Home » Posts tagged 'cognitive dissonance' (Page 5)

Tag Archives: cognitive dissonance

Having successfully called the market’s retreat in the fall of 2015, Universa’s Mark Spitznagel is not taking a victory lap as he warns Bloomberg TV that “the crash has only just begun.”

Investors are facing the most binary “let’s make a deal” market in history in Spitznagel’s view: choose Door #1 to bet on Keynesianism, central planners, and monetary interventionism; or Door #2 to bet on free markets and natural price discovery.

“There is massive cognitive dissonance here,” Spitznagel explains as history teaches us that door #2 is the right choice… but it’s not possible to do that today as investors have been coerced to choose door #1, but when door #1 is slammed open “we will see that dreaded black swan monster.”

That is what is going on right now:

“Investors want to go with The Fed when it’s working – like David Zervos… the problem is, when do you know that it is not working?”

“At some point this stops working…”

“the market is going through a resolution process, transitioning from the cognitive dissonance of Door #1 to the harsh reality of Door #2… if everyone were to change doors at the same time, that is a market crash… it can’t be done in a non-messy way.”

Must watch reality check behind the smoke and mirrors we call markets… (we note Mark’s excellent analogy starting at around 3:10)

The Simple Pump

January 1, 2016

THE SIMPLE PUMP

The following is the first of several articles outlining the research, preparation and installation of The Simple Pump, a high quality mechanical pump used both in everyday applications such as a ranch, farm, off grid cabin or homestead, as well as an efficient backup to an existing fresh water pumping system. These are long reads, not brief outlines, and apply only to our specific situation and location. Your experience can and will vary from ours.

It is said we can’t live more than three minutes without air, three days without water and three weeks without food. While I never wish to test any aspect of that statement, prudence dictates we prepare as best we can for those events of greatest probability. Thankfully, running out of (breathable) air is low on the list (at least where we live) while water and food are at the top.

When Mrs. Cog and I began our search for a new home, high on the list of ‘needs’ was a (relatively) remote location with its own well and septic system. We did not wish to rely upon outside sources to supply life sustaining water and/or to remove our waste product. Systems break when stress is applied, be it financial, governmental or personal. It is far easier to maintain our own systems than for the local, state or national government to maintain theirs.

As Mrs. Cog recounted with great humor in a November 2014 article (Amps Times Volts Equals Watts) a discussion about wells and water cropped up when I began to tackle the issue of sustainable solar power. Our well is deep……which is both a good and bad problem depending upon your point of view. Deep usually means a steady supply of fresh water as well as one less likely to be contaminated by surface sources.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

C-Section Awakenings

December 16, 2015

C-Section Awakenings

Speaking from painful experience, the deeper the conditioning the more difficult the awakening. When appraised with an open mind and a fearless self examination, there is little doubt “We the People” have been deeply conditioned……even those of us who now claim our own personal awakening. The depth of our collective conditioning is why there will be many abrupt and traumatic C-section awakenings when the world comes crashing down around us. When seen dispassionately and objectively the question is not if, but when, how fast and by how much.

When referring to a live birth, the concept of a C-section ‘birth’ has always fascinated me. Considering the act of birth has been repeated billions of times over millions of years in one form or another (and one species or another) if anything can be considered ‘natural’ this can. So to cut open a living breathing being, often while awake and fully conscious of the ongoing procedure, and then pluck one living being from another is simply mind boggling.

While some might argue not navigating the birth canal saves the newborn from physical distress, to be plucked from the comforting womb and delivered into the stark reality of ‘life’ must be its own special kind of hell. Then again, children are remarkably resilient with short memories and little conditioning and this is especially true for newborns. They were born for the travails of birth.

