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Guest Post: The Kubler-Ross Model: Denial, Acceptance and Renewal in America
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
The Kubler-Ross Model: Denial, Acceptance and Renewal in America
Today we offer a guest essay by correspondent Eric A. which applies the Kubler-Ross model to America's current state of denial and wishful thinking.
Reading Charles Hugh Smith’s “Cry in the Wilderness” for Individual Solutions ( As Public Policy Fixes Are Impossible, Focus on Individual Solutions) to our present crisis, I’m struck by the Kubler-Ross model. You know the one:
1.Denial
2.Anger
3.Bargaining
4.Depression
5.Acceptance
She doesn’t say how long each stage takes, but in a body the size of a nation, it must take a very long time indeed.
Is there anybody out there who doesn’t know the financial system is broken? That home prices need to fall at least 30%--if not 50%--more? That Social Security is already in deficit? That they won’t be retiring in the manner in which they’ve desired?
And the solutions, Oh, the solutions!
1.More borrowing
2.More lending
3.More spending
4.More lying, cheating, and stealing
5.More government orders
6.More expansion
More of everything we’ve done that got us here. Is there anyone who doesn’t know you can’t solve a debt-and-spending problem with debt-and-spending?
So why is it still going on?
This is the wonder of Denial, of lying to ourselves, or in the American parlance, of Bullshit. Bullshit is different from lying in that it isn’t technically untrue, but it’s effectively untrue. Second requirement is that it’s invariably selling something, getting you to do something for the bullshitter—power or money. Third is that everyone knows that it’s bullshit. They know it’s a lie, but they’re willing to be complicit in the lie anyway, for their own reasons. Like all Cons, Bullshit can never work without the complicit help of the so-called “victim.”
The only reason all these things can still go on is Denial.
Why?
I was at a Tea Party meeting (I know, I’ve already admitted it) where one of the participants asked, “Are you willing to give up Social Security?”
“What?” I asked stupidly.
“If you cut these taxes and reduce government, it’ll end Social Security. I want to know who here is willing to have their own check cut.”
I stared, staggered at the obviousness of this simple statement.
“Sir,” I stuttered, “It’s already gone. There IS no Social Security. You’d be lucky to get checks for even two more years.”
My words did not compute so I let it slide, turning to other subjects.
The unsustainable nature of the numbers surrounding Social Security and Medicaid have been obvious since the Baby Boom generation was done being born in 1966. The scam was fully apparent by at least the (non)re-structuring of withholdings with the Greenspan-Boskin Commission in 1983—and at least by 1984, as even the increased revenues were spent, with nothing saved.
It would be self-evident that it wouldn’t matter in any case, since an entire nation cannot buy special pixie dust through its whole life without driving the price up—not Stocks, not Bonds, not even gold—and then sell it through their whole retirement without driving the price of that asset back down to zero again. That is, you can’t all put $10 into a hat, and have everyone pull $20 back out. That’s what Social Security, 401k privatization, the Stock Market, Investors, all propose to do.
Since 1983, there have been commissions every few years, headlines in every major newspaper, including most recently G.W. Bush’s front-page quote,
“There Is No Trust Fund.”
I mean, exactly what kind of warning were you looking for? Do they have to come to your house and shake you by the ankles?
Moving into the new decade, we find ourselves with a $1,600,000 Million deficit --per year--and the now-common knowledge that Social Security doesn’t exist—it’s just a budget item that is paid like any other: through borrowing. Borrowing on top of that $1.6 Trillion. Per Year.
And you STILL think that you have something to lose? That there’s the slightest chance Social Security will be paid?
…And I’m not following the arcana of the way governments reliably o ver-promise and default in history from Weimar to France, the close examples of Russia in 1997 and Argentina in 2001, that in 1776 Adam Smith had already declared “No government ever pays off their debts,” or any of the other second-level study that is easily found.
Now that’s denial.
Denial kills.
So what’s my point with this?
Would you rather, as with NJ Governor Christie, be told that there is no money in the known universe to pay what is owed in pensions, on bonds, in stocks, or in real goods, and thereby be able to adjust your life accordingly? Or would you rather, like GM Union workers and Enron employees, wake up one day and find that you have no pension whatsoever, but since you didn’t expect it, lose both house and pension at 70 because hadn’t saved on your own either?
Here’s some help: one way you’ll have a retirement, however modest, and the other way you’ll be eating dog food under a bridge in East L.A. That’s what lying does. Lying to others or yourself. That’s why there is a thing called “morality,” and that’s why it’s wrong.
But this is the bullshit we still tell ourselves, 5, 10, 30 years after the truth is obvious, and this the bullshit they’ll continue to sell you—with your own stolen money—until you stop buying it.
Which leads me to Part Two.
What comes after Denial?
That’s right, Anger, and this country will rip itself apart with recriminations and blame. Blame the Left, Blame the Right; Blame the rich, Blame the poor; blame the insiders, blame the outsiders; blame the government, blame the anti-government; blame the old people who set it up, blame the young who won’t pay for it. Blame, acrimony, anger…and violence. In these still-rosy times perhaps you might have seen what I’m talking about.
