“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men … [W]e have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.”– Woodrow Wilson
When you ponder the implications of allowing a small group of powerful wealthy unaccountable men to control the currency of a nation over the last one hundred years, you understand why our public education system sucks. You understand why the government created Common Core curriculum teaches children that 3 x 4 = 13, as long as you feel good about your answer. George Carlin was right. The owners of this country (bankers, billionaires, corporate titans, politicians) want more for themselves and less for everyone else. They want an educational system that creates ignorant, obedient, vacuous, obese dullards who question nothing, consume mass quantities of corporate processed fast food, gaze at iGadgets, are easily susceptible to media propaganda and compliant to government regulations and directives. They don’t want highly educated, critical thinking, civil minded, well informed, questioning citizens understanding how badly they have been screwed over the last century. I’m sorry to say, your owners are winning in a landslide.
The government controlled public education system has flourished beyond all expectations of your owners. We’ve become a nation of techno-narcissistic, math challenged, reality TV distracted, welfare entitled, materialistic, gluttonous, indebted consumers of Chinese slave labor produced crap. There are more Americans who know the name of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s bastard child (North West) than know the name of our Secretary of State (Ketchup Kerry). Americans can generate a text or tweet with blinding speed but couldn’t give you change from a dollar bill if their life depended upon it. They are whizzes at buying crap on Amazon or Ebay with a credit card, but have never balanced their checkbook or figured out the concept of deferred gratification and saving for the future. While the ignorant masses are worked into a frenzy by the media propaganda machine over gay marriage, diversity, abortion, climate change, and never ending wars on poverty, drugs and terror, our owners use their complete capture of the financial, regulatory, political, judicial and economic systems to pillage the remaining national wealth they haven’t already extracted.
The financial illiteracy of the uneducated lower classes and the willful ignorance of the supposedly highly educated classes has never been more evident than when examining the concept of Federal Reserve created currency debasement – also known as inflation. The insidious central banker created monetary inflation is the cause of all the ills in our warped, deformed, rigged financialized economic system. The outright manipulation and falsity of government reported economic data is designed to obscure the truth and keep the populace unaware of the deception being executed by the owners of this country. They have utilized deceit, falsification, propaganda and outright lies to mislead the public about the true picture of the disastrous financial condition in this country. Since most people are already trapped in the mental state of normalcy bias, it is easy for those in control to reinforce that normalcy bias by manipulating economic data to appear normal and using their media mouthpieces to perpetuate the false storyline of recovery and a return to normalcy.
This is how feckless politicians and government apparatchiks are able to add $2.8 billion per day to the national debt; a central bank owned by Too Big To Trust Wall Street banks has been able to create $3.3 trillion out of thin air and pump it into the veins of its owners; and government controlled agencies report a declining unemployment rate, no inflation and a growing economy, without creating an iota of dissent or skepticism from the public. Americans want to be lied to because it allows them to continue living lives of delusion, where spending more than you make, consuming rather than saving, and believing stock market speculation and home price appreciation will make them rich are viable life strategies. Even though 90% of the population owns virtually no stocks, they are convinced record stock market highs are somehow beneficial to their lives. They actually believe Bernanke/Yellen when they bloviate about the dangers of deflation. Who would want to pay less for gasoline, food, rent, or tuition?
Unless you are beholden to the oligarchs, that sense of stress, discomfort, feeling that all in not well, and disturbing everyday visual observations is part of the cognitive dissonance engulfing the nation. Anyone who opens their eyes and honestly assesses their own financial condition, along with the obvious deterioration of our suburban sprawl retail paradise infrastructure, is confronted with information that is inconsistent with what they hear from their bought off politician leaders, highly compensated Ivy League trained economists, and millionaire talking heads in the corporate legacy media. Most people resolve this inconsistency by ignoring the facts, rejecting the obvious and refusing to use their common sense. To acknowledge the truth would require confronting your own part in this Ponzi debt charade disguised as an economic system. It is easier to believe a big lie than think critically and face up to decades of irrational behavior and reckless conduct.
What’s In Your GDP
“The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is one of the broader measures of economic activity and is the most widely followed business indicator reported by the U.S. government. Upward growth biases built into GDP modeling since the early 1980s, however, have rendered this important series nearly worthless as an indicator of economic activity. The popularly followed number in each release is the seasonally adjusted, annualized quarterly growth rate of real (inflation-adjusted) GDP, where the current-dollar number is deflated by the BEA’s estimates of appropriate price changes. It is important to keep in mind that the lower the inflation rate used in the deflation process, the higher will be the resulting inflation-adjusted GDP growth.” – John Williams – Shadowstats
GDP is the economic statistic bankers, politicians and media pundits use to convince the masses the economy is growing and their lives are improving. Therefore, it is the statistic most likely to be manipulated, twisted and engineered in order to portray the storyline required by the oligarchs. Two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth usually marks a recession. Those in power do not like to report recessions, so data “massaging” has been required over the last few decades to generate the required result. Prior to 1991 the government reported the broader GNP, which includes the GDP plus the balance of international flows of interest and dividend payments. Once we became a debtor nation, with massive interest payments to foreigners, reporting GNP became inconvenient. It is not reported because it is approximately $900 billion lower than GDP. The creativity of our keepers knows no bounds. In July of 2013 the government decided they had found a more “accurate” method for measuring GDP and simply retroactively increased GDP by $500 billion out of thin air. It’s amazing how every “more accurate” accounting adjustment improves the reported data. The economic growth didn’t change, but GDP was boosted by 3%. These adjustments pale in comparison to the decades long under-reporting of inflation baked into the GDP calculation.
As John Williams pointed out, GDP is adjusted for inflation. The higher inflation factored into the calculation, the lower reported GDP. The deflator used by the BEA in their GDP calculation is even lower than the already bastardized CPI. According to the BEA, there has only been 32% inflation since the year 2000. They have only found 1.4% inflation in the last year and only 7.1% in the last five years. You’d have to be a zombie from the Walking Dead or an Ivy League economist to believe those lies. Anyone living in the real world knows their cost of living has risen at a far greater rate. According to the government, and unquestioningly reported by the compliant co-conspirators in the the corporate media, GDP has grown from $10 trillion in 2000 to $17 trillion today. Even using the ridiculously low inflation BEA adjustment yields an increase from $12.4 trillion to only $15.9 trillion in real terms. That pitiful 28% growth over the last fourteen years is dramatically overstated, as revealed in the graph below. Using a true rate of inflation exposes the grand fraud being committed by those in power. The country has been in a never ending recession since 2000.