To be thrust into the world naked and naïve when we have not been properly readied, devoid of all the tempering trials and preparations needed to ready us, is extremely disorientating and the furthest thing from ‘natural’ one can get. Just imagine your entire world violently sliced open and you torn kicking and screaming from it. While that might be a bit of an exaggeration when speaking of ‘birth’, it is a considerable understatement when discussing the deeply conditioned mind violently ripped from the safe confines of its comforting delusions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Failure of Imagination

October 26, 2015

A Failure of Imagination

Simply stated we create our own reality……although it is a ‘reality’ strictly limited to the range and scope of our beliefs and imagination. Thus if we can conceive of a world no different than what we believe actually exists, which in turn is based solely upon our present day (deliberately) limited perception, then this is exactly what we shall (co)create, maintain and interact with.

This concept is staggering in its simplicity and self evident when we consider it from all sides and with an open mind. Of course, it follows then that those of limited imagination, either by way of training, conditioning, ignorance or denial, will see my statement as nonsensical and ridiculous, thus perpetuating their (and our) own narrow, stagnant and self destructive reality.

It is my contention we are all conceived as perfect reality creators, though not yet fully formed and completely untrained, who are hijacked and sidetracked into a slave culture reality designed to serve others and not our ‘selves’. This process has so twisted our natural human impulse for free and unique reality creation the end result expresses as individual and collective insanity. Sadly, tragically, we are all terribly insane and getting worse by the moment.

Ultimately this deeply implanted and completely alien subversion of our mind, spirit and body acts as a lingering virus or infection which, while not deadly (yet), is extremely debilitating and exhausting. This serves to further reinforce the inner insanity while also undermining defensive devices employed by our inner ‘self’ in order to recover from what we subconsciously ‘know’ deep within is an externally applied alien abomination.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Endgame Takes Shape: “Banning Capitalism And Bypassing Capital Markets”

October 11, 2015

The Endgame Takes Shape: “Banning Capitalism And Bypassing Capital Markets”

One month ago we presented to readers that in the first official “serious” mention of “Helicopter Money” as the next (and final) form of monetary stimulus, Australia’s Macquarie Bank said that there is now about 12-18 months before this “unorthodox” policy is implemented. We also predicted that now that the seal has been broken, other banks would quickly jump on board with an idea that is the only possible endgame to 8 years of monetary lunacy, and sure enough, both Citigroup and Deutsche Bank within days brought up the Fed’s monetary paradrop as the up and coming form of monetary policy.

So while the rest of the street is undergoing revulsion therapy, as it cracks its “the Fed will hike rates any minute” cognitive dissonance and is finally asking, as Morgan Stanley did last week, whether the Fed will first do QE4 or NIRP (something we have said since January), here is what is really coming down the line, with the heretic thought experiment of the endgame once again coming from an unexpected, if increasingly credibly source, Australia’s Macquarie bank.

* * *

Would more QE make a difference? Have to move to different types of QE or allow nature to take its course

It seems that over the last week investor consensus swung from expecting Fed tightening and some form of normalization of monetary policy to delaying expectation of any tightening until 2016 and possibly beyond whilst discussion of a possibility of QE4 has gone mainstream.

Although “QE forever” and no tightening has been our base case for at least the last 12-18 months, we also tend to emphasize the diminishing impact of conventional QE policies. As the latest Fed paper (San Francisco) highlighted, “There is no work, to my knowledge, that establishes a link from QE to the ultimate goals of the Fed-inflation and real economic activity. Indeed, casual evidence suggests that QE has been ineffective in increasing inflation”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Economist Rings Out Cognitive Dollar Dissonance

October 11, 2015

**The Economist Rings Out Cognitive Dollar Dissonance**

Two years ago, prior to travelling to Sydney to present at the Annual Precious Metals Symposium, I prepared an article for the Gold Standard Institute Journal titled Cognitive Dollar Dissonance: Why a Global De-Leveraging Requires the De-Rating of the Dollar and the Remonetisation of Gold (see here). This article highlighted the growing inconsistency between those arguing on the one hand that the dollar’s role in international trade and finance was clearly diminishing; yet denying that it was in any danger of losing the near-exclusive monetary reserve status it has enjoyed since the 1940s.