Who’s really to blame? Well, people who broke the law—especially that highest law, the Constitution—need to be tried and punished, and in keeping with that law, with real charges, real evidence and by a jury of their peers. There’s plenty of room for that. But what does that do? They only committed the crimes we allowed them to with our own sloth and indifference, with the same immorality we’ve let spring up in ourselves.
We’re to blame. And being responsible, now we’re the ones who are about to take the inevitable consequences of our own immoral and irresponsible actions. There don’t need to be any trials for us: our punishment is already certain. But in the midst of that Anger and Blame, history says there will be wrenching in-fighting between groups, violence, and often even insurrections and war.
What’s next on history’s Kubler-Ross model?
Bargaining.
This is what we could have done in the first place, if we hadn’t been so dedicated to what Basiat called, “The Fiction of the State”, that august body “through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”
How could each of us live at the expense of everybody else? Who are “we” going to get it from?
Here’s a newsflash: Guess where wealth comes from?
A: We make it.
It doesn't come from Government. It doesn't come from “money,” or a magic fairy called “the economy.” All wealth comes from our own hard work, with each of us working to our abilities, cooperating, using the resources we have.
So if we do that, how are we going to get richer or poorer than what we ourselves do? Get money right out of your head: money is nothing but recording system for reality, not reality itself. Creating money is useless. If you want a hammer, you need to make a hammer. Money does not make a hammer: a hammer factory does. Likewise, if you want a retirement, then you need to build a real condo, train a real nurse, clear a real field, hatch a real chicken for a real dinner, and don’t expect anybody else to do it if you won’t. We can’t do anything that we ourselves don’t do. We can’t have anything we ourselves don’t make. QED. Adding money makes no difference at all. Billions, Trillions, Quadrillions in bailouts--doesn’t matter.
So what is Bargaining? It’s where people are so tired of the uselessness of fighting each other, ordering each other around, making each other pay for each other’s mistakes that we stop wasting our time on this useless activity. This is the first lesson of slavery, of tyranny, and why they fail: it's actually easier to DO the work than to force someone else to do it.
We start saying to ourselves: “We have X in resources, and Y in needs. How do we get substance X to person Y in a fair and efficient way?” We used to use the old ways but the old ways didn’t work anymore. We say, “How much are you contributing to the overall good, the overall wealth, happiness, and security of everyone, and therefore what is fair to receive out of the overall wealth we have?”
We used to use the monetary system to allocate this, but the monetary system was kidnapped, taken out back, and shot. We can make a new one—in the worst of Weimar’s inflation it took only a week—but we will still face the choice to either have a fair one, or an unfair one. The fair one people will work with and prosper. The unfair one people will reject and will collapse into poverty for as long as it takes. 70 years in the case of the USSR, 1,500 years in the case of Feudalism. It doesn't have to end.
The only way the system works, the only way wealth is created is one way: through free, voluntary cooperation. Fighting only makes us poorer every minute we indulge in it.
Guess what also happens with “Bargaining?” We do a real accounting of our real assets, NOT according to the ginned-up, mark-to-fantasy authorized by the now-irrelevant FASB. We are weighed, measured, and we come up wanting. We discover we are as poor as we actually are.
Everybody knows this, of course. We’ve been lying to ourselves for decades. We no longer have manufacturing, no longer head R&D, are decades behind in energy, no longer have businesses, no longer place in education, in work, we no longer have a middle class, we don't even make our own shoes. We’re a gutted shell, financially, economically, morally, socially, intellectually, militarily. We’re a 3rd world nation, on par with Brazil. Why do we lie to ourselves about this? Why do we write pretty numbers in a pretty book that pretends we have real money we can cash in and spend? Is it so bad to have to do real work to create real things in the real world honest men can be proud of themselves for? We used to. For 100 years, from 1789 to 1914 we did. And now?
...The realization that we’re poor, we wasted it all, and have nothing before us but hard work leads to Kubler-Ross #4: Depression.
We are already IN an economic Depression, and we have been since 2001. According to no less a source than Alan Greenspan, ALL the “prosperity” since 2001 was nothing more than debt; home-equity withdrawals that must be repaid. I mean, a 1% growth rate?
All the prosperity was debt, which must be repaid with interest, or else defaulted on in bankruptcy--a bankruptcy that will ruin BOTH the borrower AND the lender. They are a single item on the Asset-Liability ledger book and must live and die as one. You cannot bail out the lender without the borrower, and vice-versa. There is no solution except either total slavery or near-total repudiation of debt.
And when we go bankrupt, no one will lend to us anymore; we will have to live within our means. But wait—you’re saying we will a) not have a ruined economy struggling for decades to re-pay what cannot be paid? We’ll just be free with a new un-indebted economy overnight? And that b) that we won’t be able to borrow, thus fixing the national debt, budget deficit, and insider payoffs all in one fell stroke? And we get PAID to do this? Tell me again why we shouldn’t go bankrupt as fast as possible? What are lenders going to do, repossess and occupy the whole country?
History reliably says if you want to survive, you should default as soon as possible.
