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Why America Is In Decline
Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,
Along with history, travel is by far one of the best teachers. Formal education in classrooms can be stifling to the mind. It makes people believe that the world actually conforms to all the snazzy theories we read about.
But there’s no economic textbook on the planet that can come close to showing you how the world really works.
It’s not about stocks and flows, efficient markets, or official statistics. None of that stuff really matters.
The world runs on people. And even though our politicians go out of their way to highlight the differences among us, human beings all over the world are fundamentally the same.
We all love our children. We cheer for our favorite teams. We work hard to put food on the table for our families. We get frustrated with where we’re at in life. And we desire to achieve more.
This desire to achieve is fundamental to all humanity. Human beings aspire. We push ourselves to accomplish more and improve our stations in life. And this desire spans generations.
Parents always want their children to enjoy a better life than they had. And they work their butts off to ensure this happens.
This isn’t exclusively a western phenomenon. All over the world, the need to provide a better life for one’s children is practically a subtext to the social contract. And people in developing countries want exactly the same thing.
They’re succeeding.
A child born in China today will have a far richer life than his/her parents and grandparents.
And in my travels to over 100 countries over the last 10+ years, I’ve seen other frontier and developing markets that are bursting at the seams in a similar trend.
Myanmar. Colombia. Tanzania. Georgia. Sri Lanka. Botswana. Indonesia. Mongolia.
The growth rates in these places are staggering, and you can see first-hand the hundreds of millions of people being lifted out of poverty.
In these developing countries, they look across the water to the West and can see a rich and consumptive lifestyle. They want this lifestyle, especially for their children.
They’ve spent decades toiling in factories, saving money, and building for the future. It’s time to cash in.
Decades ago, the vast majority of wealth and production was in the West– specifically the United States.
Most people across Asia and Latin America were absolutely impoverished, and felt honored just to be able to work hard and export a product to the US.
Today, it is those same countries (particularly in Asia) that now hold the majority of the world’s wealth and production. And it is their growth that pulls the global economy along.
The West, on the other hand, is full of debt and consumption. America’s greatest exports are now infinite quantities of paper currency, drone attacks, and arrogant regulations like FATCA.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where this is going.
The West is running out of steam, and the Social Contract subtext is breaking down. Parents are no longer able to provide a better life for their children.
It’s not from lack of trying. But when you’re bogged down by tens of trillions in debt, rising taxes, increased regulation, and a government that rules by fear and intimidation, it’s like swimming upstream in the middle of a hurricane.
Wealth and power are shifting. Developing nations are rising quickly, and western nations are sinking. It’s happening. Ignoring this reality doesn’t make it go away.
Providing a better life for our children now means breaking away from a 20th century paradigm and embracing the new rules of the game.
The world isn’t coming to an end. But it’s changing, just as Hemingway wrote– gradually, then suddenly.
This is fundamentally a good news story… and it opens up a world of opportunity for those who are willing to see it.
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This author fails to grasp that one large driver of the increased economic activity in devloping countries IS debt driven by the western countries. The west fails, so will the others.
DING DING DING !! We HAAaaave a WINNAH !!!
And the fuel for that debt creation is ...well...fuel. Cheap fuel. Which we are out of.
"The Long Emergency"
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--W8mdCVwsM0/TdvLq26vSpI/AAAAAAAAATg/whcFEClwj...
And sometimes I think the world IS ending.
Just wait until water becomes the next oil. Then what? You can't opt out of potable water like you can with oil.
You can't opt out of oil either. I mean.. you can personally not use oil, but what about the cheap supply of clothes you wear, or the food you eat? Those require transportation, and that is where a cheap, non-volatile, and abundant energy store really has caused a massive burst in growth.
Anything imported will become extremely costly in terms of time and cost if an oil alternative cannot be found.
Long brain tanning.
http://survival.outdoorlife.com/blogs/survivalist/2011/11/survival-skill...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6DztrT4i1o
It makes for some interesting scenarios, assuming the price of transporting goods rises 200%. Back to making things closer to home, and more objectively separating 'Need' from 'Want'.
The Government-Corporate Complex Takes Complete Control Of The USA
Hell half the clothes we wear are made out of oil products too. And the food is fertilized from oil based fertilizers.
The FOUR HORSEMEN Herald the Death Knell of Predatory Capitalism
The four fat lesbians herald the death knell of the middle class by predatory big gubernut socialists.
Sailing ships. all our tea used to arrive on sailing ships from China; and Australia exported its whole grain crop in sailing ships. they work.
You are right, but the world population and standard of living was slightly different back then. Yikes.
to waste oil as an energy source or to make cheap clothes or plastic is unforgivable
we need oil for many other things, like medicine.. many drugs cannot made without oil
without oil there is no fertilizer, and fertilizer is the main reason why we have such an abundance of food...
We'll just exploit our abundance of bullshit...
What about solar powered desalination? Driest countries have the most sun.
Doctor Flamond: You see, a year ago, I was close to perfecting the first magnetic desalinization process so revolutionary, it was capable of removing the salt from over 500 million gallons of seawater a day. Do you realize what that could mean to the starving nations of the earth?
Nick Rivers: Wow. They'd have enough salt to last forever.
After wawa, salt is the most important thing to human civilization.
In the end, nearly all growth of modern economies is built on energy, which is mostly oil and gas. China is developing now for 2 decades at a rapid rate, look at energy, that consumption goes up in lock step with GDP. It has to! Agriculture is oil based in all modern economies.
It is a fact that once cheap energy, oil and gas, becomes more expensive, then growth will suffer. And YES, nearly all world growth is debt based. In America consumption is debt based, in the EU it is debt based. Cheap oil and cheap debt, those drive it all.
