In Part One of this article I exposed the establishment narrative of a strong economy as rubbish by providing hard data regarding imploding gasoline usage, failing bricks and mortar retailers and plunging restaurant sales.
“Inflation may indeed bring benefits for a short time to favored groups, but only at the expense of others. And in the long run it brings ruinous consequences to the whole community. Even a relatively mild inflation distorts the structure of production. It leads to the overexpansion of some industries at the expense of others. This involves a misapplication and waste of capital. When the inflation collapses, or is brought to a halt, the misdirected capital investment—whether in the form of machines, factories or office buildings—cannot yield an adequate return and loses the greater part of its value.Nor is it possible to bring inflation to a smooth and gentle stop, and so avert a subsequent depression.” – Henry Hazlitt – Economics in One Lesson
Inflation is the opium of the masses. The establishment’s interest in dumbing down the masses through government controlled public school indoctrination couldn’t be clearer than examining the chart below. The average non-thinking, math challenged, iGadget distracted, media controlled pawn thinks their household income has risen by $6,000 since 2008 because they have no understanding of Fed created inflation.
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Even using the ridiculously downward manipulated CPI concoction shows the median household has lost ground. While median income has remained stagnant since 2000, the CPI is up 44%. Using honest inflation numbers would likely double that figure. Stagnant incomes with living costs 40% to 80% higher doesn’t exactly match the rhetoric of a strong economy being propagandized by the Deep State and their fake news media outlets.
Even the BLS can’t hide the inflation ravaging middle class families and senior citizens on fixed incomes. And those fixed incomes are fixed at zero, as they get .20% on their savings and no increases in their Social Security payments. CPI is now 2.5% higher than one year ago, above the magic central banker 2% goal. It has been raging at an annualized 4.4% rate over the last three months. It is poised to go even higher in the next few months.
Yellen and her intellectual yet idiot cohort of ego maniacal central banker brethren pretend they know the ideal rate of inflation to keep the economy running just right. See how well they’ve done since 1999, with two massive bubbles destroying the lives of millions and the mother of all bubbles (stocks, bonds, real estate) currently continuing to grow before it’s predictable incineration of wealth.
The Big Lie about the need for inflation has been pounded into the heads of the weak minded by the Fed, Wall Street shysters, fake news media outlets, and TV entertainers disguised as journalists and financial experts. This country became a worldwide industrial power while sustaining mild deflationary conditions for almost two hundred years. It wasn’t until the birth of the welfare/warfare state in the 1960s when corrupt politicians and spineless central bankers decided they needed guns, butter, and entitlements.
Closing the gold window in 1971 and allowing politicians to run up the national debt from $400 billion (34% of GDP) to $20 trillion (106% of GDP), while making $200 trillion of unfunded entitlement promises, has been the result. Total credit market debt has risen from $2 trillion in 1971 to over $65 trillion today. Total global debt has surpassed $217 trillion, or 325% of global GDP. The only way to make these disastrously horrible decisions seem palatable has been to produce inflation at prodigious levels in order to make the debt appear payable. It’s not.
Inflation and its supposed benefits is an example of how the Deep State has perfected the teachings of master propagandist Edward Bernays.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.
Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays – Propaganda – 1928
Of course, the pliable public has been convinced government debt doesn’t matter because we owe it ourselves, or some such nonsense. They have also been convinced by Madison Avenue maggots and Wall Street shysters that luxury automobiles, McMansions, Rolex watches, 72 inch home theaters, iGadgets, and a myriad of other “essential” material possessions purchased with debt actually constitute wealth. Keeping up with the joneses has been brainwashed into the minds of the ignorant masses as their only true goal in life.
The result is consumer credit of $3.8 trillion, the highest level in history. Since the 2008 financial crisis, created by the fraudulent issuance of mountains of subprime debt by Wall Street banks and stimulated by the easy money Fed, hundreds of billions of subprime student loan and auto debt have been dispensed to artificially boost GDP. This scheme was concocted by the Obama administration, Yellen, and their Wall Street puppeteers to bamboozle the public and temporarily jolt the economy. It failed.
Over 25% of all student loans are in default. Six million Americans are delinquent on their auto loans. The taxpayer bailout when the student loan “crisis” suddenly hits will exceed $500 billion, as Obama has doled out loans to every functionally illiterate college wannabe in the nation. You’d think the payoff from doling out $700 billion in student loan debt would be more knowledgeable young people imbibed with the inspiration to change the world with their newfound intelligence and training.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The $700 billion has produced illiterate, violent social justice warriors who despise free speech, can’t add, can’t write a sentence, and are virtually unemployable. But they are good at protesting, burning things, and being outraged by anyone they disagree with. This student loan debacle has been a purposeful scheme to artificially lower unemployment and provide the appearance of economic recovery, as the loan money has been used for iGadgets, booze, hookers and blow. Mission accomplished Obama!!
“The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.” – H.L. Mencken
The one area of consumer credit which has not reached its previous bubble peak is credit card debt. After Wall Street wrote off $300 billion (funded by taxpayer TARP funds) they began issuing credit cards like candy, again. But consumers have been slower to whip out the plastic like the pre-2008 days. That’s why bricks and mortar retailers have closed thousands of stores and ghost malls across suburbia are the norm.
So it begs the question as to why credit card debt has increased by $160 billion (up 20%) since its 2010 low. The answer is simple when you take into account the stagnant wages and rising cost of living documented earlier. Credit card defaults are so low because they are the only thing sustaining millions of families across the country.
In case you haven’t noticed, the purveyors of credit on Wall Street, out of the goodness of their evil black hearts (they’ve paid $321 billion in fines since 2008 without admitting guilt or having one executive jailed), have convinced every level of government, every utility company, landlords, and educational institutions to accept credit cards for payment. Before 2000, all these bills had to be paid with cash on hand.
Now you can pay your IRS bill, real estate taxes, monthly cell phone bill, school tuition or rent (with outrageous fees) with a credit card at 15% interest. Nothing like turning a $2,500 real estate tax payment into a $4,000 real estate tax payment, over time. It’s the American way.
Desperate households across the land aren’t clinging to guns and bibles. They’re clinging to credit cards as their only lifeline in this failing empire of debt, deception, and delusion. When the next inevitable financial crisis strikes “unexpectedly” and even the low paying, no benefits Obama jobs disappear, even their five credit cards won’t keep them from getting kicked out on the street again.