…So we admit we are poor as we already are, that we have nothing but our own hard work, and that this will continue for decades. But as the initial shock wears off, we find something interesting: It was always that way. Even in the past, we never got anything we didn’t work for, all that paper, all that supposed wealth, was only us lying to ourselves. For what do you lose when you stop lying to yourself? Only our illusions. We give up something we never had anyway, and with it, our chains. And as we work we get wealthier, happier, safer as our real savings: food, shelter, ability--not money—stabilize and we discover “This working for a living isn’t so bad. Why were we afraid of a little truth, a little change?”
This leads to Kubler-Ross #5: Acceptance
That’s self-explanatory. However, some of you long-wave people may recognize this process by another name: The Kondratieff Cycle:
We started this trip with Winter, the down slope of the 70-year human cycle recently popularized by historians Strauss and Howe as “The 4th Turning”. After the decline into winter—usually punctuated with war, and twice in our history with Civil War—the seasons turn to Spring: hard work, caution, and thrift. Then Summer, the blossoming times of ease and exploration. …Which leads to Autumn, with complacency, abuse, corruption, self-deception, and overreach.
And it all happens again, showing that “the one thing we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.” --Hegel
Other than being an interesting walk through financial and social history, what’s the point here?
Easy. The old world as you knew it is gone. Poof. Zip. Nada. Gone. All those promises that were made? It doesn’t matter what they were because there is not enough real substance on the entire planet to deliver on them. You were lied to, you lied to yourself, and you’re going to get nothing. Nothing but what you do for yourself right now.
So what are you—what are WE—going to do about it? Yell and march and blame and shoot each other? Let the liars, con men, and bullshitters walk away free and wealthy men from the scam that bankrupted a nation, a world? Are we going to agitate, recriminate, and get ours first?
This is the “Who are you” test. These are “the times that try men’s souls.” --Paine What’s in your soul? Who are you, America? Because, as a shadow that passeth away, so this old way passes despite every attempt to stop it. You have this one chance in 70 years to make this nation into the America you’d like it to be.
Do we want a thin and false prosperity by war, theft, the wealth of lies? Or do we care more about justice, fair and moral behavior, and the responsibility of hard work?
Next question: if you believe in hard work and Justice, are you going to make the OTHER guy work, the OTHER guy pay, or will the work start with you, and the morality, the truth start with you?
Your choice America.
For me, I know there’s nothing. I’ve paid into the entire system all my life and will get nothing out of it, ever. I never expected to. However, I want the privilege—in fact, the inalienable right—to keep my own property, my own hard work, and use it or waste it as I think best. That means I have to work for it, to do something truly useful in life, and not take it from somebody else who does work, not sit in a cube farm and shuffle meaningless chits for goods that don’t exist.
Look around you, America. Everything needs to be done. The barns are falling down: the cities, the schools, the houses. The railways have been pulled up, the factories and mills are closed, the silos knocked over, the fields paved, the ports silted in and ruined. The children have run away; your poor and the old are abandoned. Who did this to you?
You did it to yourself, and if you want a nation that functions, one that can feed and clothe you, one that has decency and prosperity and goodness, you’re going to have to go make one. That means grabbing the shovel that’s closest to you and starting there. That means if you see a need, some failure, some ugliness, you are the only one who’s going to change it into beauty and success. That means helping, sharing, teaching useful skills to everyone who’s willing to do the least work—for we must each do all we can. That means displacing the corrupt everywhere they’re found, everywhere they’re protecting each other, methodically, legally, one by one, starting in every Town, State, and National body, in corporations, public groups, government hall, and in your living room.
And they won’t go easily, they won’t want audits, investigations, or prosecutions for fraud, theft, and public abuses, but that’s what happens when you let them in, and there is now no other way to keep your country.
If not, well, maybe a just, moral, and functional country is not for you. Then maybe we’ll get the nation we deserve, the one we created for ourselves: one filled with surveillance, snitches, orders and rules as may suit a nation of slaves and prisoners.
That may seem too big a task, but it’s only doing our jobs as adult men and women. To work for ourselves, to organize ourselves, to regulate ourselves, and not ask anyone else to do it for us. For who would that somebody be? Napoleon? Caesar? There IS no one else. That’s what “Republic” means. And as there’s only us, there’s no reason to look to anyone else, or give our attention, our power, our money to anybody else. Government can’t save us; government IS us. We can't all put $10 in a hat, pull out $20, and give government their cut to boot. Simply use your $10 on the task you find most worthy.
This is how the world is going to change: it’s going to be under your control and become what YOU make it. Nobody anywhere else is going to save you. Right now the much-vaunted all-powerful government can barely hold off it’s own collapse: it's not going to save you.
You’re on your own.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s what we have planned at my house:
The Maid d’Orleans* Mutual Aid Society will be meeting January 27th and every 4th Thursday thereafter at Elsewhere Café, in the near-ruins of once-majestic Victorian downtown of Albion, NY. We will be giving presentations on the things one needs to know to work in life: growing and preserving food, cooking cheaply and well, and the tools and techniques that make living well easy, possible, and most importantly, enjoyable. That is, how to do all the things you need do after you discover that no one’s coming to save you.
As a poor starving man once said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Is anyone out there ready to work?
Email maiddorleans ( at ) g mail ( dot ) com
*The “Maid of Orleans” is of course Joan of Arc, a young farm girl who, merely by standing up, forever changed the course of human history.
