{"id":41029,"date":"2018-11-28T15:05:37","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T20:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41029"},"modified":"2018-11-28T15:05:37","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T20:05:37","slug":"bearish-on-fake-fixes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41029","title":{"rendered":"Bearish on Fake Fixes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bearish on Fake Fixes<\/a><\/h3>\n

This systemic vulnerability is largely invisible, and so the inevitable contagion will surprise most observers and participants.<\/i><\/p>\n

The conventional definition of a Bear is someone who expects stocks to decline.<\/b>\u00a0For those of us who are\u00a0bearish on fake fixes<\/i>, that definition doesn’t apply: we aren’t making guesses about future market gyrations (rip-your-face-off rallies, dizziness-inducing drops, boring melt-ups, etc.), we’re focused on\u00a0the impossibility of reforming or fixing a broken economic system.<\/b><\/p>\n

Many observers confuse\u00a0creative destruction<\/i>\u00a0with profoundly structural problems.<\/b>\u00a0The technocrat perspective views the creative disruption of existing business models by the digital-driven 4th Industrial Revolution as the core cause of rising income inequality, under-employment, the decline of low-skilled jobs, etc.–many of the problems that plague the current economy.<\/p>\n

I get it: those disruptive consequences are real. But they aren’t structural<\/b>: the\u00a0state-cartel<\/i>\u00a0system is structural, because cartels can buy political protection from competition and disruptive technologies. Just look at all the cartels that have eliminated competition: higher education, defense contractors, Big Pharma–the list is long.<\/p>\n

The fake-fixes to the structural dominance of cartels and entrenched elites come in two flavors:<\/b>\u00a0political reforms that add complexity (oversight, compliance, etc.) but never threaten the insiders’ skims and scams, and monetary policies such as low interest rates and unlimited liquidity that enrich the already-wealthy by funneling whatever gains are being reaped to rentiers rather than to labor.<\/p>\n

I explain how this\u00a0neofeudal economy<\/i>\u00a0is the inevitable result of our system<\/b>\u00a0in my new book\u00a0Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our political system, dependent on campaign contributions and lobbying, is easily influenced to protect and enhance the private gains of corporations and financiers. Combine this with the gains reaped by those with access to cheap credit and you have a financial nobility ruling a class of debt-serfs.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bearish on Fake Fixes This systemic vulnerability is largely invisible, and so the inevitable contagion will surprise most observers and participants. The conventional definition of a Bear is someone who expects stocks to decline.\u00a0For those of us who are\u00a0bearish on fake fixes, that definition doesn’t apply: we aren’t making guesses about future market gyrations (rip-your-face-off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20283,127,1992,7081,587,23251,23250],"class_list":["post-41029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-cartels","tag-charles-hugh-smith","tag-contagion","tag-neofeudalism","tag-of-two-minds","tag-state-cartel-system","tag-structural-problems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41030,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41029\/revisions\/41030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}