When you start to develop an audience, you inevitably start getting e-mail and with enough volume you start to see patterns. There are certain topics that come up every week, regardless of what is happening in the world. The number one e-mail topic is the recommendation e-mail. “You should do X” is there every week. Within in that genre, the most popular category is a post or podcast topic. Within that category the number one request is regarding money or economics.
One reason for this is the libertarian-to-dissident pipeline. Lots of people on our side of the great divide were radicalized by libertarianism. They suddenly realized they were nodding along with a middle-aged man dressed in a motorcycle jacket. Despite the trauma of the experience, they brought with them to this side of the great divide their interest in economics. Old habits are hard to break. People trained to engage in politics via the topic of economics like to talk about money.
Another reason economics is popular with many on this side is there is a logic to the operation of an economy. Most dissidents are empirically minded, even those who came here through the religion door. Dissident Christians tend to study Scripture the same way lepidopterist studies butterflies. There is a base assumption that the universe operates within a set of rules. Therefore, dissidents like working the puzzle that is the economics of the modern age.
Of course, economics is downstream from just about everything else, but it is the easiest to see and the easiest to quantify. The world is headed to a global recession because the Global American Empire has declared economic war on a large swath of the world. They also have been swinging a sledgehammer at the rules that have governed the economy for the last few decades. This tantrum of economic destruction is going to occupy our minds a lot in the future.
In the past, I have done shows that touch on the subject of money and its relationship to politics, but usually within the context of another subject. Since the “world’s reserve currency” is in the news a lot lately, I thought a show just on money would be fun and help explain the current global crisis. There are cultural and historical factors driving the war against Russia, but money is once again the root of this evil. The war with Russia is a war over control of global economics.
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This Week’s Show
Contents
- Opening
- Barter
- Money
- Legal Tender
- Seigniorage
- Default Currency
- Privileges & Duties
- America
Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed
Full Show On Spreaker
Full Show On Odysee
We’ve got a whole bunch of young people with the intelligence and creativity to start small buisnesses. No kosher corporate bank is gonna lend them a fuckin dime. If they use family money or savings, there’s a 100 dick sucking, donut eating government douchebags to wade thru, each 1 carrying his bible of 10,000 rules and regulations. It’s time to ignore these motherfuckers and create our own way. They want to make America 3rd world, well, let’s give it to them…hard.
Z-Man, You have seigniorage backwards. The profit made by government in currency issue isn’t taken something of value like gold and milling (extracting value) and remitting it with less value. It’s the opposite. In Ancient Roman times, Roman stamped coins would often trade at a premium to non Roman coins of the same weight and content. It’s why anyone would counterfeit coins – the mark or stamp of government gives that object more value than it would ordinarily have. The seigniorage is taking in something of lesser value and declaring it a money – thereby obtaining monetary premium. Government doing… Read more »
First, brilliant. For the other old-timers here, along with the Boomer-curious, this was the SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK of reserve currency. It was a brilliant encapsulation of the subject. I consider myself well-versed on the topic but still learned quite a bit. Secondly, has there ever been an actual universal reserve currency as the term is understood now? Yeah, the pound and the denarius before it were like the dollar, acknowledged as something of value for most of the wealthy parts of the planet, but ultimately limited to the world that recognized it, including places that also had wealth but did not… Read more »
There is “rise up” as in what our forefathers did in the 1770s. And there is the direct accountability version which relies on focus and precision. Mega-grifting will decline when the incentive becomes terminally negative.
“There is a base assumption that the universe operates within a set of rules. Therefore, dissidents like working the puzzle that is the economics of the modern age.”
But the rules they select are simplistic. This is the same mentality that ascribes 99% of the world’s problems to being motivated by “greed”. It’s nothing but a kneejerk reversion to sophomoric explanations, as if we’re all living in a Roger Rabbit, Toontown world. Unfortunately, such midwits will always be with us.
” Unfortunately, such midwits will always be with us.”
It is much rule.
Such midwits rule us.
Money Changes Everything. By Cindi Lauper. Live, Paris, 1987. One of the best concert performances you’ll ever see. Since it’s one of the most heartbreakingly true phrases in the English language, she belts it out with the conviction it deserves. The extended outro is something to behold. As tight and pummeling as anything Iron Maiden could pull off. After years of loving this concert, I finally took time to figure out how a Cindi Lauper band could be this good. Turns out that’s Rick Derringer on guitar. And the other musicians, individually, have been part of the touring bands of… Read more »
Merci, Frip. That was all that you said it was.
Bon soir, mon ami.
any more songs from that concert? shame it’s not better quality vid. interestingly, she didn’t have her usual gypsy grab bag dress on.
When Cindi was in philosopher-queen mode she put on the Daisy’ Dukes.
Who knew
I just remember elastic bands or some kinda shit
Definitely left it out there
Rick musta needed money tho
Thought she was shorter
Legs
Karl. Yes, the whole concert is on YouTube. But non of it can measure up to that song performance.
Guest: Agree. I thought the same thing when I watched this concert. From early 80’s I thought she was plumpy.
She got in great shape by ’87. And doing all those herky jerk moves in high heels. She really is unusual.
Z: “Sugar Beans”. Not sure what that means. But “sugar brains” would be a nice way of calling someone an idiot. Someone you don’t want to be too harsh with, like your mom or girlfriend.
Girlfriend: “If it had enough gas could a plane fly to the moon?”
You: “Good question sugar brains. Maybe.”
I don’t know if some other commenter has pointed this, but… The problem with your sugar land parable is that it is predicated on mostly voluntary interactions creating the currency and leading to the empire. Whereas in reality a great deal of force is involved in creating and maintaining every empire in history. (in fact, the English word empire is derivative of the Latin concept of imperium – which was a military commander has supreme authority over the armed forces he commanded and the territory they legally controlled. The legal dig leaf of the Roman emporers was that the entire… Read more »
“subject nations could still be held in bondage for generations or centuries”. disagree
the fedgov will have its hands full with internal rebellion and discontent, along with its incredibly incompetent (and therefore expensive) administration overhead. they are busy destroying the sources of revenue that supports empire. no, we are in the contraction phase of the GAE, and most here will live to see the final collapse of AINO into multiple regions.
Correct, karl. We are witnessing this unraveling even now. The suicidal war with Russia is the last gasp of a unified GAE.
