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Oxygen & Markets - Why The Collapse Is Coming
Analogies or metaphors are often effective in explaining complex issues. In this instance, oxygen and markets are used to do so. Markets are anthropomorphized, requiring them to have oxygen to survive.
Oxygen for financial markets comes from two sources — the economy and the Federal Reserve:
Economic Oxygen and Markets
The strength of an economy creates wealth. Without a strong economy no nation grows wealthy or stays wealthy. Asset valuations are ultimately grounded in the economy, at least in the long run. Rising employment, standards of living and financial asset prices accompany strong economies. Without these pre-requisites, long-term wealth cannot be created.
Today the relationship between economic oxygen and markets is unsustainable. The economy is not and has not been providing enought oxygen to sustain current levels.
Enter the paramedics we refer to as the Federal Reserve. They show up with their oxygen tanks to resuscitate the patient. The Fed injected enormous amounts of liquidity into the system with two initial purposes — bail out the banking system and stimulate the economy. Large amounts of funds offset banking system insolvency (at least for the time being). But liquidity is at best a temporary stay for a sick economy, despite Keynesian protests to the contrary. However these injections of emergency oxygen revived financial asset markets.
Federal Reserve Oxygen and Markets
Regardless of what one may think about the Fed, it can have positive and negative effects. The Fed failed in re-starting the economy. Economic growth and well-being is a function of individual economic actors and the incentives and disincentives they confront. When times are judged propitious, economic actors take advantage. When they are not expansion activity declines, sometimes reversing.
There is little the Federal Reserve can do to change outlooks other than to mislead economic actors by altering price signals. To the extent that the Fed is successful, the success is based on deceit. Market participants acting on false data are acting against their long-term interests. Eventually they realize that the decisions made were based on unsustainable and false signals. This misguidance only adds to the original problems and necessitates an even bigger correction once it commences. Ludwig von Mises observed these conditions as follows:
There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit (debt) expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit (debt) expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.
For markets, the Federal Reserve is akin to an emergency visit from a paramedic. The oxygen provided can revive the patient but it cannot heal the patient. Markets have had their long and steep rise because of the Fed oxygen and the inflation effect which was directed into financial rather than real assets. However, the paramedic has been unable to make the patient breath unattended. The patient is still unable to survive on his own.
Our Current Oxidized Condition
The Fed failed in its attempts to juice the economy. Offsetting their efforts was the avalanche of bad regulations, uncertainty about new ones, fear of inevitable tax increases and the massive overhang of debt. Businesses cut back on investing and hiring. Many bought back outstanding stock to make performance look better. ObamaCare turned many full-time workers into part-time workers. An expansion in welfare benefits prevented depression-era food lines but also, for the lessers skilled workers, made welfare a career option.
In short, nothing the Federal Reserve did or could do could offset the awful fiscal and regulatory environment.
That was not the case in financial markets. The money that poured into the banking system added to their reserves. Little of it went toward new loans. The rest had to go someplace. Instead of going into real assets and jobs, it went into financial assets, especially equity markets. Financial repression was a deliberate Fed policy to further drive money into stocks. By reducing interest rates to zero, people had less incentive to pay down their debts. Lower interest rates serve to drive equities even higher based on traditional valuation models. Even retirees were forced into equities in search for income.
What Comes Next?
Economies around the world are in shambles. All central banks and banking systems are overextended. So too are political entities. The geo-political situation is worse than any time since World War II.
Any of the aforementioned conditions is enough to cause a major correction in financial asset pricing, particularly when these assets have been driven artificially beyond what most consider normal valuations. Central banks are out of bullets that can be effective. Arguably they ran out five years ago. The US economy cannot recover until taxes and regulations are addressed and incentives for growth and investing return. In the meantime more companies have either given up on the US or are hedging their bets by moving all or parts of their operations out of the country.
The only thing that government can offer at this point is doctored economic statistics and claims that the economy is just fine. The Federal Reserve can still print money, but that cannot help the economy or offset bad fiscal policy. Even the printing of money has limits in terms of its effectiveness. Eventually devaluation of currency and inflation of prices is the result.
There is nothing that government or the Federal Reserve can do to remedy overvalued financial assets. Printing more money may support financial asset prices for a while longer but this behavior has long-term bad consequences. The ultimate determinant of wealth — the economy — is not being addressed. Political ideology has turned on free markets and they are key to wealth creation and getting out of this mess.
