This report was originally published by Adam Taggart at Peak Prosperity
There’s mounting evidence that the Age of American Exceptionalism is grinding to an end.
Demographically, in the U.S. (as well as many other developed nations), the prospects of the younger generations are substantially less than those of the Baby Boomers. The same is true socioeconomically as well; the wealth gap between the 1% and everyone else continues to accelerate.
What’s been the root cause of this slide towards greater and greater inequity? And can anything be done to reverse it?
Economist analyst and author Charles Hugh Smith addresses these core questions in his new book Pathfinding Our Destiny: Preventing The Final Fall Of Our Democratic Republic. Charles concludes that we are the terminal end of a multi-century process of centralization that is no longer working for society’s benefit:
We have a political system which is becoming increasingly tied into money. Now, people have always said, like from 100 years ago, “money is the mother’s milk of politics”. Money and power have always coalesced around political power. But in the last, say, 70 years, post-World War II, the central governments and central banks of the world have grown immensely in their centralized power.
And one of the theses I’m proposing in my book is that centralization itself in now the problem. We’ve been told for 400 years that it’s been the solution. Just centralize power and wealth into tighter and tighter control and then that will somehow solve whatever problems we have.
The intense concentration of power is becoming blatantly visible these days. Six media companies control most of the media in the U.S. It used to be six banks, but now I think it’s down to only three or four, who control most of the financial system. And we see this in one sector after another. Facebook dominates social media. Google dominates search and ads and so on. And this makes perfect sense is the system we have now.In other words, it’s really efficient, and it’s very profitable. If you can establish a cartel or a monopoly or a quasi-monopoly, then you can just raise your prices, and people have to pay it and it’s profitable. Everybody wins, right? The shareholders win. The managers win. The public? Well… eh, they don’t have a choice.
My book’s conclusion at the higher, systemic level is that it’s critical for people today to understand that we’re not going to be able to reform the current system as its structured and that we’re going to have to radically de-centralize power, wealth and capital. And we’re going to have to open the doors, so to speak, to a bunch of experimentation to find out what works best.I think the best path is actually just asking people to develop those values. And I think those values are going to be the ones that are adaptive and flexible and most likely to bring personal success, community success, to those people that hold those values and understand that that’s the future.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Charles Hugh Smith (45m:49s).
To read the transcript of this video, please click here
“There’s mounting evidence that the Age of American Exceptionalism is grinding to an end.”
Gee thanks for the breaking news Captain Obvious!
“There’s mounting evidence that the Age of American Exceptionalism is grinding to an end.”
An indicator is a reliance on the use of military power in place of economic power.
Whites are only safe in a white ethnostate.
The non whites will never stop bitching.
Throw them the hell out.
Whites need to get their god damned lazy, fat asses together if you all want to live…Or the nigs and the muzzies and the illegal ditch crickets will get your asses just like in say South Africa and various other locales.
mmmmmm….. Is puerto rico your ethnostate?
No need for experimentation on what will work and what won’t. Just with a barrel of a gun get rid of those who seek to completely destroy our constitution.
@reper sleepr, where were you when the Republican’s NDAA shredded our constitution? Not one shot was fired. That was 7-1/2 years ago.
The constitution is just a meaningless piece of paper.
People act like it is some type of iron dome.
without someone to defend it, or at the very least respect it, it is a meaningless paper.
wasn’t always that way.
Same place you were scooter…. Oblivious land.
No Shit Sherlock! People far smarter (IQ and wisdom) than me, better educated me, have stated it, better than I can. What we have here is re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We here in the FUSA have and are making the exact same mistakes that ALL other world powers have done. We are broke, morally bankrupt, have an out of control government and a military that is spread too far, for too long and with no real reason for being where it is. And, as a whole a public that is fat, lazy and stupid. We are the Roman Empire in its last days.
“And we’re going to have to open the doors, so to speak, to a bunch of experimentation to find out what works best.”
Here’s an idea. Peg our currency to something of VALUE again instead of this FIAT crap these jokers put on us that they pull out of thin air and enforce by a bullet. I think it’s to late for any fix of these “numerical paper rectangles” we seem to be so fond of. I can think of 100 uses for gold, I can only think of one use for a dollar.
