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From Reform To Collapse: The Dysfunctional Status Quo
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
In a Dysfunctional Status Quo, Reform Triggers Collapse
You cannot "reform" away the dysfunction of the Status Quo without dismantling the vested interests and the ruling Elites that benefit from the Status Quo.
The dream of every conventional reform movement is to rid the system of its dysfunctional features while preserving the Status Quo.
But what the reformers don't understand is that the Status Quo is dysfunctional not because of bad policies or a few corrupt officials--it is corrupt and dysfunctional from the ground up.
Dismantle the dysfunctional parts and you've dismantled the entire Status Quo.
This is why it is so difficult for countries to reform their dysfunctional regimes. Consider China, everyone's favorite example that trees can indeed grow to the sky and beyond:
Reform unlikely, says China expert Roderick MacFarquhar (via Maoxian)
MacFarquhar, a professor of history and political science at Harvard University, said the vested interests of the political elite were so entrenched in a corrupt system that an overhaul would amount to dismantling the regime.
Despite hopes the regime can peacefully transform itself into a democracy with rule of law, MacFarquhar said he could not see such a transition, which would require the ruling elite to give up its power and privileges.
Although a political system's inertia often meant a fragile regime could exist for years, MacFarquhar said unpredictable circumstances could trigger its collapse. "You don't know what can unseat a fragile system," he said.
Doesn't this apply not just to China but to Greece, Spain, Italy, the E.U. itself, the U.S., Japan and a host of other developed nations all depending on financial slight-of-hand "extend and pretend" to prop up the dysfunctional Status Quo?
In every case, eliminating the source of the rot and corruption would topple the increasingly fragile regime. In the case of China, corruption isn't a feature of the regime: it is the regime.
In the U.S., financialization isn't a corrupting feature of our financial system: it is the system.
In the E.U., catastrophically misguided central planning isn't a feature of the Eurozone: it is the Eurozone.
In Japan, a stupified government propping up a zombie banking system isn't a feature of the Status Quo: it is the Status Quo.
Any reform that actually excised the source of the moral rot, corruption, malfeasance, fraud, malinvestment, moral hazard and self-serving vested interests would bring the increasingly fragile Status Quo crashing down in a nonlinear cascade of interlocking failed systems.
Here's an example of how unsustainable systems fail: the housing bubble. I prepared this "domino effect" graphic way back in July, 2006, when conventional wisdom held that there was no housing bubble: Housing Dominoes Fall (July 26, 2006)
Just as it was easy to predict the implosion of the housing bubble and the financial system that created it, it is also easy to predict the collapse of the euro: The European Financial Crisis in One Graphic: The Dominoes of Debt (October 24, 2011). It took about 2.5 years for the dominoes to fall:
You cannot "reform" away the dysfunction of the Greek Status Quo without dismantling the vested interests and the ruling Elites that benefit from the Status Quo. The same can be said of the Status Quo everywhere from the U.S. to China.
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1939 the sequel, this time its nuclear.
The people who can pacefully change the status quo are the ones making a profit out of it. They are not interested in changing it.
The ONLY "change" that can occur is that those in control lose control, and with such loss, their "wealth."
This is ALL about sustainability. Excess IS excess, and it's not sustainable. Generally those who demand change are only demanding a bigger piece of the same rotten pie.
The "status quo" IS all to do with "growth." And we know that this is a finite planet, so...
unfortunately history is not on your side this time, those in control will just change the coat again
Noo-Cyuh-Lurr... It pronounced Noo-Cyuh-Lurr. Noo-Cyuh-Lurr.
I used to cring every time W tried to say that word. What a dumbass losser! W i.e.
Oh goody!
I'm so glad we kept up the bomb shelter Dad built under the back yard
in '63!
Now where are the batteries for that Geiger counter??
Sooo basically we are doomed, these are the cycles of things, and all we can really do is sit back, watch, and try to carve a life out for ourselves from the remains of the detritus?
Why blog? Why comment? Why do anything?
Go to the beach. Read a good book. Go fishing. Buy a MIG welder. Repair the washing machine. Turn off the TV. Enjoy life.
your list is ALMOST complete...you forgot Kick a bankster firmly in the balls .
Beach (check)
Book (check)
Fishing (not really my thing)
MIG welder (actually a check on this one)
Washing Machine (funny. Check here too... bypassed a broken switch on the lid, machine now unsafe but works... ok with me)
TV off (check)
Damn it. Now i'm secodguessing my recent purchase of an Ac/dc TIG welding machine. Think i'll try welding silver one of these days. Cheers.
