Born in 1961 in Massachusetts, educated at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, received BA cum laude in 1984. Immediately entered the University’s graduate school philosophy program. Left without taking a degree after two years of study in 1986. Managed a nightclub before travelling throughout Europe, Turkey and Morocco. Upon returning to the US some time later, started working in office settings, beginning with a job in trademark research, eventually expanding into fields as diverse as financial publishing, accounting, unclaimed property, and even (under extreme duress) debt collections (which resulted in a written account that remains unpublished). Took care of mother in her final years before coming into an inheritance which allowed for early retirement. Most time now dedicated to political activism (Democratic Socialists of America), charity, private study, golf and carousing with friends. Wrote for Dollars and Sense magazine’s blog coverage during acute phase of financial crisis and served briefly as editor at DSA’s organ Democratic Left. Email: laurence.peterson1 [at] gmail.com
by Laurence Peterson Let’s just plan for catastrophic success. —Jared Kushner The present must certainly constitute one of the weirdest and most perverse economic conjunctures in my lifetime, maybe in the whole grotesquely contradictory history of a modern capitalism we can recognize. What productive power remains in it seems these days exaggeratedly limited to an…
by Laurence Peterson One of the more potentially devastating psychological scars the Trump regime has foisted on all of us, I would submit, consists of its singular ability to separate effects and causes in time. This regime seems uncannily capable of postponing the seemingly clear, and nearly always disastrous, effects of its policies and interventions…
by Laurence Peterson I have recently heard at least twice, I can’t remember exactly where, different commentators expressing a sentiment very much like the following: we require nothing short of an entirely new vocabulary to describe the otherworldly corruption of the Trump regime. And events of this past week alone (I am writing on Sunday…
by Laurence Peterson History is not rhyming; it is not repeating itself; it is being ignored, dismissed as an inconvenience, perhaps on a uniquely vast scale. Events that have already affected all of us deeply, or will almost certainly do so in the very near future are being passively wished away, perhaps in the hope…
by Laurence Peterson In the long and illustrious history of bullshit, there has perhaps never been another month quite like January, 2026, at least in terms of its political manifestations. The month began with a completely unprovoked attack on Venezuela that resulted in the apprehension of the country’s president and his wife, and their subsequent…
by Laurence Peterson If you have to argue, you’ve already lost. —Unknown There is so much about the Trump regime that is troublingly peculiar: the base cruelty, the arrogant racism and sexism, the evangelistic ignorance, the fearless disregard for existing law, the super-conspicuous corruption; one can go on and on. What I want to focus…
by Laurence Peterson The Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded a few days ago. The prizes for peace, economics and sometimes literature have become so discredited in my lifetime–to the point of inspiring anti-Nobel prizes–that my response to their bestowal every year has usually consisted of a bemused scoffing, rather like when one continues to…
by Laurence Peterson I think it was the news presenter and commentator Krystal Ball of Breaking Points who uttered this perhaps unfortunately vernacular but certainly correct characterization of the outrages being perpetrated against the Palestinian people, especially, but not exclusively within the uniquely abused Gaza Strip. The statement is true in a double sense: what…
by Laurence Peterson When I started as a Monday columnist at 3 Quarks Daily in July of last year, my debut piece consisted of an updated and revised version of a longer, never published essay I had written pretty much at the time the late Princeton Professor Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit appeared in book form…
by Laurence Peterson It’s a pity that both of them can’t lose. —Henry Kissinger Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. —J.K. Galbraith I feel as dirty and disgusted as a chance visitor to Jeffrey Epstein’s island. In less than a fortnight I will…
by Laurence Peterson I am writing this on Sunday afternoon, the 29th of September, 2024. The Guardian (UK version) informs me that the Israel Defense Force (IDF) have confirmed that dozens of Israeli aircraft are attacking what they say to be “military targets belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime” in Yemen, and may be preparing for…
by Laurence Peterson It is said that money talks, but recent signals from markets, economic indicators, and utterances from monetary policy makers all over the world now display all the comprehensibility of an overly enthusiastic believer speaking in tongues. Things had been hyper-sensitive since the Federal Reserve started raising the key interest rate (Federal Funds…
by Laurence Peterson I do not specifically remember when I lost my you-know-what about the way the word “humanitarian” is being tossed around these days. Possibly it was when a State Department spokesperson referred to what he called “humanitarian circumstances”, implying thereby that the designation could be sensibly applied to purely chance events. Or maybe…
by Laurence Peterson Truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with. —Richard Rorty Truth is nothing but a bad excuse for a poor imagination. —Unknown Some things in life are very hard to give up. For me, I hope in a most singular manner, it is bullshit. I have spent nearly twenty years…