Street Analysis

Oops! These are the words we can use for the ‘heart’ of America, which is ‘governance’, as it just skipped the beat. Federal Government shutdown ended with the stunning defeat of democrats. They stood for something (healthcare) yet achieved nothing. Republicans stood for nothing and gained everything.

Similar, oops was said from the financial market’s perspective as well when OpenAI CFO made a comment about the government ‘backstop’ for AI investments only to be retreated later by CEO to avoid further carnage. In other words, the quiet part was said out loud by the center of all excitement and hype of current times – AI, raising all sorts of alarms on top of that are already out there in an elevated state.

Another one is the intentionally pursued slower depreciation schedule by mammoth big tech companies to beef up their earnings. Heart of corporate America is ‘valuations’ or asset prices, which is also at a precipice with a great danger of falling off the cliff as covered in an earlier piece.

As for the government shutdown, it was like a super exciting game when the outcome is not certain till the very last moment as to which team will win the game, or worse yet, the game changes in a last minute only to see the least likely to win team ends up winning the game. How sad! Certainly, some folks and constituencies are to be disappointed in quite a meaningful way.

Except that this was not a game of real life; it is a serious matter, in fact a super serious matter that affects the livelihood of millions of people in dignity that the ‘kids of Washington’ do not seem to grasp (or rather do not want to grasp) and have not been able to figure it out for years.

Instead of Republicans that may have fallen flat on their face as expected in this longest ever and 6 weeks long government shutdown fight, the exact opposite happened after weeks of all pain and no gain. Democrats are in disgrace with such shameful defeat on their ideological fight.

The end result is that ‘Rich and Powerful’ (select few) won and ‘People’ (24 million to be exact) lost with huge spikes in their healthcare premium without government subsidies as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), one of the most successful legislation in recent decades. This is probably the biggest blow thus far from Republicans after 70 attempts earlier to repeal the act. What a shame for America!

None of this consternation was necessary without accomplishing something useful. Fight was fought for nothing. The only thing it accomplished was inflicting pain upon people of America.

Healthcare in America is whether a right or privilege is a much debatable topic unlike it being well accepted in other advanced economies that it is a right, not privilege for the societies that can well afford a universal healthcare.

Oh well, election spending by billionaires says it all. The following picture is worth the thousand words. Really.

With that one can easily see, how exactly, this once great nation on earth became quadriplegic, the roots or seeds of which were sown in early 80s with then U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, chopping the top federal income tax rate from 70% to 30%. All in the spirit of ‘Reaganomics’. See below.

Source: Bradford Tax Institute

If the heart is in the right place, then everything can be solved, the biggest or only issue for America. Heart that is weak (rather small), debilitated or with the evil intent in fact is causing self-inflicting wounds on American people and making it quadriplegic with four limbs – two arms and two legs paralyzed with four major issues – debt, deficit, income / asset inequality and healthcare. Yet, they are all interrelated.

In fact, you solve one and solve them all. That is how interconnected they all are. Such a simple thing it is, however, only if we have a right intent and heart in a good place.

Twin ‘untouchable’ rails of politics are social security and Medicare that no politician seems to be able to touch it until some brave soul comes along on this soil of America and rescues it. One such soul did arise here on this land, aka, Donald J. Trump, our current President, and created a humongous phenomenon called ‘Trumpism’ during his 10-year tenure inside and outside his presidency.

However, it is all with the ill or rather evil intents, the exact opposite of what was needed in this country fostering division instead of unity and pursuit of higher goal and happiness. Trumpism is nothing but a ‘social unrest’ except that it is using the wrong ‘instruments’ and hence led by unscrupulous leaders to deceive the less educated and uninformed. These so-called leaders define and turn the good into evil and evil into good. That is how deviated these leaders are.

Social unrest has arisen in its current form due to variety of issues such as income and asset inequality, housing affordability, poverty, minority rights (LGBTQ+, transgender), abortion, hatred, division, immigration, racial tension, social injustice, two-tiered justice system and culture wars.

The hate and extreme division we see in the American society is by design and to a smaller extent all over the world as the most polarizing institutions for the mankind are politics and religion which can often foster the hatred, the most lethal form of ignorance or evil in other words.

