Super-short summary: (1) Give CBO a win on federal sovereign power because it doesn’t matter, (2) different amendment language allows new CBO analysis and graceful exit, (3) indicate in bill’s introductory language that the Criteria are wrong.

---

This looks promising re the FCRA Criteria issue — Utah, Arizona senators launch bipartisan push for water infrastructure funding. (Btw, the article could use a few corrections)

Here’s the Senate text — House is the same.

However, before the amendment language gets included, I hope the sponsors consider what happened to the same amendment re CBO scoring for S.914 (2021) and S.3591 (2020).

In both cases, CBO essentially applied the FCRA Criteria rationale and scored the impact of the amendment as if FCRA accrual couldn’t be applied, hence rendering the amendment pointless. In one sense, it’s simple: CBO was wrong then because the Criteria are wrong. So, point that out and ask again, right?

Maybe. As an outside observer, I’d guess that CBO might be resistant to, in effect, admitting they were wrong before because…they were misled by OMB? Because they didn’t really understand the Criteria or FCRA? But now that they do, they’re agreeing in public that OMB is wrong? All a bit awkward, no? It’s one thing for me to write blistering polemics about the Criteria. But I’d be sympathetic to anyone in the government that would want to avoid awkwardness about such an unnecessary issue.

Well, maybe a quiet agreement about different scoring this time has been, or will be, worked out. Congress and CBO are on the same team, after all, so I imagine such things are possible.

But if not, perhaps because such things are not quite cricket, I have some suggestions. This is explained in depth (with example amendment text) here: FCRA Non-Federal Issue: A New Approach. Yes, I know — TL/DR. So, I’ll cut to the chase by just parsing CBO’s two-sentence rationale for the S.3591 bill:

However, the status of a borrower as a nonfederal entity repaying a loan with nonfederal funds is not a sufficient basis for the loan or loan guarantee to receive FCRA treatment under current law.

I think CBO is correct in a theoretical way here. If somehow the federal government is forcing the non-federal borrower to agree to and then repay the loan, we’re talking about some kind of weird taxation that would go in the cash budget — definitely not FCRA. In practice, I can’t see that ever happening in a cost-share situation, legally anyway. But CBO takes the use of federal sovereign power in projects involving non-federal participants very seriously. So, give CBO the win here and include some language about the WIFIA applicant demonstrating that they’re not being forced by Uncle Sam to do anything, the cost share and the loan are their independent decisions made according to their standard procedures, etc. They’ll have all this paperwork anyway. How easy is that?

In directing this budgetary treatment under S. 3591, EPA could make loans and loan guarantees for federal projects or assets and record the costs on an accrual basis—which would be reflected in a subsidy cost—rather than on a cash basis, thus understating the initial funding required for those commitments.

This is where CBO is wrong because the Criteria are wrong. WIFIA will be making a loan to a non-federal borrower for their own cost-share non-federal asset — obviously, the borrower isn’t agreeing to raise local taxes or water rates on their community to repay a loan that finances a federal asset — what, like a gift or a patriotic donation? Or the local people just can’t wait to pay more federal taxes?

No — unless the borrower is an investment-grade imbecile, they’re financing something of value (you know, an ‘asset’) for their own non-federal community, and hence such asset can be precisely described as a non-federal asset. Yes, that non-federal asset is a cost share, which by definition is a share in a project that has a lot of federal involvement, and such project could be loosely described as a ‘federal project’.

Uh, shouldn’t the federal budget utilize precise definitions and avoid loose ones? Is it okay to override statutory WIFIA eligibility because a bureaucrat expresses an opinion “like, you know, I just feel the cost share is kind of like, you know, too federal, ‘coz it’s right there in the project and everything, and that makes me uncomfortable, I mean like whatever FCRA law says, I’m just uncomfortable…” Spare me.

And so on and on — the Criteria are wrong in so many ways that it’s embarrassing. The problem is that CBO is twice the on record agreeing with the Criteria, so it’s potentially their embarrassment, too. Proposing significantly different and longer amendment text will give CBO an excuse to do a completely new analysis where they can focus on federal sovereign power and just ignore both their prior scoring and the Criteria.

Finally, it might be worth indicating in the bill’s introductory language that the amendment is necessary because the Criteria are wrong. Otherwise, CBO faces a bit of a logical issue: If the Criteria are not officially questioned in some way, they presumably remain the officially correct interpretation of FCRA — which means that the amendment must be incorrect? I don’t know Congressional bill protocol here, but I’d guess that it leans more to a hint than a slam — maybe something like this:

To amend the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014 with respect to ensuring the correct budgetary treatment of certain amounts of financial assistance, and for other purposes.