Your normalcy bias is telling you this is impossible. Your government tells you we have only experienced a recession from the third quarter of 2008 through the third quarter of 2009. So despite experiencing two stock market crashes, the greatest housing crash in history, and a worldwide financial system implosion the authorities insist we’ve had a growing economy 93% of the time over the last fourteen years. That mental anguish you are feeling is the cognitive dissonance of wanting to believe your government, but knowing they are lying. It is a known fact the government, in conspiracy with Greenspan, Congress and academia, have systematically reduced the reported CPI based upon hedonistic quality adjustments, geometric weighting alterations, substitution modifications, and the creation of incomprehensible owner’s equivalent rent calculations. Since the 1700s consumer inflation had been estimated by measuring price changes in a fixed-weight basket of goods, effectively measuring the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living. This began to change in the early 1980s with the Greenspan Commission to “save” Social Security and came to a head with the Boskin Commission in 1995.
Simply stated, the Greenspan/Boskin Commissions’ task was to reduce future Social Security payments to senior citizens by deceitfully reducing CPI and allowing politicians the easy way out. Politicians would lose votes if they ever had to directly address the unsustainability of Social Security. Therefore, they allowed academics to work their magic by understating the CPI and stealing $700 billion from retirees in the ten years ending in 2006. With 10,000 baby boomers per day turning 65 for the next eighteen years, understating CPI will rob them of trillions in payments. This is a cowardly dishonest method of extending the life of Social Security.
If CPI was calculated exactly as it was computed prior to 1983, it would have averaged between 5% and 10% over the last fourteen years. Even computing it based on the 1990 calculation prior to the Boskin Commission adjustments, would have produced annual inflation of 4% to 7%. A glance at an inflation chart from 1872 through today reveals the complete and utter failure of the Federal Reserve in achieving their stated mandate of price stability. They have managed to reduce the purchasing power of your dollar by 95% over the last 100 years. You may also notice the net deflation from 1872 until 1913, when the American economy was growing rapidly. It is almost as if the Federal Reserve’s true mandate has been to create inflation, finance wars, perpetuate the proliferation of debt, artificially create booms and busts, enrich their Wall Street owners, and impoverish the masses. Happy Birthday Federal Reserve!!!
When you connect the dots you realize the under-reporting of inflation benefits the corporate fascist surveillance state. If the government was reporting the true rate of inflation, mega-corporations would be forced to pay their workers higher wages, reducing profits, reducing corporate bonuses, and sticking a pin in their stock prices. The toady economists at the Federal Reserve would be unable to sustain their ludicrous ZIRP and absurd QEfinity stock market levitation policies. Reporting a true rate of inflation would force long-term interest rates higher. These higher rates, along with higher COLA increases to government entitlements, would blow a hole in the deficit and force our spineless politicians to address our unsustainable economic system. There would be no stock market or debt bubble. If the clueless dupes watching CNBC bimbos and shills on a daily basis were told the economy has been in fourteen year downturn, they might just wake up and demand accountability from their leaders and an overhaul of this corrupt system.
Mother Should I Trust the Government?
We know the BEA has deflated GDP by only 32% since 2000. We know the BLS reports the CPI has only risen by 37% since 2000. Should I trust the government or trust the facts and my own eyes? The data is available to see if the government figures pass the smell test. If you are reading this, you can remember your life in 2000. Americans know what it cost for food, energy, shelter, healthcare, transportation and entertainment in 2000, but they unquestioningly accept the falsified inflation figures produced by the propaganda machine known as our government. The chart below is a fairly comprehensive list of items most people might need to live in this world. A critical thinking individual might wonder how the government can proclaim inflation of 32% to 37% over the last fourteen years, when the true cost of living has grown by 50% to 100% for most daily living expenses. The huge increases in property taxes, sales taxes, government fees, tolls and income taxes aren’t even factored in the chart. It seems gold has smelled out the currency debasement and the lies of our leaders. This explains the concerted effort by the powers that be to suppress the price of gold by any means necessary.
|
Living Expense |
Jan-00 |
Mar-14 |
% Increase |
|
Gallon of gas |
$1.27 |
$3.51 |
176.4% |
|
Barrel of oil |
$24.11 |
$100.00 |
314.8% |
|
Fuel oil per gallon |
$1.19 |
$4.07 |
242.0% |
|
Electricity per Kwh |
$0.084 |
$0.134 |
59.5% |
|
Gas per therm |
$0.712 |
$1.078 |
51.4% |
|
Dozen eggs |
$0.97 |
$2.00 |
106.2% |
|
Coffee per lb 
|
$3.40 |
$5.20 |
52.9% |
|
Ground Beef per lb. |
$1.90 |
$3.73 |
96.3% |
|
Postage stamp |
$0.33 |
$0.49 |
48.5% |
|
Movie ticket |
$5.25 |
$10.25 |
95.2% |
|
New car |
$20,300.00 |
$31,500.00 |
55.2% |
|
Annual healthcare spending per capita |
$4,550.00 |
$9,300.00 |
104.4% |
|
Average private college tuition |
$22,000.00 |
$37,000.00 |
68.2% |
|
Avg home price (Case Shiller) |
$161,000.00 |
$242,000.00 |
50.3% |
|
Avg monthly rent (Case Shiller) |
$635.00 |
$890.00 |
40.2% |
|
Ounce of gold |
$279.00 |
$1,334.00 |
378.1% |
Mother, you should not trust the government. There is no doubt they have systematically under-reported inflation based on any impartial assessment of the facts. The reality that we remain stuck in a fourteen year recession is borne out by the continued decline in vehicle miles driven (at 1995 levels) due to declining commercial activity, the millions of shuttered small businesses, and the proliferation of Space Available signs in strip malls and office parks across the land. The fact there are only 8 million more people employed today than were employed in 2000, despite the working age population growing by 35 million, might be a clue that we remain in recession. If that isn’t enough proof for you, than maybe a glimpse at real median household income, retail sales and housing will put the final nail in the coffin of your cognitive dissonance.
The government and their media mouthpieces expect the ignorant masses to believe they have advanced their standard of living, with median household income growing from $40,800 to $52,500 since 2000. But, even using the badly flawed CPI to adjust these figures into real terms reveals real median household income to be 7.3% below the level of 2000. Using a true inflation figure would cause a CNBC talking head to have an epileptic seizure.
