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What Choice Do We Have?
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
The bottom line for the vast majority of us is that there is an extremely high price to be paid for independence from fealty to the State or Corporate America.
It's jolly good fun to discuss alternatives to the doomed status quo, but what choice do most of us have to participating in the current system, even if we loathe it? The lack of choice is of course a key characteristic of the status quo-- if alternatives were plentiful, how many would opt out of Corporate America and the Financial Nobility's manor house of debt servitude?
The absence of alternatives results from several interacting dynamics.The first is false choice, the illusion of choice that enables the Powers That Be to claim we live in a democracy that is also a meritocracy where anyone can rise to the top if they follow the prescribed pathway: a four-year university degree, followed by a graduate degree, and so on.
The political slaughterhouse has two entrances: Democratic and Republican. Nothing about the system changes regardless of which door you enter. "Democracy" is a false choice in a nation in which the big banks order their politico flunkies, toadies and lackeys to do their bidding: Fed Vice Chairman Shocked At Wall Street Influence After Jamie Dimon "Whips" Congressional Votes.
Going to college is also a false choice, given that those who choose not to get a 4-year degree are (we're assured) doomed to lifelong financial insecurity. Meanwhile, having a 4-year degree does little to guarantee an escape from lifelong financial insecurity.
The second factor is the status quo grants all the advantages to global corporations and the central state.The mechanisms used to enforce these advantages are both numerous and well-masked. One is cheap, limitless access to capital--what I call free money for financiers. Imagine how many profitable assets you could buy if you too could borrow $1 billion at .25% interest from the Federal Reserve or another central bank.
Several of these mechanisms are described in these articles, recommended by correspondent Chad D. (transnational is another way of saying global):
Once you can access unlimited nearly-free capital, it's a snap to buy political influence, at which point the state (government) enforces your monopoly/cartel on the populace as rule of law. And we all know what happens if you challenge the state: you are targeted for marginalization, impoverishment and trumped-up Kafkaesque charges.
Given all these advantages, Corporate America and the State can afford to pay those who pledge their fealty far more handsome sums than can typically be earned outside these fortified fiefdoms. Above the entry level, Corporate America and the State both pay far in excess of the median wage in salary and benefits, and in the security promised to government employees.
It's not that difficult to earn $60,000 or more in government service (remember to include all the bennies--healthcare, vacation, personal days off, sick leave, pensions, etc.) and Corporate America pays its managerial/technocratic class very well.
Try earning enough outside the State or Corporate America to equal the pay and benefits offered to those inside. Of course a slice of professionals (accountants, attorneys, surgeons, engineers, etc.) can make handsome incomes as independents, but this is becoming more difficult even for highly educated professionals.
Below this level, making an upper-middle class income requires owning a profitable business. an increasingly challenging task in an economy which over-regulates all enterprise. As I have noted here many times, the fixed costs of doing legitimate business in America are rising constantly: healthcare insurance costs have skyrocketed for employers, along with junk fees, regulatory compliance, penalties for non-compliance, property taxes, rent, and on and on.
The sacred creed of the American economy is that the proper set of values, innovation and work ethic can make anybody wealthy (and thus powerful). The hype surrounding the "living proof" of this creed (Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, et al.) fails to describe the considerably bleaker truth that the income earned by those outside the Corporate America/State fiefdoms follows a long tail distribution.
The long tail distribution is a handful of people (A-list actors, sports stars, tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, top-tier attorneys, corporate raiders, etc.) earn the majority of the money, while a relative pittance is distributed to the vast majority of those outside the fiefdoms.
The bottom line for the vast majority of us is that there is an extremely high price to be paid for independence from fealty to the State or Corporate America.Comparing the financial benefits and security offered in exchange for one's working life and fealty to Corporate America and the State, and the low income and precariousness of independence, most people choose the safety and security of working within the fiefdoms.
But there is a cost to this sacrifice of one's working life and fealty. It's difficult to put a price tag on it, but for most of us it's a significant sum--often hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime. For those who can't stomach the absurdity of spending their lives in service to these fiefdoms, it's not really a choice; it simply isn't an option.
While we understand the price is far too steep for most people, for us it's a bargain. We will never have the corner office, the fat pension, the gold-plated healthcare, the Mercedes, or any of the other trappings of working in the top rungs of the fiefdoms. We may never own a new vehicle, or a house. We may never get a college degree.
We understand the immense appeal of the financial rewards and the security, and we don't begrudge those who choose to spend their lives in the fiefdoms. They have kids to raise, and dreams of a house and pension and all the rest. Nobody willingly accepts insecurity and low income if there is any way to avoid those burdens.
But for some of us, the price of independence is worth it for the simple reason we have no choice.
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It's been like this since the dawn of time it's just had different names over the years.
If voting made a difference it would be illegal.
Not much choice I tell you ... but in all fairness America had a nice ride, so you got to be thankful and stop bitching ...
ohh yeah, no worries on junkies
yeah we had a nice ride, but nunna of this stuff is paid for........how much debt is there in the system?
thats why you gotta luv debt-money
"but nunna of this stuff is paid for."
