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Collapse, Part 5: Things Fall Apart
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
It is impossible to wean an economy that relies on debt and leverage for its "growth" of excessive debt and leverage.
As noted earlier in this series, collapse is not an event, it's a process, a process we experience as things fall apart. The phrase famously appears in William Butler Yeats' 1919 poem, The Second Coming:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Why do things fall apart? I have addressed a number of dynamics in the first four essays of this series, but there are many more expressed in Yeats' few brief lines.
1. Magical thinking dominates all discussions. The truth, being too fearful to contemplate, is sidelined in favor of magical thinking:
-- we can grow our way out of debt by expanding debt
-- if we simply print enough money, we can pay for everything we want
-- a miraculous new technology (insert current example) will provide limitless energy/food at near-zero cost
-- if we tweak the system with some minor reforms, all the big problems will go away
-- new technology always creates more jobs than it destroys
and so on.
2. Same as it always was: politics was always corrupt, humans have always been greedy, etc.--in other words,today's problems are no different from those of the past, which we handled without major difficulty. The possibility that today's extremes of financialization and political decay might actually be quantitatively and qualitatively different from the past 50 years is dismissed.
3. The political and financial Elites have lost touch with the citizenry. The falcon cannot hear the falconer, for the Elites have withdrawn into protected circles of privilege with little contact with the rest of us. Since all is well within these circles of wealth and power, all must be well in the system as a whole.
And if it isn't, the solution is to withdraw even deeper into circles of privilege and cast off in a luxury lifeboat, leaving the citizenry to muddle through on the doomed Titanic.
4. Things stop working well or stop working, period. The causes are many: inefficiency born of self-interest and historical habit, loss of accountability, The Ratchet Effect, Bureaucratic Complexity, diminishing returns, unproductive friction--the list is long.
The net result is things don't work well even when stupendous sums are thrown at them. Flush with the tax revenue bounty of a gargantuan bubble in housing and tech start-ups, the city and county of San Francisco now has an annual budget of $9 billion--a sum greater than the budgets of many states, all to serve a population of about 850,000.
One would be forgiven for assuming all the essential systems of a metropolis would be working smoothly, greased with an astonishing $9 billion. (It wasn't that long ago--the late 1990s--that San Francisco's budget was a mere $3 billion.)
But citizens aren't experiencing the system as working well. Lapses in public services tax San Franciscans’ patience:
Two weeks ago, we asked City Insider readers what they think of the fact that San Francisco’s budget hit a whopping $9 billion a year — more than the budgets of at least 10 states.
Now that more taxes are pouring into city coffers than ever before, do residents think they’re getting their money’s worth?
We were surprised by the deluge of e-mails, which continue to roll in, and the very vehement responses. Every single person who wrote had valid complaints, and not one thought city services were up to snuff for one of the richest cities in the world.
“One thing is for sure,” wrote Philip Snyder, a retired inspector for the Department of Public Health who lives North of the Panhandle. “If money was blood, San Francisco would make Dracula look like a mosquito.”
What happens when the budget declines by $1 billion in a run-of-the-mill recession? Right now, magical thinking reigns supreme, and the idea that bubbles need only stop expanding to trigger a business-cycle recession isn't in many minds. But recessions do happen, and those following explosive bubbles tend to be deeper than the average, so a $1 billion drop in tax revenues is to be expected.
In the same vein, the state of California, also flush with revenues from these same bubbles, has a "rainy day fund" of $3.46 billion and an annual budget of $117 billion. In previous recessions, state revenues drop by $10 to $20 billion--meaning the rainy day fund is woefully inadequate.
Here is the budget reality in Greece:
These budget numbers are dated--the current figures are much worse.
The European Status Quo is expending the last dregs of its legitimacy and cash defending its financial Elites. It is impossible to "reform" a Status Quo whose foundation is kleptocracy, just as it is impossible to wean an economy that relies on debt and leverage for its "growth" of excessive debt and leverage: financialization isn't a feature of the economy, it is the economy.
Things fall apart for systemic reasons that are deeply intertwined; minor policy tweaks and printing more money are simply expressions of magical thinking.
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Things that cannot go on forever - won't.
I was told the stock market always goes up, even if it goes down, it then goes back up.
Stock market, fearless indicator of general prosperity. "Markets are up. Things are lookin good brah."
Forever is a pretty long time...
Longer than a Quarter? </sarc>
Of course it is coming apart FOR US. Those who run the scam are doing great. It was not designed to last. It is always just a bunch of lies. http://www.thetruthaboutthelaw.com/they-promote-every-side-to-constantly...
The financial system is on brink of collapse (default of an EUR country, Deutsche, China, no liquidity etc) and then there's three terror attacks in one day?
