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Guest Post: The Strategic Outlook - Fear and Uncertainty Have Paths of Their Own
Submitted by James Stafford of OilPrice.com
The Strategic Outlook: Fear and Uncertainty Have Paths of Their Own
Fear and uncertainty create patterns, paths of their own. And societies are again in a mosaic of uncertainty — and resultant fear — over the fate and durability of the social and security frameworks once taken for granted. Mass reaction to these fears will trigger transformative change. But there will be opportunities to seize and command change.
Almost all societies in the world have gone beyond the stage where they expect stability and linear progressions of the past to long endure. Some societies — almost en bloc — anticipate the end of their security; others anticipate the end of their suffering. Few expect insulation from change. That change, however, need not be entirely inscrutable if we look at global patterns and at historical human behaviour.
Economic Patterns: What we now call “economics” determines power and conflict patterns because wealth, or the deprivation of it, determines survival, and, for those who survive, “economics” determines the relative control they may have over individual and societal destiny. Thus social behavior determines economic viability, and the failure or success of economic patterns determines social corrective or compounding action.
We are about to see an acceleration of social reaction to economic failure - a reaction to the inflexibility of policies which have failed to adjust to changing circumstances.
Many finance ministers are speaking, still, as though their national economies can perform well with just minor adjustment to old patterns. This may not be so, particularly in the West, where the rapid growth in state revenues since the end of the Cold War pushed governments down the path of highly capital-intensive programs in areas which absolutely do not contribute to national productivity in essential manufactures or primary industry, and in many cases actually constrain productivity rises. As wealth grew, and tax revenues rose commensurately, the logical approaches of governments in market economies should have been to reduce taxation and further stimulate investment.
This occurred only rarely and incompletely. Taxpayers, also benefiting from rising wealth, themselves did not demand that governments constrain their spending. The situation thus created massive state sector positions in the Western economies. When recession strikes, industry and private citizens scale back and pay the price, but governments are less flexible. Unions and state workers make themselves immune to cuts and to the realities of the “real world”.
In countries such as Greece, France, Spain, Portugal, and so on (and now the US, UK, Australia, etc.), those in the private sector who have come to rely on state handouts — and therefore become “agents” for statism, and by default are opposed to market freedom — compound the entrenched political class’ view that the state should not undergo the kind of profound self-analysis and restructuring which the private sector must embrace.
The US, Australia, Greece, and so on, as just a few examples, are undergoing per capita productivity declines just at the time when they need to be developing a strategic buffer of internally-balanced economies and the ability to better compete internationally. And there is a fear that if wasteful government spending on huge capital projects ceases, then economies will collapse.
This fearful, selfish, and ignorant intellectual process within governments has been caused by the hubris generated by unfettered control of great wealth, and the presses which print the money. But governments only have the ability, in real terms, to dominate the non-productive — or, at best, productivity-enabling infrastructure — spending. Only by returning spending power to the innovative sections of society (in other words, the people) can economies become nimble and productive.
This is unlikely to happen, so we should expect sudden contractions in buying power in many Western states over the coming few years.
We are also already witnessing the contraction of some aspects of multinational mechanisms to amass and deploy capital wherever the market determines it can profitably be invested. Part of this contraction derives from the situation in which the world is entering a period where it may soon be without a viable global reserve currency. This in turn leads to the point where trade becomes more bilateral; investment scope becomes limited in some respects; and nationalism — and with it, protectionism — revives out of economic necessity.
There have been many factors leading to the revival of nationalism since the collapse of the brief (45 year) bipolar global strategic framework in 1990-91, and these were touched upon (certainly by this writer) from 1990 onward. So the seeming uncertainty in which we now find ourselves did not emerge suddenly or without understandable cause.
Perhaps, then, our “uncertainty” is not so uncertain?
Strategic Patterns: What clarity is emerging?