The repo man cometh, and he shall take our futures as collateral.
Not from those of us who have no debt...
every transaction you make in this system has usury attached to it.....just sayin....
Five years now and counting: no credit cards.
Three years now and counting: no bank accounts.
Several months now and counting: no driver's license.
I withdrew my consent long ago and began blazing my own trail.
Fuck you, corporate America. Eat my shit.
I am Chumbawamba.
This is Bu11 $#1T!
Chuck is still laying it out as if the only path to the really good life is via the "corner office" income.
I have lived a life twice as good as any CEO and only averaged $30,000 to $40,000 a year for the last 40 years.
Traveled everywhere, skied the ultimate shutes and outback powder, surfed, hiked, lived the life during the disco years (oh man), you name it I have done it and done it on a level that a wealthy person could only dream of, a level that money will not buy.
I also found true love and shared much of the experiences with her as well as two off the hook cool kids who are now out of the house but still best friends.
Bottom line Chuck is towing the line with his BS.
I do admit that now that banking/finance has destroyed the world economy none of what I have done could be done now in this existing paradigm but if we can restructure then it is possible.
Exactly, Enigma. I've been without money and I've had money. And while the big bank account is convenient, it is a very minor factor in one's overall life...
Unless you believe the bullshit that money = happiness & freedom.
More poppycock BS (what choice? Really?) from Charles Hughman GoldSmith.
Minimize. Mjnimalize. Marginalize. De-clutter. Quality over quantity. Reject the Matrix. Reject their version of reality they're so desperately trying to get you to "buy in" on.
And he is still incapable of labeling axes on a graph. Must be the bachelor's in basket weaving.
O/T while you weren't looking..........
DJ Supreme Court Gives Police More Leeway in Traffic Stop Case
WASHINGTON--The Supreme Court on Monday gave police additional leeway to use evidence they find during routine traffic stops to pursue crimes.
The court in an 8-1 decision declined to require a lower court to suppress evidence of a drug crime that was obtained during a questionable traffic stop over a burned out brake light, ruling that police working in the field have a degree of latitude to make reasonable legal mistakes when pulling drivers over.
The decision is the latest in a line of cases giving officers significant latitude when making traffic stops based on a reasonable suspicion a law is being violated.
The case centered on a 2009 stop in western North Carolina in which an officer pulled over a Ford Escort because one of the car's brake lights wasn't working. After questioning the driver and a passenger, the officer obtained consent to search the car and found a sandwich bag containing cocaine.
Nicholas Heien pleaded guilty to attempted drug trafficking after a trial judge refused his request to suppress the evidence obtained by the officer. A state appeals court later reversed the conviction and ruled the traffic stop was invalid because driving with a single break light wasn't a violation of North Carolina law.
The case took yet another turn in the North Carolina Supreme Court, which sided with the prosecution. The state's highest court said the officer's mistaken understanding of North Carolina's motor-vehicle code was reasonable, which meant the traffic stop was reasonable, too.
The Supreme Court agreed with that assessment in a ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts.
The chief justice said police officers are accorded a margin of error when they make incorrect factual assessments in the field. The same should be true when they make mistakes of law, he said, because officers can confront situations where they have to make quick decisions on matters in which it isn't clear how a particular law applies.
The high court rejected arguments that its ruling could discourage officers from actually learning the law. The
Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures only tolerates reasonable officer mistakes, Chief
Justice Roberts said.
"Thus, an officer can gain no Fourth Amendment advantage through a sloppy study of the laws he is duty-bound to enforce," he wrote in a 13-page opinion.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, saying the court's ruling expanded police officers' authority and could make it harder for law-abiding citizens to avoid traffic stops they find frightening or invasive.
"One is left to wonder...why an innocent citizen should be made to shoulder the burden of being seized whenever the law may be susceptible to an interpretive question," she wrote.
The Supine Court raping the Constitution yet again.
Girlfriend was driving with the cruise control set to the speed limit, Highway Patrol pulls us over, snoops in car, says we were going 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.
When he sees/finds nothing suspicious and that we are boring middle-aged white folk, he says "You see, your car is 10 years old and the cruise control is less accurate as a car ages..."
Yeah right, buddy. Try that one on someone with your own intelligence level.
"I don't consent to any searches."
And film that shit too.
Moral of the story? Don't give consent to search. Chances are the cops will fuck you over anyway but at least you didn't give consent for it.
That, and even in today's landscape of rights being eroded faster than you can believe, explicitly stating that you do not give consent still affords you more legal protection than not. And like I say, take video of that shit too, preferably streaming, because when it comes down to the witness stand, juries will believe the cop over you, unless you have bold, in your face proof that the cop is a liar. On top of that, understand that, even if the DA doesn't have the evidence for a conviction, they'll come at you with all sorts of crazy shit trying to force you to cave in to a plea deal, and when you get the rare individual who will say "fuck you motherfucker, take me to trial," they'll dismiss on THE DAY OF TRIAL in those instances. It's fucking bullshit.
It works until it doesn't and with the political opportunists out there stirring up dissension the top may find out the bottom wants to bring back the guillotine....