My bullshit detector has exploded.
"Things Fall Apart" – also an excellent book by Chinua Achebe. Recommended.
It's just like a whore screwing her way yo virginity, with the same ultimate outcome.....
Pregnancy?
Well after she gets pregnant and then has a child, then the child will be a virgin until sold into prostitution..at a very young age.
(Most World Prostitutes d not have access to abortions.)
Not a good analogy but I understand the intention. I didn't junk you as you attempted to describe it.
Jerry is gonna need another credit card.
You can fix anything with a new credit card.
Tell us when, Chuckie. And tell us what happens next week. Otherwise this is just another diatribe like the 50 others penned by Stockman, PC Roberts and their ilk.
This ^ is really the dumbest of the various recurring complaints found on this site.
Why? Because it should be obvious that no one (aside from Martin Armstrong) can precisely time the final leg of the ongoing collapse.
Yet the likes of CarpetShag demand to know when! When will it happen? Otherwise, apparently, there can't be anything of value in what is written.
Presumably those who register such complaints would much prefer to win the lottery than to actually have to work, as well.
yes, just like armstrong predicted dow at 32000, look at his you tube interviews, he was predicting this in 2014 and 2013
In the unlikely event that someone ever holds a gun to your head and tells you that in order to live, you must either detect sarcasm, or run 100 meters in under 11 seconds flat, I'd suggest lacing up a pair of running shoes.
CHS has said in previous posts that collapse is a process. And the best thinking I have found on the subject agrees with him.
One problem in talking about this is the wording that is used. Collapse is not a good description of the process. It leaves people looking (and waiting) for that one defining moment when things obviously fall apart. This one defining moment probably will never happen. A better word to use might be decline. A decline punctuated by crises of various magnitudes.
The point is, decline is already happening, there is no need to "wait" for it to happen because it can probably be given a start date of about 1975 after the first really bad recession started in conjunction with the Arab oil embargo.
Things improved a bit in the eighties and then suddenly things started getting seriously worse with the dotcom crash in 2000, followed soon after by another even more severe crisis in 2008. We're clearly in economic contraction now and obviously setting up for another very serious financial episode which is probably coming pretty soon, but that won't "finish us off" either.
We're on a glide path downward for sure and we have been on a downward glidepath. But the absolute bottom, defined as a population crash resulting from a sequence of crises resulting in poverty, warfare, social disintegration and disease, the very bottom is probably another fifty to seventy years away, maybe further off.
I like this little video as a metaphor for dramatic events which may transpire relatively more quickly during the overall less dramatic processes during things collapsing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvcGM6maGGk
Exploding iceberg in Antarctica!
Yup, support had clearly been eroded out long before those people were there to witness that.
I expect that there will be a defining moment, but in general, yes, it is a long decline downwards. I say that there will be a defining event simply because our system of governance and our supply chains have become insanely complex. Once the support for that complexity is gone, the decline will turn into a collapse. Few will look back and say that it was obvious what was going on, even in hindsight. The Western Roman empire was kind of like this. It got too complex, tried to maintain that complexity, became corrupt, then had to hire mercenaries to maintain its way of life, then the barbarians turned on them, and they got the defining event of the sack of Rome by Alaric.
Too far out. The decline is accelerating!!! The FED has been papering over the gapping hole in the economy's hull since 2009, 5 years ago. The FED will continue to print to offset Baby Boomer's reduced spending. This will ultimately crater the dollar and the Fedgov.
Nobody knows when. It could be tomorrow, or it could take another 7-8 years. But without some magic new technology that doesn't exist and would probably take a decade or three to revamp our infrastructure, it will happen during most of our expected lifetimes. We've been in a state of economic collapse for the past 15 years.
True nobody knows when, but I beleive the chaos will start this fall. There's a tremor in the force.
I agree that it will be sooner rather than later, but I think we both acknowledge that this is our opinion that we can sort of back up, but it isn't really definitive. My reasoning is the supports for the economy are largely gone, the Fed and other CBs have shot or are shooting their wads, $58 trillion in total debt by mark-to-unicorn standards (it's worse, IMO,) an M2 that requires more debt just to service the existing debt, and that the recent boom-bust cycles have been fairly regular at at around 7 years. The only question is, when the next financial crisis pops, can the Fed and the government pull another rabbit out of the hat? My opinion is no. But hey, maybe they can, or maybe the next financial crisis will be fall of 2016 instead of this year.
We have been in a state of economic collapse since 1913. Will it take another 102 years to complete the "process?"
We have been in a state of economic bankster capture for 102 years. Collapse and corruption aren't always the same thing. There was some pretty good economic growth in that period. The inflection point on that growth was 1970-1971.