What’s the value of YOUR labor today?
Remember, Nixon “temporarily” suspended the USD off the gold standard. So, should be any day now we can return, right? I guess it depends upon what the definition of ‘is’ is.
Dead Meat
Agree. Good post.
The gold standard for monetary transactions will destroy any nation with a continuous balance of trade deficit since its gold will migrate to the nations with which it has the deficit and it will end up with none left (meaning no money).
Remember in the 1940s when a temporary telephone tax was put in place to help pay for WWII?
70 years later and I am still paying that tax.
still paying for WWII in many ways, so I guess that fits 😉
I listened to the entire presentation. Lots of worthwhile thoughts in it. I know it’s here to help sell his book but it’s worth a few minutes of time.
“Centralization” – in and of itself – is neither good nor bad; it depends upon the application and the circumstances. Imagine, if you can, a wheel without a CENTRAL hub.
In the case of the USSA, however, “centralization” is purely “extractive” – of the blood, sweat, energy & dreams of the populace – and wielded by an utterly corrupt Oligarchy feeding the insatiable Maw of the WAR Machine – in furtherance of its own enrichment and demented dreams of Total Plunder via World Domination.
In short, USSA ‘Full Spectrum EXTRACTION/DOMINANCE” is a SATANIC Enterprise – the BIGGEST there ever was.
Arise. Go Forth. The END approacheth. Pray for Deliverance.
THAT ends todays sermon.
THAT starts today’s sermon. . .
Shiiiiitttt.. Id have never know save for the stench of long dead polite society, democrat shit covered trampled Constitution, raging police state, feminists and fags stink of rotten STDs dominating the entire programming channels and brainwashing curriculums at universities and at pussy hat and slut/pride marches..
How does one miss the smell and constant desire to puke because its all become one foul hoarders den?
Or the constant ear splitting screech and wail of the politically correct virtue signallers and the “oppressed” who really arent…. Who knew? I mean damn, until all these authors told me so, i really had no idea it was all over…..must be my white privilege has made me nose blind tone deaf and see nothing but demoncrap made rose colored glasses see Social injustices where no actually exist.
Your post uses way too many adjectives.
I got sick to my stomach from involuntarily visualizing your descriptions of the current state of our nation.
is it his description, or the state of our nation sickening you?
If its the first and not the latter, somethings wrong.
Both probably. I dont coddle peoples voluntary ignorance to truth or cognitive dissonance. Rather i stomp all on it. If you cant offend someone it is because they love the sty they live in. That thought should be the ultimate scare factor. Tolerance for the intolerable is why our western society has fallen so badly. Tolerance kills.
We are witnessing the last days of the United States. Why do liberty-loving Americans cling to the group-think delusion that we can use an evil system to fix evil?
Hope for our children living free lies in New Republics with New Borders. That is reality.
Let God deal with Washington. We need to walk away from Sodom. If we are forced to fight, we fight in our time.
Why do so many people flock to gun shows when the expectation is that guns will be banned?
And the sophisticated, big industry-dependent smokeless ammunition (that can be cut off from you just like gunpowder was for the Iroquois by the white man who made it, the Iroquois who had became unwisely and unnecessarily dependent on white man’s guns), ammunition that is vital for those fully-automatic (or even bolt-action) lead-wasters to be anything other than expensive pipes to bludgeon your enemies with! Searching for (and having to seize and defend!) and trying to process the rare resources you’ll need to “substitute” what you’ll be deprived of just so you can maintain the un-maintainable customs you’re so psychologically dependent on are so wasteful of your efforts. You all could, instead, be using your efforts to make (and learn how to use) far more sustainable and effective weaponry–weaponry that you’ve been brainwashed by those who profit from your dependence on their firearms they sell you to disdain as being “ineffective”. You all just need to learn how.
Fear and lack of courage.
Never in my wildest dreams did I expect the Commie State of California to take the boldest action toward reasserting ‘State’s Rights’. They voted to become a ‘Sanctuary State’’; effectively a step toward secession.
There is more fight in their dog than in ours.
The liberal states began their secession movement with Marijuana. The FEDS did nothing to stop it, so the natural progression is to do more.