Charles left out the most important non-choice: the FRN. "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." No other way to pay your taxes and stay out of jail.
And if I owe you $1216, show up with $1216 in FRNs, and you say "no, I want an ounce of gold, I won't accept your FRNs," and then take me to court, I can get my debt to you nullified. That gets to the reason that, even people who understand how fractional reserve banking and fiat currencies work will accept them for the time being. All debts, not just public, but private too. With $60 trillion in debt in this country, I guarantee that you know somebody who owes a debt in FRNs who will accept your FRNs so that they can pay off their debt. And buy some usless plastic shit from China. Which they can do with FRNs because the retailer likely owes a debt in FRNs too.
It's a coercive system to the core. I don't even need to get into the requirement that more debt has to be piled on just to sustain the system and everybody here will understand.
Your last paragraph is the most important part. It's really so simple, yet some of the most intelligent people I've ever tried to explain it to simply refuse to comprehend. A reasonably smart teenager with a basic understanding of mathematics will get it, while my college professor friends don't. It's fascinating.
yep, the FRN reserve currency, debt money system is a loaded gun pointed directly at the face of humanity
pass the sweet and sour shrimp..........
What choice?
A chunk of shinny metal buried in the back yard.
Some paper currency under the mattress.
A balance at the bank.
or in land, tools, knowledge, garden, animals, and no debt - keep financial obligations to a minimum.
Providing you're lucky enough to be able to buy land without a mortgage.
No toys, few trips, working hard, saving, - in other words, 10 years of focus equals 3 acres of land in the sticks. But you can breath the fresh air - all worth it.
@homebody and all of the others that say that one should become independent of the system.
Yeah, and what do you suggest for the throwbacks like me? I have a very high capital/employee ratio. The nine employees have about $265,000 per employee just in machine tools, and the overall ratio has capital/employee at over $360,000. It is impossible to walk from a situation such as that. Several of the machines have nearly a meter of concrete under them. That's not portable, and it does not fit with your model of independence.
The funny thing about all of this is if we got driven out because of not wanting to work for nothing anymore is that a couple of very large companies would be very heavily damaged without what we supply to them. We make things that at one time were relatively common, but now we are the only one that can do it in the upper midwest and all of our customers are in the Mid South to Mexico. I will not stick them but having to put up with the vast price increases of "healtcare" and any other services, and then the huge increases in taxes and fees, there is not much point anymore.
Get a lawyer to do what we do. You make me laugh.
I have been ragging on my employees on why they must withdraw from the TBTF rackets. Those that bothered to listen know more about the pecking order in bankster assets than do nearly all reporters.
This ugliness to come is welcome to me by now.
The young, like me, can't do that. 2008 reduced the ability for people to save especially the young paying over the odds rents.
This applies to the UK good fucking luck buying a place with 3 acres of land on the average wage of £26k a year without taking on debt.
You can still be cheap land.
But you still don't own it.
Try not paying your property taxes. Watch the escalation.
If you tell the badged thug "this is MY HOUSE and I'm not leaving", violence will ensue ending in your ultimate and certain death if you resist.
First you have to pay off people who never did a lick of work and created the money to fund your mortgage out of thin air, and when you think you finally own your property, you realize you still gotta pay rent to the fuedal lords.
We don't own anything in this country. We rent it or in teh case of cars, can only operate them public roadways with government consent (handsomely compensated consent with many costs, fees, and risks).
There is no escaping the leviathan. We'll eventually have to burn it down. But we're not there yet and acts of individual resistance will be met with the full force of .gov.
Let us assume that you can afford to buy enough land to sustain yourself without going into debt, which does not describe the vast majority of Americans. You still don't have allodial title to that land. You do not actually own it. Don't believe me? Don't pay your property taxes and see how fast that land gets seized. I don't care what the state calls it, the net effect is that, when you purchased that land, you were just purchasing the rights to occupy it from its previous tenant, and the real owner is the state, to whom you pay rent. By owning land without having it seized, you are participating in the system. If you refuse to participate, and try to hold onto that land, you will have somebody place an eviction notice on your door, and when you refuse to follow that, you will have more men with guns than you can fight off show up to enforce that, with a bunch of retards saying "But I pay my taxes! He should too! It's only fair!"
So, if you're self sustaining and paying your property taxes, where does your income come from? You have to participate somehow in the heavily taxed and regulated market place. Selling food? Well, there are state agencies to regulate that shit, and if you get big enough or sell far enough away, you have the USDA/FDA to worry about too. Yes, they have SWAT teams, and yes, they will bring them to bear for selling raw milk without a license, if you can even get a license in the first place in your state.
Participation is mandatory, and they won't let you forget it.
Yes sir. And we shouldn't forget that 'unapproved commerce' gets you a death sentence.
Murderjuana in your basement? DEATH!
Un taxed cigs? Death
Raw milk? Swat Raid
Eggs or garden produce? Just wait.
You must find a way to market your ideas not just goods - I design buildings (small) and help with ways to make properties more self-sufficient. The masters can try to tax my thoughts but so far they have come up dry. Its hard for them to quantify my advise to a person on growing that turnip or building that pole building. Most of you are intelligent so work around the system instead of flaunting your resistance in their faces - you can't win that battle.