Markets are coming down and probably dramatically. Ultimately that conclusion holds regardless of what the Fed does. If the Fed continues to inflate, nominal asset prices may continue up for a while but they will not keep pace with inflation. Alternative stores of remaining wealth will be sought, places which will protect against the hyperinflation warned about by Mises.
There is no way to escape the hangover created by the Fed binge. That doesn’t mean the government will not try. Such efforts will succeed in making matters worse, at least in the long-term.
The nature of politics is to kick the can down the road. We are nearly out of road. The scam is likely at its end regardless of what is tried. The piper is coming for what he is owed.
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NO collapse if I'm in charge ... let's make America great again !!
Buy now, before Dennis Gartman covers his shorts - then it will be too late.
The S&P 500 internals have broken-down:
http://www.indexindicators.com/charts/sp500-vs-sp500-stocks-above-200d-sma-params-3y-x-x-x/
I agree, many indicators don't look great, but I'm a contrarian. However, for a long position entered into today, I would only risk yesterdays low, or close.
Dutti, so a short term trade not an investment.
These markets will IMO have a wild run now and, IMO, it will get out of hand.
Others see it too:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/stock-up-on-canned-food-for-stock-market-crash-warns-former-gordon-brown-advisor-10469509.html
He probably right , the cunt in charge now is crashing it for him.
The cunts in charge (behind the curtain) are trying to start an overt WWIII so that the figurehead can declare an emergency and postpone the elections. Covert WWIII is already happening with the BRICS going off the dollar.
Yip read that as well...
Overt WWIII will be great for the ecomony. China doesn't want to admit that they have been bombed three times now, or their public would be demaning a military response, which is exactly what the west wants. Looks like they have some boats out in the Gulf of Alaska now. Maybe they just want to build an island.
debt jubilee.....problem solved....not the first time in the history of man.
Yeah, but someone ALWAYS ends up paying a debt, either the debtor or the creditor. There can be no other way. That means financial pain no matter what.
A twitter post warned Trump to beware of news hosts and candidates with hidden vagendas.
"Economy" is and will always be "Tax Revenue". They're one in the same.
TJD, you almost had it, the Prima Don's grandfathers surname was Drumpf before he move back to Germany to evade the law in Alaska upon his return he changed it to Trumpf. I mean you were just one letter off when you signed up and you had no idea. Blind squirell, stopped clock, sunshine on a dogs ass and all.
Teh Tonald!
Trump has never said he could avoid any collapse.
They sucked the air right out of the room.
The Fed and other CB has been in disaster reaction mode. They didn't "suck the air" out of anything that wasn't already imploding. The implosion itself has been going on for 30 years (the "Greenspan Put" was there for a reason) it took that long for the CBs (starting with The Fed) to run out of ploys to keep it inflated.
The article misses nearly all of that. It is written from the wrong framing, as if there is a functioning market that only needs to be allowed to breathe. Well guess what if The Fed steps away now (or even slacks off) this bitch is gone and not ever coming back.
But, but, but we have a Nobel Prize Winner leading us. He is also the most admired man in this world per Gallup polls. Besides, Old Yeller is in charge of the Fed.
How can we collapse with such great talent?
3 pm shakedown says otherwise
" If you want to keep your collapse, you can keep your collapse. "
Obamacare health insurance premiums to rise 9.5 percent for 2016, state regulator reportshttp://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article32430879.html
When the dollar hits 30 feet, freeze!
"All Things are Transitory"~Lord Buddha
"The only constant is change." -- A. Einstein
BTFD plebs
Morgan Stanley issues 'full house' buy alert for stockshttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/11837853/morgan-stanley-capitulation-...
MASTER OF UNIVERSE is the piper. And $30 Trillion in physical gold bullion is the amount in arrears.
The Fed strongmen continue humiliating contrarians by averting their doom prophecies over and over.
They've averted nothing. Magnified is more like it...
When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead
And the black knight is talking backwards
And the red queen's cut off her head
Remember what the door mouse said
The piper's coming for your head
Who wrote this originally?
Jefferson Airplace - White rabbit. This is modified a bit.
"what comes next?"
you mean tomorrow or next week? Cuz thats about as far as most people plan for. Anything after that we can worry about later.
"But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy
and the god's of the coppybook headings said: If you don't work, you die"
- Rudyard Kipling
"Oxygen & Markets - Why The Collapse Is Coming"
The "why" is Zion's and their grifting banksters' Jenga like plundering of America and we Americans.
