Hey FERAL Reserve, Cut Interest Rates NOW!

The FERAL Reserve still has yet to cut interest rates, and despite the Dow Jones recently hitting 40,000, the risk of recession is apparently growing by the day.  And after falling dramatically from its 2022 peak of 9% once the pandemic-induced (more like lockdown-induced) supply chain issues and shortages got resolved, inflation currently remains stubbornly stuck in the neighborhood of 3%.  Because Jerome Powell is too stubborn to cut rates, thus keeping us trapped in a quagmire.  Hello, stagflation!

A recession is probably already baked into the cake at this point, and thus is probably too late to avoid entirely.  Granted.  But the Fed can still at least delay the onset, reduce the length and severity, and promote a speedier recovery IF they would deign to cut rates yesterday.  And even just delaying the onset by a quarter or two would likely postpone it until after the November election, reducing the odds that the Donald would win again. 

Flag Day

Just pointing out that today is Flag Day. But this blog looks no different today because we display the Stars and Stripes every day.

To all the ignorant fools who burn it, remember what it is that you're really burning, and all those that fought and died for it. Those who consider themselves to be on the political left would be better served by "taking back the Flag" and waving it proudly, so it is NOT perverted into an ultra-right-wing symbol by the fascists.  Make it clear that the government policies you oppose are NOT in the national interest. And let everyone know that you can just as strongly love this country as you dislike its government. In fact, plenty of true patriots often do feel that way.

The Flag is not Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, or belonging to any other faction. It is the American Flag, and it belongs to all of us. 

LIVE FREE OR DIE!

Trump Is Guilty As Charged

It's official, Trump is GUILTY as charged.  On May 30, 2024, he was found guilty on all 34 counts in the hush-money trial.  That means he is now literally a convicted felon, and the first president in US history, current or former, to have ever been convicted of a felony.  That is, as he would say, "unpresidented".  He will be sentenced on July 11, and can face up to four years in prison, and also have to pay up to $5000 per count, if the judge (hopefully!) decides to give him the maximum sentence.  That's, as he would say YUUUUUGE!  Also, as he would say, Sad!

Of course, his die-hard supporters will see him as a martyr.  LOL.  But hopefully, even if he ends up avoiding prison and somehow still remains on the 2024 ballot, enough of the fence-sitters will be swayed to guarantee that he will lose the election, bigly.  

Believe me.

A Better Than Nordic-Style Social Welfare State With Less Than ALASKA Taxes

A friendly reminder to all readers:  contrary to popular opinion, it is entirely possible to have a better than Nordic-style social welfare state with less than Florida Alaska taxes.  Why?  (You really may want to sit down before reading any further.)

Because federal taxes do NOT fund federal spending, that's why!  Not the individual income tax, not the corporate income tax, not FICA, not the various excises, duties, and tariffs, not estate or gift taxes, nor any other federal tax for that matter.  It is all a Big Lie illusion to prop up the oligarchy, especially the big banks, via artificial scarcity of dollars.  As Rodger Malcolm Mitchell famously notes, and echoed by Dr. Joseph M. Firestone, the federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, that is, being the issuer of it's own currency, it by definition has infinite money.  Any money they receive, through taxes or otherwise, is effectively like bringing coals to Newcastle, in that it disappears into infinity (thus de facto destroyed).  And whenever they spend money on anything, they create each dollar on an ad hoc basis to pay as they go.  

Switching to what Dr. Firestone calls "Overt Congressional Financing (OCF)" is LONG overdue.  On August 15, 1971, the gold standard effectively ended for good, but the method of Congressional financing remains more or less stuck in the past.

Meanwhile, the so-called "National Debt" (TM) is also an illusion, in that it consists of Treasury securities that are only spuriously linked to federal spending due to arcane and archaic rules left over from the now-defunct gold standard that ended over half a century ago.  Each T-security is effectively equivalent to a CD savings account for those who choose to invest in them.  Additionally, the idea that money can only be created with interest or other "strings" attached to it is yet another part of the Big Lie as well.