The insurance companies know that my relative who is a physician has no options - so they charge her $1,800/month in health insurance premiums.
Bravo CHS...
when the masses (fsa) realize the jokes on them, that's when change will abound. it won't be long now....
It's a said day when the lights flickering in Washington becomes a hardship:
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/12/15/blown-transformer-takes-out-po...
Poor worthless cretins. I hope they are all okay.
the article says the power went out not just flickered. and doesn't say they complained. just sayin...
Guess the infrastructure spending never made it to D.C. (or anywhere other than Wall Street).
Delusions
... $300 trillion in derivatives on American taxpayers’ shoulders.
The bankers don't have the money to pay so they think that the people have the money to pay
hahahahahahahha
The people dont even have enough money to pay for the premiums on $300 trillion in derivatives
The bankster don't care whether the people do or not.
They don't even think about that...
The people have lifetimes and generations of labor, though.
The permissible choice always eventually aligns with the only possible choice.
Ex: Many you kids are now wanting to only rent cars via Zip car rather than buy cars. This coincides perfectly with the fact that non of them have any money to afford purchasing cars.
What if it isn't lack of money? What if the real reason is that they are choosing NOT to spend their money buying over-priced cars that depreciate the minute you drive them off?
What are the numbers for new auto sales, and used cars? And who is buying what?
The world needs to get back to the basics. I think it's on it's way there but it's gonna be one hell of a ride.
If you can't make more, eliminate your debt and learn to live with less. I am beginning the process now of moving into an RV full time, and selling my mortgaged house in the process. I only really use 2 rooms in my house anyway, the rest is for storing all the useless crap I don't need. Working on selling said useless crap now. Once you realize that you don't NEED any of this consumer shit that is constantly shoved down your throat, you also realize you don't need that $60k salary anymore either.
So by downsizing your living conditions, cutting back spending on useless crap you don't need, and at the same time cutting back on hours worked (or getting an easier, lower paying job) you are hitting the feudal overlords in every single place you can. You greatly reduce how much they leach from you in the form of taxes, you are starving the consumer based economy, and you are no longer a debt slave.
I would add, be realistic about your debt. Pay it off if you can, but if it is not mathematically possible, consider default. If you can't discharge a troublesome loan, then force the payments down to a pittance to keep the wolves at bay, and do something else with the money you save every month.
The debt will no doubt grow and grow, with you only paying a pittance. But so what? You weren't really going to be able to pay it off anyway, so who cares HOW big it is? Meanwhile, you are hanging on to YOUR resources, instead of throwing them at a futile battle. Every month, you come out ahead by keeping as much of your money as you can. It's the illusion of paying it off that keeps you paying, and they want you to think it really CAN be done. They are LYING. But they know that if you catch on, you'll change your strategy, and they really, REALLY need you to pay.
When you are dead, they can come after whatever you left. But if you were smart, you 'reverse-mortgaged' your home and sucked the equity back out before handing it back to the bank. Let THEM figure out what to do with it.
Any real wealth you had was handed directly to your heirs in the form of portable wealth w/o a paper trail.
Mandatory participation required in the slavery.
Way down here you need a reason to move
Feel a fool running your stateside games
Lose your load, leave your mind behind Baby Jane
Oh, Mexico
It sounds so simple I just got to go
The sun's so hot I forgot to go home
Guess I'll have to go now
(James Taylor)
Hey CHS ...
why no mention of gold?
Gold is outside of the current system. Available to anyone.
This is a great point about being inside. I dislike the system as much as anyone, but I am rational as well. I went inside at a time when I was outside it. My living was totally small business with no corprate connections at all. It was very much one on one, I provide my skills in electronics and people paid me at what the market would bear and what others charged for similar services. So you are locked in and can't just raise prices. This was great for my self esteem, but shitty for my standard of living.
I decided to go inside, both government, for awhile and also corporate for awhile. What a difference! Medical, vacations, sick days, holidays, retirement funds, etc etc. On the outside I had nothing, any time I was not working was money lost. I worked christmas until dinner time, ate, and went back to my work.
In short, the inside rewards those who are loyal! As a side note, I am back on the outside, totally outside, doing well in a new business. But, I have corporate America breathing down my, and other's necks with armies of lawyers and attempts to bribe congress to make illegal the peer to peer business model of the internet. This sucks, because I doubled my business from last year, and expect to reach saturation this year, meaning all the business I can manage on my own, without hiring.
Way to go Jack B, it takes talent, perserverence, and big balls to get a business to the point where it can sustain the business itself , and then also have enuf left over to keep the household going. Awesome.
Maverick
Many of those in the long tail have enough wherewithal to build a guillotine.
They will be especially keen on building one after someone explains to them how fraudulent-banking works, and where their wealth really went.
An American, not US s subject.
Why bother with building a guillotine when a hammer or club will suffice? Besides, it would be more enjoyable using a blunt instrument. The begging and screaming would be like listening to a beautiful symphony.
It's his schtick.
They hold on to it for dear life.
I have been thinking about this, a lot.
