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The Decline Of America's Economic Model In 1 Simple Chart
"You can't eat GDP, and you can't live in a rising stock market" is the striking phrase from NY Times' Neil Irwin as he offers the most damning chart of the decline of America's Economic Model (and dream). As we have explained vociferously, the most important thing to understand about today’s economy is: Around 1999, growth in the United States economy stopped translating to growth in middle-class incomes.
The choice, by Greenspan and carried on by his followers, was to enable the financialization of the US economy for the benefit of the few, at the cost of the many. As Irwin concludes, and we explained previously, Americans feel disappointed by the economy; the new data show that they have good reason.
* * *
Perhaps, just perhaps, Rick Santelli was right after all...
"This is America! We don't follow consensus, we set it!"
This is what Santelli is upset about... Who is the Fed working for? Main Street or Wall Street?
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When it was no longer convenient for the elite to maintain the facade (1999) they simply let the curtain drop to expose the brick wall behind the stage. Now shut up and get your butt off to one of your 3 part time jobs slave.
<At least now we know for certain who we are working slaving for.>
You know only the main peppet - Obama, We need to find all slave masters... and it's hard to do...
Just follow the yellow brick road, kowalli. Follow the money, and the monied ruling classless Kleptocrats all the way back to their stash of bullion. Here you will find 'all the slave masters' and their cronies all huddled around their gold whilst heating a can of soup up on a tin of Sterno in order to save on heating costs. Look for the anal retentive money hoarders that look like they don't like to spend money. Think like Scrooge and you will likely find Alan Greenspan heating up soup with a tin of Sterno as a heat source on a cold winter night. If you start now you might make it to Greenspan's house by Christmas Eve.
John Michael Greer, the "Archdruid" looks at the collapse of the current power structure, due to elites being unable to sacrifice, in order to maintain the order which supports them. This is the second Dark Ages America essay in the series.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-09-18/dark-age-america-the-end-of...
That was a pretty cool article by Greer, thanks. Throughout the whole read I kept thinking about the maintanence costs of the present Ebola outbreak and wonder if Greer might be missing that key factor in his general thesis regarding the cycling of civilizations. North America is about to lose approximately half our present population if the present
statistics on Ebola fatalities holds the same exponential trajectory that we are seeing this week. If we lose half the population of North America
the superstructure of governance will implode sending contemporary society into complete chaos and contagion that cannot possibly be controlled by any so-called 'authority' other than starvation and disease.
The Greeks posited a tripartite structure of civilization in terms of the 'acropolis', 'metropolis', and 'necropolis' where the 'necropolis' is the final stage of decay and death of civilization. Translated, 'necropolis' means graveyard. In brief, I do not think that Greer is factoring in the present Ebola outbreak or the fact that Ebola is mutating. Clearly, America is going down for the count with respect to the present superstructure of governance.
Fuck you, I don't want all those people around my house.
People like Alan Greenspan are the direct opposite of people like me. I have a job, and I'm fortunate in that I'm pretty secure in it. I'd be one of the last to be fired. (and that's after considerable thought on it) I refuse to spend money on anything that doesn't have a direct effect on daily living (other than my grandson). Our money is being used to reduce our debt as aggressively as possible while buying gold and silver in physical form with immediate delivery.
That said, my wife got sick as shit about a year ago and I was forced to sell about thirty ounces of my silver stash for medicines and other health costs. Even though silver was only at around $20 per ounce at the time, the silver I sold was bought from my $4 per ounce stash. What I have left is my $8/ounce and above stash.
Greenspan and his ilk have no concept of sterno as a cooking/heating/alcohol source. It's only people like me, who are debt adverse, that make use of anything that will reduce their imprint on financialization.
I respect your practicality Old Phart. Of course the problem is governments can create debt in your name, print new currency and hand it out to buddies and collect the debt using inflation forcing you to pay at some level. Still, one tends to do better being wise on expenditures despite this government forcing a portion of the individual to spend. My bigger angst is the police state, ciminalizing the general population at the state and federal level as an even nastier form of taxation. This crushes confidence and offsets the few productive measures toward that end.
We're sadly also back to taxation without represention with this last 40 year push toward global governance and the more people "check out" as they realize there vote means nothing the more damaging to economies this becomes.
I had connections with the Bush family and in early 2008 I suggested a site for debate to at least anonymously connect citizens with the political class and at times for leadership to postulate viewpoints. I wrote Jeb Bush with the problem of this disconnect and the site idea. He liked it and referred me to Pete Peterson's foundation which is of course tied into other power house foundations like the Rockerfellers. Pete Peterson declined a meeting even with Jeb Bush's referral with his secretary telling me the reason being that "we don't know you." With this attitude how does a citizen attempting to help with a solid plan do so?