However, unlike Jenga, where the collapse is blamed on the parties pulling out the pieces, the economic collapse will instead be blamed on the American people--Blame the plundered.
My guillotine and I will not adhere to that notion.
Zion is a scheme, not an ethnicity..
I'm getting tired of articles that state the obvious, yet offer nothing actionable.
What I was thinking too. And more fear-porn. I'm so afraid now I hardly dare come to this site.
The 1973-74 bear market took 23 months during which the SPX declined 50%, and at the bottom 95% of stocks ended up below their 200 day MA: investors had only a 1 in 20 chance of a gain in their favorite holdings or in new purchases during the decline. There were several ZH-like advisory services accurately warning of the ongoing decline, also without offering specific 'remedies' of what to do, but KEEPING READERS OUT of the chronically ill market for 2 years and away from the broker-Fed-political happytalk b*llsh*t boosterism, which continued as they tried to talk you into buying, all the way to the bottom.
Staying out of the '73-'74 slow collapse was the best and only general solution for most investors, and well worth the subscription costs, and ZH's ongoing warnings and analysis, even without specific, actionable recos, may again be the best advice available today as this bear market starts its downward trek. In prolonged, irreparable bear markets and credit contractions, 'doing nothing' is very much doing something, hopefully preserving cash/liquid assets to redeploy after a long financial reset has been completed.
Most of them usually do: keep your savings in gold under the mattress.
The geopolitical situation is the worst since WWII? Worse than the Korean conflict, Vietnam, the cold war, the oil crisis of the 70s, the Egypt/Israel conflicts, the Cuban missle crisis? Since many of these brought us to the brink of nuclear war, I'm gonna go ahead and say no.
Googe, "recency bias".
Yup. The author is a light weight.
The geopolitical situation is the worst since WWII? Yes, it is, Mister eyes wide shut...
they want a WWIII - why else would Obama et.al. be pushing this Iran deal? It makes no sense.
Only if you care about money. And even then I think the end of WW2 found a lot of today's rich countries at that time staring at bankruptcy and smoldering ruins.
A lot has changed. Everything has changed. Right now things are excellent. Even the former bug-a-boos the Soviet Union and now the Chi-comms are budding capitalists and resource market players. This should be a capitalist nirvana. Capitalism won, communism is nearly forgotten, history is over, nothing but blue skies.
According to geopolitics things should be massively great right now bordering on utopian. Instead we are looking down the barrel of a loaded global depressive collapse. Obviously not because of WW2 we got over that. So what is it then? What happened?
The question is really; what happened to all the money?
[quote] The question is really; what happened to all the money? [/quote]
Surely you mean "Munny" (FIAT), because Money is Au (and nothing else)?
I think you are correct but not by as great a margin as you infer. War is coming but it will be fought with thousands of nuclear weapons, not tens of thousands of nuclear warheads as seemed likely in the mid-80s.
Financial collapse is just the inciting event and everyone will soon be busy worrying about other things than where their IRA went.
Considering how debt is the life giving oxygen for every government in the world, I'm going to enjoy watching these bastards suffocate and burn as their oxygen explodes into flames.
The blood coming to the fetus from the placenta is bright red and full of nutrients and oxygen, the fetus feels it is being fed by a Nurturant Placenta, but when the mother smokes, takes drugs or is hurt or frightened or otherwise stressed, the placenta does not remove the waste from fetal blood, which becomes polluted and depleted of oxygen. Under these stressful conditions, the helpless fetus experiences an asphyxiating Poisonous Placenta, the prototype for all later hate relationships, including the murderous mother, the castration father or the dangerous enemy. It is even likely that the fetus, like Oedipus, feels it is actually battling with the dangerous beast (Sphinx means "strangler" in Greek) in order to restore connections with the Nurturant Placenta. This battle, what I have termed the fetal drama, is repeated in death-and-rebirth restagings of traumatic battles in all wars and other social violence.
http://www.primal-page.com/ldfetal1.htm
So...the markets are the fetus...and the Fed is the mother...doing crack?
:)
sure,..why not
:)
The collapse is a trick played on sheeple. It will be a collapse for banksters not for me.
"All we have now is Fascism & Ponzi."
- C322
You know the collapse is coming, but you can't say when? Well, hell will freeze over, just don't know when. Economic Noise. Good name for a blog.
Or a Punkband.
