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"There Has Never Been A Crazier Moment In History"
Submitted by James H Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
As the Governor goblins at the Federal Reserve whistle past the graveyard of dead Quantitative Easing, and the US dollar magically expands like a prickly puffer fish, and Mario Drahgi does what it takes with Euro duct tape to patch all black holes of unpayable debt from Athens to Dublin, and Japan watches its once-wondrous economy congeal in a puddle of Abenomic sludge (with a radioactive cherry on top), and China chokes on its dollar-peg, and Russia waits patiently with its old friend, Winter, covering its back - and notwithstanding the violent chaos, beheadings, and psychopathic struggles across the old Levant, not to mention the doubling of Ebola cases every 20 days, which the World Health Organization did not have the nerve to project beyond 1.2 million in January (does the doubling just stop there?) - there is enough instability around the globe for the gentlemen of Wall Street to make one last fabulous fortune arbitraging the future before the boomerang of consequence circles this suffering planet and finally accomplishes what the Department of Justice under Eric Holder failed to do for six long years.
It’s the season of witch and you should be nervous. Especially if you live in part of the world where money is used. Pretty soon nobody will know what any currency is really worth — at least for a while — or what anything else is worth, for that matter. Perhaps the fishermen of India will start using their worthless gold for sinkers. Jay-Z and Diddy will gaze down on their bling in despair, thinking, perhaps, they should have invested in Betamax players instead. In the time of anything-goes-and-nothing-matters, it’s dangerous to expect anything.
Here’s what I expect: the surge of the dollar is the crest of an historic Great Wave. A Great Wave is an awesome event, and its crest is a majestic sight, but soon the foam spits and hisses and the wave breaks and crashes down on the beach — say, out at the Hamptons — where hedge funders stroll to catch the last dwindling rays of a beautiful season, and all of a sudden they are being swept out to sea in the rip-tide that retracts all that lovely green liquidity, and no one is even left on the beach to weep for them. Indeed their Robert A. M. Stern shingled manor houses up behind the dunes are swept away, too, and the tennis courts, and the potted hydrangeas, and the Teslas, and all the temporal bric-a-brac of their uber-specialness.
And, of course, it being the season of the witch, that’s where the zombies come out for real — the tattooed savages who all this time have been stewing in their own rancid juices awaiting their turn to get jiggy with the nation that left them restlessly undead. I don’t think you can overestimate the depth of ill-feeling that the American public harbors for the cravens who engineered their USA into the biggest booby-trap the world has ever seen. The trouble is, they lost their humanity in the process, so when they have their way with the feckless folks tweaking the dials, you might want to contemplate moving to Finland.
Who can feel confident about the tending of things just now? The diminishing returns of the Information Age are about to bite our collective ass like an army of Orcs. The sum of all that digital magic is a nation completely incapable of telling itself the truth or acting honorably. Unemployment is down without employment being up. Candy Crush is making the world safe for democracy. We have the finest health care system in the world. ISIS is trying to compete with our homegrown videogame industry for supremacy in porno-violence (actually, I thought we already won that) but now we will obliterate all the bad guys in the world by remote control from the drone bunkers of Las Vegas, and that will show them. Thank goodness the long holiday season is almost upon us to juice the so-called economy ever-higher.
There has never been a crazier moment in history. The weeks before the outbreak of the First World War seem like a garden party compared to the morbid antics of these darkening days. America, you’ve been wishing fervently for the Zombie Apocalypse. What happens when you discover you can’t just change the channel?
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I can not believe what is going on.....this shit show is in front of everyone yet the people around me do not see it. Thanks ZH for keeping me on my toes.
...Average American on Welfare/EBT...
Huh?...Whatcha talkin about any Crazyiness around the world?
I gets me a regular monthly cheque for food, housing & clothes...free Obama phone...my younglings have free Education and Health coverage and all's I know is...
We're #1 We're #1...USA USA USA
Meanwhile back at the UN...
President Barack Obama declared climate change to be the "one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other"
If by "climate change" he meant that you won't be able to afford to heat or cool your house after his lords of finance put the torch to what's left of the real economy then he's actually right...