In any event launched the site had a great beta but the task had more learning curve than anticipated. Human behavior was more diverse than I realized. I'm continuing on with it but the site will be spend more time with health information and science to improve individual conditions than the focus of politics or finance. More bad things have to happen for elites to wake up that they need participating citizens to have a stable society. In the end, it is all lessons for me in evolution that provided personal growth as a person that were deeply rewarding.
Some bright spots on that site experiment that gave me hope was
1) Wealthy philanthropists noticed and were willing to help and felt the same way as many of us do here on ZH.
2) Not all leadership just shuts out ideas by citizens to improve society.
Dupe
Que smoke and mirrors
The robber barons are in charge and the lives of peasants, "residue," are meaningless to the eugenics-fixated druglords who run the USA. During the first Gulf War, the Saudis called American soldiers their slaves, and they were just telling the truth. The World Trade Center and the Pentagon attacked by drone jets, Sandy Hook a staged operation at a closed school and then rubbing out embarrassing witnesses to the government orchestrated bombing of the Boston Marathon, including two Navy SEALS and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was captured alive before being tortured and killed. Now, as druglords from Afghanistan to Columbia flood the country with cocaine, the Obama administration prepares for any opposition to the looting of America with the creation of a Skynet program, nation-wide wiretapping, with the FISA court controlled by Nazi admirer Chief Justice Roberts, backed by his accomplice, Justice Breyer. The USA used to be called America but it is now the "homeland," the exact translation of the Nazi's favorite word, "heimat." Meanwhile, in the background, the pedophile insiders of the New World Order carry out their degenerate activities, including murder. When this nightmare ends for many Americans (including tens of thousands falsely imprisoned using illegal wiretap evidence) is anyone's guess. The 3,000 New Yorkers murdered by the Bush administration on 9/11 are still waiting for justice, justice which has been a long time coming.
One of them is going to revert. If it wages then we have serious inflation. Buy gold. If it is stawks then hold greenspanbucks. Or hedge and hold some of both.
Why would the wealthy start new businesses that necessitate the employment of US labour, especially when the Banks are receiving near interest free money with which they can draw down high profits (through criminal acts) in Risk Free market speculation and the trading of securitized scams built on just about anything?
The order of the civil-structure is being intentionally and deterministically destroyed and the unwashed are incidental inconveniences on the road to a massive global collapse and looming Dark Age.
The insane are running the Asylum.
What to do?
Ho hum
To be complete, I add,
Why would the Banks even loan their cheap money to entrepreneurs to start businesses which necessitated the employment of US labour in a High Risk environment (milieu), when profits can be drawn easily from the No Risk milieu of the FedRes? If the Banks lose, then they just get there losses replaced by the FedRes.
Isn't this clear?
Understandably, it is prefereable for Banks to manipulate and profit in circumstances where there is No Risk, but that is not the general knowledge of the Regulators; But it is the business Policy of those higher up the food chain, which just haqppen to be Bankers.
You must understand, the Bankers are not there to serve the Nation nor the community nor humanity, they exist, a priori, to serve themselves. and they do this extremely well (and screw the unwashed.
Ho hum
Aquarius
This might help:
The Western intelligentsia clearly sees where this train is taking us, but is trapped by its Judeo-Christianity-derived commitments to ensure a chicken in every pot for all sentient beings, especially those belonging to its own class. The solution is to lie and proclaim that there are no limits to growth, that trees can grow into the sky. To ensure belief in this dogma, the U.S. government has now affirmed that a casus belli can be any attempt, not merely to invade the country militarily, but, inter alia, to destroy its economic domination, to attack its satellite networks, to impair world oil trade, or to prevent U.S.-engendered popular revolutions. This expansion of reasons for genocide reveals just how precarious our existence is becoming.
And while our golfmaster POTUS is keeping his promise to him to be “flexible” on re-Sovietization, we have no idea what may happen once his majesty is dethroned. Because the latter half of this decade is going to see the true arrival of Peak Oil and the failure by exhaustion of ongoing monetary trickery by the government.
Yes, the earth will continue to exist, in the sense that gravity will maintain it in its orbit. But it is questionable whether higher life forms will persevere in anything like their current lifestyles. This is the last hurrah for intelligence on our planet after billions of years of struggle. — By theedrich
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/08/25/update-on-us-natural-gas-coal-nuclear-and-renewables/comment-page-4/#comment-41988
Well stated, Sir. You can extend this to the rest of the global ponzi, not solely to US, although it is responsible for dragging along rest of the farce called world economy.