This market will craash once I stop going to zero hedge religiously every day and I stop looking at yahoo finance. Otherwise the market down 300 market up 300 to infinity.
" Oh where oh where has my little bear gone. Oh where oh where can he be."
Janet Yellen has the bear under anesthesia with a constant drip of QE for good measure. Sleep well my bear. Hope you can wake up some day and eat that satanic zion witch alive.
I'd have to disagree about oxygen coming from two sources-- the economy and the Fed.
What boost the Fed supplies is stolen from the economy.
Apart from that, I am also of the opinion that the end is near. So much so that I'm busy learning how to can cucumbers rather than plotting my next move on the markets.
My last move was to close it down and run screaming into the wilderness. Not missing a thing.
What I noticed most
in the article above:
What I noticed as most missing in the article above is the environmental supply of natural resources. The view presented in the article above was based on believing that: "The strength of an economy creates wealth." However, such a view tends to deliberately disregard that the political economy became based on strip-mining the natural resources of the planet, through social systems whereby "money" was made out of nothing as debts, in order to "pay" for that.
The background problems are the limits to the growth of being able to strip-mine the planet at an exponential rate. That civilization was doing that through operating fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems has enabled the strip-mining to accelerate, and be presented as good things to do. That governments ENFORCED FRAUDS by privately controlled banks has WORSE PROBLEMS due to the limits of diminishing returns from being able to strip-mine the planet's natural resources, which have been greatly exacerbated by the fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems through which those things were done.
The ILLUSIONS of being able to create "money" out of nothing were metaphorically like being able to create "oxygen" out of nothing. "Our Current Oxidized Condition" is more deeply due to having high-graded ourselves to hell by building everything on the basis of being able to increasingly strip-mine the natural resources of a fresh planet. Given that context, no magical phrases like "free markets" are sufficient, since no such "free markets" are able to create natural resources out of nothing. Rather, the deeper problems are WAY WORSE than the superficial view of those problems, as presented by Mises et alia tend to indicate.
While the Mises analysis is superficially correct, it does not address the deeper reasons how and why human civilizations operate as entropic pumps of environmental energy flows, which need those energy sources, and then the related energy sinks, in order to operate. Due to collectively running into the limits of diminishing returns from having previously based everything on the exponential growth of the strip-mining of the planet, being "paid" for with "money" made out of nothing as debts, our problems are WAY WORSE than merely that: "Economies around the world are in shambles."
The ways that our civilization tends to think about "economics" arises inside the context where the political economy is based upon governments ENFORCING FRAUDS by privately controlled banks. The history of that has been the history of triumphant organized crime, becoming excessively successful, to the point of becoming runaway criminal insanities!
Since we collectively pretend that "money" is like metaphorical "oxygen" that can be created out of nothing, we collectively have attitudes which deliberately ignore the principle of the conservation of energy as much as possible, while simultaneously we collectively misunderstand the concept of entropy in the most absurdly backwards ways possible. Those are WAY WORSE problems, which continue being made EVEN WORSE by continuing to operate through ENFORCING FRAUDS, in ways which are socially successful to the degree that those FACTS are deliberately denied and ignored.
The ways that we think about our "economy" are deeply mistaken, because of the ways that we use the word "production." Human beings NEVER actually "produce" anything. Rather, they only transform one form of energy into another, in manners which operate within those general energy systems. Human societies have developed increasingly psychotic attitudes that separate the human world from the non-human world. We cross over that boundary by making "money" out of nothing as debts, in order to "pay" for strip-mining the planet's natural resources. Meanwhile, we tend to deliberate deny and ignore the ways that doing that requires that there be FINANCIAL FRAUDS ENFORCED.
Systemic market collapses are coming because everything we did was done through using fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems, wherein the ability to enforce those frauds never stopped those frauds from still being false. We were living inside of social systems based on being able to back up lies with violence, that became more sophisticated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, whose most important manifestation was governments ENFORCED FRAUDS by privately controlled banks.
Those ENFORCED FRAUDS enabled civilization to strip-mine the planet's natural resources as fast as possible. While the economy was turning those natural resources into garbage and pollution as fast as possible, people were making "money" inside that system. However, most of their so-called "wealth production" was actually destruction overall. The deeper limits to being able to "kick the can down the road" are indeed due to the deeper ways that we are "running out of road."
