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“Facts Do Not Cease To Exist Because They Are Ignored”
Submitted by Michael Lebowitz of 720 Global
Courage
“The kid had a 94-mile-per-hour fastball, a clean delivery, and a body that looked as if it had been created to wear a baseball uniform. He was, in short, precisely the kind of pitcher Billy thought he had trained his scouting department to avoid.”
– Michael Lewis, Moneyball
In his book Moneyball, Michael Lewis explores the irrationality and ignorance of human behavior and the opportunities it creates for those willing to resist it. The book represents a value investors guide to how the Oakland A’s, with one of the smallest budgets in Major League Baseball, consistently found and acquired quality players that were shunned under
the traditional scouting matrix. These overlooked and undervalued players afforded the Oakland A’s and General Manager Billy Beane the fifth best winning percentage with the fourth lowest total payroll over the last 15 years. As the graph below from FiveThirtyEight shows, Beane dramatically outperformed his opponents when it came to maximizing the value of his budget.
Once when asked why he was willing to allow Michael Lewis to write a book about his approach, Beane responded “It won’t matter who reads it, no one would have the courage to put into practice what we do.” This same model of logic and courage should be applied in investing.
In today’s euphoric markets we also believe it takes a lot of courage for those willing to underweight, sell or avoid U.S. stocks. Arguably, even more courage is required now than was required to buy stocks in March of 2009 when fear was running rampant and the stock markets were plummeting to levels last seen in the 1990’s. We realize that is a strong statement given how at ease investors are today compared to how scared they were in 2009. When one has enjoyed the benefits of a persistently rising market that has lasted many years, muscle memory makes changing a well-rewarded posture extremely difficult. This is especially true when the alternative, moving to cash, produces zero return. Conceptually, investing is a very simple task; buy when an asset is cheap and sell the asset when it is rich. Investors are psychological beings, however, and thus are subjected to more filters than a binary decision on whether an asset is a good buy or sell.
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored”
– Aldous Huxley
Huxley’s words describe a psychological condition termed cognitive dissonance. According to the American Psychological Association, cognitive dissonance is induced when a person holds two contradictory beliefs, or when a belief is incongruent with an action that the person has chosen freely to perform.
Cognitive dissonance is on full display today in the financial markets.
The U.S. economy has been supported for seven years by a zero interest rate policy, record fiscal deficits and unprecedented surges in the money supply. Despite all of the stimuli, the economy is slogging along well below trend. The actions taken by the Federal Reserve, federal government and governments around the world are unprecedented. In a normally functioning economy such actions would generate massive growth and inflation. Since growth has been tepid and inflation benign, there is obviously something amiss.
Corporate earnings and thus stock prices are driven by the economy. Despite the state of the economy and economic concerns we harbor, investors are investing hand over fist in assets whose valuations are predicated on strong economic growth in the future. As a result, most major U.S. stock indices are currently at or near all-time highs. A sizeable percentage of the gains are a result of an expansion in the price/earnings multiple. In other words investors are willing to pay more today, than they did yesterday, for the same amount of historic earnings and or forecasted earnings. The graph below shows five popular gauges of valuation, including those used by the Federal Reserve and investing icon Warren Buffett. The colored circles show where the S&P 500 would be if investors valued earnings today as they did historically. Based on these five measures the S&P 500 is adding a 20% to 50% premium over what decades of history suggests is fair. These readings range from the 80th percentile to the 100th percentile in each case. Not unlike the rhetoric of the late 1990’s or mid-2000’s, there is no shortage of rationalizations for why such extraordinary valuations are reasonable and justifiable. Yet the fact remains firmly in place, stocks are expensive.
The all-important link between stock prices, economic and productivity growth, and true corporate earnings potential are being ignored. Stock prices and many other investment asset prices are indirectly supported by the actions and opinions of the central banks. Investors have become dangerously comfortable with this dubious arrangement despite the enormous market disequilibrium it is causing. History reminds us time and again that a state of disequilibrium is highly unstable and will ultimately revert back to equilibrium – often violently so.
Are investors ignoring economic warning signs that, at a minimum, should be causing trepidation? If so, then why are investors chasing stocks and other assets that are priced for something that seems unfeasible? One answer is certainly, in some part, attributed to the lack of safe alternatives offering reasonable yields. We argue there is more to consider. Investors are once again focused on the promise of an on-going rally in equities and other risky assets and a fear of being contrarian, while seemingly ignoring the facts. Cognitive dissonance has got the best of them.
