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The Rot Within, Part I: Our Ponzi Economy
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMind blog,
Depending on blowing the next bubble to temporarily prop up the economy is the height of foolhardy shortsightedness.
All the conventional policy fixes proposed by Demopublican politicos, technocrats and the vast army of academic/think-tank apparatchiks are the equivalent of slapping a coat of paint on a fragile facade riddled with dryrot. All these fake-fixes share a few key characteristics:
1. They focus on effects and symptoms rather than address the underlying causes, i.e. the dryrot at the heart of our government, society and economy.
2. They maintain and protect the Status Quo Powers That Be--no vested interests, protected fiefdoms or Financial Elites ever lose power as a result of these policy tweaks.
3. They are politically expedient, meaning they assuage the demands of vested interests rather than tackle the rot undermining the nation.
4. They ignore the perverse incentives built into current systems and the incentives of complicity, i.e. to cheer another coat of paint on the dryrot rather than face the costs of real reform.
The financial underpinnings of the economy and society are rotting from within:finance, higher education, defense, healthcare, law, governance, you name it.
This week I want to highlight a few key causes of this pervasive and eventually fatal systemic rot.
Let's start with Our Ponzi Economy. There are three primary examples of our Ponzi Economy: pay-as-you-go social programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.); housing and the stock market. All are examples of financial Ponzi schemes.
All Ponzi schemes rely on an ever-expanding pool of greater fools who buy into the scheme and pay the interest/gains due the previous pool of greater fools. Ponzi schemes fail because the pool of greater fools is finite, but the scheme demands an ever-expanding pool of participants to function.
All Ponzi schemes eventually fail, though each is declared financially soundbecause this time it's different. The number of greater fools required to keep the scheme going eventually exceeds the working population of the nation.
Here's why Pay-As-You-Go Social Programs are all Ponzi schemes:
1 retiree consumes the taxes paid by 5 workers.
Those 5 workers when they retire consume the taxes paid by 25 workers.
Those 25 workers when they retire consume the taxes paid by 125 workers.
Those 125 workers when they retire consume the taxes paid by 625 workers.
Those 625 workers when they retire consume the taxes paid by 3,125 workers.
You see where this goes: very quickly, the number of workers required to keep the Ponzi scheme afloat exceeds the entire workforce.
The only way to keep the Ponzi scheme going is to keep raising payroll taxes on the remaining workers, which is precisely what welfare states (i.e. every developed economy on the planet) has done.
But raising taxes merely extends the Ponzi scheme one cycle. Eventually, taxes are so high that the remaining workers are impoverished. Right now, the U.S. has reached a ratio of 2 full-time workers for every retiree. As the number of retirees rises by thousands every day and the number of full-time jobs stagnates, the ratio will slide toward 1-to-1:
The Problem with Pay-As-You-Go Social Programs: They're Ponzi Schemes (November 5, 2013)
Estimates are even worse in other developed nations. In Europe, the ratio of retirees over 65 to those between 20 and 64 will soon reach 50%--and that's of the population, not of people with full-time jobs paying taxes to fund social welfare programs. (source: Foreign Affairs, July/August 2014, page 130)
As the percentage of the working-age populace with full-time jobs declines, the worker-retiree ratio will become increasingly unsustainable. The taxes paid by each worker are nowhere enough to fund the generous pension and healthcare benefits promised to every retiree.
In the U.S., the number of people of working age who are jobless is 92 million; the number of full-time jobs is 118 million. This chart of labor participation includes almost 30 million part-time employees who don't earn enough to pay substantial taxes and millions of self-employed people making poverty-level net incomes.
Courtesy of STA Wealth Management, here is a chart that shows full-time workers are less than half the labor force:
Housing is also a classic Ponzi scheme: prices can only go up if there is an ever-expanding pool of greater fools willing and able to pay even more for a house than the previous pool of greater fools.
As I have explained many times, the only way the Status Quo has been able to expand the pool of greater fools is to lower interest rates to near-zero, drop down payments to 3% and loosen previously-prudent lending standards.
The Housing "Recovery" in Four Charts (May 27, 2014)
These tricks extend the Ponzi for a cycle by artifically expanding the pool of greater fools, but that pool is not infinite. (Foreign buyers are currently enlarging the pool, but their participation is dependent on the Ponzi schemes in their home economies not blowing up.)