(It could literally be paid off in one fell swoop at zero cost to anyone, in fact.  And it's technically not even "borrowing" at all.  Infinite money, remember?)

Ditto for the Social Security, Medicare, and other federal "trust funds", which are literally nothing more than accounting gimmicks based on artificial scarcity.  They could fund all of that and more by simply creating the money on an ad hoc basis.

As for inflation, that is generally caused by shortages of goods and services, NOT by printing too much money.  It is ultimately a supply-side problem that requires supply-side solutions, including (counterintuitively) more federal spending targeted to incentivize more production of scarce goods and services.  Thus, rationing dollars via austerity measures and/or raising interest rates to fight inflation and/or recession is like applying leeches to cure anemia.  It is a fundamental category mistake that does far more harm than good on balance.

Of course, the oligarchs want to condition We the People to accept mere crumbs from the tables of the rich.  That way they can keep widening the yawning gap between the haves and have-nots, givng the oligarchs more power to lord it over us all.

Bottom line: all of these gimmicks are completely artificial, contrived, and designed to deceive us all.  The ONLY purposes of taxes in a Monetarily Sovereign government that issues it's own currency (like the federal government, but not (yet) state and local governments) are 1) to control and regulate the economy by encouraging or discouraging various behaviors and activities, 2) to (crudely) fight inflation, 3) to create demand for the currency, and 4) to prop up and give credence to the Big Lie.  But the supposed need to raise revenue is NOT one of them at all.

Thus, with the stroke of a pen, Congress can very easily square the circle of a better than Nordic-style social welfare state with less than Alaska taxes, complete with a national version of the Alaska Permanent Fund.  They gave the FERAL Reserve its power in 1913, and they can just as easily take it away today if they chose to.  But of course, their oligarch masters would NOT want that at all!  Most Congresscritters save for a tiny few, are of course bought and paid for by the big money interests.  Thus, we need to throw the bums out, yesterday!

So what are we waiting for? PAGING DR. FIRESTONE!  NEEDED IN WASHINGTON, DC, STAT!

Hey FERAL Reserve: Cut Interest Rates NOW!

The FERAL Reserve still has yet to cut interest rates, and despite the Dow Jones recently hitting 40,000, the risk of recession is apparently growing by the day.  And after falling dramatically from its 2022 peak of 9% once the pandemic-induced (more like lockdown-induced) supply chain issues and shortages got resolved, inflation currently remains stubbornly stuck in the neighborhood of 3%.  Because Jerome Powell is too stubborn to cut rates, thus keeping us trapped in a quagmire.  Hello, stagflation!

A recession is probably already baked into the cake at this point, and thus is probably too late to avoid entirely.  Granted.  But the Fed can still at least delay the onset, reduce the length and severity, and promote a speedier recovery IF they would deign to cut rates yesterday.  And even just delaying the onset by a quarter or two would likely postpone it until after the November election, reducing the odds that the Donald would win again. 

We Re-Affirm Our Zero-Tolerance Policy Towards Antisemitism (And All Other Forms Of Racism And Bigotry)

In the wake of the still ongoing Israel-Gaza war following the brutal and barbaric terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel, and especially with all of the recent protests on college campuses and elsewhere, there has been an outpouring of antisemitism lately from both left and right (though largely from the regressive "left").  Some of it is ostensibly at least tangentially related to current events, while some of it is simply a "mask off" moment for longstanding hatred against Jews that has always been there but now has come to the surface now they have found a politically convenient excuse to hide behind. Either way, it is completely unacceptable.  Regardless of how one may feel about current events, there is NO excuse for that sort of bigotry.  Period.  And the silence is truly deafening among those who should know better than to be silent in the face of it as well.

As we have said in the past, we the TSAP hereby vow to NEVER make that sort of mistake by either omission or commission, and hereby condemn antisemitism in the very strongest of terms, just as strongly as we do racism in general.  And the reader is put on notice that we will NEVER tolerate any overt or covert antisemitism in our party, period, no matter how much one tries (in vain, by definition) to dress it up in any sort of leftist or social justice rhetoric.  Bigotry by any other name still stinks.