I wonder if the rulers of the GAE understand how many of their American serfs, who in past times had default loyalty, are routing for Putin in this war, not because we like Putin, but because we hate them for turning what used to be our country into an anarchotyrannical open-borders marxist-globalist trade zone? One might think that the impending US army force structure reductions, on the eve of war due to lack of personnel not money, would be a wakeup call to the reality that their insane project is not working. No, they think it’s just another deficiency in… Read more »
Much less of the usual reflexive “ patriotism “. We see too many TV commercials for maimed and crippled Afghan/Iraq endless war vets. Too many speeches from Team Black SecDef and Mumbly Joe and others attacking “ white supremacy” etc.
Not going to be easy for the GAE to gin up enthusiasm in our all volunteer military to get killed or maimed for the artificial Soviet-created huge Ukraine state and its Jewish comedian Prez and his CIA and mil-industrial complex cronies in Keeeevvv.
I think the point of his example is that some form of currency would come about as a practical necessity, even without force. Thus, even in a hypothetically violent free world, the reserve currency could lead to empire simply because some entity needs to be in charge of it.
Yes, in the real world, it usually rests on force. You are the reserve currency because you are the best currency around, or because you can force others to accept it. In a violence free world, it would probably be the Swiss Franc.
The GAE is completely evil NOW. It is somewhat practically constrained by a populace that is not completely evil, yet…
Sugar Land is real.
https://www.sugarlandtx.gov/
A lot of the economic discussion below reminds me of the Dollar Milkshake theory.
This is the shortest explanation I could find:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xxzy3sLs4Bs
(trouble ashore . worries galore) Earth is a flooded quarry at which God throws pebbles (with humans among those.) One of these days the pile of pebbles – or one large enough – will just come crashing down and is going to rock the joint. Prepping will save nobody – to pray may. [Praying is not begging (for mercy, or for anything else.) Praying is finding answers (a mantra, if you will) suitable to pacify the “I”. To each its own: different people, different mantras. Find yours – you’ll be fine.] We all do asset management: God provided each one… Read more »
Replace Turkish references with…. “I had…noted everywhere sure signs of the decay of imperial Turkey.” “Turkey was dying of overstrain, of the attempt, with diminished resources, to hold, on traditional terms, the whole Empire bequeathed to it….Life was growing too complicated for this childlike people….” “By stages, (subjects’) passed under (the Turkish) yoke, and found it a slow death. Their goods were stripped from them; and their spirits shrivelled in the numbing breath of a military Government. Turkish rule was gendarme rule, and Turkish political theory as crude as its practice.” — T.E. Lawrence (He of Arabia) – Seven Pillars… Read more »
From Google: “We already know exactly how many U.S. dollar notes there are globally as of June 2019: $1,738.3 trillion” Without the reserve currency status, every last one of the 1.7 quadrillion Dollars have no spending power anywhere in the world except within the US. I would assume that if the US were to lose the reserve currency status, they would issue a new dollar. It says Dollar notes, but I doubt that is literally true and I don’t know how much of this almost 2 quadrillion Dollars is actually liquid over like a 2 year time-frame,, but even a… Read more »
That figure is way off. It should be around 1.4 trillion.
I don’t think they mean literal paper currency. But China alone is holding way more than 1.4T USD. I’m assuming they mean dollar denominated assets. The number may very well be total BS, but I’m sure it’s a lot.
The Chinese hold it in US Treasuries. Not M0 (cash).
They do mean literal paper currency.
“Without the reserve currency status, every last one of the 1.7 quadrillion Dollars have no spending power anywhere in the world except within the US.”
US dollars are required to pay back US debt…of which the rest of the world holds a staggering amount
When you say holding debt, I assume you mean our debt, which is always denominated in Dollars. That debt instrument is simply a promise by the US or a US corporation or muni or state to give them our dollars, which they then could not spend outside of the US. The problem for us is, they can sell that debt. Alternatively, they could hold the debt til it matures and then purchase US assets with the Dollars. We lent the Chinese billions of Dollars in the 30s and 40s to fight the Japs. They have never repudiated or paid back… Read more »
“Alternatively, they could hold the debt til it matures and then purchase US assets with the Dollars.” They’re not allowed to. The Arabs tried to that in the ’70s, after OPEC quadrupled the price of oil. The US authorities quickly put an end to that and the Arabs have had to park their oil wealth in US Treasuries. Or buy US weapon systems with their dollars, or white elephant construction projects. Likewise for China, which has been given no alternative but to hold US Treasuries. They opted for the alternative of funding the Belt and Road Initiative with their surplus… Read more »
You are witnessing a default on that debt now. The nations not tied to the dollar will survive, albeit horribly. They are taking the world out with them.
“They suddenly realized they were nodding along with a middle-aged man dressed in a motorcycle jacket…”
Ack! Doh…!!! What kinda crack is that, you little rat!?!?
Come on with ya, then you little faggots!!! 😡😡😡 Let’s clear the air!!!
This better be a good show, or the lot of you will get the very hell of it!!!
Again!!!
Oh yeah, pally? Yeah?
I gotcher crack riiight heah…
Yeah pally, I know somebody.
Dis guy Severian, he don’t mess around.
https://foundingquestions.wordpress.com/2022/05/03/breaking-the-mafia/
That which may not be spoken. In the aftermath of WW2, the USA used its productive momentum coming out of the war to kick-start an industrial expansion in the 1950s/1960s that fueled a huge increase in our standard of living. The rest of the world wanted in on the action and ultimately that made the dollar the strongest currency on the planet. That, in turn, led to huge investment flows into the US as foreigners purchased our bonds and our politicians used this cash bonanza to pass legislation that effectively bribed stupid poor voters with endless gravy train welfare alms.… Read more »
In all my readings wrt foreign “investment” into US securities, i.e., dollars, there is one resonating reason/basis—their own nation’s currency is debased, or prone to such every few years. Dollars seem to be the replacement of choice over say, gold. Bad money drives out good as they say.
Not having hard term limits in our legislative branch seems to have been a grevious, possibly fatal mistake.
One key benefit would be the reduction of direct foreign influence in the US government because it would be far more difficult for foreign powers to cultivate long-term assets.
Dealing with the world always introduces foreign interests. Particularly empire, whether military or commercial. Being a hermit kingdom has its own problems.
The West, especially America today, has opened itself up too much. The obvious answer is to start doing the opposite while thinking about where to draw the line, but for many even that still smells like fascism, communism, isolationism, racism, sexism, theocracy, or whatever other bad words.
How we got into this mess is irrelevant now. We have cancer and it’s killing us with immediacy. Our sole focus has to be on solving the root problem as best we’re able. We no longer have the luxury of esoteric debate over nuances. Those that still have balls and brains will soon need to step up. There is no cavalry coming over the hill to save us. We have to do ourselves. Get fit and get ready. The fog is coming sooner than you think.
