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Our "Make It Look Good" Economy Has Failed
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
When rigged numbers are the basis of our success, we have failed.
The essence of the U.S. economy is make it look good: never mind quality or long-term consequences, just make it look good today, this week, this month, this quarter: make the pink slime look like meat, make the company look profitable, make the low-quality product look good enough to close the sale, make the unemployment rate low enough to justify re-electing the toadies currently in power, make the body count of bad guys look good, and on and on--just makes the numbers look good now, the future will take care of itself.
This is, of course, an attractive lie: the future is a direct consequence of present decisions and actions. It is remarkable how quickly we latch onto the notion that an endless parade of lies, manipulations and deceptions will magically produce a warm and fuzzy future of organic growth fostered by sound investments.
Alas, an economy that relies on an endless parade of lies, manipulations and deceptions has only one possible future: failure--abject, total, undeniable, devastating. Equally remarkable is the current conviction that absurd extremes in manipulation--the billions of dollars of corporate buybacks pushing stocks higher, the socialization of the U.S. mortgage market, where privately issued mortgages (unbacked by government guarantees) have virtually vanished, the ginned-up unemployment number (remove enough potential workers from the count and the unemployment rate is soon near-zero)--will magically lead to an economy that no longer needs extreme manipulations to sustain itself.
All these lies (if we are bold enough to call a lie a lie) and manipulations cannot possibly herald in an economy of honest reporting, market discovery of price and sound investments.
This is equivalent to doing nothing but eating junk food while playing martial-arts videogames for months on end and then expecting to beat Tony Jaa in a real-world sparring match. Only people who've lost touch with reality would think that getting fat and wheezy playing videogames while eating Happy Meals and Ho-Hos would create a future that required an entirely different set of decisions and disciplines.
America is completely out of touch with reality: gaming statistics and making credit free to financiers doesn't create jobs, any more than stuffing one's face with junk food and playing videogames prepares one to avoid getting beaten to a pulp in a real martial arts match.
The misguided individual who reckons that foisting make it look good cons will magically create productive investments soon discovers that cons, lies and manipulations are all one-way streets: a make it look good con has only one future: a bigger con, to cover up the disastrous consequences of the initial con.
The U.S. economy won't fail in the future: it has already failed. Just as the delusional coach-potato who stuffs himself with Happy Meals and Ho-Hos to prepare for a real-world sparring match failed at the first bite, so too have we failed with the first lie, the first gamed statistic, the first Federal Reserve manipulation, the first fudged "profit."
Liars often entertain the fantasy that the initial make it look good illusion can eventually be replaced with real numbers and real integrity: but that too is a lie, a lie the liar tells himself. A house of cards constructed of lies, manipulations, fudged numbers, ginned-up statistics and cleverly constructed deceptions cannot suddenly become a structure built on integrity, accountability and honest reporting of facts; it will always be fragile, for a single truth and a single unvarnished fact can bring down the entire contraption.
This is where our endless parade of lies, manipulations and deceptions has led us: to a future of more lies, manipulations and deceptions because untruth is a black hole; once our first manipulation pushes us past the event horizon, there is no way back to honesty, accountability and factual reporting.
Officially sanctioned lies, manipulations and deceptions erode trust in institutions and the bedrock belief that honesty, integrity, accountability, hard work and productive investments are the keys to advancement.
Once a people have been trained to swallow an endless parade of lies, manipulations and deceptions in order to get their share of the system's swag, they lose the ability to practice accountability, integrity and honesty. Their own complicity renders them incapable of trusting the system or anyone else playing the make it look good game.
Eventually they lose the ability to even recognize accountability, integrity and honesty, much less live them.
America's economy has already failed. It failed when our leaders turned to lies and manipulation to make it look good, and it failed when we bought the lies because it was so much less risky than demanding a factual accounting.
When rigged numbers are the basis of our success, we have failed.
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"never mind quality or long-term consequences"
why? my two cents: a lack of competition and presence of enough SMEs, who usually do care for quality and long term consequences
and this is because big biz and big finance dominate the landscape
there is a fundamental difference between an entrepreneur that aims at being bought well by big biz and the other that aims to see his grandchildren inherit his biz
quality and big biz are not that compatible. big biz likes commodities, i.e. big volumes only possible by achieving the smallest uniform quality
have you ever wondered why there was a war against unpasteurized milk, for example? big biz hates products that not everybody can consume without thought
Big biz pays politicians to regulate small competitors out of the market.
