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From Land Of Opportunity To A Fool’s Paradise
I am amazed daily to see just how many adults (never mind the teenagers) seem absolutely oblivious to their surroundings. Seemingly intelligent people walking with their heads down flailing away on a keyboard built for ants either trying to find out “what’s happening” in the world or, to let the world know on some social networking platform what they ate for dinner, if they just showered, or posted their 2,375 picture of themselves in a compromising pose or situation.
They tweet, post, paste, share, spread, etc.,etc.,etc. But ask them a question about a relevant subject such as the economy, state of global affairs, or more that might impact their future? You’ll just get a blank soulless expression of bewilderment.
You know that look, it’s the same look you get when one of these clueless figures walks right into you in some store or mall. Do they say sorry? Or, excuse me? No: you just get the animatronic look that says ” Weren’t you watching where I was going?”
Sorry to say, that’s what you’ll hear people saying who put more into exercising their texting dexterity than their educating or informing themselves with useful information. Information which they need to know and understand so they can apply it to their personal well-being. Not their personal “page.”
Social media along with near instantaneous news feeds have given the allusion to a great many that they are “informed.” Nothing could be further from the truth. And in many ways it’s becoming not only dangerous, but could turn catastrophic for these same “informed” individuals.
Most truly informed people today (which you are) know that what is being reported, how it’s reported, how it’s manufactured, and all the other ways data of today is being manipulated that one can not rely on the once deemed “reliable sources of information.”
Today far too many are only taking in the “headlines” along with what’s known as “headline numbers.” This is an abject lesson in Tom Foolery.
Be it as it may that the markets are at lifetime highs along with unemployment prints of under 6%. If you believe as Janet Yellen stated in her latest FOMC conference that we’ll be at “full employment” in a little over a year from now without questioning or understanding how, along with looking at these markets without wondering how and why – then maybe this is “paradise.” However, I doubt that is what it will be in the not too distant future.
As I have stated many times over the years one of the most important reasons that needs to be understood above all with the Federal Reserve’s intervention into the capital markets is the very fact – they enable both the political class, as well as other policy makers from attending to making sure intrusive, job killing, business stifling, or other entrepreneurial based impediments are either not made law – or repealed out of law. Whether that be taxes, regulations, et al.
This point for a long time seemed to have been falling on deaf ears. However, now with so many once “touchstones” as to gauge the health of the economy so utterly “off the charts” such as the indexes, others are now beginning to call out this glaring danger. One such person is Stephen Roach. In a recent article he also opined the following:
“Moreover, the longer central banks promote financial-market froth, the more dependent their economies become on these precarious markets and the weaker the incentives for politicians and fiscal authorities to address the need for balance-sheet repair and structural reform.”
Again to make my point: what is happening away from the adulterated headlines and at the root of business is there are changes about to imposed on businesses as well as others that are going to have dramatic impacts on business creation, expansion, hiring, and a lot, lot more.
A few examples of what is possibly coming down the literal “pipeline” is just how fast all the good news in the employment front just might turn around near overnight and go from good straight to; how can this be happening?
Oil as of today is in free-fall. “Great news to consumers” you’ll read in the main stream media (MSM). Yes, it is. Yet, that decline in fuel savings will not turn into a windfall for spending on new trinkets or electronics that this same MSM will laud over. For a great many it will barely cover the increases in their newest round of healthcare premium increases. But not too worry – the MSM loves that new consumer spending report, and that factors in your new bill to their new-found narrative: Everything is just wonderful!
Then there’s that unemployment number. Forget all the “not counted” souls any longer. How about the ones that they do count? You know where they all work? In the oil business in one form or another.
As I stated in an earlier article We Forget All Too Fast… once you see the beginning signs, things can move very quickly. And we are beginning to see those very signs.
Here are just a few: US Oil Well Permits Collapse 40% in Nov., US Oil Rig Count Tumbles, Drilling Cutback…Forced to Scrap Rigs. These few are not just for the sake of a headline, but have actual empirical data. I’ll also bet dollars to doughnuts those are headlines that won’t be shared or seen on a government supplied phone.
With as abstinent or what some might say “out right hostile” view of the fossil fuel industry as this administration has both proclaimed, as well as demonstrated itself to be: How does one think the view will be when these once job creating states or areas suddenly find themselves in dire straights if this perfect storm of low oil prices, along with low demand, and high yield financing collide?
Will they leave the heavy lifting (if there’s anything left to lift at all) to the Federal Reserve? Because if jobs in these states begin to accelerate to the down side, so to will the narrative of “patient.” I’ll garner it will turn right into outright panic. But there’s a problem.