This apparently contradictory yet mainstream thinking about the future of the international monetary system continues to the present day. Indeed, earlier this month the Economist magazine ran a special feature on fading US economic power replete with dollar dissonance. The experts cited note the accelerating trend towards bilateral trade settlement, say between Russia and China, who plan to finance their multiple ‘Silk Road’ infrastructure projects using their own currencies and their own development bank (The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank or AIIB: See http://www.aiib.org/). They also observe that Russia, China and the other BRICS are no longer accumulating dollar reserves (although curiously overlook that they continue to accumulate gold). They acknowledge that not only the BRICS but many other countries have repeatedly expressed their desire that the current set of global monetary arrangements should be restructured in some way, although they are not always clear as to their specific preferences.

Note the sharp contrast in these two paragraphs, both on the very same page of the Economist feature:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why This Feels Like a Depression for Most People

October 9, 2015

Why This Feels Like a Depression for Most People

“And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.” – John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Everyone has seen the pictures of the unemployed waiting in soup lines during the Great Depression. When you try to tell a propaganda believing, willfully ignorant, mainstream media watching, math challenged consumer we are in the midst of a Greater Depression, they act as if you’ve lost your mind. They will immediately bluster about the 5.1% unemployment rate, record corporate profits, and stock market near all-time highs. The cognitive dissonance of these people is only exceeded by their inability to understand basic mathematical concepts.

The reason you don’t see huge lines of people waiting in soup lines during this Greater Depression is because the government has figured out how to disguise suffering through modern technology. During the height of the Great Depression in 1933, there were 12.8 million Americans unemployed. These were the men pictured in the soup lines. Today, there are 46 million Americans in an electronic soup kitchen line, as their food is distributed through EBT cards (with that angel of mercy JP Morgan reaping billions in profits by processing the transactions).

These 46 million people represent 14% of the U.S. population. There are 23 million households on food stamps in a nation of 123 million households. Therefore, 19% of all households in the U.S. are so poor, they require food assistance to survive. In 1933 there were approximately 126 million Americans living in 30 million households. The government didn’t keep official unemployment records until 1940, but the Department of Labor estimated 12.8 million people were unemployed during the worst year of the Great Depression or 24.9% of the labor force. By 1937 it had fallen to 14.3% or approximately 8 million people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fourth Turning: Crisis of Trust

September 11, 2015

Fourth Turning: Crisis of Trust

“Imagine some national (and probably global) volcanic eruption, initially flowing along channels of distress that were created during the Unraveling era and further widened by the catalyst. Trying to foresee where the eruption will go once it bursts free of the channels is like trying to predict the exact fault line of an earthquake. All you know in advance is something about the molten ingredients of the climax, which could include the following:

Economic distress, with public debt in default, entitlement trust funds in bankruptcy, mounting poverty and unemployment, trade wars, collapsing financial markets, and hyperinflation (or deflation)
Social distress, with violence fueled by class, race, nativism, or religion and abetted by armed gangs, underground militias, and mercenaries hired by walled communities
Cultural distress, with the media plunging into a dizzying decay, and a decency backlash in favor of state censorship
Technological distress, with cryptoanarchy, high-tech oligarchy, and biogenetic chaos
Ecological distress, with atmospheric damage, energy or water shortages, and new diseases
Political distress, with institutional collapse, open tax revolts, one-party hegemony, major constitutional change, secessionism, authoritarianism, and altered national borders
Military distress, with war against terrorists or foreign regimes equipped with weapons of mass destruction”

The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997

September 2015 marks the seventh anniversary of this Fourth Turning Crisis. The economic, social, cultural, ecological, political, and military distress propagates by the minute as the globe is besieged by economic turmoil, increased human suffering, and endemic corruption of the political and ruling classes. The Federal Reserve/Wall Street created global economic implosion was the spark which catalyzed this fourth Crisis period in U.S. history in September 2008. Neil Howe in a 2012 essay assessed the beginning of this Fourth Turning and why 9/11 was not the catalyst:

“Pending stunning new developments, I believe the catalyst occurred in 2008. It’s a date that is looking better and better as time goes by. The year 2008 marked the onset of the most serious U.S. economic crisis since the Great Depression.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

It Just Doesn’t Matter

August 31, 2015

It Just Doesn’t Matter

When an avalanche is about to descend upon you, does it really matter which snowflake was the penultimate cause?