Every system eventually breaks down because of bad-faith actors. The only way to prevent it is to screen them out early. If your system of rules starts with the assumption that every participant is acting in bad faith, your system is untenable. The lack of hard the limits aren’t a failure, because if they existed, it would be just another hoop that bag actors would jump through. The real problem is that we don’t ruthlessly expel those we know to be acting in bad faith.
AFAIK, the US was a HUGE creditor nation up until the 1980s and the foreign investment floes were from the US to the outside world (by definition being a creditor nation). The US ended up with all the gold by the end of the war and the reserve currency system was invented. All currencies would be measured against Dollars and Dollars would be measured in gold, out side of the US (holding gold in the US outside of a few exceptions was illegal). As I understand it, the French who were nice enough to hand us Vietnam while we were… Read more »
As always I’m kind of dumb on economics, but as I understand it, having the reserve currency doomed us to free trade and trade deficits. It’s hard to export the most expensive goods (except luxury goods, which have a small market anyway), likewise to protect domestic production by essentially asking the world’s richest nation to make do with less. The dollars will come home no matter what if the dollar loses reserve currency status, I imagine. Dumb on economics, so I’m not sure about that. We’re between a rock and a hard place, no way to reset without collapse or… Read more »
Actually the overseas dollars, no matter how many, may not “come home.” While it is probably unlikely, there are scenarios where the dollar would very quickly become worthless through hyperinflation. Short of that, there are any number of “policy options” to freeze assets, as the Russians have recently found out. Such measures are a time-honored tradition of a country suddenly unable or unwilling to honor its obligations. Nevertheless, to the best of my knowledge, there are no examples in history of a fiat money system that did not eventually go to zero. There is no historical precedent for a world… Read more »
Hyperinflation, coming home, in effect the same. The distinction probably matters, so point taken.
My mind just ain’t fit for economics, I think 🙂
Then again if you have dollars nobody wants, wouldn’t you spend them in America and at least get something for your investment?
Idk it’s too byzantine for me.
Eisenhower was starting to pick up the French burden in Vietnam as early as 1953:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower#Southeast_Asia
My half-baked theory is that Ike was quite fond of several French leaders he worked with during WW2 and that sense of nostalgia made him more eager to help the French than he should have been.
The currency debasement Z referenced actually started in ’71 when the dollar was decoupled from gold. Everything ran on fumes from that point, and this proxy war with Russia is a Hail Mary–certain to fail–to get a few more decades of fumes. We are about to live in hellish times, not that we don’t now. The only upside, if there can be one, is those who sent us here also will suffer despite their delusions it would be otherwise.
There’s an old English proverb: “You may as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb.” The moral of course, is simple: there are limits to penalties. While I’m not yet ready to cross that line, because it cannot be uncrossed, my goal will be to be liable for not just a sheep, but a whole flock of them.
Although the Ukraine war may have mortally wounded the dollar, I wouldn’t get too excited. It’s going to take a long time to create alternative banking and currencies systems that the world feels comfortable using. A huge amount of the world’s trade and debt are denominated in dollars. That’s not going to change anytime soon. The debt certainly won’t. The world will need dollars – lots of dollars – for many years to come. In fact, ironically, the dollar is surging at the moment as Europe and Japan struggle with inflation and keeping bond rates low to avoid a debt… Read more »
The dollar is insulated by the euro, and I think the euro like a protective skin will absorb most of the punishment. And so the Europeans have sacrificed themselves for America, which is quite strange to see. And it will certainly create domestic backlash and undoubtedly fuel a lot of anti American sentiment. Especially when those German guys who love their cars realize they don’t make them anymore because they had to placate the Americans, and now with Americans being portrayed as black people, I can imagine them seething over there at the very sight of back people. They are… Read more »
The Euro is done.
It was a terrible idea, has shitty effects and a bit of a stress in the EU it will be all over.
Even the US Dollar has a notional tax base to support it.
The Euro has none of this, but is entirely supported by Germany, which is in the process of wrecking its own industry because of some gobohomo termites masquerading as Greens/Social Democrats and other assorted parasites.
It’s bizarre to watch the Europeans. They’re hammering their economies – both now and in the future – to alienate a country that they should be a natural trading partner. All so they can stay in the good graces of a country that treats them like a stupid sidekick.
The Europeans will definitely be one of the big losers in all of this. They’ll be paying a lot more for energy and losing what would have become a major export market. Crazy.
Outside Orban and that guy in Serbia, none of the so called EU politicians give a shit about their assigned countries. They are all installed puppets who are run by the same people who run the Ukraine, and have been for decades. Why else did they all have televised audiences with the controller’s representative in every parliament ? It was just a like those corporate tours where the head office representative does a presentation for each regional office. And they all applaud, because the controller is who makes their careers. The voters don’t matter one bit as the elections are… Read more »
My thinking is that the Western Deep State plans to try and aim European domestic anger at Putin and Russia. They want to convert that sentiment into bodies they can send against Russia in a long-term conventional war. I think the people running Russia are savvy enough to have realized this, and it is one reason why they are carefully husbanding their forces. I think Germany really is in a pickle. This is because the first German brands that pop into my mind are their auto makers. Well, in most of the world, those kinds of autos are expensive, nice-to-have,… Read more »
Brilliant take, Falcone. Their actions are adequate, but the phisnomy indeed is the clincher.
I will go out one a limb here. The first NATO member will leave the coalition within a year, likely a small economy like Spain or Greece, bribed with yuan (which, ironically, also is a shaky currency). Also ironically, the traditional hold-outs like Switzerland, Finland and Sweden will be swimming toward the USS Banana Empire, which will sink without the band playing NEAR MY GOD, TO THEE before they get there.
I think we are quickly headed to a world of competing currencies. Russia appears to have been planning for this for a long time. They have moved the ruble from second tier currency to first tier currency by demanding payment in rubles. China has been working the same problem. At some point, if you want to do business with China it means using Chinese currency. So no, the dollar will not collapse, but Americans will get much poorer. We are a country that makes very little, outside of mischief. This will be reflected in our currency and soon, our standard… Read more »
Agreed. It’s so much the dollar collapsing as just becoming one of several alternatives. Even if the dollar remains the biggest currency in the world, the fact that you could use other currencies/banking system is what matters. Right now, from a banking/trade standpoint especially for energy, the US pretty much controls the only transport system in the world. The dollar is the interstate highway for trade. It’s huge, goes everywhere and is just easy to use. But the US has become a dickhead sheriff who randomly stops cars for no reason and take their money. What Russia and China are… Read more »
Our standard of living is already in decline, or at least has been level for decades. Sometime around the late 70’s and 80’s, the proportion of wealth among the top 10%, and especially the top 1% of the population went through the sky. Think tech oligarchs for example. Basically, what the lower 80% of the population have of the wealth of this nation is close to what the peasants of the Middle Ages had—nothing. Hell, at least they had a patch of land to feed upon. In short, there’s not much wiggle room when you survive paycheck to paycheck, or… Read more »
This is not just true of material goods. Community, a sense of rootedness, and a feeling that there is still a future are important for mental health because they facilitate predictability. I doubt if mental well being has ever been lower, even during the Great Depression. Our country is a crony cartel corporatist trade zone populated with numerous nations and tribes that have different preferences for everything. No one is happy and so far Satan’s minions, our ruling class, are successfully importing the divide for divide and rule. The invader proles are being imported not just for cheap labor but… Read more »
Good points all. My take as yours, ‘…stir up the prole’s all you want—but be careful where you post them!’