Interest rate cutting and more money printing won’t help next time. You’ll need far more tools than just a printing press, for the rest of the world is not going to bear that burden any further. The currency markets won’t allow it.
Does one think Russia along with China are going to let the U.S. solve its monetary and economic crises once again by putting their currencies at risk? Along with the political unrest it fosters? You can see these tensions manifesting within the Forex markets everywhere. And as I’ve stated many times before – it’s the Forex markets where you have to keep a keen eye peeled. For this is where the real action happens that everything else follows.
The current new pledges of friendly trade and even friendlier currency swaps excluding the Dollar are happening with far more frequency and in more prominent markets today than probably the last two generations.
Whether they work out over time with signing parties is irrelevant. Just the mere fact that others are not only thinking but actually engaged in the process is a monumental shift. And should literally scare U.S. policy makers to their core. But alas – it seems they either have no understanding, or worse – don’t want to know and don’t care.
And if you think about it why should they? Just look at what the all those people who bump into you are reading. You know, the one’s only concerning themselves with what a “headline” says, or what a tightly dressed, impeccably coiffed headline reader would tell them – like… “Everything Is Awesome!”
A Fool’s paradise is what the once great “land of opportunity” is in real danger of becoming if the adults don’t stop acting like children and actually care about what’s beneath the headlines or between the book covers. Rather than the headlines of who’s between the covers with who.
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#Idiocracy
I was pointing out these very things on an Ag Discussion Forum and basically got run off with shit like "I Feel Sorry for you.", then they commenced to throw out Employment numbers and GDP....not one person in the forum had anything to say except that I was fucking nuts......and to tell you the truth....sometimes I get so fucking fed up as everything I tink to be true is obviously flawed. I must be the one fucked in the head as nearly everyone I know doesn't see any of this...I'm a Pariah at any gathering I go to...I'm almost to the point of checking myself into a sanitarium and get my thinking straightened out. Fuck Me....this is getting old. Up is fucking down, left is right, right is wrong.....I was the Grinch at Christmas....and everyone pitied me in my world of make believe, flying Unicorns shitting Skittles and Rainbows.
Russia is starting is own SWIFT system?
Can that work?
The Chosenites have turned America into a living fuckng nightmarish hell
U have to give them credit, 2%
of population and control finance,
Hollywood and Washington
Finance is 100% of the pie, everything else is simply black humor.
A woman with the head in the sand, hmm a lot of people will see oportunity in there!
It's difficult to make people understand these things because you basically have to shatter their world-view and much of what they believe in.
In my beloved South, it's Geezus and Grits.
If it's any consolation, I made the same arguments in the early 2000s and was ultimately vindicated. So that scenario has and does play out.
In any case, being right doesn't change anything. Being prepared does. And you should be prepared for many scenarios playing out, including one in which they hold this clusterfuck together for some time further.
@db51 - you were on an Ag forum. Many farmers are doing very well now. In many places farmland has doubled in price over the last few years. You see lots of guys driving big new pick-ups and have lots of other new equipment. But, most of them couldn't tell you Why farmland has gone up so drastically. Money printing creates asset bubbles, and all bubbles eventually pop.
But no one wants to hear that. They'd rather believe their new found prosperity comes from 'their hard work' rather than actions by those in NY and DC.
remember--when farmland costs outweigh commodities grown on it -if you are not ready for a wake up call--will you be?
Au shucks. Was that Ag forum populated with stackers or sod busters? Cu later.
I thought he meant silver (Ag). ......DOH!!!
Dorked out day ......Life's good. Merry Christmas and a very prosperous and happy New Year to all the ZH's out there.
That's the worst thing about our system. It hands out money randomly to people and creates winners, then tells them they are special and earned it. A bunch of retards end up running things who think they are geniuses. See Congress and the White House.
This is THE story of Silicon Valley. An IPO hits, people become multi-millionaires, and everybody at the company becomes a self-declared genius overnight. Then they show up at restaurants, bars, and other hot spots acting like their flatulence smells like freshly baked cinnamon buns because they can now afford a nice car, a $2M track home, and some gucci shoes.
Yeah, Soylent Green is here, too myopic to see it. Handle change needed, Mr. Magoo is the front runner.