It's amazing that people don't understand this fact yet. All economic growth after that point was simply an illusion. All one has to do is look at inflation adjusted wage growth vs debt levels since Nixon to understand what's really going on.
IMO, the inflation adjusted wage growth figures paint a rosy picture. Compare women entering the workforce vs household debt and all debt. As it gets less and less possible for a single wage earner to keep up with the Jonses, women started working more and more, and as that became less of a solution, more debt was added to keep up. Then in 2000 or thereabout, the employment-population ratio peaked and started declining until 2008, when it really started to tank and the jobs that were getting created were either in the energy sector, or were really shitty jobs. We've been bottom bouncing ever since. The past 7 years have been more Orwellian than I ever would have imagined they could be back in my younger days. The years of claims that we are in a recovery reminds me of propaganda about production numbers in 1984. It's really freaky.
Perpetual growth on a finite planet, um... "Go forth and multiply," seems the "process" precedes even the Fed (who are merely smart enough to take advantage of all the suckers buying into the game [hence being empowered with "confidence?]).
regrettably, it is go forth and be prepping and careful, because -subtraction- is planned.
One reason things fall apart in the US >>>
https://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/warmongering-vs-econ...
Go forth and multiply w/o end- perpetual growth on a finite planet. Seems the original instructions are a bit flawed...
Those instructions were for the short-term triumph of totalitarian agriculture, which developed to become totalitarian economics, both of which were only possible to grow due to having a fresh planet to rape and plunder. In the longer term, IF we survive the shorter term events, then there would be developed some integrated forms of human, industrial and natural ecologies.
As explained in my comment below, the BIG PROBLEM with developing any better human ecology is that the existing systems are based upon being able to operate the death controls through the maximum possible deceits. Those deceits are so thoroughly embraced by almost everyone that there are no politically possible ways to develop any better human ecologies, and therefore, our political economy continues to necessarily be based upon runaway enforced frauds.
Over and over again, natural selection has enabled evolutionary ecologies to live sustainably on a finite planet. However, it has also periodically driven mass extinction events too. Both are theoretically possible. Due to how recalcitrant the established systems based upon being able to enforce frauds have become, the most probable futures are NOT to develop human systems that are able to live sustainably on a finite planet, but rather for human systems to drive their own mass extinction.
Bernanke Greek'ed the US.
Just a matter of time before this scheme unravels. No wonder Bernanke left.
He's still going to end up with his head on a pike.
Our Socialist Utopia has a long way to go to even equal France, Sweden, Denmark etc. Yet, as unsustainable as they all are, there they are.
Hard to explain? Waiting for some sort of collapse is like waiting for Godot. But bad news generates hits, as always, and hits generate ad revenue and journalistic notoriety.
Everybody is selling something. Buyer beware.
They paid for their Utopia with US help. They spend very little on military, too. Things collapsed in 2008. QE is just a sheet of paper covering the corpse.
Where's that so called Greek Austerity? Someone has been paying for all that redistribution.
It's being deferred, BUT, rest assured, it WILL come. In the meantime the banksters will collect on their share of the future, now.
Sooner or Later Reality Happens...
I see with my eyes and hear with my ears! Which source is more reliable?
Your nose, grasshopper.
Historical miscalculation no doubt, unfathomable how this has come about, the elites are no smarter than who they rule, we all end up with a smoldering pile.
The USA and the EU both have adopted two stimulus measures. A massive stock/bond bubble. This is the trickle down wealth effect stimulus. The 1% getting extremely wealthy on assest inflation will trickle it down to the 99%. A method prove to fail since the 1980's! And the massive housing bubble, this designed to make consumers feel rich because of home equity. Again, it can have a short term stimulus, but fails in short order.
Printing trillions of fake wealth and feeding it into assets as a conduit to the real economy. A proven failed method. But, the one up side is the rich get richer and do not even have to work for it, they simply need sit and watch the Fed print them into being billionaires.
Jack, given that what we view today as wealth is likely going to be gone tomorrow can we really say that the "richer" are richer? Mind you, most is on paper, and most is backed by "promises," promises that we know cannot be kept.
What is happening with Greece and it's creditors is that there's a negotiation going on for how much loss the creditors are going to take. Keep in mind that there's a bit of precedence here (EU wise) and that there are a lot more forces behind all this than meets the eye. This really is a tripwire. And not so much as though it's being created, but rather, that it's there for everyone (and always has been) and that with this known it pretty much casts all the emperors as having no clothes. If we see them as naked (understand that there's no way to get blood out of a rock) then their wealth is likely going to dry up, and that without that game-keeping measure of "wealth" so too will their power go away (as laws are chucked aside).
Pretty positive for a Friday. No mushroom clouds so far this week. Time to relax and have another great weekend.
"Time to relax and have another great weekend."