The picture is even bleaker when broken down into the age of households, with younger households suffering devastating real declines in household income since 2000. I guess all those retail clerk, cashier, waitress, waiter, food prep, and housekeeper jobs created over the last few years aren’t cutting the mustard. Maybe that explains the 30 million increase (175% increase) in food stamp recipients since 2000, encompassing 19% of all households in the U.S. Luckily the banking oligarchs were able to convince the pliable masses to increase their credit card, auto and student loan debt from $1.5 trillion to $3.1 trillion over the fourteen year descent into delusion.
When you get your head around this unprecedented decline in household income over the last fourteen years, along with the 50% to 100% rise in costs to live in the real world, as opposed to the theoretical world of the Federal Reserve and BLS, you will understand the long term decline in retail sales reflected in the following chart. When you adjust monthly retail sales for gasoline (an additional tax), inflation (understated), and population growth, you understand why retailers are closing thousands of stores and hurdling towards inevitable bankruptcy. Retail sales are 6.9% below the June 2005 peak and 4% below levels reached in 2000. And this is with millions of retail square feet added over this time frame. We know the dramatic surge from the 2009 lows was not prompted by an increase in household income. So how did the 11% proliferation of spending happen?
The up swell in retail spending began to accelerate in late 2010. Considering credit card debt outstanding is at exactly where it was in October 2010, it seems consumers playing with their own money turned off the spigot of speculation. It has been non-revolving debt that has skyrocketed from $1.63 trillion in February 2010 to $2.26 trillion today. This unprecedented 39% rise in four years has been engineered by the government, using your tax dollars and the tax dollars of unborn generations. The Federal government has complete control of the student loan market and with their 85% ownership of Ally Financial, the largest auto financing company, a dominant position in the auto loan market. The peddling of $400 billion of subprime student loan debt and $200 billion of subprime auto loan debt has created the illusion of a retail recovery. The student loan debt has been utilized by University of Phoenix MBA wannabes to buy iGadgets, the latest PS3 version of Grand Theft Auto and the latest glazed donut breakfast sandwich on the market. It’s nothing but another debt financed bubble that will end in tears for the American taxpayer, as hundreds of billions will be written off.
The fake retail recovery pales in comparison to the wolves of Wall Street produced housing recovery sham. They deserve an Academy Award for best fantasy production. The Federal Reserve fed Wall Street hedge fund purchase of millions of foreclosed shanties across the nation has produced media proclaimed home price increases of 10% to 30% in cities across the country. Withholding foreclosures from the market and creating artificial demand with free money provided by the Federal Reserve has temporarily added $4 trillion of housing net worth and reduced the number of underwater mortgages on the books of the Too Big To Trust Wall Street banks. The percentage of investor purchases and cash purchases is at all-time highs, while the percentage of first time buyers is at all-time lows. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can look at the long-term chart of mortgage applications and realize we are still in a recession. Applications are 35% below levels at the depths of the 2008/2009 recession. Applications are 65% below levels at the housing market peak in 2005. They are even 35% below 2000 levels. There is no real housing recovery, despite the propaganda peddled by the NAR, CNBC, and Wall Street. It’s a fraud.
It is the pinnacle of arrogance and hubris that a few Ivy League educated economists sitting in the Marriner Eccles Building in the swamps of Washington D.C., who have never worked a day in their lives at a real job, think they can create wealth and pull the levers of money creation to control the American and global financial systems. All they have done is perfect the art of bubble finance in order to enrich their owners at the expense of the rest of us. Their policies have induced unwarranted hope and speculation on a grand scale. Greenspan and Bernanke have provoked multiple bouts of extreme speculation in stocks and housing over the last 15 years, with the subsequent inevitable collapses. Fed encouraged gambling does not create wealth it just redistributes it from the peasants to the aristocracy. The Fed has again produced an epic bubble in stock and bond valuations which will result in another collapse. Normalcy bias keeps the majority from seeing the cliff straight ahead. Federal Reserve monetary policies have distorted financial markets, created extreme imbalances, encouraged excessive risk taking, and ruined the lives of working class people. Take a long hard look at the chart below and answer one question. Was QE designed to benefit Main Street or Wall Street?
The average American has experienced a fourteen year recession caused by the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve. Our leaders could have learned the lesson of two Fed induced collapses in the space of eight years and voluntarily abandoned the policies of reckless credit expansion, instead embracing policies encouraging saving, capital investment and balanced budgets. They have chosen the same cure as the disease, which will lead to crisis, catastrophe and collapse.
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” – Ludwig von Mises
One of the things that got me thinking a few years back was a comment I read about, or to the effect, ‘everybody is acting like this is just another standard post WWII recession, that time will heal all wounds….except the downturns are happening more often, are steeper, last longer – and we never seem to get over them….there’s a reason why’.
I use that when I talk to some dreamer that’s telling me its getting better. I think I say it more for me than them.
Good stuff.
We changed over from a production/capitalist economy to a financialization/service economy sometime in the 80’s, when boomers started using debt to finance their “live beyond your means” lifestyle that they still practice today. The bigger the debt gets, the more inflation is required to reduce the effects of debt. Credit (debt) must expand, until we reach a “Minsky moment” when even credit/debt creation doesn’t work any longer, and the whole thing implodes.
Fed President Fischer, the only honest bankster in existence, said last week that QE has only been to enrich the select few banksters. Meanwhile, the 99% have seen prices for everything double or triple. We’ve destroyed our economy with inflation so about 3,000 extremely wealthy men and elites could become even wealthier, their greed never sated. History will look back, from a new dark age, and wonder how people allowed it to happen.
It was allowed to happen just like in Rome, with bread and circuses. People are morbidly obese, and constantly distracted. As long as the internet works and they can go to the buffet, who cares what happens. And the welfare state is big part, not only for electing corruptible democrats forever, but for keeping people from realizing they’re being raped. As long as the redistributed cash and free food keep coming every month to 49% of the population, all is well.
I was at “Sam’s Club” this weekend with my kids buying in bulk, because it’s cheaper. There was a black lady in front of me with two kids. She was obese, and had on “Juicy” designer sweats. I watched as she put several bags of expensive King Crab Legs out, all varieties of expensive private label and gourmet foods, all manners of expensive crap. I didn’t want to look, when it came time to pay. I felt a strong desire to look away, but I couldn’t. Sure enough, she whipped out her SNAP card and ran it through, for a $400 credit. Her bill was $486 though, so she opened her wallet to pay the difference. She had a stack of bills almost half an inch thick, all $20’s and $50’s, and peeled off a few and paid. She had 6-7 credit cards as well. I just about had a stroke. Using food stamps to buy bags of crab legs and gourmet food. I almost blew up, and I would have were not my kids there. This is what our society has become. Moochers and parasites that I have to pay for. In the socialist state of Illinois, more people are on welfare than work for a living.
