This article was written by Tyler Durden and originally published at Zero Hedge.
Editor’s Comment: We can talk about it in terms of the numbers of people out of the labor force, the decline of manufacturing, the rise in the cost of living, the harsh penalties under zero percent interest rates for investment and equity. It is really the great shafting.
The system doesn’t need most of us around anymore, and regards the lot of society to be degenerate and extraneous. The new normal means austere and dependent.
The Age Of Stagnation (Or Something Much Worse)
by Tyler Durden
Excerpted from Satyajit Das’ new book “The Age Of Stagnation”,
If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth, only . . . wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. C.S. Lewis
The world is entering a period of stagnation, the new mediocre. The end of growth and fragile, volatile economic conditions are now the sometimes silent background to all social and political debates. For individuals, this is about the destruction of human hopes and dreams.
One Offs
For most of human history, as Thomas Hobbes recognised, life has been ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. The fortunate coincidence of factors that drove the unprecedented improvement in living standards following the Industrial Revolution, and especially in the period after World War II, may have been unique, an historical aberration. Now, different influences threaten to halt further increases, and even reverse the gains.
Since the early 1980s, economic activity and growth have been increasingly driven by financialisation – the replacement of industrial activity with financial trading and increased levels of borrowing to finance consumption and investment. By 2007, US$5 of new debt was necessary to create an additional US$1 of American economic activity, a fivefold increase from the 1950s. Debt levels had risen beyond the repayment capacity of borrowers, triggering the 2008 crisis and the Great Recession that followed. But the world shows little sign of shaking off its addiction to borrowing. Ever-increasing amounts of debt now act as a brake on growth.
Growth in international trade and capital flows is slowing. Emerging markets that have benefited from and, in recent times, supported growth are slowing.
Rising inequality and economic exclusion also impacts negatively upon activity.
Financial problems are compounded by lower population growth and ageing populations; slower increases in productivity and innovation; looming shortages of critical resources, such as water, food and energy; and manmade climate change and extreme weather conditions.
The world requires an additional 64 billion cubic metres of water a year, equivalent to the annual water flow through Germany’s Rhine River. Agronomists estimate that production will need to increase by 60–100 percent by 2050 to feed the population of the world. While the world’s supply of energy will not be exhausted any time soon, the human race is on track to exhaust the energy content of hundreds of millions years’ worth of sunlight stored in the form of coal, oil and natural gas in a few hundred years. 10 tons of pre-historic buried plant and organic matter converted by pressure and heat over millennia was needed to create a single gallon (4.5 litres) of gasoline.
Europe is currently struggling to deal with a few million refugees fleeing conflicts in the Middle East. How will the world deal with hundreds of millions of people at risk of displacement as a resulting of rising sea levels?
Extend and Pretend
The official response to the 2008 crisis was a policy of ‘extend and pretend’, whereby authorities chose to ignore the underlying problem, cover it up, or devise deferral strategies to ‘kick the can down the road’. The assumption was that government spending, lower interest rates, and the supply of liquidity or cash to money markets would create growth. It would also increase inflation to help reduce the level of debt, by decreasing its value.
It was the grifter’s long con, a confidence trick with a potentially large payoff but difficult to pull off. Houses prices and stock markets have risen, but growth, employment, income and investment have barely recovered to pre-crisis levels in most advanced economies. Inflation for the most part remains stubbornly low.
In countries that have ‘recovered’, financial markets are, in many cases, at or above pre-crisis prices. But conditions in the real economy have not returned to normal. Must-have latest electronic gadgets cannot obscure the fact that living standards for most people are stagnant. Job insecurity has risen. Wages are static, where they are not falling. Accepted perquisites of life in developed countries, such as education, houses, health services, aged care, savings and retirement, are increasingly unattainable.
In more severely affected countries, conditions are worse. Despite talk of a return to growth, the Greek economy has shrunk by a quarter. Spending by Greeks has fallen by 40 percent, reflecting reduced wages and pensions. Reported unemployment is 26 percent of the labour force. Youth unemployment is over 50 percent. One commentator observed that the government could save money on education, as it was unnecessary to prepare people for jobs that did not exist.
Future generations may have fewer opportunities and lower living standards than their parents. A 2013 Pew Research Centre survey conducted in thirty-nine countries asked whether people believed that their children would enjoy better living standards: 33 percent of Americans believed so, as did 28 percent of Germans, 17 percent of British and 14 percent of Italians. Just 9 percent of French people thought their children would be better off than previous generations.
The Deadly Cure
Authorities have been increasingly forced to resort to untested policies including QE forever and negative interest rates. It was an attempt to buy time, to let economies achieve a self-sustaining recovery, as they had done before. Unfortunately the policies have not succeeded. The expensively purchased time has been wasted. The necessary changes have not been made.