A gentle implication that the current, Criteria-based budgetary treatment needs such correction. And effectively an invitation to CBO to help ensure correct treatment, which of course could include addressing their own scoring concerns about the use of federal sovereign power in projects with non-federal participants.

ChatGPT-on-Public-Sector-Infrastructure-Cartels-05_14_2025-InRecap

PDF Download

Well, that escalated quickly. The above AI exercise started with a simple question about anti-trust law and went all the way to a ‘Declaration of Infrastructure Sovereignty’. Most of the path there was heavy-duty political science (or so it seems to me– in any case, outside my main expertise), so I don’t know if I was asking the right questions or whether ChatGPT’s answers will stand much scrutiny. But interesting — flip through the PDF and you’ll get the idea (my questions highlighted in yellow).

The simple question to ChatGPT stemmed from some further thought on an off-hand observation I made a few days ago in another AI exercise:

Btw, as the model ‘contemplates’ and slowly scrolls out an answer, you get a visceral sense of physical effort: millions of chips firing away, heat rising from the frames, electricity pouring in and heated cooling water pouring out. All for one question on a free model. Now…how about that essential physical infrastructure again?

In old-time means of production, that physical effort came from human beings, either with their muscles or (increasingly, as technology progressed) with their physical ‘wetware’ brains that controlled the draft animals, steam engines, machine tools, input switches, logistics, and so on. But now, increasingly again, the wetware is replaced by AI software which controls robots doing the physical stuff. People will become marginalized as a primary factor in economic production. Everybody knows that this is a looming social problem of explosive magnitude — nobody has an answer.

But, as I imagined it the other day, there still is physical effort going on (even to produce a purely digital product) and so physical infrastructure (to deliver electricity, communication links, cooling water, transport, etc.) is as essential as it ever was. Oh, you say, how hard is that? Some wires, pipes, asphalt planted on cheap land. And you’d probably be right.

And perhaps so said a Mr. Gradgrind as he planned a factory in mid-19th century England and considered the physical effort then required. ‘We’re going to need a lot of people to operate these new machines. Oh, how hard is that? Some subsistence wages and cheap worker housing planted on non-productive land close to the factory.’ And he was right — until the people organized into trade unions and demanded a bigger cut of the pie. Or organized politically, under a new and radical ideology, and demanded a lot more.

Public Infrastructure Regional Cartels

Now back to our own hard times. The elected officials of a locality might ask the developer of an essentially jobless new data center to cover the cost, in some way, of the additional infrastructure improvements that will be necessary. ‘No problem,’ say the developers, ‘but that’s all you’ll get, or we’ll take our data center to another town.’ Well, that’s how it is.

But something changes. The elected officials of many localities in the region get together — and organize. They know that their local labor is relatively unimportant to data centers and robotic factories, but that their local infrastructure is critical. Their wires, their pipes, their asphalt, their land — low-tech, dull as dirt, but theirs [1]. And what else do they have? A few of their people can move away, but most are stuck. If their communities are going to survive, they have to work with what they’ve got to get what they can out of the new economy — it’s existential. It won’t be easy, but they well know that if they compete with each other, it’ll be much worse.

So, they form…a coalition, a conference, a co-operative, an association, something like that, but regardless of label, in essence and in operation a cartel. The cartel agrees to establish a minimum price for infrastructure access. All costs covered, of course — but more. A chunk of the data center’s profits through special local taxes, obligations to fund local restoration or land improvement, support for local education, maybe environmental remediation — it can be a lot of things, but it will be more. And it will be made clear to the developers that there’s little point in going elsewhere in the region, a region that is so otherwise perfect for the planned development, because all the cartel members have sworn to ask for the same.

Of course, this is classic monopolistic behavior — the cartel is, in effect, a ‘trust’, as the term was used for late 19th century US industrial monopolization. The legality is, at best, ambiguous — hence, the questions for ChatGPT. But the economic effect is straightforward — I won’t sugarcoat this — the owners of the infrastructure, or access to it, are extracting rent from the users.

‘Unconstitutional! Un-American!’ say Classical Liberals. ‘Economic travesty! Incredibly inefficient!’ say the Neoliberals. ‘Heresy! Uncontrolled and rapacious provincialism!’ say the Progressives. Yes, a lot of that is off-the-chart hypocrisy. But each is right in one way — rent extraction by cartel is not pretty.