It starts, I believe, by not overthrowing the government - that is impossible and a suicide mission. It starts by first kicking out, through the ballot box, every big government, statist, RINO, neo-con, Republican and replacing them with a true liberterian, conservative, sound money, patriot. Then, over-throwing the leadership of the Republican party.
The Tea Party and Congessional leaders like Lee, Cruz, Paul, Rubio, etc. have started this process. We are not there yet. Cantor got his ass kicked. And that is where it must start, locally. If it can happen in Virginia, it can happen anywhere. Every representative race, every senatorial race, every state legislature, fight each battle locally.
NO COMPROMISE!!!
The government can be overthrown and not only that I suspect it's more of a paper tiger than any of us truly realize. Destruction of the infrastructure would leave them in utter disarray.
Congressional Barber Shop?
That'll be tough, b/c a large portion of the voting public likes the government handouts, the status quo, and they fear the Tea Party. To them, the Tea party is a bunch of radicals that want to bring us back to the 1700's. They're (tea party) dangerous, and delusional. The MSNBC crowd has been successfully brainwashed by the TV nutjobs that the Tea party wants to end abortion, put women back in the kitchen, end birth control, yada yadda yadda.
The key is most of the free shit army doesnt vote, especially in mid terms, and the ones that do vote for a democrat - in their primary. We cannot clean up the entirety of the government until we clean up our own house first.
"liberterian, conservative, sound money, patriot"
Make up your mind ...
Slaves don't have a choice and American goyim are indeed slaves.
Shit'n fall back in it
So... it seems like our Future is going "Back to the Past", with its financial Royalty, Nobility, Gentry, hired Military, Commoners, and Paupers.
I.e., Global Bankers, Oligarchs, Business People and Professionals, hired Mil+LEA, Working Class, Welfare & Homeless.
Except for the actors, labels, packaging and rhetoric, what's really changed fundamentally? I still see the same age-old, top-down, hierarchy of rulers, rules, ruled and superstitions... going on about 6000 years old. Does this mean it's also a "bubble", just like gold? (sarc)
Irrefutable undeniable Fact 1:
"Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with other entitlement programs such as food stamps, unemployment, and housing assistance, make up 60 percent of all federal spending."
http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/budget-entitlement-programs
Irrefutable undeniable Fact 2:
The politicians, eg obola, cannot get into office to create and expand the earnings-confiscating debt-binging entitlement programs unless they win elections.
Irrefutable undeniable Fact 3:
There are not enough votes from the boogey men and scapegoats, ie "banksters, jews, wealthy elites, oligarchs, plutocrats, corporate executives, etc" to win elections and put politicians, eg obola, in office. Therefore, the politicians can win elections and get into office ONLY if they get a majority of the votes of the proletariat, the plebians, the sheeple - more than 50% of whom are entitlement program parasites. So that is the purpose of the entitlement programs, ie to bribe a majority of recipent voters into keeping the entitlement program sponsors in office. Therefore, the segment of the population that is "in control" is the entitlement program parasites, NOT the "banksters, jews, wealthy elites, oligarchs, plutocrats, corporate executives, etc", ELSE there would not be ANY entitlement programs !
Irrefutable undeniable Fact 4:
Get rid of the entitlement programs and 60% of the federal spending goes away with them - that could be a 60% reduction in income taxes, and a 60% reduction in federal spending, ie no more deficits, no more accumulation of debt. It also means that politicians could not buy the votes of the society's most voluminous parasites in bulk to win elections.
Yes, Prober, "the segment of the population that is "in control" is the entitlement program parasites" ... EXCEPT they do not know that!
Furthermore, as expressed in more detail in my comment below, any such political revolutions, to end up being better, in my opinion, would have to be the opposite to what you propose. Ideally, it would take more democratization of the death controls, which would enable more democratization of the debt controls. However, that is obviously only a theoretical ideal, since the actual path we are on is for the vast majority to not understand anything any better, while the tiny minority continues to successfully dominate the schools and mass media, in ways which perpetuate the vicious spirals of debt slavery backed by wars based on deceits, that are driving the numbers to become debt insanities, which are going to provoke death insanities.
Any realistic resolutions of the problems will have to perhaps survive through the established systems, which have already generated numbers that are debt insanities, driving there to become situations in which there result death insanities. The degree to which the majority of the people who are parasites upon the established systems were not actually "in control" will probably be revealed by the degree to which they are not prepared for conditions in which they become the victims of mass murders spinning out of control.
My idealized solutions depend upon more people becoming better predator/parasites, because the production of destruction actually controls production. However, my realistic sense of the most probable futures make that very improbable. Instead, I imagine that the tiny minority of the ruling classes will continue to effectively control the majority, because that majority, who theoretically could control, will probably continue to not understand enough in order to actually control.
The tragic trajectory of the irrefutable undeniable facts that you correctly outlined, Prober, is for those established systems to collapse out from underneath those who depend upon them. I.e., the debt insanities finally provoking death insanities. My attempts at formulating better resolutions are, at best, some efforts to catalyze the transformation processes as those events happen.