You forgot DELETE FB PROFILE
Buy and repair/maintain a small displacement motorcycle with capacity to carry various loads. MC should get approx 70 - 90 MPG or better. Have tires/spare parts on hand for same. Have enough fuel on hand to keep the MC running for a year... stored safely of course. Learn how to maintain this MC and have necessary tools on hand... maintenence is straight forward and simple for anyone with the slightest mechanical aptitude.
An older Honda 90 - 110 Trail works well and they have no (depending on year) modern electronics to fail. These Hondas are still being produced and sold around the world but were not imported into the US after 1986 due to EPA rules. The Australian Postal Service continues to use the Honda 110 Trail, known there as 'the postie'. Top speed is 40 - 55 MPH, depending on gearing and hills... fast enough to beat walking or waiting on a bus. Definitely NOT for interstate hwy use. The Trail is much more rugged than modern 'scooters' for they are built for road or trail use. My Honda starts on first or second kick even after sitting for a month... they are kick start only and will start/run well even with a completely dead battery because of magneto ignition.
These MCs can be found on EBay Motors under a motorcycle search for 'Honda Trail'. Prices vary from ~ $300 - $2,000 depending on condition, mileage, etc. Sometimes found on Craigs List as well.
Offered as real world practical advice. Also, buy a heavy duty lock/chain cause they will be in great demand and are light enough for a strong person to lift.
Exactly. There's plenty to do until the killing gets started in earnest.
Because the last domino is not the end of the world. There is no capitalism without bankruptcy. The sooner it happens, the better things will be for the 99%.
now you're learning boyo
Because we are, if nothing else, optimists at the core.
As Derrick Jensen put it (and I totally agree: It's entirely possible to hold two conflicting views: 1) We're totally fucked; 2) Life is good.
All is subject to the laws of the universe (or, as one may wish, "god"). Balance is only possible with the existence of two extremes, meaning that there cannot be just one side, one "happy" side. I'd further add that the words "good" and "evil" are highly subjective; example: to MANY the very idea of a cessation of growth means "bad" (or "evil"), yet, continuing to push growth (as was done by the real estate bubble and all the other centrally pushed bubbles) will most certainly result in lots of suffering.
Good post.
We are totally fucked in the overall cosmic sense--the earth has another 500 million years or so before it becomes uninhabitable. So if the human race is even still around by then (a really big if), and we don't get moving on to other places, then that's that.
Thanks for distilling Chuck "Even love notes to my wife are 3500 words" Smith this time so the rest of us don't have to labor through it.
You make the best of whatever you have to work with. If the system is collapsing and there is nothing we can do to stop it, next best thing is to save what we can and step aside before the wreckage buries us.
If enough people wise up in time it will be possible to side step most of the blows and cushion the blows that can't be avoided.
Meanwhile the more people who are self sufficient the less load on the system and the better for the unfortunates who didn't get the word.
Euro markets rolled over in mid-2011. The last two markets to go are the NYSE and NASDAQ.
http://bullandbearmash.com/chart/sp500-closes-week/
Take a look at what the last few days have transpired into.
Burn bitch Burn
Let 'Er Rip!
The Ponzi is reaching new peaks
Our financial alchemy reeks
Despite what we try
Our system will die
The crash will begin with the Greeks
You forgot to put a printing press between each domino ... thereby stopping any from falling ... and everything is perfect!
It's the "5P" world plan ...
Print and Produce Perfect Prosperity in Perpetuity!!
Turkey: Finance Minister denies paying in gold for fuel to Iran
Iran: Iranians can no longer export gold without approval by the central bank, an official was quoted as saying on Wednesday, in a new effort by the government to restrict outflows of wealth. The move follows media reports on Tuesday that Iran had banned the export of some 50 basic goods, as the country moves to secure supplies of essential items in the face of tightening Western sanctions which have destabilized its rial currency.
Turkey Exports to UAE (Gold): Gold sales, particularly to the United Arab Emirates, in September help the overall exports of Turkey, economists say. The Gulf state has purchased more than $1.1 billion worth of gold last month
The question that comes to mind, with all of these countries buying gold, how does the price continue to get manipulated down, and when does physical gold become decoupled from the manipulated market that includes paper gold?
Maybe you're overlooking the obvious fact that for every entity buying gold, another entity is selling gold? Duh.