Relax, what's That? My project list is always over-flowing! No rest for the wicked...
The elites have always been out of touch with the citizenry. Same scenarios as it always was, they bend the social contract until it breaks.
Knowing the economic ponzi scheme is unsustainable, this begs the question, how will the oligarchs delay the collapse? Answer; Gun Boat diplomacy and print more money.
It seems the final warning signs are in place, Greece will fail and bail on the EU, the word 'contagion' will be an understatement in less than a year, and sooner then that the Ukraine puppet government will miss their July 24th $120m USD coupon payment on IMF debt. The Ukraine will be in default and the MSM pundits won't be able to deny it. We know the feds zombie banker solution is to print more money (QE4++) but sooner or later this won't prop up anything when confidence is gone. So plan B is the big distraction and culling of the herd, got to send poor Johnny to kill the new boogeyman. After all the oligarchy doesn't want an angry Johnny to have time to think while unemployed or he might realize that the oligarchy is the real enemy. Lots of flag waving and patriotic songs are playing in the back ground, I can hear it now. The show or charade is getting exciting, nearing the climax, leaving us to wonder when the soap opera ends (months or years from now) what the epilogue will look like.
You been looking at my crystal ball have ya? (great analysis)
With respect, not this time.
The reason president O didn't rustle up a posse to go after Syria, was he couldn't induce even the mother country to join. And NO ONE here expressed any enthusiasm (or conviction, for that matter) to go it alone. Most people suspected that "evidence" wasn't credible either. If gas actually was used (big if), who used it wasn't clear.
The memory of Colin Powell's UN Security Council Iraqi WMD presentation is probably the best war antidote the world's had since MAD (which still has some potency itself).
Try though we may, we can't get it up in Ukraine or the Spratleys in the South China Sea either, and for the same reasons. Thanks to Washington's hegemonic lunacy thus far in the 21st century, American credibility worldwide is shot.
You may also have noticed the continued and deafening silence on the MH-17 "investigation", as well as the apparent zip up of Breedlove in NATO.
You think these things happened because American claims were true?
No, there may be other shenanigans to distract us, like mind-numbing pop culture and the never-ending gizmo roll outs, major war at this point seems unlikely. Until it blows, there aren't enough players for that.
BUT...after implosion, beware the next megalomaniac who rides into chaos claiming to have a grand solution (not the existing government looking to distract dumb, unconnected Johnny off to a distracting war; that's no longer possible, post Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan).
THAT'S the bastard you gotta look out for, and take down early.
Time and again, history has shown us what happens when you don't...
m
ALL wars are about resources. And when those resources underpin the world's economic system the crack doesn't have to come from the BIG players. Small cracks can easily become the major fault line of total collapse of that system.
"THAT'S the bastard you gotta look out for, and take down early."
Either the "bastard" is guaranteed to always step in or that the system always creates that "bastard," the results are the same. Look up Sir John Glubb's writing on the collapse of empires; it didn't matter what kind of "leader" or what kind of "ideology," collapse was as inevitable as the sun coming up in the morning. While it's possible to delay the collapse, there's no stopping it. Although Glubb did an excellent job in making this connection with history, he just couldn't put his finger on what the ACTUAL reason for this is, and that's because he failed to question the premise of basing our systems on perpetual growth on a finite planet.
The reason why everything looks so fucked up is because it cannot be any other way. It is certain to produce this "product" (of fucked-up'd-ness) because it's based on a totally flawed premise! One cannot make sense of this or otherwise fix the problems we see because we are not allowed to see or question the underlying flawed premise: it's like questioning God or something- we ought not!
"When" is not the right question, because this is a PROCESS not an EVENT. There's also perhaps an assumption built into the question...the assumption that things have to be PREDICTED in order to profit from them. They do not. Instead of waiting around for destruction and meyhem, look for ways to enjoy it and profit from it. This is our time...the ONLY time we will ever have. Let's not buy shit we don't need..lets buy shit that other people need and sell to them. cigarettes, alcohol, knives, guns, Tasers, lotto tickets, penny stock how-to videos... Let's enjoy the decline without trying to predict it. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart....and that's just fine.
DC
You have a good thought there. "Let's enjoy the decline without trying to predict it." Thanks.
Don't worry about the Greeks, I am sure that GS will come to the table with the difference between the Debt and their Revenue.....
Ethics of analysis and all that....
"Magical thinking" is an adaptation to the real world being controlled by backing up lies with violence, which led to the development of a political economy based upon enforcing frauds. It is ALSO "magical thinking" to refuse to recognize how and why the real world is controlled by systems that enforce frauds. There are deeper reasons for that, which are NOT faced either, which are ways that "magical thinking" extends throughout the controlled opposition groups, that surround the core of organized crime.
