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Exter’s Pyramid “In Play” (And Is Martin Armstrong Right?)
Submitted by Paul Mylchreest of admisi.com
Exter’s Pyramid “in play” (and is Martin Armstrong right?)
In a global debt bubble, it concerns us when the benchmark debt security still looks good value, albeit on a relative basis.

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
In spite of this, the consensus is (once again) calling for higher US yields and FOMC “lift off.” The two-year Treasury yield has been pricing in the latter…

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
…but the question is what is the long end of the Treasury curve pricing in?
Slower growth and lower inflation, most likely. Risk of global contagion, possibly. That the FOMC makes a mistake (in raising rates)…maybe that too.
The Fed might be desperate to raise rates ahead of the next downturn (how embarrassing not to) but this analyst would be surprised to see more than 1 or 2 token 0.25% increases – and that’s if things are rosy.
As we know, the narrative from central banks can change at the slightest hint of trouble, e.g. Ballard’s QE4 comment during last October’s selloff. Watch the spin as the Fed portrays lower energy prices as “transitory” and no reason to alter its desire to tighten, while the ECB’s desire to ease only grows, even though neither is achieving its mandate on prices.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law?
The key point is that you can’t normalise rates in the “Winter” phase of a long wave (Kondratieff) cycle. There is just too much debt. It’s debt that drives these cycles and eventually brings them to an end.
This is the fourth cycle since the Industrial Revolution and the longest by far. The lack of a gold standard has allowed the central banks to extend it through unprecedented credit creation.
Here is our timing of these cycles:
1788—1843 56 years
1844—1896 53 years
1897—1933 37 years (1937 was a policy error when recovery established in our opinion)
1934—? 81 years (and counting)
The next cycle doesn’t begin until the excess debt from the previous cycle has been purged. Historically this has occurred via debt deflations of varying length and severity. In a world of unlimited credit creation, inflating the debt away remains an option and we question whether renewed onset of debt deflation will ultimately be dealt with via central bank-created inflation? Mr Abe and Mr Kuroda are conducting such an experiment.
In the meantime, we see a possibility that the Fed could raise the Fed Funds rate in several months’ time only for long-term Treasury yields to continue their decline, while the ECB could instigate sovereign bond QE and long term sovereign yields (ex-Germany certainly) could rise…which was the experience of the US (QE1, QE2 and QE 3 pre-taper).
Talking of flattening yield curves…
We’ve been looking at yield curves in the run up to the last two peaks in the S&P 500 in March 2000 and October 2007.
It basically doesn’t matter which part of the Treasury curve you choose in terms of 2s, 5s, 10s and 30s, but spreads declined to roughly zero, or negative, prior to the equity market peaks.
Here is the 2s10s...

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
The 2s30s...

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
The 5s10s.

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
And the 5s30s, although we could have added the 2s5s and 10s30s just for the hell of it.

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
Could the same thing happen again in a structurally (much) lower interest rate environment this time around?
Well 190 bp of flattening in the 2s30s might be pushing it, but 46bp in the 5s10s is certainly possible in the fairly near future with the way things are going. Funnily enough, if the 10-year Treasury yield was in line with the 10-year Bund, the 2s10s spread would be -8bp, i.e. close to zero.
While we expect the S&P to be lower at the end of 2015 than the beginning of 2015, our point is that more flattening might be in order prior to a major correction in equity markets like the S&P 500, Footsie, DAX,, etc. In general terms, it also suggests that it might be too early to lose faith in “bond proxies” such as Utilities and some Consumer Staples.
A significant further flattening in the curve is looking increasingly more likely...
Indeed, the major story for us right now is that the broad concept incorporated in “Exter’s Pyramid” is in operation. This something we mentioned in Autumn last year and it’s occurring across currency and credit markets and, to some extent, in equities.
To recap, John Exter (a former Fed official, ironically) thought of the post-Bretton Woods financial system as an inverted pyramid resting on its apex, emphasizing its inherent instability compared with a pyramid resting on its base. Within the pyramid are layers representing different asset classes, from the most risky at the top down to the least risky at the bottom.
He foresaw a situation where capital would progressively flow from the top layers of the pyramid towards the bottom layers.
“…creditors in the debt pyramid will move down the pyramid out of the most illiquid debtors at the top of the pyramid…Creditors will try to get out of those weak debtors & go down the debt pyramid, to the very bottom."
Below is his drawing of the inverted pyramid as he saw it in the late-1980s, when the riskiest assets were Savings & Loans (“thrifts”), Third World debt and (relevant to today) junk bonds, etc.

We think that Exter’s Pyramid went “live” in in late-June/early-July 2014 when the dollar index (DXY) began to strengthen…

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
…along with junk spreads.

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
The perfect illustration of Exter’s Pyramid is across the credit markets (as seen via ETFs) with capital flowing from HY through IG…

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
…and from IG into Treasuries.

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
There is some evidence that this is happening intra-equity market.
For example, here is the chart of the S&P 500 High Quality Index versus the Low Quality Index, where “Quality” is measured in terms of growth and stability of earnings and dividends.

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
The point about Exter’s Pyramid is that there is a large amount of capital in riskier financial assets in the upper layers of the pyramid which can flow downwards.
Consequently, the valuations of perceived “safe” assets could obviously overshoot if there is no let up.
Capital flows into dollar assets are a major part of this process right now.
We haven’t mentioned Martin Armstrong’s “Economic Confidence Model” (ECM) for quite some time but we’ve been thinking about it recently. The ECM, based on 8.6 year cycles, is often very successful at tracking turning points in the “hot money” flow of global capital.
Now is not the time for a detailed explanation, but for anybody not familiar with the ECM, Armstrong’s report “It’s Just Time” (google it) from several years back is one of the best we’ve ever read and provides excellent background.
The ECM’s peak on 2007.15 (i.e. late-February 2007) picked out the emergence of the sub-prime problems almost to the day. It did the same with the peak in the Nikkei Index in December 1989 and, we know this because we checked, the Great Crash of 1929 (which was 7 x 8.6 years back from the Nikkei’s peak). The 1987 crash was an intermediate peak in the cycle which ended in 1989.
What is fascinating is that the current ECM cycle peaks on 2015.75, i.e. at the end of September this year. The low point of this cycle was 2011.45, i.e. June 2011 which Armstrong refers to as:
“The 2011 bottom was the peak in oil and gold and the start of the breakout in stocks and the beginning of the Euro Crisis in full bloom.”
In contrast, we think that the 2011 low in the ECM marked the low in the dollar…here is the DXY again back to 2010.

Source: Bloomberg, ADMISI
Furthermore, the intermediate peak of 2013.60 (July 2013) and the intermediate low of 2014.68 (early-September 2014) also align quite closely with the dollar, as is obvious from the chart.
Armstrong is talking about this September 2015 being the peak in the “bond bubble”.
If our interpretation is correct, the dollar AND long-term Treasuries could have further strong upward moves between now and late-Summer 2015.
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In a global debt bubble, it concerns me when fewer than 1 in 100 people understand that rate of return moves inversely to price on a debt security. Financial fraud will forever go unpunished. Thus, expect MOAR financial fraud and bubbles that will grow beyond our wildest imaginations. All of the bond vigilantes are dead...drowned in a sea of central bank liquidity.
I've never heard of a high school class in basic finance or economics. Ever. Back in the day, there were at least "home ec" classes that taught you how to balance a checkbook, but even those are largely gone now.
Why would we ever want to educate our children about one of the most basic realities of life like money?
The lil_horseman all read zerohedge.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-01-24/will-you-pay-kid-read-12...
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Sidney Cottle, et al, $ 10.00
This one book can put every reader, even a teenager, light years ahead of many, if not most, Wall Street professionals.
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'Lil Debts aren't allowed to read it yet. Too young. It'll turn 'em into manic depressives. They get the Papa NoDebt "how money works 101" course on the white board in the living room.
Yes, our children are growing up in a nation of consumers and debtors. We used to be a nation of industry and investors.
There was a really good computer game/Sim called Oregon Trail. The player had to choose a crew with various skills and choose supplies - food tools and equipment - at the start. In the course of moving along the trail decisions would have to be made in response to events. Sometimes trades could be made. I like seeing my kid play it, sometimes with a friend, talking about choices and planning with finite resources.
Bastiat
So consider this for your kids:
The Most Important Number of the Most Important Commodity for Americans:
By Professor Al Bartlett:
I got a report recently (1991) from these giants (surface mining and deep underground mining) coal fields of Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia and they estimated that we have another 30 years (2021) before it becomes uneconomically to mine there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ&feature=youtu.be“#t=30m22s”
So the dollar and treasuries are the most crowded trades right now, and this article is telling us how great these trades are. When everybody's all in, who's left to sell to?