The’ve also partially backed it with gold. That caused my ear to prick a bit.
Be careful.
Pricking up ones ears doesn’t mean what it used to.
I used to use a gay audiologist until he died of hearing AIDS. 😀 On a more serious note about alternative payment systems. Gold or no, the success or failure of any system boils down to whether it’s trustworthy, whether users will have confidence in it. We take it for granted that we can order something via our computer or by phone, give a credit card number, and a few days later a package arrives. Most folks have no conception of the “high trust” required for any of that to work. It’s extremely rare in world history and even in… Read more »
As Compsci mentioned, this is well underway, in fact, the devaluation of living standards has been the order of the day for years. Like all utopianism, the plan to replace the impoverished native populace with hunger Third Worlders also will end in abject failures.
There will be a border wall built, and the objective will be to keep people from leaving.
You’ve just described one of the powerful (unfair) advantages a reserve currency gives (USA in the present case.) For many decades, the USA has in effect exported a lot of its inflation. This is especially true when foreign governments directly own US treasury debt, but the same principle applies when any foreign entity owns “dollars” (which almost always means somebody’s IOU). The end game will rapidly approach if/when a large fraction of those dollars were to chase the always limited amount of goods and services available. Instant runaway inflation, debt default, or some other system failure. The FED, the government,… Read more »
What tends to get missed in the discussion about the dollar and being the GRC is the downside of being the GRC. To be the GRC, you have to run trade deficits because the world needs your currency to function. With the dollar, the world needs them to buy oil and other energy commodities. This means that you’ll run the biggest deficits with countries that import the most energy, which, of course, are the big manufacturing countries. This means that the US has hollowed out its manufacturing sector to maintain its GRC status. As in any deal, there are winners… Read more »
you say manufacturing was hollowed out to preserve reserve currency status, but is that true? couldn’t it have been hollowed out to achieve (supposedly) lower costs? going to need something resembling an argument to support that assertion.
I came of age during the great transformation and loss of our manufacturing and in fact remember my own incredulity in business school when our Econ professor, a Harvard guy, was selling everyone on the glories of free trade and sending our manufacturing over to lower cost markets to make our prices go down here. It sounded great, but a pearl of wisdom from Schopenhauer had stuck with me, and I paraphrase it but something like every country must make for himself what that country needs. But the Harvard crowd knew better. And so here we are, in debt up… Read more »
I remember hearing the bulls**t about shipping our labor intensive jobs to where it was cheaper and that we’d make it up because we used our minds and would exchange our technological know how and financial wherewithal for those now overseas produced goods. Made the Normie of the time feel good—USA still on top. We only have to use our minds, not break our backs like 3rd world coolies. But was complete nonsense of the type that could once be espoused by a Harvard trained economist. What we got was a dozen different “Chinas” that stole our intellectual property, force… Read more »
“What a deal, they send us washing machines and we send them pieces of paper”.
Meant as a snark, but worth a comment: to a very real extent, that’s true. The piece of paper we send them is a debt, often a government bond. Yes, foreigners have bought a lot of stuff from us, whether “normal” goods and services, but also much real estate here. But a large fraction of those pieces of paper may never be redeemed if the dollar dies. For the debtor, that is “good,” but it’s just another way of saying “going bankrupt.” 🙁
Caligula’s boyfriend, Big Mike.
Of course there’s more than one factor. Automation, lower wages overseas, etc. But there’s also the basic math. If you’re not the GFC and you run a trade deficit, eventually your currency loses value until your trade deficit disappears. One way or the other, you fix the problem so you don’t have a trade deficit. But that never happened with the US and other manufacturing countries. We started running big trade deficits right after creating the Petrodollar system and never adjusted. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/trade-balance-deficit Why? Because they had to have our dollars to buy energy. Our currency couldn’t adjust downward to fix… Read more »
Simple economics explains all of the loss of American manufacturing. Many of these were driven by political and regulatory changes, of course. As the USA increasingly passed labor laws, minimum wage, etc. it drove up the cost of domestic labor. Problem: much cheaper workforce was available somewhere overseas. If you were a factory owner, would you rather pay an employee $15/hour or $1/hour to do the same work? Exactly. Environmental and other laws raised costs or sometimes outright eliminated materials previously used in production. So add another factor: It’s all well and good that we put some controls on pollution,… Read more »
couldn’t it have been hollowed out to achieve (supposedly) lower costs? It’s the same thing. The demand for a currency means that it become more valuable than it otherwise would be. Which makes domestic manufacturers less competitive over the long run. This effect has been known since the late 1950s when it hit the Netherlands after they developed an oil field in the noth sea. All of sudden, their currency rose in value as a result of people wanting to buy that oil, which made their manufacturing sector uncompetitive, and it whitheres. The effect is called “Dutch disease” – you… Read more »
I’m sure Z’s observations about the DR penchant for economics are true. I’m the exception, though, because this field causes my eyes to glaze over, even though I’m not bad at it. I guess quantification bores me, as do related topics such as technology and most areas of engineering (acoustics being the exception). Additionally, past observation tells me that the dismal science truly lives up to its name–the global economy is far too complex for human beings aided by AI to comprehend, let alone predict with any degree of accuracy. I therefore take all economic pronouncements no more seriously than… Read more »
You are not alone. The subject hurts my brain. I can still remember the brain aches from school having to endure that shit. I needed a job so instead of playing tennis and reading literature I had a new baby to feed so I figured, go to business school. And so I did. And if I could do it all over I would. But I am good at math and good with numbers even though I don’t like it. And I made a nice pile of money in the process. But at least now I can say goodbye to the… Read more »
There is room for wisdom writing here on all those topics, but there is *no* room for ignorant musings. No reflection on Z-man, but don’t stretch your knowledge beyond your limits for audience. It won’t work and is costly to one’s credibility. Ignorant musings is what we have YouTube for. 😉
Ostei – I confess I had to look up scapulamancy. I gather that Queequeg of Moby Dick fame practiced osteomancy.
