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Guest Post: What Do We Expect To Happen?
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
What we can expect to happen generally happens, as the causal chain cannot be disrupted by wishful thinking.
If I go to Las Vegas and gamble with abandon, what do I expect to happen? If I wander alone through a tough part of town waving my iPhone around, what do I expect to happen? If I insist on hiking up a muddy rain forest trail in street clothes in the pouring rain, what do I expect to happen?
We all know what is likely to happen: In Las Vegas, we will lose our stake; in the tough part of town, our iPhone will be stolen, and on the tropical trail, we will get soaking wet.
These consequences are easily predictable. What we can expect to happen generally happens, as the causal chain cannot be disrupted by wishful thinking.
Yet when we re-elect the same politicos who have failed miserably for years, we somehow expect they will magically succeed in providing leadership the next time around. When we eat visibly unhealthy packaged junk food that is engineered to trigger our reward centers with massive doses of fat, salt and sugar, we somehow expect there will be no consequences of eating this "food."
We sit in front of digital devices all day and eliminate physical fitness from our schools, yet we expect there will be no consequences from this inactivity.
We create trillions of dollars from thin air and borrow trillions of additional dollars into existence, yet we expect there will be no consequences from this unprecedented monetary and credit expansion.
We borrow a third of all government expenditures, yet we expect there will be no consequences from this monumental dependence on public debt to maintain the Status Quo.
We buy the cheapest quality goods, yet complain about the poor quality.
We pursue a plan of borrowing our way to prosperity, yet we are flummoxed that prosperity is elusive.
We push everyone with any assets into risky asset bubbles with zero-interest rates, yet we are surprised when asset bubbles pop.
What do you expect to happen? The causal chain cannot be disrupted by wishful thinking. Bubbles will pop, and increasingly leveraged, fragile systems will crash. Hoping causal consequences will magically vanish is a strategy doomed to catastrophe.
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With "mark to fantasy", anything can happen. The question is, when it does, will you survive? Of course I don't know if I would trust anything in an article that believes anyone is actually "elected". The bottom line is that there have been any real consequence for the bad behavior of our "leadership" (in the public or private sector).
Rut-roh.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/food-stamp-benefits-going-down-holidays-8C11418632
Nice cover shot, I didn't see these three at the WalMart spend fests last weekend.
I expect us to go along our merry way with the sheeple believing that there are no problems even though the financial emporers have no clothes until such time as some seemingly small, seemling insignificant, tempest in a teapot event, sends the herd on a stampede.
You know everything is actually much much worse. Japan's accident has now shifted everyone's life expectancy down quite a bit. I am serious as a heart attack. There are consequences to killing every living thing in the ocean. The Fukushima radioactive plume of ocean water reaches the US's west coast in a little over 2 years.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. --Mike Tyson
cursing fish cafepress
There are consequences to killing every living thing in the ocean.
Maybe just a third of all the living creatures in the sea will die.
Or maybe fish is grow super-size by mutation of thyroid gland... does fish has thyroid gland?
Makes for a very busy hunting season!
I'm glad I've helped a number of my neigbors zero their scopes the past few weeks.
Should be some good venison for the Holidays along with some home made hard cider.
But expect fire wood and pelets to cost a lot more this winter.
Typical MSM Bullshit...So this woman is divorced and a picture is taken of her with her two children (Has three total)...Article never states if she has custody, nor does it state if she gets alimony or child support. The article states "she juggled things as best she could for a long time, eating little while her kids were with their dad so she could feed them well when they were staying with her." So, who has custody? And is she claiming the children when she applies for SNAP but doesnt have custody?
Well the lying media left out something: you pay the government half if what you make in taxes and the rest in inflation.
Also most people don't know that an employer pays more than your gross salary to pay a wage earner.
In order to help the poor, how about maybe the government stops stealing EVERYTHING?
... but, but, but, government is can know to do only one thing, steal EVERYTHING. Cannot teach ancient dog to new trick.
So here's the question I have:
I am told that a business exists to profit; not create products, not provide services, not employ people, not _anything_ but profit. Then I am told two more things. One, the market sets prices. Two, the consumer pays all burdens imposed on businesses.
Now let's hypothetically remove the government. Well, not the whole government. Contracts and subsidies would dry up and cause uncertainty. Clearly I mean just the taxation side that pays for all of the goodies.
What do you expect to happen?
A business that exists to profit will not up and pay you more just because it has more money. First off, shareholders at home would riot. Secondly, the market supposedly sets prices and wages are the price of labor. People were happy to do their jobs at $X. What about this turn of events suddenly makes their labor more valuable? Further, if the consumer was already paying for all of business' burdens, what, pray tell, were they complaining about? In essense, there was no burden to lift; it was already being shouldered by somebody else. Thus, "now business can do X" is dishonest; it was always capable if it desired to do so and simply chose not to.