Call me strange, but I prefer to use international bankruptcy cycles to gauge the economic winds.
The first began in 1789, at the Revolution. An international bankruptcy is 70 years. 1789 + 70 = 1859
The second began after the War Between the States (so-called "Civil War"), which began at the end of the first bankruptcy cycle.
1859 + 70 = 1929, the great stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression. The US Government declared bankruptcy in 1933 and the people lost their sovereignty.
1929 + 70 = 1999, and we all knew what happened there: a new bankruptcy cycle.
Think outside the book.
I am Chumbawamba.
^^^this, many others have been pointing that out. Along with the fact that we have been extracting a tremendous amount of hydrocarbons (reduced carbon) from the earth and using it to raise our standard of living and population without much insight or planning as to what will suddently replace all this reduced carbon that we are using. Forget "growth", we use a shtload of reduced carbon just to maintain things as they are.
Damn straight you are Chumbawamba motherfucker! aways enjoy your "insight"...
Hey Law of Physics,
I'm calling you out to teach the very students you speak about who have no opportunity to gain financial sense (along with the copy & paste for the other ZHedgeHogs below). If the schools don't teach it, we can.
How? Here's your opportunity...
In the past few months I launched the only free vocational online school for students. It already has over 50 full blown courses from how to drive a pendant crane, fork lift, workplace hazards, lead awareness, e.t.c. I'm lining up business and unions to do the hands-on in partnership in students local areas.
The next course category objective is to create financial and monetary awareness, along with entrepreneurship.
As of last week, several tech high schools have come aboard to use it (as well as contribute). This is going to reach a gaggle of students everywhere. It's like a Khan Academy that wears a tool belt and teaches you about the real world of finance and business entrepreneurship.
If you have time to contribute here you have time to contribute there, actualizing your awareness of this need. Come by and I'll give you permissions to make your own courses (or just design the lesson and I'll integrate it). Reach me at info at shopsquawk dot calm, or make an account at ShopSquawk and start preaching OUTSIDE the ZHurch ; )
i cna appreciate the point you are trying to make, chumba. But i don't think the bankruptcy cycle of 1999 is complete yet. In order for it to be a real cycle, bad debts have to be erased/defaulted/written off. All we have been doing since then is papering over the problem with money, debt, and credit creation out of thin air. Post WWII american growth was an anomoly that will never be repeated, it happened because the entire rest of the industrialized world was destroyed in the war except america, so we had the only inductrial base left standing, and the world's reserve currency. The post civil war cycle was a great period of growth in america. We had decades of solid growth for over 50 years. My point in all this is that after all of those, we returned to growth. I don't see that happening this time
Isn't an inverted pyramid formed by a person's hand some sort of illuminati signal.
Beware. The signs are everywhere. I opened up my box of pizza last night and saw, like, 10 of them, cleverly concealed within one, large continuous circle.
(Not mocking you. Just that I see a lot of lolz for the illuminati triangle out there.)
Strauss–Howe generational theory
Interesting concept that really ties into your comment (as well as a lot of the generational conversation on this website). Basically, there are four major 20-year generations that repeat through 80 year cycles - the natural lifespan of man. Each time, each respective generation tends to raise their children with certain mindsets.
Four turnings:
High: This is a post-Crisis era when institutions are strong and individualism is weak. Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, though those outside the majoritarian center often feel stifled by the conformity. (Post WWII to assisination of JFK)
Awakening. This is an era when institutions are attacked in the name of personal and spiritual autonomy. Just when society is reaching its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of social discipline and want to recapture a sense of personal authenticity. Young activists look back at the previous High as an era of cultural and spiritual poverty. (mid-1960s to the reelection of Ronald Reagan)
Unraveling. The mood of this era is in many ways the opposite of a High: Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong and flourishing. Highs come after Crises, when society wants to coalesce and build. Unravelings come after Awakenings, when society wants to atomize and enjoy. (Mid 1980's to late 2000's)
Crisis. This is an era in which institutional life is destroyed and rebuilt in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s survival. Civic authority revives, cultural expression redirects towards community purpose, and people begin to locate themselves as members of a larger group. (Black tuesday - end of WWII)
Look at major conflicts for example (kinda fudging numbers to be round): 1780 - > 1860 -> 1940 -> 2020
Boomers: Hippies <- Third Great Awakening <- Second Great Awakening <- First Great Awakening
Hey Chumba,
I'm thinking outside the book and am inviting you to teach outside the ZHurch to the very students who need financial and historical sense (along with the copy & paste for the other ZHedgeHogs below). If the schools don't teach it, we can.
How?
In the past few months I launched the only free vocational online school for students. It already has over 50 full blown courses from how to drive a pendant crane, fork lift, workplace hazards, lead awareness, e.t.c. I'm lining up business and unions to do the hands-on in partnership in students local areas.
The next course category objective is to create financial and monetary awareness, along with entrepreneurship.
As of last week, several tech high schools have come aboard to use it (as well as contribute). This is going to reach a gaggle of students everywhere. It's like a Khan Academy that wears a tool belt and teaches you about the real world of finance and business entrepreneurship.
If you have time to contribute here you have time to contribute there, actualizing your awareness of this need. Come by and I'll give you permissions to make your own courses (or just design the lesson and I'll integrate it). Reach me at info at shopsquawk dot calm, or make an account at ShopSquawk and start preaching OUTSIDE the ZHurch ; )
Did you look to see what is at the bottom of Exeter's Pyramid?
Yup already happening here in SWVA mines laying off and sutting down monthly
They aren't closing because of real economics but because of regulatory economics.
Our Leftists want cheap energy to be gone. Better to control the people they view as pests upon the Earth.... Poor, hungry people don't put up much of a fight and are much easier to control.
Thanks, checking it out now. If you don't have a virtual machine, you can use one online here to play it.
Oregon Trail was excellent as a learning tool.
So was SimCity.
Here they are just for you...
http://www.myabandonware.com/game/oregon-trail-deluxe-1h9
https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/buy/simcity-catalog/pc-download/base-...
Gonna need DOSBox too...
http://www.dosbox.com/
EDIT:
Try this classic too:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/spacetraderwin/files/latest/download
Doesn't need DOSBox either... It was a great learning / planning game (does have some illicit activities alluded too though),
Also,
I thought I'd seen that Pyramid somewhere before...
http://cinefex.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/The-Tet-Oblivion.jpg
Hey Bastiat,
I'm calling you out to teach the very students you speak about who have no opportunity to gain financial sense (along with the copy & paste for the other ZHedgeHogs below). If the schools don't teach it, we can.
How? Here's your opportunity...
In the past few months I launched the only free vocational online school for students. It already has over 50 full blown courses from how to drive a pendant crane, fork lift, workplace hazards, lead awareness, e.t.c. I'm lining up business and unions to do the hands-on in partnership in students local areas.
The next course category objective is to create financial and monetary awareness, along with entrepreneurship.
As of last week, several tech high schools have come aboard to use it (as well as contribute). This is going to reach a gaggle of students everywhere. It's like a Khan Academy that wears a tool belt and teaches you about the real world of finance and business entrepreneurship.
If you have time to contribute here you have time to contribute there, actualizing your awareness of this need. Come by and I'll give you permissions to make your own courses (or just design the lesson and I'll integrate it). Reach me at info at shopsquawk dot calm, or make an account at ShopSquawk and start preaching OUTSIDE the ZHurch ; )
https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990
Play it now
I wonder how much the patent system, on its own, played a part in the manufacturing growth in the 1900's. Let's face it, the opportunity to come up with a defensible patent nowadays, isn't the same opportunity it was in the 1900's.
They taught bidnez class at my high school in ky in the 70s I remember debating Keynesian vs Austrian economics. Believe it or not my group won a award my senior yr. I was not fan of Keynes then. I was raised by family who did not believe in debt. My father taught me about the bidnez cycle then roughly 8 yr. the local news paper reprinted that pic of my group and i from that award banquet couple weeks ago. Stant was much better looking then. And no none of that is taught anymore
And here all along I thought you made radiator caps...! Well done brother!
hedgeless_horseman
First:
You are working from false premises, so your first two choices are nonsense.
Second:
Your third choice has a credibility problem:
By Anthony Migchels: Ezra Pound, wrote ‘the Secrets of the Federal Reserve’, listing the banks owning the system. Ed Griffin then infamously plagiarized this book with his ‘the Creature of Jekyll Island’, to push the John Birch/Libertarian poison of the Gold Standard as a solution. We’re still dealing with this today, as seen in the ‘End the Fed’ movement.
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Federal-Reserve-Eustace-Mullins/dp/0979917...