Therefore, using any of the following red flag words, phrases, or references will get your comments promptly deleted, and severe and/or repeat offenders will be banned permanently:

Obviously, any known slurs against Jews ("y*d", "k**e", "h**b", "Chr*st-ki**er", etc.), or any permutations thereof
Using the word "Jew" or "Jewish" itself as a pejorative or insult
Adding pejorative modifiers such as "dirty", "cheap", or "money-grubbing" to same

Comparing Jews to vampires, vultures, bloodsuckers, parasites, pirates, carpetbaggers, etc.
Blood libel or vilification of any kind
Stab-in-the-back legends vilifying Jews

Claiming that Jews are sinister puppeteers or secretly rule the world 

Claims of divided loyalties 
Calling for violence of any kind against Jews or Israel
Inciting pogroms of any kind

Praising the October 7th terrorist attack

Denying or minimizing the October 7th terrorist attack, or blaming Israel for it
Any Holocaust denial (including "soft" denial or minimization, or JAQ-ing off)
Any Holocaust jokes, or any jokes about gas chambers, ovens, or death squads in relation to anyone Jewish.  NOT FUNNY!

Any Anne Frank jokes
Any other jokes demeaning to Jews

Any praising of Hitler or the Nazis (or neo-Nazis)
Any praising of the KKK or white supremacists or white nationalists, including the "alt-right" and neo-Confederates
Any praising of known Holocaust deniers
Any praising of Hamas or Hezbollah (or al-Qaeda or ISIL, for that matter)

Holding Jews and/or Israel to double standards, because reasons

Victim-blaming for any antisemitic violence
Falsely accusing any Jew of being a Nazi collaborator or kapo, or repeating such unproven or debunked claims

Putting (((triple parentheses))) around anyone's name, as a code for "Jew"
Obsessing over (((George Soros))), for example

"14 (Words), or 14/88"
"311" (unless clearly referencing the band)
"88" (without clear explanation)
"America First" (depending on context)
"Anglo-Israelism" (when giving it any credence)
"The Bad War" (in reference to WWII)
"Cultural Marxism" (as a dog-whistle slur)
"Death to Israel" (or something similar)

"East Coast Liberal Intellectual Elite" (dog whistle)

"False flag" (if allegedly done by Jews or Israel)
"From the river to the sea" (without detailed explanation of what one really means)
"Globalist" (as a dog-whistle slur)

"Globalize the Intifada"

"Glory to the martyrs" (in reference to terrorists)
"Gotta pay the Jews if you wanna sing the blues"
"Hexagram" (instead of "Star of David")
"Heil Hitler", "Sieg Heil", or "Hail Victory"
"Hitler was the good guy"
"Hitler was a socialist"
"Hitler was a Rothschild"
"Hitler was Jewish"
"Hoaxocaust" or "HollowHoax" or any permutations thereof
"Hooknose" (or any caricatures thereof)
"Hymietown"

"Illuminati" (in reference to Jews)

"Infidels" (in reference to Jews)

"Infowars" (in reference to Jewish conspiracy theories of any kind)

"Intifada" (when praising violence against Jews)
"ISIS = Israeli Secret Intelligence Service"
"Israel (or Jews) was behind 9/11"

"Israhell"

"Jew them down"
"Jews caused the financial crisis"
"Jews have us hypnotized"
"Jews killed Jesus"
"Jews own Hollywood"

"Jews own X percent of the wealth"

"Jews owned slaves!"

