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Ragin’ Contagion: When Debtors Go Broke, So Do Mercantilist Exporters
Ragin’ Contagion: When Debtors Go Broke, So Do Mercantilist Exporters Papering over the structural imbalances in the Eurozone with bailouts or bail-ins will not resolve the fundamental asymmetries in trade. Beneath the endless twists and turns of Greece’s debt crisis lie fundamental asymmetries that doom the euro, the joint currency that has been the centerpiece of […]
What Choice Do We Have?
What Choice Do We Have? As systemic solutions fall short, we must grasp the nettle of making our own arrangements in a time characterized by burgeoning demands and diminishing resources, capital and security. The idea that our large-scale problems could be fixed with systemic reforms is enticing: replace the thousands of pages of tax code with […]
Our Spoiled-Brat Economy
Our Spoiled-Brat Economy By insuring spoiled brats/vested interests never face the consequences of their actions and choices, we guarantee failure of the entire system. Spoiled brats do not take kindly to being called out as spoiled brats. Since economies are aggregates of individuals, we can anticipate howls of outraged denial at our economy being identified as spoiled […]
The Global Template for Collapse: The Enchanting Charms of Cheap, Easy Credit
The Global Template for Collapse: The Enchanting Charms of Cheap, Easy Credit Cheap, easy credit has created moral hazard and nurtured magical thinking throughout the global economy. According to polls, the majority of Greek citizens want the benefits of membership in the euro/EU and the end of EU-imposed austerity. The idea that these are mutually exclusive […]
Greece, Democracy and Magical Thinking
Greece, Democracy and Magical Thinking Regardless of what the Greek people choose, at least the choice will be theirs, along with the consequences. What is representative democracy but organized bribery on a mass scale?Politicians seeking control of the spigots of state wealth and power promise endless swag to voters. Those who promise the most swag and do […]
Collapse, Part 5: Things Fall Apart
Collapse, Part 5: Things Fall Apart It is impossible to wean an economy that relies on debt and leverage for its “growth” of excessive debt and leverage. As noted earlier in this series, collapse is not an event, it’s a process, a process we experience as things fall apart. The phrase famously appears in William Butler Yeats’ […]
Collapse, Part 4: Loss of Faith in Public Institutions
Collapse, Part 4: Loss of Faith in Public Institutions Public institutions are now devoted to serving their own vested interests or the interests of private financial Elites. Though we may think of collapse in terms of ATMs not working and rampaging mobs, collapse actually starts with the intangible loss of faith in public institutions:elected officials, law enforcement, […]
Collapse Part 3: No Institutional Path to Contraction
Collapse Part 3: No Institutional Path to Contraction Collapse is not an event, it is a process. One poorly understood source of collapse is the lack of pathways to contraction and a reduction of complexity/cost. The only pathway that is clearly marked is the one to expansion–of production, debt, credit, government, income, benefits, costs and complexity: […]
Collapse, Part 2: The Nine Dynamics of Decay
Collapse, Part 2: The Nine Dynamics of Decay Rome didn’t fall so much as erode away. That’s the template for collapse. While collapse may be sudden, the decay that generated the collapse had been rotting away the foundation for years or decades. In distilling the vast literature on collapse into nine dynamics, I am drawing upon […]
Collapse, Part 1: Greece
Collapse, Part 1: Greece When systems are broke and broken, collapse is the only way forward. The theme this week is collapse. It’s a big, complex topic because there are as many types of collapse as there are systems. Some systems appear stable on the surface but collapse suddenly; others visibly decay for decades before finally […]
Future Shock and the Greening of America
Future Shock and the Greening of America What I find fascinating is our limited ability to make sense of trends unfolding in real time. During our recent breakfast meeting in Berkeley, author/blogger Jim Kunstler suggested that the coherence of eras waxed and waned, and the present era was incoherent. By this he meant the narratives being […]
Our Phantom Economy
Our Phantom Economy Those who believe that phantom recoveries and phantom metrics can be substituted for reality are in for a shock in the next downturn. Stripped of artifice, there are only two kinds of media stories: those that support the status quo narrative, and those that are skeptical of that narrative. What is the status […]
The Fed Is Funneling the Investing Herd Off a Cliff
The Fed Is Funneling the Investing Herd Off a Cliff What happens to price in a bidless market? It goes off a cliff. As you probably know by now, it turns out lemmings didn’t voluntarily commit mass suicide: they were driven off the cliff by those in charge. Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior. […]
If Your BS Detector Isn’t Shrieking, It’s Broken
If Your BS Detector Isn’t Shrieking, It’s Broken Wishing it was true doesn’t make it true–it makes you a chump who fell for the con. Once upon a time in America, no adult could survive without possessing a finely tuned BS detector. Herman Melville masterfully captured America’s fascination with cons and con artists in his 1857 […]
Liberation Is Unprofitable
Liberation Is Unprofitable 12 examples of how liberation is not profitable and therefore it must be marginalized, outlawed, proscribed or ridiculed. If we had to summarize the sickness of our economy and society, we could start by noting that liberation is unprofitable, and whatever is not profitable to vested interests is marginalized, outlawed, proscribed or ridiculed. Examples […]