Third:
This is the book to read:
The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality
http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Growth-Adapting-Economic/dp/0865716951/ref=pd_ybh_9
Thanks for the links.
I can't believe no one has mentioned this one http://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-Madness-Crowds/dp/...
zhandax
Great suggestion.
A Quote from the book, so no one can’t say that they didn’t get proper warning:
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
...to push the John Birch/Libertarian poison of the Gold Standard as a solution. We’re still dealing with this today, as seen in the ‘End the Fed’ movement.
Do you really believe that we ever left the Gold Standard, Escrava?
We never did. Now you may have. In fact most poor people cannot afford Gold.
All that our US Government did was to DEFAULT upon the promise to redeem Gold for Federal Reserve Notes at an agreed upon price.
Gold is STILL the Standard. Central Banks hoard it for a reason. Mmmmm...IT IS NOT TRADITION....
The US Government declared that they would allow the Fiat Currency to "Float". Well just what is it floating upon, being much less dense, subsequently having much less VALUE, much less UTILITY?
It is floating upon Gold, that which is at the very bottom of Exter's Pyramid, as published in this article.
Gold and the Dollar were not divorced. The US Government broke their promoses to pay because...our GOLD RESERVES...that which we supposedly did not value...WERE BEING DEPLETED. (Now ain't that the epitome of hypocrisy?)
Gold is the currency of SOVEREIGNS, Silver is the Currency of Gentlemen, while Copper and Paper are the currency of the ENSLAVED.
I, as every other American Citizens, am a SOVEREIGN. The US Constitution declares that implicitly. Government, as codified in the US Constitution is SUBJECT to the citizen.
The citizen is NOT subject to the Government. It is sad that most Americans seem to have forgotten that point...or have not ever been instructed to their inalienable POWER over Government.
Those LAWS codified into the Bill of Rights are NOT your Civil Rights granted to you by a Government.
Those LAWS RESTRICT THE GOVERNMENT from infringing upon your SOVEREIGN RIGHTS. That is what the Bill of Rights are..RESTRICTION UPON GOVERNMENT. (READ THEM. They RESTRICT GOVERNMENT.) The Sovereign is the MASTER. The Government exists only..ONLY,..to provide service to the Sovereign. The Governemnt is in servitude to the Sovereign. Every citizen is SOVEREIGN...unless THEY ACQUIESE...unless they WAIVE THEIR SOVEREIGN RIGHTS.
If you are a citizen of the United States then you are NOT A SUBJECT. kchrisc used to use that as his byline. Well that is an indisputable truth...indisputable to those loyal to the principles upon which the foundation of these United States were laid.
Only people whom seek your enslavement will dispute this truth. You will see whom they are through their responses and downarrows as we have wolves in sheep's clothing seeking to devour us from within.
So as a Sovereign I do elect to use the currency of a Sovereign, GOLD.
You are free to choose your enslavement, Escrava. Don't let me stand in your way...
Hi Tom,
First (Austria, where they get it wrong):
The Austrian gold dialects are garbage because the Austrians don’t address the usury (interest).
Example:
US Total Debt: $18,084,817,920,825.53
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current
Interest Paid on US Debt in 2014: $431 Billion Dollars
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm
Wait, it gets better:
Check US Private Debt (Not including financials and government) = $42 trillion dollars / 316 million Americans = $133 thousand each man, woman, and child.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/accessible/l1.htm
Now, try to calculate, or, just guess, say, 3% interest rate?
Americans will be paying over One Trillion dollars in interest to the bankers.
On money the banks never had.
Second (Who owns the money, and, at which price. That is the question that needs to be asked):
By Anthony Migchels: It matters not whether money is managed privately or publicly. What matters is whether we have stable and cheap (interest-free) money. If a private interest-free Mutual Credit facility can provide it, grand. If Government can do it, fine. A mixture of both is probably the way forward.
Central Banks are a mixture of both: they have public and private aspects.
But the bottom line is that Central Banks do the bidding of the Money Power’s banking cartel. They keep competition out of the market.
They prop up busted banks, maintaining some kind of ‘stability’. They oversee private usurious credit creation and maintain the banks’ ability to rake in trillions per year in interest. They allow the banks to create the boom/bust cycle.
https://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/does-rothschild-own-all-central-banks/
Third (Gold is not a finite, critical resource; but, a highly speculative to profit resource):
By DanInKC, at Peak Oil Barrel: No, the price of Gold is set by marketing hype – and an irrational expectation that owning paper claims on gold (that may or may not actually exist in some vault) will serve as a hedge against inflation.
But unlike Crude, Gold is not ‘consumed’ to facilitate the day to day operation of the global economy. Over 50% is used for jewelry, another 34% is used for holdings and investments, and a small portion (12%) is used by industry.
If the industrial use could ‘only’ use Gold AND was an essential component of operating the global economy and world global oil production came to an end, all the gold previously mined is STILL available to be applied whereas all previously mined Crude is now in the atmosphere and/or ocean as carbon dioxide.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/will-2015-peak-oil/comment-page-1/#comment-484110
Have you ever heard about "Peak Gold"? Zerohedge has covered it.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-30/peak-gold-production-hits-2015
The growth of Gold Inventory has kept up with growth in Human Population at roughly 2%/year.
At 180,000 Metric Tons ever mined according to the World Gold Cioncil, right now, there is roughly a scant 6/10ths of a Troy Ounce for every person on the Planet if equitably divided.
I currently wear a Pure Gold Cross set with Emeralds that weighs ten times that at Six Ounces pure.. I am not planning on melting it...ever. It is, for all intents and purposes, PRICELESS, an heirloom never to be sold. (And I am one of the poorest members here considering material wealth.) The Pure Gold Chain is over Two Ounces.
You can choose enslavement and adopt the Money of the enslaved. Or you can assert your Liberty and use the currency of Kings.
The choice is yours.
Just do not attempt to force your choice upon me.
Tom,
It is the interest rate and having the money been created by the private sector. Take both away.
Professor Werner: Banking is an extracting mechanism. It extracts resources from the economy, through interest payments and the taxation needed to cover the debt burden of the government. Why borrow from banks and pay interest when there is an alternative way of money creation and allocation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIkk7AfYymg
"Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nation's laws. ... Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile." -- Mackenzie King, Canadian Prime Minister 1935-1948.
Pig Pen bitchz!
The driver of growth is human reproduction. Regardless of what you think this planet is capable of, I assure you in terms of allowing humans to live on it, we've barely begun.
Heinberg begins with the premise that natural limits to growth exist, and then seeks to prove his premise. He presumes that human beings are no different from bateria in a dish. This is false on it's face. Bacteria do not experiment with new ways of generating and distributing energy (as we do). Bacteria do not experiment and use new ways of growing more food. Bacteria do not self-organize their societal structures to maximize health conditions for highly concentrated areas. Bacteria do not build vehicles to leave their natural environment.
Heinberg fails in his analysis because:
1) He tries to predict the future
2) He presumes a completely false paradigm when it comes to human existence.
you do realize, that we, humans, are run by bacteria, at least according to your description?
"Bacteria do not experiment with new ways of generating and distributing energy (as we do). Bacteria do not experiment and use new ways of growing more food. " yah they do. they are on a time scale humans dont like we want fast food pace. Progress is a reaction to the fear of survival, once fear is removed, clarity is presented and then you realize the fear was manufactored and to trust nature to take its course. breath, your alive now, you have won the lottery allready, wake up and be happy with what is already here. or have an ulcer and die, either way earth will go on.
Reality is the experiments by simple forms like bacteria leads to humans. everything progress nothing stays the same. humans have a bacteria level of knowledge in relation to the universe but we leverage our narrow bacteria vision and extrapolate it to be a universal rightness. only thing you can verify is that as an individual we know nothing, we just guess.
Nice to see somebody keeping a clear head!
Read Julian L. Simon's "The Ultimate Resource II" and try to refute one of his main statements.
"The driver of growth is human reproduction. "
Not quite. I see what you're getting at, but as stated, India and China should have long been the wealthiest/fastest growing economies in human history. They're catching up now, but why so long as laggards if reproduction is the driver? Even Smith in the Wealth of Nations wrestled w/this question w/r/t China.
The key, as you allude to, is human IDEAs--in short, thinking. The degree to which people are free to think up AND implement new ideas/ways of doing things will correlate directly with economic growth. It's also the answer to linear thinkers like the late Prof. Bartlett.
New is not growth-it's simply new
Tech innovation is an example of new. Because "new" begets "new" doesn't define it as growth.
The driver of economic growth is interest--interest owed on debt makes it neccesary to grow to stay in the same place giving rise to the "grow or die" factoid.
edit
The eye openner here is that compounding interest on debt and growth are both exponential.
