(JAI: Sent on by our good comrade, S.Artesian.") <https://anticapital0.wordpress.com/> Christmas in July <https://anticapital0.wordpress.com/christmas-in-july/>
*1.* What did you expect to happen? What exactly did *they,* the ruling class or a section thereof, the capitalist “philosophers” of market rationality, the property owners, the theoreticians of economic, and therefore political “liberty,” the occupiers of positions of power and wealth, the whole menage we call the *bourgeoisie,* think was going to happen? After fifty years of continuous attacks through inflation, devaluation, unemployment*,* downsizing, offshoring, capital flight etc. etc., through accumulation*,* on workers’ organization, workers’ wages, *workers*… After fifty years of attacks on the poor, and in particular attacks on those few routes for individuals out of that poverty… After fifty years of neglect, deliberate and incidental of the major cities in a sort of expropriated, inverted Maoism, where the countryside is mobilized against the city by and through the very forces (debt, interest, austerity, consolidation and concentration), that have forced so much of the rural population up against a wall… After fifty years of assaults on and disparaging of the public’s health and public health, the public’s education and public education; on public *anything and everything…* After fifty years of reactionary legislation designed to deny women access to safe reproductive healthcare… After 50, 100, 150, 200, 250,350,400+ years of an *ersatz* republic for which it is a stand-in, standing on the commerce generated through dispossession and extermination of indigenous peoples, the transportation and forced labor of enslaved Africans… After fifty years attacking the voting rights and the Voting Rights Act, a career goal and ministerial portfolio for the current chief justice since first entering government service under Reagan (“My Philadelphia is in Mississippi”) … After fifty years of asset stripping, liquidation, vultures’ cotillions, vampire jamborees… After fifty years of funneling public money into “faith based” scams… After fifty years of making heroes out of buffoons; statesmen out of warmongers, pundits out of morons, experts out of idiots, visionaries out of reactionaries… After fifty years of identifying “compassion” and “empathy,” as congenital flaws, After all that and more how could we *no*t wind-up *here,* right here where we are with a government staffed and led by money launderers, evangelical fascists, extortionists, nightriders, con artists, self-styled but taxpayer-funded dons and capos? At one and the same time, the dishonesty, corruption, belligerence, cruelty, incompetence of the current government of the ______________ (insert country) stands as the apex and nadir of the bourgeoisie’s rule. Ignorance secures the bourgeois disorder. Still, disturbed by the actions taken by those who seek to protect their privilege and entitlement; to safeguard their accumulation of wealth and property at anyone’s and everyone’s expense, some of the ruling class is “uneasy.” Some are anxious. “We didn’t mean *us* when excusing “collateral damage,” says that part of the ruling class that so often and so easily labels total devastation as unavoidable, and necessary. The ruling class is “split.” Yeah? And so what? Here’s a thought: the bourgeoisie are always split. Always. It’s intrinsic to the buying and selling. They’re always split and still they always are the ruling class. Corrupt? Venal? Dishonest? Entitled? Cruel? Vicious? Demented? Racist? Since when is any of that—are any of those—alien to the birth, growth, preservation, and dotage of the dismal mode of production we call capitalism? The “institutions” are “subverted”? So what? The institutions were organized to deflect class struggle. If those institutions are now dysfunctional, discredited, ignored, defied by the very individuals selected to maintain them, it means only that the institutions, and the “principles,” are no longer necessary and/or sufficient for the suppression of the class struggle ahead. *2.* Money talks, and for most of us, it’s saying “good-bye” most of the time. But to capitalists, it talks a different talk. It’s words to them are “more” and “faster” now, when overall the trend is less and slower. MORE: US manufacturing, in 2026, racked up year-over-year sales growth of 17 percent, almost all of which occurred in the second quarter 2026. The mass of profits grew 69 percent in the same y-o-y period. The second quarter 2026 accounted for half of that growth. LESS: The US Federal Reserve Statistical Report *Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization: Summary* calculates that industrial production from August 2025 through August 2026 had increased 1.4 percent but remained just 3 percent above the 2017 mark; manufacturing remained below its 2017 level. FASTER: Time, production time, circulation time, time to maturity, is the critical metric for measuring the success of capital accumulation. Time gives us, and them, a rate of recovery, a rate of return on the assets and expenses absorbed and consumed in the generation and realization of value. Production and circulation times are never uniform, A mean or general rate exists abstractly, as a derived number but functions concretely to “guide” investment and capital flows. A rate of return is not a rate of profit, but it’s close enough for the stock markets, and the rates were very good in the second quarter. Pre-tax annual profit ratios (as a portion of the shareholders’ equity) rang the bell at 23.5 percent, fastest rate of return since the second quarter 2007. My own calculation of the rate of profit, based on the data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Commerce Department’s *Quarterly Financial Report* for the 12 months from the third quarter 2025 thru the second quarter 2026? Approximately nine (9) percent, for what that’s worth, indicating once again the extraordinary profit garnered in the second quarter 2026. SLOWER: Production utilization rates remained below the 1972-2025 average of 79.4 percent with manufacturing utilizing only 76 percent of capacity, below the low of the 1990-1991 recession. *3.* What a difference 365 days make…or maybe not. The US energy sector, accounting for a major portion of the increase in industrial output lately, was “suffering” in the second quarter 2025. Revenues had declined about 6 percent in the quarter as the production and overproduction of crude oil, natural gas, and liquified natural gas were reflected in price weakness. Profit margins sunk below the 6 percent level. Clearly one war involving a major petroleum supplier was not generating enough worry, fear and trembling to result in sufficient greed. The second quarter 2026 showed the dramatic turnaround the application of murderous force can generate for capital’s energy sector, which led all sectors of the S&P 500 in per share corporate earnings growth, and placed second to the information technology sector in revenue growth. ExxonMobil reported a 350 percent increase in earnings for the 2nd quarter, an amount equal to the annual earnings for 2025. Upstream (extraction), energy products, chemical products, and specialty products segments reported earnings, while production volumes in these same areas decreased. What a surprise. Chevron reported a six-fold increase in total earning, with 2/3 of the total from upstream activities. Chevron also posted the average spot price for Brent Crude had increased from $68 per barrel in the 2nd quarter 2025 to $104 per barrel in the 2nd quarter 2026. 4. On July 6, 2026, the closing price for Brent crude was $72 per barrel, near the closing price on February 27, 2026, before the attack on Iran. On July 8, Trump declared an end to the temporary cease-fire. Christmas in July. S. Artesian October 4, 2026 -- JAI -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#43649): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/43649 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/121633382/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