Given that the ruling classes have degenerated to act more like parasites, than top predators, while they depend upon there being a larger number of other, lesser parasites, within the system as a whole, there does not seem to be much reasonable chance for changes, other than those which finally happen due to events spinning out of control. Whether or not any better systems of death controls will survive through that process remains to be seen. However, in principle, that is the only sufficiently genuine better resolution to those problems, i.e., better democratization of the death controls, due to better understanding amongst the survivors of the need for that.
Debt alone NEVER brings down a regime - the politicians, judges, police forces, central bankers, et al who constitute the power structure of the regime will NEVER abdicate their offices and power just because of ANY level of debt - they will always cling to power and fabricate unimaginable schemes to stay in power, including higher taxes, money creation, bail-ins, etc, etc.
There is ONLY one way that regimes are overthrown - by force. ONLY AFTER the economy, taxes, oppression and living conditions become unbearable and the sheeple are compelled to become lions and take control by force will the reign of corruption and oppression end. The USA is many generations away from that inflection point.
I agree that the paths to real revolutions are the madnesses of the established systems driving their own self-destruction. I am not optimistic about the general population of Zombie Sheeple ever amounting to much, except when circumstances drive them to desperation. However, even then, the opportunities which MIGHT exist for some new ruling classes to emerge are mainly due to the previous ruling classes' mad self-destruction, which was what makes that become possible. (However, more tragically, these days, it is not clear whether the human species itself will significantly survive its own industrialized madnesses?)
How many generations the USA is away from such transformations depends upon the degree to which change continues to happen at an exponentially accelerating rate. If that holds in the future, as it did in the past, then the USA will be the fastest rise and fall of any empire that ever was, and the consequences will be globally catastrophic, especially since the rise was based on being able to strip-mine the natural resources of a fresh planet, in a way that could never be done again!
Some individuals were able to live higher quality lives relatively outside of the big established systems. However, that has been getting harder and harder to do. Meanwhile, the deeper issues are just how much "choice" does nature give to human beings, since they are animals, that must have air, water, food and shelter to live, all of which come from their environment, in which there are other human beings who demand the same things?
The state, and corporations, are the result of a long, long history. "Ownership" is based on being able to assert claims, and back those up with coercions. Governments are basically military organizations, inside of which corporations have more and more effectively privatized the powers that governments originally assembled and channeled.
Everyone has some power to rob, and power to kill to back that power to rob up. Human history was the selection for the survival of those groups who could assemble and channel those powers to rob and kill. The history of those War Kings made the sovereign states, by applying the principles and methods of organized crime on larger and larger scales. The current situation is that the best organized criminals, the biggest gangsters, are the banksters, the Fraud Kings, who applied the methods of organized crime to capture control over the political processes, and thereby, effectively privatized the powers of governments. That expression of corporations blended with governments is fascism. The "ownership" of that is overwhelmingly in the hands of oligarchical plutocrats.
Hence, the current systems are a runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut, that is turning more and more people outside of that system into its road kill. Furthermore, more and more of the people who used to believe that they were inside that system, or somehow in that "big club," are finding out that they are no longer. The people who "work hard and play by the rules" are discovering more and more that the established systems are based on enforced frauds, in which social successes are gained by cheating. The most extreme form of that is that the greatest power that the plutocrats have, as their greatest form of "wealth" is the power to make the public "money" supply out of nothing, as debts for everyone else.
Basically, it was all power to rob, with power to kill being the most extreme form of robbery. Those originally begin with the ability of human beings to perceive the world, through building mental models of that world, with models of themselves inside their models of the world. As soon as one SUBTRACTS an entity from its environment, then one has defined a relative boundary, across which that entity must obtain the flows of energy and materials, such as air, water, and food, in order to continue living. The basic definition of that process is TAKING ENERGY, across the defined boundaries, which is the basic English word of ROBBERY.
Human beings have always been organized lies, operating robberies, due to the way that they necessarily perceive the world, when they subtract any named part from the Whole. The fundamental scientific understanding of those processes are through the general energy systems of thermodynamics and information theory. However, as that understanding developed, it was primarily guided by the history of warfare, which had severe consequences upon how those processes were perceived!
The oldest book on the Art of War starts by saying "success in war is based on deceits" and ends by saying "spies are the most important soldiers." Since governments are basically military organizations, and corporations were branches of that, which have more and more been able to become so big and powerful that those biggest corporations effectively privatized the powers of governments, so that the powers to rob, and to kill to back up that robbery, are primarily exercised by the state apparatus to advance the interests of those big corporations, the social situation developed, such as described by Hugh-Smith in the article above, although he continues to grossly understate how bad that really is, and therefore, grossly underestimates what it would take to better resolve the chronic political problems inherent in the nature of life.
In my view, the vast majority of people are mainstream morons, who still believe too much in the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories. Furthermore, they tend to perceive everything in ways which are as backwards as possible, because that was the view that the biggest bullies promoted, including that the biggest bullies were able to dominate controlled opposition groups, which continue to operate within the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, where there are an abundance of false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, which actually make the opposite happen in the real world.