Edit:
The only thing that needs edit here, it is your nonsense post…. Along with a few others.
Yes, I share this perspective. Which is why I occassionally shake my head as I run across growing examples of our descent into a "Mother may I?" culture. Many current gov't and cultural policies are strangling the inventiveness and creativity that helped get us to prosperity.
Also, a chart that I saw several years ago that juxtaposed oil EROI (or ERoEI) against global population was very sobering from a long-term perspective. If we don't have viable, low EROI alternatives when oil production declines, it's going to get very ugly. Forget dust-ups over divying up a growing economic pie, when the economic pie is shrinking faster than population.... As the old saying goes, "what is unsustainable will eventually cease". Governments and CBs have pushed some unsustainable things along further that many thought, without serious reforms, but at the end of the day, it's still unsustainable.
Never thot I'd do it, +1 for Ezra Pound.
aka "1984"
I'm sorry. Too much reliance on Ezra Pound as an economist. Stick to poetry.
Commenting to mark your book referral. Looks interesting, thanks.
h_h
Agree completely with ND... No reason whatsover kids shouldn't be taught the precepts of micro economics and basic accounting GAAP before college (even though these rules or "laws" are a feudal relic) when you leave University these days and are taught to lie and cheat for the good of the business!
You should make that it's own post as a swiss army all-in-one "economic survival kit".
unfortunatly, schools are going in the opposite direction. they are adding bullshit social classes instead. I will add those books to my kids reading list, but it will be a while since he is not even two yet. i do get the little ones silver eagles or maples for holidays. they will be off to a nice start on their saving by the time they are old enough to understand
schools (like gov'ts)are becoming obsolete
The new lesson for today-
How to use a set of chosen skills you hone to your advantage in a virtual (arbritrary reality) world to increase your competitiveness on a level meritocracy playing field so that you can become more powerful (hence more usefull in your circle of friends) in various quests of goals that your group decides are valuable. In some situations the monitary rewards are real.
example WOW
Most kids and some adults go to this classroom to the extent that the lessons learned are ubiquitus in adolescent thinking.
Somewhat more useful than basket weaving (skills and knowledge of the recent past) or even GAAP which has been thrown out with the dish water?
What a gift...
What a gift...
Yes indeed.
Getting an early start on cultivating a moral conscience in business can certainly be deemed a "good thing"!
Just imagine what might happen when honorable money touches every other facet of our society especially government???...
If you don't have the "Uncle Eric" series by Maybury, the "Whatever happened to penny candy?" and "Whatever happened to justice?" are incredibly well written and targeted at the early teen audience. The chapters are clear, focused, not-too-small print, and short.
Those two books will teach a lot about common law and basic economics/money.
Check them out, buy a few sets, and give away to youngin's next Christmas (or B-Day).
Regards,
Cooter
Thanks CC. Will check these out.
Rewards for reading. That's a damn good idea. My son is only 6, so he won't be plowing through my copy of Security Analysis quite yet.
The most exhilarating and challenging conversation to have with a sheeple is how those green coupons in their wallets are really debt instruments--A debt owed to them. And additionally, that to borrow from a bankster is to borrow what has already been stolen from them.
They steal our deposits, counterfeit more, loan us the counterfeit with interest, and then we pay additionally at the grocery store in price inflation.
The banksters need to repay us.
everybody has the choice to stop playing the game. then you have won :)
love these live free or die dudes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzAcHNYeiEw
I know several highly paid MBAs that don't understand this and don't enjoy discussing it with me.
Not surprising.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."- Upton Sinclair
Hey kchrisc,
I'm calling you out to teach the very students you speak about who have no opportunity to gain financial sense (along with the copy & paste for the other ZHedgeHogs below). If the schools don't teach it, we can.
How? Here's your opportunity...
In the past few months I launched the only free vocational online school for students. It already has over 50 full blown courses from how to drive a pendant crane, fork lift, workplace hazards, lead awareness, e.t.c. I'm lining up business and unions to do the hands-on in partnership in students local areas.
The next course category objective is to create financial and monetary awareness, along with entrepreneurship.
As of last week, several tech high schools have come aboard to use it (as well as contribute). This is going to reach a gaggle of students everywhere. It's like a Khan Academy that wears a tool belt and teaches you about the real world of finance and business entrepreneurship.
If you have time to contribute here you have time to contribute there, actualizing your awareness of this need. Come by and I'll give you permissions to make your own courses (or just design the lesson and I'll integrate it). Reach me at info at shopsquawk dot calm, or make an account at ShopSquawk and start preaching OUTSIDE the ZHurch ; )
Okay, I will.
Be warned, I have near zero vocational skills. My skills reside mostly between my ears and not in my hands.
That is not a dig against "work with their hands" people like my father. I can, and sometimes do, sit and watch in awe as my brother-in-law tears down and rebuilds an auto transmission. I can build a PC though, and tell it what to do.
The banksters need to repay us.
Create a course about "Practical Engineering: On the Construction and Application of the Operational Guillotine."
That will win over some minds and souls.
Guillotines ~R~ UsTM is going to need producers and suppliers because of extraordinary demand.
Cheers.
That's actually really a good lesson! With the right pen, it could cover metalurgy (blade), physics - gravity (speed and acceleration), physiology, carpentry, and hazardous waste disposal!
Above I told kchrisc. Vocational skills is only part of what it offers. #3, 4, 5, and 6 are right down your expertise. To make it complete the student needs to be properly schooled in the real world. Ideally, the main sections will be:
Cone on Tall Tom... join in and have some fun. Kids don't come to ZH, we have to go to them!
Oh, and by the way. I think you once said you're out in Santee lakeside area. By my computations, if you're near to El Capitan, then you're also within a literal mile from where an old gold mine used to be (I think they blasted close the entry)
Eventually, the bankers will repay us. We need to work on the youth like they have. You and I may well not be alive to see it, but at least we planted seeds that made it so.
Vocational skills is only part of what it offers. #3, 4, 5, and 6 are right down your expertise. To make it complete the student needs to be properly schooled in the real world. Ideally, the main sections will be:
Each will contain the knowledge that students DON'T get taught in high school.
Hey Hedgeless,
I'm calling you out to teach the very students you speak about who have no opportunity to gain financial sense (along with the copy & paste for the other ZHedgeHogs below). If the schools don't teach it, we can.
How? Here's your opportunity...
In the past few months I launched the only free vocational online school for students. It already has over 50 full blown courses from how to drive a pendant crane, fork lift, workplace hazards, lead awareness, e.t.c. I'm lining up business and unions to do the hands-on in partnership in students local areas.
The next course category objective is to create financial and monetary awareness, along with entrepreneurship.
As of last week, several tech high schools have come aboard to use it (as well as contribute). This is going to reach a gaggle of students everywhere. It's like a Khan Academy that wears a tool belt and teaches you about the real world of finance and business entrepreneurship.
If you have time to contribute here you have time to contribute there, actualizing your awareness of this need. Come by and I'll give you permissions to make your own courses (or just design the lesson and I'll integrate it). Reach me at info at shopsquawk dot calm, or make an account at ShopSquawk and start preaching OUTSIDE the ZHurch ; )
Hey Im calling you out cause your courses for the most part are rewritten safety manuals you get with the equipment (motor, welder, equipment, gear, stuff). Pretty much PC redundancy. Sorry but you need to upgrade your lessons IMHO.
However you are doing something and that in itself is laudable and pretty extraordinary. tu +1
g speed,
I'm an IH, so I repurposed many training courses for this very endeavor. I have to place the videos in still, as well as the quiz and reference information (should be done for most by end of month). The electrical home installation and drywall I did myself from scratch (except for the many of the pics).
My goal was to populate it as a start. I have donated courses for blueprint reading, estimation etc getting ready for inclusion.
The main thing about this LMS is that those who have the expertise can contribute.
I don't make a dime and neither do contributors - BUT... the kids get their feet wet. The best part is really some of the strategic alliances I'm forging for hands-on throughout N America.
It's in its beginning. Jump aboard with an topic, or sign up to make the lessons better!
Fantastic idea, hh. I may disagree with some of the book selections but a very worthwhile investment in a young person.
There are not enough teens with critical thinking skills.
Now you see why the college debt bubble happened. No basic econ classes in school.....and you will vote for more free shit. It's "free", correct?
The little buggers graduated high school without being able to do simple interest calculations, and walked into shit a 2-year old would avoid.
At least the education-industrial complex made a ton. And we have debt slaves for life.
Don't blame me.
I have a clean conscience.
I vote Libertarian.