Humans are not wired to take the road less traveled. They continually look for the safety and security that is provided by being a member of a larger group. Being part of the consensus crowd doesn’t mitigate the risk of loss or prevent failure, but it does go a long way to easing the mind and the wrath of clients, in the event of failure. Human beings tend to believe mistakes are valid if so many others make the same mistake. This herd mentality overrides rationality and common sense and changes the motives behind our decision making process. As investors demonstrate this phenomena, they end up harboring a greater concern of acting differently and lose focus of the risks they bear. The predominant difference on this occasion as compared with the two previous market bubbles (2000/2008) is the Federal Reserve’s role as an agent encouraging such reckless group-think.
This conflict, or cognitive dissonance, can be our nemesis when making investment decisions. As “rational” investors we need to overcome this handicap, even if it is easier said than done. Thoroughbred race horses occasionally wear blinkers so their focus is on the track in front of them and not on the horses around them. Our simple advice; wear blinkers. As difficult as it is, make intentional efforts to ignore the commonly uninformed chatter of friends and colleagues and the self-serving guidance offered by Wall Street economists and the media. Do your own homework and make sure your clients understand the value of your independent analysis.
Value investing, when done objectively, offers a strategy for investors to ignore the herd. The best in class understand that wealth is preserved by avoiding losses. They are not beholden to trends or momentum, nor are they distracted or obsessed by others investments. They simply have the courage to divest of or shun assets priced above fair value in the midst of euphoria. Although it seldom attracts the praises of the crowd, great investors who follow this simple courageous strategy do so with confidence in a favorable outcome.
“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
- George S. Patton Jr.
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Watching the market today and understanding while the facts don't disappear, ignoring them is easy and never forget the battle cry of every market crash..."we never saw it coming"......
So are these facts things like important or some shit??
Here's my favorite fact about Moneyball. It doesn't matter how many games you win during the season because the only way you make the big money is when you win the whole thing.
The last time the Oakland A's were in the World Series was 1990 and the last time they won was 1989. The city of Oakland is a shithole and the team will never draw the crowds they need to bring serious money to the club. Billy Beane may have increased the team's win percentage on a low dollar roster but they also play in a very uncompetitive division. Try having the A's play Boston and New York every other game and see what happens.
If the A's moved their team to Charlotte or Nashville they would increase their revenue perhaps ten fold. Facts don't cease to exist.
Marlins beat the Yankees, their entire roster made less than one yank, by far.
< According to the Schroedinger cat paradox, reality doesn't exist unless it is observed.
< According to Karl Popper, Schroedinger is full of shit.
If the A's were playing New York and Boston every other game, the economics would change. They'd have a lot more money. The money from TV is pretty significant, and sharing the income from games with NY and Boston would yield more income. It should also make home games draw greater crowds, selling more tickets. And of course, to play those teams more, they'd likely be in a higher, more-affluent population, unless you make divisions without respect to geographical location.
Aren't those called blinders? I've never heard of them called blinkers before...
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com
math is racist
Sexist too.....
A terrorist as well
The banksters need to repay us.
Facts??
GTF outta here, Can't you see the game is on asshole?
Wake me up when the beer fridge is empty.
The U.S. economy has been supported for seven years by a zero interest rate policy, record fiscal deficits and unprecedented surges in the money supply. Despite all of the stimuli, the economy is slogging along well below trend. The actions taken by the Federal Reserve, federal government and governments around the world are unprecedented. In a normally functioning economy such actions would generate massive growth and inflation. Since growth has been tepid and inflation benign, there is obviously something amiss.
That really bears repeating. People are so used to the new stimulus regime that they forget that it is not normal. I know investors who begin to panic at even a hint of a tiny rise in interest rates. Their hands shake and sweat as if a tiny rate hike was a death blow to equities. And watch Markets when that hint is taken seriously. Market Panic! Something is indeed amiss!
This whole financial services based economic model, this money printing model, this direct market manipulation model has totally destroyed price discovery. How do you have capitalism and markets with out true price discovery? Is someone really saying todays valuations are Market Based? They are Money Printer Based.
if only Bernanke had the courage not to act on his panic.