- Western economies will continue to decline, in real and strategic terms (if not in nominal accounting terms), unless truly radical re-structuring occurs, including the rapid and massive reduction of the size of government intervention in economies. This means an end to the era of entitlement welfare. However,
- No democratically-elected government will dare face voters if it reduces “bread for the masses”, that method of cheaply buying votes. So most governments will continue to jeopardize their nations — by continuing the bribery of the electorate — in order to remain in office. Change, then, should only be expected through the appearance of massive threat, or national collapse, enabling the emergence of decisive leadership not based on the popular vote.
- Those states which abandon forms of taxation (such as those based on carbon emissions) which curb productivity will fare better than those which do not.
The immediate future, then, will be commanded not by electoral “democracies”, but by decisive non-populist leaders who truly return productivity to the marketplace.
Russia and the People’s Republic of China are thus favored.
Source: http://www.globalintelligencereport.com/articles/The-Strategic-Outlook-Fear-and-Uncertainty-Have-Paths-of-Their-Own
By. Gregory R. Copley, of www.GlobalintelligenceReport.com . For Breaking Geopolitical Intelligence, economic forecasting, trends and World News visit the Global Intelligence Report.
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but the obama spokesman? with more mascara than phyliss diller is telling us obama is not killing the american dream - fear not
We need some voting restrictions to put an end to the entitlement class. If you don't have a net tax liability, you don't get to vote. No skin in the game type thing. And/or a poll test..something like this:
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx
Happy Constitution day everyone!
We could start with people having to register their own selves and go to the polling place on election day.
I hear compulsory voting in Aus works quite well, but then I look at the average American, and consider the potential foresight and wisdom of the Alien and Sedition acts.
For a while I'm pretty sure you had to own property to vote...Populism got that one too...
Could we settle on a qualifying IQ test?
Given that now nearly 50% of the population, Obama gratias, no longer pays income tax, and that the poll tax/literacy tests were eliminated due to fears of "racism," how far do you think that your proposal will go?
Your proposal hearkens back to the days (cue the Lone Ranger music) when this country was still a Republic, as mandated by its Constitution. The Founders knew perfectly well what might happen when the illiterate, pennyless rabble were equally enfranchised (a good example was provided forthwith by the French Revolution); their model of government was only workable with a moderately intelligent and educated group of INDIVIDUALS guiding the ship of state, not a freaking "community" of whatever can get you elected this year. De Toqueville understood this all too well, as a French aristocrat who had seen the effects of the Terror, and its unhappy aftermath (which, by the way, in case anybody has forgotten, engendered the ravings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, got them published, and inspired the Revolutions of 1848, etc., etc., etc....ad nauseam, to this day.
Thoughtful post Puckles. Anyone who has read Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West will grasp the truth of it. We tend to look at history as what happened over the last 50 years-maybe even less. When we we stand back a further, say looking thru the glass of centuries do we see the up close falsehood of our current vision and what it portends. Milestones
Thoughtful post Puckles. Anyone who has read Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West will grasp the truth of it. We tend to look at history as what happened over the last 50 years-maybe even less. When we we stand back a further, say looking thru the glass of centuries do we see the up close falsehood of our current vision and what it portends. Milestones
Thoughtful post Puckles. Anyone who has read Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West will grasp the truth of it. We tend to look at history as what happened over the last 50 years-maybe even less. When we we stand back a further, say looking thru the glass of centuries do we see the up close falsehood of our current vision and what it portends. Milestones
A triple--damn. How do you delete a post?? Please, I need some help. Milestones
In "Starship Troopers" (the book, that is), only the military or ex-military were allowed to vote, which makes a lot of sense -- only those willing to put their lives on the line should be allowed to vote.
Waking from my nap to get on some longs for the 3:30 jack
Grab some darts and some stock tickers and let 'em fly.
With 97 pc correlation I just don't wanna hit the sports page.
...or the Police Blotter (GS).
"Russia and the People’s Republic of China are thus favored"
http://seanlinnane.blogspot.com/2010/08/their-guy-our-guy.html
Im channeling my fear and uncertainty into stockpiles of non precious metal based ammunition and firearms. At least you can sleep at nite.