"Jews will not replace us!"
"Jewish Slave Trade"
"Jewish Cabal"
"Jewish Media (Elites)"
"Judeo-Bolshevism"
"The Jew York Times"
"Khazars"
"Kosher Tax"
"Loy-yahs"

"Lugenpresse"

"Mein Kampf" or "My New Order"
"Money boys up in New York" (dog whistle)

"New York bankers" (dog whistle)

"Octopus" or any images thereof (in reference to Jews)

"Pat Buchanan was right"
"Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" (if claiming that this long-debunked canard is true)
"Red Diaper Doper Babies" (RDDB)
"Rootless cosmopolitans" (in reference to Jews)
"Rothschilds" (in reference to conspiracy theories)

"Shylock"

"Shyster" (when referring to a Jew)

"Synagogue of Satan"
"Unite the Right"
"War on Christmas" (when used without irony)
"White Genocide" (conspiracy theories)
"White Power" or "White Pride"
"Winston Churchill was the real bad guy"
"Wipe Israel off the map" (or any variations thereof)

"Work will set you free" (especially in the original German)

"Wrathchild" (as a "clever" alternative to "Rothschild")

"Y*d Army" (derogatory nickname for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club)

"You will not replace us!"

"Zhyd" (old Russian/Ukranian slur for "Jew")
"Zionazis"
"Zionist Conspiracy"
"ZOG" (Zionist Occupied Government)
Images of swastikas, Confederate flags, nooses, burning crosses, "Le Happy Merchant" or "Evil Jew" caricatures, or any other recognized hate symbols, period
Any other antisemitic canards or tropes

Please note that anti-Zionism per se, when honestly and seriously included as part of a broader anti-colonial framework, is not automatically prohibited here.  The same goes with supporting some forms of Zionism but not others, and so on.  Criticism of Israel (and/or support for Palestinians) is fine as along as it is nuanced and grounded in reality, but be sure to be specific about exactly which individuals, policies, and/or political parties you are criticizing, and why.  Vaguely using "Zio(nist)" or any permutations thereof as a veiled slur against Jews in general will not be tolerated, and of course the same goes for any specious claims that Israel has no right to exist at all.

For the record, the TSAP supports the "two-state solution", which is shorthand for 1) revert back to the the pre-1967 borders of Israel and Palestine, 2) officially recognized Palestinian statehood for Gaza and the West Bank, 3) end any non-consensual Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories, and 4) both Israel and Palestine have a right to exist, period.  And we have long vehemently opposed Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud Party (as well as parties even further to the right still), while also vehemently opposing Hamas and Hezbollah all the same.  Yes, it's entirely possible to oppose both at the same time.

As for criticism or negative views of patriarchal religions, that is fine, but do NOT single out Judaism.  Keep in mind that the most prominent and populous branches of Judaism are typically among the most progressive and least patriarchal of all the Big Five mainstream religions nowadays.

As for conspiracy theories in general, you may share them, but please don't drag the Jews into it, and don't use any dog-whistles either.  Seriously, don't do it!

And while the TSAP loves to criticize the big banks, Wall Street, usury, and oligarchs in general, along with their nefarious system, we ask that you NOT appropriate such ideas for scapegoating Jews or dog-whistling your virulent hatred of same.  Keep in mind that most banksters and oligarchs are WASPs, not Jews.  So let's not pretend otherwise, OK?  That old trope really didn't age very well at all.

After all, as a party that greatly supports Bernie Sanders and Marianne Williamson, both of whom are Jewish, we would really be suicidal to ignore antisemitism on the left, right, or anywhere else on the political spectrum.  We also support Jon Stewart as well.  In the USA, it has long seemed to be far more prevalent on the right wing, though very recently the "left" unfortunately seems to be stealing the show in that regard. And it has NO place in our party.

We ignore it at our own peril, and everyone else's.

How To Solve The Big Tech Problem Without Violating Anyone's Rights (Updated Re-Post)

"Big Tech is the new Big Tobacco" is often bandied about these days.  And while that has a kernel of truth to it (a kernel the size of a cornfield, in fact), it is also used by authoritarian zealots with a very illiberal (and ageist) agenda.  Mandatory age verification, censorship, repealing Section 230, and other related illiberal restrictions would open up the door to many unintended consequences to privacy, cybersecurity, and civil rights and liberties in general.  Even those adults who don't support youth rights will eventually experience these consequences sooner or later.  Kafka, meet trap.  Pandora, meet box.  Albatross, meet neck.  And of course, baby, meet bathwater. 