Thank you, Eric, for sharing your essay with us.
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well stated, but it speaks to the mere 5% of us that have awakened. the rest are in deep slumber.
Lotsa power in 5%.
"Inertia is the name for the tendency of an object in motion to remain in motion, or an object at rest to remain at rest, unless acted upon by a force."
with all due respect, lotsa momentum in 95%...
i'll do what i can, but the first thing to do is get me-and-mine outta the way of the beast...
save who you can and be ready to rebuild. not enough sandbags in the universe to stop this rising tide.
That means displacing the corrupt everywhere they’re found, everywhere they’re protecting each other, methodically, legally, one by one, starting in every Town, State, and National body, in corporations, public groups, government hall, and in your living room.
Here's a good start: WASHINGTON STATE JOINS MOVEMENT FOR PUBLIC BANKING
Ellen Brown
January 24, 2011
www.webofdebt.com/articles/washington_state.php
Thank you goldfish1 - this was good news for me.
Something positive, something actionable.
... hmmm.....
WAR!!!! WE WANT WAR!!!!
GIVE ME THOSE FREAKING LAUNCH CODES AND I'LL DO IT MYSELF BITCHEZ!!
We have not been making good choices as citizens. There is an oligarchy, but only because not enough Americans are being good informed citizens, and the oligarchy is very very good at lying and misdirection.
Rationally tell as many as you can about the oligarchy, and spread good ideas like this article.
It doesn't have to all burn, there still is alot of good here worth saving.
Was first familiarized with this process when my mother died over 20 years ago. Went through the stages fairly rapidly and as laid out.
Today? The situation in America? Sorry to say I've been stuck in ANGER for quite some time now. Expect I'll jump bargaining and go straight to depression. Nothing printing and lying is gonna fix.
OT - Since Michelle Obama has been promoting healthier eating and fighting obesity/diabetes etc . . . why is she having a couple from Santa Cruz California who own/run an ice cream store sitting with her tonight? I don't have anything against ice cream, but after all that energy on healthy eating, why would this be showcased on the State of Union speech? Also, that parents of the 9 year old shot dead in Tuscan will be sitting with her.
wondering how you can be in the denial stage when someone is like, you know, dead. Can't bargain with that either
I'm not sure the denial pertains to accepting that the loved one is dead - so much as having trouble accepting that all of the things you planned to do with and for the person won't get done.
You won't accomplish a thing unless you get the sheeple off the TV habit.
TPOG
EVERYBODY MOVE TO THE INTERNET SIDE OF THE BUS!!
FYI: A LOT of Internet users see nothing at all, except Facebook and Google. It's just another TV station for them.
+1000000.......
Wow! Fight Club Goes Koombayah!
Excellent!
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/accidental-lives/
It is hard with all the bread and circus options, but i think many are ready to tellsometruth
The problem is that, generally speaking, Americans have poor coping skills. With the exception of the very elderly, most Americans have lived in the land of plenty and then some. Our poorest live quite well relative to 3rd world countries. We don't know how to deal with the smallest bump in the road. It's going to take a good generation or two for mindsets to toughen up in this country.
People with poor coping skills consistently make poor longterm choices. It's just like kids who consistently flunk the "Marshmellow Test"....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amsqeYOk--w
That particular test is not really comperable to the real situation.
For that they would have to amend the test so that once the 15 minutes is up, the doctor comes in and eats the marshmellow in front of the child, then puts a ball&chain on the child's leg and makes it do the doctor's housework for the rest of its life.
...and sell bonds to China based on future productivity increases in housework, and that of said child's children, and their children
these tests are great.
And there's certainly little trends that emerge from these revolving around certain demographics that tend to have poor socioeconomic standing. It turns out that there are correlations between impulse control and criminality, low IQ, etc. Most of the data won't see the light of day because it reveals "hate facts" that certain people don't like.
They have done the same studies with one lollipop today or 3 tomorrow. There is a pretty profound demographic breakdown between those who can control impulse and use the abstract concept of the future and those who cannot.
There is a nurture component in this, but also a very strong nature component that is not amenable to teaching out. However, stupid IS as stupid DOES; culture is reflective of people, not the converse.
"culture is reflective of people, ..."
but dammit if the Madison-Ave $$$ aren't friggin helping re-inforce this cruddy culture ala MTV, etc. and we push the button again and get more pellets.
from a few feet up, looking down on it all: in the cultural nurture/nature debate, what if the nature is to be gullible/impressionable...? go long MSM?
Speaking of denial, Hawaii Governor now says there is no birth certificate in the Hawaiian system for Barry.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/01/friend_says_abercrombie_to_him.html
The article says he searched the records at all the relevant hospitals. Records of births and deaths are normally kept centralized at the county level. Plus, the governor stopped his probing when he learned that it is illegal to publically disclose information about birth or death records. Given this, I question whether he actually confided something to a friend when he knows that is illegal. I don't trust the article.
Thank you Charles Hugh Smith
Americans sit around on their fat asses poking at screens and keyboards, playing video games, and all other manner of pretend work. Gee, I wonder why everything is getting so tatty?