This isn’t just my pessimistic doom persona rearing its ugly head. My ponderings are based on common sense, an honest assessment of the real situation in this country and an understanding of the ebbs and flows of history. H.L. Mencken had similar views on government and the American people during the last Fourth Turning.
“In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible to any public office of trust or profit in the Republic. But I do not repine, for I am a subject of it only by force of arms.” – H.L. Mencken
Based on anecdotal and hard verifiable data, the average American family is in the midst of a recession, if not a depression. No amount of propaganda, misinformation, fake government data, or fake news can cover-up the facts. Donald Trump was elected president, not by misogynist, white, racist, xenophobes, but by families (men and women) who have been screwed over by the establishment for decades and left impoverished, hopeless, and depressed.
He won the election because radicals like you and me decided to send a message to the arrogant, evil, globalist ruling class that we are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. Despair of the silent normal majority is what propelled Trump to victory. Choices have consequences.
“History offers no guarantees. If America plunges into an era of depression or violence which by then has not lifted, we will likely look back on the 1990s as the decade when we valued all the wrong things and made all the wrong choices.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
In Part Three of this article I will assess the early days of the Trump presidency, the full court press by the Deep State to bring him down, his unrealistic economic plans, and how our overvalued stock, bond and real estate markets will eventually crash, leading to the next leg down in this Fourth Turning.
The most striking example of inflation is the college education industrial complex. It is simply mind boggling that the price keeps going up and up without any decency. to boot: My father went to a private college in late 1940’s, the price about $1,000 for whole year. I went to state college in 1979–the price for full year all in $6,000. Today my daughter attends private college where they are asking $55,000 all in. And even though most, me included do not pay that, it is just obscene. The tuition goes up about 5%/year and there is no evident “improvement” in instruction. This is going to collapse in next couple of years. I would not be surprised if most private colleges go out of business in the fourth turning.
Both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz’s fathers went to college paid for with a job washing dishes. As liberal as the universities are, maybe we can interest them in a price control regimine.
Why on Earth is your daughter in a private college? Unless she’s going for less than what a public U would cost her/you, you all are paying for the trees and grounds.
Been there, done that, have the T-shirt to prove it. My sons all went to State U on the cheap, left college without debt and only two of them had the unfortunate luck to marry girls who came with the “reverse dowry” of student loans, which my sons subsequently had to pay off (because money is fungible.)
It is almost like a cargo cult mentality. Elites going to elite colleges are successful. If everyone goes to college everyone will be successful.
Anyone ever really look at the “spreads” (the difference between what the banks can borrow from the Fed, and what they charge to consumers on credit cards) these assholes are raking in? It’s obscene. And yet it’s nothing because when the bottom falls out next go around, you can bet every last worthless US dollar they’ll jack the rates as high as they possibly can. This alone will bankrupt a lot of people with outstanding credit card debt. Same for all debt that has a floating rate (LIBOR) tied to it.
Credit card debt is money loaned into existence. In other words the spread is the difference between the card rate and zero. No borrowing from the Fed or depositors needed. The global financial pyramid scheme requires about $10 trillion of annual debt expansion just to flat-line. If we have hit peak debt, then it’s over. As Mr. Quinn so brilliantly describes in this masterpiece of writing, we seem have arrived. But then no one ever lost a wager by overestimating the ignorance of people. I’m still not holding my breath.
The Sage of Baltimore becomes more relevant and timely every day. I like to read excerpts from his editorials and imagine that, when he was writing them at The Sun, there were thousands of readers in that city who agreed with what he wrote, and that the PTB in Baltimore and Annapolis got a little clammy in the palms from knowing that he was hitting them right where they lived.
Henry Mencken was one of several such thinkers in those days, though men like him were thin on the ground even then. Nowadays he would be unique among newspapermen. His literary descendants (I’m pointing at you, Jim) are only to be found in the blogosphere now, but thank God they’re still among us, even though they don’t exist in the establishment media anymore.
His observation regarding inflation:
“By this means the government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.”
― John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace
Think of the deceit in that remark and the kind of human vermin who would hold it dear.
I spent an absurd amount of time studying economics in undergrad and beyond. I always believed that Keynes was intellectually dishonest, in that there was nothing behind his theoretical creations except his passionate assertions. While I never ran across the quotation you cite – nothing that he wrote or said phases me anymore. When researching the man himself, you find that he was a hedonistic homosexual who gathered with his “intellectual peers” to found the Bloomsbury Set in London. Doubtless one of the earlier recorded, regularly organized, daisy-chain enclaves of the 20th century. In the interim he devised a system that essentially told politicians to print additional money and spend it, because it was proper. What’s not to like?
While I share the outrage over the student-debt “bubble”, the post-secondary education fiasco is perhaps the most misunderstood phenomenon of our time. Mr. Quinn correctly foresees a bailout. It is mainly this future debt jubilee “optionality” that the student borrowers possess which keeps them overpaying for tuition in the present.
Yet we shouldn’t under-estimate the status signal of a university education. Prospective students, particularly minorities who otherwise face very poor employment prospects as un-degreed proletarians, are not going to give up this status for more economic/cost-effective alternatives. The taxpayer-funded status symbol can be monetized easily through the affirmative action/hiring quota racket and the NGO/government service scam. Likewise, upper middle class whites almost guarantee themselves downward social and economic mobility if they don’t play the debt-funded university game. They’re almost forced to play.
It will be working-class whites, particularly males, who will stop playing this game, because it has a negative expected value for them. They cannot increase their employment/pay prospects enough through university education to risk a debt jubilee/forgiveness not materializing. Their odds of getting good private-sector jobs and public-service jobs requiring degrees are poor, since affirmative action and quotas work against them. The social status gains of a degree cannot be easily monetized in their social circles. Unlike some of their female working-class counterparts, they cannot increase their marriage prospects enough to justify the expense and risk of the degree.
When MOOCs/on-line universities finally flourish here in the US, the student body will mostly be comprised of an unlikely combination of working-class US whites and Third-World villagers who lack access to decent higher education. On-line class discussions should be very interesting.
Very good commentary Captain!
Sooner or later this bus we are all on is going to crash and when it does all those useless eaters will have two choices. Either go back to fields or fade away. The deflation the Governments and banks are trying so hard to resist is baked into cake one way or the other.
The problem for this scheme is that very few of the illiterate borrowing money to attend junior college will ever get a degree in anything…..