While it’s interesting (in a mental masturbation kind of way) to debate the genesis of a pending market collapse, environmental chaos, or energy cliff, in the end, it really doesn’t matter–unless, of course, we are able to curtail the impending crises by correctly identifying the variable(s) involved and mitigating the consequences, but the likelihood of that outcome is looking increasingly unlikely as systems are prone to overshoot and collapse.

One of the ‘insights’ I’ve had over the past several months as I read the competing narratives that are floating about the globe and attempting to ‘explain’ why the dilemmas we are facing are happening is that we really don’t understand complex systems and the way they behave, so we are bound to cling to simple explanations that support our personal biases and reduce the cognitive dissonance that results when our belief system is challenged.

A large part of the problem, I believe, in discerning which variable(s) play(s) the most impactful role in creating a crisis is the tendency for various interest groups to spin the ‘facts’ to support their particular narrative.

For example, whether the cause of the oil/commodity price collapse is the role of central banks in manipulating the economic system, the limits to growth, overproduction (by Saudi Arabia? US shale? Canadian oil sands?), and/or economic contraction (global? Europe? China? emerging markets?), the result is a loss of thousands of jobs, domestic unrest, and increasing geopolitical tension as nations try to counter the deflationary collapse that appears to be resulting. Many Western politicians and journalists are pointing the finger at the production levels of the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, and their ‘refusal’ to cut production, but data from the past decade shows that supply has increased significantly because of US shale and Canadian oil sands extraction rather than that of Saudi/ME. It strikes me that this ‘spin’ is simply a means of avoiding looking in the mirror and deflecting attention–blaming ‘others’ for our woes is a common means of reducing cognitive dissonance, focusing citizen outrage away from their ‘leaders’, and justifying particular actions/decisions.

In the end, however, the ’cause’ is not that important to the families crushed by a sudden loss of income. And that brings me to the conclusion of this little diatribe: being prepared for whatever comes our way is the only thing that might really matter. Whether at an individual, family, or local community level–I don’t believe it’s possible or prudent to worry much beyond these–being resilient and resourceful in the coming months/years is what is going to make a difference as to how ‘successful’ one can deal with the coming dilemmas.

Best of luck to everyone. I think we’re going to need it.

Steve

In the 1979 comedy, Meatballs, actor Bill Murray provides a ‘motivational’ speech to his fellow summer camp counsellors and campers who are getting soundly beaten in a ‘friendly’ competition by a neighbouring camp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UZvIZAHjlY. In the end, the speech is seen not as motivational but as a message that, in the bigger picture, the competition really doesn’t matter–(SPOILER ALERT) all the good-looking girls are going to go out with the other camp’s counsellors anyways because they have all the money!

4 Mainstream Media Articles Mocking Gold That Should Make You Think

July 29, 2015

4 Mainstream Media Articles Mocking Gold That Should Make You Think

Screen Shot 2015-07-29 at 11.20.51 AM

For those of you who have been reading my stuff since all the way back to my Wall Street years at Sanford Bernstein, thanks for staying along for the ride. I appreciate your support immensely considering that I essentially no longer write about financial markets at all, and for many of you, that remains your profession and primary area of interest.