That's what happens when you have a centrally planned economy that treats a "consumer" as a resource to be allocated.
Well, lets take a public outrage like sitting in commute traffic.
After cutting off your fellow citizen, beeping your horn, and flicking another fellow citizen off, you finally make it home.
Now with those extreme tempers flaring, do you call the transportation head and cuss him out? No.
My point is, we always go after each other before we go after the politicians.
yea i went to my first local tea party and there were just a few people there and they were wondering if they should just change there names to the conservative party and bragged about how they like hasseling the local Dems :( then one old dude took over who ofcourse is real angry with no possible solutions for anything and wanted to talk about how neat it was to scam ( NOT HIS WORDS ) the local prison thru selling them phones and rates at outrageous prices . Yea i asked if they were going to be ready when the Repubs failed to take on all the new people seeking a new party , they just stared at me like i was from outter space haha maybe i am...
There are a lot of folks hanging on to hope that the GOP will rise to the occasion and save the day.
You have to wonder whether the denial will break early, late, or never.
We are to blame? Go f yourself! pick up a shovel after the leachfucks fed on me for generations? As we were reamed, betrayed by our 'leaders?!'
Go FUCK yourself I WILL GLADLY watch this Nation BURN!!
And they call me a troll! How about some basic kindness to fellow.sufferers of these leaches? Teach a disadvantaged kid to read? Start a neighborhood beautification project ? Yes it does.depend on you and me and others.
I don't see how it would hurt to roast some marshmallows over a few bankers, though. We need to keep old traditions alive while developing new ones that show some benefit from our previous misfortunes.
Can we start with you?
You are welcome to try...
I love these bankster shills who pretend to be for the common man, but somehow end up shifting the blame from the crooks and fraudsters onto the victims. Yes sir, it's our fault that we were defrauded, just like it's our fault the bank got robbed because we were too lazy to guard it 24/7. What a crock of BS, anytime I hear the "fat and lazy American" crap I know there is a bankster shill behind it. Let's not have a short memory, don't forget that it wasn't that long ago when a lot of Americans were self reliant. The fat cats couldn't make much money off these people so folks were urged to get rid of their gardens, chickens, and pigs. Food was cheaper at the grocery store than you could grow it yourself. Yep, the everyday Joe pushed for globalism, I'm sure everyone who had their job moved over seas was all for that. This is a thinly veiled attempt to take the focus off the real crooks.
He seems to be sincerely trying, but he's a victim of his own position. Hope it don't get him lynched.
Right on Hacksaw, the monsters in charge don't understand anything less than a guillotine. Wish it were not so.
I see you're stuck in the "anger" stage RafterMan. . .
their plan, working as intended.
I've never been a fan of nationstates, flag-waving, cheering, et al. - but a realisation needs to happen that amrka has been living off the captured resources of other nationstates for at least as long as we've all been alive. . . yes, the tide is going out, and most likely a tsunami will overcome many - but staying angry at people you've never met, nor will you, ever - this just undermines your own life.
no one says you need to join with the author of this post - but do yourself a favour and find some others you trust, and make some plans to be as self-sufficient as you all can. . . soon.
Along with
"The check is in the mail." and
"I will still respect you in the morning." please add:
"I am looking for work."
ye cats and little fishes!!!
There's work to be done everywhere you look!
what people really mean when they say this is that they are looking for a free regular paydcheck without much or any effort on their part.
Those vague unquantifiable "animal spirits" of markets and economies apply here too. Most of the great city states had a period of dynamism and energy resulting from a spirit of cooperation and a belief in the fairness of the system despite unequal outcomes. Early republics seem to be the most dynamic and full of energy. The shared community and feeling personally responsible.for.your surroundings and governance are key. How will the usa ever develop that again?
I disagree with the "you did this to yourself" premise. That's a propaganda cartoon of an old school fable and it's another way for some people to avoid sharing responsibility themselves. ("It's the fault of the greedy fish that they needed water to live").
Most people simply had no choice but to accept credit. That was no accident, that was done by design by the architects of monetary policy in the 1980s. Ordinary middle class incomes needed the step ladder of credit to afford 'the American dream'. The theory was that would stop people saving and instead get them spending to increase demand for ever more stuff.
A solution can't be reached until there's a view of shared responsibility.
I also have to mention this: the theme from this article is "Every Man for Himself". Anyone who believes that that's a model for building a new advanced economy is deluding themselves. It will just accelerate the trend of allowing our competitors to muscle in and accelerate the decline.
Whether we did it to ourselves is just a semantic debate. It is still our problem and we should own it.
Yes, he seems to be channeling the Collective Super-Ego. Perhaps it is a fair assessment for people like him. But it surely does not do justice to a lot of people.
Nonetheless, work seems like a good prescription for all.
Ah!
American Dream? Who swallowed that hook, line, and sinker? Buncha fools -- us.
The Dream was set forth by those who got rich off the idea, and the public fell for it.