There are toxic side effects. Global debt has increased, not decreased, in response to low rates and government spending. Banks, considered dangerously large after the events of 2008, have increased in size and market power since then. In the US the six largest banks now control nearly 70 percent of all the assets in the US financial system, having increased their share by around 40 percent.
Individual countries have sought to export their troubles, abandoning international cooperation for beggar-thy-neighbour strategies. Destructive retaliation, in the form of tit-for-tat interest rate cuts, currency wars, and restrictions on trade, limits the ability of any nation to gain a decisive advantage.
The policies have also set the stage for a new financial crisis. Easy money has artificially boosted prices of financial assets beyond their real value. A significant amount of this capital has flowed into and destabilised emerging markets. Addicted to government and central bank support, the world economy may not be able to survive without low rates and excessive liquidity.
Authorities increasingly find themselves trapped, with little room for manoeuvre and unable to discontinue support for the economy. Central bankers know, even if they are unwilling to publicly acknowledge it, that their tools are inadequate or exhausted, now possessing the potency of shamanic rain dances. More than two decades of trying similar measures in Japan highlight their ineffectiveness in avoiding stagnation.
Heart of the Matter
Conscious that the social compact requires growth and prosperity, politicians, irrespective of ideology, are unwilling to openly discuss the real issues. They claim crisis fatigue, arguing that the problems are too far into the future to require immediate action. Fearing electoral oblivion, they have succumbed to populist demands for faux certainty and placebo policies. But in so doing they are merely piling up the problems.
Policymakers interrogate their models and torture data, failing to grasp that ‘many of the things you can count don’t count [while] many of the things you can’t count really count’. The possibility of a historical shift does not inform current thinking.
It is not in the interest of bankers and financial advisers to tell their clients about the real outlook. Bad news is bad for business. The media and commentariat, for the most part, accentuate the positive. Facts, they argue, are too depressing. The priority is to maintain the appearance of normality, to engender confidence.
Ordinary people refuse to acknowledge that maybe you cannot have it all. But there is increasingly a visceral unease about the present and a fear of the future. Everyone senses that the ultimate cost of the inevitable adjustments will be large. It is not simply the threat of economic hardship; it is fear of a loss of dignity and pride. It is a pervasive sense of powerlessness.
For the moment, the world hopes for the best of times but is afraid of the worst. People everywhere resemble Dory, the Royal Blue Tang fish in the animated film Finding Nemo. Suffering from short-term memory loss, she just tells herself to keep on swimming. Her direction is entirely random and without purpose.
Reckoning Postponed
The world has postponed, indefinitely, dealing decisively with the challenges, choosing instead to risk stagnation or collapse. But reality cannot be deferred forever. Kicking the can down the road only shifts the responsibility for dealing with it onto others, especially future generations.
A slow, controlled correction of the financial, economic, resource and environmental excesses now would be serious but manageable. If changes are not made, then the forced correction will be dramatic and violent, with unknown consequences.
During the last half-century each successive economic crisis has increased in severity, requiring progressively larger measures to ameliorate its effects. Over time, the policies have distorted the economy. The effectiveness of instruments has diminished. With public finances weakened and interest rates at historic lows, there is now little room for manoeuvre. Geo-political risks have risen. Trust and faith in institutions and policy makers has weakened.
Economic problems are feeding social and political discontent, opening the way for extremism. In the Great Depression the fear and disaffection of ordinary people who had lost their jobs and savings gave rise to fascism. Writing of the period, historian A.J.P. Taylor noted: ‘[the] middle class, everywhere the pillar of stability and respectability . . . was now utterly destroyed . . . they became resentful . . . violent and irresponsible . . . ready to follow the first demagogic saviour . . .’
The new crisis that is now approaching or may already be with us will be like a virulent infection attacking a body whose immune system is already compromised.
As Robert Louis Stevenson knew, sooner or later we all have to sit down to a banquet of consequences.
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America really is the best place to live. I know how much this country has changed, just in my life time.
Reality is: we HAVE to learn to be content where we are. That doesn’t mean we can’t do things to better our lives or change the system.
Discontentment leads to bitterness. Personally, I want to be able to enjoy my life where I’m at, be content with what I have.
We all live better than 99% of the world’s population.
Thank you, Grandee. You are partially correct. The issue is, is that we are going in the WRONG direction. Moreover, when you say greatest country in the world, it is because we have BORROWED our current lifestyle from future generations. That is, the ones we haven’t killed via abortion, including PARTIAL BIRTH abortion.
Of course, if you are one of the almost 50 mm on food stamps, or the 100 mm not working, things ain’t so hot. The US has now dropped out of the top 10 as most free countries in the world, also not good.
Yes, you want to enjoy life and not be bitter. Well and good. But do you enjoy this at the price of others having their future stolen ($1.1 trillion in student debt, 55 million abortions, $19 trillion debt officially, probably more like $222 trillion if you include everything, per Dr. Lawrence Kotlikoff, Boston Univ.).