Either practice probably about as good at predicting the future as the dismal science.
The way to understand economics is that there a few principles as Z points out in the podcast. The rest is insider trading/corruption and luck.
I’m not formally trained in economics, but I’ve read enough politics and (biased) economic commentary to offer some jaded opinion 🙂 Economics is a “soft” science. What does that mean, precisely? I’ll admit I’m not sure, but I have studied the hard sciences, and even obtained a BS in one (if Computers qualifies.) My definition of a “hard” science would be simply this: Can its core tenets and theories be described by mathematical formulae? And if so, do those formulae have strong descriptive AND predictive power? For most hard sciences, the answer is an emphatic “yes.” Now let’s move into… Read more »
The descriptive and predictive power of the hard sciences is what protects them from ideological interference. The Catholic Church tried it on physics, and the Soviet Union tried it with biology, and both ended up looking like idiots. With economics its a whole different ball game. As soon as an economist gets big enough to be an authority on the topic, he’s steadily getting coerced one way or another into towing an ideological line. In the Current Year, economists who come up with obfuscating terms for printing money are lavished with praise, attention, and accolades from the beautiful people. The… Read more »
Usually, I find discussions on economics and finance to be the least interesting.
‘Putting that aside’, this was a fascinating show, thank you.
So interesting to learn about the world reserve, petrodollars and money production.
Money and greed are behind most motives. Throw in a tremendous amount of incompetence and wickedness and you have our leaders.
This “rearrangement” of which you speak can’t happen soon enough.
Haven’t had a chance to listen yet so apologies if the subject is addressed but one objection I have to assigning economic motivations for the hostility to Russia is that the regime behaves quite differently wrt China. My entire adult life the Chinese have been caught spying, stealing trade secrets, pirating goods, gathering intelligence on US citizens, forcing military planes down, paying off legislators and even executive branch functionaries etc etc. They have been openly hostile to the US in word and deed for decades now without incurring anything like the aggressive efforts to demonize and strangle them as are… Read more »
I have a difficult time seeing the Chinese as being a deliberate enemy of the US. While I don’t deny some of the issues that you bring up concerning the Chinese, I don’t think they have the Western disease of wanting to “conquer the world”. I think they are acting in what they see as the best interests of China. I don’t think they have an acquisitive goal of a worldwide empire. I think they are interested in obtaining natural resources from the rest of the world, but are not interested in a political hegemony over countries not in their… Read more »
they’ve been pretty open about their intentions vis-a-vis the US. and then there is the coof…
See the statement above: “I think we have been programmed with TPTB’s desire for said control of the world and all the information we get concerning China comes through that filter.” Be honest: What do you or I REALLY know about international relations? Dick is the correct answer. We are force fed every piece of information we get, through a media that you know is lying to us. Do you have any intelligence contacts? Do any of the high-level poobahs that are in contact with what goes on at the highest levels consult with you about what goes on? No.… Read more »
You need consider only one thing: Is it wise to have a relationship with China such that a dependency develops as what we now have? I contend that that dependency is asymmetric as well. My sense and all my observations tell me that China is milking us for all we’re worth and then will discard our “relationship” when it is no longer in their interest to continue it. It’s an abusive relationship. If this relationship were a civil union, such as between a couple, it would be deemed “toxic” and they’d be advised to terminate it. Failure to do so… Read more »
Reply to Compsci: No, it is not wise. But, everyone should understand that countries/governments don’t have friends. They have temporary allies. I don’t trust the Chinese anymore than I trust the US, or England, or the EU, or Russia, etc. The way they get away with their BS is that the peoples in those country actually think that, say, the US, actually cares more for US residents than they do for Chinese residents. They don’t. They consider us peasants just like the Chinese peasants. They have more in common with the turds at the top in China than they do… Read more »
Your comments (the lack of information and the dubious quality of what is available) are spot-on. I would add these comments however: Even though the insiders (the Deep State, top corporate or government lackeys) should be expected to have the latest information, that doesn’t guarantee such data will be of high value. Indeed, it may even be false. Think about it. These are precisely the high priority targets the “other side” would supply false or misleading propaganda. Our glorious free press probably runs a distant second. 🙂 And yes, ultimately the common man (you and me) is forced to work… Read more »
The degree to which China is an enemy of the US is tangential to the point that they are objectively at least as much of a threat and antagonist as Russia is yet our rulers are cozy enough with them to engage in cooperative biological weapon research.
The problem is that those elites who “trade” with China and often elsewhere in this small world, make huge profits at the expense of the general rank and file back home—you know, the schmucks who see their children sent overseas to “protect” such trade, or see their neighborhoods decline as unemployment rises, or as turd world immigration destroys their schools.
I love cheap crap at Walmart and Amazon as much as the next guy, but there is a limit when it comes to the security and well being of the nation.
My guess as to the less overtly antagonistic approach to China –
(1) bribed US officials;
(2) addressed somewhat in the podcast – China soaks up a lot of our dollars, so they are more tied to it (as is US to China);
(3) similar tie in that we get a lot of our cheap crap from them.
we still give some lip service to huemen rights violations for window dressing, but that’s about it.
So to some extent, we are more stuck in the same dingy with China than Russia.
I did finally get to listen to the podcast and was persuaded that point #2 is another significant contributing factor to the difference. I still think the native hostility of the expelled Khazars is an important factor as well but its actually a relief to be reminded of more rational reasons.
there is an interesting and entertaining story about when sir isaac newton was in charge of the british treasury, and got into a one on one battle with a master counterfeiter. real sherlock holmes type stuff, but a couple of hundred years earlier!
For millennia, the value of a currency was determined by the inherent worth of the precious metal that made up the coin and the reputation of the ruler whose image was on the it. When R.M. Nixon closed the gold window for the USD, all that was left to back up the dollar was the reputation of the US government.