Obama truly is the consummate douchebag. We will pay dearly for having hired him.
I will pay dearly for whoever you hire, awaiting the day when a principled non-vote like mine becomes the norm. Voting only perpetuates the status quo, after all, whereas the principled non-vote is a vote to end the status quo, only needing enough others to join in to render our hopelessly failed system null and void.
That's what our former Soviet counterparts did about their hopelessly failed system, and once the bottom falls out of our rotten excuse for an economy, that's what we'll do, assuming Texas doesn't take matters into its own hands first:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102021344
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[...]
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that matrix moment in 15 years... wondering how next gen youth will react when they'll understand the invisible 207th bone is a usb 4 plug.
yes we can, but,
Yup, not once, but twice.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Is that the way the old saying in Tennessee goes? Could have sworn I heard it was:
Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.
"Fool me once... fool me twice... won't get fooled again" ~ The Harvard wordsmith, Dubya
It's all a clownshow and we are approaching the climax.
The banker's have made sure our (s)elected reps have approvals at all time lows, ensuring blame for yet another crash using their debt backed conjured out of thin air currency.
The next act of the play will be yet another bank currency starting the Matrix over again.
How many iterations of this madness are we going to have to have?
Wasn't there like 6 Matrices?
The Wachowski brothers were onto something.
pods
I have three definitive observations to relate, along with one opion:
1) Middle class & upper middle class people with decent jobs ($60k to 200k)are not freaking out, but even many of these types are very anxious about their industry/job security/environment, and they often state things at social/sporting/recreational events that definitively indicates they are aware - if even at a very non-specific and vague level - that things are very warped.
2) The class of people in group #1 above grows smaller each year, and the ranks of the chronically underemployed, unemployed, working poor (including those working 2, 3 or more part time jobs) swells with each passing year. This group is as large as I've ever seen it by a wide margin.
3) Because of this trend and fragmenting and widening of economic classes (I call it Balkanization), DEBT is being used in amounts and across the economic spectrum as never before as the palliative that the majority of people, whether upper middle class, middle class, working class, or poor (yes, poor people have access to the currency of debt) are using to either keep themselves in a self-soothing mental state, attempt to keep up with the rising cost of basic living in an era of high inflation on necessities, or otherwise deal with the biggest economic structural rot in the U.S. Since the 30s.
4) [Opinion] We really are headed for a Great Crash sooner rather than
later. The last 5 years have seen Central Banks paper over the structural rot by actually lulling many into a half-hearted confidence that things are on the mend, and to use debt to pacify the gap between their means and needs until such time as some sort of "sustainable recovery" (that's not coming) occurs.
True, T-I-S.
And part of the dynamic of Balkinization is that everyone seems to think that their misery and desperation are not shared, but their unique problem caused purely by their own short comings.
There is a sadness in all of this. What's needed is more rage.
My step children are convinced they are NOT the cause of their situation. ALL of thier misery is caused by others. They have plenty of rage, but no critical thinking or introspection.
Are they in debt up to their eyeballs?
True Patriots they are, and Wall Street Insiders & the Lenders salute them despite their suffering.
3) Because of this trend and fragmenting and widening of economic classes (I call it Balkanization), DEBT is being used in amounts and across the economic spectrum as never before as the palliative that the majority of people, whether upper middle class, middle class, working class, or poor (yes, poor people have access to the currency of debt) are using to either keep themselves in a self-soothing mental state, attempt to keep up with the rising cost of basic living in an era of high inflation on necessities, or otherwise deal with the biggest economic structural rot in the U.S. Since the 30s.