The stock market has been made the official metric of the nation's economic health; too bad it's a Ponzi scheme. Financial bubbles are what economist Robert Shiller calls "naturally occurring Ponzis" because the psychology of ever-rising prices and profits fuels an inflow of greater fools that sustains the bubble until all available greater fools have sunk their cash and credit into the bubble.
Here is what a market that is increasingly dominated by Ponzi bubbles looks like: this is the S&P 500 (SPX):
(source: Gordon T. Long, Macro Analytics)
Depending on blowing the next bubble to temporarily prop up the economy is the height of foolhardy shortsightedness. Yet that's our Status Quo, increasingly dependent on inflating bubbles to evince "economic strength" when the Ponzi paint will soon peel off the rotten wood of the real economy.
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Go Ponzi!
"The stock market has been made the official metric of the nation's economic health; too bad it's a Ponzi scheme. "
& the bread & circuses continue
So true.
Ponzi schmonzi. As long as Obunghole and his buddies are rich.......
the shittiest part is that i cant even opt out of those ponzis. Since i know I will never get jackshit out of SS, I would happily sign on the dotted line stating that I am ineligible for social security benefits and all i ask for is my money back. too bad that wont happen, as it would quickly dispell the illusion that the money you put into it is kept for you in some kind of lockbox, rather than spent as soon as the govt gets it
I would be happy enough for them to stop stealing more money from me and they keep what they have taken, err stolen..
I'm still trying to join the Amish church, no SS, Obamacare, etc.
It's just the no technology thing that kicks me in the ass...
We're approaching peak greater fools. Everyone seems to think they can all be the first one out the exit.
The economy is a Ponzi scheme because of elected leaders. True.
But the most fundamental reason is because the voters keep re-electing these jokers. Nothing will happen until the voters change their minds about the viability of socialism. That won't happen until the voters feel the pain. Apparently, not enough of them do yet.
But that situation will "fix" itself eventually.
Don't you mean it is because our political system is captured by two political parties, representing different sides of the same coin, who control the nominations, elections, and ultimately the vote counting?
That would make your first statement utterly false unless by elected you mean selected.
It's gonna suck when they run out of bread and the circus leaves town.
he missed 2 other ponzi schemes: Education and the dollar
59% of the population working in 2020? Can I take the under?
We are already under. You win.
way way over rated.
with robotic revolution, kill jobs to get h24 jobs done in services, sells... they dreams.
2020 is babyboomer total retirement. retirement never meant replaced by other workers...
if economy is so nice why, for a simple exemple M$ just shot 18 000 employement, 10k from nokia, 8 from m$ ?
they cannot lie anymore. i heard in europ the closing of ALL bank human services for 2020, 2024.
in mc donalds they test the 1st all tactil orderer machine, then you pay on credit card or later wwhen you have only cash.
no more human interface for orders, just cash money. this is a sign of the most changing world behavior.
replacing all non absolute needed human moves by bot moves.
no wages, no seekness, no child stop, no stoppage... h24 working, the perfect worker.
That is even better. Instead of having to rely on actual humans to reduce the population they can just inject a poison/plague/whatever into the supply of ketchup and the machines will dispense it without missing a beat (the machines won't eat the ketchup and die first). Sweet.
Long Heinz!
Too optimistic.
Absolutely too optimistic. Does not include all the under/ unfunded federal,state and local government "employee" forever no expense excluded pension/health plans. Can't wait for that to fail.
Long live PONZI!
"apparatchiks"
I just love that word.
That is all.
Dildobitches
Anything new in this article we didn't already know?
The author fails to account for two things; unlink other schemes the owners of this one are capable of printing more "demand" out of thin air. Two, the percentage of people working is decreasing and retirement is going the way of the dodo.
Those thinking this market can't go up forever are foolish and their belief has no basis in reality.
There are two positions in this market, long and wrong; choose one.
Just like Herbalife!
They will never let 2008 happen again. Now the question is , what disaster awaits us , going the other way ????
IMO, we're going to get whipsawed with deflation, then hyperinflation, barring WWIII.
Agree. Inflation and hyperinflation has always been the plan. This was round one and now they need a catalyst for round two.
IMO, we're going to get whipsawed with deflation, then hyperinflation, then WWIII.