" I have a clean conscience. "
well, well.
it's enough that you are the subject to the empire named USA, the world's biggest welfare receiver at the expense of the rest of the world via the world reserve currency, neocolonialist foreign policy, and other scams, to be guilty by association. i know you are a good guy so i'm not going to be very harsh on your I vote Libertarian statement, which, obviously is a link to your post, which, i have to admit, haven't read, as of yet. but i'm sure we can agree, that we can't vote ourselves out of this shit. voting has become nothing less than a way to avoid personal responsibility. it's like having a referendum on titanic to find the one to rescue everybody else.
if, supposedly, the money is a commodity to measure human labor (i know i'm being idealistic here), and to expect somebody else to put fourth an effort to provide you the freedoms and the liberties you have gradually lost, then how is it different from directly receiving a handout? sounds like socialism to me, if somebody has to do all the work, as clearly voting is very far from it.
people vote with pick forks when they are serious. people are not serious yet, you know like when sometimes a toddler cries and tears are running down their face but you know they are not serious they just want to test you to get what they friviously want.
Not always...In fact voting with Pitchforks is the exception and not the rule.
People vote with their MONEY when they are serious. Money talks and bullshit walks. Do not forget that.
When the Swiss National Bank were serious against the European Union's decisions about QE and were serious about the results of the election in Greece..THEY VOTED.
How do you like that outcome OF THAT VOTE, especially if you were short on the Swiss Franc?
Another example...ALL WARS ARE ECONOMIC...That is the primary causation of ALL WARFARE. Now War is some serious shit, isn't it?
People vote with their Pocketbook when they are serious. I have and I am serious as I HAVE OPTED OUT. I SPEND AS LITTLE AS I CAN IN HOPES THAT THIS CORRUPT ECONOMY DIES.
Vote with me. Vote against corruption. STOP SPEBDING ANYTHING WHICH YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT NEED SPEND. The Government gets its revenue only when Money is fluid. STARVE THE BEAST. STOP SPENDING. OPT OUT.
Is that serious enough?
I vote for freedom, by staying home and cleaning the arsenal and the guillotine's blade.
The banksters need to repay us.
"Voting is a sheeple census."
Reminds me of an LBJ quote regarding a certain demographic voting democrat for the next 100 yrs.
My son is in 10th grade. He has a full year of a class called Personal Finance. The teacher is very good. He is learning a lot and actually won the stock market challange ( with a little bit of my help) in his class.
The class runs the entire gamut in terms of taxes, credit, budgets, markets, etc. Not sure if it will cover fiat currencies, inflation vs deflation and how the Federal Reserve is a total sham. That will be my job.
At this point I am satistified the kids in this school actually have to take this type of class and learn SOMETHING about savings and spending, credit and debt and how taxes fuck you up the ass.
"Not sure if it will cover fiat currencies, inflation vs deflation and how the Federal Reserve is a total sham. That will be my job."
+1. I liked that sentence.
therover
Reading your post makes me believe his mother must be horrified….. or she just as clueless as you are.
Please, send you son to Paraguay as an exchange student. And make sure this family in Paraguay is from a modest means of living, and not this Wall Street/America garbage that you just wrote.
you live in a land locked country in the middle of South America... a country with a vast history of dictators implementing isolationist and protectionist policies... and a US student is supposed to learn anything about economics better there than in the US?
gimme a break... you've got USSOCOM running around down there just to keep your shit together... we'll heed our own council on how our kids should learn economics, thankyouverymuch...
and who's to thank for that? US students would have much more to learn from the first-hand experience what happens to folks that get coup d'etat-ed by US taxpayer funded CIA. but of course, gambling at the stock-market is much more practical, considering the ponzi your economy is.
uh, the Spanish? and their own people?
every third world shithole is always running around blaming the USA when they can find the majority of their problems by looking in a mirror...
post turtle saver
Stop drinking Kool-Aid; the sugar will make you fat and it will slow you down.
“When I asked Pentagon officials about the nature of war in the twenty-first century, the answer I frequently got was: Read Martin van Creveld of Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Not because these top brass are enamored of this historian or not because his writing justify their existence but, rather, the opposite: Van Creveld warns them that huge state military machines like Pentagon’s are dinosaurs about to go extinct, and that something far more terrible awaits us” — Robert Kaplan
I'd have to lay over dead for you to keep up with me... no challenge at all and my assessment stands, not a single thing you said counters my observations... none
Escrava,
If you have to bring mothers into the conversation go fuck yourself.
therover
You are clueless.
Mother is the most selfish thing to do, your stupid shit.
I have kids ranging from 22 to 10, fifth year senior in college to the fifth grade.
The issue with understanding our current circumstances will take years to unravel in a conventional sense, but a few weeks if there is a spasm as many of us predict.
My oldest has never been so keen on finances until he realized the 12.5K loan he took out to complete his studies will require a >25K payout stretched over the years. And the next Lil' gap never knew how smart his dad was until he took college calculus and organic chemistry.
It isn't so much what they are being taught in schools, it's the lack of what is taiught at home, coupled with current and recent social shifts in "expectations". I shudder when I see that we have to give our hard earned money away because it is "right" and everyone has a right to free food, education, phones, housing, etc.
It is what it is, I wish for nothing. But I prepare for the inevitable.
100% with you BandGap .
I know that I am preaching to choir here, but the whole thing (politics, economics, power, greed, etc.) such that virtually everyone gets sucked into the rat race. Decades of marketing and propoganda - herd behavior. Divide and conquer. Bread and circuses. Parents are indoctrinated and ignorant. Suspension of real consequences is going to skip right to catastrophe... and most won't understand even after it all goes to hell.
On another tangent, education is the responsibility of parents. Not the state. Same for care of elderly. And individual planning for one's own security. These things will come back again... as the inevtiable collapse of the state destroys all confidence in the system.
Being knowledgeable is the responsibility of the individual--control is the responsibility of the parents. Education is for Pavlov's dogs. FIFY
Yup, must be taught at home, not within the sytem. The system as it stands today will never tell you the truth.
Family during the great depression voiced to everyone to never take on debt. Pay as you go through your productive efforts.
Wise words indeed.
I remember is 8th grade in the 80's we had a mock stock market game we played to teach the kids about what happened in the 30's crash. funny tho the kids did not learn the lesson they just complained how the teacher created a situation that they could not win. when winning is all that matters, you will lose.
Ohh boy, NoDebt!
People used to believe in Zeus and Thorn. Now, many in Deus (god) and (last prophet) Muhammad.
So, why are you acting surprise that people believe in paper (money)? How are these believes any different?
I believe in God because you'd have to be an imbecile to really believe our planet, sun, solar system, Earth, life, and all its moving parts happened by accident over millions of years.
People believe in paper money because they can walk into a Starbucks and hand the cashier a $5 and walk out with their beverage. Nobody alive has walked in and successfully handed the Starbucks an ounce of silver and walked out with their beverage.
I want more than a friggin cup of coffee after the excruciating effort I went through saving silver....Wow, that sounds remarkably like my grandad and dad who went through the Depression.
That's why if plastic and credit dries up, the economy will dry up. We won't part with real money for useless shit.
Exactly!
Let's enjoy the coffee.... And once at it, bring some more Kool-Aid, too.
My dad talks about passing out from hunger in elementary school. Where the chalk smelled like food. Of being taken to a Salvation Army warehouse to get shoes, pants, shirt and a winter coat.
My grandpa used to stand on an orange crate in Los Angeles and rant about the Federal Reserve, Debt Money, and, according to older cousins, fire and brimstone pentecostal-type preachings. He and grandma had split up in the depression. She had the girls (4) he had the boys (4). Grandma whored, according to my aunts, and they were forced to witness it in a one room shack. Grandpa was a carpenter who spent his cash more on booze and the boys were careful to never wake his vengeful ass as they climbed over him on the bed.
I was taught, no...It was hammered into my head, that debt was something to avoid. Pay as you go. Other than buying something large, like a house or car, I spent my life avoiding debt. I didn't refi my house when it soared from 75k to 360k and now I have all new neighbors. But, because I didn't involve myself in debt, I have a credit score of a deadbeat.
I am now refi'ing my home to bring the interest from 7.5 to 3.8 and have to pull equity to be able to do it.
I'll have my balance go from 35k to 100k. 30k of the proceeds goes to physical gold. 15k is final arrangements for us. Car gets paid off. The rest gets put into peanut cans around the house.
You have to be massively ignorant (or intellectually limited) to not see that a few simple rules can create very complex outcomes.
Massive ignorance and indoctrination. So please don't add the word intellectually. That's way beyond comprehension and recognition.
It takes one to recognize one?