And let us not forget, somebody still has to pay those taxes and debts. Nothing they refer to is going to go away just because an obligation was removed from one party. It will shift right onto the backs of the poor and middle class. You know, the people that were supposed to be helped by stopping the government from taxing businesses.
All I see down that road is feudalism.
NBC/GE/Comcast/Obama News picks a clean cut white mother with clean cut daughters who are not lifetime parasites with shaky employment because of Hope & Change. This is more evil conservative Repubs, Ted Cruz, Tea Party et al endless propaganda.
She was getting $600 a month for 3 people?
Government had been forcing everyone to use mark-to-fantasy, and then in November 2007, government forced everyone to use mark-to-market, then in March of 2009, government forced everyone to use mark-to-fantasy again (wasn't that only supposed to be for 10 days?).
Perhaps it was just a coincidence that the recession and stock market decline began in November 2007, that the stock prices bottomed out in March 2009, and that stocks have generally been rising ever since.
It seems pointless to argue about which is better when it will be artificially mandated to change back and forth. Most people will never know it changed, let alone understand the likely consequences.
To make it worse, the mandate may only change for certain asset classes.
What do we expect to happen...? How about a $1 quadrillion platinum coin ?
I predict trillion dollar coins - probably not platinum - millions of them. And I also predict 100 trillion dollar notes. In fact, I predict coins of various denominations between 1 and 50 trillion, and notes of all different denominations between 100 trillion and 10 000 trillion. And a minimum wage of 750 trillion dollars per hour. Gasoline prices around about 400 trillion per gallon ...
(and the ATM still won't spit out anything bigger than a fifty!)
... and then a little bit later you'll get your quadrillion dollar (not platinum) coin, with other sizes up to fifty quadrillion dollars, and notes from 100 to 10 000 quadrillion, and 750 quadrillion per hour minimum wage ... and then ...
... and the ATMs still won't spit out anything bigger than a fifty ...
....fifties are the new twenties.....
No, the Treasury will never print anything larger than a $100. Massive inflation will only mean that everyone will be forced into a cashless society.
Truly amazing to see normalcy bias in the face of overwhelming evidence that everything is off the rails and we clearly have no tools to control the monster within. Terrifying.
Group think.
I still ahve assholes losing everything that tell me "don't worry, be happy". I'm not worried, I'm getting ready.
Who could not watch those EBT fiascos last week and not wake up?
ozzy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MLp7YNTznE
I recently saw a friend in SoCal that will defend SoCal and it's greatness to the bitter end. Even he is now finally smelling the coffee. Take away SoCal's food stamps, which very well could happen, and you are going to have a lot of people losing their marbles all at once that all live on top of each other.
What do you expect to happen when the interest rate hits 5% again???
And the cherry on top - 40% of the adult residents in LA County are on some form of mood leveling drug.
Nice, huh?
F***ing Calif. Unless you have tens of millions in live in Carmel or Napa - the place is a dump. You would need drugs to survive. I saw something that poverty in CA is higher than any state in the union!
...which is why a stock of "leftover" xanax and SRRIs might be good for barter.
"What do you expect to happen when the interest rate hits 5% again???" - LMFAO! Never going to happen.
Oh it will, we might be at war by then but the fed can only purchase debt while there is faith in their worthless script. Once that has erroded far enough they lose control of rates. It has happened to every expansionist money policy in history and this time is no different.
Everybody wants dollars until they don't. Then you'll be lucky to find anybody to lend money at 5%.
Interest rates won't go to 5% unless inflation starts going up and that doesn't look like a possibility at the moment.
At the moment it does not however the history of inflations is such that it can rise up out of nowhere and then it's too late.
With trillions of dollars floating around the globe it will only take a spark somewhere to ignite it. Perhaps it looks calm and cool right now but it may not to morrow, or in 3 years or in 15 years. Nobody knows when or what or how it will be ignoted only that it will.
The Fed is filling the basement with trillions of gallons of gasoline. At some point that fucker is going to blow.
Since food, fuel, and healthcare don't count in the "inflation" calculation, they will never "go-up".
Good fucking luck with that.
History shows that no society/currency has ever collapsed/died because their purchasing power became too strong.
Are we taling about inflation or "inflation?"
Interest rates will rise quickly to 5% as soon as the punch bowl is unceremoniously withdrawn. Which is to say never as far as the Fed goes. So they will get there by the slow but steady resolve of other nations shift away from the dollar and treasuries. To be clear, though, anyone with USDs on deposit with a "trusted" financial institution will be buying treasuries on a non-discretionary basis soon enough...
