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2015: A World Ruled By Hubris, Willful Blindness And Desperation

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Issuing lies and pursuing willful blindness is not leadership: it's failure on a grand scale.

 
Rather than issue predictions for 2015, this week I'll cover themes that I believe will be consequential in the year ahead.
 
The first theme is the dominant psychological dynamic of global leadership, which can be distilled down to a toxic brew of Hubris, Willful Blindness and Desperation.
 
Examples of leadership hubris abound, and they all arise from the false confidence that the same playbook and tools that rescued the Status Quo from well-deserved oblivion for the past six years will continue working splendidly in the years ahead.
 
Prime examples include the Federal Reserve, which clearly believes its own PR (we are omnipotent and the markets rise at our command) and China's leadership, which clearly believes that the strategies and tools that rescued China from implosion in 2008-09 can be applied to the entirely different problem of deflating the world's greatest quadruple-bubble in shadow banking, real estate, commodities and state-owned enterprises (SEOs).
 
The two problem-states could not be more different, and hence the Chinese leadership's bravado is classic hubris.
 
The legal definition of willful blindness is when someone attempts to evade responsibility by claiming ignorance of conditions that they should have known.One classic example is the drug mule who claims "I didn't know there was cocaine in this diaper bag, officer." The courts take a dim view of this bogus defense, and the public should take an equally dim view of leadership's claims that they couldn't possibly have foreseen the coming crisis in pensions and unfunded liabilities.
 
Our leaders' claims of ignorance are even more absurd than those of a drug mule, for leadership means grasping the nettle of what is obvious to everyone who glances at the basic facts. I have chosen pensions and unfunded liabilities as a prime example, but there are many other equally visible examples of our leadership's willful blindness.
 
Exhibit One in willful blindness: the political leadership of the state of California:Four shadows fall across California’s budget (S.F. Chronicle)
 
Though it may feel as if the budget is fixed, that’s a mirage created by a stock market that’s up more than 60 percent since Gov. Jerry Brown took office. A market drop of any meaningful size would crush California’s budget.
The reality is that California’s budget will not be fixed until four fundamental problems are addressed: a capital-gains-dependent tax system, unfunded pension obligations, unfunded state retiree health care obligations and explosive growth in Medi-Cal spending.
 
In other words, citizens are paying more but getting less, and because of the growth in retirement and health care obligations, they will get even less going forward — and all that is true even if the market keeps going up. When the stock market declines and the state reports deficits, Californians will feel as if they are on a roller coaster without a seat belt.
 
Even extension of the temporary tax increases won’t help because — you guessed it — more money will go to additional spending on pensions, retiree health benefits and Medi-Cal. That’s simply the unavoidable outcome when elected officials choose to make enormous unfunded retirement promises to government employees and to provide health care for one-third of the state’s citizens.
 
To repeat, California’s budget cannot be fixed until the Fundamental Four are fixed.
The state's political leadership claims to be ready for any future collapse in tax revenues via a new "rainy day fund." But not only is the rainy day fund woefully meager, it is designed to be stripmined long before any real funding crisis takes hold of the state's throat.
 
This playbook of phony "solutions" and public-relations "fixes" is part and parcel of our leadership's Willful Ignorance. Garsh, we're stunned our fixes didn't actually fix the real problem. But the phony fixes were designed specifically to avoid solving the real problem, as that would require stepping on the toes of vested interests, and that is politically verboten.
 
Last but certainly not least, we have desperation, perhaps best expressed in the classic leadership phrase, When it becomes serious, you have to lie. Jean-Claude Juncker simply gave voice to what the world's leaders practice on a daily basis, because it's always serious.
 
Euroland's leadership has a special flair for desperation. Whatever it takes, spoken out of pure desperation, backed by nothing but the pressing need to project a plan and a power that did not exist, is a classic. Now we have reassurances (equally backed by the need to lie and desperation) that the exit of Greece from the euro and the complete repudiation of all the billions of euros in loans extended to Greece will have no effect on Euroland. Uh, right.
 
Japan is in a class of its own in terms of pursuing policies of pure desperation. Abenomics is nothing but desperation writ large on Keynesian parchment.
 