This is the heart of it. The U.S. philosophically decided that consumption is the engine of progress. From that conclusion, consumption is not a priority, it is the priority. If consumption is the priority, then all else is sacrificed to that. If we can't consume based on what we produce, then we will have to consume based on what we can borrow. Now in theory, borrowing is based on future production, but since production is not important in this philosophy, it has been eliminated. So now we have consumption based on ... wait for it ... consumption! The idea goes that the more we consume, the more we should be able to consume. This is the logical premise of our modern financial economy, when all the statistics and jargon is stripped away. It can't help but fail. We can only hope the architects of this insanity are held accountable for the destruction this philosophy will leave in its wake after its very spectacular implosion.
a long ball h.k. hit with all the explectives of a first class writer, kudos. the problem is simple ; parents don't say no(majority) applying tough love, poli-bought-a-titions will not say no more(until a crisses evolves), so simply a majority of mamby pamby limp dick soft souled nation of shall i say virtuios,, flawed by the good times, generational loooooosers, ha...
wtf is wrong with tellinbg someone to go figure out life and don't let the door hit your ass and by the way, the locks will be changed and i will not receive a collect call for your request for 1800 graveytrain assistance...
TPTB deciced that consumerism/consumption would be the best method of control over the masses and it has worked like a charm. Good documentary about this is the "Century of the Self".
Purple elephants
I told you!
@takeaction I can't wake up any of my Friends or Family about what is going on.
Don't waste your energy on those who are incapable of critical, let alone basic, thinking and analysis. They are the closest things to zombies our modern society has, and they are massive in number.
Clean the system with this.
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1223928
"Never underestimate the power of denial" - American Beauty
Why is it I feel more and more like Kevin Spacey's character in that great movie?
You are becoming a pedophile?
Oh, you meant the part where he ceases to care about things :)
Say what you want about pedophiles; atleast they drive slowly through school zones.
But they don't keep both hands on the wheel.
"There Has Never Been A Crazier Moment In History"
Wait 'til they whip out the "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Frees You") signs and "We had to kill them to save them" rhetoric.
Now someone needs to beat me until my morale improves.
An American, not US subject.
"There Has Never Been A Crazier Moment In History"
What a bold statement. It's not like this author has a TARDIS and can visit times past and compare 2014 to lets say the flooding of Atlantis.
Had to log in just to say what a trolling prick you are. ok?
tomorrow is the 3 week anniversary of The Golfer's prediction of slim chance ebola making it to US
And he can now walk to visit a real case.
Love your avatar +1
Why are all these seniors taking minimum wage jobs?
Do they think its cool, and their teenage grandkids are gonna hang out with them after work?
Well, its just not going to happen.
Because they lost their asses in 2008 and after "retiring" for 30% of their pay need an hourly wage job to make ends meet...
Well, it's a colorful piece, full of artistic prose and wonderful imagery, I'll give you that James. But I think you're underestimating the level of control and malevolence in TPTB, and overestimating the capacity of the general public to extract their revenge, now or any time in the future (although I'm sure the 'tattooed savages' will do a bang up job of making every place outside the gated communities of America unlivable).
My thoughts exactly, Al.
And I happen to like JHK's weekly diatribes...look forward to them.
I don't believe all the ideas that Kunstler puroprts but the guy can flat out write!
this Halloween, the zombies you see will be real
Cruel be the wind as it quells my words
I shout out to the rain
Incantations I've so hope you've heard
That you live again
From deep earth brings forth rebirth
Witness but I shant believe
From below a chilling glow on all
Hallows eve
Hallows eve
OK, you want crazy? why does this article have a tag of Finland?
JHK mentions Finland as a possible final redoubt. Perhaps Iceland also, if you don't mind tha ashes.
QE was a panicked reaction to save the Banks...not the economy.
No one in New York City could give a god damn about the USA..."phuck them, give me my bailout bucks jewmer."
There is nothing new in this...indeed going back all the way to Lincoln (who after Antietam was a dead man walking. Interesting that the USA never talks much about the deadliest day in US history. 25,000 casualties in one day!). Meanwhile back in the real world "the surprise" was waiting for a explosion in energy production.
This is a nice way of saying "not all debt is created equal" Kuntsler.
Of course you can play pretend and just print MOAR!
Nay, veerily...this only makes the problem...and total sanity of being as liquid as possible...only too apparent.
The USA is making a fortune right now and is doing so "the old fashioned way" of generating truly stupendous amounts of cash on the balance sheet.
With the dollar heading to the moon "you can sell the company for that cash alone." That puts a floor in your equity price. "I have a billion in dollars and will not sell for less!"