Revolution bitchez!
Russia and China have already had theirs and ...they win! HAHAHA
How many free market orientated revolutions have you had in the history of human kind ? So I would not necessarily be loking forward to the next either
After the French Revolution most political scientists believed that ALL revolutions had a first stop in despotism. You are right. BTW George Washington's character alone is the reason The US didn't!
Devolution, bitchez!
GW (the real one) was the effect, not the cause. The American Revolution, much like its forefather, the Glorious Revolution, was one of the very few recorded conservative revolutions in history. Read what the people were upset about (it's all laid out in the Declaration of Independence, and it certainly cites despotism, aka tyranny); you will understand it thus if you do.
That GW rejected the appeal of some citizens after the the war to be anointed King, was not only a matter of his own character and backbone--it was one of the principal elements the colonies had fought against, i.e., TYRANNY. GW understood full well what he had risked his life, that of his dependents, as well as his entire fortune upon (any signatory to the Declaration of Independence, and his adherents, was/were automatically designated as traitor(s) to the British Crown, and subject to capital punishment if caught, as well as the forfeiture of their entire wealth and holdings). GW would easily have been a billionaire by today's hideously inflated dollar reckonings; he was among the wealthiest Americans.
Can anybody today imagine the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or (hold the nose) George Soros risking anything similar? That is what we are really talking about. How the hell do you think any of the less than wealthy Revolutionaries were inspired to go all out?
Common sense would have told any normal person to stay put and shut up back then. But what if the leading people of your society (well, ok, not all of them, I'm descended from both Patriots and Tories--it was, after all a Civil War) told you they were putting their lives, and those of their families, and all of their wealth, on this thing?
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
Puckles, I feared the roots of America’s rare Liberty Tree had been torn asunder by the cunning of the self-seeking and the ignorance of the indifferent who ate of its fruit but never knew how it was produced—a stopping by to smell the roses and then tearing them out by the roots sort of thing. The Liberty Tree again is an object of ridicule, as when the British soldiers tarred and feathered a Stamp Act resister in Boston, and forced him to march in front of the tree.
Though the tree has been cut down many times, in your words its rare roots still live. Thank God! The question, does the outrage of the Sons of Liberty still live?
Thank you.
The Liberty Tree, by Thomas Paine, 1775
In a chariot of light from the regions of day,
The Goddess of Liberty came;
Ten thousand celestials directed the way,
And hither conducted the dame.
A fair budding branch from the gardens above,
Where millions with millions agree,
She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
And the plant she named Liberty Tree.
The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground,
Like a native it flourished and bore;
The fame of its fruit drew the nations around,
To seek out this peaceable shore.
Unmindful of names or distinctions they came,
For freemen like brothers agree;
With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued,
And their temple was Liberty Tree.
Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old,
Their bread in contentment they ate
Unvexed with the troubles of silver and gold,
The cares of the grand and the great.
With timber and tar they Old England supplied,
And supported her power on the sea;
Her battles they fought, without getting a groat,
For the honor of Liberty Tree.
But hear, O ye swains, 'tis a tale most profane,
How all the tyrannical powers,
Kings, Commons and Lords, are uniting amain,
To cut down this guardian of ours;
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms,
Through the land let the sound of it flee,
Let the far and the near, all unite with a cheer,
In defense of our Liberty Tree.
Ah...they barely managed to get the 13 colonies moving in the same direction; only a numbnuts would attempt despotic rule over such a chaotic mix of 'subjects'.
Washington was not only humble, but sane and tired.
@Strategic Patterns
I agree but where the hell are you gonna get the next Margaret Tacher or Ronald Regan(i c none) ?
"The immediate future, then, will be commanded not by electoral “democracies”, but by decisive non-populist leaders who truly return productivity to the marketplace."
I would say in the immiediate future will have more Obama(s) and Chavese(s), things will get a hell of a lot worse before they get any better, there are too many statists and bums out there and the only way to root them out is to burn the house down
We'll smoke the monster out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t5QMWnidl0
Ronald Reagan, the guy who introduced the term, deficits don't matter.