The Federal Reserve's days of desperation lie just ahead. When interest rates can't be pushed any lower, when risk assets can't be pushed any higher, when the U.S. dollar's ascent cannot be stopped, then we'll see the Fed issue the same sort of painfully desperate statements as their central banker compatriots spew on a near-daily basis.
 
Issuing lies and pursuing willful blindness is not leadership: it's failure on a grand scale.

 

 

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Mon, 01/05/2015 - 09:47 | 5623163 TeamDepends
TeamDepends's picture

It is not failure, it's TREASON.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 09:49 | 5623168 GetZeeGold
GetZeeGold's picture

 

 

Might as well just say it.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:42 | 5623397 Leopold B. Scotch
Leopold B. Scotch's picture

Let's cut to the chase: For many at the very top, this is the ancient game of "Looting from suckers".  No accidents here, folks.

"Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur"

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:57 | 5623467 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

Eh, Meh, I'm not so sure I want to be Deceived.

I've had enough. Let me off of this Ride!!!

Cash in my Ticket. I'm getting off of this world.

- Look at me I'm a Big Shot, I'm gonna inject money into the High Finance World but not Main Street... hahaha Main Street is our Peasants. Main Street is our Serfs.

- There are winners and losers... you are a serf, a peasant, and even if you can work hard or think or are educated... well:

We selected you as an Economic Loser. Jokes on You!!

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:11 | 5623551 kaiserhoff
kaiserhoff's picture

Great piece.

Let's by all means, add bonds to RISK ASSETS.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 09:56 | 5623206 knukles
knukles's picture

Failure, lies, idiocy, whatever.
OK..... Here's a city with perhaps a million empty houses, and shipping containers are being transformed into living space for the homeless, handicapped, indigent....

http://www.myfoxny.com/story/27755680/shipping-container-home-readying-f...

Now
What's wrong with this picture?
There are millions of empty houses that....
Apparently nobody in the City of Detroit has a fucking clue as to recycling, responsibility, whatever.

Opajamas should go there and lead by example, find an abandoned building, move in and with his own hands (a la Jimmy Carter, anybody miss him yet, I do), show others what self-sufficiency, a bit of work and self-esteem might do for one's soul but instead?
Let the houses rot, take shipping containers (misuse of resources) and make them into homes that once again, nobody will care for since they have no ownership.

Grand idea.  Perpetuation of the misuse of resource, socialist give shit away state

Failure... whatever

What a commentary on a certain social strata.  Throw away people with everything provided by others, wasting everything, maybe even including God's grace.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:49 | 5623437 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

It is a Race to the Bottom.

- What does your bottom look like?
- Got Butt Slides?
- Ever Slide Down a Mountain or Crater on your Butt?

If I get a Bonus and Salary Increase for selling out my fellow Citizens... through Sub-Prime Mortgages, Sub-Prime Auto Loans, Sub-Prime Tuition Loans, Sub-Prime Credit Cards,... Selling Life Insurance on my Employees,... Leading a project to layoff employees, out-source jobs, off-shore production, off-shore corporate capital, set up trust fund to deffer executive salary & invest it for 5% return, cut employees, cut pensions, cut factories in the USA or Europe, Automate and replace Employees... well you get the idea.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:18 | 5623578 cynicalskeptic
cynicalskeptic's picture

'Self sufficiency?!?!'   bwahaaaaaaaa...... gov don't want THAT

Even her in the burbs local gov is woefully in the hole - streets haven't been repaved on a regular schedula and are literally falling apart.   They repave a block her and there when it's REALLY bad but otherwise.... forget it.  This is a pretty expensive place to live with high taxes but half the retired cops and firemen are on full disablility - lots of spending on toys they don't need while ignoring infrastructure.  They've spent a fortune on surveillance cameras all over too (not stopping the snatch and run bank robberies adjacent to the 'worse off' neighboring city though).

A friend living on a main road got fed up with the growing potholes by his driveway - one was literally 6 inches deep.  He went out and bought some cold patch and is out there filling the potholes.  Mind you, these have been called in and complained about for MONTHS wiith no action.  The same gov iignored a letter sent in (regisered the whole bit) about a dead tree that finally fell down two years later.   Had a propane torch to heat the base up, a plate tamper too.... no screwing around, this guy does things right  He'd actually ptched a few two years back that were STILL good - unlike the ones the town does that fall apart after 2 months.  He had a bunch of orange buckets out and is working (on a low traffic Sunday) when TWO cops show up.  'You can't DO THAT!'