I have a lot of high school educated friends, who all have large debt loads, both credit card and car notes. None of them have anything saved for retirement (we are all in our mid 50’s) and none of them have any cash working for them in the “Market” aka wall street casino.
They could care less if the market crashes, it simply won’t affect the working poor.
they will switch from Heineken to Budweiser, and won’t get to trade in their cars every 3 years. And they will enjoy listening to how everyone else is now in the same boat as them after another crash (seems like they happen every 7-8 years now)
the only impact the next market crash will have, will be to snuff out the working capital of the soon to be extinct middle class, thus creating a society of 1% wealth and 99% working poor.
Having extra money, to worry about, for a future that is uncertain, is a luxury.
or, as my pops used to say “that’s a good problem to have”
Disagree, when the largest global consumer, corporate and governmental dept bubble in the history of the world pops it may be a lot worse than some folks simply losing their pensions, but I hope you are right.
No, in the next crash they won’t have jobs, and will be lucky to avoid angry mobs…
And with A.I. and robotics replacing much of the workforce, the situation will be catastrophic
So what’s the answer?
Don’t be a 99%-er, be a 1%-er.
That’s my plan, and the plan for my descendants.
Can’t wait for (part 3)- Great series Admin.
Something is up, business is moving at a snails pace and I am all of a sudden “The Maytag Repairman” here at the office. Between inflation (which is a tax), income tax increases, massively higher healthcare premiums, etc….people have shut down commerce.
Are the wheels coming off the bus?
Yes. My business has been slower than molasses (or is it mole-asses) in January.
Here watching the fire in Orchestra Pit and waiting for final curtain call.
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I’m glad you mentioned that business is slow. Have you noticed how advertising has increased offering big discounts. It’s more than the usual holiday sales events. It looks like a panicked scream of desperate businesses.
if you need a card to make it then you are living over your head, my dad and he was right one week of pay for your house, one week for gas etc, and one week for money saved. i’m not broke and have money in a lot of things, a lot of friends if given 100,oo0 in less then one year would be broke. i don’t go on trips or buy things i guess thats why not broke, still live on a budget.
Kudo’s again admin! As I have stated before you elaborate eloquently what I have tried to say in warnings. The snowball is rolling downhill and we are in the valley at the bottom. The avalanche coming will change all of us prepared or not.
Agree. Great writing. I sense the passion and sincerity of the author. A great contrast to the zombie MSM and many other so called conservative web sites.
Debt.
This just makes me nuts and I cannot understand how people and a country can be this way. It seems contrary to survival instincts.
How is frugaility and parsimony learned?
How is that the majority of citizens can’t write a $500 check without it bouncing?
After paying ahead on the principal, we’re going to be in a position to pay off out mortgage in December. That is our only debt. But, the point is, somewhere I learned to be debt savvy. I remember my first credit card was Macy’s. My first purchase on it was a VCR! I remember thinking, “Holy cow, how will I EVER pay this off”? But I did. I knew it was my debt and I wanted to do it.
I think folks have a choice and they are making bad choices. They aren’t being held accountable.
Is that RINS holding up the sign in the last pic?
I thought RINS was a Trudeau man.That can’t be him.
Ouch.
Nah! I’m way better lookin’ than the fellow!
Besides not a Trudeau guy Tampa. Although I had tremendous respect for his Father Fidel.
On a serious note,I’ve seen a couple of times where people say that Fidel was his dad-is that because of his politics or is there something to it?
Could be.
A while back I went to talk at local University given by Justin’s Mom Margaret. She told a story of running off to be a Roadie for Rolling Stones.
Roadie? Is that what they call them in Canada?
Most times not but in her case yes.
She didn’t go into to all the gory details in her speech I went to but she made it quite clear that she was giving blowjobs to Mick under a piano.
But since I brought it up. Let’s play who’s the Daddy.
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Not often mentioned is the reason Nixon closed the gold window in’71. A number of nations, most notably France, began redeeming their dollars with gold. de Gaulle saw the US was printing dollars at a rate that far outstripped US gold reserves. That was in ’68 essentially a half century ago. That being said, how much gold is in Fort Knox today? The obvious answer is little or none. And I fully expect China in the not too distant future will unilaterally reprice gold. Game….Set…..Match.
This would make a great question for a pool. Everyone who reads the blog, and wants to participate, pays Admin $20.00 then submits a guess as to how much gold is in Fort Knox. The winner(s) get the prize for the correct guess when an audit of the gold hoard is finally done. The only problem I foresee is that none of us will be living when the answer is finally known.
Silver came out of money in 1964. This was the de-metalization that affected Joe Citizen (who couldn’t own gold.) Nixon’s act was the international version of that.
WHY?
Americans were conditioned to skyrocketing living standards and fresh off a huge rise in Social Mood, evidenced by a stock market that went orbital from 1937 to 1964. People wanted the party to keep going, so they elected rulers who simply whipped out the National Mastercard (by severing the tie between the dollar and any consistent measure.)
When bonds bottomed in 1981, it was then OFF TO THE RACES. We haven’t looked back since then, even as the citizenry elected ruler after ruler who dug the hole in which we find ourselves deeper, deeper, deeper BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THE POPULACE WANTED.
We get the government our neighbors want. Their desires are not determined by reason and logic, they are determined by herding behavior.
1965.
You’re not dealing with intelligent creatures. Intelligent creatures would let up and play their suckers for as long as possible. This is a mindless parasite, not far different from a tapeworm or a leech. It will keep ramping up the pressure to drain every drop until it is killed or burned off. Make no mistake, this mindless monster cares not what happens. Like a bug it happily feeds until its swatted. It notices not dangers, but only an interruption to its mindless feeding habits.
And it’s nice to see “leech” spelled correctly for a change!
I try.
This is the planned take down of the world’s economy.The planned economic destruction of the White working / middle class of the West.Make this group impoverished to point of desperation while surrounded by hostile Ethnic minorities.The state( Federal )will declare martial law while promising security to all.Once the military / police state is in place it will be game over for America as we know it.Our only hope is Secession back up by our state national guard / police units.A t least in my neck of the woods.
Not planned. Spontaneously organized.
Do we really think Louis the XVI planned to lose his head in a basket?
Rulers are selected by the ruled. The slaves pick their masters. But in another sense, there are no outside observers. Everyone from the lowest to the highest is part of the pageant, a cast member in this farce we call human history.