But what choice did the cartel members have? They wanted their communities to survive and for their people have a decent life, not as pitiful recipients of progressive largesse, or maintained as a sullen reserve army of labor for low-wage services, but because in some way they earned it, and when necessary, by taking it. This kind of story has a moral quality that resonates with many people — a cartel’s rent extraction soon becomes seen as a regional coalition’s righteous actions to preserve and restore local communities, the sacredness of place, continuity of identity and culture, and so on. The regional coalition will inevitably face neoliberal resistance and serious legal challenges, but those battles will be classic morality plays and, successful or not, will only amplify the underlying theme: Physical infrastructure cannot be considered as simply an economic factor, but as subject to the natural rights of people — not just their individual right to electricity, water, etc., but their right to act on a collective basis to gain economic relevance and preserve their local communities by taking control of the value of their physical space.

The Ideological Power of Public Infrastructure Issues

Okay, the above story about public infrastructure cartels is perhaps a bit fantastical. I was spinning it, however, to illustrate an idea that does strike me as realistic: physical infrastructure issues can have an ideological component and, as such, may attract political Ideological Power, as that concept is described in the prior essay, From an Unstable Mix of Forces, a Possible Path. There I sketch out that the path to federal infrastructure finance reform in the current political context requires Ideological Power, which can only be achieved indirectly, by public infrastructure issues themselves becoming ideological. The cartel story and the somewhat extreme ChatGPT ‘discussion’ are explorations of how that might happen.

I’m not sure what the ideological component will exactly look like, but I do think that it’s realistically possible.

• Historically, it seems that ideologies always arise wherever there is a need to change control over critical economic assets. Simply asserting ‘right of conquest’ (e.g., cartels extract rent because they can) usually doesn’t work well or for too long. The increasing marginalization of labor creates the need for change (likely acute in many localities) and local physical infrastructure, which will remain critical, is one of few available means to effect it. So, whatever form the change is forced to take, it’ll probably need ideological cover.

• Even the Administration’s recent crazy-looking tariff actions weren’t pitched completely as a purely economic initiative. Concepts of national renewal, nationalism, self-reliance, and other goals were stated or surfaced in ideological opposition to globalism.

• Maybe most importantly, post-liberalism is an emerging ideological viewpoint (at least to the extent that it explicitly opposes current ideologies) which emphasizes the importance of local community, physical space, and an equitable ‘common good’ standard for economic policy. Local public infrastructure would seem to fit into all of that — and its renewal (especially with reformed federal finance) is a practical, near-term way to demonstrate the principles. More on this topic in future essays.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Notes

[1] Being rhetorical here. Of course, reality is far more complicated. Much local infrastructure, especially energy and communications, is owned by IOUs. Other stuff crisscrossing the locality is federal, state or regional. The local authorities might have some indirect control (e.g., regulation, special taxes, tolls). But the core point about ‘theirs’ is valid, I think, especially in the context of rent extraction. There was some early economic theory about land in a natural state being developed for agriculture over centuries, and the rent extracted by the current owner somehow reflected the past efforts of development. A legacy of ancestors, and so on, implying a natural right to use the physical space and the improvements on it (regardless of origin) to survive and prosper, even if by extracting a part of the production. A legal or moral right to control the local infrastructure is the sense. But actual ownership would be better.

As explained in my first post this year, Federal Earthquake, I’m on a steep learning curve when it comes to political science and practical applications thereof. But the effort to better understand this is necessary to provide real-world political context for the main topic here, federal infrastructure loan program policy. In normal times, the political context for policies concerning such an apparently technical and neutral area would be relatively straightforward and essentially unchanging — I could remain focused on analytical details and refinements. But these are not normal times.

In an essay a few days ago, Taking Sides, I sketched out the two, opposing, paths which I think serious people may be developing underneath the daily chaos. The first, which I label ‘Post-Neoliberalism’, is a reformist approach that seeks a true break from the neoliberal past. The second, which I label ‘Neo-Narrative Neoliberalism’, seeks to roughly preserve the neoliberal status quo with a new, and perhaps more powerful, narrative. (Btw, I do takes sides on this — you can read the last few sentences of the essay for my personal opinion).