Social successfulness based upon thousands of years of being able to control civilization by backing up lies with violence gradually morphed to become a political economy based upon enforced frauds. All of that grew at an exponential rate, while all of that developed greater and greater paradoxes due to the deeper ways that enforcing frauds never stops those frauds from still being false. Thus, "magical thinking" becomes INTENSELY PARADOXICAL, due to each short-term increment of being able to control civilization by backing up lies with violence, which became systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, driven by progress in physical science to become amplified to astronomical sizes!
The essence of the "magical thinking" is that serves the short-term interests of the application of the principles and methods of organized crime, in order that some people can benefit from controlling other people. The medium-term effects of that become the ways in which the core of organized crime ends up surrounded by controlled opposition groups. The longer term effects of that are society as a whole becomes terminally sick and insane, due to more and more psychotically going out of touch with relatively more objective realities, due to the progressive triumphs of "magical thinking," as the result of the ways that civilization was being controlled by backing up lies with violence, which works all too well in the short to medium term, but less and less well in the longer term.
"Magical thinking" actually dominates the controlled opposition groups even more than it does the core organized crime groups. The essence of the "magical thinking" promoted by the controlled opposition groups is that there should not be any death control systems, or, at least none that human beings are aware of operating. That kind of "magical thinking" amongst those who were controlled through the prolonged history of the social successfulness based upon the core organized crime groups is quite a bit more profound than anything that guys like Hugh-Smith discuss, which are more superficial manifestations of "magical thinking."
The existing systems of FINANCIAL FRAUDS ENFORCED were due to a long history of the application of the methods and principles of organized crime, on larger and larger scales, magnified many orders of magnitude by progress in physical sciences, which was never matched by progress in political science, since such progress would have to be based upon facing the facts that governments were necessarily the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
The heart of the "magical thinking" is to deliberately ignore how and why the basic laws of nature applied to human beings and civilizations, and moreover, to reverse the meaning of those basic laws of nature, since the only connections between the laws of men and the laws of nature were the ability to back up lies with violence. To NOT engage in such "magical thinking" on the deeper levels requires facing the facts about natural selection, which have manifested through artificial selection systems, to become death controls based on the maximum possible deceits, and debt controls based on the maximum possible frauds, which basic facts were deliberately denied as much as possible by both the core of organized crime, and the surrounding layers of controlled opposition. Therefore, we are watching the contradictions get bigger and BIGGER between progress in physical science, being primarily applied to get better at backing up lies with violence, without any progress in political science in order to understand that. Indeed, rather than progress in physical science being allowed to transform political science, instead the politics was able to invert the meaning of the progress made in physical science, so that there would continue to be developed more and more of the paradoxical ways that "magical thinking" also dominated the philosophy of science.
Inside of that overview, I agreed with the article above, upon the superficial levels that it presents its material:
However, Hugh-Smith continues to be indulging in "magical thinking" which he seems not aware of doing, because of the degree that he continues to take for granted the dominate natural language that he uses to think through and communicate with, as well as continues to take for granted the dominate philosophy of science, which has developed INTENSELY PARADOXICAL WAYS of maintaining totally inverted views of basic energy laws, so that those could continue to be consistent with the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, since the REAL history of civilization has been the history of backing up deceits with destruction, morphing to become enforced frauds.
At the core of that was warfare, operating the most significant of the death control systems, which were the human murder systems. Those murder systems became the ideology of militarism, which is the supreme ideology, and deserves to be the supreme ideology, since all of economics actually fits inside of that history of warfare. The oldest book on The Art of War starts by saying that "success in war is based on deceits," and ends by saying "spies are that most important soldiers." Thousands of years of that were what developed the ability to indulge in "magical thinking," which the controlled opposition groups do even more than the core of organized crime does.
To NOT indulge in so much "magical thinking" would require reconciliation of physical science with political science, which reconciliation has to go both ways, in order to cope with both the progress in technology, and the corruption of the philosophy of science. However, instead, we continue to watch increasingly out of control systems based upon enforcing frauds drive their inherent contradictions to become bigger and BIGGER, and therefore, for civilization to become more psychotic and criminally insane, due to the longer term INTENSE PARADOXES that short and medium term successes of organized crime, and its controlled opposition, become worse and WORSE longer term failures, due to their PARADOXICAL final failure from to much of that kind of social success.
However, by and large, all of the publicly significant religions and ideologies were forms of controlled opposition, that stay within the biggest bullies' bullshit world views. Since the basic human systems are based on more or less organized lies operating robberies, those systems tend to be dominated by the best available professional liars and hypocrites. The paradoxical results of social successfulness being based on enforcing frauds means that everyone became proportionately successful within that context. Therefore, the deeper realities that there must necessarily be some death control systems are avoided by various sorts of "magical thinking." Guys like Hugh-Smith, who are typical of most of the material republished on Zero Hedge, are NOT willing and able to face the basic facts that money is measurement backed by murder, and must necessarily be.