Government ENFORCED FRAUDS by privately controlled banks making the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, in order to "pay" for everything, were always being generally perceived in as ABSURDLY BACKWARD ways as those could possibly be! From that point of view, the ideas presented by Mises, as well as those in the article above, while superficially correct are otherwise profoundly wrong.
In general, almost nobody recognizes the degree to which social pyramid systems based upon backing up lies with violence have resulted in ubiquitous and pervasive mental attitudes that perceive almost everything in the most absurdly backward ways possible. Since our political economy is based upon governments ENFORCING FRAUDS by privately controlled banks, while those systems have been so totally dominate, for so long, virtually everything that people think about regarding "economics" operates through Wonderland Matrix Bizarro Worlds.
While human beings and civilizations actually operate as entropic pumps of environmental energy flows, the currently established civilization does that through misrepresenting what it is doing in ways which are based upon the maximum possible deceits and frauds. Therefore, that civilization has become extremely unbalanced! Meanwhile, the social polarization that caused is being trumped by the related environmental destruction that caused.
In general, the theoretical solutions to our problems would require enough people to better understand how civilization operates as a general energy system, in the same ways as the industrial and natural systems do, because it is all the same energy flowing through. However, when one attempts to do that, one runs into the overwhelming obstacles that the established systems necessarily operate as fractal patterns expressing the principles and methods of organized crime.
That governments ENFORCE FRAUDS by privately controlled banks means that governments are the biggest forms of organized crime, being controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. Within that overall context, everything else that our economy does is being done by the best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, presenting what they are actually doing in the most absurdly backward ways possible. Namely, human beings NEVER "produce" anything. Rather, "wealth" is based upon being able to transform energy through entropic pumps.
In human terms, those human systems most match the principles and methods of organized crime, and those must necessarily do so. However, our economic systems became most socially successful by expressing all of that through various profoundly mistaken dualities, false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals.
Mises, and the article above, (like most of the rest of the context on Zero Hedge) stays within taking for granted their thinking using those dualities, false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals. Furthermore, those kinds of profound errors tend to go to the wrong pole of those dualities in order to promote spurious unities. On the other hand, better understanding of human civilizations as manifestations of general energy systems tends towards developing unitary mechanisms, where the genuine unity tends to be at the opposite pole to that promoted through the false fundamental dichotomies, presented as dualities, that then express themselves as recommending bogus "solutions" based upon impossible ideals, that are (deliberately) misunderstanding everything in the most absurdly backward ways possible.
While human beings have relatively recently achieved prodigious progress in physical science, political science has not progressed in any significant ways, other than by getting better at backing up lies with violence (without, of course, admitting nor addressing that was the case.) Political economy has especially suffered that fate. The ways that we collectively tend to think about the "economy" and "producing wealth" are based upon the biggest bullies' bullshit world views, or the banksters' bullshit, that justifies and rationalizes making the "public" money supply out of nothing, as government ENFORCED FRAUDS by privately controlled banks.
Moreover, not only was that bullshit world view built into the dominate natural languages, but also, the dominate philosophy of science developed through compromises with the biggest bullies' bullshit world views. Therefore, when it comes to "understanding" human beings and civilizations as entropic pumps of environmental energy flows, we collectively do that in the most absurdly backward ways, while almost everyone is very attached to continuing to deliberately misunderstand that as much as possible.
That has enabled there to be made and maintained globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs, while the people actually doing that tend to believe and spout statements about that which are based on the maximum possible bullshit about themselves, and what they are really doing. Given that overall sociopolitical situation, things are WAY WORSE than merely that: "There is no way to escape the hangover created by the Fed binge." The entire history of Neolithic Civilizations, based on social pyramid systems built on being able to back up lies with violence, was a BIGGER BINGE than merely the latest wave of that being the Federal Reserve Board managing the global reserve currency, as the single greatest example of governments ENFORCING FRAUDS by privately controlled banks, which then directed economic developments.
The essential problems with our economic systems are that the languages that are used to discuss them are based on the maximum possible bullshit, which misrepresents those to the maximum possible ways. Despite human civilizations actually operating as entropic pumps of environmental energy flows, those systems developed in ways which are intensely paradoxical, due to their consistent contradictions, that they necessarily operate according to fractal patterns of the principles and methods of organized crime, whose social successfulness is proportionately based upon the degree to which those can get away with deliberately denying and ignoring those facts.