Tatcher, same + she needed to win a war to get her populaterty.
Both were corporatists. We in the west have 1 thing in common, we all need better leaders then the kind of Reagan and Tatcher were to get trough this mess sort of in 1 piece.
It was Dick Cheney who said:
"You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter.” Dick Cheney to Paul O'Neill
It was recent Fed governor appointment Janet Yellen, a noted dove on inflation, who told a gathering of bankers in Idaho in July 2009 that "deficits do not cause inflation" and dismissed any deficit concerns.
Reagan, who brought down the Berlin Wall much to Kissinger’s chagrin and was “the most successful conservative American politician of modern times” according to national affairs writer Tom Curry on msnbc.com, was severely limited in what he could accomplish by a Democratic-controlled Congress
Even so, when he became president in 1981, Curry points out that federal spending accounted for 22 percent of the GDP; when he left office 8 years later, federal spending was 21 percent of the GDP.
The ideas that he championed — lower taxes, giving more power to state and local governments and limiting welfare entitlements for single mothers — didn’t reach fruition until the Clinton presidency--after the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995.
How many people came to America and contributed to that GDP?
Care to run the same numbers with 'per capita' on the end? (didn't think so)
Reagan INcreased the size of government and ruined this nation with his grandstanding, deficit-soaring bullshit.
His ideas on lower taxes hit the upper income echelons in 1982, dufus.
And let's not forget that the S&L scandals were on his watch too...the foreshadowing of assraping to come.
As for the Dem-controlled congress, why were Ronnie's budgets always 2% higher than anything proposed by that congress if he was so 'conservative'?
Revisionist dickhead worshiping morons like yourself need to pull your heads out of your asses and accept responsibility for what you've wrought on our nation. You got EVERYTHING you wanted. Unions: 7% of private sector, 12% of whole. Taxes lowest since WWII. Regulation an obvious joke (Macondo?). And STILL you accomplished nothing but a $789B socialism for the rich and economy to be wrecked for decades if it recovers at all (yeah, a LOT of that debt is STILL from Reagan).
And it was a FUCKING REPUBLICAN that closed the damn gold window.
So save your weak-ass, Ayn Rand-spouting TeaPotDomeExpress BS for the weak-minded watching FOX.
Thanks for your comments.
You will get no argument from me on the ever-accelerating size of government.
Obviously, this has been primarily due to the expansion of social programs instituted by the Democrat Party. But at this juncture, to select a president to criticize for the ills we now face, it is a curious act of blind partisanship to make that one selection Ronald Reagan.
Are we to overlook the malaise of Carter, the reversal of America's free enterprise philosophy by FDR, the ham-handed excesses of Truman, the problems of Richard Nixon, the embarrassing America-drubbing of Bill Clinton, the compromising-with-Democrats Bushes?
And let’s not ever forget the depth of the morass we find ourselves in from the savage duplicity of Lyndon Baines Johnson and the excesses of The Great Society.
Nor do I think it would be fair to discuss a line of presidents and exclude the name of the current occupant of the office as somehow a mismatch to their scale of failed leadership when he now appears to be the culmination of all our ills.
None of this of course would have been possible, in the words of Woodrow Wilson, without the establishment of the Federal Reserve. And he should know.
HaHa!! A good laugh! How do ya really feel about Ray Gun in your heart of hearts?? 100% right on target. Good rant. Milestones
Odds on O's re-election?
It's a lock, although it really doesn't matter now, does it?
Red Team. Blue Team. As long as you buy tickets, beer, and a foam #1 finger the League doesn't give a shit.
http://www.intrade.net/market/listing/showEvent.faces;jsessionid=52369D9...
LOL, good luck just living another 2 years thru this shit!
Depends, if TSHTF and he arrests banksters and executes them, then odds are in his favor -- if TSHTF and he tries to throw more tax-payer FRNs at stimulus, then odds are close to 0.