WTF?!?!?    He's doing the damn town a favor - cars were swerving to avoid the damn holes - the one was deep enough to blow out tires.  The local GOV had done NOTHING.   but

'You can't DO THAT'.......  

The cops said they 'called in' the potholes - a week later, nothing has happened.

BTW the cops were in full battle derss - bullet proof vests driving brand new Hemi Chryslers - in a place that's only a couple square miles with NO roads you can go above 40 on..... where the last person shot (only one in 10 years that I know of) was shot by a DRUNK off duty NYC cop blasting away at a random car.

TOTALLY fucked up society......   TOTALLY

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:57 | 5623474 CH1
CH1's picture

it's TREASON.

Only in the eyes of the suckers. The overlords never gave a shit about all that "God bless our great nation" propaganda.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:05 | 5623499 Lordflin
Lordflin's picture

While I agree that it is treason, it is so much more... a complete disregard for the human spirit or even existence.

War is coming. I know I keep saying this but the signs of a coming war are rapidly accelerating. If any kind of sanity was going to rear its head, the time has long since past. And this will truly be a war to end all wars. No time in history has man shrunk from the use of any weapon at his disposal when faced with extinction... and the weapons are becoming more horrific by the moment... the ones we know about.

Oh, and Happy New Year everyone.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 12:49 | 5623986 messystateofaffairs
messystateofaffairs's picture

And at some point heads that matter must roll.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 09:58 | 5623169 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

CHS, you had me at "The first theme is the dominant psychological dynamic of global leadership... ". My first theme is there is no such thing as a "global leadership" except in the imagination of some

----

further, "desperation, perhaps best expressed in the classic leadership phrase, When it becomes serious, you have to lie.  Jean-Claude Juncker simply gave voice to what the world's leaders practice on a daily basis, because it's always serious."

I beg to differ. Juncker's electorate did not act like an American electorate would, after that phrase. There are things an european politician can say without getting an european electorate go apeshit

----

even further, your "Euroland's leadership has a special flair for desperation. Whatever it takes, spoken out of pure desperation, backed by nothing but the pressing need to project a plan and a power that did not exist, is a classic. Now we have reassurances (equally backed by the need to lie and desperation) that the exit of Greece from the euro and the complete repudiation of all the billions of euros in loans extended to Greece will have no effect on Euroland. Uh, right."

that "whatever it takes" is still being misunderstood? perhaps it really can't cross the cultural gap. yes the propaganda is that if Greece wants to exit, it can without Germans shouting. that there is no serious Greek party that seriously wants to exit the eurozone is beside the matter. the dollar flood came, the dollar flood went away, price stability in the eurozone is still there. mission accomplished, including the super-low EURUSD. from the perspective of a small producer in the eurozone, it's a damn job well done, so far. we'll see what happens

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:07 | 5623248 falak pema
falak pema's picture

Hey Ghordius,

Its nice to see you flashing your sword!

Keep it up !!

Good stuff as usual.

And, most important : Happy New Yaar ! (a little late, I apologise).

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:20 | 5623327 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

it's only a multi-purpose Swiss knife I bought while travelling through the Valley of the Gnomes. happy new year, falak!

I'm still shaking my head about how often JC Juncker is being quoted by... non-continentals. Seriously, I've yet have to meet someone here that is shocked by his quips... for which he is famous, particularly among his (previous) electorate

and it's unbelievable. Juncker was chosen as the conservative candidate for the EU Commission presidency in Ireland by all conservative parties of the EU (except Cameron's Tory's, which left the EPP), and not even one English-speaking source ever really notices that, or that he had to be approved by the EU Council and the EU Parliament

it is a bit as if all things conservative from this continent get blotted out, with the exception of the odd PM which simply can't be ignored, like Merkel or Sarkozy or Berlusconi, and even then, their conservative electorate is again fully ignored as "does not compute" (I'm not talking about ZH, just the "MSM")

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:05 | 5623496 falak pema
falak pema's picture

As its the 5 january, I will just re-state my apprehensions about JC Juncker.