According to the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), overall only 30% of 12th grade students perform at a “proficient” or better level for 12th grade knowledge, skills and capabilities. That’s averaging the Reading and Math scores for those proficient or better. But 66% of high school graduates are going to college. It means that, overall, about 1/2 of kids going to college probably don’t belong there.
It’s far worse for black kids. Only 12% of those kids are “proficient” or better at 12th grade studies but fully 70% of all black high-seniors are going to college! So, about 83% of black college kids don’t belong at college at all.
Correspondingly, the expected student loan default rates for blacks will be about 80% or higher. This is already being seen in repayments from primarily black colleges are leading the list of institutions where NOT ONE DOLLAR OF STUDENT LOANS are being repaid.
Check out my blog “College Tuition Bubble: Far Too Many Unqualified Students Attending College” at
http://gulfcoastcommentary.blogspot.com/2017/02/college-tuition-bubble-far-too-many.html
It might be useful if students would demand their ‘commencement speaker’ not be some venerable professor or politician but a typical student from a few years ago. Let the Class of 2010 tell the Class of 2017 what they can look forward to. How those ‘student loans’ are a huge drag on your income. How hard it is to get a promotion in a moribund economy or, even if you hit the jackpot and are a 30 year old making $150,000 per year at Facebook you have to pay $4000 per month for a cheap garden apartment in Redwood City. That owning a home is for lottery winners and people who can pay $2 million cash!
That speech needs to be given at high school graduation, not any later.
Gee, I wonder why there are no Common Core standards for a course for high school seniors called The Facts of Life, which teaches about budgeting, debt, inflation, saving, cost-of-living, real estate, the factors leading to a successful marriage, and basic parenting principles. No one should get a diploma unless it is completed satisfactorily. I am not holding my breath.
The higher education scam is the product of a completely immoral and greedy financial/political class. Too bad for the peasants. And too bad for the colleges when their enrollments drop big time in the near future.
“Nothing like turning a $2,500 real estate tax payment into a $4,000 real estate tax payment, over time. ”
Where I live, I think I’d have to give my Township Tax Assessor a handjob for a $2500 property tax payment.
OMG !!!!!!!
Admin said the fed word.
As in it is a Privately Owned Central Bank !!!
YAY!
Federal Reserve.
Nothing Federal about it and no reserves .
Wow . I’m glad I’m still alive !
Maybe , just maybe , with enough info , the POCB’S can be dismantled .
Or , I fear , the new currency system will be embraced by all the stupid .
Alex, I will take class warfare for $2000
Whatever lol
The wisest, most capable man I know says “There’s two kinds of people in the world; those who UNDERSTAND compound interest and those who PAY compound interest.”
It will likely be derivatives which will serve as the crack cocaine that kills the maniacal addicts in the financial system. I have a feeling bartering is about to make a major comeback.
On another note, in 1999, I used to spend 98 cents for a basic burger with extra onions at our local
A & W fast food joint. Two burgers would cost me $2 bucks. It was a really good deal because they were decent sized burgers. Today, however, the same sandwich cost $2.40 per and is 1/2 of the original size. Two basic burgers now cost me over $5 with tax.
That’s how I measure inflation. It sucks, exponentially.
I do it another way. I ask ” how many 1 ounce postage stamps could you buy in 1964 for a dime?” The correct answer is two and one half. 4 cents each.
Then I ask “for the same dime (90% silver) how many 1 ounce postage stamps can I buy now?” About three. Soon it will be ten. At some point silver will be too valuable to use as money.
Gold is a sapling, silver is an acorn.
Excellent article. But I have trouble with this statement:
“Yellen and her intellectual yet idiot cohort of ego maniacal central banker brethren pretend they know the ideal rate of inflation to keep the economy running just right. ”
They are not idiots or fools or incompetent. They know the real rate of inflation is 6-8%. They know the GDP corrected for real inflation is negative and has been since about 2000. They know the real unemployment rate is over 20%. They know that there is no recovery; in fact the US is in a depression. They know that the policies of the Federal Reserve and their partners in crime on Wall Street are destroying the United States of America and were designed to do so. The bankster owned Federal Reserve and the associated monetary and financial system is an evil system of mass destruction that must be destroyed.
agree. those “incompetent fools” are stealing trillions of dollars in broad daylight and laughing about it. their job is to transfer wealth to the richest 0.1% and they are very good at it.
Q: what’s the best way to rob a bank? A: own one.
I am definitely an enemy of the concept of Central Banks operating like the FED. I was skeptical like many. A friend gave me a 1994 edition of “The Creature From Jekyll Island.” In it Griffin said the FED was planning in the near future to bring down the US via a sub-prime lending crisis. I believe he said they were cooking it all up and preparing and planning to do it. Well, they did it and we are still reeling from it and the artificially controlled and created credit, 0% loans at the window for special people, on and on.
I do not like what Andy Jackson did to the Cherokees but I sure like what he did to the National Bank. I am also pleased that the politically incorrect gray champion Trump has a picture of Jackson in his office.
Most people do not understand the connection between money and morality because they are kept deliberately in the dark. At the core of a moral society is honest money which is money based on a commodity such as gold or silver because their value is controlled by their abundance in the earth’s crust. What we have now is crooked and immoral – in fact evil – money or fiat currencies or Monopoly money that can be created by the trillions out of thin air by the Federal Reserve and fractional reserve banks. This system of money creation was designed by private banksters as a system to rob and plunder the American people. The central banks established around the world are destroying our peace, prosperity and freedom. That is why central banking and monetary policy is at the core of our problems which is why they are rarely discussed by politicians or the corporate main stream media. The money created by the gangsters and thieves who own and run the Federal Reserve has been used to buy Congress, the Whitehouse, the judicial system, government agencies such as the CIA, major corporations and the MSM. It has also been used to fund endless wars. The cost of this money creation has been downloaded onto the American people in the form of debt.
Measuring “inflation” is difficult in today’s environment if one defines inflation as an increase in currency and credit (money) not backed by additional product (goods & services.)
If vast credit creation is simply the sugarplums dancing in people’s heads that animates their bidding wars in the asset markets, and asset market prices rise, is that inflation?
If you answer “no,” you cannot understand my thesis.
In my view, inflation is synonymous with credit growth, meaning that inflation is vastly more than 6-8%. That’s only the “inflation” that leaks into consumption goods & services. Most inflation today actually fuels perceptions of wealth, VAST wealth, that is nothing but a game of musical chairs or better, a game of CHICKEN.