"The Insane"????
No, way. They are quite lucid. Much much more so than the 7 billion of of human bean masses under them.
You can’t eat G.D.P. You can’t live in a rising stock market. You can’t give your kids a better life because your company’s C.E.O. was able to give himself a big raise...
the only significant thing about that quote is that it was printed by the ny times and not some lunatic fringe blogger.
Listen. Some of us are happy that many of your USSA jerbs went offshore. We're eating your GDP.(and stealing your puppies)
HEY!
You can have my job. Just don't eat my cat.
What do cats taste like?
taste like pussy.
You can't eat GDP? What if I just fry it lightly? there's too damn many dietary restrictions.
when is that windbag Santelli ever not upset ?
In today's paradigm, I hope never.
When he cashes his six figure paycheck for acting like an upset windbag.
Starting in 1999, growth without massive quantities of printed currency and debt, stopped translating to growth, period. The US economy is no more complex than an individual who lost his high paying job to someone able to do the job for less, China, etc. Instead of cutting back, the fool continues to borrow to maintain his lifestyle. Productivity is down, replaced with debt accumulation.
The correct move would have been to let prices deflate so that the country as a whole could become more competitive. But, no, the baby boomers pampered asses must be kept in the lifestyle they have become accustomed to.
Gen X, Y, Z better wake the fuck up.
"The correct move would have been to let prices deflate so that the country as a whole could become more competitive. But, no, the baby boomers pampered asses must be kept in the lifestyle they have become accustomed to."
What carp are you talking?
he's just saying what the voices are telling him
The MIC knew Americans were broke in 1999. The 2001 911 WTC 1 & 2
downing of the first steel buildings in the world was carried out by the MIC in order to continue building their 'empire of dirt' in the Middle East
oil rich nations. In brief, the Gulf of Oman, Iraq oil fields, and oil rich
Middle East was the express target of the Council on Foriegn Relations
and the USA administration in the White House. Peak Oil reached its date of decline in 1999. The conspiracy to take over the Middle East oil fields was hatched just prior to peak oil in 1999. ERGO we had the decent into hell and WW3 start at that juncture in our collective history.
The MIC realized in 2008 that they were doomed and that's when they decided to release weaponized Ebola so that they could defuse
the masses that will rise up and destroy their hegemony. Absolute power corrupts absolutely according to Smedley Butler and Andrew Jackson. Those that refuse to understand history are condemned to repeat it. Please do not render yourself a victim by ignoring history
at your peril.
"Those that refuse to understand history are condemned to repeat it"
Those who understand history repeat it to take advantage of it.
"Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it" (stolen from a comic I found on the web (and can no longer locate)
Such was the curse of Cassandra in greek mythology.....doomed to know the future yet be powerless to change it.
There is an upside and "on a long enough timeline the elites do get a kicking" but it is always the mother of all kickings or worse.
Every fallen human civilisation ends up this way and it is always all the known world at the time and in this case it would be everything.
Queen Janet Yellen says "LET THEM EAT GDP"
The American economy did not "fail." It was stolen by the Federal Reserve and fenced to the Rothschild banksters.
Americans, myself included, are responsible for letting them steal it.
We can redeem ourselves buy taking it back.
An American, not US subject.
"Guillotine the Fed!
if it only would be that simple. they have built the entire social matrix, getting rid of the financial ponzi wouldn't change much. they have conditioned the way of life of the the western civilisation which has been systematically and irrevocably destroyed on purpose.
Speaking of the Matrix (movie), which also came out in 1999....in it, the 2nd version of the Matrix (complete with flaws and imperfections to be more believable to its prisoners) is a replication of "The world as it was at the end of the twentieth century." (as stated by Morpheus)
They forced Gingrich out in November 1998 and since then we have had only a single two-faced party in Washington, who began in 1999 to dismantle the vestiges of conservatism that had driven the economy higher for almost 2 decades.
"They" were fellow Republicans who had to get rid of a political liability. Gingrich is a textbook case of political hubris gone wild.
NoWayJose
When I read the word Gingrich, I knew I was reading not a serious person.
When I read “to dismantle the vestiges of conservatism that had driven the economy higher for almost 2 decades”, then I knew I was reading a demagogue spreading lies (indoctrination).