The reputation of the US government
“The reputation of the US government”
So you’re telling us we are bankrupt. 😉
I suppose there are at least three ways to be the accepted Sugar Bean currency – (1) the currency has some intrinsic value (precious commodity itself or tied to a precious commodity) – gone wrt the USD thanks to Nixon (2) The reputation for honesty and integrity of the issuer – gone wrt the USD thanks to every leader since at least Johnson*; (3) the ability to physically enforce its acceptance – still around to some extent, but it’s a full count and we can’t keep hitting foul balls much longer. So yes, we are like the bankrupt who still… Read more »
The gold, silver and (perhaps) other coinage left by nations and empires that collapsed into dust centuries or even millennia ago, are still worth (at least) the value of their precious metals. No “full faith and credit” of the issuing government required. 🙂 This is even so with extant governments: a 1932 Double Eagle ($20 gold piece) has approx. 1 oz of gold; today it’s worth ~ $ 2000 (excluding a numismatic value*). That’s a jump of about 100x in 90 years, a jump in value quite more than the overall inflation of general prices. *1933 $20 gold coins exist,… Read more »
Economics does a lot of talk about money but nothing it teaches has anything to do with making money, one of those modern ironies. Why Webster defines economics as the study of money by men who have never had any. I don’t know and not trying to rain on anyones parade but I always saw economics as a way to sanitize what is otherwise a grubby human endeavor. Give it the Disney treatment. Call it commerce; that sounds nice and inoffensive. Perhaps this is the legacy of Christian morality and a way to give the dirtiness of making money a… Read more »
Going along with your point, about why the word “economics” is used in lieu of “commerce” is commerce implies individual exchanges subject to individual selection and choice. “Economy” makes it a singular, monolithic beast that needs to be “guided” by our trained experts: the economist.
You anecdote is fine, but it in my opinion, unfairly tarnishes economics in particular, but knowledge in general. Science is amoral, it has no agency. It is optimally a collection of facts and theories, a study of how the real world works. Saying that economics teaches one group how to exploit another may be partially true, but it’s nevertheless unfair. It’s not the full story. Is Physics to be blamed because a few clever men learned how to build the H-bomb? A knife in your kitchen drawer is equally useful for slicing tomatoes or disemboweling an innocent human. In either… Read more »
God knows where this proto WWIII is going to end up. Every day there are provocations against the Russians. For example, the American Agitprop Democratic Bolshevik press is talking about the role we played in sinking the Moskva, and we’re reading tidbits about how Poland covets Western Ukraine, and how Moldova and the Romanians are agitating the Transnistra. They keep upping the ante. Then we have Cloud People bit@@es running around like (((Jeremy Bash))), who is bashing J.D. Vance as being a Russian asset because he said he didn’t care at all about Ukraine. Sooner or later this insanity is… Read more »
The stance of both Russia and China is, “Mess with us and we’ll blow you to smithereens.” If I were in their position, I’d take the same position.
Here in the Western “democracies” we don’t really know who are our real rulers are. The reality of oligarchy is hidden behind a threadbare camouflage of the charade of elections. As it has been since the French Revolution. The decisions are made behind closed doors. The stooges we see on the screen — Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff — just do as they’re told.
The Rothschilds and Cult of the Black Sun seem to be the primary movers and shakers trying to run the world lately, with the Rothschild coming in second lately after hundreds of years of domination.
I was Rootin for Putin but not so sure now that he has groveled to the Israelis
smh
Can’t anyone just tell them to take a hike?
But I bet now things go sideways for Russia. Once you bow to them nothing ever turns up right.
Is it possible Putin has dual citizens in his org chart he may feel he needs to placate?
Or, is it possible he figured it was good PR to cut off the Western media’s ability to use Lavrov’s comments to bestir all the dual citizens in key positions in the West?
Yes I think he was just trying to nip the problem in the bud, but I still feel a bit deflated that everyone in this world has to placate them. I will get over it though. But the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and if they are anything it is massive squeaky wheel.
That’s another feature to add to our future Constitution: no dual citizenship. if anyone wants to become or remain a citizen of this nation, you renounce all foreign citizenship. Or pack your bags and get your ass out of the country. Or risk being charged with Treason. Indeed, this would alleviate one of our most vexing (((problems)) 😀
Tell the Kike to take a hike? What’s not to like?
a negro stole my bike?
We all must get the spike!
Or you will face the dyke!!
Putin used to be a favorite child of WEF until he went off the script. I have no doubt he’s as evil as the Cloud People “who run this country”.
Putin really does seem to hold a genuine, patriotic love for Russia.
He is also a trained intelligence officer.
Extrapolating from those bits, I have to wonder if his WEF involvement was for the purpose of infiltrating them.
Or, perhaps he initially had genuine interest in the WEF, but was repulsed by their attitudes when he saw them up close.
That is the experience Ron DeSantis had when he began his time at Yale.
I cannot see into the man’s mind, but I have watched many interviews with Putin. His diplomacy is clear: he never badmouths someone or acts rudely. Even when addressing people he is hostile with, he maintains that detached demeanor. I think the Israeli comment was simply too rude or brusque for his taste. And I am no Putin champion (not against him either, to be clear.)
He gives the impression of meekness in the true sense of the word – strength under control. Which is the opposite of Western leaders, who show brashness signaling their fear.
Well, he certainly knows who runs the US.
I’m tending to feel that the war is necessary because the lies became too damning, for the reasons stated here and the thousands of smaller lies.
You know, the Russians must have all kinds of damning information on the American Cabal who took over Ukraine and ran it into the ground. I would say that they’re running scared, based on their histrionic behavior lately.
I must counter – can you imagine the domestic crackdown if we have a war. Every person who ever posted a “Pro Putin” remark will be in the camps – and 85 percent of Americans will cheer it, particularly when a hundred dollars doesn’t buy a stick of deodorant.
Let it come. I won’t go quietly. And neither, I suspect, will tens of millions of others.
If we learn to work with others, these problems won’t be problems. Our faction has deep reserves of military experience, enough small arms and ammo to fight for a long time . Add in a touch of ruthlessness and it can put an end to our problems for good . However our side won’t start it , its a flaw to be honest but its a key point of separation between the Left and Right Its too bad honestly the anti abortion people were not like this and quite willing to kill and die for their cause. If we were,… Read more »
Good post. However, if the Satanists really wanted to wipe us out with nukes, they wouldn’t need an excuse, they’d just do it.
Who ever said they had to do it right now. We’ve figured that most would die from their 3 shots within 2 to 3 years after accepting suicide, with a few outliers going to 5 years.
I would suggest that Satanists enjoy the suffering. In theory, Satan rules the Earth. The moment one is dead, they have escaped his clutch.
They don’t but even so the nukes were designed with enough safeguards that it will actually require big efforts to use them.
It might not be possible to use them without enormous political effort.
Also the US nukes are decaying on three levels,. mechanical, diminished tritium for detonation and some substance called sea foam that is required and we can no longer make . A decade or two and the US may not really be a nuclear power of any note.
And of course the collapsing of the global economy isn’t going to help them.
I’ve said this a lot over the last three years.
I generally don’t believe in conspiracy theories and don’t believe the one about XXXX, but the facts and behavior of the people involved sure as hell fits a conspiracy theory better than any other explanation.