So, at the root WE are the architects of our own fate.
since you beat me to the quote that caught my eye Rocky, I'll jump in *here*
if you chose to pursue "the American dream" then you bear the responsibility for that choice, even if it has soured on you. . . not all of us clamoured for that nightmare, not all of us were busy buying big homes & consumer *toys* over the decades, vacations & upscale meals out, etc.
plenty, even amongst ZH'rs, have chosen to bypass the consumer treadmill, and many are even hella wealthy with escape plans in place - within the diversity, it's acting from where we *are* that will make a difference in the outcomes. . .
but yes, the one thing we all have in common is we've been HUGELY lied to.
this isn't America anymore, not the one we thought we lived in.
I mean look at the TV programming, MTV especially. This nation has been culturally ghettofied.
I mean look at our President for fuck's sake. The nation elected an empty suit to the highest office over what, this fetish for diversity? The nation is mindfucked and it will have to burn. There's no way around that.
CHS is the one in denial. He thinks we can roll up our sleeves and stop the avalanche. We cannot. If you really want to find acceptance, you have to give yourself to the hands of fate like a person on a liferaft in the middle of an ocean storm. You have to accept that things can and probably will get far worse and there is nothing whatsoever you can do about it. It is out of your control.
The desire to impose control over the uncontrollable is what is denial.
++
"The desire to impose control over the uncontrollable is what is denial."
nuture or nature, that? i believe we've been chronically lied to by our culture/religions, but there's got to be a deep-rooted 'head-in-the-sand' gene that pops up some 53% of the time - H&C, etc.
I am left wondering what the difference would have been if Trav had been breast fed. :)
Hard to disagree though. The desire to impose control is what got us here in the first place.
lol...i was breastfed. haha
But the inability to accept cold reality is what denial is. Sometimes, you simply cannot control things. I'm not one to talk, I get pissed off over traffic jams. I don't like lack of control.
But those who continually say we can "fix" this with some sleeve rolling are fools. They are the ones in denial. Sometimes forests just get so diseased that they have to burn. It's hard to look at history and think that this will develop any differently.
My father used to say that when I was 18 :)
But your right. It's now cool to see your daughter be threaded like a hooker by a lowlife that uses drug and doesn't work.
I have a young daughter myself, and if she would ever come home with something like that I WILL PUT HER IN A BOARDING SCHOOL AND KILL THAT MOTHERFUCKER!!!
this shit is everywhere unfortunately, and people are too stupid to step up and say what is right.
You cannot blame the thug class for wanting their offspring to have better genes, but you can sure as shit fault those who let the opposite happen on account of it
What is it, about 3 out of 10 students who do not earn a high school degree? So, a bit less than 1/3. Combine this with the current and upcoming state cuts in education, let me guess where that figure will go.
It will be a slow burn. I am willing to say, stick a fork in us, we are done. Combined with a plethora of other factors, a trashed generation awaits us.
Perfect conclusion for yz's birthday..."Is anyone out there ready to work?
That kondratieff chart looks like it was somehow extended out a few decades. Looks like the massive money printing of the last 30 years has kept us from having to deal with any real economic contraction. Soon we will pay a heavy price for this manipulation. So yes, while the 5% of us are ready to work, the other 95% are too comfortable pretending that their standard of living should never change and can only go up.
I am perfectly willing to wait out the consumer-zombie apocolypse and then regroup with the remaining 5% and start over, after the 95% have died off.
Great piece and great advice. If you don't have the skills, at least develop a library of all the skills think you might possibly need-in paper.
I think the opportunities will be great. I think everyday Americans can be what they need to be to succeed. I have real doubts of chaos, except in large urban areas. Glad I don't live in one of those.
Another skill people should be considering- a viable sound money system for local trade if FRN's break down. Understanding the concepts of sound money and an efficient clearinghouse system could keep the local economy going.
I'm gonna check out the Fridays menu on my intel laptop running microsoft software, drive over in my Cadillac, and order a sam adams and eat a cheeseburger. I will think of all the mopey gloomers who really BELIEVE the USA doesn't have wealth.
America rocks I think y'all forgot or never knew
the people or the leadership/lobbies?
big difference.
AMERICA ROCKS. And we make AWESOME THINGS TODAY
I like alot about America. But, sorry, America's leading export for years has been financial crime. And military hardware.
Now we're adding hunger and starvation. It's hard to be "high on America" today.
How about "high IN America", huh, huh?
How do I disable this godddddamn webcam?
I'm 34
I have my own house (of which the bank still owns 90% :) but once inflation kicks in I'll downpay the rest with 1 oz of silver :) )
I have a good backup store of real money in silver
So if the whole system goes down:
I still have plenty of time to start over
I have a loving family that is motive enough for me to do so.
Why, SD, you ARE human after all! ;)
But, you said housing prices were up 600 percent in Belgium. When did you buy in?
About 4 years ago. I bought is for about 280.000 and now it's worth about 500.000 if I would sell it.
We also have 2 appartments we let for rent. My wife's first appartment and my first appartment.
Those will be for the kids when they leave the house and start their own life.
Well, that's more like it. I don't like to have my faith in avatars shaken.
Righteous Stuff....
Tyler, do you have statistics about the number of pawn shops from 2000 untill now?
Here in Europe they are poping up like mushrooms!
In the last 2 years the number of pawn shops has gone up 360%!!
Blood plasma mills are expanding big time. Everybody should go into one at least once. Consider it an act of social responsibility that you get paid for.