I hate this country now. I work as hard as ever, but have less and less money every month. I don’t have a SNAP card to get free food. I don’t get free healthcare. I don’t get a check from the government every month. The Federal Reserve, in addition to enriching the 0.1%, has allowed the criminals in Washington to borrow $1 trillion a year, which is exactly how much is spent on welfare every year. Without the borrowing, the FSA would be all but gone.
Like Rome, the productive people are getting tired of this system, and will continue to shut down their own production. The FSA will continue to expand, and debt will continue to increase until the whole system implodes. And if that weren’t bad enough, Obama and his minion’s ineptitude will destroy the petrodollar, and the dollar as reserve currency.
Financialization will end in ruin, just like the welfare state FSA socialism. We don’t produce and export anything anymore except debt and obesity. The rest of the world will only continue to take our IOU’s for goods and oil for a short time longer. Once they realize our entire economy is smoke and mirrors (and lies), as admin has clearly shown, then it’s game over.
Financialization:
What is the primary driver of this era’s widening wealth inequality? Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the Twenty-First Century provides an answer: financialization. While definitions vary, mine is:
Financialization is the mass commodification of debt and debt-based financial instruments collaterized by previously low-risk assets, a pyramiding of risk and speculative gains that is only possible in a massive expansion of low-cost credit and leverage.
Another way to describe the same dynamics is: financialization results when leverage and information asymmetry replace innovation and productive investment as the source of wealth creation.
When the profits from financializing collateral and leveraging those bets to the hilt far exceed generating wealth by creating products and services, the economy is soon hollowed out as the perverse incentives of financialization start driving every business decision and strategy
Money bubble, good book admin.
I have my own economic test on how I judge the economy and how things are going. Ten years ago I was making far less money than today, was paying college tuition for two kids, and after all my bills were paid we still had some money left over to spend on a night out and save a little for retirement. Fast forward to today, were making more money than ever, still have the same home and vehicles that we had 10 years ago, kids are out of the house and after paying all our bills there is little to nothing left because everything costs more. Our standard of living should be improving due to circumstance and it is not.
Bottom line, is your life today financially better than it was 10 years ago? 99.8 percent of the working population would probably answer that with a big NO.
Excellent work Jim!
I’ll address just a few issues because I’m sure the wealth of comments to follow will be even more valuable than my contributions. I have posted before that it is my belief that the fiction and fraud known as the recovery narrative is nearing an end because it is running into the limits of the physical universe. They are running out of ways to trick people into buying smaller and grittier food products for the same price, running out of focus-group approved buzzwords for fraud to hock at the public, and running out of paid shills and ideologues that still resonate with the public. However, the first part of your article demonstrates something that I do not believe will come to an end anytime soon – the celebration of ignorance.
For the first time in history, the bulk of education is readily available to anyone in this county for free. With the internet, alternative media, podcast, Youtube, documentaries, and public libraries you can educate yourself in the truth and much more quickly than through traditional means. However, because we live in the twilight zone, education is only valued if it is dispensed by a state authority figure, costs the same as a down payment on a McMansion or nets you a certificate printed on $2 card stock at the end. Real education for your own benefit and the pursuit of truth is not just undesirable, it is scoffed at. The internet is used for stupid pictures of cats, videos of people of falling of roofs etc. The view counts of documentaries or discussions on Youtube pale in comparison to a video of a squirrel attack a chihuahua. The American zombie does not need facts because the faux-news media has taught them that their opinion is sacred based alone on it being their opinion. I’ve learned more on my own through non-traditional means in the 5 years since I received a so-called bachelor’s degree than in 16 years of formal education, but for some reason I doubt I can add that to a resume.
Common Core will de-emphasize math that way the education system has long de-emphasized history. It is obvious why they went for history first. Most people will never use calculus or differential equations, but a basic knowledge of history is essential for putting current events into context. We now have a zombie populace basing their support of issues and candidates on their feelings, because they know nothing of the past. There’s just too many names and dates to remember, so it’s easier to outsource all of that work and just get the condensed version from the likes of Krugman or Friedman.
And then we come to the second part of your article, why the American zombie refuses to wake up to the lies. Part of the answer is the cult of positivity. New-age gurus somehow in touch with their mystical side despite their $5,000 suits have peddled “fake it till you make it” and “the power of attraction.” If you did not win the Mega Millions last night it wasn’t because of the 1 in 120,000,000 odds, it’s because you didn’t visualize it enough. You must not have really wanted it. Relationship advice clowns tell us we have to be happy all the time. This claptrap has filtered down to the basal level of society. I quit the corporate-industrial world after five years of drone slavery, and took a job well below my ability for the time being, perhaps as a misguided attempt at rebellion. Conversations at this job generally center around sports, video games, various ape-like noises that I don’t believe qualify as English, and local promiscuity news. Every now and then a subject like unemployment or recession comes up. These topics don’t last long. You can see people metaphorically run for the exits when confronted with even the hint the truth. No one wants to hear anything negative, so for the few remaining percent who have functioning brains, the desire to question is bottled up deep inside their psyche. They know something doesn’t quite add up, but the cult of positivity has equated asking questions to social, career, and relationship suicide. Thank you for this article admin and not being afraid to stand out from the herd.
After WWII is was a question of how much could America produce, then how cheaply we could produce it, then how cheaply could we buy it from another country, then how cheaply we could finance it, to the current state of what the fuck, over. We’ve been stair-stepping down for decades. I love hearing from people how they think we can ‘right the ship’ when everyone is running over to one side where the freebies, free shit, and favors are. Fourth Turnings, man.
Brilliant comment Serapis. I agree 100% especially the part about nitwit coworkers who would rather light their dyed hair on fire than hear an ounce of truth. Their ignorance is mind boggling. Yes, sadly, there are more of them than there are of us.
Reading one of these pieces the first time through is like watching one of those youtube videos where some mouthy thug starts shit with some average guy who finally having enough of it, turns around and cold cocks him.
They’ve got literally hundreds if not thousands of their heavily groomed and coached mouthpieces prattling on at all hours of the day and night about how peachy and swell everything is and in fifteen paragraphs you hand them their collective asses.
Nice job, made my day.
Have read many of your articles and appreciate them. Regarding Shadowstats CPI numbers: Is this data available anywhere besides Shadowstats, and is the data available in annual or quarterly form, with numbers instead of charts?
Zane
I think John Williams requires you to pay for a subscription in order to get the data.