What a crock. Oil industry shill. Keep burning that subsidized oil and coal, cuz bad things will happen if you don't.
And yes, let's abandon the welfare state, corporate welfare that is. This is a corporatocracy, douche. Taxpayers matter not a whit.
Welfare, Unions, trial lawyers, Acorn, blah blah blah.
+ "unlimited supply"
I predict Alaska will secede and if successful Texas and Louisana will follow. Think Obama's willing to send in troops? I don't. He's not man enough.
The first one to drop is my next destination.
I was just thinking Texas would need a longer fence LOL
We welcome immigrants as long as we don't have to pay the government taxes to have them...it's all President Lincoln's fault.
It wasn't about slavery it was about commerce and oh yea, the overpaid labor unions crying about unfair competition with "slavery"...who our the slaves now? Everyone...
Nice job Yanks...every putrid idea of America's destruction has been derived from the "north".
I hope the whole southeast goes.
Not having access to his birth cert.....I don't even think he is a man........
Texas perhaps. But Alaska and Louisiana, no way. Both states receive far more in Federal spending then they pay in Federal taxes.
Looking at a map of which states are more fiscally responsible, the list of secessionary states would be:
Texas, Montana, North and South Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska, etc. In short both coastal areas deserve to go up in flames for spending like drunken sailors.
went long on 6.8spc today.
+1.308
"Change, then, should only be expected through the appearance of massive threat, or national collapse, enabling the emergence of decisive leadership not based on the popular vote."
Damn, that's cold and, though apparently to be embraced according to this author, is certainly not something on my wish list.
Hell, even Hitler went through the motions of an election to get in, IIRC.
Who is this guy?
I doubt that the the author is referring to the installation of new "leaders" by any voting method whatsoever. I suspect that he is thinking of far older paradigms. He is,after all, talking about "the appearance of massive threat, or national collapse."
Hitler was quite unique in his manner of manipulating a putsch, although Mussolini also reached power by the electoral (and then eliminating it). I would, however, point more towards Napoleon--the Hitler of the 19th century-- as the sort of evil the author envisages; he remains a model for nearly all 3rd world potentates, especially Castro. Note the latter's recent recantations of his mandates for Cuban economic excellence; his model died once the Soviet Union collapsed, despite some Venezuelan propping in recent years. They are all, in the end, toast, but I'm very much afraid that he is suggesting that they are our future.
blah blah blah
This is one of the worst essays I've seen on Zerohedge. Just a serie of tired clichés and ad hoc presuppositions with nothing to back them.
Strategic outlook you say? Worthless.
Well I for one certainly enjoyed Art Cashin's brain puzzler of the day!
500
Too easy, Zerohedge's CAPTCHAs are often more difficult than Art's brain puzzler of today.
So I take it you will be forwarding a thesis to Tyler so he can up date this piece ... ?
Your government sold your future out. We are slaves to the Fed and to anyone that owns our debt.
That White House thing? Just a giant antebellum mansion lording ovr the plantation. But this time the slaves are primarily white and our owner tries to be.
There is more Israel is mad at Syria because they bought 32
P - 800 Missles from Russia... New and Improved
land to ship missles ( Kinda like Iran's Sunburn Missle )
Now the Jews and the US Navy are not so Big anymore...
I think someone at the various missile sites do, in fact, need to be alive to fire them. Important safety tip.
Revolution bitchez!
Based on the Stalin mustache, I nominate John Bolton Dictator!! Zeig-Heil
David Axelrod could play that role too...
creepy thought
Are you boys and girls ready for the 330 trading frenzy? Keep ur powder dry, clean off the enter key. Take California and lay the points. Yeee fucking haw!
The line has been crossed, and now it's all downhill from here.
Off topic, but I'm not sure what Karl's doing here. Usually his stuff is pretty good, but his solution in this case is absolutely nuckin futs!
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=166872
Sure, making the dollar worth ZERO is more harmful to China's treasury holdings than the 310 million people living in the USA? Come on Karl......
elements of truth to what he is stating. Looks like he has gone off the deep end though, should of bought some Au, its the only sanity left....