And none of these things will actually solve the collective action problem of Big Tech and the "Social Dilemma".  But here are some things that will, in descending order of priority and effectiveness:

1. First and foremost, take a "Privacy First" approach as recommended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  Pass comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages that, at a minimum, would ban surveillance advertising, and ban data brokers too.
2. Audit the algorithms and internal research of the Big Tech giants, and make the results publicly available for all to see.  Sunlight is truly the best disinfectant. 
3. Require the strictest and safest privacy settings to be the default settings for all users of all ages, which can then be adjusted more liberally by the users themselves.  For example, "friends only" sharing and "no DMs enabled from people whom one does not follow" by default.  And allow the option to turn off all DMs completely as well.
4. Require or incentivize the use of various "architectural" safety features on all social media, such as various nudges, #OneClickSafer ("stop at two hops") to reduce the pitfalls of frictionless sharing, and increase the use of CAPTCHAs to root out the pervasive toxic bots.
5. If after doing that, We the People feel that we must still get stricter in terms of age, then don't make things any stricter than current California standards (i.e. CCPA and CAADCA).  That is, a "Kids Code" would be fine as long as it is properly written and doesn't result in censorship or mandatory age verification. 

The first two items on the list in particular would of course be vehemently opposed by Big Tech.  That's because their whole business model depends on creepy surveillance advertising and creepy algorithms, and thus incentivizing addiction for profit.  They would thus have to switch to the (gasp!) DuckDuckGo model if these items were done.  (Plays world's smallest violin) That would of course be tantamount to throwing the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, in J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

For another, related collective action problem, what about the emerging idea of phone-free schools?  Fine, but to be fair, how about phone-free workplaces for all ages as well?  In both cases, it should ONLY apply while "on the clock", which for school would be best defined as being from the opening bell to the final bell of the day, as well as during any after-school detention time.  And of course, in both cases, there would have to be medical exemptions for students and employees who need such devices for real-time medical monitoring (glucose for diabetes, for example).  Surely productivity would increase so much as a result that we could easily shorten the standard workweek to 30-32 hours per week (8 hours for 4 days, or 6 hours for 5 days) with no loss in profits?  But that would make too much sense.

Other good ideas we would endorse are a voluntary smartphone buyback program (similar to gun buybacks), and perhaps even paying people to voluntarily delete or deactivate their social media accounts for a time. That would accomplish far more than any realistic mandatory measures would.

Another possible idea is simply to slow down by design the pace of these social media platforms.  Much like #OneClickSafer mentioned above, adding a little bit of friction to an otherwise frictionless system can help tame the very real dark side of that system.  I mean, would you willingly drive on a frictionless surface (such as ice)?  Of course you wouldn't.

Note that internet connection speeds are more than ten times faster (!) today on average than in 2010.  That leaves a LOT of room for adding back friction!

And finally, the idea of banning certain questionable design features (infinite scroll, autoplay, etc.) may be controversial in terms of whether such features are protected by the First Amendment, but we believe that those features per se are not automatically protected, unless the ban is deliberately  abused to censor specific content.  If such bans are truly content-neutal, we are fine with that. 

We must remember that, at the end of the day, Big Tech is NOT our friend.  But neither are the illiberal control freak zealots.  These measures that we endorse will actually make both sides quite angry indeed.  But truly that's a feature, not a bug.

Big Tech can go EFF off!

Why The WHO Pandemic Treaty Needs Serious Revision Before It Can Be Signed

(Updated from the 2023 version)

The current draft of the WHO pandemic treaty is very close to being finalized now.  And while the "fact checkers" vociferously deny that the treaty will sign over America's hard-won national sovereignty to the WHO in the event of a future global health emergency, there is still good reason for all nations, and especially the USA, to refuse to sign, ratify, OR accede to it until serious revisions are made.  