We luv u here
I know exactly as you feel. I have quit saying anthing to anyone as we are close and the fools wont listen so let them suffer. Whats important is you are prepared as ai am and knowledge is KING. For i am as prepared as I need I shall enjoy what is left and keep current on whats happening as it may be tomorrow or 5 years but as 1 plus 1 equals 2 not 5. Or -20 we will pay for the ignorance our friends family and neighbors are hiding thier heads in social media and reality shows at the end of this who will last laugh cause they laughed first. Your not insain hang in there
db51 - I've felt your pain, but not in a long time. A change of tactics does wonders, and can be quite entertaining.
Rather than being the Vox Clamantis in Deserto, try the Socratic Method. Don't try to wake them up by explaining what's really going on, at length; if a topic comes up, explore it with them, rather, explore their hypotheses with leading questions and maybe you'll see a dim flicker or two of a lightbulb turning on. Arguing from the authority of your knowledge just provokes resentment unless you're discussing a topic with a peer or another seeker, which is rare enough at the best of times.
And have a happy new year!
Hobo good advice. I, like db51, went through a dark period until I learned to adapt as you did. It is incredibly frustrating. My parents are set up the be wiped out and won't listen. My wife has one eye open now but still thinks I'm a conspiracy nerd. I've converted a few friends to ZHers.
Worse than the economy I've recently found myself trying to explain things to folks re Russia and Ukraine. To a man they've all bought into the MSM. I'm no Putin fan boy, I just follow the true facts as best I can suss them out. I've been able to reach a couple people and get them thinking. The rest are not worth my time. It's like an alcoholic, if they want to keep drinking they will, no matter what you try to do for them.
Bad analogy, we alkies fully recognize the facts, you need to cease your doing for us. It reminds me of the fish bureaucrats setting limits on catches. Fish them out, becomes uneconomic, fish replenish. Alkies fish themselves out through liver functions and either quit or die. Simple concept.
Here's the irrefutable truth, though, Carrie Nations croaked and so will we all. I suggest we leave everyone else alone, eliminate altruism and be grateful that somewhere in our DNA an escape hatch was provided to sever the umbilical from our dumbass happier relatives. At least we will be enlightened corpses, those family fools will depend on us and our kooky beliefs to survive this shitstorm. Yeah, my wife adores mainstream, peer acceptance comforts as most do and tries to explain away my ideas as just aberrant behavior of an otherwise normal media lapping government bootlicking social animal.
I've decided I can't change anything and there are few places to escape, even mentally. ZH is one place. Fuck 'em and feed 'em grits, onward!
id get a bitch to throw you a pity fuck you but id be afraid youd stangle her or something...
my neighbor's step-mother makes $68 hourly on the laptop . She has been out of work for 10 months but last month her pay check was $15196 just working on the laptop for a few hours. try here... www.works3.com
15K per month? She must be in the vagina rental business.
Oh wait.....LAPTOP, I get it now, thanks.
It was the culmination of many things, but when Americans did not stand up for Cliven Bundy, and instead embraced the homos at Burning Man....
Clive Bundy is a welfare queen.
And you know nothing. The FEDGOV is not supposed to OWN land. Are you a Reid/Chinee?
What flavor koolaid we serving this evening dope?
So, how can one expect progress when eighty percent of the population are zombies like this?
I have to get my car smog checked every year now. Basically a tax and time waster by gov't trying to get people to dump older cars. Basically NO cash for Clunkers. Little things that continue the creep of gov't meddling in everything. Just spent yesterday throwing out files - I must keep them for 5 years. Then today, the tax stuff starts with 1099's being sent out and on it goes.
Older cars cannot be remotely controlled or tracked in real time. I wonder why the gov/globalists would want us out of them?
I will be driving my 1969 Bronco until the day I die... :)
Maybe I could afford a timeshare in Fool's Paradise!
Morons would prefer to protest against the enforcers rather than step up, determine the root cause and go after the banksters.
Nationalist Socialists will be the core of both parties.
Indulge me with a deeper more explanatory view
I thought I'd make some headway with some family members when the discussion came around to oil prices.
For a moment I seriously thought I had a shot at explaining the petrodollar situation and how it relates to the entire economic structure.
My BIL gave me the handwag over the head to say 'over our heads' and started discussing where to buy the cheapest gas.