I believe in God because you'd have to be an imbecile to really believe our planet, sun, solar system, Earth, life, and all its moving parts happened by accident over millions of years.
that's why in school , usually, you can learn science.... but... nvm, keep amen head down ass up so the fanatic can fill you up your throat can drip like female dog having periods.
fucking tard ignorant.
world is going to fight each others coz of religions to hide the financial problem, elite is using jews against christians against muslim to hide the mess,
1st thing to do is stop beleiving in your fucking barby fantasy world and wake the fuck up.
BELIEVING in something WON'T SAVE YOUR ASS, get the facts straight, just as they are,
you have right to not understand or not knowing something, but be SMART ENOUGH TO NOT PUT YOUR FUCKING IGORANCE INTO FUCKING FAITH !!!!!
"ohhh, bad thing here, i really don't understand why, boaaaah, nvm, must be god choice.... amen "
'Science', insofar as it represents the pap coming from those who wish to disparage the Bible, is incapable of explaining how the theory of evolution is both statistically impossible and violates the very laws of nature that 'science' purports to be defending against 'anti-scientific religion'. DNA is incredibly complex and contains far greater amounts of information than can be explained by the mere passage of billions of years and random accidents of chemistry. Somewhere along the way, some intelligence designed DNA. I, and many others, call that intelligence God.
Evolution is just one example of theories that ignore the facts and seem to be motivated by anti-God animus as much as by genuine scientific inquiry. Cosmology is another. Perhaps you should spend some time actually reading about the problems with both before demonstrating your lack knowledge. Putting it in terms you would support, your critical thinking hasn't evolved much beyond the pond scum from which you think you came.
"...
Letter VIINoah and his family were saved -- if that could be called an advantage. I throw in the if for the reason that there has never been an intelligent person of the age of sixty who would consent to live his life over again. His or anyone else's. The Family were saved, yes, but they were not comfortable, for they were full of microbes. Full to the eyebrows; fat with them, obese with them, distended like balloons. It was a disagreeable condition, but it could not be helped, because enough microbes had to be saved to supply the future races of men with desolating diseases, and there were but eight persons on board to serve as hotels for them. The microbes were by far the most important part of the Ark's cargo, and the part the Creator was most anxious about and most infatuated with. They had to have good nourishment and pleasant accommodations. There were typhoid germs, and cholera germs, and hydrophobia germs, and lockjaw germs, and consumption germs, and black-plague germs, and some hundreds of other aristocrats, specially precious creations, golden bearers of God's love to man, blessed gifts of the infatuated Father to his children -- all of which had to be sumptuously housed and richly entertained; these were located in the choicest places the interiors of the Family could furnish: in the lungs, in the heart, in the brain, in the kidneys, in the blood, in the guts. In the guts particularly. The great intestine was the favorite resort. There they gathered, by countless billions, and worked, and fed, and squirmed, and sang hymns of praise and thanksgiving; and at night when it was quiet you could hear the soft murmur of it. The large intestine was in effect their heaven. They stuffed it solid; they made it as rigid as a coil of gaspipe. They took pride in this. Their principal hymn made gratified reference to it:
Constipation, O Constipation,
The Joyful sound proclaim
Till man's remotest entrail
Shall praise its Maker's name
The discomforts furnished by the Ark were many and various. The family had to live right in the presence of the multitudinous animals, and breathe the distressing stench they make and be deafened day and night with the thunder-crash of noise their roarings and screechings produced; and in additions to these intolerable discomforts it was a peculiarly trying place for the ladies, for they could look in no direction without seeing some thousands of the creatures engaged in multiplying and replenishing. And then, there were the flies. They swarmed everywhere, and persecuted the Family all day long. They were the first animals up, in the morning, and the last ones down, at night. But they must not be killed, they must not be injured, they were sacred, their origin was divine, they were the special pets of the Creator, his darlings.
By and by the other creatures would be distributed here and there about the earth -- scattered: the tigers to India, the lions and the elephants to the vacant desert and the secret places of the jungle, the birds to the boundless regions of empty space, the insects to one or another climate, according to nature and requirement; but the fly? He is of no nationality; all the climates are his home, all the globe is his province, all creatures that breathe are his prey, and unto them all he is a scourge and a hell.
To man he is a divine ambassador, a minister plenipotentiary, the Creator's special representative. He infests him in his cradle; clings in bunches to his gummy eyelids; buzzes and bites and harries him, robbing him of his sleep and his weary mother of her strength in those long vigils which she devotes to protecting her child from this pest's persecutions. The fly harries the sick man in his home, in the hospital, even on his deathbed at his last gasp. Pesters him at his meals; previously hunts up patients suffering from loathsome and deadly diseases; wades in their sores, gaums its legs with a million death-dealing germs; then comes to that healthy man's table and wipes these things off on the butter and discharges a bowel-load of typhoid germs and excrement on his batter-cakes. The housefly wrecks more human constitutions and destroys more human lives than all God's multitude of misery-messengers and death-agents put together.
Shem was full of hookworms. It is wonderful, the thorough and comprehensive study which the Creator devoted to the great work of making man miserable. I have said he devised a special affliction-agent for each and every detail of man's structure, overlooking not a single one, and I said the truth. Many poor people have to go barefoot, because they cannot afford shoes. The Creator saw his opportunity. I will remark, in passing, that he always has his eye on the poor. Nine-tenths of his disease-inventions were intended for the poor, and they get them. The well-to-do get only what is left over. Do not suspect me of speaking unheedfully, for it is not so: the vast bulk of the Creator's affliction-inventions are specially designed for the persecution of the poor. You could guess this by the fact that one of the pulpit's finest and commonest names for the Creator is "The Friend of the Poor." Under no circumstances does the pulpit ever pay the Creator a compliment that has a vestige of truth in it. The poor's most implacable and unwearying enemy is their Father in Heaven. The poor's only real friend is their fellow man. He is sorry for them, he pities them, and he shows it by his deeds. He does much to relieve their distresses; and in every case their Father in Heaven gets the credit of it.
Just so with diseases. If science exterminates a disease which has been working for God, it is God that gets the credit, and all the pulpits break into grateful advertising-raptures and call attention to how good he is! Yes, he has done it. Perhaps he has waited a thousand years before doing it. That is nothing; the pulpit says he was thinking about it all the time. When exasperated men rise up and sweep away an age-long tyranny and set a nation free, the first thing the delighted pulpit does is to advertise it as God's work, and invite the people to get down on their knees and pour out their thanks to him for it. And the pulpit says with admiring emotion, "Let tyrants understand that the Eye that never sleeps is upon them; and let them remember that the Lord our God will not always be patient, but will loose the whirlwinds of his wrath upon them in his appointed day."
They forget to mention that he is the slowest mover in the universe; that his Eye that never sleeps, might as well, since it takes it a century to see what any other eye would see in a week; that in all history there is not an instance where he thought of a noble deed first, but always thought of it just a little after somebody else had thought of it and done it. He arrives then, and annexes the dividend.
Very well, six thousand years ago Shem was full of hookworms. Microscopic in size, invisible to the unaided eye. All of the Creator's specially deadly disease-producers are invisible. It is an ingenious idea. For thousands of years it kept man from getting at the roots of his maladies, and defeated his attempts to master them. It is only very recently that science has succeeded in exposing some of these treacheries.
The very latest of these blessed triumphs of science is the discovery and identification of the ambuscaded assassin which goes by the name of the hookworm. Its special prey is the barefooted poor. It lies in wait in warm regions and sandy places and digs its way into their unprotected feet.
The hookworm was discovered two or three years ago by a physician, who had been patiently studying its victims for a long time. The disease induced by the hookworm had been doing its evil work here and there in the earth ever since Shem landed on Ararat, but it was never suspected tobe a disease at all. The people who had it were merely supposed to be lazy, and were therefore despised and made fun of, when they should have been pitied. The hookworm is a peculiarly sneaking and underhanded invention, and has done its surreptitious work unmolested for ages; but that physician and his helpers will exterminate it now.
God is back of this. He has been thinking about it for six thousand years, and making up his mind. The idea of exterminating the hookworm was his. He came very near doing it before Dr. Charles Wardell Stiles did. But he is in time to get the credit of it. He always is.
It is going to cost a million dollars. He was probably just in the act of contributing that sum when a man pushed in ahead of him -- as usual. Mr. Rockefeller. He furnishes the million, but the credit will go elsewhere -- as usual. This morning's journal tells us something about the hookworm's operations:
The hookworm parasites often so lower the vitality of those who are affected as to retard their physical and mental development, render them more susceptible to other diseases, make labor less efficient, and in the sections where the malady is most prevalent greatly increase the death rate from consumption, pneumonia, typhoid fever and malaria. It has been shown that the lowered vitality of multitudes, long attributed to malaria and climate and seriously affecting economic development, is in fact due in some districts to this parasite. The disease is by no means confined to any one class; it takes its toll of suffering and death from the highly intelligent and well to do as well as from the less fortunate. It is a conservative estimate that two millions of our people are affected by this parasite. The disease is more common and more serious in children of school age than in other persons.