In this post, I’ll try to put those opposed approaches into a more practical political context. As you can see from the diagram above, I don’t think the approaches neatly correspond to standard political party classification — at all. Political experts who know about this stuff are constantly writing about the factions within both parties. Although it’s a little more evident with the Democrats (because they lost), the Republicans are also divided on many things. But I’m guessing the various divisive issues probably can be roughly divided into two categories — real change or status quo, with neoliberalism (again, roughly) being the reference point.

That doesn’t shed much light on possible agreement on specific issues, because how to change, or how not to change, something specific is still open to a lot of debate (e.g., MAGA Republicans and New Left Democrats might agree that the economy should be fairer, but won’t agree, to put it mildly, on how that should be achieved). But my aim here is different and much less ambitious — to look at what might be the opposing forces involved as the change vs. status quo battle starts to play out.

Institutional Power is the traditional force that comes from big, established organizations like the Democrat and Republican parties. To some extent, agreement can be imposed within the party, and I’m sure that that extent was greater in the past. But now that force is diluted by the essentially irreconcilable difference between Neo-Narrative Neoliberalism (status quo) and Post-Neoliberalism (change). I think this is pretty typical in history — when a pressing need for change surfaces, existing alliances are fractured. But they keep working for a while.

Neo-Narrative Power is a relatively new force made possible by digital media. I believe that we saw this in action 2008-2024 as the post-WFC defense (or more precisely, camouflage) of otherwise obviously failed neoliberal policies. We also saw this camouflage incinerated in the 2024 election, but a new and ‘improved’ version of the narrative will return. How else can neoliberalism be maintained? Note that this power crosses party lines, and the details will be adjusted to audience taste, but that does not dilute Neo-Narrative Power — because they know at some level it’s all bullshit anyway. Hence, Traditional Republicans and Establishment Democrats can privately agree on a lot about policies which preserve the status quo.

Ideological Power is the force of a belief that change is necessary. This doesn’t imply that the believers are idealistic fanatics — far from it. Many will see opportunities in change for their own careers or power bases. But it can’t be bullshit in the way a neo-narrative story can because it must be founded on a lived reality about which there is widespread agreement (that the status quo is intolerable and must change) and for which a plausible vision for improvement can be persuasively articulated to a skeptical audience (that’s the ideological part). Not easy — but it gets harder in the current political context. MAGA Republicans and New Left Democrats could easily agree about the need for change, but the ideological vision for solutions is another matter. In effect, Ideological Power is diluted when crossing party lines, when it’s possible at all.

When things are relatively stable in a society, Institutional Power predominates. When things are intolerable and unsustainable, Ideological Power can have a dramatic effect and lead to massive change, though not always in the originally intended direction. Narrative power failed spectacularly in 2024, but new and improved Neo-Narrative Power? More serious, as the stakes are higher, and powered by rapidly advancing AI technology? I don’t know.

The dynamics certainly make it worse. Proposals for change will be opposed by a combination of Institutional Power and Neo-Narrative Power. Ideological Power, in contrast, is likely to be reduced by Institutional Power, as things currently stand anyway. At some point, change will happen because it must, so in one sense Ideological Power will prevail. But what point is that? Torches and pitchforks? Civil war?

Reforming Federal Infrastructure Finance?

All these forces will swirl and gyre in complex and unpredictable ways over the next few years, at least. People with expertise in political science and practical US politics will understand it all far better than I ever can. I hope they write the stories and analyses because it’s interesting to watch.

But my main purpose in thinking about any of this goes back, of course, to the topic of this site: federal infrastructure finance. To finish off this essay, I’ll explain briefly how an examination of current political forces is relevant to my narrow focus.

My goal is to see federal infrastructure finance, especially the loan programs, substantially reformed and expanded. If Institutional Power predominated, the path to that goal might be largely technical and analytical — as I saw it to be pre-2024.

But in a political context where forces of change and the status quo are battling it out, not only will federal infrastructure finance reform look like a low priority, but the technical and analytical approach, however valid, won’t cut much ice. Bigger and more fundamental questions are being raised about the objectives (or lack thereof) of federal policies.

Not an optimistic outlook, I have to admit. But I do see a path forward to the goal. Federal infrastructure finance reform in itself is very unlikely to attract Ideological Power, for obvious reasons. Without that, however, reform is not possible — the neoliberals will keep the programs pretty much as they are, unless infrastructure P3s become a thing again, in which case federal finance will be distorted and degraded to deliver stupid money for rent-seeking projects. Otherwise, the status quo will be maintained — federal infrastructure finance as small and relatively meaningless, and as such, unthreatening to tax shelters sustained by the municipal bond market.