FTFY, ;-D
If there is to be any pretense of WWIII not being a mass of civil wars and also remaining conventional, it has to be started before hyperinflation. Otherwise, WWIII will start, then be over very quickly. All those tanks, MRAPs, Palidins, 2 1/2 and 5 ton trucks, fuel trucks, helicopters, jets, AC130s, C5s, most of our ships, etc... run on something that we have to import. Who's going to sell it to us if the USD is hyperinflating away? That leaves two options for post hyperinflation WWIII where the US is involved: Nuclear, or worldwide civil wars. Either of those are distinct possibilities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Krv4YEMwCE
We do NOT have to import oil. Military would have dibs on our own, and the rest of it would be rationed to us plebes.
On the bright side we could get hyperinflation and then deflation and then extintion.
It starts with Z and rhymes with "Yimbabwe."
WWIII or weaponized plague.
Ponzinomics. It's what's for dinner.
True dat!
Carlo "Charles" Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo would be proud!
Add into the mix the millions of illegals flooding into the US to get their EBTs, welfare, medical and schooling.
Obama intends to really step up the debt from here. Yellen will just continue to print and hide the Ponzi. Mark to fantasy accounting.
Regarding the Federal Reserve
-----------------------------------
They’re leverage at 80 to 1. The Fed is insolvent on a mark to market basis. Now the Fed doesn’t actually mark to market.
They hold their assets at a cost.
But if you did mark them to market the way you
would with a hedge fund for example, their
capital would be wiped out. They’re insolvent
and I actually had a conversation with the member
of the Federal Open Market Committee who
admitted this to me privately.
So now I’ve reached a conclusion on my own but
she confirmed it. So she had gotten insolvent.
The central bank, they’re not going to be able to do more.
- Jim Rickards
----------------------------------
Well, luckily for us, solvency is just an old, out-of-date, "concept" now. All that matters is the ability to roll-the-debt-over.
One bad bank to rule them all...
Cloward & Piven bitchez...
that's when the IMF will try to step in with the SDR a.k.a. next phase of the ponzi
Thanks for the synopsis of every ZH article over the past 6 years. Good stuff.
"whew"...I just checked. Today is Tuesday. up up up!
Ratio of full time workers to SSA beneficiaries at 2-1. The definition of UNSUSTAINABLE.
Gimmy and I, Gimmy and M, Gimmy a MIG, Gimmy a RATION what's it SPELL?! The ponzi "solution"!!!
May we have perpetual increasing growth forever and ever (or at least until I collect all the loot the ponzi "owns" me).
No no no...the US economy is not a ponzi scheme and there is no inflation! Now lookie here, a reputable news source says that everything in your house is getting cheaper to buy. So get out there and consume! Just don't buy beef, or gasoline or electricity or laundry detergent or toilet paper or fruit juice or breakfast cereal or milk or razors or non-prescription medicine or...
Won't be long until they pillage your MM account and freeze assets into myRA theft.
One commenter posted some time ago that each of the last 3 FED chairmen had their crises in the first year of their tenure (thereby gaining sage status for the remainder).
It seems that the easiest way to save the charts would be by a) renewing the draft, or b) greatly reducing the population.
Either way, the drums are beating, and October seems like such a traditional month for this sort of thing.
August is when alarmist begin their campaign. September is market correction. October is the month for new war games. 7 year cycles mantra.
Wasn't it like a week ago that a bunch of folks here were running around saying that something big (the "end?") was going to happen on the 20th of July? Maybe I was too busy to notice that it did...
In my defense, I didn't mention any numerology. I really wanted to show my tinfoil colors and maybe suggest some bluebeam, or some other deus ex machina to help the next shoe off, but held back (until now).
Unfortunately, your point is valid as ever. :)
treating the underlying causes is traditionall called a 'revolution' and yea, no one is advocating a revolution on television. wow. big surprise.
There is a cap on Social Security contributions.
Once you earn $113k/year every dollar earned beyond that no longer is taxed to pay for SS benefits.
Why was there a cap placed? People with big money made it that way.
"That's not how the system was designed. The clear intent of Congress, expressed in 1977 revisions to the Social Security Act of 1935, is that 90 percent of all payroll covered by the Social Security system should be taxed. Under the law, the cap is adjusted annually to reflect wage inflation, but the flattening of wages for most Americans - and runaway income at the top - means that more income "escapes" the cap."
-http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/15/us-column-miller-idUSBREA3E1HC...
Taking away this cap makes Social Security solvent FOREVER. In fact, benefits could be raised.
Now "down arrow" me, bitchez. Prove how stupid most of you really are.
"Taking away this cap makes Social Security solvent FOREVER."