Yes, and the latest I have heard about the "shale miracle" in the U.S.:
- 96% of the so-called oil in California shales is not recoverable
- The Bakken is threatened by exponentially rising costs to extract (debt for the drillers)
- I'm sure there are more surprises out there
The Bakken Scam if even remotely recoverable couldn't sustain a modern economy for ONE generation so who fucking cares, eventually we have to suck on a low carbon future why all the glad handing to avoid mathematical inevitability
The Bakken is a real field, however in the grand scheme of things it is the parallel to a stoner scraping his hash pipe...
96% of the so-called oil in California shales is not recoverable
Kalifornia shale is not allowed to be recoverable thanks to the state's hypcocritical Demoncat socialist leftist elite whose mega-mansions have carbon footprints bigger than most small towns. The wind and solar power cabal they support are unsustainable scams that produce little energy and are totally dependent on taxpayer subsidies.
Bullish abiotic oil
I don't know that the author fails to grasp that at all... he just politely ignores it. He also ignores that, to your point, when the west fails (and then the developing world follows in lock step), the developing world will have plenty more people to rise up and blame the west for their inability to realize the "American Dream." Then there will be riots, suicide bombers, and then there won't be enough bullets and missiles.
Just look at Rome for the roadmap. 'nuff said.
baby boomers? they squandered a great nation's wealth so they could go wind surfing on the credit card.
shed a tear for them? never.
Before we go, you better learn from us how to plant a garden, run a milling machine, TIG weld, can food, reload ammunition, rebuild an engine and a host of other things. All of us did not go to the beach and stay there. As a casual note, most farmers are boomers.
As a generalization, the boomer generation begat the concept of the self over the whole, there are exceptions of course, but the rule holds. In my business (I deal with people of all ages) I find boomers to be the most self smug of all generations, again not everyone, but as a general observation, their sense of entitlement and arrogance is unparalleled. The so called 'greatest generation' of WWII fame, humble and hard working, thinking of their progeny more than themselves. Perhaps the boomers just had it too easy, and it infected their sense of how the world should treat them, they've known nothing but 'perpetual growth'. Interestingly, despite having been left vast sums of wealth by their parents, the mantra of the boomer seems to be 'I'm leaving nothing to my kids'. I deal with estates and the boomers want it all and wish to leave little to nothing for their kids, it's fascinating and sad at the same time. Greed has always been around, but it is the boomer management class that has institutionalized it.
The mantra of many boomers is "I'm leaving my debts to my kids".
Lift a shovel to give them a proper burial? Nope, too many of them laying around. Let 'em rot.
Vamp. That's a myth. When the system falls the places that have the factories, expertise, and people will rebuild quickly and advance. The West has lost the will, the factories, and the skills and will not recover so quickly.
SZ, have you ever read the book "Why Nations Fail"? It outlines that a societies' success or failure is based upon whether a ruling class is open and inclusive or closed and extractive. These developing countries were poor before due to a closed and extractive system. After the west fails, they will return to their old impoverished ways. Plain and simple.
+1. The so-called Chinese miracle has been nothing more than our Walmart dollars going to China for cheap plastic junk, cheap DVD players that break in six months, cheap clothes, cheap everything. If they have made one single thing of quality in the past 15 years, then I certainly haven't seen it.
Take a look at your local Walmart (or any mart). Shorter shelves, wider aisles, way less merchandise, 1/3 of the store is groceries. The credit bubble is over, our fake economy is over, and yes, China is over. Like night follows day.
Excluding the zero/negative productivity of our talented money changers, there is plenty of other talent left in the west in general and America in particular.
But I see a lot of people, myself included, that face endless penalties to produce (more). So I (we) do not.
It's true that the system penalizes you for producing more, but that's by design. The best example I can give is why Cambodia's government used to execute anyone who wore glasses - because it meant the person looked like they were educated and might be a threat to the rulers. You can extrapolate my meaning from there.
The West has lost the will, the factories, and the skills.
I'm nitpicking, perhaps, but I disagree:
The West has LOTS of capable, motivated people. Will and skills are still here. It's just that the current neo-fascist system doesn't allow us to function as we wish.
I could manufacture things, but I won't, because the system makes me a slave if I do. Fuck them.
The new generation has lost those skills you have. They used to pick them up from the older folks but now with all the distractions etc nobody takes the time to pick up some real life skills
My HVAC guy finally picked up a competent assistant to eventually sell the business to, but the locksmith and the plumber are both getting long in the tooth. Neither are cheap, but they are certainly reasonable. I should ask them if they have sons who declined the family business in favor of a never ending video game apprenticeship.
Correction:
The west still has SOME capable, motivated people, but for sure not lots of them anymore.
And that's by design, as it's so much easier to shear the unskilled, apathetic sheeple...
Yes, they will rebuild and advance, except the global infrastructure will then be missing.
Maybe that's a good thing? I doubt it.
Debt doesn't drive an economy, capital investment (via deferred consumption) and increased productivity do. The developing countries make things. Even when they realize the AAA paper they have foolishly bought from the west/US is in fact worthless, they still have the factories and the goods they produce. They will simply stop exchanging them for said worthless paper.
Well, they don't make things out of thin air. It requires money. Our money. For every exporter, there has to be an importer. Do you see more goods or fewer goods in your local Walmart?
Factories are worthless without money to pay for raw materials, labor, or without buyers. It doesn't matter where the factories are.
The absoluteness of this statement is hilarious.
The world cannot function without debt-based fiat money, i.e. unbacked IOUs or in more general terms imaginary pipe dreams? I don't think so.
Is it guaranteed the Asian countries will smoothly switch from interdependence with the west to trading between each others? No, but they have all the necessary requirements in place, so your thinking seems arrogant to me.
