"We've reached that point: we can no longer deny the U.S. economy is little more than a grab-bag of skims, scams, fraud and corruption. Even if Covid-19 vanished from the Earth tomorrow, or the entire economy opened tomorrow, the collapsing of the fraud bubble cannot be reversed, any more than the addict can be "cured" with some makeup to mask the devastation and clean clothing to hide all the tracks.

Let's start with the most risible fraud: "value." Every skim and scam claims to be "creating value" for shareholders, customers, the planet, etc. But it's all fraud and lies. No value is being created; what's really happening is entrenched insiders have established corrupt relationships that funnel income streams into their own pockets at the expense of everyone else, who must be kept in the dark about how the skim/scam actually works.

"Value" is now defined as private gains skimmed under the false claim of "value to customers." Behind the bogus PR, product quality is ruthlessly slashed, quantity reductions are hidden by larger packaging, planned obsolescence is the Prime Directive of every corporation because all these frauds increase profits, which flow to an increasingly thin slice of America's financial elites.

The entire stock market rally of the past 20 years is nothing but a gigantic fraud based on stock buybacks funded by debt. Stocks go up because the majority owners of the stock borrow money from a banking sector that gives nearly free money to financiers and corporations. The corporate insiders buy back shares with the borrowed money, and the company services the loan.

The company's income is devoted to paying the debt taken on to boost the personal wealth of insiders. That's fraud. Or if you prefer, embezzlement."