If I may say this as graciously as possible, you are enjoying your life at the expense of others, and predicated on a financial fiction. I am not trying to be harsh or judgmental here, just stating a fact.
Indeed you are gracious. thank you.
However, When we started a family in ’75 we lived in a small starter home with a mortgage @ 12%. We gardened, my friend & I bought the family packs of meat (Better price) and split it between us. When I served supper, say pork chops, hubby got two, me and the girls each got one. A carb and veggies from garden.
The hot water heater had a timer and we had hot water twice a day.
I sewed our clothes. Made the bday and xmas gifts.
That was 40 yr ago. We were never in consumer debt. We paid our bills on time and LIVED WITHIN OUR MEANS.
We had pizza delivered this Saturday and it was a treat ’cause we never allowed that in the early days-it was a luxury. The girls got a McD trip twice a month on payday.
All this to say, we were content, enjoyed life, even a once a year trip to the beach. Know what? We all remember those as the good times with great memories, in a great country. Even then we were still better off than 99% of the world.
Not tooting my horn here, just sayin’. The life style of the average American is way beyond their means. They want/demand everything NOW and are discontented and bitter if they don’t get it.
As far as abortion, We saved one, a grandson. Gave 18yr of our life to raise him. Love him as our own.
And at no time do I enjoy life at the expense of anyone. That’s the same as sayin’ I should give reparations to Blacks or Indians. As a matter of fact, I give $s to many ministries through my church-food, physical help (tornado, etc clean up), and sew for people in Haiti, Ukraine, S.America, Africa, as well as those in my own small community.
Our Federal Gov is the one borrowing against our children and their future. We could go on and on about how to solve that problem.
Thanks for letting me say my peace and I appreciate your input.
Thank you for your clarification Grandee. I probably miscommunicated, so my apologies. I meant more a “generic” you (if I can use that term), not you personally. Please accept my apologies for that. If I may clarify, then, I mean America in general is currently living beyond it’s means. In contrast, people like you are in fact the polar opposite, and what makes this country great. If the whole country was Grandees, we would have zero economic problems.
In sum, my basic point is that America, in general, is stealing from the future.. not to mention the 55 million aborted.
Please accept my apologies for the lack of clarity in my writing, and I stand corrected
🙂 peace
@Test,
You missed the entire point of America being “the greatest country in the world”. Our greatness came from the unalienable rights we have as citizens, and our freedom to pursue our interests, careers, inventing new things, etc. It is the opportunity we have to be the very best we can be. It has nothing to do with our standard of living as propped up by consumer debt. As the Constitution of the United States of America, and the precious Bill of Rights is destroyed through court rulings and various laws the greatness of America has been diminished as have the opportunities. Will we get it back? I personally don’t think so, but I hope I am wrong.
For the record, I stopped reading when I got to, “Rising inequality and economic exclusion also impacts negatively upon activity.” Clearly the author is another Socialist bastard wanting everyone to be the same. Therefore, the author wants us all brought down to the lowest common denominator.
grandee.
The world would be a lot better a place if more people were like you.
I agree if you live in new Hampshire or Idaho. if you live in LA or Chicago, you’re not going to like it when the economy hits the crash that it put off in 2008 with mountains of new debt.
Not that great here in New Hampshire, not when a house assessed for $250K cost you $8K in property taxes.
Exact same here in the People’s Socialist Thugocracy of Illinois, AOWG. Except all our other taxes are high too, whereas in NH I understand you only get dinged there. Then there is gun control happy murder capitol of the world, Rahm “Dead Fish” Emanuel’s Chicago, which is bleeding people out of the stated, as well as victims’ literal blood. I think IL. lost more people than any other state last year except the corruptocracy of NY.
I plan to follow as soon as I am able. Anywhere where there aren’t taxes like this!! (And why? I have a sister in law, very nice person, don’t get me wrong – who retired at 56 as just a regular teacher… and is making $7 freaking thousand dollars per MONTH… maybe for another half century. And there are THOUSANDS of them like this. As nice as she is, I’m not going to pay for her lounging on the beach as I work literally to midnite every nite (yes, *literally*. I come on here for little ADHD breaks during that day, and as I dont take more than 10 min. for lunch either, I figure 15 minutes piping up here is ok)
You’re obviously living in the wrong state. Here in eastern NC, my property tax rate is 1/10 of that.
I’m trying to get out. Unfortunately, I have some a very elderly mother and mentally handicapped brother that I have to look after… while my other three siblings, all retired or partially retired, sit on their lazy derrieres as I continue to work full time, and will for many more years. But believe me, when she is gone, the house goes up for sale the next day…
Archivist
I have friends in NJ in working class homes, 1500 sq/ft that typically pay $10,000 a year or more in property taxes for the privilege of having laws upon laws upon laws to tell you what to do. If your dog dies your supposed to get a permit to bury it in your own back yard.