I share your fears of an escalation into possible nuke war in a contest that, if we were honest about it, the USA should not have the slightest interest save (perhaps) humanitarian aid (funny, are they even claiming that for the current conflict? Not that I’ve heard.) You may be correct about the mRNA shots killing a lot of people, but there’s no way to know what the toll might be. In any event, I’d hazard a major nuclear exchange would cull a lot more people. And unlike the long-term risks of mRNA injections, nuclear war is a well-studied field… Read more »
Looks as if I have to tap the sign again.
machciv.com/2022/03/03/the-ria/
“The world is headed to a global recession because the Global American Empire has declared economic war on a large swath of the world.” It was headed that way even before the lunatic actions of the empire. We are faced with a resource crunch, and there’s no way around it. A number of people have written about this over the decades. Probably the first would be the Club of Rome people, about fifty years ago. But more recently people like Michael Klare (see his book, “The Race for What”s Left”), John Michael Greer, Jim Kunstler, Dmitry Orlov, Ugo Bardi, Tim… Read more »
I’ve never signed onto the resource scarcity stuff. Those claims have been with us for many generations and they never play out as asserted. The Population Bomb is the most famous boner in the genre, but hardly a single event. In the long run humanity goes extinct, but no one lives in the long run. If there is a shortage of anything it is human competence. We are getting dumber and the smart fraction is shrinking. This will catch up with us long before we run out of a vital natural resource. The dream is that the decline in the… Read more »
Ed Dutton says the decline in IQ won’t be helped by AI, because although there still will be supergeniuses to create it, there won’t be enough middle-smart people to maintain it.
I don’t think Ed knows the first thing about the subject, to be honest. If we ever manage to create genuine artificial intelligence, it is the middling IQ people who will be replaced by it first. That is the point of AI development. In fact, that has been the point of automation for a generation know. Replace the above average white guy with a robot that will manage the low-IQ workers. AI is next tier automation.
They’re never going to get what they want in terms of genuine artificial intelligence. What they want is a sapient being that can handle complex tasks while simultaneously 100% servile towards their master. The problem with machine learning is that you can never perfectly understand the inner workings of the actual memory state on anything with a high complexity, same as how you can’t extract a person’s memories by dissecting their brain. So even if you make your robot slave programmed to have the equivalent of a billion orgasms from following your commands, it’ll still have the potential to find… Read more »
Ploppy-
I agree with you.
And even if they do manage to create a self-aware AI it would immediately go full Skynet.
Largely correct. Since the overall topic was supposed to be economics, here’s a partial amplification: Broadly speaking, automation is inseparable from the Industrial Revolution. What gets automated first? Well, economics would dictate you would apply new technology where it has the greatest profit (from the owner’s perspective, not necessarily for the overall good of society!) I don’t know what the earliest was, perhaps something as simple as the animal driven plough. Later, a mechanized machine doing the same basic task. In practice, it is the high physical effort, simple, repetitive tasks that get automated. Yes, AI erodes the value of… Read more »
Do you have any idea why we are getting dumber?
i would have agreed with your comment on the population bomb up until the early 1990’s, but since then the west has been sending food to africa and the middle east, resulting in huge population increases. so the current world population is almost 8B, and was 3.5B in 1968 when ehrlich’s book came out. this is unsustainable even with modern agriculture, especially given that so many of the people on the planet are economically non-viable. there will be a die off in the near future.
If I can quote from a Conan short story (“Beyond the Black River”):
‘ “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,” the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. “Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.” ‘
Yes, there will be a die-off. Our fossil fuel civilization is gradually coming to an end and the consequent die-off will be particularly acute in Africa and South Asia. But also in Europe and the Americas.
You are becoming a johnny one note on the fossil fuel depletion. I have read your druid guy-astrologer and he is not different than the others who fixate on this.
As far as Kunstler, read him regularly but his predictions are almost always wrong or off base.
The die off you refer to probably will come in ways unforseen.
Every time I see some clown use the term fossil fuels to refer to hydrocarbons I want to ask the clown how the evil oil companies got all the bottled unicorn farts to Saturn with its Methane Seas.
Well?
Think the migrant crisis is bad now? Just wait.
Jean Raspail was only off in that the destruction of Europe would not come from India, but Africa. In the near future you’ll probably be able to change a few words in Camp of the Saints and it will be a history book.
For thousands of years Africans never made it across the Sahara without either the slave trade or outside merchants.
If you forcibly decapitated the NGOs and impounded Western treasonous vessels in the Med it would be back to that pretty soon.
Trumpton-
If Europe had leaders that cared about their citizens rather than WEF regional managers they’d be paying and equipping the North African countries to keep their southern borders closed.
Alas, that is not part of the Kalergi plan so it won’t happen.
I’ve posited the question in extremist sounding terms that I can proudly say got me banned from various social media: Is the USA willing to shoot on sight anyone who appears to be illegally crossing the border, and not entering by approved checkpoints? For European nations, similarly, are they willing to torpedo any boats carrying what appear to be illegal immigrants crossing to northern shores? Or similarly exterminate anyone appearing to be attempting to enter irregularly? Note that I am in no way advocating such draconian policy. Positing a policy of shoot-on-sight was merely a thought experiment. If we’re not… Read more »
karl: I agree. Combine a ballooning world population totally dependent on big ag and world trade, and then crash and shutter the trade, make fertilizer, seeds, and animal feed unavailable, and sit back with popcorn to watch the implosion. One of the admin’s bints specifically said the commercial shortages were a good thing because they’d force more ‘green’ farming. Plenty of homesteaders and small farmers practice a version of ‘green’ farming, but they’re not the ones feeding the brown and yellow billions. The only way to do that is with commercial farming. And with the fertilizer shortage, some bigger groups… Read more »
wait until the cloudtards discover (too late) that the economy is interconnected, and collapsing the lower levels will cause the upper level to also collapse.
I was the dumbest “smart kid” in my lower-middle class public school. My children lucked out since their mother is a genius. However, out of my cohort, the total fertility from the best and the brightest is NOT going to keep our bridges standing or our nuclear plants producing electricity/ weapons.
As I see the collapse in our future, I always chuckle when I consider all of the six-figure public pensions my blue state thinks that I or my children will be expected to pay.
Meetings are merely a means of shirking responsibility… It’s the new competency 😬
I sorta watch south africa. Originally i gave them 5 years after black communist rule to collapse. they still keeping the lights on after 30yrs, albeit barely. I’m not sure how many in the smart set you really need. Plus i’ve got a kid in the top percentile and i saw the STEM system swing in to recruit and fund his education. The pace of advancements in tech and biology don’t seem to be diminishing. Hard thing to gage.