Nobody knows what gold will do. If it is re-recongized as money, its perceived value will increase. If interest rates go up, gold's perceived value will decrease.
"I am a student of uncertainty" - Hugh Hendry
OK so lets get this show on the road and over with already - time to re set and move forward.
S Knight...
I suggest that you relax and enjoy this period of 'phony normalism' while it lasts. Once the shtf the era ahead will be long and fraught with unexpected pit falls and obstacles. Use this time wisely... and, good luck to us all.
Rockdelle pulling a NITE Dick Bove must have left a old trade tickets in his desk........BOOM
Que Rick Santellis Howard Beale schtick. 3..2..1...
The foundation of all rights is the right to property, yet it makes no sense to enforce it now, when most of valuables currently in possession belong to crooks that acquired them illegitimately. A confiscation, on the other end, opens door to abuse and misappropriation. The strongest members of the current elites will end up segregating even more wealth under any redistribution scheme not involving total asset destruction. Under redistribution, rights become subjective and methods come into conflict with the ideals.
The only fair way to restore justice (and the most painful) is an economic singularity and possibly war, where assets are physically destroyed and those that aren't, revalued. The world where everyone starts from scratch and earns their worth back into the new society. The world where old accomplishments and track records don't matter, where everyone's initial credibility is zero.
Seems that the more the status quo is attempted to be maintained, the more likely that outcome becomes.
The first paragraph of your post is masterful. Bravo. May it sink into our minds and stay.
The second is speculative, as must be so much of our thinking these days.
We'll know that last domino has been hit when the Bundesbank demands its gold back. Oh wait...
Collapse is a grey area. By all accounts most of us would say 25-50% unemployment is a "collapse" but apparently the markets say collapse is when someone forces those with Greek bonds to take the default and by that account, we can play this game a whole lot longer. They can vote for more austerity and stop paying for everything. Heck they can sell off all assets and watch the riots but as long as ECB, France and other banks don't take a writedown..then there is no collapse. Ridiculous
The Flynn Effect proves that IQ increases over time in people... we evolve intellectually. Some of you (the naive) believe change can occur to the status quo prior to the time the Flynn Effect hits critical mass and people's brains evolve to the point they are smart enough to figure things out - won't happen. I will never live to see it, but one day the stupid sheeple may evolve intellectually enough to see things for how they are and... when that point is reached and critical mass takes over, THEN the status quo may be uprooted. Of course this would require that the smartest/evolved people not allowed themselves to be controlled by fear and rest assured the sociopaths/psychopaths will utilize every bit of fearmongering they can in order to maintain the status quo and "their world." Keep wishing/waiting everyone.
I hate to break it to you, but the scammers at the top of our ponzi economy are getting smarter too, pursuant to the same Flynn Effect.
Not only are the people at the top getting smarter, their manipulation via mass media is getting better. Trial and error of various methods of manipulation/indroctrination via more sophisticated means of communication is helping them.
For instance, Joseph Goebbels didn't have the internet to use as an arm of propaganda distribution.
Turn off the boob tube and carefully select/filter 'news and opinion' gleaned from the internet... might help those at the lower end even though bias will always enter into the outcome. Of course, the lower end is not reading ZH... lol.
Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
-George Orwell
Enjoy playing into their hands.
And the stupidity of NJ hits ...
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/11/non-union-alabama-utility-worker...
Yeah, stupid. What I don't understand is why anyone would want to pay for overpriced 'Merkin labor when the illegals are available for a far cheaper rate.
It's interesting, but it seems to me that CHS is mistaking the GOAL for "dysfunction."
The objective here, in all the places he lists as problematic, is the creation of a global (and decentralized) social organization in which the rich dominate and direct the lives of the vast majority of the human population.
Stability and protection of the wealth of the 20,000 folks who own the planet is what *everyone* is working towards.
Where's the problem? I see plenty of cause for *complaint* if you're not one of the 20,000, but you don't really matter unless you're prepared to do something about it.
10 more years of deflationary collapse - and the bankers will be able to foreclose on 90% of the businesses, real estate, city monuements, public parks, etc, of the "West."
that is obviously the plan.
all you have to do to get rich is hold cash, short rallies, an GTFO of the big cities.
um, the only thing deflating is incomes. I'm looking for an inflationary crash.
Either way, I'll shoot the bankers before they foreclose on my country.
Madcow, you are indeed mad ---- that cash that you cling to is constantly losing value, as all fiat currency has throughout history, and in fact must lose due to its inherent fraudulent nature. But go ahead and throw away your wealth if you chose to; you will only have yourself to blame.