To promote more genuinely scientific thinking about politics, instead of "magical thinking" through politics, it is necessary to go through series of intellectual scientific revolutions, which are able to reconcile natural selection based upon natural laws, with the forms of artificial selection which currently exist, which are still based upon natural laws, BUT which went through the history of warfare to become social pyramid systems based upon being able to back up deceits with destruction, and enforce frauds, since human laws were only connected to natural laws through being able to back up lies with violence.
The supreme PARADOXES are due to the supreme ideology being militarism, which operates the murder systems according to the principles and methods of organized crime, and has been historically selected to continue to do that to the best of its ability, through becoming more deceitful and treacherous, which is boomeranging back upon itself, to impact its own blind spot, due to the longer term consequences of civilization being controlled by systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which keep those legalized lies going, despite that those are lies, which are never stopped from being lies, no matter how much those are backed up with legalized violence.
Those enforced frauds are the foundation of the current political economy, because those were always the foundations of the social pyramid systems made and maintained by the biggest bullies, who promoted the bullshit world views that were repeated by the controlled opposition groups that surrounded the core of organized crime that dominated those social pyramid systems. To not continue to engage in that kind of "magical thinking" instead requires becoming genuinely more scientific about the human artificial selection systems, which emerged out of the natural selection systems, and are still surrounded by those natural selection systems.
Human beings and civilizations continue to operate on the basis of natural laws. However, since the only connections between human laws and natural laws are the abilities to back up lies with violence, BUT, that is not admitted and addressed, because of the degree to which "magical thinking" so totally dominates society, almost nobody is able and willing to face the deeper problems, instead of collapsing back to reliance upon the bullshit of "magical thinking." Certainly, since all of the most socially successful people are so within systems based upon enforcing frauds, BUT, they will not publicly admit and address that, since they were selected to be who they are due to being the best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, more radical truths are the last thing that the vast majority of people want to think about, while they would much more prefer to continue to rely upon "magical thinking."
"Magical thinking" manifests as the promotion of false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals. "Magical thinking" requires believing in dualities, instead of unitary mechanisms. That kind of "magical thinking" almost totally dominates all of the controlled opposition groups, who are somewhat able to analyze the political problems using those dualities, but then, are not able to promote realistic resolutions to those problems, because they continue to promote dualities, rather than turn towards using more unitary mechanisms.
Realistic solutions require more realistic appreciation of the problems, regarding how and why governments are the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. The results that follow from doing that are that realistic solutions depend upon developing better organized crime, as the only ways that there could actually exist better government. The essential core of that would necessarily have to be the development of better murder systems, as the most obvious of the manifestations of human death controls, which must exist inside of the context of the ways that natural selection operates the death control systems that direct the evolution of life.
The INTENSE PARADOXES of the human condition at the present time are that natural selection was internalized as human intelligence, which was then applied to the most significant selection pressure, which was other people, in order to develop civilization through the history of warfare, including the more recent history of economics within that, such that our political economy is now almost totally based upon enforced frauds, which basic social facts are deliberately ignored and denied, as much as possible, by the mainstream established systems actually doing that, while also similarly deliberately misrepresented and misunderstood by the controlled opposition groups, that also rely upon the same basic kinds of "magical thinking."
Natural selection has selected for artificial selection systems whose successfulness is based upon backing up deceits with destruction and enforcing frauds. However, the short and medium term successfulness of having done that is now driving society to become terminally sick and insane, because civilization controlled by backing up lies with violence can never overcome the problem that those lies continue to be false. Our political economy is based upon enforced frauds, in which context there has been "printing more money," as the history of paper money frauds, backed by gunpowder force, which became electronic "money" backed by the threat of force from atomic bombs. None of the basic natural laws are allowed to be publicly presented, but rather, only "magical thinking" is presented, since making "money" out of nothing as debts is otherwise obviously a fraud, which does not stop being a fraud because it is enforced by governments.
However, the various controlled opposition groups, which are pushed by their superficial analysis to finally somewhat face the social facts that the political economy has become problematically based upon enforcing frauds, still continue to tend to stay within the same overall context of "magical thinking," because they do not consistently follow their own analysis through to deeper levels of understanding how and why money is necessarily measurement backed by murder.