Until you wake up from the dream...
I think that you should be able to fund Social Security FOREVER because, well, because!
You fail to provide any meaningful parameters in which your assertions would operate. Leaving aside the FACT that NOTHING lasts "FOREVER," there is no mention of employment (necessary to generate SS funds- wages continue to drop, as well as employment) or demographics (aging population).
The wealthy will look to pull their money away. I don't care if this is seen as "right" or "wrong," it's just reality.
The concept of "retirement" is something that the majority of human on the planet know nothing of, that history shows as being a fluke. Never mind the notion of social pooling of retirement "funds."
We live in the best of times ... retirement is a fluke ... so is hot running water, smart phones, tv, cars, planes, vacations, swimming pools, Cheesecake Factory, a thousand other things we now enjoy in the US and have embraced as our right and expect .gov to provide. How much longer will it last?
Read the history of social security and all of the related government "promises." Then make a comparison to what it is today, you redistributionist commie.
Here's a clue genius. It's capped because the amount of SS anyone can receive is capped. Uncapping the money taken out of my check without raising what I could receive upon retirement would expose SS for the scam it is. Removing the CAP on the amount taken from workers would crush the middle class....and other productive members of society.
Thanks for the good post and excellent choice of charts
Will not be long anymore, brothers and sisters! I can see the light at the end of the craziness-tunnel!
Only what exactly is waiting for us on the other side? 1984?
Kimberly-Clark rolls out tube-free Scott toilet paper.
There is no inflation! They're just protecting the environment, bitchez.
Funny that the motivations and the emboldened Wall Street corruptions did not take center stage in this article.
Other than that oversight, good article.
The key point is that there is a fundamental, logical flaw at the heart of our monetary system.
Our monetary system's survival depends on treating debt and "money" as equally valuable, when, of course, they are not. If I were to give you $1000 today with 100% certainty, it is more valuable to you than $1000 in the future, even with 99.9% certainty. The fact that the debt (for future repayment) has any uncertainty means that the present value of this debt is less than than the pound denominated sum.
What this means is that everyone has a financial incentive to get money out of the fractional reserve banks as soon as possible. It is a clear, obvious arbitrage opportunity. The final bank runs must come as a matter of logical certainty; it is only a question of whether it is sooner rather than later.
The political and banking classes, as well as the "economists" that have supported them, are split between the fools and the wise. The latter, while knowing full well the logical impossibility of our fiat money system, have not acted on their knowledge as a matter of rational self-interest; their very livelihood has depended on the system's perpetuation.
You are correct. Any risk is not covered by the minuscule interest that you would earn with that money.
Therefore, why keep the money there at all? This pokes a massive hole in the whole Fractional Reserve numbers...
POLL: Ok, we've had the Tech Bubble, the Housing Bubble, the Bond Bubble, and the Asset Bubble, right?
Ok ZHers, tell me what the next bubble (if any) willl be.
Happy suggesting,,, ;-D
I think they were hoping for a green bubble but I guess we're not stupid enough to buy that.
WWIII is their necessary goal. They need to *massively* reduce population so that resource prices can once again support the population under fiat currencies. There are plenty of resources, but under fiat they get too expensive because of inflation. Much more profitable to reduce the population 50% or more than to return to sound money.
The voters get the government they deserve.
authoriized user, the voters were systematically undermined by the the persistent application of the methods of organized crime, which dominated the political processes. Did they deserve a government dominated by the methods of organized crime, or could they never do anything practical to stop that happening to them? Bribery, intimidation, as well as assassination of those politicians that could not otherwise be bribed or intimidated, made sure that eventually almost all the successful and surviving politicians were puppets, performing for muppets, who had been scientifically brainwashed to believe in bullshit by the school systems, and the mass media, more and more, as time passed, and thus, the fundamental issues automatically got worse, faster.
It took some stealth and skullduggery to get the current monetary and taxation systems in place. However, after that was done, then it became a cake walk towards reinvesting the profits from fraud in more fraud, so that the political processes were more and more captured by the special interests that played proportionately large roles in funding the political processes.
America gets the government that is bought and paid for. The voters have no good choices. There is nothing but a political puppet show, performing for the manipulated muppets, as enough of "We the People" were reduced to becoming Zombie Sheeple. The voters have a core group of people who are possible to fool enough of the time. So far, nobody else outside of that system can actually do anything realistic to change it.