Its the #1 State to leave.
“We all live better than 99% of the world’s population.”
Not at all. I used to travel a lot. I can say for a certainty that Most other people have a better life than we do. We are forced into debt then slavery to repay that debt and the average person never gets to live their life. Ive found people living in huts in africa that are happier, better educated with a better understanding of what is going on around them and in better health than the average american.
That is because they KNOW contentment.
your an dumbocrat are you not
Ed,
I lived in Mexico 8 years and found many people living well. Their educated people are not spewing nonsense just to support their political views. Their arguments are fact based even when they disagree about solutions. They look to South America and Europe for news… and get a more rounded view. We get fed news like the old soviets Now they are struggling under drug lords fueled by the US. We are not the be all and end all on this planet. I am American and I will stay here, this is MY country. Worse than abandment by the global megacorporations is so many people refuse to create a new economic base. Start a business any business and buy local. Please let the global megacorporations leave us and take their horrors with them.
If you’re a foreigner visiting the USA and want to see your country vanish, buy an American newspaper.
I travel extensively and, in my experience, America and Americans are extremely parochial, even to the extent of ignoring what is going on in other states.
English is not my mother tongue and I do find it slightly embarrassing when dealing with Americans whose command of their language is far less than mine is. Ignorance is far from blissful and can create confusion in international trade!
Anonymous,
I had folks in Mexico who were embarrassed that my Spanish was better than their’s. They were not educated people. It am rusty now but practice occasionally here in New Mexico. There was a time where I considered going back to retire, but here I am. I thought the better educated Mexicans were more European in outlook and much more cosmopolitan than most Americans. I remember that they were all kind to me and I learned Spanish and tried not to act like a horse’s patoot. Haven’t been back for a long time.
where are you from?
I’m originally from Norway. I now live in Britain having married an English girl who could not get used to looking for the family car when we had a few metres of snow! She seems to prefer rain☺
BLACKS COMMIT 65% OF RAPES EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE 16% OF THE POPULATION
BLACK ON WHITE RAPE IS 50X THE RATE OF WHITE ON BLACK RAPE
RAPE ISNT A RAPE CULTURE PROBLEM
RAPE IS A BLACK PROBLEM
IF RACISM IS WRONG
SHOW ME A SINGLE STATISTIC THAT SUGGESTS THAT DECREASING THE NUMBERS OF WHITE PEOPLE WILL RESULT IN ANYTHING BENEFICIAL
Hey Acid-IF RACISM IS WRONG
SHOW ME A SINGLE STATISTIC THAT SUGGESTS THAT DECREASING THE NUMBERS OF WHITE PEOPLE WILL RESULT IN ANYTHING BENEFICIAL.
How about the NBA? Monkey ball is fairly dominated by Negros. Imagine Having a few kids in every city you played basket ball in for away games. Of not for the NBA, imagine how much more the black crime rate would be up. Keep em busy playing ball than stealing, killin and raping.
-WWTI…
IN 1950 BALTIMORE WAS 76% WHITE
IF YOU COULD FUCKING BELIEVE IT, IT USED TO BE CALLED “THE CITY THAT READS” BECAUSE OF THE DENSITY OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES
NOW IT’S 24% WHITE AND 40% OF THE POPULATION IS FUNCTIONALLY ILLITERATE
IT’S NOT FUNNY, THINK OF THE MISSED OPPORTUNITY COSTS OF TAKING MONEY FROM WHITE MEN SOLELY TO BE SPENT ON THESE FAILING CITIES
SENSELESS, WANTON DESTRUCTION BY BLACK ANIMALS, THESE PAVEMENT APES
“◾In 1990s, an average of 300 people a year were murdered in Baltimore.
◾From 2007 to mid-2013, 1,267 black people were murdered in the streets of Baltimore, which accounted for 91.5 percent of homicide. 77 White people were also killed during this period – mostly at the hands of black people.
◾In 2012, 94 percent of murder victims in Baltimore were African-American.
◾At 46 officers per 100,000, Baltimore has one the highest rates of police officers per capita in the United States.
◾$3 billion dollars is spent every decade policing Baltimore.
◾92 percent of defendants in Baltimore courts are non-White.
◾89 percent of people in jail in Baltimore are black.
◾In the early 1990s, 56 percent of black men in Baltimore between 18 and 35 were under the supervision of the criminal justice system.
◾Baltimore has the highest percentage of its population incarcerated in jail of the Top 20 jails in the United States.
◾86 percent of victims and offenders in Baltimore are recidivist criminals.
◾In Baltimore, children are often killed by stray bullets.”