Guys like Hugh-Smith, as typical on Zero Hedge, may superficially discuss the ways that the debt controls are backed by the death controls, i.e., the ways that governments enforce the bankers' frauds. However, they still do not get out of their own degree to which they take "magical thinking" for granted, since, otherwise, they would turn towards that the only realistic solutions must necessarily be different death controls, to back up different debt controls. Of course, doing that continues to run back into a head-on collision with the ways that human organized crime has always worked before, during human history, by being successfully deceitful and treacherous, and by that kind of successfulness then also being able to control the apparent public opposition to that form of organized crime. Thus, the problems that human beings have with "magical thinking" are much more profound and INTENSELY PARADOXICAL than authors like Hugh-Smith tend to more directly discuss.
Essentially, "magical thinking" surrounded the murder systems, which supported the monetary systems, BUT, any genuinely more scientific thinking about those combined money/murder systems runs into a head-on collision with the established kind of scientific dictatorship that we are actually living within, where science and technology is applied to become better at being dishonest and backing that up with violence, but is NOT applied to those overall systems as a whole, regarding how and why those systems developed.
Civilization is becoming more and more CONTRADICTORY due to progress in physical science, which is not allowed to fully feedback through political science. Attempts at dialogue between the surrounding, infinitely greater, natural selection, with the established artificial selection systems, encounters those entrenched systems whose social success was based upon being able to back up deceits with destruction, and so, enforce frauds, whose social success depends upon the promotion of "magical thinking." In that context, most of the controlled opposition groups want to promote bogus "solutions" to those problems which do not admit and address the ways that money is necessarily measurement backed by murder, because they do not want to face the facts regarding the necessity of some murder systems, as the most extreme forms of the human death control systems.
At the present time, it does not appear possible that anything else could realistically happen than that the established debt slavery systems, based upon being able to continue to have governments enforce bankers' frauds, will not continue to drive the generation of numbers which become even worse debt insanities, which then will provoke death insanities. In that context, one most reasonably expects that most people will regress to even worse forms of "magical thinking." The only genuine alternatives would have to include more scientific thinking about the death control systems. However, that can NOT possibly based upon an extrapolation of the kind of scientific dictatorship that exists now, which is deliberately not scientific about itself!
There continue to be growing Grand Canyon Chasms between progress in physical science, which is not allowed to feedback through political science. That now manifests as electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, while politics continues to be dominated by the controlled opposition groups promoting various old-fashioned religions and ideologies, which continue to be as adamantly anti-scientific as possible, because they want to continue to believe in their favourite false fundamental dichotomies and related impossible ideals, rather than begin to appreciate and use more unitary mechanisms, which is what being more genuinely scientific would require.
The vast majority of people are deeply attached to their favourite forms of dualism. That progress in physical science, as as demonstrated by quantum mechanics, and the special theory of relatively, etc., have enabled the development of technologies such as globalized electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs, has had practically no effect upon politics still dominated by old-fashioned religions and ideologies, promoting their favourite dualities. Indeed, from a sublime point of view, the ironies are obvious that most of those who condemn "magical thinking" are still mostly still indulging in deeper levels of "magical thinking."
Of course, I presume that I must also being doing that too, in ways that I have not yet been able to recognize and correct. However, meanwhile, it is painfully obvious to me that the vast majority of the public opposition to the biggest gangsters, the banksters, controlling governments, so that those banksters' frauds are enforced, continue to be controlled opposition. Therefore, the series of articles from Hugh-Smith are also typical of the rest of the material presented on Zero Hedge. However, I do not expect that kind of controlled opposition to be able to go through severe enough cognitive dissonance to be able to assimilate the deeper meanings regarding the ways that money is necessarily measurement backed by murder.
Rather, the most probable futures continue to be runaway debt insanities, provoking runaway death insanities, due to the practically psychotic degree of "magical thinking" which almost totally dominates society, in ways which make it politically impossible to use more rational evidence and logical arguments. Even more tragically, there are also no good reasons to believe that the future events of death insanities would be able to facilitate people to develop genuinely more scientific paradigm shifts regarding the ways that they perceive the death controls systems that are at the heart of the human artificial selection systems. Theoretically speaking, human beings ought to develop better understanding of natural selection, which then would apply to become better understanding of artificial selection systems. However, since doing that would require facing the facts regarding militarism and the monetary systems, the vast majority of people will probably continue to indulge in more "magical thinking," no matter how much more psychotic the consequences of continuing to do that become ...
The Statement of Revenue and Expenses for Greece is not nearly as bad as the US Department of Veteran Affairs.
