# Economics Lexicon The vocabulary in which the contemporary political economy of financialization, deregulation, and speculative dominance operates and is contested — the structural-diagnostic vocabulary (casino capitalism, financialization), the market-mechanism vocabulary (moral hazard, too big to fail, creative destruction), and the foundational analytical-vocabulary for understanding how the productive economy was subordinated to the speculative economy and the political infrastructure that maintains that subordination. This is the **Map of Content** for the Economics vocabulary, mirroring the pattern at [[Plutocracy Lexicon]], [[Surveillance Lexicon]], and adjacent Lexicon MOCs. For adjacent domain-specific views, see [[Plutocracy Lexicon]] (tax-code rhetorical-vocabulary, donor-network nicknames, class-political framing), [[Cryptocurrency Lexicon]] (crypto-specific vocabulary), and the broader [[Terminology Hub]] (master alphabetical index). ## Why this MOC? The vault's economics coverage is distributed across Terminology/Economics/ (word-analysis entries where the primary interest is the *term* and its rhetorical/analytical work), Terminology/Plutocracy/ (tax-code and donor-network vocabulary), Terminology/Cryptocurrency/ (crypto-specific vocabulary), Concepts/ (phenomenon-analysis entries where the primary interest is the thing itself), Ideologies/ (economic ideological frameworks), and Foundations/ (regime-type entries). This MOC provides a single entry point that links across all those locations — useful when you encounter an economics term in the wild and need a definition fast, and useful for pattern-spotting across the different sub-vocabularies. ## Terminology/Economics/ — Term Entries Entries in `/Terminology/Economics/` where the primary analytical interest is the **word itself** and its diagnostic/rhetorical work: ### Structural Diagnostics [[Casino Capitalism]] — Susan Strange's 1986 diagnostic for the post-Bretton-Woods transformation of Western economies from productive-investment dominance to speculative-trading dominance. The structural condition in which financial markets behave less like capital-allocation mechanisms and more like casinos, and in which the political system increasingly serves the casino's operators. Compresses financialization + deregulation + political capture + crypto extension into one diagnostic term. [[Financialization]] — the structural shift in which the financial sector displaces production as the primary source of profits, power, and political influence. Names the process by which making money from money supplants making money from making things — shareholder-value ideology, household debt, asset-price inflation, and the colonization of non-financial firms by financial logic. [[Primitive Accumulation]] — Marx's term for the original dispossession that created capitalist property relations, extended by David Harvey to contemporary processes: data extraction, public-asset privatization, commons enclosure, and the conversion of shared resources into rent-extracting private assets. The analytical lens for understanding DOGE asset-stripping, surveillance capitalism's data enclosure, and platform monopoly. ### Market-Mechanism and Incentive Terms [[Moral Hazard (Term)]] — the incentive distortion in which actors take greater risks because they are insulated from the consequences. Originally insurance terminology, weaponized after 2008 to describe bank bailouts — and deployed asymmetrically: invoked against social insurance for individuals while ignored for corporate-scale backstops. See also the [[Moral Hazard (Term)]] mental-model entry. [[Too Big to Fail]] — the doctrine that certain financial institutions are so large and interconnected that their failure would trigger systemic collapse, requiring government rescue regardless of culpability. The point where financialization, moral hazard, and casino capitalism converge into a single political-economic structure. Post-Dodd-Frank erosion and the crypto-TBTF parallel. [[Rent-Seeking]] — the economic activity of extracting wealth without creating corresponding value, through lobbying, regulatory moats, monopoly power, and political influence. The economic logic underlying dark money, corporate capture, and the revolving door. The lobbying ROI — 22,000% returns on political spending — as industrial-scale rent extraction. [[Regulatory Capture]] — the process by which a regulatory agency comes to serve the industry it regulates, through revolving-door staffing, information asymmetry, and lobbying. Stigler's 1971 formalization. The deregulatory two-step: capture the agency, weaken its rules, cite its ineffectiveness to justify elimination. See also [[Regulatory Capture]] in Concepts/ for the phenomenon-level analysis. ### Fiscal-Policy and Crisis Terms [[Supply-Side Economics]] — the fiscal-policy doctrine that growth is best stimulated by cutting taxes on producers and high earners ([[Laffer Curve]], marginal incentives). Empirically disconfirmed by every major implementation (Reagan, Bush, Trump TCJA, Kansas experiment) but politically durable because of its rhetorical utility for the donor class. See also [[Supply-Side Economics]] in Subjects/Economics/Schools of Thought/ for the full school-of-thought treatment. [[Austerity]] — the fiscal-policy doctrine of cutting public spending to address deficits. Functions as the second blade of a two-stroke engine: supply-side tax cuts create deficits, then austerity rhetoric demands spending cuts to social programs while preserving the tax cuts. The DOGE parallel: billionaire-led government-capacity reduction justified