It's called Fascism.
There is an awry silence before the storm.
or what Warren Buffet calls "moats". yet imho this is a failure of politics. I'm here at loss because I'm quite ignorant of American politics, studying it from afar has big drawbacks
I can only attest that SMEs in europe do have some political pull. there is a lot of wrangling whenever regulation does look like it would favour only big biz at the expenses of small & medium
I believe too much regulation / too little regulation (or big gov / little gov) is yet another false dichotomy intended to enrapture the masses. The problem is bad regulation. In my opinion, the gov in the US has lost its way, believing its job is to set quality standards for all industries, i.e. pick the winners or losers. This has the de facto effect of picking the big firms, as they invariably win the argument convincing regulators that their business model is better, and small businesses get squeezed. As a result, we now have every single industry controlled by an oligopoly, duopoly, or even monopoly.
We need to refocus the conversation - not on more or less regulation, not on how to improved banking regulatory capital standards, but on breaking up JP Morgan, breaking up Citibank, preventing the Time Warner - Comcast merger, breaking up GE, breaking up Exxon Mobil, etc.
Trust busting, 2.0 but from whence the deus ex machina? I see no one hoisting this platform as the basis of repairing our economy. You want to see the "average" American's salary rise and create a million jobs? Well, let's start with undoing what killed a million jobs and caused salaries to flatline. Seems obvious to me...
+1 for Trust busting 2.0 - and The problem is bad regulation.
"The problem is bad regulation".
It's worse than that, it is no regulation at all. The SEC, CFTC, FBI, DOJ, etc...have all failed to enforce anything.
When rigged numbers AND a manipulated market are the basis of our success, we have failed. There...fixed it for ya!
I prefer the term Corporatocracy, though I have to admit it does not slip the tongue. my problem with calling it fascism is that it obfuscates what fascism is: a reaction to Corporatocracy, Oligarchy and/or Financialism
in fascism, the leader of the nation humiliates CEOs, Oligarchs and Tycoons in public, and earns applause for it
I like neo-feudalism. Corporations are the new feudal empires, CEOs the lords, and "employees" ("consumers"?) the serfs.
Regulators are the fat and lazy officers of the king, happy to collect the tithes from the lords, in the name of protecting the common man.
I used to hate the term, lately I've been realizing that it descriptive power. Neo-Feudalism describes nicely what is happening in some parts of Ukraine, too: local Oligarchs setting up their employees in private armies. you can't blame those "neo-serfs": they are scared, and the Big Boss offers order, besides jobs
similarly, private police forces, private mall security, private corporate security forces, etc. etc.
I'm awaiting the day one large US city entirely outsources its police force to a private security firm. Given all the liability from instances of police brutality in many cities, and increasing sale of public assets to infrastructure funds, it is not a big leap.
agree. though I have to note that then it's still a public hand paying. I'm waiting for the first full corporate city, where there is no citizen, only shareholders and employees
in the Middle Ages there were quite a lot of them, though there it was guilds calling the shots, usually with a one guild, one vote system
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! We have a Winner!
As I've been saying for over a year... What we really have is a stealth neo-Feudalism in progress, to be unveiled as FEUDALISM 2.0. The labels and ornaments have changed, but it's still the descendants of the same crowd of Feudal Masters and their Financiers who are making an amazing comeback after (a mere) 100 year "demise".
p.s. Have you ever noticed that Neocons/NWO types have NO problem with totalitarian leaders known as kings, but do have a problem with one who rises from the masses? The former (monarchs) are easy to control, the latter usually is not. Coincidence? I think not!
Ghordius
... "in fascism, the leader of the nation humiliates CEOs, Oligarchs and Tycoons in public, and earns applause for it"
Like Harry Reid and the Koch brothers and Rush even?
Got it.
GDP falls by 1%. Economy must be doing great !!! Dow 17K.
