Pain, Pleasure, and Poverty

First the dots. MarketWatch:

Has inflation really slowed? Not according to this new Fed study.

A new study by the New York Federal Reserve doesn’t directly weigh in on the hawk-versus-dove debate. But researchers at the bank use a proprietary price measure to try to pinpoint the underlying rate of inflation by stripping out any temporary factors, including the effects of the shutdown and limited data collection.

What did New York Fed researchers Martin Almuzara and Geert Mesters find? The rate of inflation in the U.S. stood frozen at 2.83% at the end of 2025 — still well above the Fed’s 2% target.

And here’s Fortune:

$56 trillion national debt leading to a spiraling crisis: Budget watchdog warns the US is walking a crumbling path

The United States is rapidly accelerating toward a definitive tipping point in its financial history, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) wrote in response to the latest 10-year outlook from the Congressional Budget Office. The nonpartisan budget watchdog issued a stark assessment: The current trajectory of borrowing, which is running at double the 50-year historical average, is simply mathematically unsustainable.

And now the connections. The question we posed yesterday was: are we fascists yet? As we will see, this is not just a political issue, but an economic one.

Most people would say ‘no;’ we are not fascists. Where are the death squads…the murdered rivals…the gulags…and the disappearances? And, as far as we know, elections this year…and in 2028…will leave the voters in ultimate control…not the ‘Big Man.’ In the absence of a real emergency — war, insurgency, crash, depression — the voters will determine what happens next, for better or for worse. They may not get what they want, but they will certainly get what they deserve…and maybe get it good and hard.

But whiffs of fascism are in the air. Watching a televised cabinet meeting, for example, may make you think we’re already there. Instead of offering new and different opinions, Bondi, Noem, Bessent, Hegseth et al merely praise the Great Helmsman, who…realizing that nothing of substance is being discussed, may be asleep at the wheel.

Other political elements — the growing control of the press…the use of the Department of Justice to hassle opponents…creation of a huge prison system for detaining (possibly forever?) illegal immigrants, with a large federal paramilitary force ready to do the president’s bidding…and a Department of War with a $1.5 trillion budget (more below) — could be moving us towards a more oppressive and dictatorial government.

But on the economic front, the jackboots already strut and swagger in the Capitol building. Recall Charlotte Twight’s description of fascism:

‘Although fascism gives lip service to capitalism, a fascist economy is essentially orchestrated from the top by its political authorities.’

At the top, the feds now wield so much power that businesses almost have no choice. They must get on board (or into bed!) with the politicians. The Department of War alone is going to spend $1.5 trillion according to the Trump plan. Who can resist bending over for that kind of money?

And then, with so many jobs and so much money depending on the firepower industry…who dares stand against it? Certainly not the Senators and Representatives whose voters are employed by it…and who receive campaign financing from it. And not the press, whose owners often depend on federal regulatory approvals. And not even The People themselves, who rely on it not only for their incomes but for a thin shellac of patriotic pride; their boys kick butt all over the planet.

The regime is often vilified as ‘capitalist,’ but capitalists make their decisions in the existing context…which is set by the political authorities. Krupp, I.G. Farben and Lufthansa, just to name a few out of a group that includes plenty of US corporations too, did not cooperate with the Nazis just because they were greedy. They are always greedy. It was the political context that had changed.

In Germany, 1933 to 1945, it was the Nazis who paid the piper and called the tune. In Detroit, Ford set the pace for treating workers well. But at the Ford plant in Cologne, foreign workers were held in camps behind barbed wire. Did Ford executives in Detroit object? We don’t know, but the politicians were in control. Not capitalists.

As Bertrand Russell explained (our commentary yesterday), the allure of power is that you can get ordinary people to do things they don’t want to do. Threats and violence follow; they’re the only ways to get them to do it. And anytime people are forced to do what they don’t want to do, they get more pain…and less pleasure. They get poorer, in other words.

Stay tuned…