I recently saw a friend in SoCal that will defend SoCal and it's greatness to the bitter end. Even he is now finally smelling the coffee. Take away SoCal's food stamps, which very well could happen, and you are going to have a lot of people losing their marbles all at once that all live on top of each other
Why do you think their is no amooooo,and the prices have doubled/tripled.Same reason as DHS 1.6 Billion rd order/on hand,and every agency on the continent is flush w/ mil gear, and troopers?, go getting ready for the inevitable.
Bottom line we're all screwed.
Hillary/Biden 2016 is what I expect will happen.......
Biden as 'butt boy' twice over.
God, I may just get out and vote after all.
Hillary/Biden 2016 is what I expect will happen.......
I was thinking more Jarrett/Putin...
I expect to be tested in a way I never expected in my lifetime. I will appreciate what I will witness and I will prepare my children for their futures.
I agree. Boys need to be reminded that chasing a quick buck or a quick fu@#$% will get the better of them and ruin them.
All young people need to chose with the heart but make a decision with the mind if they are to end up with the right person.
We don't have to be tested unecessarily if we draw on the experiences of parents, grandparents and humanity and make the right preparations.
Yes we will be tested again soon, but all exams can be passed with a decent amout of study.
I see peak humanity.
In other words, humanity is generating the forces of a population thinning event; seemingly with glee, enthusiasm, and wanton abandon.
It just seems that way since it appears to be easy.
Trust is a tool.
That's been "The Plan" all along. They want to thin us down to 500 million worldwide or lower, if they can kill enough of us. Prepare.
Your figures are too extreme I believe. 500 million could never manage the structual things that are now in place and worth saving--it will all revert to weeded gardens as it were.
Further your 500 million target would mean the demise of appx. 6.5 Bn. people. Short of a massive necular exchange, how and who is going to bury them or dispose of their corspes to prevent large scale plagues which would jepordise those left remaining?
I attended a conference in Brazil several years ago and the figure reache dby concensus was appx. 2,2 Bn. persons could be a confortuble # if scattered arould the globe in a manner that would allow for a fairly prosperous society. Milestones
the lords of the world having shown their ineptitude to run the financial system can be relied upon to botch any herd thinning exercise they would plan on a centrally managed basis.
If they aim at 3 billions you can be sure they will miss it by at least 100%. So all bets are open on what that number may be.
A more interesting exercise would be to ascertain who would be predominant amongst the remnants.
I hope its those bantus who received a coca cola bottle on their heads.
The world deserves to begin on a fresh basis where those most guilty are the first to disappear.
Wishful thinking if you believe Homer. The good guys lost.
Well, I expect writers, poets and artists to run for public office. I see interplanetary travel and settlement becoming the #1 priority of all governments. Dr. Who is going to take us all back to the time when the only std's were clap and syphilis. Oh, and there will be NO fiat currency.
Problem is, i got hit on the head during my recent boating accident, and I'm just not sure I am seeing straight.
Maybe. I hope you are correct and we don't dip much below 2.2 billion. But there are wheels within wheels, plans within plans. There are entities that view us as a scourge and would sooner kill us all off.
In my worldview, my fellow neighbors are not the problem. It's the psycopaths that have seized control that need to be removed.
Currency Wars: check
Trade Wars: on deck
Shooting Wars: immediatly following trade war without intermission
Dirt-cheap, flat screen Tee Vees in working order, allowing the masses to remain mesmorized until the fighting reaches their doors? check
Small GPS tracking devices on every sheep's person: Check.
Continuous media brainwashing campaign to make sheeple think cell phones are a good thing: Check.
I expect chaos to happen. Just as Pakalolo wants it to happen.
Weiner-Holder 2016
The good thing is that bad behaviour reaches a point where either the bank manager, the doctor or the law puts an end to it. Until then, the human spirit of avarice and slothfulness runs amok and sees no brick wall.
Hang in there. The day of correction eventually stares us in the face when you find yourself doing 150 miles an hour on a 90 degree bend. Let us hope humanity opens the eyes of its soul well before that point. Or is it too late?
The "law"? Who's law? The law, just like the polito, is bought and paid for. Nothing but the guillotine "fixes" anything now and I'd argue that the guillotine has many forms.
It will be like an avalanche.
Where's the trigger?
Could be many things. If history is any guide, it will be food and fuel.
Nail, meet head.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/food-stamp-benefits-going-down-holidays-8C11418632
The bankers take trillions while the plebs worry about the guy next door getting away with a few scraps. What a fucked up world we live in.