When the Euro was getting to be a hot potato with a bright future; aka around 1999; at the Nice Euro meeting chaired by France, the new chancellor Schroeder and his green foreign Minister Genscher came to plead with Chirac and PM Jospin about trying to put fiscal harmonisation on a stonger footing; as per the Maastricht constraints on budgets; in order to make the Union more solid on monetary front. It was a KEY moment during EZ construct, as after that meeting Spain, Greece and Porugal joined the club.

That proposal--made by a weak Germany, as still shaking from 1DM/1 Reichmark austerity measures-- was shot down by France. As Chirac was only interested in serving his agri-lobby via PAC handouts and Jospin was only interested in protecting 35 hour/week legislation to appease his government and worker electorate.

EZ lost a hUGE occasion to do what it now tries to do with 28 members in a DIRE recession-- on the fiscal front. As France and Germany have to sit down and solve this as the core members.

Now to come back to Juncker : As we all know, as EZ did not fiscally align in 1999, it allowed the smart guys like Juncker to make his Lux-laundrette subsequently; just as Cyprus and Ireland also did, as a lot of Eastern bloc countries. 

So that has weakened the Nort South conversion. And it was France's fault as Schroeder then did what was required to make Germany perform --and Mutti has benefitted from it and Schroeder lost out politically BECAUSE of it...(the irony).

That's my point. EZ has learned its lessons the hard way. 

Now we all have to pay more to try and make this fiscal charade less of a unelevelled table. 

As a European I strongly believe in the Euro project. But I cannot deny that its conception has been botched by this crony politicking that goes on behind Brussels's tinsel curtain, where the Oligarchs can lobby all they will (Barroso was a total carpet on that issue). 

Anyways that history now. I hope this guy will not be another Barroso, but I have my reservations on that.

 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:17 | 5623574 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

excellent recap. two corrections: Genscher was yellow, not green. A liberal of the German FDP

and... democracies always learn the hard way. I gave it as for discounted that we would finally really balance our budgets only in the middle of the worst moment for such a thing

careful with that "fiscal alignment", some people understand transfers to be included, when they read such things

"That proposal--made by a weak Germany, as still shaking from 1DM/1 Reichmark austerity measures..." lol, yes

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:33 | 5623632 falak pema
falak pema's picture

oups, you are right; I confounded Joschka Fischer, the green, with Genscher.

In fact in 1999 I think it was Joschka Fischer who had replaced Genscher but continued Genscher's Franco-German rapprochement policy.

Lol, time flies! 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:49 | 5623707 amadeus39
amadeus39's picture

You describe complexities you can't possibly understand. Take a vacation and then try to solve simpler problems.

 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:55 | 5623727 falak pema
falak pema's picture

what a symphony !

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 09:51 | 5623181 NoDebt
NoDebt's picture

"Our leaders' claims of ignorance are even more absurd than those of a drug mule, for leadership means grasping the nettle of what is obvious to everyone who glances at the basic facts."

I just heard about it on the news today like everyone else.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 09:55 | 5623219 maskone909
maskone909's picture

Im as stupid as my voters- bo

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 09:57 | 5623222 insanelysane
insanelysane's picture

It's not a big lie. It's all lies.  The sheeple are being conditioned to not be able to handle any truths.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 09:59 | 5623229 GetZeeGold
GetZeeGold's picture

 

 

Well sure....what do you think Common Core is?

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:25 | 5623344 RushRoolz
RushRoolz's picture

...and the last 80+ yrs of the DOE... today's typical public HS grad has barely an ounce of knowledge of US history, world history, economics,e tc... they are trained to get jobs (i.e. pay taxes), and not udnerstand enough to even know they are getting screwed.

Oh, and most important of all... vote for those who keep making the system worser and worser!

 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 14:03 | 5624396 MEAN BUSINESS
MEAN BUSINESS's picture

 

Welcome to La Villa Strangiato (aka the Danforth and Pape song) RushRoolz! 

Fly By Night was released in February 1975 and Caress Of Steel came later that year with the opening track...