One of the most recent obnoxious actions or rather delusional is floating an idea of a 50 year mortgage by our President as a knee-jerk reaction to Democrats’ recent win in off-cycle election in few places such as New York City, New Jersey and Virginia, which obviously is not only the dumbest idea in desperation by the evil forces rather it is akin to selling a snake oil to unsuspecting public as an ill-devised and ill-fated cure to the housing affordability crisis.

To top it off, $2,000 carrot was thrown in the mix as a dividend for tariffs, another ill-devised and ill-fated idea from the suicidal strategy arising out of delusion with the money U.S. does not have and cannot afford. Not even a simple math was done as to it is way too higher than the tariffs received already by our government. In other words, a freebie without a compensating tax collection only to exacerbate the U.S. debt problem even further to put on a show of sound strategy.

Such depravity from the leader of the greatest country on this earth is beyond fathom.

This place truly can be a heaven on this earth, a model for the entire world and very, very close to the ‘Perfect Union’ that this country’s founding fathers envisioned over 200 years ago. Really, it can be done, almost like a utopia…only if we are truly determined to do so. Instead, we are crumbling a little by little that is playing out like a slow-motion movie as we horribly watch this society collapse – from a highly civilized and cultured place to uncivilized and uncultured – a bit by bit and day by day. There is no place for a civil dialogue, only accommodation is for the division or rather extreme one at that with the bonus of hatred.

In troubled times like these, what are we supposed to do?

Reflect. Reflect ruthlessly. Reflect more and more…we try to become ‘nobody’ from ‘somebody’. That is the ultimate of life. That is the ultimate Truth. We truly need to ‘transform’ ourselves, the highest vocation of life! Each one of us, myself included.

Using a similar analogy of ‘Mother India’ as it is commonly known in India, my birthplace (janmabhumi), if USA, the land of my karma (karmabhumi), can be called the ‘Mother USA’, then the mother is for all children, not just for a select few. No mother does that. Mother often has her favorites for the right reasons though does feed them all with the same love.

From my perspective, the proverbial mother has 4 kids – Republican, Democrat, Independent and Self-Realized. Republican kid is the furthest away from God, the Supreme entity, let us say about 3 feet distance. Democrat is about 2 feet away. Independent is 1 foot away and Self Realized has essentially merged with the Supreme, hence, no distance, it is zero-distance from God.

Hence, the goal for us here is as follows:

• If you are a Republican then drop the Republican hat (identification) and put on the Democrat hat as a first step of evolution and see yourself as a bigger part of the whole and certainly not turn the blind eye to the misgivings of your own
• If you are a Democrat then drop the Democrat hat (identification) and put on the Independent hat and train yourself to look at the things quite objectively without any inherent biases we carry
• If you think you are truly independent (identification) then be assured that we are still not there for the most part. We eventually need to drop the hat of independent and work towards Self-Realization and wear no hat at all. Be a mere witness. See things as they are without getting identified with it. Be mere existence just as the great scriptures of the world advise us to do

This is exactly how we progress on a scale of evolution from utterly selfish person and activities to being a completely selfless soul, a true rarity on this earth.

In this context and framework, where does our current president fit in? Oh well, he is miles away, not just a couple feet away from God like an ordinary American. The fact that the Christian community has put so much faith into this evil fellow is beyond me, my understanding and my limited brain capacity. In fact, how, this greatest country on earth, America, has elected and even re-elected such a felon is beyond my understanding. Probably the biggest surprise of my entire life.

MAGA (Make America Great Again) band on the other hand, I understand. Some of them are of the same ilk as the leader of the pack – some with the evil intent similar to the leader whereas the others are innocent, if not uninformed, citizens who really want good for them and the society. They all just happened to pick the wrong leader or associate them with the wrong band, the leader who does not have the best interests of masses in his mind, rather strictly of his own and his cronies or supplicants, the marketing mastermind and greatest bully and con-artist of all.

MAGA initiative really needs to turn into MATGA (Make America Truly Great Again) or MAAWGA (Make America and World Great Again)! Amen!!