YOU BABY BOOMER FUCKUPS HAVE BEEN SHOVING THIS DIVERSITY SHIT DOWN OUR THROATS FOR 50 YEARS
THE SEGREGATIONISTS WERE ATTEMPTING TO OBVIATE PRECISELY THE EVENTUALITY THAT YOU SEE BEFORE US TODAY
THE TRUE NATURE OF DIVERSITY IS MASSIVE FUCKING DESTRUCTION
HOW MANY MORE OF OUR GREAT CITIES ARE GOING TO BE DESTROYED BY FUCKING KAFFIRS UNTIL YOU DUMB SHITS FINALLY START TO FUCKING GROW UP AND ADMIT WHAT IS PLAINLY OBVIOUS?
NON-WHITES, EXCEPT EAST ASIANS, ARE INCAPABLE OF SUSTAINING CIVILIZATION
EVERY FUCKING CITY THEY COLONIZE TURNS TO A SET PIECE FROM A MAD MAX MOVIE
NON-WHITES ARE LIKE A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS
THIS “IM NOT A RACIST” HORSESHIT HAS GOT TO BE STOPPED BEFORE THE WHOLE COUNTRY BECOMES LIKE SOMALIA
OH SNAP DO I EVER HATE YOU BABY BOOMER FUCKING VERMIN
“OH SNAP DO I EVER HATE YOU BABY BOOMER FUCKING VERMIN”
I hate faggots!!! … so I completely understand your dilemma.
ACID- Its not Babyboomers that destroyed America, it’s Zog infiltrated Commie Liberalism. Def: ZOG= (Zionist Occupational Government). Look for the root of these evils not a generationam face. But your points of destruction are valid.
-WWTI…
Acid, ok we get your frustration….now what to do about it? Let’s face it, some things are beyond our control. All you can do is figure out how to effect change in your own life. So channel your frustration in a way that actually benefits you and what you hold dear. Get some education, skills etc so you can make enough money to go someplace and establish yourself fiscally. Develop some actual social skills and develop your own community. It can be done. I’m seeing those happen now.
@Foxglove: There were many educated people on the Titanic. Go figure!
Tax, true but Acid is not Leo DiCaprio…. 🙂
And most of those educated people actually survived……
Trust Acid way more than DiCrapro!
Rick, you and me both. DiCaprio is an NWO Bilderburg, CFR shill. 😉
You write so much truth: where is the black Singapore?, the black China?, the black Korea, hell, I would take a black Uruguay.
Despite there being more countries in the world that are non-white than white, and their populations growing at a rapid clip, they still are unable to create sustained prosperity and increasing achievement. Only the Asians have been able to do it.
South Africa is a good test case: it has gone downhill since it tried to become multiracial. A nice idea but it isn’t working in practice.
In 1950 Baltimore like everywhere else was loaded with jobs that the average person could do that paid a wage sufficient to provide food, clothing and shelter. Like Camden NJ that was prosperous the jobs first fled south then out of the country. The results are the same everywhere with only the city’s name being different.
I am glad that you said ‘snap’ rather than resorting to coarse language
OK. I have had enough. I am an educated African American woman who is a practicing physician. I am well aware of the issues with crime, ALL CRIME. That being said I fine your rhetoric disgusting. You should try doing as I do and judge peoplefor who they are and how they live their lives. Skin color is not an indicator of character. Criminals are criminals period and the color of their skin is irrelevant. It really is the content of their character that matters. I feel sorry for you, but rest assured that if you showed up in my hospital and were assigned to me as a patient I would do everything in my power to assist you even though I find your rhetoric insulting, un-chritian, and lacking in character. You will answer to your maker for those views. May He have mercy on your soul.
Hear Hear Adocann!
Many people understand what shtf truly means on an inter-generational scale because they have experienced it and continue to not only survive but thrive against almost impossible odds. Not only that but when you sit and talk, really talk, you see that they have retained their humanity and spirituality.
Many of these haters have yet to be tested but already they sold out their souls. For this one can only feel pity for these unwitting tools of the global Satanic global plantation designers.
Lonelonmum
It seems like childish Trumptrums sometimes, but these people are not 3 years old. Acid Etch is so corroded with hatred he has no value, so is likely to get himself shot as a rabid dog one day. Then get saved by a black doctor! How pathetic that would be.
To live happily does not mean for you to be passive. You can ignore reality all you want, but the consequences of ignoring reality can get you killed. Non-Gun owners will soon realize they were grossly mistaken when confronted by the upcoming hungry hoards looting and pillaging everything, when They take over neighborhoods and cities, and as the weak are stripped of everything they own, as they flee from the cities in desparation to seek safety in the countryside. Oh how the antigunners are so happy in their complacent nests at this moment, watching MSM News, and the feel good dumbed down fiction they seek to cover up the obvious. The BuyBull is another source of dumbed down complacency filled with false hope for stooped sheep.. “Love thyn Enemy” is another crock of Shinola as well, that will get ya killed too.
-WWTI…
Grassy Knoll
In which case the black lady doctor better kill Acid Etch when she gets the chance!