That the Federal Reserve Board is a privately controlled bank, whose frauds of creating the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts for everyone else were enforced by governments, is currently the most important way that the world's entire political economy is based upon ENFORCED FRAUDS, which are socially successful to the degree that they deliberately misunderstand and misrepresent themselves to the maximum possible degree.
In the context, reading the article above provoked me to point out the ways that such an article is superficially correct, while also profoundly wrong at the same time. Furthermore, those same observations can also be made about virtually all of the other content published on Zero Hedge. Basically, the BIG PROBLEM in the background is that progress in physical science was forced to compromise with the biggest bullies' bullshit world views. Hence, the ways that the physical economy works was forced to compromise with the banksters' bullshit.
Mises, and similar authorities, are slightly better at pointing out the degree to which the banksters bullshit has dominated the political economy. However, mostly those kinds of authors continue to stay too much within the banksters' bullshit world view, while continuing to take too much of that for granted. Therefore, while I also like to try to use metaphors to understand what is happening, the deeper reasons for how and why we are running out of road to kick the can on down are WAY WORSE than the article above presented.
I also believe that collapses of the established systems based upon governments ENFORCING FRAUDS by privately controlled banks are coming. However, my view is that the degree to which the vast majority of people take for granted perceiving the world in absurdly backward ways goes FAR BEYOND what most of those few who begin to perceive that we are living inside of Wonderland Matrix Bizarro Worlds, where the established systems, based on backing up legalized lies with legalized violence, are running into diminishing returns from being able to continue to do that.
The coming collapses are going to become "corrections" which go FAR BEYOND the still relatively superficial understanding of what the accumulating errors were, within markets increasingly distorted by governments ENFORCING FRAUDS by privately controlled banks. From a philosophical view, we are stuck in the deepening ruts caused by the successfulness of those ENFORCED FRAUDS, driving people to accept or adopt attitudes based upon deliberately ignoring the principle of the conservation of energy as much as possible, while also deliberately misunderstanding the concept of entropy as much as possible.
Overall, to the same degree that our political economy is dominated by ENFORCED FRAUDS (which is now more than 99% the case) the ways that people think about "producing wealth" also tends to be mistaken to the same degree. Since our entire political economy is based upon ENFORCED FRAUDS, our economic systems have accumulated ENORMOUS ERRORS, whose possible "corrections" could eventually happen on the same scale.
The followers of von Mises and Keynes have one thing in common. Lacking the intellectual power and imagination of their founders, they pick out part of their originators' writings that serve their purposes and proceed to beat them to death. This is like those fundamentalists who openly cite certain verses of their scriptures and build their beliefs around only those. This was easier for the Austrians to do since von Mises and the others constructed a very mechanical interpretation of economics that most readers could understand. This was in contrast to Keynes' turgid prose that even his followers often did not understand. In any case, neither fully understood the inevitable tendency of capitalism to trend toward monopoly with the resuling union of money and power in the fascist state. Only Marx understood this tendency, but since he wrote in the mid 19th certury, his understanding was weakened by the limited industrial development of his day, along with inappropriate attempts to make his ideas "scientific." None of the three could foresee the possibilities of technology and constitutional institutions to rein in the excesses of capitalism and create truly improved living conditions in a democratic society.
What we see in the US today is the triumph of unrestrained capitalism which has taken control of the state, turning all elected officials into puppets, using their control of the mass media and the banks. This phenomenon has stifled the voices of those who correctly percieve the problems but who stand little chance of being heard.
RMolineaux, while I agreed with your analysis, I still regard that as being too superficial, for the reasons that I outlined in my comment above. BEYOND the social polarization is the destruction of the natural world. The fascist blending of corporate and governmental power assists with the strip-mining of the planet, in ways which are eventually self-destructive for that fascist plutocracy, that has gained a near monopoly over the public "money" supply, which was legislated to be legal tender, and required to pay taxes, which became an extremely powerful "monopoly with the resulting union of money and power in the fascist state"
I agreed most with your conclusion:
P.S.
Another author that I think understands the deeper problems is Steve Ludlum, whose most recent article was published on Economic Undertow, August 30, 2015:
However, I would NOT label that "capitalism" nor label that with any adjective that modified that "capitalism." Indeed, no other commonly used labels or "isms" work well enough, since what actually exists are systems based on the principles and methods of organized crime, which have become excessively successful, as manifested by the degree which most people still tend to use old-fashioned political labels or "isms" that match neither the social facts, nor the dictionary definitions of those terms.
Ok..you convinced me that the world is in trouble...can we move on...