Someone can sculpt a hunk of butter into something that looks like art but guess what, ultimately it's still congealed animal fat. The entire American economy is based on lies and deception. Money is created out of thin air by way of fractional reserve banking from money that is created by 0's and 1's at a central bank. Is anyone really surprised that "someone is dead wrong on the economy"?
But Fail = Success..so lets celebrate! Moar drinks pls!
Yes. it's takes courage to fail so let's toast to the relentless courage of our failed leaders!
Yaayyyy!
consequences would make big difference but there is none
consequences would make big difference but there is none
There are lots of consequences, as in all the small businesses that have to close and the millions on the dole.
The consequences just don't show up on TV.
Agreed, EBT blunts the scenery of depressions past by moving the soup line into the recipient's kitchen.
And the politicians on both sides of the aisle are happy to play along and buy votes.
DaddyO
Good obs and good way of putting it.
I believe his point is that those consequences are directly shunted off onto others. Privatizing gains, socializing risk. Of course the small guys carry all the burden while the big CEO's get richer.
Don't be intentionally obtuse.
I believe that is your interpretation, not his.
Let him speak for himself...
We don't need someone else to interpret, we're all pretty capable on our own.
Please give me the right to be wrong, doggonit!
DaddyO
are none.
Anyone shocked by the huge negative on GDP Growth needs to look at the average wage trend, and % of population employment overtime to understand.
Its to bad the offices that make these numbers are filled with liberals and will do anything to make their party look good....that is what I cant stand...its become political and it should not be...they know what they are doing and why....and that saddens me..propoganda is all it is now
Blue/Red is a false division - sucker-bait.
Let it go.
I don't think so. But I get your point.
Not if you are choosing between a red or blue pill.
Demicans and Republicrats had the choice to either let the bad-bet banksters go under, tell the Fed to go pound sand, or wildly enrich them....both sides jumped to support the Fed central banksters while millions went bankrupt and lost their homes, jobs, lives, etc. If anyone but an ultra wealthy elite still believes a politician will ever do the right thing for them they're just dreaming.
Soft whateveritwas under GB as influnced by banker Hank Paulson
Banker Paulson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Paulson
dont watch the kabuki, or was it bukaki? i can never remember.
Just like the corporate buy backs that ZH pointed out to make eps look good
I hate to invoke politics but it's true. The liberals are in control and they will do anything to spin our economy and try to make their president and policies look good. Lying has become a national epidemic.
I've never seen this country more spiritually ill than it is right now.
Of course the liberals suck - all politics is barbaric.
Team Red is just a different flavor of barbarism.
Politics are no different than sports really, it divides and conquers while giving the plebes some feeling they're 'part of the team' like a guy with a Redskins jersey and belief their opinion means something while it obviously doesn't. No matter who wins the rigged politics Superbowls, the same shit goes on and on.
Correct of course. I cannot speculate if it would have been any better with team red- all I know is that it sucks horrible with team blue and I don't think most of us would dispute the obvious.
Do you even know what a 'liberal' is ?
That word's true meaning has been distorted. Thomas Jefferson was a true classical liberal - he believed that men had individual rights and should rule themselves rather than be ruled by a king. The root of 'liberal' is liberty & liberation.
The demo-republicraps are nothing but whores-for-hire. And We-The-People arent the highest bidders.
some of this distortion is done by the two party system, and at it roots the FPTP voting system
compare for example the UK (FPTP) with various continental countries (proportional)
in the UK you have the Torys (liberal-conservatives), the LibDems (liberal), Labour (socialist-liberal) and new, the UKIP (conservative-liberal)
on the continent, you find more "classic" parties, be them conservative, liberal or socialist. and more competition among political parties. nothing gives a politician more incentive to actually do something than the dread of his party dying
to be fair, it also gives more turbolent politics, and more horse trading among parties. yet again, note how Germans do it: with written, public contracts among coalition partners
mebbe he means 'progressives' - like FDR
And here are my questions to the answer:
1. Is this a new phenomenon or has it been going on for ages? Seemingly, the corrupt manipulation of th world for the benefit of a few underserving and sociopathic people is not a new thing.
2. If it has been going on for ages, then why are people just waking up to it? As I read through history and as recent as the 1930s, people had a greater understanding of the manipulation and oppression they were subjected to by the the sociopaths.