Bastille Day

 


There’s no bread, let them eat cake
There’s no end to what they’ll take
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth
Wash the salt into the earth

But they’re marching to Bastille Day
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize
Free the dungeons of the innocent
The king will kneel and let his kingdom rise

Bloodstained velvet, dirty lace
Naked fear on every face
See them bow their heads to die
As we would bow as they rode by

And we’re marching to Bastille Day
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize
Sing, oh choirs of cacophony
The king has kneeled, to let his kingdom rise

Lessons taught but never learned
All around us anger burns
Guide the future by the past
Long ago the mould was cast

For they marched up to Bastille Day
La guillotine claimed her bloody prize
Hear the echoes of the centuries
Power isn’t all that money buys

----

Caress Of Steel was dedicated to the memory of Mr. Rod Serling...

 

 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 16:45 | 5625206 RushRoolz
RushRoolz's picture

Thank you, my brutha'!

(Got R40 for Xmas..excellent!)

 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:27 | 5623353 sleigher
sleigher's picture

Their job is to make sure everything Americans believe is false.  Maybe the quote is false, I don't know.  But it should be true because that is what they have done.

 

http://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-8c30905fda12797f56e37799e3008a32?co...

 

 

 

 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 09:59 | 5623223 Manipuflation
Manipuflation's picture

Well, I know this much, she's a cold bitch this morning in Minnesota.  A witches tit would warm this place up.  I will play by my playbook as I always have and I will use the vehicle that is not covered in ice that I know will start because I need some smokes and some moar liquor because I am almost out.  I don't care if it -20F outside and the wind is blowing.  Dress accordingly.

Here is my weatherman.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:24 | 5623342 OceanX
OceanX's picture

As per the Alaskans, "there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad dress..."

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:17 | 5623580 Manipuflation
Manipuflation's picture

Agreed, I have already been out once this morning and if that prairie wind picks up, and it will, it will be brutal.  I see they are bitching in Texas that is it only 23F near Austin.  I love my Texas brothers but that is nothing.  Hell, it is only -10F here so we can shut the air conditioner off.  It is the wind that makes it hard to bear.  As I always say, it keeps the bugs down.  I always wonder why I live here. 

 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 13:36 | 5624246 falak pema
falak pema's picture

Your great great great russian general would be proud of you. As you should be of him if he witnessed the Berezina!

Whats a leetle bit of cold between two brave partisans? Let those frenchies freeze for burning Moscow! 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:57 | 5623466 acetinker
acetinker's picture

Manipuflation, re; a previous conversation-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irj_4IVLBP8&feature=player_embedded

Skip to ~3 minute mark if you're pressed for time.

Your weatherman is a real hoot, btw!

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 13:06 | 5624097 Manipuflation
Manipuflation's picture

I'm not pressed for time but I think I know what result is going to be from that.  The Russian wife needs to review.  I do have a young child running around here and this child is this man's great, great, great, great, great, great grandson.  My son.  It is documented in St. Petersburg at the Hermitage.  Actually the child who is three years old. is running aroung the place and ruining shit because wife is with the daughter.  I will be back later.  

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 21:07 | 5626127 acetinker
acetinker's picture

seems you dont want to know, manip.  it's ok. your choice.

Having a Russian wife would be an asset I'd cherish.

But I don't know you.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 09:59 | 5623230 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture

Simply put, fraud and treason.  People use to be executed for this shit.

Oh well, "full faith and credit"...

tick tock motherfuckers.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:03 | 5623236 Seasmoke
Seasmoke's picture

NO ACCOUNTABILITY. PERIOD. 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:06 | 5623247 WTFUD
WTFUD's picture

The Posse and the Town's Folk will come around to your way of thinking in the END. When they do it will be too late and they will stand trial.

I want to see bastards like Soros and Uprick Murdoch behind a glass partition; ankle chains and orange jumpsuits. I wanna see Draghi and Floyd Blackstain and Jamie Demon and Geithner HANG like Saddam.

I want to see Obama and Clinton STUFFED and on view in their own library Foundations for the world to remember their EVIL.

I want to see JUDGES swinging.

The above alone are responsible for countless tens , no hundreds of thousands of deaths.