Admin
There you go telling the truth again. You’re like a mosquito on Bernanke’s ass.
“The mental anguish you are feeling is the cognitive dissonance of wanting to believe your government and knowing they are lying.”
Not me -I left cognitive dissonance in the dust some time ago. Now I am hampered by debilitating cynicism. I do retain faith, however, that some time, somewhere, somehow, justice will be done.
Admin – “It is almost as if the Federal Reserve’s true mandate has been to create inflation, finance wars, perpetuate the proliferation of debt, artificially create booms and busts, enrich their Wall Street owners, and impoverish the masses. Happy Birthday Federal Reserve!!!”
This is so “Admin-sarcastic! I love it. Great, great work again! Yes, I am going backwards along with everyone else. The people, as you say, “who have never worked a day in their lives at a real job” are stealing money from people who have worked hard and saved all their lives. It’s criminal.
AWD – I can picture you standing in line at Sam’s Club, seething with anger. As Mish often says, SNAP recipients should be restricted in what they can buy.
I have said it many times, and this article prompts me to do so again:
I believe that there will be a concerted effort to inflate away as much of the debt as is possible. If TPTB can run inflation at 12% will pay only 2% on the money they borrow, they will effectively be reducing their debt by 10% per year. They will indeed try to do this. I had not really thought about the impact of under-reporting the CPI on SS, etc. I simply thought it would be under-reported to keep the sheeple from panicking, and to keep the folks that are buying US debt from so clearly seeing their “investments” being eroded by 10% per year. Nice pick up there, Admin.
One thing in this I do not understand is why big corps are holding so much money in cash. They would surely know the value is being eroded significantly on a daily basis. The only thing I can think is that they must believe there is severe risk in investing it, and/or they believe that the prices f hard assets will crash soon, offering significant opportunity.
I suspect it is a combination of both.
It will be a very interesting scenario: extremely high inflation applied to consumer goods, food, energy, etc., while at the same time hard asset prices plummet (hard assets such as the price of land/homes/buildings/etc.).
If the prices of hard assets plummet (again), then the middle class, and much of the upper middle class, will see the value of their major asset destroyed – that asset being their home. Many will again go underwater on their mortgages, while inflation takes off.
And there is no guarantee that inflation will not become uncontrolled. Ten percent inflation may give way to truly extreme levels.
It is going to be a very interesting next decade or two.
My little farm is looking better and better all the time.
They are trying to destroy John Williams reputation and character. He must be hitting them where it hurts.
I understand peoples’ frustrations with the state of the masses. But my question is, what the hell are the masses supposed to do? I am a middle class worker living in a very poor city. I see my own wealth diminishing and the poor, on food stamps and welfare and housing aid, are still poorer. I wouldn’t trade my 60 hour weeks with declining real wages for their state sponsored poverty at any price. And I don’t begrudge them their benefits because the economy we now have offers them nothing else. Everyone commenting here knows that there are 10 people minimum lined up for your job from all over the world regardless of its complexity or educational requirements.
And a large part of the comments seems to go to hating on the poor welfare queens. The same people which this article says were created by the oligarchical educational system in order to keep the masses in the dark. And then supported by the welfare state in order to pacify. So what gives? You beat a dog, you create a mean dog.
But that comparison does the poor an injustice. The poor are not idiots! They know the value of a dollar far better than those wall street banksters. I don’t take much from these anecdotal stories of welfare moms buying crab legs. I don’t really care. You want to know a secret, the woman buying crab legs . . . she doesn’t have a future. Maybe she’s having a party? Maybe it’s her son’s bar mitzvah? Maybe she’s shacked up with a rich boyfriend for a while. Who cares. In 20 years she’s going to have two unhealthy, uneducated children, with a SS check, some food stamps, and maybe some rent control. Ah the American dream!
Here’s another secret . . . welfare did not destroy our country. If the Fed printed 80B a month in welfare checks, our economy would be rockin’. Tax revenues, auto and home sales, retail. Actual consumer spending across the board. And all of us smart people commenting on this board would figure out how to capture great portions of that free flowing wealth and enrich ourselves. Especially since the poor are so anecdotaly stupid according to most people here, and would easily part with it.
But maybe the uneducated workers who run when the economy comes up in conversation aren’t that stupid. Maybe they know it’s all a lie, doom is the rule, and we’re the stupid ones, sitting here typing away on these forums to another article on the Big Sham, acting as if rage written for the world to see is a proxy for actually doing something. Ruminating on the utopia we envision vs the hell being unwoven while our blood pressure rises and our arteries crack.
The poor know that the gig is up, it always has been. The military/police/intelligence state is all wrapped up, a few dozen government agencies and private firms could know the names and locations of every commenter here in a matter of minutes. You got proxies, let me see the chain of ownership on those. These forums are allowed to exist to perpetuate the myth of freedom and to keep tabs on possible future dissenters. And if you think I’m full of it then prove me wrong and do something about it other than interact with the glowing boxes.
So yeah, the poor are pretty smart. Bread and circuses are pretty good options when the alternative is writing stuff on random web pages that no one will ever read and walking around waiting for the world to crash.
And here’s my final secret . . . the crash aint coming. Our told you so moment will arrive but only to each other. The ones we want to see fall, they make the crashes for us! Thy want to see us fall.
Slim boom says ” And I don’t begrudge them their benefits because the economy we now have offers them nothing else”.
What a fuckwit. Only a dickhead that pays no taxes would say that. And he self-proclaims to be a middle class worker – and the middle class do not pay federal taxes.
Sure is easy to say give them free shit when it is someone else’s shit being given to them.
And here is a secret – the crash is coming. And shit for brains that think there is an endless supply of free shit to give to the “poor” is one of the big reasons it is coming.
Slim boom is too fucking ignorant to know that many folks around here are actually doing something. Many are moving away from the slums that Slim Dumb calls home.
I guess he has failed to understand that the pen is mightier than the sword. That there is value in these forums. That it generally only takes a few percent of like minded people to implement change, and that change can and does begin with the exchange of ideas.
And his comment “if the fed printed 80 billion a month in welfare checks would have the economy rocking is total, unadulterated bullshit. The fed already prints more than that, and guess what? The fucking economy ain’t rocking. So let’s print more! And more! If a trillion, two trillion is not enough, we need just to print more! That will work.
What a fucking moron.