Public infrastructure, however, as a focal point of many important issues could attract Ideological Power — and maybe a lot of it. There’s the obvious stuff we’ve all heard about for years, e.g., crumbling, inefficient, not ready for a changing climate and so on. But I’m now thinking that infrastructure renewal will touch on much deeper issues — the role of localized labor and local communities in a new economic world of AI and robotics, the importance of place and continuity, and (most importantly) the moral right to preserve these things. There may be true, even ideological, bipartisan agreement on these issues. Much more on this topic in future essays.

Here, then, is the possible path: To the extent that a very substantial improvement of US public infrastructure is supported by Ideological Power, that power will be extended to the means by which that improvement can be accomplished — and reformed federal infrastructure finance is that means.

ChatGPT-on-infrastructure-muni-bonds_federal-cost_-monopoly_rent-seeking-05132025-InRecap

PDF Download

Yes, I know — ChatGPT cheerfully goes anywhere your questions lead (e.g., “Excellent framing — you’re getting to the core distortions caused by rent-seeking in the municipal bond market”). But maybe I’m just asking hard questions?

I’m not the only one. Here’s a quote from an article today in Governing magazine, Volatile Times in Muni Bond Land:

For the main reason that muni bonds will likely remain tax-exempt, look to the
mega-rich investors who contribute to political campaigns. Those are the people
who benefit most from tax-exempt bonds, and they are the ones in charge now. So
don’t kid yourself that it matters one whit to this regime whether New York or
Texas issuers might pay interest of 5 percent tax-free versus 5.7 percent taxable for
long-term muni bonds to build schools, housing and infrastructure. That’s not the
point anymore. Today, it’s ultimately about providing lucrative tax shelters for the
uber-rich. Politically, the local public purpose is now secondary.

For ChatGPT’s own trashing of the muni market this morning, you can judge for yourself — questions below. FWIW, I think the answers are mostly substantive. Maybe a muni bond proponent could upload the PDF and ask ChatGPT to rebut every point? Might try that myself, actually.

Bigger picture point: AI will have an impact on policy depth. The time and cost to quietly and discretely ask hard questions has been significantly reduced. But will the answers have an impact on policy direction? Who knows.

1. The muni bond tax exemption costs the federal government about $25 billion a year. How much of this cost can be attributed to muni bonds that are financing infrastructure projects? (page 1)
2. Yes, for water infrastructure [breakdown] — drinking water, wastewater, water management (e.g., flood control) (page 2)
3. If that $3.9 billion was provided to the WIFIA loan program as funding for credit subsidy, how much infrastructure could be built using WIFIA loans instead of tax-exempt bonds? (page 3)
4. In light of this result, and the fact of federal deficits, why is an expansion of WIFIA not being considered by Congress? (page 4)
5. Would not opposition from the municipal bond market lobby be a reason? This reason would operate ‘behind the scenes’ and not attract publicity. But the incentives are there. (page 6)
6. Is the muni bond market effectively a monopoly (or near-monopoly) provider of federally subsidized infrastructure finance in the US? (page 8)
7. If this near monopoly is being maintained by the power of the municipal bond market lobby, isn’t it an example of rent-seeking? (page 9)
8. How does such rent-seeking damage both federal taxpayers and the state & local governments financing infrastructure projects? For example, for the former, the windfall profits that go to high-income taxpayers instead of issuers. For the latter, the terms of muni bond financing reflecting retail investor preferences as opposed to optimizing the needs of state & local issuers. (page 11)
9. Yes [summarize a policy framework] (page 13)
10. Yes [draft ‘Policy Brief: Reforming Federal Infrastructure Finance to Maximize Public Value’] (page 16)

‘Narrative’ politics, as it has evolved over the last two decades, is a uniquely insidious force.

It appears able to displace consideration of reality even amongst a political leadership who are entrusted to know better. Yes, of course, there’s always been propaganda, spin, press plants, etc. But the ‘narrative force’ is different. Its power seems to originate from something completely new — advanced digital media. The printing press, mass-circulation newspapers, radio, television, even the early-stage internet — all mere precursors. Digital media puts it all together in terms of political impact.

Unchecked, the ‘narrative’ goes to absurd extremes. So absurd that a superior force — actual reality — eventually intervenes. I think this is what happened in 2024, which was, when you think about it, a veritable bonfire of unsustainable political and cultural narratives.