The REST will follow en suite. Every last one hunted down with nowhere to hide.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:07 | 5623249 silverer
silverer's picture

We can be fairly certain that Europe will take Russia's deal to join the new Eurasian system. Oh, the good honest pols in Brussels who hold unelected posts will be put under tremendous pressure (bribes?) to maintain the status quo, but the status quo is the Titanic. Tell me nobody ever grasps at something floating past when they are drowning. It's not if, but when. We will be quite alone here in the US, with our 18+ trillion dollar debt, while the rest of the world moves on. It was good while it lasted.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:24 | 5623343 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

so the EU should not do a shitty deal with the US (the damn TTIP) but instead join the Eurasian Union under the leadership of Russia?

thanks, but no, thanks, to both deals. (I personally prefer peaceful balanced trade and balanced budgets, in case you are wondering)

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 13:36 | 5624241 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

I personally prefer freedom from other people's beliefs.

Unfortunately, most people believe in the freedom of almost complete control of others.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:08 | 5623257 medium giraffe
medium giraffe's picture

They're just humans with fancy job titles, as inept and duplicitous as any of us.  Fancy job titles and certificates do not confer omnipotence, though sadly many of us still labour under these illusions at the ballot box.  If we lived in a meritocracy there might be some justification for our expectations, but since it's very apparent that this is not the case we are fools to expect anything more than floundering incompetence or divergent agendas.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:09 | 5623260 negative rates
negative rates's picture

Or, ignorance is bliss.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:21 | 5623336 TrustbutVerify
TrustbutVerify's picture

OK...so the next implosion is near.  Give your recommended of a portfolio breakdown - and give minor details and reasoning. 

?% Stocks

?% Bonds

?% PM

?% Real Estate 

?% Cash

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:42 | 5623409 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

Stocks?

- Invest only in High Capitalization Companies
- Invest only in Dow Industrial

- Stocks 10%
- Real Estate & Apartment Buildings 50%
- PM 15%-40%
- Cash 15%

Stocks & Bonds are subject to Asymmetric Warfare on Wall Street... you don't want your City, County or State subject to the Risks of Wall Street... and give the Debt, Money Printing, Cheap FED Money, Propping Up of Stock market, QE, Stock Buy-Backs... and lack of real control or ownership of stock by a small investor... Screw Stocks & Bonds... Stocks & Bonds are a Con understood by Few, Propaganda. Period.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:47 | 5623699 Farmer Joe in B...
Farmer Joe in Brooklyn's picture

50% in real estate..??  You think that's not squarely in "bubbleland" with everything else...?!?!

Personally, think the only reasons/conditions to own real estate:

1.) You plan to live there for a very long time (primary residence)

2.) You have a self-sustaining farm (ideally outside of the US, in a country with low taxes, friendly real estate laws, and a stable history)

Otherwise, it's not a lot different than owning stocks....

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 12:06 | 5623762 guAcAmol-ME
guAcAmol-ME's picture

Other than my primary residence.... I have 50% in PM's (heavy silver) and 45% in cash (gotta keep DRY POWDER) and 5% in STAWKS.  Mom and Dad have some farmland back home if the $#!+ REALLY hits the fan.  

 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:33 | 5623376 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

Yeah willful blindness = Treason. Willful Bribery = Treason & Racketeering.

Repost:

I'm getting worked up into a ZH Lather. FED Cheap Money will always lead to Credit Extended to Weak Business Plans, Credit Linkages Increase, those Links trigger domino effect... there is plenty of reason to believe history will repeat itself here. Cheap Money in Fixed-Manipulated-Market Rates will lead to bubble & Collapse. Jim Rickards says we are looking at $100 Trillion Dollar Collapse. And we know there are $1.7 Quadrillion in Derivatives Globally.

Quote:

#2 John Ficenec: “In the US, Professor Robert Shiller’s cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio – or Shiller CAPE – for the S&P 500 is currently at 27.2, some 64pc above the historic average of 16.6. On only three occasions since 1882 has it been higher – in 1929, 2000 and 2007.”

#3 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, one of the most respected economic journalists on the entire planet: “The eurozone will be in deflation by February, forlornly trying to ignite its damp wood by rubbing stones. Real interest rates will ratchet higher. The debt load will continue to rise at a faster pace than nominal GDP across Club Med. The region will sink deeper into a compound interest trap.”