That BACKWARDNESS regarding how we perceive politics flows through and through all of the social systems that the biggest bullies made and maintained, as their systems of organized lies operating robberies, which were explained and defended in the most deceitful and treacherous of ways to the vast majority of people. That basic BACKWARDNESS goes through the heart of the philosophy of science (for instance, an arbitrary minus sign was inserted into the entropy equations, so that measurements of power and information could be expressed in positive values, rather than in negative values).
That basic BACKWARDNESS is found throughout the domain of political science, because the oldest and best developed form of political science and social engineering was warfare, whose successes depended upon deceits and treacheries. That BACKWARDNESS is found throughout the bogus "solutions" promoted by the controlled opposition groups, regarding the issues that arise in the subset of militarism known as economics, wherein financial successes were actually based on frauds, because the production of destruction always controlled production.
The debt controls directing economic development were always backed up by the death controls. Money is measurement backed by murder, as the most abstract form of the ways that private property is claims backed by coercions. Different groups of people stake claims to "own" resources, while their actual "ownership" is based on their ability to back up their lies with violence. Indeed, backing up lies with violence is what makes those lies become relatively true. The government was always based on the history of warfare. The basic systems were lies backed by violence, which became more sophisticated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, such as expressed by the currently established forms of big governments and big corporations, operating globally, through systems that are basically debt slavery, backed by wars based on deceits.
While those are the basic facts which exist, and must necessarily exist, the degree of triumphs of those systems of organized lies operating robberies results in the vast majority of people being those who are ruled over, by their rulers who have waged a war against the consciousness of those they ruled over. Thus, the controlled opposition groups continue to promote BACKWARD "solutions," which do not address the real problems, regarding how and why the currently established systems are the runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut of big corporations controlling big governments.
What has happened is that the chronic political problems inherent in the nature of life have been resolved through the most expedient sets of solutions, that developed social pyramid systems, that operate their death controls through the maximum possible deceits, in order to back up debt controls based on the maximum possible frauds. In the face of those facts, most of the controlled opposition groups continue to perceive those facts using false fundamental dichotomies, which then results in them promoting bogus "solutions" based on impossible ideals.
The controlled opposition, reactionary revolutionaries, such as Hugh-Smith, as well as most others who are published on Zero Hedge, tend to do relatively good analysis of the social facts, but then almost always collapse back to promoting bogus "solutions" based on impossible ideals, which are BACKWARDS. On the contrary, to promote genuinely better resolutions to the problems requires continuing to be consistent with the analysis of those problems.
Indeed, governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. However, the only genuinely better resolutions to that require better organized crime, with better death controls, through better murder systems, as the core to that. Nothing less is realistic, because of the basic background facts regarding natural selection pressures, which have manifested through human beings, to become systems of artificial selection, which have taken on inverted characteristics due to the history of warfare having its success based on deceits, which then enabled economics to have its financial success based on frauds, because the fundamentals were always necessarily organized lies operating robberies, because individual human beings and groups of human beings were always necessarily operating as entropic pumps of energy.
The biggest bullies' bullshit world view was able to pretty well invert, and thereby pervert, the perception of everything. Hence, the concept of entropy was inverted, by inserting a minus sign into its equations, as developed in thermodynamics and information theory. The operations of human beings as entropic pumps of energy actually fit the principles and methods of organized crime, which is how and why governments became the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
However, because the controlled opposition groups adapted to operate within the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, those reactionary revolutionaries promote BACKWARD "solutions" to the masses of muppets, or mainstream morons. Rather, the fundamentals are that all human beings operate through SUBTRACTION and ROBBERY. The only things that can be perceived to exist are the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies.
In the past, it was more possible for individuals, and various groups, to find ways to live more outside of the dominate systems, and often could live higher quality lives by doing that. However, that is becoming harder and harder to achieve ... It remains to be seen whether technological civilization is going to be able to adapt to its environmental limits, or destroy itself by failing to do so. However, at the present time the more likely bets are for mad self-destruction, because of the degree to which the established death controls are being done through the maximum possible deceits, in order to back up the debt controls based on the maximum possible frauds, while the controlled opposition to those established systems continues to promote only impossible "solutions" based on the same old bullshit false fundamental dichotomies and related impossible ideals.
"What Choice Do We Have?"We could go through enough intellectual revolutions necessary to develop better political science that is more consistent with physical and biological sciences. However, that must include radical paradigm shifts in some of the basic aspects of the philosophy of science, because science as a social enterprise was dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, the same as all other social enterprises.
We do NOT have genuine choices which are based on deliberately ignoring natural selection pressures, which were behind making and maintaining the current systems of human artificial selection. However, we DO have choices which would be based on better understanding natural laws, and that the ONLY connection between human laws and natural laws is the ability to back up lies with violence. While better appreciating the principle of the conservation of energy operating through human systems provides the best asymptotic approach towards more justice or truth. The refusal to face those facts enables the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites to continue to dominate civilization with their bullshit.