All of human history has been about one group dominating or pushing out another group for whatever reason. We are no different. There will come a time when many of the same groups that have helped bring down the grand old republic will be the first to whine about what was lost.
yes, but usually white people are not the victims.
The loss of this country is obvious.
Just look at the 2018 Midterm Elections. There was supposed to have been a Red Wave. What happened to that? The Progressive Socialist Democrats now control the House, and almost took the Senate. It’s not just the Russians fixing American elections. [sarcasm] It’s the Ruling Class. That’s who these “Russians” really are.
I’m not even sure that Donald Trump wasn’t elected to the Presidency, but rather placed there by the Ruling Class. Putting Hillary Clinton in the office would have crossed the line. So, now we have Donald Trump in the office and the contempt the Ruling Class has for Americans has come out into the open.
“If voting mattered they wouldn’t let us do it.”
You don’t seem to understand much about how things work or who represents what.
Putting Hillary Clinton in the office would have crossed the line.
Hillary’s bribes cost too much, Trump is much cheaper.
Trump brought his own money.
Groups of people with agendas have torn this country apart,mostly politicians. we will all suffer for it and the elites especially. Until the general public is involved with decisions it will only get worse. Too many chiefs, not enough indians.
I keep telling my wife,
the radicals usually get their way.
That’s why we gotta be equally radical.
“Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice..”
I’m a Christian Patriot, slash Dominionist, slash secessionist, slash Prepper, slash anti-communist, slash truther, slash 13th generation American. And get this, PROUD OF IT!
If we radicalize, WE will get OUR way. The more the Leftists in the incoming congress and CNN try and take out freedoms away, the more we fight back, hold the fire to their heels.
“We didn’t start the fire. It was always burnin’ while the world’s been turnin’.
Can’t stop or delay what stands prophesied by legit prophets. You can prepare.
Even Christ said you would be persecuted.
The larger picture is less complicated than trying to find a means for The USA to alter its economy and governance. As we all know he has change dramatically since 1776. We have morphed into a huge powerful central federal government. We tarted out with STRONG States rights. I would suggest that we might want to go back to what Our forefathers created?
However, The future of mankind is in real jeopardy. The world leaders and the elite only want 500,000 million humans to populate the earth. This has been the goal for over 100 years. We are getting close because we now have the means to reach that goal. Think of a controlled biological pandemic Stay tuned
The two primary reasons the founding fathers created a central government is tariffs and national defense.
Funny how everybody is freaking out about Trump using the power of tariffs.
The Unites States of America is NOT supposed to be a democracy of any type. It’s supposed to be a constitutional representative republic. Democracy (majority/mob rule) should be considered a four-letter word. Lord, please help us all.
That ended with the 17th amendment.
Before that, state legislatures appointed senators to represent the states. Direct election of senators doomed the states.
I’m glad to hear someone understands that.
God, Wilson was a tool.
One stupid human being.
Seems to me the republic died already. My understandings are not always absolutely correct, but if this one is true it might be better just to let it go. If you try to fix every problem and flaw the thing most likely to happen is that you will become entangled in a vast conglomeration of problems you can’t fix. And plenty of other people will be trying to revive or maintain the very things you are trying to obliterate or deactivate. That’s just human nature. Why die trying. Better to survive in a healthy form. That way you can build your own world. You can’t fix the whole world anyway. At least I can’t. I am doing well if I can just manage my own life well. Of course you might disagree with me about this. And maybe you’re right. So, if you want to take on the whole world, go ahead. Teach me a lesson. I’m glad to learn. Meantime I need to make a living, and I can’t do that and fix the whole world at the same time. Good luck trying though. Sincerely.
Experiment with what is going to work as far as government? WTF… did you ever think of going back to our Constitution. Just take the powers to make laws away from the Federal agencies wielding them and give them back to Congress. All public agency powers afterwards have to revert to the states and all independent and private agency powers to write laws and regulations must revert back to the Congress. Article I, Section 7,8 &9. What’s so hard about this, this is the systemic decentralization of our feral government.
To what degree of malevolence will you allow the Democrats to get before you would embrace a military coup to restore normalcy to the constitutional republic? I ask myself this every single day. Would it be worse or better?