First: Reagan filled the White House with the Technocrats/Socialists: The Working Group on Financial Markets (also, President's Working Group on Financial Markets, the Working Group, and colloquially the Plunge Protection Team) was created by Executive Order 12631, signed on March 18, 1988 by United States President Ronald Reagan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Group_on_Financial_Markets
Second: Then, the “Conservative Propaganda” of dumbing down the stupid Americans worked as planned, while Reagan runs the highest debt to GDP ratio EVER (288.5%). And mainly to the MIC:
1980 US Debt: $930,210
ftp://ftp.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdm121980.pdf
1988 US Debt: 2,664,392
ftp://ftp.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdm121988.pdf
To put US deficit into perspective: Obama would have to run a deficit of about $38 trillion dollars to match Reagan’s GDP ratio.
"All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in the constitution…, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation" — John Adams, August 25, 1787.
hey, cut obuma some slack! the overlords who run the federal reserve have to approve the money printing first, as belgium can't absorb this amount of treasuries. so it's not his fault per se. and by the way, have some faith, he's only $20 trillion short and has two more years to make it.
layman_please,
I am gonna hold you to that.
$20 trillion in two years? I would not want to miss it.
Gingrich is the most hypocritical douche in Washington. Fucking his mistress while attempting to get the president impeached for fucking his mistress! Fuck off with this Newt Gingrich bullshit asshole!
I beg to differ, Newt has lots of competition for that title. Sadly honest decent politicians in Washington are as rare as a hens tooth.
AdvancingTime
I beg to differ, too!
Chris Hedges: Karl Popper writes this in The Open Society and Its Enemies. He said the question is not how do you get good people to rule. Popper says that’s the wrong question. Most people, Popper writes, attracted to power are at best mediocre, which is Obama, or venal, which is Bush.
http://c4ss.org/content/20440
U forgot put <sarc ON> .
Catherine Austin Fitts says she was told in 1996 by the head of CALPERS that the big interests had basically written off the US as a going concern, and were sending their money, factories, and jobs overseas. Their next move would be to strip the US economy like a Thanksgiving turkey and leave the rubes fighting over the bones.
Those who look closely understand that it is not the 1% at the top stealing the icing off the cake, but the much smaller .1% or .01% that are skewing the numbers and overreaching.
I contend the biggest problem is the massive growth in crony capitalism and corruption in Washington. Much of this can be attributed to the ability of those in control "changing the rules" and positioning themselves to benefit at every corner. In our busy and complex world we have found it impossible to watch all the moving parts. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-empires-collapse.html
We should understand that demand drives investment, confidence is not the real driver. Lack of real growth is about lack of real demand. Much of the demand we see today is driven by artificially low interest rates and QE that distorts the markets.
We must differentiate the kinds of economic growth and understand that all growth is not created equal. If you spend money but afterwards have little to show for it you have wasted it. Sadly, much of the money America "invests in itself" each year through government spending and programs falls into this category. More on the kind of growth we need in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/01/false-demand-fuels-wrong-kind-of-...
I am not so sure about the '1999' date, albeit the graph shows the trend well under way. Outsourcing in large degree, began almost 15 years earlier. I know. I was a part of it and saw it take place and gain traction in real time during the late 80's in Silicon Valley. Indeed, the 'financialization' aspect of the economy allowed this. I remember a few terms that preceded the ubiquitous 'outsourcing' moniker. One of them at the time was 'right-sizing'. Remember that one...? It wasn't soon after the first wave of it went to domestically domiciled companies, that those same 'contractors' got wise and decided to roll their shit downhill too. That's when it took off like wildfire in China, Thailand and the Philippines.
Personally, I was unsure of this 'newfangled' deal - we were sold that it was for the better; shareholder value, profitability, etc. My mind's eye said it would take 20 years for the real fruits to be realized. Perhaps I wasn't too far off...
IMO, the idea that it all went adrift in 1999 is to misread reality. If one went back and re-calculated CPI and GDP correctly for the years way before 1999, it would show that "real" GDP growth faded away much earlier. Thru a combination of it taking time to feed into the economy and the huge growth in debt to compensate and hide the truth, this decline only became visible much later, say in 1999 and especially about 2006 when levels of debt were at bursting point and became unsustainable. I reckon there has been no real GDP growth for a generation or so.
Today, apart from a few narrow market sectors, there is no growth and there is no recovery.
Yup
Take a pie 100% for a number to play with.
Now an elite can never lose so it is every year +2% by Keynes so they do not get devalued away.
In 50 years you own everything and why any civilisation based upon this writes its own code of economic destruction. THE DESTRUCTION IS THE ELITES OWN GREED ... priceless.