3. If people are waking up to it because of an increase in the availability or information or because those in charge have intentionally woken (or allowed to wake) people, then WHY? They could have chosen otherwise.
The law of unintended consequences , just like Murphy's law, is always with us..
When your country is making all the right moves, telling the truth, invoking the rule of law and prosecuting lawbreakers- there is no need to lie. In other words, when things are going good there is no need to lie about it. So there used to be a lot less lies.
Today, many things are bad. There is no rule of law, corrupt bankers and politicians operate with impunity. Eric Holder is a joke. Our President is at the center of 5 scandals and will never be held accountable. Lying is the only option when you are doing everything wrong. These people are our role models and leaders? That is a sad day indeed.
IMHO, that's why things (lying about virtually everthing) has never been worse.
+1, yet I disagree on "So there used to be a lot less lies." see for example the Robber Baron Age
Give me the name of a robber baron.
If you say Rockefeller, you would be wrong. You DON'T know your history, only pop-crap written by the progressives ...
While I agree with your sentiments on the current administration, - - - do you really believe it was different when politicians from the other side were in office ?
'left' vs 'right'/ D vs R - - - - is an illusion, a cheap magicians trick to take your attention away while youre being pick pocketed.
The lies are increasing. As the system inevitably breaks down, more tricks are needed to divert the audience's attention. If a R administration follows this one, we will see even more and greater lies from them as the break down of the fraud fiat system accelerates. And their domestic police state structure is the attempt to protect themselves from those who recognize Who caused the nation's collapse and the impoverishment of the people.
... and you don't understand the 'types' attracted to the two respective 'flags'.
R - the sane
D - the insane, illogical, innumerates ...
1. yes, it has been going on for ages. archeology points to a Neolithic Revolution where the sedentary village was born. as soon as people become sedentary, territory and territorial exclusive use becomes a need. since the competition can become fierce, villages became walled cities, and the one walled city with the best extractive scheme starts to dominate the others
2. people regularly awake to it. history is dotted by many revolutions, both bloody and unbloody. though go back to point one: what about that other bordering entity? it has an army. what to do about it? raze the walls? declare pacifism and brotherly love? and what about Ghengis Khan over there at the horizon?
3. availability of information has little to do about it. interest is way more important
Homo Sapiens will go the way of Homo Habilis....maybe not this week or even in 500 years but extinction will happen eventualy.
Really going out on a limb there... Eh?
On a long enough time line...
Yeah, and when the lies stop working the USA had the biggest gun.
There are lies, damned lies, and gov't statistics.
Now we do. But will we by the time the lies stop working?
Since you are so certain, could you please let me know the date, as it would make preparations so much easier.
They break it down, little by little: values, fairness, unity, purpose using the worst in us...to CONTROL
@BullyBearish - so true.
The 'looking good' approach goes from the top, all the way to ground level. I don't know how many upper-middle/professional class types I've talked to who don't want to even think about what's happening to their country. They've got their nice house in the suburbs, money still coming in (though not as much as in the past), and theyre sending their ignorant kids off to college (to 'learn' who knows what). - - - But its all about 'looking good', so they don't want to even question if it all might not be built on lies.
The land of Hollywood, Disneyland, and fake tits - - -
how appropriate.
P.S. - I like your bull elk avatar. At least he knows whats real.
A Tax structure favoring the concentration of wealth by the corporate elites combined with the end of cheap oil has a way of gutting an economy based on mindless consumption....
Just sayin'.....
All that may be true, but don't worry the government will provide you great health care.
I had to see my GP Dr. yesterday because he couldn't renew my prescriptions without seeing me because of 'new regulations'.
I got a wry smile out of him when I asked him if he was thrilled that after practicing medicine for 35 years he finally got some 'help' from the Govt. on how to treat his patients and run his practice.
His 'no comment' spoke volumes.
The globalists at Bildeberg are planning and conspiring to shut down the US, make us weak, shut down the supply lines, then move in for the kill. The bushes have eyes and ears, the Russians at work and in college are Russians.
Lies and corruption by our leaders has been going on so long and is so vast that their examples of how to get ahead and collect the spoils of dishonesty have filtered down to the least of us. They have also shown us that lies, theft, and murder by .gov workers have no consequences.
Hence, the VA.