He who has plenty has plenty of problems. He who has no food only has one problem. Starvation has a way of forcing clarity. Getting people off government assistance is one thing but you do it cold turkey style you are going to have some serious societal unrest. The riots probably won't be televised either if it can't be spun for political gain.
This is one of those things that doesn't need to happen simply because we can still produce a surplus of food and do it cheaply if the government would stop paying farmers to not grow certain crops. Don't give them cards they can abuse. give them food for fuck sakes. This can most certainly be done on a local level partnering with charitable nonprofit organizations. If Libertarians pick up the ball on this doing it on a local level, in voluntary charitable way, you'll go a long way towards winning the hearts and minds of the people when everyone is suffering.
Indeed, but math and the laws of physics still matter. for example, the earth still has a very finite carrying capacity, period.
But the banking system, the medical system and the legal system are all hopelessly corrupt and complicit. We can not expect them to call a halt to the apocalypse.
Fudd's First Law of Opposition: If you push something hard enough it will fall over.
The Firesign Theater Lives :-)
So CNBC is running this tagline with red white and blue graphics: "Rise Above: Win U.S. Back".
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
What the fuck is wrong with people?
The only thing that CNBS wants to win back is their viewership which has been reduced to you and Fonz ;->
I believe CNBC is a propaganda machine for the current administration. Everything is programmed through the current administration filter. It's pretty sickening if you ask me.
And the current administration is a propaganda machine and an enforcement arm of the quasi clandestine PTB (as was the last). Only a fool gets sucked into this red-blue shit emotionally.
Your point is well made. However, never have we had this kind of political machinery and propaganda fed from the major news networks like we are today. Bare in mind that I've been around a while to see the change.
People watch TV and Hollywood shit are stupid and their viewership supports the destruction of America. Keep watching sheep.
They're monkeys, that's what...
I know. Some people are so messed up they still pay attention to what CNBC says! Ignore them. They have no significance.
I expect to see more looting from the system. I expect to see TPTB continue to divide our society so that we look at each other as the vilians instead of correctly identifying the people who are responsible for our current state of affairs. If things get to heated I fully expect TPTB to drive us into an uncivil war and sit back as we slaughter each other before they come in and clean up the mess.
An uncivil war over the scraps left by the TBTF? Or an awakening whereby us plebs can unite to boycott these asshole corporations one by one?
It seems to me that politicians are at loggerheads simply to weaken us by dividing us. Perhaps that is the true source of the crap that is being generated.
The way I see it is that there is no mass awakening. The iSheeple are still soundly distracted by the false red and blue nature of our politics, and will defend their guy no matter what. It never occurs to them that they are being taken for a ride. Well it occurs to them, but they will never admit it.
As long as the thugs can bar entrance of a third party candidate/alternative to the game, we are done for. Then again, they are smart enough these days to create another beast disguised as a thrid party alternative.
TPTB have a majority of Americans partially and even totally dependent on handouts. Hell, as a physician, my livelyhood is indirectly dependent on government handouts via Medicare, Medicaid. Government "workers" not just depending on their cushy non productive jobs while they are "working" but also on the gravy train pension benefits they anticipate-just like the EBTers who await for the end of the month reset.
Thus no revolt or uprising from the masses..yet. And I'll bet the SNAP funds magically appear as the government has already stocked up through this latest lifting of the debt ceiling. The only thing I am certain of now is that the spending and printing will not stop. Even if they announce "cuts" come February 7, 2014, they will never materialize. It will be an underground shadow fiat printing operation to keep the supply going, until it doesn't.
You cannot even get people to unplug TV and Hollywood which helps control all this.
Seriously, after paying well over a million in taxes in my lifetime - I WOULD IF I COULD.
Joke:
A father finds his son on the front steps of the house murmuring away and saying "Fuck he can drive" and spitting on the ground next to him.. He does this over and over again.
The father eventually asks the son what is wrong.
The son replies that he was out on the road with his friend Jake in jake's new Mustang when they suddenly hit a 90 degree bend doing 150 miles an hour with a sheer cliff below.
The father with fear in his eyes asks his son what happened.
The son replies that he told Jake that we would give him a blow job if they got out of this alive.
The father asks again, "so what happened"?
The son spits once again, looks at his father in the eye and says "fuck he can drive."
fuck he can dive...thought the father. What a scuba.
Steal...steal all you can, as much as you can, as fast as you can...
Media Pimps for the Monkees, and its owners, as viewership collapses to the 30,000 prime viewer, a $ 16 Billion buyout disaster, GE dumped it at the top...