I am not as sure as you are that people are unarmed and easily looted. This has always been an armed country, and all those weapons from pre registration are out there too. 50 percent live in dangerous neighborhoods already. Most people are less yappy about it.
Re. the Oregon standoff, FYI.
A bit off topic, but FYI. Please review this article, if your time allows, and pass on to others if you do in fact agree. I’m not sure how you see this, but IMHO this is extremely disturbing in terms of perverting the justice system for political ends (gee, what a shock from the Obama administration!). Once that perversion is complete, you no longer live in a free country, but rather in the worst days of Cuba, Bolivia or Guatemala, which is why this is so important. http://joemiller.us/2016/02/feds-emboldened-after-killing-finicum-now-rounding-up-jailing-2014-nevada-protesters/?utm_source=JoeMiller.US+List&utm_campaign=2d7f56c605-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_065b6c381c-2d7f56c605-218463253
If you don’t get Joe Miller’s (he was almost our US senator from Alaska, and is a trained lawyer) daily email news updates, you are missing a real valuable source of information.
“For most of human history, as Thomas Hobbes recognized, life has been “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Those characteristics describe life for most of our ancestors until recent times. The pampered existence of humans in this new millennium leave most people completely unprepared for future strife. It can be very painful to not know history. Prepare, so you can weather the storm.
Technological advancements like electricity that massively increased productivity is supposed to increase the standard of living. Going back to 1800 will cost the world 90% of the population of the developed world. Interesting outcome as the dynamics will increase the primitive people in comparison to the educated. Writing software becomes obsolete to making flint tools. This is a script to a science fiction movie.
Something is seriously wrong with the above.
First thing you need to understand is that people who run for public office are very rarely altruistic. And when they get there, if they were altruistic, their new circumstance makes it very attractive for them to become non-altruistic. It’s not that politicians are bad people. It’s that the skills and motivations needed for good government are not the same as the skills and motivations needed for getting oneself elected to public office. What’s worse, everyone who ever gets elected is a human being. No human being is capable of solving more than just few simple types of problems. Ruling a nation of three hundred million people is not possible for any human to accomplish effectively. There is just too much that needs to be understood that they cannot possibly understand.
I quit reading when the article came to the BS based on the myth that man made the weather, and golly gee, the oceans are rising. If you believe this BS, then Florida and NYC would be underwater based on their predictions 15 years ago, and don’t forget the father of man made global warming, Al Gore says the earth’s core is “millions” of degrees F, when it is actually 6,000 degrees F.
No doubt the middle class is being wiped out but the younger generation who got themselves in so much debt should have known better and not follow the crowd like lemmings jumping into the sea, and now expect others to pay for their follies. Same with these socialist Fascist leaders to put this national debt on us that I was against along with banks repeating the same mistakes. They did it to themselves. There will be a reckoning, and I refuse be a part of it.
Miami Beach is going under as we speak. Just sayin.
The blatant lie that I saw was that the 2008 crash/recession was caused by overindebtedness. Not so, although the crash made that a reality quick enough. It was caused by the busting of the mortgage derivatives scammers. They committed massive fraud based on their arrogant assumption that supreme mortgages would fail. They had their own little fear porn going on that. Guess what… Americans paid their mortgages. Oops… they fraudulently bundled and insured those mortgages, then sold them 5-10 times. They were coming due and they had to file them foreclosed to hide their fraud. They admitted to illegal foreclosures on 4.1 million homes that had current payments. Knocked AIG over. Then the stock market, then the planet.. only in America do you hear the bankster lie repeated ad infinitum. Debt my arse, fraud on a massive scale and not one prison term. We bailed them out and the Republicans made sure we will again.
Woogie, the facts are is that Florida has been fully submerged about 4 to 5 times over billions of years. Global flooding is cylical. Even the tallest mountain peaks in the world contain fossils of sea creatures. Study the facts, then post. I live in FL and the want soil is basicall crushed sea shells. Florida is a sand bar. With 2 thirds less than 30 Meters high in elevation. I moved a year ago from 8 ft above sea level in the city to 45 Ft in elevation in more northern FL country side. My property taxes are just $110 per acre. I laught at idiots paying $8K a year for a 50 x 80 lot in any City hell hole with Liberals running the show. Its a no brained for those in the know. And no fricken Red light cameras out here. My auto insurance also dropped by 30% just moving to the country and my OffGrid BOL.
-WWTI…
Boy you have that one spot on. I am a dual US/Canadian who hikes a lot in the Canadian Rockies. In fact, I was just there last Sept.
Early pictures from the area vs. today show much glacier recession, at least for some glaciers, such as Bow Glacier (where I was very recently hiking again), which is the source of the Bow River. The hiking book Classic Hikes in the Canadian Rockies shows this glacier around 1900. If you go there today, the same glacier is much, much receded.