Ilpoh, I was a member of the armed forces, I worked two jobs to get through college. My wife and I make enough money to begrudge Uncle Sam. This year, for the first time, I am paying taxes on bitcoin earnings. Half of the poor today were not poor a couple of decades ago. Were they secret lazy people just waiting in their cushy jobs to go on the dole? Are you, ranting against SS, welfare, and those disgusting poor actually offering any solutions? Perhaps we need more job skills training, or we could send them all to an island somewhere? Here’s a metric for you, for every dollar the government saves by eliminating benefits two dollars will go towards defense and security. I can hear the arguments now, the convoluted mathematics of lies.
And what the heck are you so angry about anyways?
I’m going off to train in my new career as feel good guru, sounds like you could use one.
Slim Bouy, the crash did come to Mexico, we saw it from the safety of this side. People were rushing to invest dollars in Mexican banks paying double digit interest. The peso went from 12 to the dollar to 3000 to the dollar. That’s a crash, no? Then they did a series of currency changes, a lot of folks lost their savings and Ta-Da, finally a new stable currency. I skipped the USA bank rescues by the USA, that was a test of American gullibility later debuted as TARP I and II.
So yeah, the poor are pretty smart. Bread and circuses are pretty good options when the alternative is writing stuff on random web pages that no one will ever read and walking around waiting for the world to crash.
And here’s my final secret . . . the crash aint coming. Our told you so moment will arrive but only to each other. The ones we want to see fall, they make the crashes for us! Thy want to see us fall. -Slim Boom
Who wants to see us fall [wrong english]-fail]?
Slim makes a some good points, as does llpoh. It can be argued, however, that Federal welfare payments to corporations and foreigners exceeds welfare payments to individuals over the past 5 years. And depending on the specific situation, many ‘middle class’ people pay federal taxes.
Is it part of military outbriefing now to direct new vets to make self-serving pseudo patriotic speeches on TBP? I’m a decorated double amputee vet..yada yada…so I can’t be wrong.
Everybody here is a vet. Get over yourself.
Ilpoh,
Have you read a broad array of economic forums lately. Economists can’t agree on anything. Many are special interest group plants but that’s another topic.
Lets pretend for a moment that the idea behind inflation is not as simple as print money and boom. The fed has been printing money far beyond current inflation even at 10%. Lets say they printed money and actually dispersed it, that would create demand! Inflation would happen too, but so would demand, investment, new industries. Inflation is off the charts anyways.
The problem now is that money is being printed only for the rich. I think we are probably in the same camp on most thing. I just think laying the majority of the blame at the feet of the least powerful in our society is an easy scapegoat.
And I do not mean to imply discussion does not serve a purpose. Vitriol about the poor being undeserving moochers who should be let out to pasture gets my goat. No one came to America aboard a leaky ship with a mansion back in Dublin. And I include myself in the late night artery hardening fools.
You can’t spend yourself rich, witness China today.
Slim – I offer solutions,as do many folks here. Such as cut off the welfare teat. Make people responsible for their own welfare. Cut off corporate welfare. Radically reduce the size of government – at all levels. Focus on education – real education. Get back to teaching the 3 r’s, and screw the political correctness. Etc etc etc.
Half of the poor were not poor two decades ago (actually, it was longer ago than that, but whatever) because they were required to work, and there was a better work ethic, better family structure, less willingness to go into debt, more value on education, etc. They – the poor – have adapted to being able to survive on the plentiful free shit, and so no longer work.
Your metric re welfare monies transferring to defense is bullshit. Cut that too. By at least a half.
What am I angry about? Seriously? I am angry that the US, and much of the rest of the world, has devolved into a welfare state. Where honesty, integrity, hard-work and education are no longer valued. Where politicians are bought and sold. Where one group of people are allowed to be parasites on another group of people. I am angry that debt has become the norm and thrift no longer is valued. I am pissed that 75% of black children are born out of wedlock. I am pissed that the quality of education sucks. I am pissed that personal liberties are being stripped one after another.
Unless the US “middle class” ups its game markedly then the middle class will become what is currently considered poor. It is a global market, and the middle class are no longer able to compete. Each individual needs to be given incentive to compete. Welfare kills that incentive.
I am angry about a lot more than that. I am pissed that a once great nation is being screwed by all sides – government, corporations, unions, the rich, the middle class, the poor, the left, the right. All groups are bringing about its demise. All that is needed is that the founding principles be reinstated and it will again thrive. But I do not see that happening.
Yet you aren’t El
So your saying everyoene is a liar?
I was making the point regarding my background to ilpoh implying I was a lazy sod. And who wants to see us fail? Great question. The US is the world military. We can’t have that being mucked up by a vibrant middle class that believes in elected governments. Better to have an uneducated bread and circus corporate republic serve as the global military arm. And while I hear you on Mexico, the US Dollar is still king, and when you combine that with military industrial complex/intelligentsia that’s been constructed, you don’t need the actual people/country anymore. Just enough to supply fresh troops.
It doesn’t matter if they say 2+2 = 156, if they have a gun pointed at your head, 2+2=156. And this tapering thing is genius. The fed knew it would create hot money, and when the tapered it would all come rushing back to the dollar. The stock market is still in wonder land. They know exactly what they re doing. Potential adversaries are weakened by the sudden money suction and the US does great. And Russia and China are going to set up a new currency block? Do we know any history?
Lets start up a guru camp, we can finance it with Bitcoin!
I’ve come to believe in the power of “small is beautiful”. If you simply do business with smallest possible entity, everything changes. Arguably, the easiest place is with food by buying exclusively from micro farmers, as local as possible. Move to a single location bank. Start a self-directed IRA investing in local businesses you like or your relatives’ mortgages. So many better options out there.
The rich are rich because we choose to buy from them.
Slim – welfare money in my book includes SS, medicare, medicaid, SNAP, etc. It is ALL welfare money. All of it. So I am not laying it at the feet of the poor.
Everyone has blame in this. The Boomers for instance have much to answer for overall, and I am one.
The entitled attitude extends to most of the population these days, and it is going to end in tears.
Zane – there are exceptions to everything. The top 10% pay 70% of the fed taxes. The next 40 % of the population pay 30%. The rest pay nothing. In broad terms. So the only section of the population that actually carries its own weight is the top 10%. Every other section gets more back than it pays in.
That is unsustainable bullshit.
I glanced at your article, but did not go through it in depth. Your idea that SS, medicare, etc. are not welfare is flawed in that people get back several times what they and their employers pay in. Thus they are indeed welfare.
Your numbers re profits/taxes re corps are also flawed, in that generally the profits used as comparison are related to financial report profits while the tax take is based on profits reported on tax returns, which is not the same thing at all. I assure you, the tax paid on tax returns is somewhere around 30 or 35% of tax return profits – as that is the law and the tax rate. You cannot compare financial return profits against tax return profits. Also, financial profits also can/do include overseas earnings, which are not taxable until repatriated.