Hey! What's happened to the 3:30 pop-a-dopolous?
A measly 8 points? Timmay pass out on his after lunch schnapps?
It's always sumphin I tell ya!
As you get older, it becomes more difficult to get an erection on a daily basis.
Agree with the writer to a point, but true change cannot come without a complete colapse of the existing system - you cannot rearrange a house of cards and expect it to keep standing.
A fucking yawner. Geezus. If this shit keeps up I'm gonna have to get a job. I can't even make the payments on my cheap ass 5 series.
i wanna know what happened to the "bored me to death" t-shirt girl? now i have to look at pics of Hillary trying to "tell me something?" BSski! I like it better when someone is trying to sell me something.
Yes, I agree; it is only those nations that retain their orientation toward survival and refuse to allow their sense of identity to be dissipated, as Mr. Copley has pointed out in the past, who will succeed as a people, as a culture.
And, in that respect, yes, “Russia and the People’s Republic of China are thus favored,” as Copley suggests.
The internationalists have for nearly a century been in the business of molding public opinion in support of globalism and internationalism, away from nationalism—counter to the fundamental principles on which this nation was founded and which made it great.
The Rockefeller Foundation minced no words in 1946 in advocating globalism:
“The challenge of the future is to make this world one world—a world truly free to engage in common and constructive intellectual efforts that will seve the welfare of mankind everywhere” -- a “common world,” of course, which the foundations envision and seek on their rush to international collectivism.
If the world is entering an era where there is opposition to international organizations such as the IMF, an opposition that may leave the world without a reserve currency, I am all for it. I can’t think of anything better than each country with its own currency operating on a worldwide rate of exchange. It seems to me a world reserve currency is a stalking horse for the international investment bankers.
The international bankers are always against protectionism because it leads to tariff wars. International bankers hate nationalism because it interferes with their commissions and investments. They want to be able to operate quickly and profitably unrestricted by borders and national interests by pressing their buttons without any interference from protectionist governments.
After these many decades of concentration of power in the hands of the ultra-globalists, the subtle-propagandists, nationalism is rearing its head.
Germany’s backbone is forcing her politicians to be more concerned about German citizens than citizens of the Zone.
The British people oppose joining the governments on the continent—it’s the rise of the conservatives against the labor party.
The tea party movement has erupted in the U.S. against the establishment's two-headed hydra one-world party. One of these tea party candidates is calling for the abolishment of the United Nations. That’s nationalism.
Hugo Chavez is operating on what’s best for his country.
The Chinese are nationalists; and the Russians always have been. When you sit down to talk with the Russians, you may be talking about the world but they are talking about Russia, what benefits Russians – and always have been.
The oligarchs hate nationalism because they can’t steal; it’s nailed down. Pick up a piece of aluminum over in Russia and underneath it says, Call Putin First.
Nice post JR. The truth of it is that all the vested interests in Globalism have attacked similar writings..Here on ZH we have a core of those who support a march to Global unification (often called free trade ), even though they cannot over come simple facts..such as WHAT MAN or small group of men is so wise as to run the world.
as I have written here many times: when Angels run government any system works ..when men run concentrated centers of power tyranny and corruption always appears.
and so it goes..
There is some of this, yes, but it's not a universal sentiment. All U. S. citizens do not subscribe to this view -- and there are quite a few of US. I wouldn't get in the way of any of them when the rubber hits the road. Sure there will be riots in the streets but mostly in containable areas. Don't head out into the hinterlands expecting refuge.
Um..... pretty much all of recorded history shows that the typical approach of governments is to loot, pillage, and grab everything they can get their hands on, simply because it is there and that is what they do. Not sure why anyone expected any different this time around.
No offense but sometimes this site reads like endless malcontent ranting. But at least nobody gets away with anything.
Relationships?! Wall Street doesn't do relationships. Except when casting that is.. ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz CLICK. Line out.
I found lots of interesting information here. I love zerohedge.
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