Indeed Jack. It is based on fraud. Everything went out the window with the suspension of FASB 157 in April 2009.
(aka Marked to Unicorn).
+1
Who says the sausage in the freezer is going bad...?
to stick with the baseball analogy - we've given 1-9 steroids, and are continually surprised that their .ops and .war isn't going up.
Why would printing money to give to banks while correcting none of the issues that led to 2007/2008 - NONE - they are arguably worse.... every *possibly* work?
If you step back and think about it, and I'm not saying anything new, but the divide between the real economy, the fundamentals of hitting- and the ivy, ivory tower theoretics of guys like Krugman, keeps growing.
In essence, they seem to think that with more liquidity, you can have more debt, AND THAT DEBT FIXES EVERYTHING.
But isn't this presumption extra-ordinarly stupid, if taken as some kind of axiom?
Why would more debt, on top of breathtaking amounts, itself do anything to improve schools, raise wages, get people to stop majoring in women's studies, etc.?
What has been done to improve the fundamentals {which granted, some of you more orthodox libertarians reject, but for reasons of unpragmatic ideology} of education or job retraining?
Why do we keep making it easy for US corps to ship jbs overseas as well as importing foreign workers [e.g. Indians - who have transformed suburbs of Boston and elsewhere].... all while letting illegals flood the country?
No - either economists are trained to be shitty thinkers, and should be kept away from monetary and budget policy.... or they are evil fucks deliberately stealing from workers [middle or even lower upper class, btw] for the benefit of banks and the private corporations and families who have, foolishly and wickedly, been given the issuing power of national currencies.
It is now way beyond explanation.
The only thing comparable is people's beliefs in religions.
I am not sure about you, but a financial system based on faith based thoughts promoted by religions is probably not a sound basis for investments...
Jack, didn't you get the memo? It Is Different This Time.
There.
Why are you surprised?
Every major actor is paid not to recognize reality!
The result of creating a paradigm where short term interests are in direct conflict with long term interests.
Burning down the house.
can we just get on with the complete collapse meltdown implosion so that we can get back to normal?
This is normal. Setting fires and then stomping them out with our bare feet.
Here are some more facts we all need to get used to......
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Man-on-Stolen-Horse-Stunned-by-S...
One has to wonder if that guys balls are still attached...
Now those are pigs...
To serve and protect.......
NOW THATS COGNITIVE DISSONANCE!
very good, interesting article - good stuff.
I'd suggest however that sometimes what people of different opinions might call 'cognitive dissonance' is really little more than abject stupidity.
and on the other hand that sometimes the people, the masters of finance/the fed/ that are called "stupid" know, precisely, what they are doing.
They are stealing wealth.
They are drinking our proverbial milkshakes.
Right in front of us.
fiat + interest function + frac reserve money creation + free money for large banks + deficit spending + open borders + lopsides trade agreements =
crypto-fascist bankster rape.
Excellent equation there Mr D.
Checked the math...
Your hypothesis is correct.
"Corporate earnings and thus stock prices are driven by the economy"
Um, no they aren't.
Corporate earnings are driven by the ability to fund stock buybacks with cheap zero interest debt and the financial wizardry skills of your accounting department.
Stock prices are driven by a council of twelve Jews and the world banks that underwrite their shenanigans.
he means "they should be". we all know it not to be the case now.
Neat valuation graph. I guess S&P 1000 is what I'm waiting for. It'll likely drop lower than that, but that's when I'll start buying.
Inflation benign?????????????????? What planet does the author live on again?
Please, do us a favor. Go look at charts of copper, iron ore, softs, and the GSCI. They've all been crushed.
Even cattle is way down. Much like the airlines not passing on their gas savings to you, so too the other corps.
"The U.S. economy has been supported for seven years by a zero interest rate policy"
The economy has not been "supported," but further plundered by them. That is the only fact being lied about and avoided.
The banksters need to repay us.
"The robber had a policy of tipping the clerks at each store that he robbed."
"The robber had a policy of tipping the clerks at each store that he robbed."
very true.
and the doorman, janitors, not to mention bank managers, and the mayor, and the owner who rents the bank the space....
It is called alignment.