The musical chairs thingy works if you see that the number of chairs are being reduced as the music speeds up. People assuming the number of chairs is constant are going to be very unhappy for not understanding ( the changing of the rules ) the game.
IMO you nailed it.
The music has played for decade after decade, and the Central Bank has put methamphetamine in the punch bowl to keep the dancers from collapsing in exhaustion.
Meanwhile, the janitor has quietly removed one chair after another from where they sat against the walls. When the music stops and the crystal meth no longer can keep the dancers spinning, and they desperately need to rest, only a tiny few will find chairs. Given the speed at which it may play out, even the few chairs that are left ARE ALREADY OCCUPIED by those who see the whole charade as pathological.
It’s a game of Chicken. Everyone who flinches too early watches everyone else make a King’s Ransom when the game keeps going.
So every decline since 1987 has taught people that no matter what happens, stocks always come ROARING back, and go on to new highs. ONLY FOOLS SELL! ONLY FOOLS CAPITULATE!!!
Since tradeable lows occur amidst capitulation, the only way for any market to experience the kind of MASSIVE stock collapse we’d need to see coincide with a credit collapse (a bond price collapse) is if everyone has been taught by bitter experience that only fools flinch. Only fools sell. Only fools capitulate.
1987, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2007. Each was a top, followed by a decline, and each decline was almost immediately retraced and stocks went on to vastly higher prices. Leveraged speculators made enough money to buy their own private islands along the way.
I think people are conditioned, like Pavlov’s Dogs, to stay fully invested as stocks fall 10%, then 50%, then another 50%, then another 50%, then another 50%, then another 50%. That’s approximately a 97% total decline.
Is it possible? I think it’s absolutely possible, and the two most important requirements for it have been met as we sit here today.
(1) Largest credit bubble and debt build-up in history.
(2) People conditioned to never capitulate.
PS: If stocks actually decline massively, it means (by definition) that the dollars in which stocks are priced will buy vastly more after the decline than now. That’s a RISE in dollar purchasing power…if you can keep access to dollars, that is. Most people will probably be more worried about keep a roof over their heads, food on the table and dodging social unrest than buying stocks when the lows arrive.
So, build yourself a three legged stool and keep it under your arm, or better, a big stump some where that no one can move even if they found it.
Usefull knowledge=farmer. Useless knowledge=psychologist. People pay huge fees to become the latter, to work for the govt,or govt sponsored elite yak but do nothing jobs. When the whole rotten, corrupt and morally bankrupt system collapses, you’re gonna wish you knew the former.
Not so useless knowledge: Mass Psychologist.
What we see around us is always a product of mass psychology, nothing more. Understanding that is the first step to realizing what’s behind The Great and Powerful Oz’s curtain.
I consider credit card purchases with Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express “good” credit. For medium to big ticket items, it is becoming more and more rare that these cards are used as the credit limits are not that high relative to previous times. Thus the “decrease” in credit card debt.
The real credit holding up America’s economy are the subprime credit cards. Synchrony Bank (amazon, old navy, etc.) and Comenity Bank are the primary drivers of the economy. 30+ percent effective APR is insane. And note, this type of credit doesn’t factor into the reporting. It’s the hidden reality governments don’t want to talk about.
Plus, the majority of people buying on these cards / credit programs end up in court due to collections and default judgements. And of course when they don’t live up to the terms of the default judgement, the good ole body attachment and defacto “debtors prison” comes into play.
It’s bleak out there
Two of my sons work for a major credit card company.
The one who pays attention to the Big Picture points out that people will default LAST on their credit card, because it is MONEY in every possible way (until the day it’s not.)
They may not have $50 in a checking account, but they have whatever their unused credit line is as “spending money.”
Am enjoying to this series Admin, nice to see your passion emanating through your words. While reading part one it was like you had written down everything I have been thinking about the past few weeks, especially about being tired. Tired of the constant daily drumbeats from the left and their non stop idiocy and contempt for the President.
What we are witnessing every night is not democracy at least not the way I feel the process is supposed to work. If the people that we elected to govern this country put the same amount of energy into solving the problems that matter as they do in trying to tear each other apart, good things could probably get done. With all the made up political bullshit that is spewed everyday and all the energy required to respond, rebuff and retaliate little time is left to spend on the things that matter. It should be fairly easy to come up with a fair and equitable solution for healthcare that works for everybody if the house and congress could sit down and focus on it. We should be able to work with the Russians instead of setting the stage for their, and our, ultimate demise if we could just look at the situation with a little common sense rather than a political agenda.
I could go on and on but you get the drift. I think the public shares the overall sentiment that we are all tired of Hollywood, the snowflakes, the libitards, everyone in politics and most of all the media all losing their collective shit everyday over bs story lines and false narratives.
Maybe that is the strategy, wear us all down.
I thought that the majority of the country said enough is enough when we elected Mr. Trump. A man with a vision of how things should be done and how the country should be run. A man with some common sense and huge amount of patriotism. A man that wants to do right by the people who live in this country. At some point the people will have to rise up above the noise and say one more time enough is enough, we are all TIRED of this non stop bullshit, I don’t think they heard us the first time and if they did they sure as hell don’t appear to understand it.
Rat-ta-tat-tat-tat. I have always appreciated your rapid fire rants. To be fair, they just wander into the kill zone, seemingly oblivious to the forthcoming massacre. Not to detract from your high skill levels, professionals tend to make it look easy.
I spent a decent amount of time reading all of the comments here and at ZH. Part I set the stage with the “funk”, many shared and supported the disposition, and in response, posted righteous rants, some very informative.
All of them pale in comparison to the above.
You have a gift.
Thanks for sharing it.
In the minds of 1913 Robber Barons, it must have seemed like a good idea at the time to create a debt-money monetary system(actually, it should more accurately be termed the Ponzi Scheme known as the monetary system). Take the creation of money out of the hands of the People’s representatives and place it where it belongs, according to the poobahs of the time, in the hands of BANKERS. After all, the common people are no better than paramecium, let those who know manage the affairs of the Nation.
Worked for a time too.
In the course of human affairs a hundred years is but a moment. We’ve been around, in one form or another, for near a million years but still can’t get it right. It’s a simple thing but enormously problematic, what is money and how should it be created? Rumblings of a return to the gold standard can be heard in low places, another sign that we’ve learned little, actually, learned nothing at all.