You must have aced your SAT's. I say we are in an inflationary environment and you respond by saying i'm clinging to cash that is constantly losing value.
AKAK for scholar of the year. Quick, here's a nobel prize and a Dick and Jane book.
Madcows, I was responding to the poster directly above you --- "Madcow" ---- NOT you!
Pay more attention.
Madcow is a visionary! Think about it... first you bail out the elite who "want it all" and then publicize the elite's gambling debts to the sheeple while concurrently debasing fiat via QE... unemployment goes up, wages down, foreclosures up on the dullards/sheeple, etc. All the while the banksters hoard cash... trillions! Once you have bankrupted the masses via stacking the deck in your favor while simultaneously screwing the 99% THEN... and only then cut back/implement austerity and watch houses, land, etc., prices plummet. If you're a bankster sitting on mountains of cash this is a wet dream come true... you can use all that free cash to buy up assets people cannot afford at a fraction of their value! Of course paying off Washington to help you promote the idea of privatization of all public services completes the corporatracy plan. The game of monopoly just went to warp factor 9. If you follow madcow's advice you may come out of this smelling like a rose... a rich rose! Madcow is a MadGenius!
Like the dominos Charles, good graphics that
"In the case of China, corruption isn't a feature of the regime: it is the regime."
the problem is Govts job description, it goes something like this:
I Ye Annoint Ye King for the Day, to Lord-It over society and sitteth on here ye Throne. Maketh wise decisions for the masses of sheepeth out there, even though there art millions of individuals, handeth down 1 mega decision and make them all swallow it like it or not (behead any dissenters/traitors)
May your ego expand to derangement by surrounding your Lordeth self with crones and courtiers, giveth to those who come to your court flattering your wisdom for doting on them the riches thieved, sorry taxed, from the sheeps hard labours. If you pisseth it away, no matter My Lord, tis not your money burnt at the stake, tis others, no skin off your most elegant nose
there
doesn't matter wether this false and fabricated throne over society be wrapped in Tribal leader leathers, Church gold-plated robes, Royal regalia or Govt institutional arrogance, it's all the same office and one whopping lie we need others to make decisions for us
the pretence, arrogance and dirty bloody lie that people need to be 'governed' when they're perfectly capable of looking after themselves... not only look after themselves but suffer the burden of these arrogant lazy thieving scum and support their deranged egos pissing away our stolen money
time to move on from this antiquated bullshit and thieiving from society.. we can govern ourselves, just as nature outside our doors does every single day far better than our epic destructive farce of a system
fuck these parasite systems ...let's have freedom
Stop Paying Tax ..cut the suckers off
They don't need our taxes as long as they have printers and bond markets. The taxes are just to force us to accept their fiat moneys.
the Feds printer is empowered by a Govt monopoly license. The Fecd is a plucked turkey without Govt to enforce its monopoly on money. Remove Govt and it ends there and then the Feds cartel and a whole host of other monopolies/parasites that depend on Govt for funding and enforcing their protection racket
So we're paying (taxes) to fund this institutions oppression of us ...stupid huh? But it' a super simple structure to unravel this entire bloody mess, the key is:
Stop Paying Tax ...zero Tax = zero Govt = zero Fed (and a legion of other monopolist parasites)
Let's get the job done simply, quickly and effectively
The madness of TPTB in devaluing the currency used by the government itself, to purchase goods and services from the private sector, is simply amazing.
As the governments own spending power is inflated away by its own keynesian spending and borrowing sprees. It demands even more revenue or borrowing that in turn produces more inflation.
This never ending increase in governments taxing, spending, and borrowing and inflating, regulating and controlling will eventually end some where somehow as the private sector disappears underground or just simply disappears as it has in Greece.
Then in the end all that will be left is the printing press and the agony that invariably comes from it's role as the answer to every government problem.
Sad that we have to re-learn this painful lesson all over again, all the while watching it unfold In slow motion while realizing that the time has passed when anything can be done to stop it....
We are seeing the emergence of a new plutocracy, that will feed itself on the blood of falling nation states in decay. The unbelievable squeeze of middle class disappearance in first world is the price that must be paid in this rape of those that wiil be led to the financial guillotine in this "inverted totalitaran" world. Now the Oligarchs get their payback for two centuries of nation building based on the Enlightenment and the great leveller of vertical society to a horizontal middle income construct by the nascent democratic and republican institutions that have emerged in this enlightenment thread.