Widespread and serious as the infection is, there is still a most encouraging outlook. The disease can be easily recognized, readily and effectively treated and by simple and proper sanitary precautions successfully prevented [with God's help].
The poor children are under the Eye that never sleeps, you see. They have had that ill luck in all the ages. They and "the Lord's poor" -- as the sarcastic phrase goes -- have never been able to get away from that Eye's attentions.
Yes, the poor, the humble, the ignorant -- they are the ones that catch it. Take the "Sleeping Sickness," of Africa. This atrocious cruelty has for its victims a race of ignorant and unoffending blacks whom God placed in a remote wilderness, and bent his parental Eye upon them -- the one that never sleeps when there is a chance to breed sorrow for somebody. He arranged for these people before the Flood. The chosen agent was a fly, related to the tsetse; the tsetse is a fly which has command of the Zambezi country and stings cattle and horses to death, thus rendering that region uninhabitable by man. The tsetse's awful relative deposits a microbe which produces the Sleeping Sickness. Ham was full of these microbes, and when the voyage was over he discharged them in Africa and the havoc began, never to find amelioration until six thousand years should go by and science should pry into the mystery and hunt out the cause of the disease. The pious nations are now thanking God, and praising him for coming to the rescue of his poor blacks. The pulpit says the praise is due to him. He is surely a curious Being. He commits a fearful crime, continues that crime unbroken for six thousand years, and is then entitled to praise because he suggests to somebody else to modify its severities. He is called patient, and he certainly must be patient, or he would have sunk the pulpit in perdition ages ago for the ghastly compliments it pays him.
Science has this to say about the Sleeping Sickness, otherwise called the Negro Lethargy:
It is characterized by periods of sleep recurring at intervals. The disease lasts from four months to four years, and is always fatal. The victim appears at first languid, weak, pallid, and stupid. His eyelids become puffy, an eruption appears on his skin. He falls asleep while talking, eating, or working. As the disease progresses he is fed with difficulty and becomes much emaciated. The failure of nutrition and the appearance of bedsores are followed by convulsions and death. Some patients become insane.
It is he whom Church and people call Our Father in Heaven who has invented the fly and sent him to inflict this dreary long misery and melancholy and wretchedness, and decay of body and mind, upon a poor savage who has done that Great Criminal no harm. There isn't a man in the world who doesn't pity that poor black sufferer, and there isn't a man that wouldn't make him whole if he could. To find the one person who has no pity for him you must go to heaven; to find the one person who is able to heal him and couldn't be persuaded to do it, you must go to the same place. There is only one father cruel enough to afflict his child with that horrible disease -- only one. Not all the eternities can produce another one. Do you like reproachful poetical indignations warmly expressed? Here is one, hot from the heart of a slave:
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
I will tell you a pleasant tale which has in it a touch of pathos. A man got religion, and asked the priest what he must do to be worthy of his new estate. The priest said, "Imitate our Father in Heaven, learn to be like him." The man studied his Bible diligently and thoroughly and understandingly, and then with prayers for heavenly guidance instituted his imitations. He tricked his wife into falling downstairs, and she broke her back and became a paralytic for life; he betrayed his brother into the hands of a sharper, who robbed him of his all and landed him in the almshouse; he inoculated one son with hookworms, another with the sleeping sickness, another with gonorrhea; he furnished one daughter with scarlet fever and ushered her into her teens deaf, dumb, and blind for life; and after helping a rascal seduce the remaining one, he closed his doors against her and she died in a brothel cursing him. Then he reported to the priest, who said that that was no way to imitate his Father in Heaven. The convert asked wherein he had failed, but the priest changed the subject and inquired what kind of weather he was having, up his way."
Letters From Earth - Mark Twain
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/twain/letearth.htm
"Nobody alive has walked in and successfully handed the Starbucks an ounce of silver and walked out with their beverage."
Actually I did that the other day to prove a point to my son that some people are totally oblivious to what REAL money is. Paid for the coffees with pre 1964 quarters and dimes. The cashier threw them right in the drawer without skipping a beat !!!
If you do the math, it was MORE than an ounce of silver.
If that Starbucks clerk knows it then he will trade you Coffee for Silver.
Not all Store Clerks are stupid. They will take the money from their own pocket for the Silver.
If they are totally honest then they'd buy the coins from you at near melt....and trade you the coffee for equitable compensation.
I have gone into private shops and bought a $5 sandwhich for a Silver Quarter.
I told the clerk to ring it up for 25 Cent sale as that is was what was tendered. That was the LEGAL Denomination. It was imprinted upon the coin. I do not want the taxman do get anyting more than he steals already.
When we trade in Silver the Sales Tax Revenues are depleted. Anything to bleed out the beast, even if by a death of a thousand cuts.
I was at a .99 cent store one evening, a couple years ago, and bought some piece of shit.
Gave the clerk my two dollars and the change included a 1953 dime.
No one was behind me in the line, so I showed her the dime and explained that the dime was worth $5.
I didn't need the money, was feeling generous, and wanted the young girl to realize that she could simply pull another dime out; give it to me, and pull a dime out from her pocket and exchange for the $5 dime.
She looked at it, then handed it back.
"I believe in God because you'd have to be an imbecile to really believe our planet, sun, solar system, Earth, life, and all its moving parts happened by accident over millions of years."
Try billions.
And there's nothing accidental about it. Four fundamental forces are responsible for everything from stellar evolution to planetary formation to the emergence and subsequent evolution of life. This is so well established that to argue otherwise is to reveal a profound ignorance of how the world really works.
But don't worry, you're not alone. I doubt that one in a million people today actually understand this, so take comfort in the fact that you're in the majority, and should push come to shove, you'll have no problem forcing your will on those of us who seek the truth outside of tradition, ignorance and superstition.
Who knows.... you might even get to burn us at the stake again! Wouldn't that be fun!
"in God We Trust" is written on it.
You got it bass ackwards Escrava. Back when the citizens of the United States really believed in God the Ruling Class could not get away with this. In 1900 McKinley beat William Jennings Bryan when the latter suggested we water down our gold standard by backing our money with gold OR silver at a 1:16 ration. The public actually understood that watering down the dollar would produce inflation. They understood that it amounted to what the book of Proverbs referred to as a false set of measures. It took most of a century of (godless) public "education" to get the population so ignorant that they were willing to accept fiat debt as money.
Article I, Section 10 to claim the Constitution says money should be gold or silver coin.
“[No State shall] make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts;“
"They understood that it amounted to what the book of Proverbs referred to as a false set of measures. "
HS I wouldn't take your history or religion class. The problem was with a fixed ratio when silver was rapidly coming to market. The banks used this to favor gold while agrarian interests {debtors) favored silver. Proverbs does not refer to silver as a false measure.
I was very lucky to have a business teacher in high school who, in our very first lesson, told the class to never take out of a credit card and demonised debt.
Then I had a history teacher who was clearly, looking back, anti central banks as he often talked about the money side of war that isn't even part of the course.
No doubt some maths teachers out there teach their students about budgets etc
I think there are good teachers who teach pupils about money properly, like we would given a class full of kids in a history or maths lesson, but the system doesn't require they teach it.
That was all before Common Core. Teachers have little discretion in their curriculum now. They teach what the government mandates they teach.
It is a mess for sure. On top of this, the school districts constantly play games attempting to level everything along thier twisted versions of social engineering. For example, in their infinite logic, they take great administrators out of top schools and put them in bad schools to help turn them around (ok so far to some degree... longer story though), and they take a bad administrator from a failing school and put that person in the good school!
Virtually every action by the school systems is the same... pounding all the A's and F's into one big C.
My favorite quote on public education goes approximately like this:
School is increasingly about grooming children for a life of being fucked over by banks because they are taught happiness is following orders, being accepted, and consuming shit. I don't even really think it is education anymore, in the classical sense. Everyone get's an A, so what the fuck does an A mean? They have graduation for elementary school grades FFS.
Totally not prepared for the "real world" and by the time they figure it out they will be late 20s / early 30s and up to their ass in student loan debt, consumer debt, mortgage debt and will effectively be trapped.
Regards,
Cooter
cooter, for last 40 years... home education = TV... and now internet...
you cannot fight...
Back in the 80's my wife and I were pretty well known in the Panama City, Flawduh school system as we constantly went to the school board to fight the promotion of our oldest son. The dumbshit failed at school. He didn't learn what he needed to at Kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade. He was falling so far behind the other kids it was criminal. Yet they kept promoting him. He was in third grade and could barely read! The commission said, we have to promote him because he's so big he'll feel like a loser.