by deficit rhetoric. [[Shock Doctrine]] — [[Naomi Klein]]'s framework for how crises are exploited to impose radical free-market restructuring that would be politically impossible under normal democratic conditions. The Friedman formula: have the policies lying around, deploy them when the crisis disorients the public. [[Project 2025]] as pre-positioned blueprint; DOGE as manufactured shock. ### Geopolitical-Economic Terms [[Petrodollar]] — the system in which global oil trade is denominated in U.S. dollars, sustaining the dollar's reserve-currency status and enabling U.S. deficit spending. The Saudi relationship, de-dollarization fears, and the stablecoin extension. The hidden subsidy that distributes benefits upward while hollowing out the manufacturing base. ### Core Finance Mechanics The plain-finance vocabulary the political-economy entries above run on — each page carries the political reading of the mechanism. [[Asset]] — what is owned; wealth concentration is a map of who owns which assets, not who earns what. [[Equity]] — the residual, control-bearing ownership claim; the asymmetry private equity exploits by loading portfolio companies with debt. [[Bond]] — tradeable debt; the "the markets won't allow it" claim, and telling a real financing constraint from austerity borrowing the bond market's authority. [[Interest]] — the price of money; Fed rate decisions as distributional choices dressed as neutral management. [[Leverage]] — borrowed exposure; 2008 as a leverage story, and the 2025–26 deregulatory rollback as re-leveraging. [[Liquidity]] — the ability to pay when asked; 2008's wholesale run and SVB's smartphone-speed run. [[Options]] — the right without the obligation; who holds capped-loss, open-gain positions and who wrote the downside. [[Time Value of Money]] — discounting; the discount rate as a value judgment smuggled into climate and infrastructure math. ### Business, Startup-Finance and Contracting Terms *The corporate-finance and federal-procurement vocabulary needed to read defense-tech, AI and crypto firms as political actors.* - [[ARR]] — Annual Recurring Revenue; the SaaS growth metric VCs care about most, and the one most open to creative accounting - [[Runway]] — how long a company can survive at its current burn rate, measured in months of remaining cash - [[Cap Table]] — who owns what share of a company; reveals power dynamics, dilution history, and who profits at exit - [[Secondary Market]] — private trading of startup shares before an IPO; where employees cash out as companies stay private longer - [[Lockup Period]] — the 90–180-day post-IPO window in which insiders cannot sell shares - [[Public Benefit Corporation]] — a corporate form letting directors weigh social impact alongside shareholder returns; Anthropic's structure - [[Golden Share]] — a single share carrying veto or voting rights far beyond its economic value, typically held by a government; a tool of [[American State Capitalism]] - [[Vendor Lock-In]] — products designed so switching is prohibitively costly; turns customers, including federal agencies, into captives - [[IDIQ]] — Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity; the contract vehicle that sets terms and pricing without committing to a quantity - [[Sole Source]] — a federal contract awarded without competitive bidding; the mechanism that favors incumbents and connected firms - [[Bid Protest]] — a formal challenge to a federal procurement, usually filed at the [[Government Accountability Office]]; one of the few public windows into how buying decisions get made ## Terminology/Plutocracy/ — Adjacent Term Entries The [[Plutocracy Lexicon]] covers the tax-code and donor-network vocabulary that constitutes the *policy infrastructure* of casino capitalism: - [[Capital Gains Tax]] — the differential-rate-taxation regime privileging speculative income over wage income - [[Carried Interest Loophole]] — the specific tax-code provision rewarding the casino's fund managers - [[Estate Tax]] — Luntz's "death tax" rebrand as canonical strategic-vocabulary case - [[Kochtopus]] — the Koch-funded political infrastructure sustaining deregulatory conditions - [[The Real Economy]] — right-coded class-political framing that *misidentifies* the mechanisms of economic restructuring ## Terminology/Cryptocurrency/ — Adjacent Term Entries The [[Cryptocurrency Lexicon]] covers the vocabulary of the speculative-economy's newest wing: - [[Memecoin]] — the casino's purest product: an asset with no utility claim, valued purely on hype - [[Rug Pull]] — the casino's endemic crime - [[SPACs]] *(Concept)* — the traditional-finance speculative vehicle with crypto-adjacent characteristics - [[Stablecoin]] — crypto engineered to hold $1; the dollar on-ramp enabling the casino - [[Token vs Coin]] — frictionless issuance that enables anyone to open a table in the casino - See also: [[CBDC]], [[Debanking]], [[Operation Choke Point 2.0]], [[Sound Money]], [[Fiat Currency]], [[Self-Custody]] ## Concept Entries (cross-reference) The following entries live at the **Concept level** because their primary analytical weight is on the *phenomenon itself* rather than the *word's rhetorical work* — but they are essential to the economics-vocabulary infrastructure and should be read alongside the Terminology entries above. ### Economic Indicators and Measurements - [[GDP]] — the headline output measure; the number politicians cite and weaponize - [[Consumer Price Index]] — the inflation measurement that shapes monetary-policy debate - Consumer Confidence Index — the consumer-sentiment survey from the Conference Board - Consumer Sentiment