All Four Wheels Come Off The Anglo-American Juggernaut
Denial is the best way to go on ... no need to worry <);o)
Add in a moderate helping of apathy to achieve nirvana. But, I really don't care.
Ha, good one.
"I don't understand the question, and I will not respond." --Lucille Bluth
We all love our children.
Indeed. That's why we're fervently poisoning their water and air, running up trillions in debt, pissing off the rest of the world with our narcissistic foreign policy, drugging them in their youth, and generally fucking up everything we put our grubby, ignorant little hands upon.
That's love, baby!
Bravo Tsar! Your point is well taken.
We all love our children.
Really? There are 50,000,000 + children that can't disagree.
That's why we're fervently poisoning their water and air, running up trillions in debt, pissing off the rest of the world with our narcissistic foreign policy, drugging them in their youth, and generally fucking up everything we put our grubby, ignorant little hands upon.
Ok, so maybe the U.S. is running up trillions in debt for our children thanks to big socialist gubernuts, but it seems that the ChiComs are the ones most feverishly poisoning the air and water these days. You can thank Obozo and friends for generally fucking up everything that they put their grubby, ignorant fat socialist hands upon.
“We’ve pretty much sacrificed an entire generation of children. The longer we go, the more damage that is going to accumulate.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx4UVhJcnpo
http://foodintegritynow.org/2014/04/08/dr-don-huber-gmos-glyphosate-thre...
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416
"...and the Social Contract subtext is breaking down.."
Could someone email me a copy of that Social Contract. Somehow I misplaced mine, at least it's not in my filing cabinet. I don't even remember signing it.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Oh...and the Ten Commandments.
Forget about the first four if you do not believe in a Deity.
The other 6 take care of most of humanity's problems. If everyone kept those....which would fulfill the above "Love your neighbor as yourself" then the world would be quite pleasant.
There....that's your Social Contract.
All in all, 7 of them boil down to "Don't take shit that ain't yours"....
If I could just attempt to make a distinction:
The Christian-Judeo VALUES contract is that you love your neighbor as yourself. You do good works, you give to charity. That's a decision that you and I make with each other, because we believe in the same values, and we CHOOSE to act on them.
A social contract is one made with "society," whether you like it or not. Government decides that, and then it takes your money to carry out said social contract. Theoretically, it could be good or bad, depending on your personal values.
I don't have a lot of common values with the current social contract. Just my two cents.
The social contract was predicated on the agreement that was reached between the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist to gain enough support to cause the legislatures of the various states to ratify the construct of this current form of government. The Anti-Federalists were very much concerned that there were no bright line rules protecting the minority from the dictatorship of the majority. The gentlemen’s agreement reached between the two factions was to amend the original document to include a bill of rights.
Now that the Bill of Rights has been suspended, the original agreement has been breached. This ends the social contract agreed upon by the people’s representatives of the various states when they ratified the Constitution. We now live in a post Constitutional America. Where this ends, nobody knows. I suspect that we have already seen the first round in the various articles of nullification that have floated through several legislatures. These modern efforts are similar to the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions passed before the civil war.
Whether or not this results in civil war very much depends on the actions of the federal government.
I believe the Bundy Ranch standoff was the opening salvo. In retrospect it may very well be viewed in the same light as Concord and Lexington or John Brown’s Raid. Time will tell, but I suspect the government is going to have a very difficult time managing our descent.
Agreed...
Right up to the point where you mentioned the deadbeat who doesn't pay his bills and thinks only he should get something for nothing because that was the way it ways for 150 years.
Oh, and at lexington and concord there were actual shots fired, granted very slowly and the reloading was a bitch, but people actually died. In nevada, the feds got their big swinging dick brigade all geared up to go kick some ass but when it came right down to it they were not prepared to shoot a lot of people with video cameras.
Which is the lesson we can take from that. When in doubt, have so many people filming the government malfeaseance that they can't kill them all, then they have to back down.
Why? because you need to fix your problems and not ignore them or sweep them under the rug.
reversion to the mean?
....in between the mean
reversion to the mean?
It's not a better life when you don't have a dad, like half of children today - no matter what material compensations may be offered.
"In these developing countries, they look across the water to the West and can see a rich and consumptive lifestyle. They want this lifestyle, especially for their children.
They’ve spent decades toiling in factories, saving money, and building for the future. It’s time to cash in."
Reminds me of the teenager in "Empire of the Sun", The one so eager to learn to fly that fighter plane. At the end of the movie, he finally gets it running, (he didn't know that the war only had days left), Got into the plane and was shot down immediately and crashed.
VERY VERY sad and pathetic.
The people in the developing world unfortunately are the little kid.
The war(ie the GROWTH boom) is over... PEAK OIL.
NOBODY is going to do what was done in the last century.
300 million chinese, etc are not going to "GROW" into a lifestyle of SUVs and McMansions....
Ain't gonna happen. The more they try, the faster the "War" will be over.
And I give it maybe 10 years to hit us. 20 tops. Took 300 years to get here it's not going to take 30 to go back.
The Long Emergency
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--W8mdCVwsM0/TdvLq26vSpI/AAAAAAAAATg/whcFEClwj...
Nah, 120 years perhaps, but not 300... That is if we dont destroy each other first, which is my guess of what will happen...
"Peak Oil."
Bingo. Dead on comment.
Google of Youtube Dr. Albert Bartlett for details...
samsara,
Good comment. I often say that whatever you have RIGHT NOW might be all you'll ever have. 10 years, 20 years, 120 years.....who knows? CrashIsOptimistic constantly says "soon," with no real clarity on what he means by that.