Your comment, authorized user, is like this article above, in that it is grossly superficial. We are not merely in a Ponzi Scheme, because that depends upon tricking people who have some real choices not to be tricked. We are in a social pyramid system based on ENFORCED FRAUDS. The government enforces the bankers' frauds. There are utterly runaway systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which are many orders of magnitude worse than merely some ordinary Ponzi Scheme!
Moreover, most of the controlled opposition groups only superficially understand that, while their bogus "solutions" still depend upon the same old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies and related impossible ideals. We are looking at the runaway situation where the government is the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gang of criminals, which currently happen to be the international bankers.
HOWEVER, THE GENUINE SOLUTIONS ARE TO GO THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS OF THAT BIZARRO MIRROR WORLD! The American democratic republic and its rule of law has failed because of too much faith in false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, which caused its controlled opposition groups to continue to promote bogus "solutions" to the problems, that actually made even more of the opposite happen in the real world.
The "rot within" is the nature of entropy, which we understand backwards, the same as we therefore tend to understand everything else backwards. The situation is way worse than merely Ponzi Economics, on the verge of collapsing into chaos, due to the ways that debt slavery numbers have generated numbers which are debt insanities. Since the debt slavery systems were always backed by wars based on deceits, the debt insanities are on the verge of provoking death insanities.
Moreover, the BASICS are that all private property is based on claims backed by coercions. Money is measurement backed by murder. Those things can not be changed, because they are built into the ways that human being necessarily perceive the world. However, we could go forward, to perceive those better. The realistic goals are to develop better dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies, operating robberies, in the context where human realities are necessarily always organized lies and robberies.
The ONLY way that the voters could transform the situation is by understanding enough radical truth about themselves operating as entropic pumps in general energy systems. Everyone has some power to rob, and with power to kill as the limit case of that power to rob. Governments assemble and channel that power. Corporations were able to dominate governments, in order to effectively privatize most of those public powers.
The ONLY way that voters could realistically transform the real political situation is by enough of them understanding that, as citizens, they are members of an organized crime gang, called the country, which should regain control over the corporations that their country originally chartered, but which then spun out of control to end up controlling the country, and thus, the People, as big corporations became the best organized systems of legalized lies, operating organized robberies, which were in positive feedback loops through the powers of governments.
Over and over again, voters have been scientifically brainwashed to believe in bullshit, while their real choices were more and more restricted to choosing between different political puppets. However, as the consequences of having done that become worse, faster, more of them are being forced to begin to think about that situation in more radical ways.
Only more radical truth could perhaps enable a sufficient revolution to change that situation. Such radical truth is NOT going still be based on the old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies, and a return to realization of impossible ideals. More radical truth is going to be based upon more thoroughly understanding how and why we ended up with the rotten foundations of ENFORCED FRAUDS controlling our civilization. That is not going to be "stopping" organized crime from controlling the government, but rather, that must become better organizing crime, to become a better government, because it is unavoidable that government is a form of organized crime.
To the degree that the voters do not accept and understand that, then they will continue to allow the powers of "We the People" to be controlled by the best organized gang of criminals, which currently are the bankers and their buddy corporations, who have almost totally privatized the public powers of "We the People," because enough of them have become Zombie Sheeple, so that enough of them can be fooled, enough of the time. Manipulated muppet voters get the government of political puppets they "deserve." Voters who acted like incompetent political idiots get the government that they deserved. However, they were deliberately driven to become such incompetent political idiots, by people who derived a series of short-term advantages from the vicious spirals of frauds, which were enforced, to enable even bigger frauds to then be enforced ...
More radical truths in that context is quite a bit more radical that anyone like Hugh Charles-Smith, as well as almost all the rest of the featured articles, is going to outline. Only a few of the comments in Zero Hedge tangentially touch upon aspects of that kind of more radical truth. More radical truth is to propose genuine solutions which are consistent with the correct analysis, that the government has become the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gang of criminals. More radical truth requires that enough of "We the People" embrace a more thorough understanding of those social facts, to be able to go through the looking glass of our Bizarro Mirror World, in order to be able to better understand the political puppet shows, so that enough of "We the People" stop being such easily manipulated muppets!
Of course, that may well appear utterly impossible now ... However, the established systems of ENFORCED FRAUDS automatically get worse, faster, as their inherent contradictions get bigger and BIGGER, because no amount of legalized violence can ever make legalized lies become true, but only drive the society controlled in those ways to become more psychotically insane. The challenges may be to catalyze the collapses into chaos, with more radical truth, that understands human realities better, so that it become possible to have better governments, operating better death controls, to back up better debt controls ...