About that time, Florida decided to have teacher's take a test on knowledge. 80% failed. The passing range was immediately lowered to around 50%.
That's when I brought us back to California...which used to have the highest educational standards of the nation. Little did I know how much it changed in twelve years.
But we stayed on his ass, dispite stright F's his sophomore year of High School.
Now he's in his 13th year in Afghanistan and he's the civilian Executive Director of some shit under some four star.
I have absolutely no built in admiration for teachers in general...to me they are the dumbest creatures on earth. However, there ARE shining diamonds occasionally in ther towering shitpile under the kaibo.
Those diamonds should always be singled out and admired.
Hey NoDebt,
I'm calling you out to teach the very students you speak about who have no opportunity to gain financial sense (along with the copy & paste for the other ZHedgeHogs below). If the schools don't teach it, we can.
How? Here's your opportunity...
In the past few months I launched the only free vocational online school for students. It already has over 50 full blown courses from how to drive a pendant crane, fork lift, workplace hazards, lead awareness, e.t.c. I'm lining up business and unions to do the hands-on in partnership in students local areas.
The next course category objective is to create financial and monetary awareness, along with entrepreneurship.
As of last week, several tech high schools have come aboard to use it (as well as contribute). This is going to reach a gaggle of students everywhere. It's like a Khan Academy that wears a tool belt and teaches you about the real world of finance and business entrepreneurship.
If you have time to contribute here you have time to contribute there, actualizing your awareness of this need. Come by and I'll give you permissions to make your own courses (or just design the lesson and I'll integrate it). Reach me at info at shopsquawk dot calm, or make an account at ShopSquawk and start preaching OUTSIDE the ZHurch ; )
Hook Line and S...
This is an amazing thing you're doing. I looked up your link.
I see you have some agriculture courses. I have 40 years under my belt paying income tax on farm income...the last twenty five by organic.
Could you use an old salty type that farms with large modern equipment and scientific principles, but incorporates old techniques handed down from my ancestors? It may be a way to help save some of this knowledge before I kick off one day.
Most of my knowlege works on everything from back yard gardens to a 1000 acre farm.
Write back here, and I'll contact your link. I cannot promise results.
Absolutely! Especially the organic farming angle is superb. This IS one of the answers for survival for our children who are being challenged by the artificially imposed 'natural selection' of GMO's etc.
Also, the real financial challenges of farming would be an ideal course (reminds me of that Rodney Dangerfield movie when he lays the reality of business down in class).
I'm glad that you get of what I am doing here. I already have a few other ZH'rs working on courses. This will make an impact.
Please come aboard. Make an account at the site, or email me at info at shopsquawk dot calm
Sent you an email, hook line and stinker. I'm just an accountant.
But I'm corporate controller for fifty entities in mining, ready mix, steel, steel fabrication, real estate, and a couple other piddly things. I am a master of excel.
All I remember is my HS world history teacher stating that if we did not learn from history we were doomed to repeat it and that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. He would have been more convincing if his stained arm pits were not visible during his rants.
MY high school world history teacher could have been the Penthouse Pin-up of the year.
My high schoold gym coach WAS a playgirl centerfold.
The teachers are too busy indoctrinating the kids about global warming.
Lots of states require kids to take classes in financial literacy. New Age curriculum stuff. Public education "progress" hasn't been all bad.
But they'll never, ever teach kids the real history of the US--imperial expansions, assassinations, fomented coups, black flags, wars of aggression . . . the shit that matters more than George fucking Washington's mythical cherry tree and a hundred other useless pieces of shit promoted by both sides of the supposed political continuum.
Well, okay, this may be one of those times when we really could point fingers strongly at one "side" of that fragile continuum rather than the other, but hey. Don't matter, I guess.
That is the realm of parents.
And if they don't teach it. It's up to us Grandparents/Great-grandparents.
In THIS family...it WILL be taught.
I always wanted to teach a high school class called, LIFE. The premise would be that everyone is going to try and screw you every day and how to be aware of constant BS. Also how to be aware of opportunities that may be better than what you think you want. Most graduates enter the world thinking it's all blue skies and honesty.
They don't want the masses to know their getting screwed. Look at core math being taught. It was brilliant...the progs invented it to dumb down the kids, and make them dependent on the state for a monthly check. The kids think they are stupid because they do not understand it, so they feel they need someone else to do it for them...the state.
The Bill Gates Foundation donates the money to education departments that enact this BS.
Fifteen years ago one of my girls was taking a business course in high school. Each student was expected to bring in one local business person to speak to the class. My daughter dragged me in for an hour. When I spoke about debt, and the rule of 72, it was as if a light bulb went on with them, as they began asking questions and writing this down. The teacher spoke up quickly.."Oh yes, the rule of 72...please explain that important rule, Mr Vigor".
My daughter loved that course, and the other kids looked like bright lights...Of course the school dropped that class.
high school nothing... walk up to your typical adult today and ask them two questions:
- describe "the rule of 72" and how you can use it to plan your retirement
- describe "the 10-10-10" rule and how it can be used to estimate revenue for a lease-to-buy business
both of them will get you deer-in-the-headlights looks, but that was something I was taught in high school...
they taught us how to balance a checkbook, too... if you got perfect balance, you got an 'A', off by one penny, 'B'... taught by the football coach of all people and that man knew his finances...
lol that's what I thought, crickets...
the rule of 72 is easy, that can be googled up no problem... try to google the 10-10-10 rule as I describe it... seriously, good luck with that...
I get the 10 10 10, but have no idea on using it in your scenario.
spastic finger.
Why would you leave the responsibility to a fucking school?
BINGO!!!!!
John Taylor Gatto - The Scientific Management of Childrenhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UadPqGscfI
Nodebt
I'm sure your aware but the new common core has done away with teaching money concepts entirely in the mathematics section. They need a whole new generation to never question the foundation of money or where it comes from. The new new thing in high schools are federal policy debate competitions amongst high schools. Makes me want to puke, makes them probably laugh hysterically.
And yet my 5 year old already understands that the broken window fallacy is just that. We call it "cookies and beer theory", but he understands that if we waste money on fixing something he broke, we can't spend it on cookies and beer.
Canadian millennial here - we had mandatory business classes in grade 10 (2000, for me) and economics in grade 12 (2002), as an elective.
There was a home ec elective, too.
We had a decent economics course in high school when I went (80s) and when my daughter went a few years ago. It covered basic economic theory, profit maximization based on sales data using that theory, and a bit about financing.
It never touched on exchange rates, bond yields, etc. In fact it avoided country-level macro topics altogether, and today that just leaves me suspicious.
.
NoDebt: Thanks for the post. I think you are right that high-school economics courses are quite rare. I was lucky enough to have had a high-school economics course -- in the late 1970s. Yeah, I know. One of the school counselors -- I even recall his name -- taught an introductory economics class; this was completely separate from the home economics and from the consumer economics course. It was not required and not as popular as accounting. But the teacher was good. I remember the course started out Crusoe-style, about a guy on an island having to make decisions based on value (micro); later we got into a bit of monetary and fiscal policy (macro). We thought it was all pretty cool, as many of us, despite our sometimes less-than-wholesome extracurricular activities, still really did want to understand how the world works. Yet it seems no one talks about ever having had econ in high school anymore.
And, boy, was I ever disappointed with my first university economics courses. In hindsight, I think that high-school econ teacher was a free-market fellow, because the formal university stuff, laden with Keynesianism and statism throughout, seemed alien at first. I could not start to make sense of it until Milton Friedman made things clearer and until I beefed up my math skills.
Economic thinking and evolutionary biology are the two most powerful discliplines for explaining human action. I agree with you econ, at least, should be taught to everyone in their youth, before college age - whether at home or in school.
I took macro and micro economics in high school - easy A's and indoctrination via an early edition of of the same shit Baumol and Blinder text they torture (college???) kids with today... But I don't believe the way finance actually works is taught in any academic institution. If you want to learn the real thing you need experience at a real job that provides that knowledge.
"But I don't believe the way finance actually works is taught in any academic institution"
Because they teach portfolio theory, statistics, risk measurement, diversification, etc. None of this is of any use today or for some time now.
Both my kids had economics in a public, inner-city school albeit, with an International Baccalaureate curriculum.
Better keep stacking Au and Ag while there is still time.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yloaBw80fV4
'fewer than 1 in 100 people understand that rate of return moves inversely to price on a debt security"
Enough said. Agree.
Exactly what the Fuck does the double humped camel, two trees, and Pointing Guy fit into the equation??
All he's saying is BTFD
Yeah, buy the "flipping' dips...
;-D
Might have something to do with the Black variety of AMN79.
Sunday morning, and I have to put up with this shit... Again.