With that uncertainty in mind, I try to make sure that the things I have RIGHT NOW are things that will be useful in a crisis, or a long emergency, rather than focus on what's at the new Pier One. :)
Wonder why this story isn't getting "top billing" ?... Or for that matter the protests to keep U.S. military personnel out of the Czech Republic???
Does this mean George Soros will lose his property there and be kicked out permanently?!!!
Wonder if these two will be candidates for the next 9/11 False Flag?
Never underestimate Georgy Porgy shitting where he eats when the powerful don't get their way!!!
" A child born in China today will have a far richer life than his/her parents and grandparents."
Actually, that child will be taking care of all 6 of them in their old age.
On a brighter note, due to the air pollution in China, the child's caretaking days will be greatly reduced.
"A child born in China today will have a far richer life than his/her parents and grandparents. Actually, that child will be taking care of all 6 of them in their old age."...
And that's why the Asian household, community and "Country" as a whole will prosper versus the Western one which stresses the aspirations of the individual over everything else!
The family started losing it's efficacy and importance in this Country almost 50 years ago.
The family started losing it's efficacy and importance in this Country almost 50 years ago.
And that was by way of deliberate policy by a cohesive group of nation-wreckers.
And that was by way of deliberate policy by a cohesive group of nation-wreckers
So true! But their is also the issue of "free will" and the opportunity costs that are associated with our choices both (good and bad)...
Given where we are in this crisis... If America could have only taken the road less travelled one can only wonder how much longer we might have run?!!!
We might have have been more prepared for what is coming, but that is about all.
The western US would have run out of water about the same time.
The world would have depleted the oceans of all sea life at the same time.
The world would have have reached Peak Oil about the same.
The world would still have over 7 billion people.
(About 3-4 billion into overshoot).
All good points you raise as well 'samsara'
However we can only pine for what is not in the difference the oil corporations could have made in their industry by working in tandem with the automakers to promote fuel efficient motor cars in the 60's and 70's when they started, instead of reversing the trend completely out of their own greed by dropping the price and buying the patents that would have given us enormous technological advantages and choices along with finding a continued place for rail travel instead of shutting it down completely -which is what they did.
I don't buy the notion that 'Peak Oil' is just around the corner either... The world is awash in oil we know it's a finitie commodity that is increasingly expensive and harder to get to, but you look at the ownership and the closely guarded cartel(s) that dominate it and you have your answer just like banks that create the boom and bust cycles...
As for the population of 7 billion?
Between the wars of choice and that other volatile energy alternative that started out as a weapon of mass destruction ironically in the same place the U.S. launched it the first two times as a "weapon" and then a third time as well another "weapon" ..., we will all regretably pay in both lives and ocean!
I respect your opinion SOCN. Read your posts whenever I see them.
I will agree to disagree on Peak Oil.
But the more fuel efficient cars I feel would have resulted in Jevon's paradox. It would have been burned somewheres else(Gas powered leaf blowers come to mind).
Jevon's paradox
"In economics, Jevon's Paradox, the is the proposition that as technology progresses, the increase in efficiency with which a resource is used tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource"
Jevons' Paradox is not some sort of law of physics.
It is not of universal application.
Jevons' paradox was merely an observation of coal consumption in mid-19th century Britain. Efficiency in coal use did not reduce coal consumption.
But consider the amount of unmet energy demand in the context of 19th century Britain. Consider that electrical and chemical industries, both with enormous potential demand for coal, were then only in their infancy.
So it's not some sort of profound philosophical law that efficiency of boilers did not reduce coal consumption. It's more like, "Duh!"
Now let's contrast the petroleum use pattern in late 20th century North America. would increased efficiency of petroleum use necessarily lead to increased demand by new uses of petroleum?
Hint: per capital fuel consumption actually did decline during the decade after 1979, as the average personal motor vehicle became more fuel efficient.
So let's stop hearing unthinking, offhand references to Jevons' Paradox. Stop deducing. Go empirical.
In the aftermath of the '70s oil shocks, cars became more efficient, then, when gas became cheap in the 90's, those improvements were used to increase the HP instead of reducing consumption. This is Jevons to a tee...
I live in Colombia..and its true here...they are growing fast...and the people work hard...its fun to watch...and they are extremely happy people
"They are extremely happy people". Bingo. The messages from the society are that they are good people even if they don't (yet) have very much. Poor people are allowed dignity.
I spent a year on a Stone Age Pacific island. The average guy had three possessions in this world: a T-shirt, some shorts, and a machete. These were the happiest people I've ever met.
It's the missing ingredient from America. No dignity or self worth left for people who don't have a Lambo.
The saying in the barrios of Colombia is Pobre pero feliz, poor but happy... The same holds true in the barangays in the Philippines and the moo baans in Thailand... There is a sense of community in these neighborhoods that died in the US sometime in the 70's...
"The saying in the barrios of Colombia is Pobre pero feliz, poor but happy... The same holds true in the barangays in the Philippines and the moo baans in Thailand... There is a sense of community in these neighborhoods that died in the US sometime in the 70's..."
People of in those countries are generally of the same race and share a common culture and language.
That was once true of the United States. A sense of community in neighborhoods died in the United States sometime in the 1970's after the borders were thrown open and the third world poured in. Now we have racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods which lack a common culture and language.
Like you I spent a major part, off and on, of 5 years on Pacific/SE Asia "very remote" islands and areas (71-76). Very happy people. And I was also happiest ever. Hadn't a clue what was going on in the rest of the world and did not care. Roger on the T-shirt, some shorts, and a machete. Very high self esteem.
Yeah but that bender with cocaineia is what is causing most all the cancers. And there aint no cure, and there aint no more money to treat honey and now we wonder why their is no god for you, and no reason to live without. So off to war we go, to where we do not know, as long as it's fun to sow and work the hoe.