The ideal solutions would still be a democratic republic operating through the rule of law. However, such a government would have to have enough citizens who stopped believing in the biggest bullies' bullshit world views, and instead adopted more scientific world views based on more radical truths regarding the social facts about how big governments and big corporations act, namely, as the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
So far, in the public spaces, the only significant things one sees are the established systems promoting their bullshit, opposed by those who stay within the same frame of reference as that bullshit. Therefore, again and again, the controlled opposition groups tend to relatively reveal the social facts regarding the degree to which big governments and big corporations are forms of organized crime, controlled by best organized gangs of criminals, which relatively good analyses are followed by collapsing back to bullshit "solutions" which are BACKWARDS!
We should make the choices to go through the looking glass of our Bizarro Mirror World! The relative successfulness of the war against consciousness, waged by the ruling classes against those they rule over, has resulted in the vast majority of people not understanding the elementary principles of philosophy, or able to enjoy more genuine spirituality. All of the established churches, countries, and corporations, were systems of organized lies, operating robberies. Over and over again, there were developed state religions, that dominated civilizations.
In America, and around the world, today, most people do not perceive the degree to which their ideas about the monetary system, and national security, are actually absurd state religions, based on Huge Lies, backed up by Lots of Violence. In that context, the irony continues that the only publicly significant opposition to those established systems is controlled, so that they promote bullshit "solutions" which are BACKWARD. Most of the controlled opposition is already integrated into the state religions' world view.
A more scientific understanding of human beings and human civilizations will perceive those as manifestations of general energy systems, which are engaged in entropic pumping of energy flows. However, it demonstrates how profoundly BACKWARDS we understand everything that the way that we presume we understand the concept of entropy has been REVERSED. Inside of our Bizarro Mirror World, everything looks proportionately backwards and distorted. The most basic ways that we do that is understand SUBTRACTION BACKWARDS. From which follows that we understand ROBBERY BACKWARDS, which is why people who presume they understand time and space, despite those old-fashioned ideas having been proven to have been BACKWARD, tend to understand everything else throughout politics BACKWARD.
Therefore, better analysis of the social facts demonstrates that big governments and big corporations actually operate as the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, BUT, those anomalies are not yet driving the kinds of paradigm shifts which would be required to go through the looking glass of that Bizarro Mirror World.
What I am proposing is a creative synthesis between ancient mysticism and post-modernizing sciences, which would enable a better philosophy of science, which then could be applied to political science, and thus to the combined money/murder systems. Our runaway problems are due to progress in other sciences, like quantum mechanics, and the special theory of relativity, enabling globalized systems of electronic monkey money, backed by the threat of apes with atomic bombs.
We are watching a grand canyon chasm get wider and wider between advances in science and technology being applied through human social pyramid systems based on the pyramidion people using lies backed by violence to keep the vast majority of the rest of the people ignorant and afraid, so that they can be controlled and exploited through sophisticated social slavery systems. However, the root causes of that were natural selection pressures, which always existed, and must be resolved somehow. Understanding natural selection better within the human context demands that we go through paradigm shifts that fix the errors made in the philosophy of science due to that being historically dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view. Their bullshit reversed our perceptions, so that we see things backwards, which means that better resolutions of our problems require that we reverse their reversal, or invert their inversions, because there is nothing more important to a technologically based society that the philosophy of science.
Currently, our political problems are being resolved through the most expedient sets of solutions, which are the established systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which are not being resolved better, due to the degree that the controlled opposition groups to those established systems continue perceiving the world in basically the same ways, and therefore, after relatively good analysis of the problems, always tending to collapse back to bullshit "solutions" based on the same old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals.
Genuinely better solutions require paradigm shifts in militarism, which face the facts stated in the oldest book on the Art of War, which starts by saying "success in war is based on deceits" and ends by saying "spies are the most important soldiers." The currently existing systems of big governments controlled by big corporations are the result of those trends developing for thousands of years. Better resolutions of those problems requires profound paradigm shifts in militarism, because the ideology of the murder system is the supreme ideology that backs up the monetary systems.
We should make choices to develop better systems of artificial selection, based on better understanding of the infinitely greater systems of natural selection that surround us. However, doing that requires that we face more radical truths, and go through more profound paradigm shifts in the ways that we perceive the political situation. The anomalies of more and more people perceiving the degree to which big governments, controlled by big corporations, have become the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, are accumulating. Eventually, those anomalies should provoke us to make choices to go through profound paradigm shifts in the ways that we perceive politics!
Live within the system, change the system (yeah, good luck with that!), or exit the system. Those are your 3 basic choices.
We knew we would move here (Asia) eventually, but the financial crimes and melt down of 07-08 moved the exit date up a bit. We decided to exit the system (relocate) in early 2012.
We made as much money as we possibly could, then sold almost everything (real estate, business, autos, etc) and shipped our "good" personal property via cargo containers over here.
Living here for a couple years has confirmed what I thought; the USA system is designed to "suck you out" your entire life... and also after you die via "Estate taxes."
I believe that most of the real estate is WAY too overpriced in US. Why do you need to pay >$1M over your lifetime for a roof over your head? Here, you can build something decent for ~$50K, all in, all done, finished. Minor property taxes (we pay $3/year).
This system is not perfect... The government is raising VAT taxes, and utility bills.
But it is nice to relax and "breathe" once again.
Sorry for being verbose...rant off.