Home » Posts tagged 'charles hugh smith' (Page 2)
Tag Archives: charles hugh smith
What Happens When There’s Nobody Left to Save Us?
What Happens When There’s Nobody Left to Save Us? Passively waiting for centralized powers to “save us” from their own excesses is not a solution. It’s no exaggeration to say that our way of life depends on somebody somewhere saving us from the excesses that are the bedrock of our way of life. What excesses, you […]
How We Fail: Framing the Problem to be Fixable with an Existing Solution
How We Fail: Framing the Problem to be Fixable with an Existing Solution We say we want solutions, but we actually want a specific subset of solutions: those that already meet with our approval. The possibility that none of these pre-approved solutions will actually resolve the problem is rejected because we are wedded to the […]
Irony Alert: “Outlawing” Recession Has Made a Monster Recession Inevitable
Irony Alert: “Outlawing” Recession Has Made a Monster Recession Inevitable Those who came of age after 1982 have never experienced a real recession, and so they’re unprepared for anything other than guarantees of rescue and permanent expansion. The mainstream view is that recession is caused by economic-financial factors. The mainstream view is wrong, for recession […]
The Era of Easy Money Ruined Us
The Era of Easy Money Ruined Us The rot caused by easy money will only become fully visible when the hollowed out institutions start collapsing under the weight of incompetence, debt and hubris. We have yet to reach a full reckoning of the consequences of the era of easy money, but it’s abundantly clear that […]
Rome Was Eternal, Until It Wasn’t: Imperial Analogs of Decay
Rome Was Eternal, Until It Wasn’t: Imperial Analogs of Decay The tricky part is distinguishing the critical dependencies–those resources the empire literally cannot do without–from longer-term sources of decay and decline. In response to my recent post What If There Are No Analogs for 2024?, an astute reader nominated the Roman Empire as a fitting analog. Longtime […]
Everyone Loves a Generous Government Until They Have to Pay For It
Everyone Loves a Generous Government Until They Have to Pay For It Not only does everyone love getting “free money” from the state, they also love hearing the fantasy repeated endlessly that debts are no problem. Governments, like individuals, can spend liberally with great generosity, or they can be frugal. Everyone receiving government money loves the […]
The Fed’s Empire of Speculation and the Echoes of 1929
The Fed’s Empire of Speculation and the Echoes of 1929 Speculation has its own expiration dynamics, and they don’t depend on us recognizing speculative excess for what it is. They will unravel the excesses regardless of what we think, hope or deny. The Federal Reserve has so completely normalized speculative excess that these extremes are […]
The Polycrisis
The Polycrisis Back in 2017 when I composed this graphic of overlapping crises, the word polycrisis was not yet in common use. Polycrisis has various definitions, for example: “the simultaneous occurrence of several catastrophic events.” But this doesn’t explain the truly dangerous dynamic in polycrisis, which is the nonlinear, mutually reinforcing potential of disparate crises to generate effects much larger […]
I Have a Very Bad Feeling About This
I Have a Very Bad Feeling About This Unexpected things tend to happen when the real source of problems are papered over and then suddenly reality intrudes. What an interesting juncture we’ve reached. We’re constantly assured all is well with what matters–the economy–as the all-powerful Federal Reserve has managed not just the hoped-for “soft landing” but […]
Lessons from the Unraveling of the Roman Empire: Simplification, Localization
Lessons from the Unraveling of the Roman Empire: Simplification, Localization The fragmentation, simplification and localization of the post-Imperial era offers us lessons we ignore at our peril. There is an entire industry devoted to “why the Roman Empire collapsed,” but the post-collapse era may be offer us higher value lessons. The post-collapse era, long written off […]
Global Bankruptcy Already Baked In
Global Bankruptcy Already Baked In Scrape away the complexity and every economic crisis and crash boils down to the precarious asymmetry between collateral and the debt secured by that collateral collapsing. It’s really that simple. In eras of easy credit, both creditworthy and marginal borrowers are suddenly able to borrow more. This flood of new cash seeking a return […]
What If There Are No Solutions?
What If There Are No Solutions? The unencumbered realist concludes that there are no solutions within a status quo structure that is itself the problem. Realists who question received wisdom and conclude the status quo is untenable are quickly labeled pessimists because the zeitgeist expects a solution is always at hand–preferably a technocratic one that requires zero […]
Here’s How “Prosperity” Ends: Global Bubbles Are Popping
Here’s How “Prosperity” Ends: Global Bubbles Are Popping So here we are: the global credit-asset bubbles are popping, and the illusory “prosperity” generated by the bubbles is about to tumble off a cliff. There are two kinds of prosperity, one fake, one real. Bogus “prosperity” depends on credit-asset bubbles inflating, magically creating “wealth” not from labor, […]
The Race to the Bottom Accelerates
The Race to the Bottom Accelerates When competence, transparency and accountability are all punished, the Race to the Bottom accelerates. Race to the Bottom describes the process of competitive devaluation, where value is gutted to remain competitive with those who are grabbing market share by stripping out quality, value, durability, transparency, accountability and competence. We see the global Race to […]
Contrarian Thoughts on the Petro-Yuan and Gold-Backed Currencies
Contrarian Thoughts on the Petro-Yuan and Gold-Backed Currencies Rather than cheer the concept of a new currency, we’re better served to look at the velocity of that currency and the cycles of investing that currency in assets denominated in that currency for a low-risk return. Longtime readers know not to expect me to rubber-stamp anything, […]