I did like your position re the military.
El Gordo – You can’t spend yourself rich, witness China today.
Witness America today? If you are the worlds only superpower and reserve currency, you can spend as much as you want and no one can do a damned thing about it. Because everyone needs the money!
Slim – did not mean to imply you are lazy. I have no evidence that would suggest it, or I would be likely to just come out and say it. I am not strong on implying things – I tend to just say it straight out.
I just think anyone who wants to keep giving free shit to people, especially when it is not their shit, is mistaken (I am being kind there). And given that I know, despite you saying you pay taxes, if you are a middle class earner, it is by and large not your money that is being given away. It is by and large my money you are suggesting be given away, and I do not want it given away as free shit.
Any system where a majority can strip property from a minority that works at the point of a gun (make no mistake, that is what is happening) and given away to those that do not work is truly fucked up.
Anonymous says:
“Yet you aren’t El So your saying everyoene is a liar?”
Mind Fuck Time, eh? You may be right, I haven’t given much thought to El Gordo’s backstory.
Slim Boom
Poor people are not the problem, the twisted system that purports to help them is. What it does is discourage incentive for hard work and achievement, and what it often rewards is stupid or immoral behavior. No matter, because its real purpose is to create a huge dependent class.
I hang around middle and high schools in one of the poorest cities in America. I see children of poverty coming to school in the morning with their big fizzy coffee drinks from Starbucks.
I know more and more young women (all races) who map their future by getting pregnant by men who have no intention of ever marrying them. Nirvana will present itself when they get welfare and other benefits for themselves and their child(den). It matters not to them that the kid is statistically doomed to an inferior life because Mom chose the path that the system paid her to pursue.
Examples like these are what make the posters on TBP crazy. The rich get subsidized, the poor get subsidized, the illegal immigrants get subsidized, and the middle class must pay for it or else they go to prison.
I don’t mean to minimize the issue of unemployment. I do know that if TPTB really wanted to fix that problem, they would. They much prefer SNAP cards.
“So yeah, the poor are pretty smart. Bread and circuses are pretty good options when the alternative is writing stuff on random web pages that no one will ever read and walking around waiting for the world to crash.”
At least I won’t be clueless like the cowering masses as to why everything’s happening, hoping for miracles that aren’t coming. If the time comes and they march me toward a mass grave, at least I can hold my head up high, that I did not spend my life watching circus freaks throw rubber balls through hoops on TV, and didn’t waste countless hours at the liquor store or the tattoo parlor. The pursuit of knowledge, universal truth, preservation of wealth, charity to the worthy — these things have inherit merit that are not to be scoffed at by some fake defender of the rabble. Enjoy your bread and circuses; even if everything is futile, I’ll still not be wasting my time.
Excellent article Admin.
When I look at the chart blaring deliberate debasement of the dollar,( and 95% decline can only be deliberate) I see unequivocal proof that it matters not one wit from which party the POTUS is picked.I think it clear who the rulers of the so called government are and they are certainly not party affiliated.
Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
Again +1000.
admin-The government controlled public education system has flourished beyond all expectations of your owners.
If a nation of hedonistic, uncultured and dimwitted tattooed slaves was the objective, then the true purpose of public education has been victoriously achieved…as Dalyrmple notes, the culture of slavery manifest itself in the unsophisticated artistry of the vulgar and debased.
Entertainment Surfeit Disorder
I had long noticed in the prison in which I worked as a doctor that when prisoners take to drawing they draw in the same manner, on the same themes, and with the same aesthetic as tattooists. It is an aesthetic that, alas, is fast conquering the Western world, as millions have themselves tattooed. Modern man in the West, it seems, thinks and feels like a prisoner, if not a slave. When sent by a newspaper to report on the behavior of the young British in Ibiza, I noticed that the two largest nightclubs there were called Amnesia and Manumission, forgetfulness and release from slavery apparently being the nearest to pleasure that the young are now able to come. Theodore Dalrymple
Virtually everything I have to say is viewed through a lens of who I am and what I do, it can’t be helped. To be honest in this world is to offer the insights you have on the subjects you know. Most people have all kinds of opinions, but they don’t know what they’re talking about or even how they came by their beliefs.
There are two ways of producing food- and by this I mean consumables which is produced via the natural process, not in a laboratory.
Sustainable farming is one means, Industrial agriculture the other. A vegetable produced through sustainable farming produces more calories for consumption than it consumes in production, examples of this are tomatoes grown organically in soil fertilized with rotted compost made from animal or vegetable matter/waste or beef that comes from an open range farm where stocking density never exceeds a carbon neutral fix. Sustainable farming produces more than food as an end product and most of these end products are either invisible to the end consumer- and so unimportant to them if they are unaware of them, or intangible to anyone outside of the process.
Some of these unseen products are carbon locked into the soil, increase in the tilth of soil, decreased erosion, improved water quality, improved pasture, humane welfare of livestock, improved bloodlines and overall health of animals, minimal use of hydrocarbons in production, zero use of chemical inputs to soil, water or foodstuffs produced, development and sustainability of rural economies, increased health and vigor of farm families, decentralized production, fewer food borne illnesses, etc In fact it would take a lot more than an essay to list all of the benefits. The main negative- especially in our current economic position is higher cost for end product.
Industrial agriculture is based on the premise that food is no different than any other profit making good and as long as the dollar value of the end sales exceeds the dollar value of production, any other effect is immaterial. It is less farming and more akin to strip mining calories from an acreage.
it requires an ever increasing amount of chemical inputs, it reduces soil health, erosion, water retention in soil, and fouls watercourse. It usually demands inhumane practices of livestock due to overcrowding, alteration of living animals (docking of tails and ears, teeth/beak clipping, muscle degeneration, unnatural life cycles, pharmaceutical supplementation, increased risk of food borne pathogens and fatalities spread rapidly via centralized distribution, destruction of rural communities, loss of generational knowledge of natural cycles and remedies, etc. The key to this type of agriculture is cheap hydrocarbons which have risen fivefold in price over the past fifteen years and are no longer inexpensive.
Bottom line? By continuing along a path of industrial agriculture as a means of providing cheap food we have lost virtually every supplemental benefit and maximized every possible deficit. The vast majority of lands now under industrial agricultural use would not be fit to farm in the event of a halt in hydrocarbon inputs. The vast majority of people involved in industrial agriculture would no longer know how to “farm”. It would be like taking newly returning combat infantrymen and placing them in a neonatal unit without training.