First, the constitutionally questionable practice of it possibly even going into effect without the Senate's "advice and consent" (as is typically required to ratify international treaties), let alone the utterly specious notion that treaties can even supersede the Constitution itself, is enough to give anyone a severe case of the heebie-jeebies, or at least any serious student of history that gives a crap about the Constitution.  That alone is bad enough. 

But the most important problem of all, is what the treaty, by omission, does NOT require of its signatories.  The following is what we believe any such treaty absolutely MUST require explicitly, in light of the three year "free" trial of authoritarianism (and often totalitarianism) from 2020-2023:

To be prohibited in any circumstances:

• All lockdowns, in theory or practice, must be strictly prohibited. 
• All mask mandates outside of a healthcare setting must be strictly prohibited.
• All forced business closures must be strictly prohibited unless fully compensated by, and entirely at the expense of, whatever government imposed such closures.
• All forced school closures lasting more than ten (10) consecutive school days must be strictly prohibited. 
• All vaccine mandates, passports or coercion, in theory or practice, must be strictly prohibited for any vaccine that 1) has been on the market for less than ten (10) years and/or 2) has not been conclusively proven to be truly safe and effective.
• Launching or marketing any sort of vaccine, or anything that identifies as such, without the proper safety and effectiveness testing and/or without following GMP, shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Any attempt to censor alternative viewpoints shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Any attempt to officially deny or censor a known effective treatment or prophylaxis shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Any attempt to abolish cash shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Social credit scoring shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Microchipping by force or coercion of any kind shall be strictly prohibited. 

To be strongly discouraged overall:

• Blanket mask mandates in healthcare settings shall be strongly discouraged. 
• School closures of any kind shall be strongly discouraged.
• Business closures of any kind shall be strongly discouraged. 
• Vaccine mandates, passports, or coercion of any kind shall be strongly discouraged regardless of the vaccine or how supposedly safe it is.
• Mandatory quarantine of exposed individuals without symptoms shall be strongly discouraged for any disease for which the body of research evidence does not support (i.e. influenza and coronaviruses).
• Gathering restrictions or any other restrictions on freedom of association shall be strongly discouraged. 
• Travel bans and restrictions shall be strongly discouraged. 
• Mass testing with PCR shall be strongly discouraged in most circumstances. 
• Central bank digital currency (CBDC) shall be strongly discouraged (and shall be prohibited if it replaces cash entirely).
• Digital ID shall be strongly discouraged. 

To be encouraged:

• Informed consent
• Bodily autonomy 
• Human rights
• Civil rights and liberties 
• Free speech
• Public health (as it was originally founded)
• Early treatment and prophylaxis 
• Nutrition 
• Holistic view of health
• National sovereignty 

Definitions:

• "Lockdown" shall be defined as any mandatory "stay home", "shelter in place", or equivalent order lasting more than 24 consecutive hours, for all or part of the population, for any reason.  Any nighttime curfew order lasting more than three (3) consecutive nights would also meet this definition as well.  These must be off the table.
• "Mask mandate" shall be defined as any attempt to force or coerce anyone to cover all or any part of one's face for the purposes of disease control, or any penalties for not complying for same.
• "Vaccine mandate" shall be defined as any attempt to force or coerce any person to receive anything that identifies as a vaccine.
• "Vaccine passport" shall be defined as any identifier bestowed on a person that gives certain privileges conditional on having received anything that identifies as a vaccine.
• All other definitions have their usual meaning, and apply in theory or practice.

That should be the FLOOR for any such treaty, NOT the ceiling, as even that may be too much leeway. Then, and ONLY then, should the USA agree to any sort of WHO pandemic treaty, ever.

If there was ever a hill to die on, this is it.  Because once that Rubicon is crossed, there is NO going back.