Index — the University of Michigan consumer-sentiment survey - [[Unemployment Rate]] — the headline labor-market measure; methodological contestation over U-3 vs. U-6 - [[Labor Force Participation Rate]] — the participation measure that complicates the unemployment-rate headline - [[Poverty Rate]] — the official Census measurement with substantial methodological-contestation - Misery Index — inflation + unemployment composite; Okun/Barro formulations - [[Gini Coefficient]] — the principal empirical inequality measurement - [[Stock Market Indices]] — Dow/S&P/Nasdaq as proxy measures of economic health (and casino vitality) - [[Gas Prices]] — the visible-price indicator with outsized political salience ### Political-Economy Structures - [[Dark Money]] — the post-Citizens United funding architecture - [[Corporate Capture]] — the mechanism by which regulated industries capture their regulators - [[Revolving Door]] — the personnel-circulation mechanism between government and industry - [[Monopoly as Doctrine]] — the Bork-era redefinition of antitrust that enabled market concentration - [[Gilded Age Plutocracy]] — the historical-comparative frame for contemporary wealth concentration - [[Movement Conservatism]] — the political-organizational form sustaining the deregulatory project - [[Powell Memo]] — the foundational 1971 strategic document for corporate political mobilization - [[Starve the Beast]] — the fiscal strategy of cutting taxes to force spending cuts - [[Wage Growth vs Productivity]] — the empirical signature of post-1970s economic restructuring ### Fiscal and Trade - [[Federal Deficit and National Debt]] — the fiscal-structural phenomenon - [[Trade Deficit]] — the trade-balance measure weaponized in political-economic rhetoric - [[Free Trade]] — the policy framework and its political contestation - [[Gold Standard]] — the monetary-policy historical framework with contemporary revivalist politics - [[Reconciliation]] — the Senate budget procedure that enables fiscal legislation to bypass filibuster - [[Housing Affordability]] — the downstream consequence of financialization on shelter costs ### Campaign Finance - [[Money as Speech]] — the doctrinal framework equating spending with expression - [[Soft Money]] — the pre-BCRA unregulated party-funding channel - [[Hard Money]] — the regulated direct-contribution channel - [[Super PACs]] — the post-Citizens United unlimited-spending vehicle - [[Crypto Super PACs]] — the cryptocurrency-funded campaign-finance vehicle - [[527 Organization]] — the tax-code-designated political spending vehicle - [[501(c)(4)]] — the social-welfare designation exploited for dark-money spending - [[Fiscal Sponsorship]] — the fiscal-intermediary mechanism ### Financial Secrecy Infrastructure - [[Tax Havens]] — the jurisdictional-secrecy infrastructure - [[Offshore Financial Secrecy]] — the broader offshore-finance apparatus - [[Money Laundering]] — the operational technique for moving illicit funds through the financial system ### Monetary Policy and Structural Conditions - [[ZIRP]] — Zero Interest Rate Policy (2008–2022); the monetary-policy precondition for the ZIRP-era tech-wealth accumulation, inflated valuations, crypto boom, and the post-ZIRP tech-elite political radicalization that produced the Silicon Valley–Trump alignment this vault tracks ### Speculative Instruments and Manipulation - [[SPACs]] — Special Purpose Acquisition Companies; the blank-check speculative vehicle; a late-ZIRP artifact - [[Bitcoin]] — the first and largest cryptocurrency - [[Blockchain]] — the distributed-ledger technology underlying crypto - [[Policy Front-Running]] — profiting from political decisions you have advance knowledge of - [[Iran War Market Manipulation]] — documented case of geopolitical-event market manipulation ### Crypto-Political Nexus - [[Crypto-Political Machine]] — the network-map of crypto money in politics - [[Trump Crypto Ventures]] — the Trump family's crypto business operations - [[$TRUMP Memecoin Universe]] — the presidential-memecoin case - [[GENIUS Act]] — the stablecoin legislation and its conflict-of-interest dimensions ## Ideology Entries (cross-reference) - [[Neoliberalism]] — the intellectual framework enabling casino capitalism and deregulatory politics - [[Trickle-Down Economics]] — the supply-side framework justifying upward redistribution - [[Libertarianism]] — the anti-regulation philosophical framework - [[Makers and Takers]] — the class-political rhetoric that inverts producer/parasite identifications ## Foundation Entries (cross-reference) - [[Plutocracy]] *(Foundations regime-type)* — rule by wealth; the regime-type the casino produces - [[Oligarchy]] *(Foundations regime-type)* — rule by the few; the adjacent structural category ## Event Entries (cross-reference) - [[Reagan Tax Cuts]] — the supply-side inflection point - [[Bush Tax Cuts]] — the second-wave tax-reduction event - [[Citizens United v. FEC]] — the campaign-finance inflection point - [[Gold Standard Act of 1900]] — the historical monetary-policy anchor - [[Panama Papers]] / [[Paradise Papers]] / [[Pandora Papers]] — the offshore-secrecy documentary leaks - [[FinCEN Files]] — the regulatory-side leak documenting suspicious banking flows ## See Also - [[Plutocracy Lexicon]] — the tax-code and donor-network vocabulary - [[Cryptocurrency Lexicon]] — the crypto-specific vocabulary - [[Healthcare Lexicon]] — economics applied to the medical industry - [[Terminology Hub]] — the master alphabetical index - [[Plutocracy]] *(Foundations)* — the regime-type framework - [[Dark Money Ecosystem]] — the network-map view of political-economic funding