Title is DAMN RIGHT! Justt look at these very instructive histories that are kept out of sight.
http://patrick.net/?p=1223928
Lies become facts if they are believed. They become provable and repeatable for both climate and economic models. Lawyers are primarily responsible for this fact and I can prove it by any judge that is willing to take my money.
The most sublime form of cognitive dissonance comes from wanting to perceive the world using DUALITIES, which are built into the structure of the dominant natural languages, as well as also have tended to have subverted the dominant philosophy of science. That persistence in wanting to perceive the world through DUALITIES results in employing false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals. One of the ways that those false fundamental dichotomies manifest is through the desire to absolutely separate production versus destruction. However, the production of destruction controls production, because there are actually UNITARY MECHANISMS of the same energy flow through both.
Most of the realm of political economy is based on attempting to deliberately deny and ignore the real ways that human beings and civilizations necessarily operate as entropic pumps of energy flow. That desire to promote a backward view of the world has resulted in an arbitrary minus sign being inserted into the equations of entropy in thermodynamics and information theory. That was done in order that the measurements of power and information would end up with relative positive values, rather than relative negative values, which is what the mathematical physics was saying, so that the meaning of entropy was inverted, and so, socially perverted, pretty well totally, so that we ended up living in a Bizarro Mirror World, or Wonderland Matrix, where everything was systematically presented as backwards, in ways which resulted in absurdities.
Cognitive dissonance is a psychologized explanation. Those sorts of psychological perspectives tend to deliberately ignore the schedule of reinforcements that selected for the development of those attitudes. Basically, civilization is almost totally dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, while the current crop of the biggest bullies are the international bankers. Political economy actually emerged out of the history of warfare. However, the history of socially successful warfare based on backing up deceits with destruction then enabled socially successful finance to become based on enforcing frauds.
The human systems have developed different kinds of people, filling different niches in those systems, who have somewhat different genetics, but more so developed different cultural conditioning. Some basic groups of people are those who act more as the predatory parasites, versus those who act more as the productive prey. Almost all of mainstream economics is based on the misrepresentations that production is fundamental, while actually it is destruction that is fundamental. The predatory parasites tend to publicly promote the same values as those favoured by the productive prey. However, again, that is understood backwards through more levels of inversions of our perceptions, due to wanting to continue to rely upon DUALITIES, rather than use UNITARY MECHANISMS.
Everything that the article above has to say is expressed through presuming those false fundamental dichotomies, which go to the wrong pole to establish spurious unity, namely, that the economy is based on being productive, rather than actually controlled by destruction, and therefore, the economy is really based on destruction, because economics is actually a subset of warfare, and the most important form of labour is when some human beings kill other human beings.
In that context, what is manifesting more and more, and therefore, driving cognitive dissonance, are the more and more blatant ways that there are fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems, which are based upon ENFORCING FRAUDS, in the sense that privately controlled banks are allowed to create the public "money" supply out of nothing, as debts, while governments ENFORCE THOSE FRAUDS. That can be understood as due to the history of organized crime, developing at an exponential rate. Human beings always operated as robbers in their environment, while greater and greater organized crime gangs were able to develop. However, those were done by the biggest bullies doing that, who simultaneously developed their bullshit social stories. Thus, civilization is now dominated by the best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, with respect to every social institution, and particularly with respect to the political economy.
The sources of the cognitive dissonances are thoroughly paradoxical. The most important concept is SUBTRACTION, which is the way that human minds are able to separate parts from the Whole. Human beings are able to build mental models of their world, within which there are mental models of themselves within their mental models of their world. Thus, human beings live by naming things, including themselves, as parts SUBTRACTED from the Whole, to which names they assign properties, and then tell stories using those symbols.
There tends to be a push towards reification of those stories, which is a push towards SUBTRACTING THE SUBTRACTION. That is, the separated parts tend to be regarded as absolutely separated, rather than only relatively separated. The biggest bullies' bullshit social stories push that the most, since they back up their lies with violence the most. However, again, there are NO fundamental dichotomies between people. All human beings are living through systems of organized lies, operating robberies, to the degree that we define them as separate from their environment. Those ROBBERIES follow from the original SUBTRACTIONS, because as soon as one perceives the boundaries that define any living being, then that being must TAKE ENERGY across those boundaries in order to keep on living.