There are many reasons why I stopped commenting on markets, but the main reason is that I started to recognize I wasn’t getting it right. In fact, in some cases I was getting it spectacularly wrong. Whenever this happens, I try to isolate the problem and fix it. In this case there was no fix, because much of why I was no longer getting it right was rooted in the fact that my heart, soul and passion had moved onto other things. My interests had expanded, and I started a blog to express myself on myriad other matters I deemed important. Providing relevant market information needs intense focus, and my focus had shifted elsewhere. I recognized that I wasn’t intellectually interested enough in centrally planned markets to provide insightful analysis, and so I stopped.

This doesn’t mean I won’t start up again. When central planners do lose control, I may indeed become far more interested in opining on such matters. Time will tell. In the interim, financial markets do still play an important role in the bigger picture of social, political and economic trends I passionately care about. The stability and increase in financial assets (stocks and bonds) is of huge importance to the propaganda machine, in particular keeping the non-oligarchic, non-politically connected 1% in line and believing the hype (see: The Stock Market: Food Stamps for the 1%).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Salt Mind

May 29, 2015

The Salt Mind

The plan was always for me to return to ‘work’, aka gainful employment, after finishing several major sustainability improvement projects to our mountain top homestead. After nearly two years of continuous work on over a dozen undertakings large and small, several months ago the time finally arrived. Of course, the plan always assumed local and national financial conditions were such that a job was available for me to fill. If not…..well, that was precisely why we had improved our ability to self sustain in the face of national (or global) economic disaster.

So for those of you who have been wondering where the hell Cog is………now you know. Cog has been willingly laboring away at the local (assuming anything twenty four miles away can be termed ‘local’) big box retail salt mine. And no, I am not a Wal-Mart greeter……yet. Suffice to say I work in a physically demanding retail sales environment as an hourly wage slave working swing shifts any day or evening of the week including holidays and weekends. At least it comes with full benefits, though I don’t think I will be joining the 401(k) ‘retirement’ plan or the company discount stock purchase plan anytime soon.

Combine nine hour work days with an hour and a half of commute, add in the physical exhaustion experienced as I return to fighting shape and my weight of thirty plus years ago, sprinkle on top the occasional errand while visiting civilization, the time spent on daily prep for work as well as the unwind when returning home (one does not go directly to sleep after getting home at midnight) and clearly my writing has suffered.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

TRUTH – THE CURE FOR COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

April 13, 2015

TRUTH – THE CURE FOR COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ― George Orwell

Every time the BLS puts out their monthly propaganda report on the wonderful state of the U.S. jobs market and states with a straight face the unemployment rate is a measly 5.5%, their corporate mouthpieces in the mainstream cheerleader media regurgitate the fake numbers and urge you to buy stocks. The millionaire talking heads on CNBC and the corrupt bought off politicians in D.C. make broad sweeping declarations about economic recovery, strong job growth, GDP advancement, record highs in the stock market, and soaring consumer confidence.

The people living in the real world know otherwise, but they want to believe the “experts” and “leaders”. This dichotomy between reality and what they are being told is causing a tremendous amount of mental stress. This cognitive dissonance of attempting to reconcile what they are experiencing in their every day existence and the propaganda being peddled at them on a daily basis from big media, big bankers, corporate titans, and captured politicians pulling the strings and running the show, is causing psychological discomfort. Most people want their lives to get better, so to reduce their cognitive dissonance they choose to believe the government and media reports about economic improvement.

It is only a small minority who want to know the unvarnished truth. They are drawn to alternative media websites, which the the captured corporate media refers to as doom sites. These critical thinking individuals understand the facts. The Deep State propaganda has no impact on these people because they have no cognitive dissonance. They know things are far worse than what is reported by the government and their media whores. Knowing the truth and seeing how the majority remain willfully ignorant results in rising anger among truth seekers. Huxley was right.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Facts Do Not Cease To Exist Because They Are Ignored”

April 10, 2015

“Facts Do Not Cease To Exist Because They Are Ignored”

Courage

“The kid had a 94-mile-per-hour fastball, a clean delivery, and a body that looked as if it had been created to wear a baseball uniform. He was, in short, precisely the kind of pitcher Billy thought he had trained his scouting department to avoid.”