The plutocracy justifies this change by arguing it has spread the wealth around the world and opened the progress pipeline to all of humanity. This would be a valid argument if it had not been done through blatant criminal manipulation of first world and emerging world economic paradigms, through financialistaion that impoverishes the state and enrichens the off shored coporates and Oligarchs; making the emerging nations slave labour surrogates. This wealth pyramid in itself is the very death sentence of this artificial construct that contradicts every past known lesson in history. You cannot sustain a model where one man's worth is equal to that of 100000 slaves for any long period.
It won't work. No Oligarchy survives without a nation state structure to support it. No Oligarchy survives in an apolitical vacuum where its own people turn against it. They become sitting ducks for the 'barbarians' who have an intense desire to build their wealth by poaching off those very oligarchs who revel in their ill gotten gains in seemingly protected compounds around the world, and this is achieved by copying the dismantled models of civilization they have abandoned in their lust for personal power. History repeats.
Roman Pompei or Byzantine Constantinople are there to remind us of that. Agamemnon, Crassus, Manuel Comnenos, Louis XVI and their progeny never win; once they have lost their own people. Its a sterile quest and a self defeating flash in the pan of a decadent age.
America has a moment in its history as lead nation of first world that will define by its own Oligarchy momentum how fast this facade will crumble. Nothing allows us to perceive a light at the end of the tunnel. Its dark, very dark out there, up ahead.
This would be a valid argument if...
It's a LOGICALLY valid argument regardless of those points, but isn't the more important question whether or not it's TRUE?
'Cause it's not. "Spreading the wealth around the world" apparently just means changing which tiny subset of the population get to be rich.
I think we agree, unless I'm missing something, although we SAY it differently.
I suspect we're broadly in agreement, I just try to write for a slightly different audience around here.
I'm sure you know who I mean...
I read this article twice, just to confirm that I had to agree with everything it said! The only solution is revolution, but that only happens after the established systems become so totally mad that they destroy themselves! Only AFTER the established systems have destroyed themselves does it become possible for real revolutions to emerge, for a short while, until some new dysfunctional system perhaps emerges to take back control, after going through that psychotic breakdown.
I have spent pretty well my whole life thinking about this! The established systems are based on huge lies, which only worked because they could be backed up by lots of violence. However, those systems were still based on lies, and that violence could never make those lies become true. Therefore, those systems were always inherently headed towards psychotic breakdowns, while the ONLY thing that they could do was tell bigger lies, and back those up with more violence, which made everything worse, but then, AGAIN, the only way that they could respond was to redouble their frauds, and redouble the force that they used to back those frauds up.
ONLY MORE RADICAL TRUTH CAN PROVIDE REAL SOLUTIONS. However, it is practically impossible for any such radical truth to do anything until AFTER the established systems become so totally mad that they destroy themselves. There is no way to "reform" the established system that can possibly work. There can only be revolutionary changes, BUT, those have to MAYBE survive through the psychotic breakdown phases of civilization collapsing into chaos, when the established systems of dishonesty, backed by coercion, finally reach the critical threshold of craziness which is too much for even them to continue.
REVOLUTION IS THE WORST SOLUTION, BUT EVENTUALLY THE ONLY ONE LEFT, SINCE THE ESTABLISHED SYSTEMS BECOME IMPOSSIBLE TO REFORM, BECAUSE THEY ARE FUNDAMENTALLY FRAUDS, BACKED BY FORCE, WHICH CANNOT BE SUSTAINED, SINCE IT IS TOO MUCH "SUCCESS" FROM DOING THAT, FOR TOO LONG, THAT IS THE WAY THAT THEY CAUSE THEIR OWN FINAL FAILURE!
As this article correctly stated: In a Dysfunctional Status Quo, Reform Triggers Collapse. Anything sufficient to fix the problems would also cause the established systems to cease to be able to function, which is just another way to state that THE ONLY SOLUTION IS REVOLUTION, DESPITE THAT THAT IS THE LAST THING THAT WILL HAPPEN, WHICH CAN ONLY HAPPEN AFTER THE ESTABLISHMENT'S MADNESS HAS ALREADY DESTROYED ITSELF.
Our social problems have to work themselves up into social storms, that blow themselves away, before it becomes possible to rebuild, IF we can then ...
The normally literate CHS doesn't know "sleight" form "slight". Unless it's a typo.
The thesis of the article is generally correct, IMHO.
I'm not assuming you don't know the difference between "from" and "form," either.
.......