It is automatically necessary that money becomes measurements backed by murders, due to the ways that human civilizations are perceived at entropic pumps of energy flows. However, the meaning of that has been inverted and perverted, by regarding the relative subtractions as being absolute subtractions. Therefore, at this point in time, when the established systems are based on subtracting the subtractions, or negating the negations, the more radical truths become subtracting the subtraction of the subtraction, in order to return to the original situation, which can also be described as negating the negation of the negation.
In general, human beings and civilizations ought to be understood as general energy systems, acting as the entropic pumps of energy flows. However, that kind of science developed in ways whereby it made historical compromises with the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, which resulted in the understanding of the concept of entropy being inverted, and thus, there continued to be a deliberate misunderstanding of everything. Inside of the social pyramid systems, the ruling classes waged war against the consciousness of those they ruled over. Therefore, the elementary principles of philosophy and genuine spirituality were suppressed, while bullshit was promoted that was backwards, and absurd, but nevertheless became socially successful due to the ways that those lies could be backed up with violence.
Of course, one discovers that pattern within the ways that we think about and communicate regarding how the political economy works. There tends to be almost universal public promotion of the attitudes that production is primary, while destruction is regarded as an aberration. The article above describes that as being "a normally functioning economy." However, was supposed to be "normally functioning" mainstream economics has done its best to deliberately ignore that the SOURCE of the public "money" supply was government enforced frauds, whereby privately controlled banks were legally allowed to make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts. Instead of politics being attempts to develop better dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies, there are runway systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, as demonstrated by the degree to which the government becomes the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
During that process, the meaning of words such as "money" and "dollar" were gradually inverted and perverted, until eventually those words meant nothing like they originally meant. However, underneath, there were always that same basic processes, or UNITARY MECHANISMS operating. As soon an there are any social stories whatsoever, that necessarily define human beings as separated from their environment, those those automatically must describe entropic pumps of energy flows, which operate according to the principles and methods of organized crime. When one examines human beings and civilizations as general energy systems, one discovers that they MUST actually operate according to the principles and methods of organized crime. However, those who were the best at doing that were the biggest bullies, who were able to drive their bullshit social stories to become dominant, so that there ended up being almost nothing else than a core of organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition groups, all of whom have elaborated ways to present the fundamental facts in the most backward ways possible.
Thus, what was always the case was that governments were the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, which currently happen to be the biggest gangsters, known as the banksters, whose supreme achievement was to corrupt governments to legalize those privately controlled banks counterfeiting the public "money" supply ... However, the few people who recognize those facts then STILL tend to rely upon false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, regarding what the "solutions" to those problems should be. In other words, the fist levels of radical truths are to reveal that the authorities actually operate as organized crime gangs (which does not really change when they allege that they have legalized their crimes.) The next levels of radical truths are to recognize that there is no way to be human beings who tell stories that organized their lives, without those stories automatically becoming sets of subtractions, of parts from the Whole, which then require there to be some sort of robberies, to take energy, in order to keep living.
OF COURSE, IT IS SUBLIMELY PARADOXICAL TO COMPREHEND THE DEGREE TO WHICH EVERYTHING WE "KNOW" MUST NECESSARILY BE SOME RELATIVE ILLUSIONS. Therefore, it is similarly paradoxical to comprehend how the established political economy is based on the principles and methods of organized crime, which were misrepresenting themselves by pretending that their legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, ever really changed that. What we are watching happened at the present time is the paradox of final failure from too much success. The ability to back up lies with violence never stops those lies from being false. However, that ability to enforce frauds drives society as a whole through worse and worse cognitive dissonances, towards psychotic breakdowns.
In that context, I have to smile at the grossly understated truisms expressed in that article above, such as that:
There are much more profound problems afoot than those which were correctly warned about in the article above, on the superficial level that those were presented. For a long time, "money" has been created out of nothing, in order to "pay" for strip-mining the planet's natural resources. However, that is running into serious limits of diminishing returns. The ability to strip-mine the planet at an exponentially accelerating rate was the basis of the established economy. That destruction was being presented as being "productive," within the context that those who were the best at being dishonest and backing that up with violence were actually controlling civilization.