(Mic drop)

Degrowth Is A Nonstarter And Won't Work. Here's What Will Instead. (Re-Post)

From ecological overshoot to all of its attendant crises, including climate change, resource depletion, pollution, and mass extinction, along with the current global energy crisis, the idea of "degrowth" (i.e. a deliberate and planned shrinking of the economy) may seem like an appealing alternative in some circles.  However, not only is it a political nonstarter, but the level of central planning and austerity required would ultimately do more harm than good, get us permanently stuck in a bad place, and we would still end up destroying the Earth in the end (albeit a bit more slowly, compared to business as usual).  It would "flatten the curve", of course, but really just drag it out and prolong the pain without solving the problem.  In other words, it would basically be like Covid lockdown, only permanently, though hopefully minus all of the antisocial distancing and ocean-killing masks.  And we saw what a disaster that was, with the Global South faring the very worst in terms of collateral damage.

And that's before we get into the sort of extremely high and confiscatory tax rates (on both income and wealth) that would be required on not only the rich, but also on the middle class and working class, and even the working poor of the Global North.  Which the oligarchs would so artfully dodge with ease of course, leaving the rest of us holding the bag.  Though to be fair, not all degrowthers necessarily agree with that idea, and many prefer Pigouvian taxes on pollution and resource depletion (most notably carbon taxes), and perhaps also taxing advertising revenue as well, instead of income and wealth.

(For a flavor of a possible worst-case scenario, see Susan Cooper's dystopian novel Mandrake.  Then add hell AND high water to the mix.  Just lovely!)

Some excellent articles casting doubt on degrowth can be found here and here, truly food for thought indeed.

Of course, we clearly need to end our inane and insane addiction to growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell (as Edward Abbey famously said) which ultimately kills its host.  We need an economy that is no longer dependent on growth and can still provide prosperity for all with or without growth.  We need to stop obsessing over the fundamentally flawed metric of GDP, which really ultimately stands for God Damn Profits nowadays.  Rent-seeking, usury, artificial scarcity, cronyism, speculation, and other forms of parasitism and economic manipulation from the top down are the ultimate reasons why our current economic system is so hooked on growth for the sake of growth.

As the futurist Walter Ignatius Baltzley noted back in 2015, the only way to end this system of cannibalism (sorry, "capitalism") is to give it the ONE thing that it absolutely cannot survive:  ABUNDANCE.  That's right, capitalism needs scarcity to function, which is why it has to create so much artificial scarcity nowadays to prop itself up.  Capitalism will thus fatally overdose on capital, in other words.  Abundance is of course the polar opposite of the sort of eco-austerity of degrowth.  With enough abundance, we can humanely euthanize this dreadfully toxic system for good, and easily transition to post-capitalism, and ultimately a post-growth and post-carbon economy. 

For example, Baltzley in another article applies this idea directly to Big Oil.  How do you win a tug-of-war against a much stronger opponent?  By simply letting go of the rope, and letting them fall on their butt.  Thus, as crazy as it sounds, get out of the way and simply give the fossil fuel fat cats what they say they want so much.  Yes, you read that right.  Let 'em "drill, baby, drill", and "frack, baby, frack"!  The government can even buy their oil (and natural gas) at a premium and then turn around and re-sell it at a loss.  The resulting massive surplus of cheap energy would flood the market, bringing down the cost of living in general, and by doing so....will also bring down the cost of renewable energy alternatives like wind and solar that will ultimately replace fossil fuels, while oil and natural gas become less profitable over time.  In the very short run, it would be quite a boon for Big Oil, but in the long run it would be giving them the very rope with which to hang themselves.  (Fortunately for us, Big Oil is extremely shortsighted.)

Yes, it's quite the Hail Mary pass indeed.  But when both Plan A and Plan B have been ruled out as impractical and/or politically impossible, and time is running out, that ultimately leaves us with Plan C.

So what are we waiting for?  Prime that pump, and prime it good!  Let Big Oil and the oligarchs enjoy their utterly foolish pride before the fall.  Remember, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Oh, by the way, wanna hear a joke?  Peak Oil.  That's the joke.  Yes, oil production will inevitably peak at some point.  Duh!  And hopefully demand will peak before supply does.  But we still have more than enough to deep-fry the planet many times over.