BUT here is the rub. The same anti-science types, who think science is determined by “consensus” (of which there is none, not even close) rather than **experimentation and hypothesis testing**, unthinkingly look at this and make utterly unwarranted conclusions. The fact of the matter is that there was something called the Little Ice Age (LIA, also known as the Dalton Minimum) the nadir of which was around 1790 to 1830. The simple fact is that this was one of the coldest periods since the Ice Age, and we are still emerging from this. THAT, mon ami, is why the Bow Glacier – and its sisters – have receded: we are still emerging from that LIA. This is why, according to the Archeological Survey of Canada, the tree line was 100 km. NORTH of where it is today during the MWP (Medieval Warm Period, which was preceded by the similar Roman Warm Period. Incidentally, that emergence from the Little Ice Age has stopped over the past 17 years – there has been ZERO global warming since 1998, which now even the co-opted IPCC admits, as did Phil Jones at Hadley , the lead global warmer – until ClimateGate forced him to resign (and you’ll notice the leftists and Agenda 21 scamsters hope you’ll forget Climategate… along with Lois LernerGate
More evidence. Kegwins’ study in Nature on marine radioistopes shows that we are, today, still BELOW the 3,000 year average. If you google “Dr. Tim Ball+picea glauca” or go to http://drtimball.com/2012/sensationalist-and-distorted-climate-stories-increase-as-climate-science-failures-exposed/ you will find a white spruce stump on the coast Canada’s Arctic Ocean, dated about 5,000 years ago, and NOWHERE near today’s treeline. Of course, no one on the left has the intellectual honesty to address any of this.
The reality is that the left, the BIG GREEN MONEY, and the Agenda 21 types want to control energy, which allows them to control everything that touches, which is… well, everything
Enjoyed that Test. Thanks.
Sorry but the democrat voting dependent on government moochers in my area are arrogant and full of themselves. They blame everything on race and feel entitled. They have no worries for the future and could care less about it…
We have been say the same stuff for years.
It is good to keep up with current events. BUT!
Get the items needed to defend yourself
Get the items to feed yourselves.
All the rest is B.S.
@SLINGSHOT
Well said.
My answer to this article is boo-hoo, poor babies, they can’t afford everything that they want. Their “souls” are destroyed?
“What good does it do a man if he gains HE WHOLE (FUCKING) world, but loses his soul.
This World or your life, will end some day. Are YOU ready for what comes next?
“In the Great Depression the fear and disaffection of ordinary people who had lost their jobs and savings gave rise ”
It was also the legal birth of organized labor with the Wagner Act which in effect helped create the middle class. The reason for the about face was the potential rise of Communism. In effect they begrudged sharing some of the fruits of labor with labor but the potential alternative was far worse. This labor force manning tariff protected industries gave Americans the highest standard of living in the world. Fast forward a few decades and Free Trade agreements with nations having a workforce ready and willing to work for a 10th or less of compensation acceptable in the developed civilized world is the norm.
One has to ask themselves who believes the above should continue?
Industrial Unions didn’t destroy America, Free Trade with slave labor nations are doing it along with its buddy a deregulated financial industry.
Kevin2
truth
and the masses chasing behind Bernie Sanders might convince them to share some of those record profits again. Or not. They threatened to leave then too but they couldn’t leave as easily as now.
I would be happy if the other side of “Equal Protection Under The Law”, which infers, “Equal Enforcement Of The Law”, was enforced.
“An uneducated man robs a train”. “An educated man steals the railroad”.
President Theodore Roosevelt
Kevin2
The uneducated man goes to jail
The educated man buys the government
This is the problem in our country… we are not under rule by law.
The Constitution is our basic law and it is perverted by the man who bought the government. Our best means to fight all abuses is to call our government back to the Constitution and rule by law. Scalia’s legacy and most important court decision was Citizen’s United when he gave us rule by money.
Sorry, we already had rule by money. Scalia enshrined it at the Constitutional level as the law of the land. He destroyed the Constitution.
I live on the Navajo Reservation. For generations, this people have been told, the only way to make anything of yourself is to leave. If “making something of yourself” means getting stuff and being famous, then despair is rampant. However, if being free of the slavery to stuff, being able to watch the stars fade and greet the sun in the morning matters more. Then staying here, the struggle to survive teaching the lessons of truth, beauty, love, and family, is “making something of yourself”. This is the place to be.
Kyrathyel,
Nice to see how red, yellow black and white are banding together try to find a new day for freedom. No more reservations OR plantations for any of us, of any skin hue. And you Indians may have a special word to speak about freedom, given your history, and in that you will be more listened to in this politically correct world. Of course, any black who dares speak out (and there ARE many, though of course a minority) are always frantically marginalized by the fascist left as Uncle Toms (while real uncle Tom/golfer in chief sits in DC), and I am sure it will be the same with the red man. No matter, we keep moving forward. Thanks for your post.