Not too long ago, a much wider range of relatively smaller banking institutions were able to create the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, by finding enough "borrowers" who were able and willing to agree to take out "loans," which enabled those banking institutions to create that "money" out of nothing, as those debts. However, since the financial crises of 2008, the bigger banking institutions have stepped into the breach, to take responsibility for making more and more of the public "money" supply out of nothing, and then distributing that new "money" from the top down. That increasing centralization of the creation of the public "money" supply out of nothing, as ENFORCED FRAUDS, is becoming more and more blatantly obvious, and thus, that is driving more and more cognitive dissonance, as that become more and more clearly done in ways which are backwards and absurd.
The vast majority of people are still unaware of that, because they have been successfully conditioned to not want to know. However, smaller groups, which are significantly increasing in size (which would include almost everyone whose ideas are published on Zero Hedge, as well as, presumably, most of those who read Zero Hedge), are noticing and speaking out more and more about that death rattle of cognitive dissonance, shaking louder and louder.
Meanwhile, in my view, virtually nobody is thinking in sufficiently radical ways regarding those issues, because almost everyone continues to want to think using DUALITIES, rather than attempt to start to use more UNITARY MECHANISMS. Hence, articles like the one above are relatively typical of the standard ways that articles on Zero Hedge tend to grossly understate the problems, and therefore, then promote bogus "solutions" which grossly overstate their potential adequacy.
The underlying problems are that running into the real limits of diminishing returns from being able to strip-mine a fresh planet's natural resources demands the development of radically different human, industrial and natural ecologies. However, within the human world, everything regarding our own evolutionary ecologies are deliberately misunderstood in the maximum possible backward ways, due to the history of socially successful warfare based on deceits, and socially successful finance based on frauds.
In that context, almost all of the analyses of the political economy's problems remain grossly superficial, which then tends to be followed by recommending bogus "solutions" which are similarly backwards, because those "solutions" are STILL being promoted by those who fail to appreciate the degree to which they are living inside of a Bizarro Mirror World, or Wonderland Matrix ... To go through the looking glass of our Bizarro Mirror World is not only to recognize the social facts that the banksters are the biggest gangsters, but also to recognize that human civilizations must necessarily operate according to the principles and methods of organized crime.
Solutions which are consistent with the deeper analysis can NOT promote false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals that assert that human beings are going to stop being entropic pumps of energy flows, or stop operating as systems of organized lies operating robberies. Everything that human beings are able to do is based on SUBTRACTION. Almost everything that our current civilization does is based on the biggest bullies being able to SUBTRACT THAT SUBTRACTION. Therefore, more radical truths return us to the original subtraction, by subtracting the subtraction of the subtraction. That is, the biggest bullies, i.e., currently the banksters, are the biggest gangsters, who were able to negate those social facts, effectively by negating their negations. To be travel on through the spirals of the cognitive dissonances that follow from recognizing the central social facts that the political economy is based on ENFORCED FRAUDS negates the negation of the negation, to return to original negation, that when human beings perceive their world, and themselves, and tell stories about that, they are relatively negating their totally Unity with their Environment.
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the degree to which almost everyone is perceiving the world backwards, while almost totally taking that for granted. Therefore, it follows that almost all of the bogus "solutions" for the perceived problems are backwards too. To apply more UNITARY MECHANISMS to resolve the real problems results in facing the facts that political economy necessarily manifests fractal patterns of organized crime. There is no way to stop that happening. There are only ways to change the dynamic equilibria between the ways that is made to happen.
As human beings developed better science and technology, those went through a series of profound paradigm shifts, which mostly demolished what was previously taken for granted as common sense. However, political economy continues to be almost totally dominated by various religions and ideologies that are hundreds or thousands of years old. Those old-fashioned religions and ideologies continue to deliberately ignore the paradigm shifts that have taken place in physical sciences. In particular, radically different ways to understand time and space then result in radically different ways to understand entropy, all of which tends to result in a creative synthesis of post-modernizing science with ancient mysticism. However, rather than that kind of philosophical and spiritual progress, the main things that are happening is that advanced technology is used like fantastic special effects, in order to retell the same old stories. That has become globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs, inside of the established systems of MAD Money As Debt, backed by MAD Mutual Assured Destruction.