Quite frankly, the biggest supply constraint of all right now is NOT geology, but rather geopolitics, as Europe is currently learning the hard way with Russia weaponizing its natural gas against them. And the aforementioned plan would solve that as well.  Canada alone could supply more than enough (liquefied) natural gas to Europe to be free from Russian energy dominance, but they won't, because they never developed the export facilities to do so in time.  That leaves the USA to fill in the gap, of course.

So what exactly will post-capitalism ultimately look like when the dust finally settles?  The TSAP doesn't claim to know the details.  But eventually it will very likely organically evolve into something like mutualism or a gift economy to one degree or another, as well as a "steady-state economy" of course. While a pure gift economy may not necessarily work at scale, a hybrid gift/exchange economy could be better.  Whatever it is, it has to develop organically.

One thing is absolutely certain, though:  if we are to create an economy that no longer has to "grow or die", we must first phase out and eventually abolish usury entirely.  That means that interest and all other kinds of fees for the mere use of money will need to be officially capped at ZERO, period.  (Or at least when the borrower is a natural person, as opposed to an organization or institution.)  To avoid seizing up the financial markets and crashing the economy, set a "sinking lid" at, say, 10% APR, and then gradually lower the cap each year until zero is eventually reached.  Usury has ultimately led to the "financialization" of the economy, inflation, worsening inequality, and just about every other social problem that has a name.  There is a reason why it used to be considered such a sin.  So let's make it history.

Oh, and by the way:  unless the population also shrinks as well at least as fast as the economy does, degrowth is, ipso facto, fundamentally an exercise in futility.  That is true both from an economic perspective as well as an ecological perspective.

FINAL THOUGHT:  We may have been a tad too harsh on some of the degrowth advocates, particularly Jason Hickel, by lumping them all together.  While our roadmaps for how to get there may diverge, the TSAP's ultimate goals for post-capitalism at least seem to be more or less the same as Hickel's (though that's not necessarily true of some of the other degrowth advocates out there).  Ditto for Charles Eisenstein and Kate Raworth as well to one degree or another.

See here as well.

The (Partial) Solution To "Limbic Capitalism"

"Limbic capitalism" is the term of art given to the phenomenon by which Big Business deliberately engineers addiction to various products and services to encourage more consumption, and therefore more profit.  It is an externality-generating practice that is ultimately a collective action problem at base.  We currently see it in practically everything from Big Tobacco to Big Tech to Big Media to Big Food to Big Booze to Big Pharma to Big Oil to Big Casino and so on, all the way up to and including Wall Street, the world's largest casino of all.  And of course, the only true and complete solution to end limbic capitalism for good is to end capitalism itself completely.

After all, it's all part of the same general addiction at base:  i.e. growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell, which eventually kills its host. 

That said, partial solutions can still be worthwhile, and we should not let the Nirvana Fallacy paralyze us in that regard.  Ending capitalism itself completely is a lot easier said than done, or at the very least is NOT a particularly quick process.  Thus, in the meantime, one "low-hanging fruit" measure to take is to pass a broad law that makes it categorically illegal to deliberately, and for no legitimate purpose, design a product or service to be more addictive than it would otherwise be.  That would of course include wilfully adding any gratuitous and questionable additives or features that cannot otherwise be legitimately justified.  That would of course include a wide range of troublesome food additives, and of course practically all tobacco additives a fortiori, but also the more subtle things such as curated "addictive feeds", "infinite scroll", and "frictionless sharing" on social media, and various blatantly gambling-like features built into some MMO video games as well.

Some things are of course naturally or inherently addictive (to one degree or another) in themselves, granted.  And humans are wired to seek such things out, thanks in part to our evolutionary baggage.  But there is NO justifiable or redeeming reason at all to deliberately make such things MORE addictive than they would otherwise be, for the sake of filthy lucre.

Of course, at the same time, we would also still be wise to heed Lysander Spooner's famous and timeless maxim:  vices are not crimes.  We ignore such a crucial distinction at our peril, as history has shown.