– Michael Lewis, Moneyball

In his book Moneyball, Michael Lewis explores the irrationality and ignorance of human behavior and the opportunities it creates for those willing to resist it. The book represents a value investors guide to how the Oakland A’s, with one of the smallest budgets in Major League Baseball, consistently found and acquired quality players that were shunned under the traditional scouting matrix. These overlooked and undervalued players afforded the Oakland A’s and General Manager Billy Beane the fifth best winning percentage with the fourth lowest total payroll over the last 15 years. As the graph below from FiveThirtyEight shows, Beane dramatically outperformed his opponents when it came to maximizing the value of his budget.

Once when asked why he was willing to allow Michael Lewis to write a book about his approach, Beane responded “It won’t matter who reads it, no one would have the courage to put into practice what we do.” This same model of logic and courage should be applied in investing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

THE DEATH OF HOPE AND BELIEF

March 9, 2015

THE DEATH OF HOPE AND BELIEF

As much as we would like to ‘believe’ we are all clear headed, logical individuals who only deal with verified ‘facts’ while shunning hearsay, rumor, ‘hope’ and ‘belief’, the reality is to some degree or another we integrate all of the above, and so much more, into our personal cognitive operating system. The tendency when reading such a statement is to immediately emotionally trigger, become annoyed or even angry, and then listen to that soothing inner egoic voice as it assures us we are not the one Cog is looking for.

Regardless of whether we attribute this cognitive juxtaposition to raging ego, genetic predisposition, normalcy bias, cultural conditioning or simply denial, critical thinking, if ever truly deployed, is often limited to those times when we ‘believe’ it is in our best interest to think outside the box. But even then, our effort is severely limited by the tendency to hold on tightly to the comforting handrails when venturing into foreign territory.

Try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, hope is just the ugly stepchild of belief, interchangeable and indistinguishable, especially during periods of high emotional stress and cognitive fight or flight. Naval gazing, pretty much all we see when engaging in hope and belief, is the ultimate human blinder and the chains that bind.

Once we accept something as ‘true’, essentially a non specific condition arrived at with minimal critical thinking and even less logical reasoning, rarely if ever do we revisit the subject to check our premises. And why would we since we ‘believe’ what we want and not what is actually there. Since the only unchanging ‘truth’ throughout the universe is that change is constant, ‘We the People’ often hope our beliefs still hold true………assuming we honestly question our beliefs in order to discover if they ever rang true.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

QUESTION EVERYTHING, BELIEVE NOTHING – CH. 2

March 5, 2015

QUESTION EVERYTHING, BELIEVE NOTHING – CH. 2

There is a pretty common ‘belief’ among many that to ask questions of some ‘things’ that others consider settled or ‘true’ is a sign of weakness, of someone who is weak minded, indecisive or one who just can’t be trusted when the nitty gets gritty. They ‘believe’ that the very act of questioning something that is obviously correct implies instability, doubt, hesitation, uncertainty, etc. They ‘believe’ that these people, the shameful Doubting Thomas’s, cannot be trusted and must be viewed with suspicion and distrust. You are either with the herd or you are against the herd.

Group think is most prevalent in the conditioned mind, a phenomenon that is completely invisible to the group members who truly believe they are thinking independently. The irony of group think is that each member is afforded just enough wiggle room with which to modify or mold the groups common ‘beliefs’ so that each member can call it their own original thinking. Does this sound familiar? No two members of the same political party are of exactly the same mind, yet they all pull the same political lever as one with the herd.

The hive mind is most certainly capable of great feats of strength and perseverance precisely because it is narrowly focused and of ‘one mind’. A common argument in favor of the hive mind is the great feats of human engineering that are part of our daily life. I do not argue that the results can be quite spectacular. In fact I am somewhat of an engineering geek and marvel at today’s ships, planes, bridges, buildings, technology and so on.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: cognitive dissonance

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

It Just Doesn’t Matter

Post navigation

Latest Posts