators do NOT want anybody to have ANY independence – their “vision’ is control]
5] “Another regulator, thre Consumer Financial Protection Bureau…has already been gutted.” [their ‘crime”? – they forced banks and other lenders to give back $20 billion to people like YOU!!! – we can’t have that!!!]
*** “The more lies are told, the more important it becomes for the liars to justify themselves by deep moral commitments to high-sounding objectives that mask the pursuit of money and power.” [ Bertram Gross ]
[NOTE: ask YOURSELF; Why do we have financial regulations? is it because we “hate banks and bankers”? is it because we’re jealous of rich people? Perhaps it’s because the world track record since at least the 1700s has DOCUMENTED the proclivity of “financial wizards,’ Wall Street, the banking industry of multiple countries, to take risks that blow up – and lead to destructive financial crises – of which 1929-41 is only the most documented for causes, suffering, results [like World War II].]
*** “Being ignorant is not so much Shame, as being unwilling to learn.” [ Benjamin Franklin ]