Does the name Stephen Zarlenga mean anything to anyone. How ’bout Damon Vrabel or Byron Dale… no??? These people should be household names because they’ve figured out why we’re so fucked and what to do about it. How many more centuries or millennia must pass before we the people wake up to the idea that money creation is the SINGLE most important element in the whole table of ideas that make up a civilization worthy of the effort the universe fathers put into creating this world we call home.
Sure looks like it’s gonna be many more.
None of this changes because people are wired to do these things. People don’t learn from history because people don’t make such decisions, in the aggregate, via their higher brain functions.
It’s emotion, emotion, emotion….all the way down.
Whats comming is a melt up not melt down in private sector assets.
The governments, federal,state and local are going to collaspe.
The problem is that the majority will be left with nothing. They will demand a force take over the private assets.
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Admin IS Based Stick Man.
RiNS
Savage is a joo. Any halfwit can look up his wiki page and read what I posted. Why do you guys attack people for stating truths? I can’t help Savage was raised by Russian joos and has an agenda.
Why get pissy with me?
This is why lloph tires of this place.
I am trying to be funny. Not being pissy. Anyways glad you played but ya might want to straighten out the tiara. It isn’t sitting on your head quite right.
I’ll bite …..
What is the agenda. I don’t care that he is a Jew. But since you threw out that strawman take some time out of your day and elaborate.
RiNS
Blind followers chap my ass, always have , always will. That is my hot button. Second hot button is that everything is not funny. We (USA) have just about joked ourselves in to the NWO with the help of many “red diaper babies”. If you don’t know the term, look it up.
The Obama WH was full of them including Oreo himself. They can claim to be ultra-conservative, Repugnants, whatever. Never take the club members who control the propaganda machine as truthful.
He (Savage/Weiner) started as counterculture minion with the likes of Alan Ginsberg and Tim Leary, he used a photo of himself and Ginsberg swimming naked as a sort of calling card. Doors are opened to red diaper babies that would never be opened to regulah Merikans. Ginsberg’s parents were members of CPUSA just like the rest of the parents of the club members who have been promoted by the media. Large number of red diaper babies in the media and from what I hear that goes for Canucks also. They have an agenda.
Now you are accusing me of being a follower. Whatta marron! And so solly you don’t find my humour funny.
….everything is not funny…..
that doesn’t even make sense. Please let me know where I can find everything. You might have answer to that elusive question seems doubtful as you spend most of your days nailing the Star of David to everything not bolted to the ground.
We are all on a quest.
And you didn’t answer question. Quelle fucken’ shock! Everyone has an agenda. What’s yours?
RiNS- If you like your Savage, you can keep your Savage. Why don’t you wear the tiara, I didn’t start this conversation, you did.
Wrong again Bee Kneer! Keep the Tiara it looks better on you!
You started this yesterday when you brought up Savage Jewish connection without context.
Michael Savage a Commie. Yep I have heard it all..
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The Blindness It Burns
Yep
BL = Blind Lerch
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Your first question for measuring character is whether they are Jew or not. And then you call me blind.
The only thing burning is the stupid lerching in the void between your ears.
Star of David? Almost. I challenge you to go to the grocery store and pay attention to what items are “Kosher” – nearly all are marked Kosher now! And we all pay more for it as a result.
Here you go B-it doesn’t really fit here but since you’re talking American communists I’ll put it here-an article about Joe McCarthy.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/25532-use-of-term-mccarthyism-is-unfair-to-joe-mccarthy?utm_source=iContactPro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TNA+Top+Daily+Headlines&utm_content=TNA+Top+Daily+Headlines+Mar+7+17
Larry Kudlow was a member of SDS. LOL!
“Even a relatively mild inflation distorts the structure of production. It leads to the overexpansion of some industries at the expense of others. This involves a misapplication and waste of capital. When the inflation collapses, or is brought to a halt, the misdirected capital investment—whether in the form of machines, factories or office buildings—cannot yield an adequate return and loses the greater part of its value.”
This is why the fiat-money/debt=wealth system cannot go on forever. For 35 years the USA (and world) economy has been warped in favor of building out industries that cater to entities borrowing the most. This explains why medical services are so phenomenally expensive in the USA (for relatively little benefit.) This is but one “industry,” another being the “industrial distribution of Welfare State Benefits” which produced both an ARMY of people who work to distribute and an ARMY of dependents who have never worked and never intent to work.
““The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.”
This is simply not true.
It makes a lot more sense if you accept that people’s beliefs are determined from within, not by some Svengali’s manipulation. Are you manipulated? Why do you think you’re special, and everyone else is a mindless drone?
I hate to break it to you all, but we’re all mindless drones to some degree. We dress (mostly) like others. We act (mostly) like others. We are conditioned to FIT IN by millions of years of natural selection where standing out got an individual eaten (by predators or his fellow herd animals.)
Social mood. We can’t hear it, feel it, taste it or touch it, but it surely exists. It drives fads and fashions, it drives what is successful at the movie theater, and it sure as hell drives what the masses of men BELIEVE at every moment in history. It is the best explanation for why the major animating beliefs of mankind change periodically.
Only incredibly optimistic, trusting people could be deluded enough to embrace all the folly of the last 104 years. Only incredibly optimistic, trusting people embrace the Bigger, Faster, Better FOREVER beliefs that underlie fiat money, IOU’s-are-wealth, Foreigners-can-be-Americans, race-is-a-social-construct, poverty-can-be-eradicated, all-people-can-go-to-college, etc., etc., etc. ad nauseam.
Mood first.
Then belief.
Then action.
THEN RATIONALIZATION. All the “string-pullers” provide is a facile rationalization for what people already wanted to do.
Only under this hypothesis does history “make sense.”
We are in the midst of a vast change in the beliefs that people embrace.
For a very, very long time social optimism required believe believe that all of humanity’s ills could be cured. Poverty, racism, intolerance of anything (and everything) were deemed SINS. Hitler was elevated to the personification of SATAN.
It was a religion. It was REQUIRED because deep down inside, people were so trusting and optimistic that they impulsively opened their arms (and their wallets) to all. They had to have a rationalization for these actions, so they embraced a belief in UNIVERSALISM that transcended reason, prudence and even physical reality.