But so what? Fundamental economic and social questions are still not being addressed. Much of the pre-2024 narrative was not necessarily substantive. It may be better explained, especially in its distracting absurdity, as post-WFC camouflage for the continuation of business-as-usual. That business being various kinds of rent-seeking, extractive financialization, relentless wealth concentration, etc. In effect, the period 2008-2024 can be seen as an era of ‘narrative neoliberalism’.

Yes, Trump and his crew incinerated the camouflage, and it was fun to watch the well-deserved wrecking. But was the purpose to expose our hard reality and thereby start dealing with it? Or simply as an exercise in gaining political power, because a ‘counter-narrative’ can be as powerful a force as a reigning narrative?

Perhaps those are questions for future historians. But ‘what happens next?’ is far from academic. This is because, unlike any point in the US since 1945, fundamental issues need to be addressed. Kicking the can further down the road will have serious and inexorable consequences.

On the surface, the landscape looks chaotic. How could it be otherwise? The revolutionary regime is new and still consolidating its power, defenestrating long-entrenched opponents, performatively demolishing various iconic symbols of the ancien regime, and announcing (and often retreating from) radical decrees. Those on the losing side howl in outrage, to increasingly lesser effect, while they search for a way back in. The whole political circus is energized by a polarizing figure of unique genius for this purpose, Trump.

But underneath I am sure there are (there always are) serious people developing plans. They know the US faces fundamental issues that will drive fundamental change. Managing that change, and to what end, will be the critical challenges, and the fact of upheaval in itself frames the risks and opportunities. Note that agency within the frame is not limited to the revolutionaries who launched the upheaval, even after they’ve apparently consolidated their power. Far from it. You know the story — Robespierre to Napoleon, Kerensky to Lenin, to name just two. It’s entirely possible that follow-on revolutionaries or counterrevolutionaries, if they emerge, will make the current crew look tame.

Who knows what form these plans are taking? But I’m guessing that they’ll be roughly divisible into two opposing groups, if only because that seems to be a historical pattern. On the one side, there will be those with aspirations for deep reformation of government (and society, too, to the extent it can be influenced by government), as the way not only to comprehensively address near-term critical issues but to restore the nation to a better path. Of course, their idealistic visions will be tempered in due course, but a deep reformation will involve as a first step the dismantling of the existing order. Things will evolve from there. In my own narrow focus on loan programs, I already see some hints of a stern, reforming mindset, bent on dismantlement. Call this ‘post-neoliberalism’.

On the other side will be those for whom the current neoliberal arrangements have worked rather well. On a personal level, they can easily navigate any travails that unaddressed national issues might cause, and maybe even profit from the exercise. But it’d be a shame for such a lucrative enterprise to blow up completely, and so their plan will be focused on the various band-aids, emergency moves, quick patches and short-term repairs that will plausibly work, more or less, to keep the status quo going. The overall inadequacy of such ‘solutions’ for the nation will become apparent, but slowly at first. Much narrative force will be needed, once again, to camouflage the reality. But more robustly this time, and with less absurdity, because the impending reality will be, as it were, no joke. I assume they’ll steal and modify various parts of the post-neoliberal plan, especially the uplifting and aspirational bits — that’ll help keep people confused. Already, the ‘Abundance‘ narrative has that smell. Call this plan ‘neo-narrative neoliberalism’.

All interesting to observe, no? But at this point, I take sides, unequivocally. I have no doubt that post-neoliberal (or post-liberal, if they go that far) policies will be a hard and uncertain road to possible renewal of some kind. I don’t expect much, except a lot of work, and nobody else should either. Maybe there’ll be some virtue in this path, sometimes. It’s honest and real, or ‘reality adjacent’ anyway, and that seems important.

But neo-narrative neoliberalism is just a degenerate path to national suicide. It’s dishonest and corrupt, and even the prospect of seeing the ‘neo-narrative’ emerge in scale sickens me — what blatant and disgusting lies will they spin this time? What insults to our intelligence, what grotesque perversions of reality? An ever louder and more distracting carnival show of AI-fueled illusions to hide the depth of accelerating decay until rational thought becomes impossible? This is what they want?

I try to stay as neutral and realistic as possible in all political matters because it keeps things more analytically interesting. This one, this neo-narrative neoliberalism, however — I just hate.

So, taking sides is easy. No matter how little a post-neoliberal plan achieves, at least it opposes the other one. That’s sufficient for now, I think.