Inside that overall context, there are Grand Canyon Chasms developing, as contradictions driving cognitive dissonance which are way more profound than those which the article above scratched the surface of: "Conceptually, investing is a very simple task; buy when an asset is cheap and sell the asset when it is rich."
However, "conceptually" all of that "investing" are merely special cases of human beings acting as entropic pumps of energy flows, which are being deliberately misunderstood in the maximum possible ways, due to society being almost totally dominated by the biggest bullies' world view. At the present time, those biggest bullies are the banksters, and so, their real roles inside the system are becoming more blatantly obvious to more people, as their debt slavery systems have driven their numbers to become debt insanities, which are headed towards provoking death insanities.
Meanwhile, all of those who only start to perceive those problems mostly then collapse back to promoting the same old bullshit "solutions" based upon false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals. However, the only genuine solutions would have to be consistent with a deeper analysis of what the real problems actually are. Social pyramid systems were always based on being able to back up lies with violence, which always drove attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance to become socially successful, inside of those systems. Despite that "Facts Do Not Cease To Exist Because They Are Ignored," the political economy has become almost totally based on ENFORCED FRAUDS, in ways which mainstream economists and the mass media deliberately ignore and misrepresent as much as possible.
A lot of elaborate bullshit has been dumped on top of the basic facts that human beings operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, which has resulted in dominant systems of organized crime being able to pretend that they are not based on organized crime, while the controlled opposition groups to that core of organized crime promotes various impossible ideals that no systems of organized crime should exist, despite that must be the only way that any systems could exist. Since their enforcement can never stop those frauds from being false, the problems inherent in that situation automatically become worse, faster, in more blatantly obvious ways, that more and more people are noticing, and thus, feeling more cognitive dissonance towards.
In that context, I find it typically ironic how the article above is correct regarding that:
However, that article itself is also doing the same thing, in every significant way, by continuing to take for granted what almost everyone else is also taking for granted. By and large, we are faced with the double whammy of organized crime surrounded by controlled opposition, both of which deliberately ignore the facts that human beings operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, which necessarily follow the principles and methods of organized crime. Therefore, the generally accepted attitudes towards political economy, including "investing," are pretty well as perfectly perverted and utterly backwards as those can possibly be.
The vast majority of people want to continue believing in the Negated Negation, or the Subtracted Subtraction, view of the world, where entropy is deliberately ignored, or deliberately misunderstood, as much as possible. Therefore, it is possible for most of those people to regard economics as primarily being productive, rather than perceive the overall context in which there is destruction, and the production of destruction is controlling production.
Given those profoundly mistaken views, the still relatively small percentage of the overall population who become relatively more aware of the ways that the political economy is actually based on the manifestation of more centralized enforced frauds, are developing more and more cognitive dissonance towards observing those phenomena. However, while the majority of people appear to continue to take for granted that the biggest bullies' bullshit world view is correct, the few who increasingly doubt that tend to still want to stay within the perspective that the "solutions" are to return to a "normally functioning" economy, based on production, in ways which continue to deliberately ignore how and why human beings must operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, in which context the production of destruction must control production.
Ironically, we continue to overall observe the the most socially successful people are the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, who are able to operate the necessary systems of organized lies operating robberies through the maximum possible deceits and frauds about what is really happening. In that context, it is impossible to exaggerate the problem that "Facts Do Not Cease To Exist Because They Are Ignored," because it is almost impossible to exaggerate the degree to which the vast majority of people are still looking at the Bizarro Mirror World, without recognizing that everything there appears to be proportionately backwards and distorted.
There are layer after layer, after layer, of absurdities found in our Wonderland Matrix, due to the ways that human beings must live as organized lies operating robberies, which were most socially successful the more that they could get away with absurd huge lies about them doing that. Everyone who was making "money" was making that "money" inside of systems which were fundamentally based upon ENFORCED FRAUDS. As the problems with respect to the relatively more objective facts NOT ceasing to exist because they are ignored get BIGGER AND BIGGER, it nevertheless continues to be the case that the most socially successful people are the best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, which tend to continue to be approved of by those who also want to continue to believe in false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals.