Maybe they should fine MF Morgan another $ 20 B from criminal? 2 Big 2 Fail? LOL, break it up.
Pull the plug on TV and Hollywood or keep being an O sheep. Aemricans sold their liberty for a clicker.
Wow, a gum chewing TV watcher was able to pull themself away from the Telescreen just long enough to give you a down vote? They must have done it during a commercial.
Where's the Trigger?
Well, there's one under Roy Rogers' ass.
It's not a matter of who you elect, but rather that you still think elections matter.
Whatever the problem is, government is not the solution.
All of us know we're headed for a train wreck. Ron Paul is right; we don't need a third party; we need a second party. I am a prepper but what good is three months supplies? Then what? I get some small satisfaction out of spending cash; it's unrecorded, all tips, local small business, house and yard help, etc. I have never cheated but I hope they all do. With the corruption at the top, morality and support for our system and our gov't seems useless.
I think in order to get a second party, we'll first need to go through a period of no parties. There's no way the establishment is going to tolerate competition. Therefore, the only way forward is to burn it all down and start over again.
Unexpected personal tradegy and loss is to be expected. Because there ain't shit for free, not ever.
Greetings from Las Vegas!
This place is PureTM wack. The emphasis on hedonism certainly appeals to those who come here to strut their stuff and flash their cash. Serious Chinese trying to break through at Black Jack at 4:00 AM. Some young hottie with a sponsor trying to make $1000 on a single pass ( not happening ). This is where Avarice, Greed, and Effeteness are plied with alcohol, stunned with false grandeur, and lined up for the fleecing. (Baa baaa). Pure want, no context other than the desire to Have, is the buy side; calculation and unrestricted supply await the lucky and the luckless. Most of the "players" in the casino downstairs look worn their eyes all dull or covered with sun glasses. The panhandlers have gone to calling out for quarters; back home it was "$5-10 would really help". Five bucks is the cost of one beer. Amid all the oppulence meticulously maintained there is a feeling of squalor. The conference that brought me here runs thru Friday. By then I am sure even the $140 Waygu will seem pedestrian.
On the plus side Vegas will give you a happy ending just before you get kicked to the street. That is something no Bankster would allow.
edit:
So I dissagree with CHS. Everyone here is convinced they are winners and the next whatever will give them some measure of meaning.
I had to go there for 2 days and protested every step of the way to avoid it. What a hellhole.
Dot,
Greetings from Las Vegas!
I think people go there to escape reality,if you have a steady diet of reality,it depresses the hell out of most folks.Not that there is anything I want from there, or to see.
I went to a conference there recently. It was during a summer month and the entire strip smelled like a sewer, literally. And "slap slap slap" went the street vendors, slapping the naked girl cards as the tourists walked down the street. Vuck Fegas.
"We push everyone with any assets into risky asset bubbles with zero-interest rates, yet we are surprised when asset bubbles pop."
We haven't gotten that far, yet. The bubble is still growing.
"Bubbles will pop, and increasingly leveraged, fragile systems will crash." Harder.
The end will come when millions of people can't pay for their prescription antidepressants and all go apeshit at the same time. That will be the "zombie apocalypse."
What do you expect to happen :
Concerning the JPM saga and record fine and pending investigation, a phrase caught my eye in MarketWatch :
“The short answer is we don’t know if there will be further fines for the firm,” said Jacob Frenkel, former SEC enforcement lawyer and federal prosecutor. “The firm is still fraught with litigation.”
And this : ...The firm is still facing a continuing criminal investigation, possible admission by the firm of misconduct and wrongdoing, and a variety of other charges, according to experts... And this :...A U.S. bank cannot function in the capital markets with a criminal conviction and the government doesn’t want to vaporize the firm, added Frenkel.
This possible settlement could be the template for other actions against other banks, points out Coffee....
So...the bottom line is that if the SEC imposed due process, JPM would just "vaporise"...and all the others as well.
Well ain't that just dandy; the SEC knows that these banks should vaporise but can't be allowed to do it as it would bring down the economy.
A very clear HINT that this shit cannot be hid under the carpet for much longer.
The size of the scam is such, the ability of the banks to maneuvre their way out of it since five years is losing all its momentum.
So the administration is now feeling the heat to pull in the culprits without tanking the Oligarchy; what a ball of spaghetti awaits the banksters in the coming years. And we with it are all sucked in as hostages, our savings all expendable collateral.
ALLLL AAAABBBBBOOOOAAAARD!!!! hahahahaha ayayayay
Crazy, but that's how it goes
Google 2000
Google IS the market /
Anybody else seen the movie "Idiocracy?" There's the result of current electoral/government policies...