The fact that virtually anyone in the US can obtain some cheap food at any given moment is not indicative of a healthy or sane system- in fact it is just the opposite. It is evidence of a system so focused on keeping people fat and pacified through the consumption of non-nutritional calories put together through a combination of heavily centralized, soil and water damaging processes controlled by large corporations whose bottom line depends on inhumane treatment of livestock, environmental destruction, erasure of generational skills and knowledge and the malnutrition of its end users.
I understand where food comes from and how to improve the quality of soil, water and environment because my life depends upon it. I was called to farming the way a minister is called to the cloth and view my obligation as sacred having taken a vow of poverty (or near) in order to do it. I speak from limited, but deep experience and I can tell you that while this is not the same discipline as the one Jim has discussed in hsi piece about our economic situation above, it is tied to it and is an integral part of it.
I am not a predictor of collapses, I have no special knowledge of where our nation is heading, but I am observant and I can tell when something is unhealthy and when something is heading towards death and if our nation were a woodlot, I would anticipate that the next time a dry season came along and an errant spark drifted by that it will burn to the ground. Pretending that everything is right with the world because you happen to have a full belly and a working Internet connection is a shallow means by which to assess the current conditions. I have no idea what the elites know about the future that they are not sharing with us or if they know anything at all and are simply operating like the most ignorant EBT card holder in the hood, getting while the gettings good, but I do know that the path we are on is unsustainable, politically, socially, culturally, economically and naturally.
Make of that prognostication what you will.
To add some comments to hardscrabble farmer’s post.
It requires 10 calories to produce 1 calorie of food by industrial faming, organic farming as my Mennonite neighbors produce 5 calories for each calorie of energy expended when they stick to the primitive method.
Grains are not livestock’s natural food and have to be ground up to be digestible otherwise they pass through undigested. Note the free range chickens pecking at the cow pies. Soy beans have to be heated to ? degrees to release nutrients to have food value. Livestock can eat small amounts of raw soy beans. The Mennonites grow only small amounts of soy beans. They may grow some as a cash crop. I am told meat and milk production is the same for grass fed or grain fed. Eliminating grains would eliminate a lot of middleman jobs destroy the economy.
One pound of dry organic material will hold four pounds of water. No till farming using gluphosphate
Somehow Windows 8 posted my incomplete comment when I took a break. Continuing-
One pound of dry organic matter will hold four pounds of water. No till farming using glyphosate eliminates the need to turn organic matter back into the soil. Organic matter has a half life of one year, half decays each year. 1/2 1/4 /1/8 etc. until most organic is removed and the top soil is returned to it’s original sub-soil. It will not hold water which will pool and wash the water soluble industrial fertilizers into the ocean causing dead spots. The water will run-off rather than soaking into the ground. This causes the flooding in Spring. It also causes the aquifers not to be recharged causing a drop in the water table. This has in some instances caused land to subside.
The Amish/Mennonites used a four year cycle letting the land fallow the forth year then turning it over. The Bible uses a seven year cycle which some Jews still use.
The industrial agriculture food is less nutritious and in some cases is deficient in some nutrients but is cheaper to produce trading fossil fuels for profitable calories for trickle up economics.
I realize this post will be over the heads of most of the drive by posters that infest this site but hopefully will help a few to join the Remnant.
With regard to solvency of Social Security, I can’t understand why Congress can’t do this simple measure:
“Social Security payroll tax contributions are only paid on wages up to $113,700 in 2013, with employees and employers contributing equally (though the employer contribution is deductible
for income tax purposes). Less than 6 percent of the population has wages above the cap.
While the vast majority of Americans must make payroll tax contributions on all of their wages,
millionaires and billionaires only do so on the first $113,700 of their earnings this year. Scrapping
the cap so that all earnings are subject to the payroll tax would come very close to closing Social
Security’s entire projected 75-year funding gap.”
http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/sites/default/files/Scrap_the_Cap_Fact_Sheet_2013.pdf
Totally awesome article but I think the title should read, “The Fourteen Year Depression”.
ShadowStats shows negative-GDP since the dot.com bust. We have been in a debt-fueled orgy in lieu of economic productivity. This will come to an abrupt end when the rest of the world calls “No Mas” on the USD as reserve currency, which I think will happen this year. Then as everything quickly doubles in price the 50 million people on food stamps will only be able to buy two weeks worth of food per month. Riots break out and homeland security will put their 1 billion bullets into play. Game over!
Another well written article Admin , I wish I had your writing ability.Keep up the good work!
Sorry ,about that.I didn’t realize I hit the comment 3 times.
Rise up – I expect your intention by raising the SS threshold would not be to increase the SS take by those paying more, is it. What you are really saying is let’s take more from the rich, but not give them a larger share of SS.
Isn’t that cute. Just come n out and say it – make the rich pay more taxes.
Once again, here are the facts:
The top .1 percent pay 16.4 percent of all fed taxs.
The top 1 percent pay 40 percent of all fed taxes.
The top 10 percent pay 70 percent of all fed taxes.
He top 11 to 50 percent pay the rest – 30 percent.
But good old Rise Up thinks, hey, those guys in the top percentages are not paying enough. Let us male them pay even more!
Do you really think that is a sustainable idea? Really? In addition to being unfair, by any definition, to make folks pay for stuff they themselves get no access to, it will eventually kill the golden goose.
Rise up is a socialist. And the problem with socialism is that eventually they run out of other people’s money.
Get a clue, Rise Up. Everyone needs to take care of themselves.
Congratulations Slim Boom. A new 1st class dumbass poster! Maybe you should spend some more time reading before spewing your Keynesian bullshit?
amazing article by mr. Quinn, and many super astute comments; there is still hope- never forget that the current situation could turn around almost overnight.
Rise Up does say what every demoncrat, socialist says, I can’t understand why…. These are public school brain damaged people. They really do not understand basic math, economics, markets etc., for if they did, then they wouldn’t have those misguided, misinformed beliefs.
Roy and Hardscrabble, those are great answers for people like me who see a tomato either way. I know theres a difference, now more as to why. Thank you both. I’m growing my own and more, and all I can say is good luck to anyone who thinks this shit just grows anywhere easily with a little watering.
@Wyoming and @Llpoh, I’m not a democrat or socialist–why so quick with the labels? What’s your fix to social security? Just cut it of off cold? SS should have been structured differently to begin with, but it’s a problem now and it needs to be dealt with one way or another.
What do each of you propose?