I uped you for your bravery.
The problem with tearing down the system is that the system is designed to make you think it is more valuable to be in it, even at a low level than to be outside of it a high level.
We want to overthrow a system but then eat at the restaurants that those in previous power ate at. Sleep in the mansions and drive the rich cars. We want to dethrone the rich and then have access to the riches things.
When we place more value on human life, all human life, than the solutions will become evident. However, many zero hedgers love the racist rhetoric. They love to blame more than they would like to solve the problem. As if the solution had a race or color or sex.
The answer is God and Jesus Christ. Most people point correctly to religion as being a major part of the problem. The organized religions often practice more cultural religion than actual spiritual religion. Lost in the shuffle is an intimate relationship with God.
The only religion worth practicing is one based upon fairness. It would not be fair if I because of my skin color, or my sex, or my place of birth, or my income, or my time of birth had a greater opportunity to receive everlasting life than anyone else. But if I can find a religion where we all can be saved and the decision is based upon whether each individual wants to be saved than that is fair.
If I choose to follow Christ and his commandments I will hate no one, pray for everyone, and offer anyone the good news. I will not lie on others to achieve personal gain nor assist others by lieing. I will follow the first two commandments. Love the lord God with all my heart and soul and Love my neighbor as I love myself.
Not only will I not despair at the world's problems. I will keep my light knowing that this world already has a savior and I don't have to be it. Which is something the world also teaches you. That if there is to be a change you need to lead it.
No, the change has already occured and we need to follow it rather than follow the world.
I do not consider it to be all that "brave" to state what I regard as the facts. Another one of the meta-facts is that the established systems do NOT have to care able whatever the truth may or may not be, since what they do is based on so many thousands of years of backing up lies with violence, which social habits have been scientifically perfected forms of social slavery, that no presentation of rational evidence nor logical arguments is something that the ruling classes have to care too much about, since they STILL can count of the majority of people continuing to be either too ignorant or afraid, or some combination of both, along some sliding scale of apathy, for any of that kind of critical information to really matter.
As other people who have commented here before, long before I started to, something like five or so years of this Zero Hedge community of readers, and all the articles and comments upon those articles, have apparently NOT stopped the basic things that were happening from still happening. None of the criticisms of what the established systems are doing have made any significant difference to them still doing that, so far! Hence, it is not so "brave" to attempt to state the facts, when one expects that one will be mostly ignored, and that nothing will actually result in making any material differences due to having done that. The main ways that the established systems deal with the residual degree of freedom of expression that still exists is simply to not worry, because it will be drowned out.
Most of the rest of your comments I recognized as a kind of old-fashioned irrational hope, which is better than having no hope at all. I do similar things, although I use a different language to do that. I did not read the Bible until I was in my 20s, when I away working, and had run out of anything else to read. My primary process language that I grew up with was mathematical physics. My first philosophy was statistical materialism. However, I later discovered that post-modernizing science was reconverging with ancient mysticism. Therefore, I now believe Spirit is Energy, while Satan is Entropy, and so on and so forth, throughout an entire panoply of translations of old-fashioned religions and their moralities into my own kind of souped-up scientific language expression of that kind of transcendental poetry. I.e., God as Science, the Son as Technology, and the Holy Spirit as Evolutionary Progress ...
In my view "fairness," and all of the other traditional attributes of God, may be approached with the idea of the conservation of energy. From that perspective the universe as a whole is always perfect. However, that does not stop there being pumped up severe social storms, and the psychotic breakdowns of social systems that become extremely unbalanced, due to too much unfairness, for too long.
Therefore, I find consolations in philosophy. However, that does not prevent the suffering that a lot of people are going to go through when the economic Ponzi scheme that the USA, and most of the rest of the world, is trapped within finally topples itself over, and collapses into chaos. While I continue to believe that energy will nevertheless be conserved, I have no personal assurance that that working through severe social storms will pleasant for me. Rather, I still tend to dread being caught up in the tribulations.
There are many different ways of "knowing." I do not think one needs mystical revelations to recognized that exponential growth of electronic fiat money frauds, backed by the threat of the force of atomic bombs, has an extremely dangerous and very probably disastrous outcome for billions of people.