This was not true after 9/11 btw. "Companies were trading for less than the amount of dollars they had in the Bank."
Needless to say Wall Street "solved" this problem by going bankrupt.
When the "SHTF" this time around,it will make the whole year of 1968 seem like a walk inthe park.
peeps rage about Kunstler.. but this piece is pretty spot on.. and comically tragically, true
Why worry? We can text or tweet or snapchat our way out of anything. hashtag, smiley face, close sarc...
How would this guy know if there hasn't been a crazier moment in history? Has he been alive for the entire time of human existence?
I'll tell you what is crazy- all these humans today who seem to think history for the species or planet only goes back as far as long as solid documentation does. See all the crap people say about the climate and call it "in history" or "ever" when they are talking about whatever is going on now compared to 130 or 140 years worth of climate documentation....for a planet that is billions of years old.
Well, the Romans had the Coliseum to fuel their exceptionalism.
Which fostered a delusion of complete supremacy over the known world.
Today's Coliseums are still full of people who think they're exceptional.
Another trolling prick. What a load of shit you talk.
The times seem crazy because the Hysterical Focus is occurring more and more . Some humans have learned to use it , and is milking it for all it's worth before the rest catches up .
The Hysterical Focus evolved to be used by social animals to focus their full resources on a threat .
Now , they are in full focus all the time , and it is burning them up . Like a fever .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2009/04/financial-crisis-30-apr-2009.html
take every point, beheadings ect. and i could walk my mind thru the dark ages and wish to be back to 2014 in a heartbeat. thing s crappy, but certainly far from "worst". i think of the vikings with their goulish tools of killing by grizzly impact...
So true, but take action and you will feel better. Prep.
http://www.preppers.info/Free_Downloads.html
http://ready4itall.org/the-free-preppers-library/
Get a laptop, extra batteries, and a small solar.
That way YOU do not go into the dark ages.
Kindle has a LOT of great free useful books too.
Don't leave em in the cloud, download them.
You want to see something really scary with healthcare, read this one and see how insurers used a Wall Street style algo fiddler to give themselves $70 billion more dollars over 5 yeas, took CMS 5 years to catch it. This is why you see all the scrambling in Medicare Advantage. The Fiddler is now gone, and I have don't even know if CMS/Medicare willl even make an attempt to collect it as the insurers will just reduce benefits and coverage for seniors. Nice gamble when you can get it as a health insurer, knowing ahead what trump you have to play at the end.
As usual, it's the seniors who get hurt on this one. I might further add that the sum of $70 billion over five years might pretty closely represent a total of what health insurers' profits have been and what will they tell the shareholders about their Risk Fiddler Algorithm now?
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/cms-discovers-that-insurers-offer...
Here's an example of what United Healthcare is doing and as always we presume they could the ring leader here as that's what they do as part of their corporation, sell risk and fraud prevention software, all over, so who better to create the risk fiddler one could ask? Doctors are being fired from being in network for Medicare Advantage by the algorithms and are given no reason at all, and United won't talk to them, happening all over the US...do the math.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-secret-scoring-of-americas.html
On a side note, it's also interesting to see the United lawyers play stupid when representing them and the snow they throw at the lap band lawsuits.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/09/lap-band-surgeries-go-full-circle...
All of this might be of interest to those entertaining buying health insurer stocks.
...-
"... you can’t just change the channel?" .... I'll just get a new cable service ... see there are always creative solutions to what look like insoluable problems.
You should be more concerned with the solution than the problem.
Why worry when you can turn to Hunny Poo Poo or the Real house whores of whatever city..
i'll change the channel, moving to da countryside far from the night of the hungry snappers with empty cards...
Already have. :)
Meh. Enough frenzied rhetoric already I want a solid obvious and actionable crisis...when you're in the middle of it you realize the difference between that and the phantom hypotheticals on television.
The rest is just adrenaline pumping and you're not even running. Ask your doctor if you need to take a pill that will help balance the adrenaline pumping while you're sitting in your ass thinking about toxic shit.
First World problems.
No there hasn't been. And this is probably one of the most concise set of observations to that fact on these points from RT.