It's a mindboggling scene. People being milked of their blood like cows on a dairy farm, reclined on space-age beds that look like something out of a science fiction flick, row upon row twenty "donors" deep.
Selling their blood.
Really, folks should go see what's going on here.
And they use much of the plasma for....?
Makeup. I once read a poem by a street guy here likening kissing a woman with lipstick to vampirism. Creepy is what it is.
It's a peak experience in its intensity. Strongly recommended--even if you can't use the $35 they pay you for the first visit.
Of course, the compensation drops sharply from there.
I've considered pawn shops as well, but can anyone chime in on the profitability?
I am assuming pawn shops are making their money only on taking in gold/silver, not sure of the margins they get there.
As far as the pawn biz, I'd think people are pawning their stuff to raise money but don't plan on getting it out of hock. That leaves the pawn shop to sell the stuff to make a margin instead of getting an awesome annualized return on short term loans. Since they have to sell stuff they are probably pawning even less on it since they have to keep stuff 30 days before selling and then go through the sales cycle.
Maybe with the downturn plenty of people are shopping at pawn shops and the goods turnover is better than I think. But I have to believe pawn shops made more money during the boom when they'd get joe blow to pawn his construction tools every month until payday, banging him for 40-50% or more APR returns.
If anyone has feedback on the biz please chime in.
Well, I have already started Krav Maga lessons :)
And I've started drinking Vodka because those bottles are just perfect to make molotov coctails in ;)
Much thinner glass than my Beck's bottle, I'm thinking . . .
Beck's.... are you serious?
That's piss in a bottle!
Mass market availability. I live in a small town. You're right about the bottles, though.
Nice analogy.
YO YO bitchez! Now I need to get back to work.
Unfortunately, and I say this with a heavy heart, we are way past the tipping point. Already there are preparations for the end game, which will occur only after the masters of the universe have stolen the rest of the wealth that they already haven't. The whole fascist control by TSA is the canary. Only fascist regimes have ever promoted ratting out your neighbor. We have at least a few years yet as all the "structure" is not yet in place. When it is, the market will suddenly crash and the unionized TSA will be deputized as neighborhood wardens. The FEMA camps will fill up with all those who dissent, all in the name of National Security. Incrementalism is a bitch; watch and learn.
Not if a focused and trained bunch get the drop on them first!
"Guess where wealth comes from?
A: We make it.
It doesn't come from Government."
and the indonesian liar is going to babble about how the government is going to cause more jobs to appear with his new visionary bullshit....yes the government is still responsible for the economy, jobs, and skittle shitting unicorns.....
www.obamacrimes.com
Sorry, I wasn't aware people still listened to the Kenyan. Fortunately, I stopped paying attention after Nixon.
I don't buy the "social security is gone and can't be saved" mantra. The moment you put Medicare, which is unsalvagable, in with Social Security I knew that something was amiss with this post.
Yes, we have serious problems, but you don't start with Social Security, which has been in surplus for three decades. You start with the bigger problem, Medicare and the broken health care industry, and then go to our oversized military and its empire of bases.
Only after you address the first two do you look at Social Security. Otherwise you are just pushing an agenda, not honest reality.
This is bullshit. The "Social Security is gone" drumbeat continues. The old age portion of SS is OK for the next 50 years. Then a mild reduction in benefits may be warranted if the crystal ball is clear enough.
Understand if they can fake you out, the benefits will be curtailed or the funds handed over to Wall street. But if you think you'll get out from paying 13% or more of your wages, you need to have your head examined.
Until you realize that there is no money left, not because of social security or medicare, but because Congress and each president have continued to replace the money with promissory notes- notes that require additional debt funding to pay.
The money is not sitting in an escrow account gathering interest. It has been stolen and spent.
Now, who do you think will have a greater influence: the payment of interest on the national debt to banks or SS? The funding of the military or SS?
It is not about what is right or fair, it is about tyranny of the minority- the elites that run almost every country in the world. You can see their memberships registered in the list of countries with a central bank.
It's dizzying to watch this hustle of "the money is gone" sweep across the landscape.
The SS Trust is a real entity that holds Treasury debt. No, it's not money in the bank. Yet other Treasury loans, e.g., T Bills, are not money in the bank either--but they're considered as good as money. They're "guaranteed." That guarantee is founded upon nothing but intent to perform on a promise, however--they're guaranteed until Treasury defaults on them. They're nothing but securitized loans.
For some reason that is wholly bizarre to me, a meme has developed that the loans held by the SS Trust are not equally binding, essentially due to the form of paper they are printed on. Yet they are debt obligations of the Treasury, plain and simple. I don't care if they're just scribbled on the back of cocktail napkins, they're assets that are just as real as any other form of government debt . . . popular pretenses to the contrary notwithstanding. Failure to pay them is a Treasury default, plain and simple.
It was clearly stupid (interpreted benignly) for the Treasury to fashion this debt in a form that allowed it to conveniently exclude it from calculations of its debt. Yet it remains a debt.
If the Treasury is going to default, let them start elsewhere. And let's stop talking like bullshitting retards: It would be a Treasury default.