HERE is most of the source of our trouble.
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1230886
Most of the US population doesn't "play" the stock market. I'm not sure that there's a majority that own houses, or take vacations, or do other things that caused "the collapse". So maybe http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1230886 is only the source of trouble for a minority.
I've read that the people of Rome just didn't care if Rome no longer ruled the world. They existed whether Rome did or not. Perhaps that's relevant in this era as well. Could that be what Hilary meant by "who cares?"
Thanks for your reply. 2/3 own homes. 1/2 own stocks, including by mutual funds. The charts in the URL are very instructive, and keeping them unseen severely fools the people, IMO. In our 1-person/1-vote system, I figure that the severely fooled much-degrade the quality of decisions made by the population.
Not to nit-pick, but didn't you mean one person/no vote?
So..... accept it?
Probably.
I've been writing a novel in which by the time the novel is set (our time) human civilization has imploded no less than 12 previous times, each time leaving no trace. It started out as a plot device (the novel is about she who destroys) but the more I write into it the more I start to like the idea that we might have been down this very road 12 other times and left no trace.
It's all a fiction of course, but it gives me a strange kind of hope. If I can imagine people getting through it, then maybe we can get through it, because I'm not that imaginative.
Doesn't fly, cougar dood.
If the easy oil was burned 12 times already . . . well, after the first time there was none for the 2nd and they all died after reaching a certain food reqmt level. And that level will be too high every year. A drought and the community starves because food can't ship in.
When the easy stuff is gone and the great smash hits, it's not a reset. It stays down and the communities die off one by one to extinction.
You are missing a big point.
It's about entropy vs information.
The human genome is all about information.
Think about that.
It's complicated, seriously.
Pointing fingers of blame at individuals, directly or indirectly, may feel good but it's not fixing anything.
Anyone who is evaluating the mistakes that have been made should, before pointing at others' mistakes, try to figure out what he or she did that helped the things happen.
Bought more than they could pay for? Voted for criminals? The list is endless, but once everyone takes responsibility for what they did and STOPS DOING THOSE THINGS, recovery could perhaps begin...
There are more citizens than there are elective government offices (I think...). So though the things TPTB do might have larger consequences, and the things elected officials do have consequences, the things that TPTA (the powers that aren't) do collectively add up to pretty huge problems. I.E., when someone is offered "free money", one can say NO, and teach their kids to say NO, and teach them why they should avoid thinking that anyone can get something for nothing. As a nation, we all have some responsibility for what has happened. Gotta stop pointing fingers and start acting accordingly. For instance, from now on I'm not voting for anymore incumbents based on party politics. One term and out.
Sorting this stuff out is like picking corn flakes out of wood chips. It is complicated. However, it is doable and will be balanced out one way or the other - with blood or without. The way this QE/Central Bank fiasco has evolved over the last 5 years is enough to make anyone ashamed to be human - so I contend that those who have been complicit are something other than human. It does not feel good to point fingers and lay blame because we all share a bit of the sin. My hope is this isn't really a set up for a big fall, but I have my doubts.
"However, it is doable and will be balanced out one way or the other - with blood or without. "
Why must there be a presumption it is doable?
Why isn't total failure and eventual extinction the more probable scenario?
Better question: Why does this seem to be your prefered scenario?
There is no recovery from the IMF. Johnny Cash predicted it (I fell into a burning ring of fire)
Agreed there will be a lot of opportunities. But I'm really going to miss poorly-constructed pants imported from Malaysia and sold at Target.
You nailed that one. I've got some clothes from the mid-nineties that are still very usable. No rips or tears in that nice thread count cloth. The buttons don't even fall off on me.
The shit that passes for clothes that I buy today cannot seem to survive 3 washings before something happens.
Everything has been cheapened to the point of no return. Oh well, I guess it helps Bankster's kids get those 16th birthday gifts of Gulfstream jets, private islands, Porsche Carreras, and mega yachts.
social contract.... read the fine print.....capital goes the most efficient .... the rest get obamaphone, ebt, snap and obamacare and chant ... yes we can... illegals replace the aborted and work for $100/day no benes... chinese and indians are enslaved and amerika is happy with their chevy til the ignition goes off... elect a commie elevator operator equivalent and what do you expect... lower taxes and bring jobs home...homey
"We call ourselves the "6th Panzer Army", because we've only got 6 Panzers left".
-------> We call ourselves #1 because we are number 1 in every bad category.
We call ourselves #1 because we are number 1 in every bad category...
As a “native” citizen of the US, I don't agree with this altogether. I found the Frasier Institute Survey, ( Fraser Institute Survey of Mining Companies 2012-13 - mining-survey-2012-2013.pdf ), pretty informative in the way the mining industry, particularly gold, overlays so well in determining the satisfaction, security and development of the populations of the nations mentioned in the article: “ Myanmar. Colombia. Tanzania. Georgia. Sri Lanka. Botswana. Indonesia. Mongolia”.
The historical narrative the report provides shows the direction and subsequent loss / gains that occur as this industry is allowed to function within a predictable and equally applicable “rule of law”.
It becomes quite obvious that a nation’s anamosity, reluctance, ambivalence, embracing and / or encouragement of the mining industry’s activities show a direct relation to the degree of hope of a better future virtuous people can truly enjoy.
I refuse to believe Mr. Bernanke does not "understand" gold.
Jmo.
Canada's "Fraser Institute" is a bankster-run lobby group posing as libertarian.
Thanks for the info. I'll keep it in mind. I will confess, I half expected their results to be accurate before perusing and felt smug in their "results", but they with hold key information as to their "respondents" identity which leads credence to your assertion.
Thanks again. Warning duly noted.
