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The Fantasy of Central Bank “Growth” Is Finally Imploding
The Fantasy of Central Bank “Growth” Is Finally Imploding Having destroyed discipline, central banks have no way out of the corner they’ve painted us into. It was such a wonderful fantasy: just give a handful of bankers, financiers and corporations trillions of dollars at near-zero rates of interest, and this flood of credit and cash into […]
Nothing Is Guaranteed
Nothing Is Guaranteed There are no guarantees, no matter how monumental the hubris and confidence. The American lifestyle and economy depend on a vast number of implicit guarantees— systemic forms of entitlement that we implicitly feel are our birthright. Chief among these implicit entitlements is the Federal Reserve can always “save the day”: the Fed has the tools […]
It’s Not Just the News That’s Fake–Everything’s Fake
It’s Not Just the News That’s Fake–Everything’s Fake That we fall for the fakes and cons is understandable, given that’s all we have left in the public sphere. What do we mean when we say corporate media is fake? We mean it’s a carefully crafted con, a set of narratives, cherry-picked data and heavily massaged […]
The Planetary Insanity of Eternal Economic Growth
The Planetary Insanity of Eternal Economic Growth This is the fantasy: we can rebuild our entire global industrial society every generation or two forever. “Earthrise” is one of the most influential photographs ever published. Taken on the Apollo 8 mission in late December 1968 by astronaut Bill Anders, it captures Earth’s uniqueness, isolation and modest scale: […]
The Three Ds of Doom: Debt, Default, Depression
The Three Ds of Doom: Debt, Default, Depression “Borrowing our way out of debt” generates the three Ds of Doom: debt leads to default which ushers in Depression. Let’s start by defining Economic Depression: a Depression is a Recession that isn’t fixed by conventional fiscal and monetary stimulus. In other words, when a recession drags on […]
Following in Rome’s Footsteps: Moral Decay, Rising Inequality
Following in Rome’s Footsteps: Moral Decay, Rising Inequality Here is the moral decay of America’s ruling elites boiled down to a single word. There are many reasons why Imperial Rome declined, but two primary causes that get relatively little attention are moral decay and soaring wealth inequality. The two are of course intimately connected: once the […]
No, Autos Are Not “Cheaper Now”
No, Autos Are Not “Cheaper Now” According to the BLS, inflation in the category of “New Vehicles” has been practically non-existent the past 21 years. Longtime readers know I’ve long turned a skeptical gaze at official calculations of inflation, offering real-world analyses such as The Burrito Index: Consumer Prices Have Soared 160% Since 2001 (August 1, 2016) […]
The Lessons of Rome: Our Neofeudal Oligarchy
The Lessons of Rome: Our Neofeudal Oligarchy Our society has a legal structure of self-rule and ownership of capital, but in reality it is a Neofeudal Oligarchy. The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 is not an easy, breezy read; its length and detail are daunting. The effort is well worth it, as the book […]
Dear Central Bankers: Prepare to be Swept Away in the Next Wave of Populism
Dear Central Bankers: Prepare to be Swept Away in the Next Wave of Populism The political moment when the “losers” connect their discontent and decline with central bankers is approaching. The Ruling Elites’ Chattering Classes still haven’t absorbed the key lesson of the 2016 U.S. presidential election: the percentage of the populace that’s becoming wealthier and […]
The Self-Destructive Trajectory of Overly Successful Empires
The Self-Destructive Trajectory of Overly Successful Empires It’s difficult not to see signs of this same trajectory in the U.S. since the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1990.A recent comment by my friend and colleague Davefairtex on the Roman Empire’s self-destructive civil wars that precipitated the Western Empire’s decline and fall made me rethink […]
Forget “Money”: What Will Matter Are Water, Energy, Soil and Food–and a Shared National Purpose
Forget “Money”: What Will Matter Are Water, Energy, Soil and Food–and a Shared National Purpose If you want to identify tomorrow’s superpowers, overlay maps of fresh water, energy, grain/cereal surpluses and arable land. The status quo measures wealth with “money,” but “money” is not what’s valuable. “Money” (in quotes because the global economy operates on intrinsically […]
The Economy Has Fundamentally Changed in the 21st Century–and Not for the Better
The Economy Has Fundamentally Changed in the 21st Century–and Not for the Better The net result is we have an economy that’s supposedly expanding smartly while our well-being and financial security are collapsing. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other metrics of economic activity don’t measure either broad-based prosperity or well-being. Elites skimming financialization profits by expanding […]
Unrealistically Great Expectations
Unrealistically Great Expectations Our expectations have continued ever higher even as the pie is shrinking.. Let’s see if we can tie together four social dynamics: the elite college admissions scandal, the decline in social mobility, the rising sense of entitlement and the unrealistically ‘great expectations’ of many Americans. As many have noted, the nation’s financial and […]
The Great Unraveling Begins: Distraction, Lies, Infighting, Betrayal
The Great Unraveling Begins: Distraction, Lies, Infighting, Betrayal The good news is renewal becomes possible when the entire rotten status quo collapses in a putrid heap. There are two basic pathways to systemic collapse: external shocks or internal decay. The two are not mutually exclusive, of course; it can be argued that the most common path […]
This Is the End of the Cycle
This Is the End of the Cycle Both new households and new businesses are in secular decline. Goosing the stock market and GDP doesn’t change this reality. Everyone wants every cycle of expansion to last forever, but alas every cycle ends. The growth cycle that began in 2009 is finally coming to an end. The signs […]