An old buddy use to say. It’s all broken promises and dreams. When you ask for something it’s what have you done for me lately. Look it’s not that bad yet but if people don’t start saying no to the bullshit then it will get progressively worst. Labor unions are the only thing protecting wages and jobs now. Nothing is perfect but without a union you are at the mercy of corporations and you will lose everytime.
Probably not popular (right now, but give it some time) but fascism is the only model that will work to rectify these problems. Fascism, or to be precise, charismatic fascism that unites the volk or folk (the people) will address the drift young people now experience. We need to unite the people around a common heroic vision and revitalize them to invigorate society and the economy.
There is so much that needs to be addressed – civic decay, Islamic radicalism, gangs and low-lifes, degenerates. Fascism would get these people off the streets and out of people’s lives. People could then focus on the things that make life better, more beautiful: heroic architecture, common design, science and technology, colonizing space, civilization to the uncivilized. Discipline, fitness, deportment, and honor will do it.
Frank Thoughts
Fascism got us to where we are and is continuing to direct activities.
Decayed cities? Look no further than the loss of manufacturing employment complements of…..Free Trade. Welfare? Once again a fallout of the former. Islamic radicalism? Are you referring to that which was fueled by US intervention destabilizing stable governments not to our economic liking and handing them over toIslamic Fundamentalist groups which are used to repeat the same thing elsewhere?
We don’t need Adolf Hitler; we need Thomas Jefferson.
Frank Thought
The very in test of destabilation is to get people to cry for orderly fascism to get the trains running on time. Fascism destroys everything it touches. Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao, I Idi Amin, and so on. Do you think it is an accident that MSM is now extolling dictators as creating stability????? Tptb are creating instability so we will cry out for a dictator.
Sorry Frank, but I don’t buy it all all. Fascism is anti-human.
Rather, there are two major traditions in Western political thought. The first is Aristotelian, logical, rational, centrist, mechanistic. You concentrate power and truth in the centre and apply it outward, shaping the world according to plan. Exactly what you outline. And which has ALWAYS led to disaster. Always. It’s also what goofballs like Woody Allen advocated with Obama.
This was the guiding principle of the Roman Empire. It evolved into the Holy Roman Empire and the Church of Rome. Except for Switzerland, it has dominated politics on the continent ever since. Most recently, it has morphed into the European Union.
The principle is simple – smart people can figure out how to run things, and should be allowed to do so. This was the idea behind Hillary Clinton’s health care task force (and now ObamaCare), as well as Japan, Inc. and even Adolph Hitler’s National Socialist Germany. It has animated nearly every politician (each one of whom, as Garrison Keilor notes about Lake Woebegone children, are above average) in this century.
But there is another tradition that is much less well understood. It is the tradition of the Roman Republic… of English common law… of Adam Smith and Emmanuel Kant… of Austrian School economists such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek and of pre-Rooseveltian American. It is organic, rather than mechanistic – the tradition of tradition, based on the recognition that people, no matter how smart, cannot replace thousands of years of accumulated experience (remember the “best and the brightest” who led the Vietnam war? Or, wonder where the radical homosexual power move is going to end?)
Experience is embodied in the evolved systems of values, customs, rules and traditions that people use to order and give meaning to their lives. A free market and a free society allow people to express these preferences, as well as allowing the process of social and civil evolution to continue. This tradition, in other words, is neither liberal nor conservative in the modern sense, but anti-political. Indeed, it is often seen as “anti-intellectual” because it denies the authority of intellectuals to tell the rest of us what to do (through the political process).
Test
good post
I HAVE NO DREAMS AND NOR HOPES, I AM CONNECTED TO REALTIY
All my hope and dreams have been shattered. I already got my dose of reality in the streets of Houston. I don’t live in a fantasy world especially when russian spetsnatz are up in my face in the Galleria of Houston, as most of the dumbass people dont even prep and are standing in lines wating for handouts. I guess the russian wasn’t expecting the cammoed out decked out civilian read neck, combat citizenry soldier up in his face when he came into the tatoo shop taking sh..t ot my tatoo artist chick friend. May he taught that his russian martial arts drift technique was a match for Si Lat. let me tell you russian phucks something, you keep walking around town phucking with people like me and see what will happen, keep it, why dont you go out to Katy off Mason rd and talk sh…t, let me see you do it, come on.
Aka,
HCKS..
Drift technique my ass.
Texas Troopers hard at work today , illegally searching my work van looking for money . dumbasses even brought a dog on my van saying it ” hit ” on the doors ….REALLY !!!!!! …I was watching ya DUMBASS COP !!! THAT STUPID DOG COULNDT FETCH A DUCK !!I have 12 years LEO Experience !!! HEY COPS …PUCK YOU for violating my rights today …all I do is Pucking work and I get hassled for NOTHING …shit I was even thinking of going back into the field …No WAY !! ……oh yeah did you hear me …PUCK YOU …so much for opsec…….
wasnt yelling at you ….just fustrated