"We cheer for our favorite teams. We get frustrated with where we’re at in life. And we desire to achieve more.
This desire to achieve is fundamental to all humanity. Human beings aspire. We push ourselves to accomplish more and improve our stations in life. And this desire spans generations."
I disagree with this. I do not cheer for any team except my own and the virtues of cooperation, faith, love, freedom, and peace. I do not want to achieve more, I strive for simplicity and sustainability, not the desire to acquire more simply because I don't need more. I'm perfectly happy living on a small plot of land producing my own food and helping those who need to so they themselves can live peacefully.
And my station in life? I don't care about prestige or how others view me and I don't care about their status, so why would I care about beating the Jones'? This is not to say that I am not ambitious; my ambition is for hard, meaningful work and reaping the fruits of my labor without making someone else rich while receiving mere crumbs when I produced so much more than that.
My 'station' in life is tied to the land, and I answer to the land and creatures that live within, as they can both provide a bountiful harvest or wipe my crops out on a whim.
China understood that families must cooperate to make it -something that America understood for a time until the predatory capitalist oligarchs pushed the mythology of individualism for the sole purpose of exploiting people for the revenue that it would bring. When you have a family vehicle, break up the family and you'll sell many vehicles, or homes, and so on. This is why America is helpless -it holds individualism as sacrosanct.
Inevitably the exploiter class, the oligarchs, will die in the terror that they perpetuated for so long.
So many goodly cities ransacked and razed; so many nations destroyed and made desolate; so infinite millions of harmless people of all sexes, states, and ages massacred, ravaged, and put to the sword; and the riches of the fairest and the best part of the world topsiturvied, ruined, and defaced for the traffick of pearls and pepper: Oh mechanical victories, oh base conquest. -Montaigne
Tyler, this article says precisely nothing at all. Not a fucking thing.
Somtimes on a slow day, it's just a "Comment Delivery System"....
the author is an empty headed moron; so it's not exactly surprising; there's a strong correlation between empty headed moron and article that says nothing.
"The West is running out of steam, and the Social Contract subtext is breaking down."
Hey Simon, can you tell me when I ever signed this "social contract"?
Some infant in China is going to have a far richer life?
You mean slave labor in a factory rather than on a farm? iCrap for all!
What is ignored in this piece are the obvious signs that the planet cannot support this level of extraction / "production". The stories about what is going on in the Pacific Ocean are frankly scarier than hell. We've overstepped a planetary limit and very few have noticed. Start paying attention in particular to your fish counter. If you have been paying attention in the past few years, you will notice there are major rotations going on out of the traditional species we've used as our marine protein sources into alternative species. This is not because of some fad or trend. It's because the old species are no longer plentiful enough to be readily available. If enough people could begin to realize what this means, and then to act accordingly (I confess I am as guilty of not changing behavior as anyone), then we MIGHT be able to soft land this beast. Otherwise, it's going to be a very ugly 100 years for our species. Reminds me of the story of the pharoah and Joseph: seven fat years, followed by seven lean years. I think we are going to pay for the 20th century with the 21st.
Good analogy, and I agree. A few pointers that will raise your quality of life while adding sustainability if you haven't already done so:
Switch from a disposable razer to a straight razor -The shave is superior and the blade lasts for generations
Make more stews and soups, as it will help eliminate waste; soups and stews are rather forgiving dishes.
Grow a garden in plastic containers if you cannot grow them in a yard.
Get rid of your cell phone.
Doing all of this saved me tons of money and I've been a happier person for it.
Yep. everybody is freaking off about Co2 in the atmosphere which doesn't mean shit, and we're ruinging the Ocean; trawling the bottom clean and eliminating species after species. We're so clever.
Simple:
American Idol, Dancing With The Stars & The NFL.
Psychotropic meds, more illegal drugs ( I used to bang a few dimes of Heroin backin the day....withdrawals were hell), lazy fat fucking blobs of shit plus welfare fsa....and unmotivated human slobbery. Yeah we are fucked ...long on ammo and weps for the future.
Next stop:
Zombie Apocalypse.
"It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where this is going."
Well, that's good because we do not have these scientists anymore and buy rocket engines from Russia, that is, when they are willing to sell them.
And much luck sending and retrieving astronauts to and from the RSS (Russian Space Station, formerly known as the ISS) without Soyuz.
Government and institutions cut off from, not part of, not accountable to Realityland.
PUBLIC COMMENT ON INFLATION MEASUREMENT AND THE CHAINED-CPI (C-CPI) http://www.shadowstats.com/article/no-438-public-comment-on-inflation-measurement
I think this is credible, but it is a 'maybe', so I concede that I am shooting my mouth off ...
Look at this, from WSJ and NYT:
http://www.showrealhist.com/yTRIAL.html
As stated, these histories are RARELY shown to the people, despite their compelling content. Deception by omission -- intellectual savagery, I call it.
I offer this thought -- besides the deception by omission, the 'Establishment' further seeks to undermine these real price histories by flakey-questioning the validity of CPI-U a lot!
The heart of this matter does basically come down to "A picture (SEEN!) is worth a thousand words.". Please take another look:
http://www.showrealhist.com/yTRIAL.html
I thought Potus said the USA would be the ONLY lead player for the nexy 100 years; and China said : thats Octopussy talking.
This article is a smathering of truth that we already know and hyperbole about the rest of the world potentially "eating our lunch" due to changed socioeconomic, financial and manufacturing realities.
Let me be the first to say (Oh, and I know I'm not the first): The PREMISE IS FLAWED.
The U.S. is a mess. However, the rest of the world is in a much bigger mess as we flail about gasping for survival. The math, demographics, histrionics, anthropology, reality, all the "ism's", simply do not--and will not--add up to a similar financial achievement without our (U.S.) involvement.