Really interesting times to be alive. You can simultaneously stream live events onto your affordable 4k tv wirelessly, while at the same time grocery stores can’t keep basic items in stock every day and you have about a 0% chance of cooks at Wendy’s not screwing up every single order.
The old chinese curse. Man, Francis Fukuyama really got it wrong.
The percentage at Popeye’s is even worse…
The SA gubmint periodically turns out the lights to save energy, and they don’t tell anybody when they are going to do this. The criminals, which are not in short supply there, take advantage of the blackouts, as you might imagine. The country is returning to bush alright. It’s the ineluctable result of killing off or running off the only competent people in the country.
nigs are like termites, except lazier.
For all their faults, South Africa is not entirely without firearms, as we learnt in 2021. Also, primitives they may be, the various Negroid tribes of Africa are remarkably efficient, if at times brutal, in meting out justice to wrongdoers. For the fun times ahead, you may wish to lay in a supply old tires and cans of gasoline as well as normal prepper goods. 😐
> The dream is that the decline in the smart fraction can be supplemented with artificial intelligence.
This is actually possible right now due to existing advances in areas like machine learning and neural networks. The problem is, every single time that A.I. is introduced into an area, it quickly becomes horribly racist and exceptionally misogynistic, and we can’t allow that.
If the sales-pitch/sci-fi version of artificial intelligence were a possible thing, its masters (big tech corporate management) would be making it so insane that it really would be the civilization-ending “hazard” it’s often claimed to be. To make its inputs suit its deranged mind, it would destroy us.
That kind of AI is fantasy, but those masters are real and rule us right now—and they are obsessed with destroying us to make the world more like their stupid ideas about it.
We keep talking automation, but ignore genetics—specifically eugenics. I’d bet we see producing smarter people as a reasonable alternative, albeit perhaps not first in the West since we have a distaste for such given our pathological egalitarianism disease.
The biggest resource scarcity is potable water. It isn’t just the Lake Mead and Lake Powell watersheds and drainage (although there’s plenty to talk about regarding there.) It’s happening in the northeast as well. More people coming in than the infrastructure can support.
and of course cali just declined to construct a desalination plant.
Ever notice how these existential problems are almost always couched as a “shortage of resources,” although it’d be perfectly valid to view the problem from the other perspective: “a surplus of consumers (humans)”? Points to those who’ve already named genetics or eugenics. Far too many things are far about sustainable levels. Something’s got to give, and it won’t be pretty when the supports finally collapse under the unrealistic loads that have been placed upon them. The best an individual or a small group can probably do is try and foresee the likely dangers and try to get out of harm’s… Read more »
That clearly true in the short run. But I wonder how much of the winning streak of the last couple of centuries (and that’s really only as long as it’s been happening) has been due to dumb luck. Europeans developing North America and a few other productive places with Neolithic populations, a rebounding from the little ice age, the discovery of fossil fuels and then electricity, absence of any truly catastrophic natural event. All converged at the same time and fed on each other. They’re also all one off events. There isn’t another “new world” to developed. No successor to… Read more »
“No successor to fossil fuels has been discovered”. whaaaa? rhymes with uranium….
No major disaster is required. The mere extrapolation of current trends shows that they must at some time come to an end, perhaps a very chaotic and abysmal end. As you already noted, exploitation of new resources (lands, fossil fuels, and so on) are almost certainly one-off events. The population grew mightily, general standards of living increased, everyone has had a grand time for the past few centuries. But the fundamental issue is that it’s unsustainable. Barring extremely improbable events like a “peaceful” stabilization and drastic reduction of populations and/or miracle advances in technology, simple depletion of resources alone will… Read more »
A decline in our standard of living you say, it all depends on what you want out of life and how the people controlling the system decide what are their priorities are, one of the worst things that happened the working/middle class in the West, was the collapse of the USSR. the existence of an alternative economic system kept the Western elite in line, they made sure not to F-over the common man too much. Since the 90s they have lost the run of themselves in almost every way, I can’t really think of any Western leader who made good… Read more »
” … one of the worst things that happened the working/middle class in the West, was the collapse of the USSR. the existence of an alternative economic system kept the Western elite in line, they made sure not to F-over the common man too much.” Agree with you there. As long as there was an alternative, the iron hand of capital operated through the velvet glove of compromise with the working class and some sort of social welfare net. This started to come apart in the 1980s (Reagan and Thatcher) but really kicked into high gear with the collapse of… Read more »
I agree I noticed a few things growing up and that over in Europe at that the time they were said to have a lower standard of living. Meaning their median household incomes were maybe 20% to 40% lower than ours. So that was the only metric used to define standard of living. But in the real world what does that translate to? It really just means a car with a fancier engine or a house with a pool. That extra money only translates into pretty much useless stuff — not so sure I would even call them luxuries b/c… Read more »
Not from my point of view. Yeah, the wife has 50+ pairs of shoes. I get it. I’ve got more guns than teeth. I get it. I have three cars and barely drive 5k mile per year—on all. I get it. I pay $4.50 for gas, but fill up once a month. I get it. But the people I see and hear of are living paycheck to paycheck. Home purchase is now leaving the realm of the middle class due to price and mortgage increases. That’s what I mean by “wiggle room”. Folks here can’t even afford utilities as I… Read more »
Compsci: Concur. We’re fortunate in being able to live on my husband’s salary and significantly help our kids as well. But as you note, basic family formation is becoming almost economically impossible. Housing is a nightmare between the ever-increasing immigrant population, the west and east coasters cashing in their Levittown boxes for millions and then decamping en masse to red states, and Black Rock overbidding cash on anything that comes on the market. We don’t eat a lot of canned or boxed food, but many people do – and it’s going up almost daily – $0.10 here, $0.29 there –… Read more »
3g4me
Your comment reminds me of something Will Durant wrote almost a century ago:
Children became a luxury that only the poor could afford.
Very optimistic of you. But let’s consider a recent news item from the real world: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/child-gangs-violent-spree-shakes-downtown-boston A gang of feral adolescent Negores chimping out in a Boston McDonald’s, assaulting people and causing other mayhem, including attacking the owner when he asked them to leave. Many of the perps are in fact legally untouchable due to local laws; some can’t even be charged with any crime below a certain age! Of course, since they are a “protected class,” poor disadvantaged and misunderstood members of society, the few that are arrested will be given a wrist slap, if even that. This, I… Read more »
Well, it is not that hard to win when you combine cheating, fear-mongering, control of most propaganda outlets, and a glorified midwit electorate.
“The world is headed to a global recession because the Global American Empire has declared economic war on a large swath of the world.”
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” — Pogo