They got clever creating artificial value to extend this with funny paper to pretend there was something to play for.
Now you could have built a civilisation that lasted 1000 years because the coding would be 0.001% YOY guaranteed but to choose this now will require a reset and they are not going to go for that. Then add the funny paper reckon you could extend it way further but the game will only be played if there is something to play for.
CHART ABOVE -> YOU CANNOT EVEN GET INTO THE GAME TO PLAY -> IT ENDED AT THE BAILOUT.
End of the 80's those clever greedy elites started to take far in excess of 2%+ YOY hastening the process is all.
The chart really needs explaining like this, stuff the numbers worthless like fiat paper.
For the majority there is no point in their own minds for any existence anymore other than to be a slave of the elites. So you have a child then, it is the future and you bring them into this world what future they going to have? NONE! Through all this psychology the desire for self determination of ones own life starts to gain ground and they call it nationalism to disuade you but it is what independence from the ruling elite is. Go figure choosing anything other than this struggle is suicide and where fighting will start by neccessity.
The likes of Washington, London, Brussels etc. DO NOT CREATE VALUE FOR YOU TO EARN THEY ONLY PRINT WHAT THEY NEED to keep you enslaved and this mechanism is what needs removing for you to ever have any chance of self determination in ones own life.
That is the final battle but do carry on I find it amusing even the bitching is rather hilarious.
Self-determination exists (in worldwide first and secondworlds), in the general population in about the same ratio as the microcosmic example of Scotland this past week.
60% DO NOT WANT ANYTHING to do with self-actualization.
That is only going to grow at least and until, if ever, the young in the world outweigh the elderly whether ill or healthy, who will live longer and longer for at least 4 more generations.
There's even a company now called "Soylent" that makes particklerly healthy dietary foods for that demographic.
The socialist parasites want to distract you from this reality by flooding you with propaganda about “banks, banksters, elites, the wealthy, bogey men, etc” because these socialist parasites don’t want you to notice that they are the ones confiscating your earnings and paying it to themselves through the entitlement programs.
A half truth. Granted, socialist parasites are confiscating our earnings but so are bankers through manipulation of the markets to their benefit as well as through the out of thin air creation of fiat...
If the entitlement programs did not exist, then the 45% of government spending funded by our confiscated earnings & debt being spent on them would still be in the accounts of the individuals who earned the money, eg me, and I would not care what the financial manipulators do in manipulating & skimming markets because I could provide for all of my own needs & desires very comfortably through my own earnings.
Payments are made to bankers by 1) passing on the ability to print and giving them first access to the money, 2) inflation, and 3) almost complete avoidance of any prosecution for flagrantly illegal acts that generate outsized returns.
Remember, 45 cents of every dollar spent on entitlements was printed by the banks (operating collectively as the Fed), who are loaning that money to the government to give to the parasites. The banks get a return on that printed money, as well as the ability to print for themselves.
FYI - Social Security came into existence because the bankers so devastated the economy in the 1929 to 1934 time period, people were starving and the SS was put in place so those most vulnerable and starving could eat and live. The irony about SS and its existence is quite amazing
To all Americans:
Do you think you are still in the "club"?
Think again.
The decline in household income started at about the same time that the Bush/Obama administration decided to open our borders to the world's po folk. As bad as Clinton was, he didn't have "Y'all come on up" signs placed on the US-Mexican border.' Throw in the outsourcing of US jobs overseas and we have a winner.
Listen,
CIA economic model in a nutshell.
Afghanistan, which has the world's largest opium poppy cultivation, cultivation increased from 180,000 hectares in 2012 to 198,000 hectares in 2013.
The opium poppy trade in Afghanistan threatens domestic institutions, subverts the legal economy, and undermines good governance and the capacity of the Afghan people.
Yea right(rolling eyes around like cook-coo).
The next leg down in the S&P will not be fun...
Listen, let me just put this out there. Just in case.
https://bitmessage.org/
I can live in a rising stock market....if it goes high enough, I cash out and buy whatever residence I like.
If only we, the productive class, could slough off the sluggards and reprobates. Leave them to die cold and starving.
ANYONE WHO CALLS THEMSELVES AN 'ARCHDRUID' IS A FUCKTARDED FUCKTARD.
GO EAT SOME FUCKING SHIT. JSUT ANOTHER PERSON CALLING FOR THE END OF THE WORLD, DOESN'T MEAN HE'S WORTH A SHIT. EVEN IF THE WORLD IS INDEED ENDING. WHICH IT AINT.