These optimistic, trusting mobs elected rulers who then instituted, for all practical purposes, THEOCRACIES across the nations of the West. Public policies came along to Stamp Out Sin (racism, poverty, etc.) at the point of a gun, i.e., under penalty of imprisonment.
That was on the social side. On the fiscal side, we got the “casting off of Earthly limits,” the Jungian Archetype of FLIGHT, where people expected to sail into the heavens just by “buying and holding for the long term.” We elected rulers who appointed Fed governors who opened the credit spigots, and we clamored for economics professors to tell us why debt no longer mattered, and Treasury Secretaries and Congressmen who realized that there was no longer any need to tax before spending, there was no longer any need to “say no” to anyone who came to Washington DC with his hand out, looking for LOOT.
“GUNS AND BUTTER FOR ALL!!!” (and throw in tax cuts, too!!!)
Yes, a few of us looked at this and screamed in moral terror. Our minds are not wired to rationalize batshit crazy stuff that violates good sense. We understand that Jean Baptiste Say was right, in order to CONSUME you must first PRODUCE, but aforementioned economics professors told the masses what the masses wanted to hear, that Say’s Law simply says, if you PRODUCE IT THEY WILL COME AND BUY IT.
And this was applied to IOU’s by the traincar load.
It’s all rationalizations. People in the aggregate are not reasoning, they are rationalizing. And those rationalizations can go on and on and on, as long as they are required, until the social mood mania in which we exist finally ends.
I think it’s in the process of ending, and that like a huge wave, there are those of us in the early part of the wave well past apogee and crashing even as those who are in the latter part of the wave are still rising toward their apogee (see the DJIA for that chart.)
No one knows the future. We do know that what we’re in is unsustainable, but we could have said that 100 years ago. This too shall end. But knowing that is not helpful. FWIW, I think all we can do is cultivate “anti-fragility.” I’m trying to structure so that I’ll be okay (and my growing family will be okay) no matter what happens.
Good points BB.
What goes around comes around, picking up speed.
How about the Pharmaceuticals Fraud & corruption. The Rick Simpson Oil (RSO) cures all cancers & cures/helps other diseases as well. Big Pharma profits are much more important than our lives. The cancer business is BIG business. I cured myself of prostate cancer and the oil rebuilt my prostate gland in 60 days.
The Fraud & Corruption in our country is unbearable…….what happened to TRUTH?
What happened to TRUTH?
It went out of style. People wanted to live in their fantasies, and so they (we) surrounded themselves (ourselves) with lies, lest we be forced to confront a reality our deepest, pre-conscious minds rejected.
This is how the human brain is structured. Our very sense of SELF exists in the limbic system (https://infogalactic.com/info/Limbic_system) and it governs herding behavior (the compulsion to “fit in.”) We can no more change this facet of humanity than we can change our DNA (don’t get me started about genetic engineering.)
There is an objective reality. I don’t think people ever really embrace it, though, and collectively we just swing from one set of untruths to a different set, because reality is too complex to be understood so we choose whatever gross oversimplification best fits the biases driven by our shared mood.
Seen this way, we are a fascinating species. So full of ourselves, and so self-deluded.
Bailey,
sorry to butt-in.
I understand the limbic system, it is a hobby.
And, some of us take pride in striving to not
“fit in.”
I’m in my mid-50’s.
I’ve lived my entire adult life during the greatest social mood mania in recorded history. I’ve lived my entire LIFE during a period of growing public estrangement with reality.
I had to have an explanation. I now have it.
When no elements of this mania persist (e.g., when all asset markets are in sustained, major declines) the beliefs that underpinned the last 50 years will INVERT.
Gone will be Universalism. Gone will be “we can fix anything” optimism. Gone will be social trust. Gone will be belief in the efficacy of Washington DC, or the state capitol, or the hierarchy of the Church, to fix things (or anything.) Gone will be tolerance of even mildly annoying, much less the in-your-face whackjobs insisting their son be showering with the girls. (Gone will be the high school girls insisting that trannies are their “BFF” gals.)
The high life styles we take for granted today are a product of unimaginable social cooperation on a spontaneous level. That was the yin of “globalism” (yes, the yang was a litany of embedded horror, but that’s another discussion.) When social mood uniformly turns down, and then plunges to depths not seen in several lifetimes, all that cooperation will turn to anger, distrust and–frankly–naked rage.
We will all feel it. We will have great difficulty resisting its pull.
It’s going to be ugly.
No one living in America has ever met a completely sane person.
True. Certainly no one in my association has met a sane man.
Admin,
Really great writing (which I love) and facts to back your thesis.
Just wonderful work.
I learned something. I learned some thing about credit cards that
I hadn’t thought about before. We can now pay our bills, taxes, and
and just about anything with a credit card. Wow…
I have 3 cc, but one I never use. Limits are 22K, 22k, and 24K. So a while
back I wanted to buy a new car. I was so sick of the extended process,
that I told the dealer to “just put in on my credit card.” That isn’t done,
I was told. Anyway, I drove the car out of the lot and when the first bill
arrived, I wrote a check for the amount owed, and was done with it.
BTW, that 2000 Camry is still on the road. My #2 son has it now and it still
runs great. I loath debt, and anyway, it is fashionable to drive a beater
and wear nondescript clothes. One is less of a target. I drive an 08 Rav,
all wheel, V6. Small but fast. That was an XMas gift from #2 son 2 yrs.
ago. I do feel for people that have to use a card to just get by. Others?
Who twisted their arm to buy glitzy crap they don’t need? Are $3oo+
shoes really worth it?
Sorry, those fudge butts just aren’t that smart to come up with these protocols for humanity. It’s obvious that satan himself is behind these men and their feelings of godhood and superiority. They don’t realize it will be their demise in the eternity for letting satan influence them into enslaving humanity…
Evil exists.
Every political system of the world is owned by Satan. It says so right in the NT, where during the Temptation of Christ Satan promises him all the kingdoms of the world.
I laugh my ass off at all the so-called Christians whose churches embrace the idea that GOVERNMENT is the means by which sin can be eliminated.
Given that I see every Western government today as open Theocracies, I have no doubt whatsoever which of the Angels they all worship.
Progressivism, as a cult, is just a demonic embrace of the Gnostic Heresy.
America is one sick twisted nation of not very intelligent people. They are so easily fooled, and want to fight you if you even attempt to point out their ignorance.