Late Add article by Finecec:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11322623/Ten-warning-signs-...

---

There is a huge other part to this. We are humans with human emotions. Therefore, we have Envy, Greed, Covetousness, Jealousy, and Criminal impulses like Fraud, Accounting Control Fraud, Con Games, Mafia Tricks, Payday Loans, Usury, High Credit Card Interest Rates like 12.5% above Prime Rate or actual Lending Rate... but BTW Credit Cards may create Credit without any cost in Interest Rates since they are a Bank....

Fight: Fight is about Human Emotions & Greed. Fight is about Fraud & Accounting Control Fraud that never goes away and can't be controlled to remove it.

There is no way to remove Crime or Fraud. You just Regulate it to minimize it. - Professor William K. Black one time Government Bank Regulator. It is a Race to the Bottom.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 10:46 | 5623434 Temerity Trader
Temerity Trader's picture

Hubris! Gotta love it!

<”…Opinion: How easy money has cracked the global economy”..

“…Markets are ignoring that rates are low and liquidity is abundant because of weak economic conditions. Low oil prices reflect short-term supply excesses, but also weak demand as well as technical factors…”>

No, this wasn’t posted here, was at MW.  Is actually an opinion slowly sneaking into mainstream media. Everyone expecting the Fed and other central banks to print their way out of big problems. I think everyone agrees they postponed the collapse and fried the bears, but fixed nothing. Tens of thousands are being laid off after the holidays. JCP and SHLD won’t see next X-Mas, along with many other retailers. It will be a battleground between the Fed announcing more QE to assure the ‘Faith in Fed’ masses, and the reality of it doesn’t do much anymore and never really did.  It will be fought day after day. Just greed vs. fear, classic.

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:27 | 5623622 Fix It Again Timmy
Fix It Again Timmy's picture

If there are no penalities for ineptness and criminal neglect; if our leaders when faced with their ineptness simply say, "What difference does it make?" - then it is time to roll out the guillotines figuratively to begin with, perhaps literally when we have become exasperated over it all...

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 12:08 | 5623630 WhyWait
WhyWait's picture

In case you missed it ...

My predictions for 2015:

 

The Bad News: 2015 will be the year of the Big One, the first year of the great financial and economic collapse dwarfing that of 2009, which historians may well date as starting with the collapse of the oil and bulk commodity markets in Dec. 2014, triggering a financial panic later in 2015.

The Good News: 2015 will be the year of the Escape from The Matrix, as regular people finally take to the streets by the millions, engage face to face and discover each other!

Many say what's the use of protesting when the media ignores us. The point is it's not about the media; the media is at the heart of the Matrix, the web of lies, illusions, distractions and manufactured conflicts in which our minds are trapped, and we'll never "break into the news" enough, or sufficiently on our own terms, to take control of the narrative. Protesting is first of all about *us*! When enough of us get out there together and see each other and start really talking to each other, we'll *become each others' reality*! And then it's game on!

The illusion of "all those other stupid people out there who're happy believing the happy horseshit they're being fed" will collapse like a pricked balloon!

 

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 11:53 | 5623720 Ewtman
Ewtman's picture

The Fed's reign over the U.S. economy is coming to an end. Rand Paul should find a much more accomodating Senate in 2015 to get his father's "Audit teh Fed" legislation to the floor...

 

http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/rand-paul-takes-up-his-fathers-cause-...

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 14:14 | 5624473 Al Tinfoil
Al Tinfoil's picture

Reality is what you believe it to be.  Politics is the manipulation of beliefs.  If the narrative is controlled, enough of the population is controlled to keep the controllers in power.  

Drink your Kool-Aid and everything will be fine, at least as far as you are allowed to appreciate your condition.  Those who refuse the Kool-Aid and speak in contrarian tones risk upsetting the social harmony, and may have to be removed.  

Mon, 01/05/2015 - 19:08 | 5625722 Lin S
Lin S's picture

"...and explosive growth in Medi-Cal spending."

And yet, no one speaks a word about how illegal immigration and open borders have contributed to this growth. 

Not.  One.  Word.

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