Well worth the watch and the best show I've seen Lavelle do with the exception of the ass kicking he gave this guy at CNN in July!
http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/193340-isis-war-protests-us/
Another thought
The reason Social Security recipients were forced to have electronic payments is that, when the goes down, they won't be able to get their monthly payments. Probably, the same with welfare type payments.
Time to prepare for grid down.
http://www.offthegridnews.com
http://www.offgridworld.com/6000-lbs-of-food-on-110th-acre/
Did not consider a steam engine - until today, updated designs.
http://greensteamengine.com/licenses.htm
The trouble is, they lost their humanity in the process, so when they have their way with the feckless folks tweaking the dials, you might want to contemplate moving to Finland.
Who the fuck would adopt an American at this point given we have been at the "front of the line" at everyone elses expense for so long?...
If I were a Fin, I'd have a sign for an American on visitation...
Just kill yourself and make this World a better place by doing so! And take your English and Zionist friend(s) with you!!!!
There has never been a crazier moment in history. The weeks before the outbreak of the First World War seem like a garden party compared to the morbid antics of these darkening days. America, you’ve been wishing fervently for the Zombie Apocalypse. What happens when you discover you can’t just change the channel?
Absolutely beautiful statement that says it All!
"."
Let's see
"There has never been a crazier moment in history."
Never in history have there been more things to be crazy about.
Wake me up when they resume the Salem Witch Trials.
Open your eyes, it is that crazy. Click on the wrong thing, or piss off a child so he says you touched him and you will hear the modern day equvalent of "Witch! Witch!!!" Career and life over, before the trial even begins
I really didn't mean that the 17th century was crazier than this.
@ Kunstler
Does it bother you that all these shananigans are ocurring under the leadership of the veritable marxist loser you voted for? Says a lot about the philosophy of the left and those who dissed Romney. Not saying he was fault free but certainly he would have been a better president than Obozo. Everywhere you look is a mess but never mind that, just give him a pass because of the color of his skin
If a country does not produce what it needs it will fail. This country has adopted laziness, lost all ethics, and has no moral center. (okay maybe only 50% - of the sheeple) The fabricated shell game of an economy will only last as long as other countries are more shallow than us. The world looked to us as a beacon of liberty and freedom. We corrupted ourselves and now will starve as payment.
If we do not kick out every politician that will not face the truth of this failing society then the only survivors will be the worst gangs in the cities and the rest of us that have withdrawn to the wilderness. We take the bitter medicine now or die - simple as that.
There has never been a crazier moment in history.
Which doesn't mean it won't get even crazier.
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I don’t think you can overestimate the depth of ill-feeling that the American public harbors for the cravens who engineered their USA into the biggest booby-trap the world has ever seen.
Correct, but only applies to those who are still awake (not asleep or watching zombie soap-opera news channels). Unfortunately, those who are awake probably amounts to less than 1%.
Hey Annie - I think the number is more like 15%. More than enough to facilitate the overthrow and punishment of the "cravens".
The 14th century in Europe was pretty crazy too: Mini ice age and widespread crop failures, pope and anti-pope split, roving bands of disinherited knights ravaging the countryside and no one able to do anything about it, black plague wiping out 3/4 of the population in some areas, heirs locked in towers, government-sanctioned pogroms, and if you think we have currency stability problems . . . oh my!
Not to say the world isn't ending. Just that it happens from time to time. Don't worry, some of us might live through it. Well, probably not us, but somebody.
Well the end of the 14th century was actually the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Reformation, of which the Renaissance was major subset. Indeed the Black Death (1348 to 1350) was probably the impetus that people needed to start killing the barbaric "liberals" of the time.
The Dark Ages began in the 9th century and lasted 500 years. Let's try and make that 5 months this time.
Time to pour a drinky!
"There Has Never Been A Crazier Moment In History"
Perhaps, but I believe we'll continue to muddle through until some asshole pushes the button and blows humanity into the next dimension. That will be a crazy moment.
We ain't seen nuttin yet!
Peak Insanities to come.
Damn. Kuntsler has gone over to the optimists side.