The Bankers and The Catholics (Satan’s House), did a wonderful and complete job of brainwashing and convincing the ignorant public that their evil agenda somehow is what they need.
There is no longer any fight in the dog called the United States.
“There is no longer any fight in the dog called the United States.”
Everything that has a beginning has an end. Perhaps you’re right. I sincerely hope for my kids’ sake that Western Civ isn’t dead yet. I would like to think that I might still have descendants around in a few centuries, and that they won’t look like the Aztec savages in Mel Gibson’s movie about them, or the debased future human tribe in the movie Cloud Atlas.
Disagree completely. Are you ignorant of the results of the last presidential election?
https://taxrevolution.us/welfare-dollars-feed-state-budgets-not-needy-families/
My buddy is a conductor for one of the major rail roads and has said we have been in a recession for well over 18 months. He has noticed a sharp decline in rail traffic…the MSM’s mockingbird’s main job is to continue to parrot the delusion that everything is okay to encourage those conditioned narcissists who are stuck staring at their own reflections from their Igadgets or Android screens to think that everything is alright and keep going to Starbucks, Applebees, Chilis and the like!
It’s more than that. Narcissists are would-be gods who can never, ever fail. They can’t stand the fact that they have been cast out by their “inferiors.” Consequently all the hissy fits, sandbox protests etc. The MSM has protected their failures all these years, but the public finally got wise to them. Now they know how it feels to be held to their own standards and THEY DON’T LIKE IT! Choices have consequences, indeed. No matter what the politicians might say, the government doesn’t care about our rights, our welfare or our safety. How many times will we keep falling for the same tricks?
The quote from Bernays at the beginning of this article should be considered when looking into Wikileaks most recent release in Vault 7!
here is part of the quote again to mull over and chew on considering the revelations in Vault 7
““The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”
What immense power we have given Fedzilla and the “intelligence” agencies in the name of novelty and convenience!! Truly disturbing!
I read and wash last night’s chili pot, and drink coffee. Its called multi-tasking, at least it is in my world. I’m not fully ready for the reset, but I’m preparing. The past few months have been amazing. Amazing, when one considers that when bombarded by such bullshit, our heads didn’t explode. Is extreme clownish chaos the new normal? Most here have drank the Kool-Aid. Interestingly, everyone had their own recipe. Years ago, the young and poor years. Mixed one cherry and one package black cherry, one cup sugar and two quarts water. Mine of course, was the best. Still is, I wonder.
If world governments had followed the economic precepts of Hazlitt, von Mises, and Hayek instead of the socialism of John Maynard Keynes, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today. Keynes is seen as the Messiah even today, as governments seek to spend their way out of the problems they created by following his ideas. Therefore, there is only one conclusion that can be made: either we’re dealing with incredible stupidity; or we’re dealing with the careful manipulation of the many by the few.
The shit is going to hit the fan any day now ! Who what where and exactly when is all that is in question ! Everything is to far gone now and the absolute is you cannot fix stupid ! We have all been stupid since the late 50’s into the 70’s and we have played a shell game ever since ! Parties over everybody out of the fucking pool !
Homo sapiens (human beings) are a failed species. Left to our own devices we will eventually (maybe soon) go extinct. It amazes me that we are not still swinging from tree branches or living in caves. We may be intelligent, but we are stupid and foolish. We are by nature selfish and belligerent and intolerant of anyone different from ourselves. We are more likely to compete than to cooperate. Until the 20th century we were inclined to destroy ourselves and each other but did not have the means. Now we are even more inclined to self destruct. The difference is now we have the means and the technology to do it. We are a catastrophic accident waiting to happen.
The USA is an empire in steep decline. We have never been so divided with neither side of the divide willing to compromise. The level of distrust and hate is palpable and could erupt violently at any moment and for the most insignificant incident. Our mainstream media are worse than worthless, contributing to our collective stupidity and misinformation and inciting riots here in the US and no win wars abroad. We are a tinderbox. Civil war is a distinct possibility, but unlike the last civil war (the war between the states in the 1860s) there will be no ‘reconstruction’ at the conclusion of that war. There will be no USA after the dust settles and the fires burn themselves out. We are being invaded by ‘refugees’ who will refuse to assimilate and adopt our Constitution and Bill or Rights and who will force feed their ugly theocracy down our throats. I dare not actually name that religion for fear of being labeled a ‘racist’. That is another serious issue: political correctness. It is destroying our country by not letting us protest the invasion and protecting our culture. One of our main political parties is in league with these ‘refugees’ and their intolerant religion. Their shared goal is the destruction of Western Civilization. They have almost accomplished that goal.
All is lost because we are stupid enough to let them destroy us. By the time most dim witted, brainwashed Americans wake up to the threat it will be far too late to prevent this disaster. I’ve seen our future. It is Caracas Venezuela, Detroit Michigan, Mogadishu Somalia and Aleppo Syria. Take your pick … or a combination of all of the above. This is my most optimistic prediction. You should hear my most pessimistic prediction … 🙂
Could not agree more ! In 1960 America lead the world in science technology engineering and industry public education and the country was 80 % White of European descent ! Obama said he wanted to change the face of America and now we are 60 % white and political correctness has placed lower IQ people in charge from top to bottom and the results are in ! Affirmitive Action has dumbed down testing and given degrees in social engineering which sounds cute but means nothing in reality !
I’ve heard it said ” you can’t express what you don’t feel .” Thanks for embracing the pain and making it productive, JQ. 1000 thumbs.
If the US Mint would just stop minting the penny – the nation’s budget crisis would (at the very least) give itself a ten-finger boost, up closer to the spreadsheet’s black-line.
…And for God’s sake – retailers: Stop-it already, with the ridiculous 99-cent pricing on everything, and go full-dollar amounts, or if necessary to lure-in suckers who wouldn’t spend the $3.00, but would spend $2.99 without issue – price it with the 95-cent stringer instead.
tl;dr.
The point is, all this continues due to
–mass psychology
–inertia
Nothing that runs on that kind of fuel lasts forever, but while it lasts it can make some people richer than Croesus. When the game ends, however, all hell will break loose.
Evidently, hiding in plain sight, is the approx. 4-5% that must be added to price inflation, as that is what is suppressed by the low interest on regular bank savings.
See, that is lost future purchasing power, as sure as the sun shines, and is given over to keeping the bonds mkt afloat and banks solvent. So, it’s even worse than inflation: it brings future loss to today AND thereby creates the economic depression.