For me personally, there is no "magic" whatsoever in the magical words that other old-fashioned religions and ideologies prefer to uphold. Therefore, "Jesus Christ" is just more bla, bla, blah to me, as is "Liberty," etc. (despite those kinds of words having been the background woodwork of my culture) ... Instead, as I wrote, I asymptotically approach attempting to take the conservation of energy seriously, as the source of my philosophical consolations. However, that does not stop the enforced frauds from causing severe social storms and suffering in the future!
One of my first realizatons about 3 years ago was that math is the language of God. He speaks to us in math so that he doesn't really need to translate. Most of our letters are a combination of the number 0 and the number 1.
When he speaks to me he says how many times does this happen when this is applied. He sometimes beats me over the head with it but I often get it.
His word is true. That is why I follow it.
I too like the sublime contemplation of sacred geometry.
The world is full to the brim of "coincidences," such as
Solar Flare Co-incidences? If you feel like it, you can skim through that thread for some links which I liked about "sacred geometry." As well, the first part of the Thrive movie has some interesting and entertaining presentations of those ideas:
http://www.thrivemovement.com/
My view is that information is a form of energy, and therefore, in that sense, by definition, such a "word is true." I believe that I have no way not to follow it, the same as I believe that I can not make energy out of nothing, nor send it to nothing. Indeed, in my view, no matter how sociopathic & psychopathic somebody may be, they are still, due to their own history and evolution, doing what they do because they are inside of the flow of information, when taken as the flow of energy, which they must be.
However, that kind of presumed overall divine perfection does not prevent suffering from being caused by ignorance, and the worst suffering being caused by the most evil deliberate ignorance. Running an economic system upon the basis of enforced frauds, through the privatized creation of "money" out of nothing as debts, is an extreme manifestation of enforced frauds, which engenders massive amounts of evil deliberate ignorance, which will cause proportionate suffering to many, many people.
I REPEAT my basic view that the paradoxical ways that backing up lies with violence WORKS, drives society insane! If one agrees that mathematical languages are good descriptions of the world, then being able to make "money" out of nothing, and have that able to disappear back to nothing, developed the supreme Ponzi economics scheme, which has become the foundation of our entire political economy.
The ONLY way to understand that is from a larger perspective that civilization does operate as an energy system, in which the best descriptions of how that works are according to the principles and methods of organized crime. Indeed, my view is that when one looks at energy systems properly, including with a radical critique of the concept of entropy, then civilizations are mathematically working through conservation of energy problems/solutions, through non-linear functions, where the results are the same as the principles of organized crime that actually were the methods that made those systems and maintained them: THE SHORT-TERM SUCCESSES OF ENFORCED FRAUDS DRIVE DISASTROUS LONGER TERM CONSEQUENCES!
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Suicide and Hopelessness are the natural position of intelligent individuals. The problems seem bigger then they are because the problems are bigger than they are. In giving up hope many find that if they admit they are out of answers on how to solve a problem God can then step in and show them the way.
Lets say the odds are a million to 1. What does that one have to fear if they believe in God. Nothing. But the million that don't they fear that there is a God and if that 1 is right they are in trouble.
Despite all their riches they fear a reckoning day. Now they may not have a great fear since it appears sin is the way of world. However, God does not need many to prove his points.
If I am not hopeless than I am not part of the system. If I don't participate the system has lost one part. If I convince another not to participate then that is two. What is 2 to a million? Nothing in numbers put plenty in spirit.
If one can face the dragon and not fear or die it offers hope to others. 2 that are not brainwashed to want and want and want at the expense of their neighbors offers a path for any who want off the treadmill. While millions of evil things get done everyday, not everything that gets done is evil.
If you can change a heart, you can change the world, and the world knows it. God is stronger and the problem knows it.
Despite apparent numbers as you said their argument is ultimately insane. Winning an insane fight only feels good if you accept the fact that the insanity is preferrable to reality.
How does peace win? By refusing to do evil. How does evil win? By getting people to do evil or accept evil.
Who will win? Peace ultimately and you know why. It is part of evil's battle plan to make you think it is unstoppable because of the magnitude of its evil.
I follow Christ. The lord is my sheppard I shall not want. It means I lack nothing.
I follow Christ. The greatest commandment is to love the lord with all they heart and soul and the second is like it, love they neighbor as they love they self.
Follow those two things and see where it gets you. Not what the world tells you it will get you. See where it gets you. The individual one on one relationship with God. Not a groups. Yours.