I find it strange that so many people who expect the entire system to melt down within 1-5 years have such a hard-on for slashing SS due to "sustainability" problems that will emerge in 2030--20 years from now at the earliest.
Stranger still, though, to hear them selling the theft/default.
Philosophically, I agree wholeheartedly Bob. Pragmatically, the potential for default and a haircut is realistic. So, like in any budget- where do you cut?
See, I don't expect a meltdown of the "entire" system- empires just don't do that. However, if any one is going to be shat upon, well that is usually the common man.
Security (military) while reduced will be considered necessary. Bond payments are usually at the head of the line. Further, you piss off the bond holders- how do you refinance your debt?
What does that leave? The other big thirty percent- entitlements. I'm thinking crewcuts...
This still doesn't get around the fact that there is no money in ANY government trust fund. There are only bonds (which need to be rolled over), or IOUs (SSTF). Since we have -$14 Trillion in the bank, at some point, paying SocSec obligations requires that we issue actual marketable debt, on top of funding existing operations...currently also at a deficit, while being funded with money stolen from SSTF. What happens when that slush fund dries up? We will have to issue more debt to fund both.
Who ultimately pays for this debt? Who will buy it? What will the interest rate be? Will we be able to afford to service that debt? What about decreasing revenues from record unemployment and Walmart-ification of jobs? COLA adjustments? In what world does loaning the government money, to fund our retirement make sense, when it is we and/or future generations, who willl have to pay back the principle+interest? This only works when growth can continue indefinitely. It will not. PERIOD.
Full faith and credit means jack-shit, when the math does not add up, and you are trying to squeeze skittles out of that unicorn. 2030? We will be lucky if this lasts to 2015.
All I'm saying is let's start using the kind of language to describe the problem that we have a right to expect at ZH.
It's a Treasury default, not an unfortunate misunderstanding.
The SS payments from a fund of promissory notes gets paid monthly in the form of another promissory note (FRNs).
Can you say, "PONZI"?
The entire monetary, financial and government finance systems are ponzi schemes. There's no reason to specifically dismiss SS on those grounds.
Reciting that empty rhetoric about SS effectively promotes the con.
Bob, S.S. is nothing but a ponzi scheme pure and simple. Although it would be a hard sell to simple cut out S.S. completely, the process has already started. When the gov. lies to the people and denies cost of living increases because of some made up phoney and massaged consumer price index figures, and there is no demand by the AARP and pensioners of the government to quit bullshitting them it just encuorages the bastards to keep giving more and more to their banker buddies and to keep screwing us just a bit more. It's the boiling frog thing.
These sociopaths will not stop. Ever! Til we are all groveling for a bowl of food willing to do their bidding for scraps. Or til we finally get it and revolt.
I'm sorry to say I have to agree with the people taking a harder line than the author of the article. The time for playing nice with the culprits that got us here and are continuing to stick it to us is long past.
At some point we have to stand up and say enough is enough and make a stand whatever the cost against these greedy psychopathic murdering swine.
Sorry, didn't mean to front run you on the Ponzi theme.
Sean, you got it mate!
SS is NOT some separate isolated independently funded program. It is a general obligation just like your mortgage doesn't have a mortgage fund and when it runs dry you tell your mortgage company your mortgage fund is empty, while you pay your 3 car and 1 boat payments and continue to take vacations.
It is a total lie perpetuated by govt to scare people into raising taxes to cover the SS fund rather than cut spending elsewhere to continue SS benefits.
Paul Ryan is about the only one in CONgress who talks frankly about our problems and watch, he will be relentlessly attacked by the left as an evil butcher boogeyman!
You're right, the left will do just that. I suggest that Ryan advocate making those cuts in defense spending FTW.
so true that it hurts....thanks
You know when else "grabbing a shovel and just starting there" is appropriate?
After the Zombie Apocalypse.
Oh this is good news! I'm looking forward to a larger paycheck now that taxes previously allocated for social security will no longer have to be deducted from my net paycheck! Right? They'll reduce our taxes right? LMAO!!!! AHAHAHAHAHHHHHAAAAAHHAAAAA
Wow, Charles Hughes Smith for president! where do I vote, talk about resonating!
I just watched CNBC where Kessler said America has 60 tn of net wealth out of 100tn in asset (excluding Fraudie and Funny, Social Security etc, but some assets like roads and beaches etc).
I am trying to get postive without reaching for the JD!
"If not, well, maybe a just, moral, and functional country is not for you."
1. What makes you think the state (any state) is even potentially just?
2. Please don't perpetuate the misconception that the Kubler-Ross model describes an ordered progression. It does not.
So, now, because of what all these whacko wallstreet types and bankers have done to our country, I have to share my garden, work hard, salute the flag, be brave, work hard, sing the national anthem, etc., etc., to make our country great again???? What is going to happen to those who did this to us? Well, I will tell you:
They will continue on, using us, making fun of us, building themseves and theirs on our work, our faith in our Country, and our dedication to putting things back so they can make even more money and buttfuck us even more in the future generations.
Acceptance:
"I bought just a monster box of Maples today!"
Denial:
"Why the necronomy is just fine!"
Good post. But how long can one be in denial?
http://troyounce.blogspot.com/2009/08/denial-anger-bargaining-depression...