One thing I desperately wish the markets would finally recognize is that the call is coming from inside the house: by letting private enterprise capture government, they are destroying the very currency that gives them power through unnecessary subsidies, preferential tax policies, socialization of losses and privatization of profits. Through corporate mass media manipulating voters and outright corruption in donations or associations with politicians, they did this to themselves.

Until markets begin penalizing companies receiving government funding (or whose workers disproportionately rely on welfare due to low wages) with shitty share prices and recognize which sectors should be private while which others should be public, this nonsense will continue unabated.

This is why I loathe believers in the mythos of “the invisible hand of the free market”: if said hand existed, it’s been firing shots into its mouth for decades and everyone in finance has seemed okay with that continuing.