Don't kid yourselves. We are going down together. Those who think they might "leap up" the economic ladder because we're falling are playing a fool's game. This isn't math folks. IT'S VOODOO.
We are all about to get much smaller together. No doubt about it. Resources, resources, resources. We don't have what we need or want but we can get by as we shrink--for at least another 50 years.
Some realities must be clearly understood: When it comes to massive economic and technological gains, it all emanated here in the United States of America. Period. No argument event possible. We invented the ponzi scheme.
We also were the major buyers of the ponzi scheme. Add up those few realities and you have a wash.
And http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
I think this is credible, but it is a 'maybe', so I concede that I am shooting my mouth off ...
Look at this, from WSJ and NYT:
http://www.showrealhist.com/yTRIAL.html
As stated, these histories are RARELY shown to the people, despite their compelling content. Deception by omission -- intellectual savagery, I call it.
I offer this thought -- besides the deception by omission, the 'Establishment' further seeks to undermine these real price histories by flakey-questioning the validity of CPI-U a lot!
The heart of this matter does basically come down to "A picture (SEEN!) is worth a thousand words.". Please take another look:
http://www.showrealhist.com/yTRIAL.html
The US is great at consumption and producing debt. The United States of Roaches.
The Federal Reserve generates (steals from savers) consumption by bubblizing assets.
And "Rogue White House Regime At Work: $300 Billion Price Tag, Drastic Jobs Losses And No Legal Authority For Draconian EPA Plan Congress Won’t Approve" http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/rogue-white-house-regime-at-work-300-billion-price-tag-drastic-jobs-losses-and-no-legal-authority-for-draconian-epa-plan-congress-wont-approve/
It is because a bunch of people have decided that they are the chosen ones to decide how America is supposed to work, the Constitution be damned.
They push an agenda contrary to common sense, they don't give a fuck.
They propose knee jerk reaction/solutions that defy logic.
They refuse to use the laws that exist and enact new ones.
Hah, Simon's just angry because in many LatAm countries, banks started complying with FATCA and he can't hide his stuff no more. Well, that's a case of the chicken coming home to roost, you reap what you sow, jigou jitoku or whatever. For far too long US greed and consumerism imposed a system of misery on the rest of the world. Now that system's biting your asses.
the fed is executing the constitution, especially the
bill of rights and associated national/federal gurantees
as it was designed to do.
good night.
.
Tom Waits Waltzing Matilda live 1977
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrkThaBWa5c
.
the message, leave governance to the hypocrites, con artists,
fascists and criminals in general, it is their incomprehensible art,
not for simple you.
No we've been bludgeoning the constitution ever since John Adams.
Little Feat - Easy To Slip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuxlbjNmuAQ
America is in decline because everybody feels entitled to everything and nobody wants to do anything.
Holders of elected office give the highest priority to getting reelected. So, "If you vote for me, you are as smart as you need to be!".
So, the voters don't get wiser, and that shows up down the road.
So, I reckon: Blame democracy, AS PRACTICED.
Western civilization, like any other entity, needs funding to continue to exist. About 45 years ago, about 99.9% of the population make a conscious decision that they would refuse to work for compensation pegged to the levels seen in the undeveloped world. The populace decided, instead, to kiss their industries goodbye, stop working, and live off of their accumulated wealth or newly incurred debt. Personally, I think this behavior was universal, and it is senseless to try and pinpoint government, corporations, unions, or any other power center as the focus for the blame. Those entitites were simply doing what their constituents demanded of them. The core of the problem was the citizenry, who refused to relinquish their sense of exceptionalism, as if the laws of economics no longer applied to them.
Having lived through those 45 years, this odd blindness has been a constant source of amazement. It is as if people continually stepped out of skyscraper windows, fully expecting to float there while somebody brought them a cocktail.
Even here in the enlightened world of ZH, whenever somebody like myself suggests that the entire problem can be explained by a mass refusal to work for "slave wages", bunches of posters take offense to an idea that seems as plain as the nose on their face. When somebody undercuts your price, you go out of business. Europe and America are going out of business. Nobody in authority will admit it, because when you are losing money and have no savings to fall back on, you have to go out and obtain credit, so you must act like you are prosperous and capable of making repayment in order to keep those loans coming in.
Or, of course, if you happen to have the world's reserve currency that you can print to infinity, you can postpone the day of reckoning for maybe a decade or two.
Certainly the Western world has the ability to make some real products, mainly big-ticket, tech intensive ones, which the rest of the world will line up to buy. Not everything has fallen apart completely around here. It is hard to avoid generalizations in a brief comment. But the direction seems clearly to be downhill, at ever increasing speeds.
Lose the status as the reserve currency, or have our creditors start dumping U.S. Treasuries en masse, and the ensuing carnage will be horrible and most unpleasant to live through.
Meanwhile, folks around the nation are petitioning to get referendums on the ballot to raise the minimum wage, while the rich are lobbying their Washington lickspittles to preserve or even increase asset prices at all cost. Such nitwittery the world has never seen.
@"Western civilization, like any other entity, needs funding to continue to exist.