Merry Facepalm Christmas. They don't even want to see the dots, let alone connect them. I can't understand willful ignorance.
ignorance is bliss and we all know how much the masses love their manufactured bliss, ignorant until it's too late, ofcourse then it's your fault when the haze clears and that fleeting moment appears and they remember you warning them.. from bliss to blame in 1/2 a heartbeat
My sister knows i talk about this. But her philosophy is: it brings me down, im busy and have no time for this; "WHAT exactly can I do about it? nothing!" etc. She barely reads the MSM-but obviously is infected with the MSM meme of 'what constitutes reality' around her....REALITY SCARES HER. And since she feels she can do nothing about it, she prefers to NOT KNOW. I think a majority of people without a black sheep in the family like me, dont even WANT to know that they dont know-and are content....luckily i had a grandfather who saw all this coming, and thus 2 uncles and my father, so at least they are aware; MY Aunt has gone Christian, so there is little hope for her
Ignorance endangers; knowledge protects
Seriously? You didn't know going in that this is what you're talking to?
http://www.tripurple.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Red_Brick_Wall.jpg
Big greenie for you for trying!
I feel your pain shovelhead, I tried the same argument as well. Isn't it amazing how all us 'awakened' folks try to jostle those family members we care about during the holidays (thinking we are giving them a really great gift of knowledge) end up feeling lousy for even trying ...
At least, that's how I felt. But I'm still glad I tried and I will find a new argument next year ;)
I just started drinking and telling jokes.
Humbug on social media, says a guy posting on social media. Fail. Maybe you'd like those kids out of your lawn too?
"Most truly informed people today (which you are)"
Oh, you(eyelids flutter)
Do you expect me to read this long article!? I'm going back to my People magazine, I like all the pictures of shiny people.
Shiny means you made it..it means good!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC67vNY9Rcg
Time - Pink Floyd
Just listen to this song - Sums it up
A Fool’s paradise is what the once great “land of opportunity” is in real danger of becoming...is written by a fool who has not realized that has already happened. Call the author naive or a shill or whatever...in any case, reality, he does not speak.
There is less money to be made by admitting the obvious.
97% of the population does not know, and does not care that they do not know.
Should the trucks stop delivering food, the electricity stop flowing, the smart phones stop functioning, and the money stop working, these people will be the first to experience depresion and panic. For those who refuse to return to physical reality and learn how to deal with it; eventually they will just disappear.
On the topic of having conversations with people regarding oil, I get frustrated because the most common response is a headline from your local MSM. When I get in to the more specific details people don't seem to care.
I am in Canada oil country. Alberta.
they know 'round here
witness Lybia
Mark, but how do you get adults to stop acting like children, when we seem content with sociopaths and power-hungry a$$holes leading us into self-destruction?
"The masses have never thirsted after truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real; they are almost as strongly influenced by what is untrue as by what is true. They have an evident tendency not to distinguish between the two."
— Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and The Analysis of The Ego
A whole lot of words when only one simple statement is needed:
We ARE living in the MATRIX.
Take the RED pill folks :)
A fool's paradise is where you don't even know that for some reason 2/3rds of the world chooses to be absent from that network you're typing on.
Graham Parker - Blue Highways
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQNdWQEMgdM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zzsRVeXcL8
Graham Parker - Success
.
oh no!
? the irony is painful
Dupe
Why is it that no matter how many trips I make to the desert that I have never seen a skirted, high-heeled bitch like that buns up and kneeling, ready for the wheelin' and dealin'?
Tell me about it...I agree with this article as I do my best to try and tell folks, damn it, it's algorithms and code getting your money and scoring you while your head's in your phone worrying about some stupid thing on Facebook:)
I even got Nanex to agree with me (since he's in some of the videos too:) that watching the videos at the Killer Algorithms might be a better past time than the "Interview" movie. My part in the page is being a curator and adding some additional links to posts I have written on topic and the true stars of the videos are the people who are taking time to give some great information and explanations as "to what's really going on " out there. Folks are just oblivious and that's not to say they have to stay on top of everything by all means, but darn take a look around. Here's the Killer Algorithms page with a lot of folks there offering a lot of wisdom.
http://www.ducknet.net/attack-of-the-killer-algorithms/
The secnd part of my little rant, and I apologize if you have seen this before has to do with people not being able to tell the difference between virtual world values and the real world. I figured it was worth something when out of the blue one day Cher agreed with me on Twitter, that's true and I fell off my chair. Actually, I learned and based this writing on what I learned from the folks at the link above as they are right in what they say. It's and code and algorithms running behind the scenes and Wall Street "likes" a dumb public that gets their bowels in an uproar over a movie as it takes focus away from them and their models and code.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.fr/2014/03/virtual-worlds-real-world-we-have....
