Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
But alas, humans do not possess god-like powers, they only possess hubris, and so all bubbles pop: the more extreme the bubble, the more devastating the pop.
Long cycles operate at such a glacial pace they’re easily dismissed as either figments of fevered imagination or this time it’s different.
But since Nature and human nature remain stubbornly grounded by the same old dynamics, cycles eventually turn and the world changes dramatically. Nobody thinks the cyclical turn is possible until it’s already well underway.
Multiple long cycles are turning in unison:
1. The cycle of interest rates: down for 40+ years (last turn, 1981), now up for an unknown but consequential period of time.
2. The cycle of inflation / deflation: the 40-year period of low real-world inflation and rip-roaring speculative debt-asset inflation has ended and now an era of scarcity, real-world inflation and speculative debt-asset deflation begins.
3. The cycle of capital-labor balance: capital has dominated labor for 40+ years, siphoning $50 trillion from labor. This cycle has now turned and the rebalancing is underway: it’s capital’s turn to surrender gains and power.
4. The cycle of social order-disorder: as documented by historian Peter Turchin and others, social order (in Turchin’s phrase, the integrative phase) holds sway for about 50 years and then it gives way to an era of social disorder (the disintegrative phase). This phase doesn’t end with mild reforms nobody even notices, it ends with a rebalancing of social, political and economic power.
5. The cycle of wealth/power inequality: wealth–and the political power it buys–becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. This feeds economic and political dysfunction and exploitation that must be remedied by reducing extremes of wealth-power inequality.
6. The cycle of speculative excess: those in power protect their wealth and the wealth of their cronies by instituting moral hazard, the disconnect of risk and consequence: the central state and central bank backstop and bail out the most egregious big speculators, who keep all their gains and transfer their losses to the public.
The public concludes the only way to get ahead in such a rigged financial system is to belly up to the gaming tables and gamble that the next bubble will never pop because those in power won’t ever let it pop.
But alas, humans do not possess god-like powers, they only possess hubris, and so all bubbles pop: the more extreme the bubble, the more devastating the pop. The faint cries that fade to silence are: but this time it’s different! and the Fed will save us! That’s not how cycles work: all the god-like powers are revealed as hubris, which arouses the fatal ire of Nemesis.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Well CHS that was one of your less interesting articles. Normally like CHS but this time was disappointing… Chip
Not quite the awesome Admin Jim forth turning post we’re used to … Chip
“Carefully fall into the cliff.”
Am reading Alone on the Wall. It’s about Alex Honnold. Who is like Spiderman… if Spiderman eschewed webs, ropes, protection of any kind.
Honnold free solos cliff faces. In chunks ~ cycles ~ called pitches. And he can’t stop.
Honnold is, & all lesser climber-beings are, a metaphor.
Alone. Walls.
And the wind cries Pink Floyd & John Mellencamp.
Well you have individuals openly calling for the unvaxxed to be lined up in front of trenches and shot so yeah, I’d say that constitutes dramatic change. And FWIW, I take these people at their word. Walk softly and carry a “snubby”.
Self-sufficiency may be inefficient, but it is HONEST.
Lots of words. Little said.
Labor’s piece of the pie is up. But inflation is up more than that. And labor spends much more of its income on necessities than capital does. Capital gets wealthier from inflation, not so with labor.