Therefore, I REPEAT, the genuinely better resolutions to the problems with our political economy require FIRST recognizing that the banksters are the biggest gangsters, then SECOND, recognizing that human civilization must operate according to fractal patterns of organized crime, so that THIRD, we could develop a better creative synthesis that resulted from NOT continuing to ignore those facts. However, since the existing social pyramid systems are based upon the ruling classes being as dishonest as they can possibly be, within which context those that they ruled over have adapted as much as possible to live within those lies, by treating those lies as if they were the truth, as combined, BOTH act as much as possible that the facts DO cease to exist, as long as those facts are ignored.
To express that metaphorically, most people want to continue to believe that production is primary, rather than that destruction is primary, despite the facts about the ways that the production of destruction controls production. Therefore, the moralities of the productive prey people continue to be promoted in the public spaces by both the ruling classes and those they rule over, through both the core of organized crime, as well as through the controlled opposition. The genuinely better resolutions of our problems are to found in the ways that the predatory parasite people operate. However, those people have done everything they could, for a long, long time, to persuade the productive prey people to promote the moralities that work within the context of continuing to be the productive prey.
The core groups of the predatory parasite people publicly promote that somehow they are also being productive. Their controlled opposition may reveal some of the ways that is not correct, but then those controlled opposition groups collapse back to the same old-bullshit social stories, based on perceiving everything in the most backward ways possible. The laws of physics still exist, but the only connection between the laws of nature and human laws is the ability to back up lies with violence.
That ability to successfully enforce frauds has become the foundation of the currently established political economy. While the vast majority of people do not perceive that, because they do not want to perceive that, the few who relatively do, as illustrated by the article above (as well as most other content on Zero Hedge) do not more thoroughly perceive how and why those are the FACTS. Rather, in their own ways, articles like the one above, as well as most other content on Zero Hedge, continues to promote bullshit solutions that continue to ignore the facts ...
At the present time, it appears that our society is terminally sick and insane, due to the overwhelming degree to which that the "Facts Do Not Cease To Exist Because They Are Ignored" automatically becomes a bigger and BIGGER PROBLEM, due to all of the entrenched, dominant social systems being based on organized crime, which gets away with pretending that it is not based on organized crime, while the controlled opposition to that triumphant organized crime promotes the impossible ideals that no such systems of organized crime ought to exist.
Thus, not only are the facts that the biggest gangsters are the banksters deliberately ignored by most people, but also, the few that do face those those facts then tend to continue to promote the impossible ideals that there should not exist any groups which are the best organized gangs of criminals. Therefore, as the best organized gangsters capture more and more control over the powers of governments, and so, those governments more and more become the biggest forms of organized crime, those facts tend to be deliberately ignored, while the few that do not ignore those facts then deliberately ignore the deeper facts regarding how and why those social system developed.
The social pyramid systems are based on the ruling classes specializing in being dishonest and violent, in order to control those they rule over by keeping them ignorant and afraid. Those systems have become extremely successful at getting the vast majority of people to act like "Facts Do Not ... Exist Because They Are Ignored!" Therefore, developing any improved political science, which was more consistent with the progress in physical sciences is practically impossible, since the established systems are based, as much as humanly possible, on enforcing frauds, in ways result in "Facts Do Not ... Exist Because They Are Ignored!"
Since the established political economy is based on being able to back up legalized lies with legalized violence (within the overall historical context that human beings always had to live as entropic pumps of energy flows), and all of the most socially successful people depend for their successes upon being able to continue to operate within the established systems where their claims are backed by coercions, and their money is measurement backed by murder, while they do their best to continue to IGNORE THOSE FACTS, the overall systems have become runaway criminal insanities.
For all practical purposes, it is POLITICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for the vast majority of the people in both the ruling classes, and those they they rule over, to stop ignoring the facts. They must continue to act as if those facts do not exist, as much as possible, for as long as possible. Hence, I can not believe in anything else than those systems eventually driving themselves through MAD self-destruction, with their increasing levels of cognitive dissonance resulting in psychotic breakdowns.
We continue to watch the processes of progress in physical science and technology having nothing like that happen in political science, because genuine progress in political science would require enough people go through prodigious paradigm shifts in the ways that they perceive politics ... Tragically, the trajectory we are on now is for our problems to continue to get worse, faster, at an exponentially accelerating rate, while that does not allow enough time for people to adapt to their changing circumstances by changing the ways that they think ???
Well then, mummy Buffet should be in all carsh then, huh?