..."
by "funding" do you mean credit? where come from "credit"?
your simplistic view is offensive(THERE, I TOOK OFFENSE. FEEL BETTER). unions did not destroy the usa economy. let's take one example that applies to most of the rest of the issue. it was and always is management's fault. the usa auto industry had a 1500 dollar per car advantage over the japanese imports in the 80s when all the automakers were complaining about japan's "closed" market(even as they refused to move the steering wheel to the other side of the car. i watched a hilarious interview with a japanese official pointing this out in his very japanesy way). instead of using the 1500 dollar advantage to protect the domestic auto market the usa automakers scoffed at the tiny rice burner cars the japanese sold and marked that 1500 dollar advantage to their immediate bottom line. domestic usa automaker share of the market went from almost 90% to about 50%. it wasn't until the later part of the 90s, well after the 1500 dollar advantage was pissed away that the usa big three responded and only ford has been effective. none of that was the result of over paid autoworkers. in fact, the human part(cost) of auto making has been greatly reduced.
the steel industry and other big union shops saw the same sort of management mistakes owing to the exceptionalism and hubris of american industry especially when applied to the yellow and brown people of asia.
The Auto Union was at least partialy to blame. They refused to allow "out-sourcing" to other businesses, and insisted on their exorbitant pension plans.
I agree the management is incompetent, but the basic problem on both sides is GREED.
It's doubtful you'll come back here to see if you got a reply, but your effort deserves one anyway. You seem to take offense that I included labor unions in my list of entities I saw no point in blaming for this mess, as if by putting them in that list I was attempting to focus the blame solely on the Unions. In your fervor to defend the unionized workers, you apparently missed my point, which was that I think there is little point in focusing blame.
As you have noted, USA market share for the big 3 has declined from 90% to 50%. I cannot accept your assertion that this was entirely caused by errors of management. Even if it was, as annual production plummeted, as factories shut down, as captial equipment was auctioned off, the UAW should have done whatevery was necessary to provide the domestic manufacturers with whatever price advantage was needed to stop the erosion of domestic market share. That would have meant when contract negotiation time rolled around, that demands be made for reduction in wages across the board. Yes, I know, that is a completely unrealistic expectation. But why? Why shouldn't the UAW have looked out for all people working in the industry rather than the interests of the high-seniority people who felt they would never be hurt by a plant closing or a round of layoffs. Rather than take the necessary pay cuts, the strategy was to demand more wage increases. Management reacted by automating as many processes as possible, then eliminating over a million jobs. Yes, that's right, over 1,000,000 jobs. In 1977, at the apex, the UAW had 1,527,858 members. By 2010, that number was reducted to 392,166. Nice job, leaders of the UAW! By doing what your members wanted (higher wages), you have shrunk the size of your institution by roughly 75%, and a million families would still be able to enjoy a stable and comfortable middle-class lifestyle, and Detroit would not be the bankrupt disaster area it has now become.
By the way, the white collar workers and management all should have taken cuts, too. Instead, they rode the tsunami into retirement, getting all they could while the getting was good. There has been a lot of that going around here in the good old USA.
If you could show me even one example of a major union asking for wage cuts in a contract demand, I might consider the idea that you don't have an incurable intellectual or emotional blind spot.
i am not going to search union contracts but if you would like to you will find all sorts of concessions made by unions in the nineties while managemnet remained top heavy(as you pointed out).
you missed the point of my post. your claim is no one is specifically at fault. my contention is management is always at fault. labor, in whatever form, is under management. they may cause problems for management but it is still managements' responsibility to run the business. as we both noted the need for labor in the auto industry is greatly diminshed due to automation. this would have happened whether labor is paid union wages or the current 12-20 bucks an hour for labor. the pension issue would not be a problem if management defended market share and retained even 70% of the market.
mind you, i don't have a prolabor point of view. i am management. the buck stops here. however, while i like the current environment of "fire them at will" i am also aware that these sorts of management attitudes are the reasons unions organized to begin with. there are many enlightened companies out there who value their labor and treat them with respect and dignity which translates into all sorts of management advantages. the walmarts and mcdonalds of the world are creating big problems for themselves with regard to their labor force. if they aren't careful they will have to deal with unions. it is a lot easier to deal with individual people than a group of people, especially when both sides see the other side as an adversary rather than a cohort.
Re: Such nitwittery the world has never seen.
Well, not sure it's "nitwittery". In the end there's only X amount of loot the country can produce. The smartest-n-savviest people - by virtue of being (well) smart-n-savvy - figured out how to get most of the loot (smart-n-savvy people are pretty smart-n-savvy when it comes to taking all the loot). The smart-n-savvy people have - over the 45 years you have been been watching, have - perfected the process of getting more loot; every single year they get more and more loot as a percentage of the total loot available to take. The smart-n-savvy people are pretty good at learning from the past which is why they get more and more loot (after all, they are smart-n-savvy).
Perhaps the problem is that people simply feel entited to take loot now regardless of the effect on the other member of the society. And, of course, the smart-n-savvy people (being smart-n-savvy) take the most. After-all, who is more entitled to the loot than the smartest-n-savviest of society: the highest evolved humans of society?
Point well taken. The nitwittery, perhaps, resides in the less smart-n-savvy who have let and are letting this happen.
@Kickaha excellent post! Anyone who has ever worked for a government agency at any level has seen this first hand. Having worked at my local County for only 8 months I decided it was time to hit the road or risk turning into a worthless bloodsucking slub like most of my co-workers.
It's all been seen before. Rome. The French Revolution; "power to the people"; one of the worst ideas in human history.
"The West is running out of steam, and the Social Contract subtext is breaking down."
Bullshit Alert.
Pry the parasites off. Don't buy the "post USA" psy-op
We are a young country. We have enemies here, they are coming thru the apparatus that controls the dialog and spys on us
To me faith means not worrying ... John Dewey
the problem with the usa are all the euroamerican trash littering society with their welfare mentality. they need to sent to kolkata and replaced with hard working brown and yellow people from asia to make this a great country once again.
What a bunch of pessimists on this site. Where is that pathological can-do attitude that made this great-n-glorous country great-n-glorious? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Good post. There are many pessimists on this site. All we hear is, The sky is falling, the sky is falling. :/