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Total—Department of Veterans Affairs Outlays 2014 = $154.05 Billion
Total—Department of Veterans Affairs Outlays 2013 = $143.6 Billion
Total—Department of Veterans Affairs Outlays 2000 = $50.1 Billion
Total—Department of Veterans Affairs Outlays 1998 = $45.6 Billion
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2014 VA Information Technology Systems outlays = $3.432 Billion
2013 VA Information Technology Systems outlays = $3.218 Billion
2012 VA Information Technology Systems outlays = $3.266 Billion
2011 VA Information Technology Systems outlays = $3.355 Billion
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Total VA Information Technology Systems outlays = $13.27. Billion in 4 Years
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2014 VA Medical Care = $46.04 Billion
2013 VA Medical Care = $44.7 Billion
2010 VA Medical Care = $36.9 Billion
2008 VA Medical Care = $30.0 Billion
2004 VA Medical Care = $24.4 Billion
2002 VA Medical Care = $22.6 Billion
1999 VA Medical Care = $17.8 Billion
1998 VA Medical Care = $17.3 Billion
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2014 VA Compensation and Pensions = $69.82 Billion
2013 VA Compensation and Pensions = $64.76 Billion
2010 VA Compensation and Pensions = $47.90 Billion
2008 VA Compensation and Pensions = $40.24 Billion
2004 VA Compensation and Pensions = $29.78 Billion
2002 VA Compensation and Pensions = $25.68 Billion
2000 VA Compensation and Pensions = $23.82 Billion
1999 VA Compensation and Pensions = $21.15 Billion
1998 VA Compensation and Pensions = $20.29 Billion
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Or IRS
IRS, Total Outlays—Internal Revenue Service, under Treasury, 2014 = $116.01 Billion
IRS, Total Outlays—Internal Revenue Service, under Treasury, 2013 = $103.3 Billion (Boom)
IRS, Total Outlays—Internal Revenue Service, under Treasury, 2000 = $38 Billion
IRS, Total Outlays—Internal Revenue Service, under Treasury, 1998 = $33.2 Billion (??? What? For what??)
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IRS, Payment where earned income credit exceeds liability for tax Outlays 2014 = $60.09 Billion
IRS, Payment where earned income credit exceeds liability for tax Outlays 2013 = $57.5 Billion (?What?)
IRS, Payment where earned income credit exceeds liability for tax Outlays 2000 = $26 Billion
IRS, Payment where earned income credit exceeds liability for tax Outlays 1998 = $23.2 Billion
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IRS, Payment Where Child Tax Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Outlays 2014 = $21,49 Billion
IRS, Payment Where Child Tax Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Outlays 2013 = $21.6 Billion (?What?)
IRS, Payment Where Child Tax Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Outlays 2000 = $806 Million (Million)
IRS, Payment Where Child Tax Credit Exceeds Liability for Tax Outlays 1998 = Zero...
What about OPM?
Total--OPM Outlays 2014 = $138.63 Billion (What?)
Total--OPM Outlays 2013 = $133.7 Billion
Total--OPM Outlays 2012 = $128.4 Billion
Total--OPM Outlays 2010 = $113.9 Billion
Total--OPM Outlays 2008 = $103.6 Billion
Total--OPM Outlays 2006 = $99.8 Billion
Total--OPM Outlays 2004 = $89.2 Billion (6% a year?)
Total--OPM Outlays 2002 = $79.6 Billion
Total--OPM Outlays 2000 = $71.8 Billion
Total--OPM Outlays 1998 = $66 Billion
Total--OPM Outlays 1997 = $64 Billion
What about Department of Labor and what do they do?
Total--Department of Labor Outlays 2014 = $62.98 Billion
Total--Department of Labor Outlays 2013 = $88.5 Billion (What?)
Total--Department of Labor Outlays 2000 = $33.8 Billion
Total--Department of Labor Outlays 1998 = 32.3 Billion
Looks like in 2014 it is $42 Billion in Unemployment Benefits and $6 Billion for Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in Payouts.
Well wonder how Greece Compares to US Health Care Expenses.
No Problem in the USA, Right?
Total--Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Outlays 2014 = $1.187 Trillion
Total--Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Outlays 2013 = $1.118 Trillion
Total--Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Outlays 2000 = $413.12 Billion
Total--Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Outlays 1998 = $379.95 Billion
I'm in Munich to night. Was in Paris a few nights ago. The streets are full of traffic. This thing will go on for a while.
Fiat games.
They can play this out any way they want. Winners and losers the same way the markets are kept at all time highs. The beast can be kept on top. The Greek government like all the others is backstopped by fiat only. They can destroy the value of the coin at will. Even if you take it out of the bank. So unlike a small mom and pop flat out broke it still lives. The biggest pile of stupid aka government stays on top.
Want a real government? Kill the fiat and that government could be yours again. They will keep all their plates spinning until they can be sure those plates fall on you.
Just like with AIG they dropped them on all our heads. Same thing with all these bankrupt governments. In fiat games you will lose in the end. The government/banksters on the other hand will make it thru just fine.
This is why coin must have a real value.