I started writing blog posts and numbering them Attack number **, when the Occupy Movement started as I said that's what it was all about, the frustrations, etc. but they didn't even understand it all but knew enough to know something wasn't working right. Here's a link to the digest and I stopped around 60 chapters. I was interesting though, as while the Park was alive, I did get some emails from a few asking questions and I had to explain what I wrote to one of the editors of Forbres at the time what the frustration really was. Today it's in full bloom as they have had 3 years to get more of our money and create models that deny the middle class access to something.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/02/attack-of-killer-algorithmsdigest-links.html
The Point Oringinal 1971 version Dustin Hoffman Narration Full Movie!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xl50qKVkqE
Graham Parker - The Girl Isn't Ready
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02uO10JVxl8
Bitcoin: $318
The reason most people are unable to comprehend how insane this situation is explained here
http://regmorrison.edublogs.org/files/2011/11/enigma_code-1fz5tz1.pdf
Even the most educated and intelligent in our societies are unable to see the truth --- even if you unveiled it for them in absolute detail --- because their genes are protecting them from seeing the reality.
If they were to be made aware most people would lose their minds. Imagine if you came to the conclusion that you are about to star in a real life Oxfam commercial --- and that your kids and grand kids get to join. Or worse, that when this hits, there is a very high chance that you and your family die.
Your mind and the instincts that drive it will go to great lengths to deny the reality. For good reason.
It is very much trying to explain to a logical person that there is no logic to support the existence of god.
You can hit them with fact after fact --- but they will not buy it. Because buying it means when you die that is the end of you. And most people cannot handle that truth --- so they grasp at anything that gives them hope.
Our masters are aware of this --- and it is very easy for the MSM to manipulate most people.
Of course this is a good thing --- because if everyone knew the truth despair would rule --- and we'd long ago have collapsed
and that is how you become your own worst enemy.
there is another, many, possibilities and truths.
John Prine - Christmas In Prison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj-Vff5HPhc
speaking of paradise....
John Prine Silent Night, All Day Long
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD9yTAFLaSM
.
Paradise by John Prine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDCsc3CU5ww
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmQfaQP_x38
Bret Easton Ellis on the current generation:
My huge generalities touch on their over-sensitivity, their insistence that they are right despite the overwhelming proof that suggests they are not, their lack of placing things within context, the overreacting, the passive-aggressive positivity, and, of course, all of this exacerbated by the meds they’ve been fed since childhood by over-protective “helicopter” parents mapping their every move. These are late-end Baby Boomers and Generation X parents who were now rebelling against their own rebelliousness because of the love they felt that they never got from their selfish narcissistic Boomer parents and who end up smothering their kids, inducing a kind of inadequate preparation in how to deal with the hardships of life and the real way the world works: people won’t like you, that person may not love you back, kids are really cruel, work sucks, it’s hard to be good at something, life is made up of failure and disappointment, you’re not talented, people suffer, people grow old, people die. And Generation Wuss responds by collapsing into sentimentality and creating victim narratives rather than acknowledging the realities of the world and grappling with them and processing them and then moving on, better prepared to navigate an often hostile or indifferent world that doesn’t care if you exist.
And if you ever get the chance, read 'The Marching Morons', by C.M. Kornbluth
Over production of credit has created the environment we live in today. It should be no surprise that it is all going south...
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/jaguar-inflation-a-laymans-explanatio...
As much as 13 years back in conversation at social gatherings, I had awoke and tried to preach the gospel of government theft, corruption, corporate rule and financial malfeasance. People would stare then move away from me as they would any social leper.
I knew outrage should take hold in those I spoke. I tried to lead those horses to water. I pushed their heads down to show it to the them up close. I went so far as to splash the water up on their noses to no avail and much resistance. Where's the outrage I wondered aloud mostly to no one. My persistence pissed many off who simply turned away from me.
Now as more citizens begin to open their eyes belatedly to the impending doom of financial collapse, chaos, and war, they speak as I once spoke. But I, I have fallen to melancholy waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now I merely point and say to someone rising from slumber, "The waters that way, or continue to thirst, as you wish."
I see revealed now human nature and how it was so easy to fleece the many sheep for such a long time, myself included. I see in human nature how easy it will be for them all to once again be led on yet another fool's journey. I despair for the vulnerable, my grandchildren... It's not a real purge or rebirth, but another fool's journey I expect to unfold.
Fool's hope.
Social media is simply the largest cult ever in the history of man, corporate structured and controlled, its guiding principles herd instinct and groupthink, and its reward "belonging"..........to the hive. Mindlessness is a requirement of acceptance. Striving to acquire is the highest good. Credit is a magic elixir from which all that is good flows.. From within, the corporate structure is almost invisible; but is in fact located in Silly-CON Valley.