I sort of envy your ability to indulge in irrational hope, apparently without fully recognizing that is irrational. I do similar things, but I am not able to easily shake off the recognition that my hopes are irrational!
The sad reality is that most people choose not to believe in the existence of the ponzi scheme or are too daft to realize the truth. I tried convincing someone with facts but he refuses to believe. The blue pill is a very powerful anesthesia although most of us here know that the truth is really stranger than fiction.
Yeah, eishund, the ratio of blue pill poppers to red is roughly 100 to 1.
It is no coincidence in that context that the amount of paper/electronic "gold" to real gold, as with almost any other physical collateral, has also become a ratio of something like 100 times as much fiction as actually exists in fact. The grand economic Ponzi scheme, based on private banks being able to make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, has resulted in ratios of more than 100 blue pill perspectives, to every 1 red pill perspective.
The whole process of making "money" out of nothing to "pay" for strip-mining the planet's natural resources has set up the potential for the most spectacular global bust, to follow after the global boom, that was "paid" with debt based money, in ways which bizarrely allowed the past and present to consume the future! There were always, so far, at least 100 times as many people eager and willing to indulge in that, as there were people who doubted doing that was a good idea. However, the final decisions were always made by those who were the best at backing up their lies with violence.
Since the economic Ponzi scheme is ENFORCED FRAUDS, the people taking the blue pills of evil deliberate ignorance are rewarded in the short-term by the established systems, while those taking the red pills of awareness tend to not to be rewarded. Therefore, collectively, we rush to turn the world natural resources into garbage and pollution, as fast as we can, to keep the Ponzi economic scheme treadmill going.
The MATRIX of enforced frauds that we are living in is actually way worse than the metaphors in the movie of that name, since that is REALITY! Success in warfare, based on backing up deceits with destruction, controlled civilization to develop a fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system, which drives everyone to become criminally insane, since they must operate with extreme attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance towards the basic absurdity of private banks making the public "money" out of nothing as debts. But nevertheless, since the vast majority of people have their lives controlled by what they must do for money, in order to live in the MATRIX, they are being force fed blue pill after blue pill ... while the MATRIX works to try to suppress the distribution of any red pills of awareness!
Perhaps at first, most people were secretly slipped small blue pills, until gradually they were being massively force fed the blue pill effects. After all, one can look at the transformation of the American monetary system, from being originally backed by gold and silver, whose value was set by Congress, to become totally privatized electronic fiat money made out of nothing by private banks, as a steady diet of more and more blue pills, being taken faster and faster. The currently crazy economic Ponzi scheme was a step by step, accelerating runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut.
The benefits delivered to the banksters' and their buddies from that system of runaway organized lies and robberies is driving social polarization and destruction of the natural world to become extremely serious. However, the banksters' and their buddies have been indulging in the maximum doses of their own kinds of blue pills, or evil deliberate ignorance, towards what they are really doing! The longer it takes to wake up, the worse that the REALITIES become nightmares, and therefore, the harder it is to become more aware of the degree to which that reality IS an nightmare!
"until all available greater fools have sunk their cash and credit into the bubble" ... Unfortunately this bubble is fueled by the FED who has no constraints on it's ability to create money, so our children be the 'greater fools'
Free Bernie Madoff and appoint him treasury secretary
ponzi, ponzi, for every girl and a boy
Salvian on the fall of the Roman empire:
"But what else can these wretched people wish for, they who suffer the incessant and even continuous destruction of public tax levies. To them there is always imminent a heavy and relentless proscription. They desert their homes, lest they be tortured in their very homes. They seek exile, lest they suffer torture. The enemy is more lenient to them than the tax collectors. This is proved by this very fact, that they flee to the enemy in order to avoid the full force of the heavy tax levy. This very tax levying, although hard and inhuman, would nevertheless be less heavy if all would bear it equally and in common. Taxation is made more shameful and burdensome because all do not bear the burden of all. They extort tribute from the poor man for the taxes of the rich, and the weaker carry the load for the stronger. There is no other reason that they cannot bear all the taxation except that the burden imposed on the wretched is greater than their resources."
The Social Security retirement plan is not a Ponzi scheme. It is an insurance program to confront the risk of living longer than expected, and it is paid for by the beneficiaries. It has worked successfully for 70 years and can continue to do so with minor adjustments. It also needs greater autonomy and the freedom to invest in a variety of securities.
Wow. Very nice.