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Guest Post: The "Solution" Is Collapse
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
The "Solution" Is Collapse
So the root problem is the system, human nature, blah blah blah. There are no "solutions" that can fix those defaults. Thus the "solution" is collapse.
Policies create incentives and disincentives. Some are intended, some fall into the category of unintended consequences. Regardless of their intention, policies that create windfalls ("easy money") or open spigots of "free money" (or what is perceived as free money by the recipient) quickly gather the allegiance of everyone reaping the windfall or collecting the free money.
This allegiance is soon tempered into political steel by self-justification: humans excel at rationalizing their self-interest. Thus my share of the swag is soon "absolutely essential."
Humans don't need much incentive to pursue windfalls or free money--seeking windfalls in the here and now is our default setting. Taking the pulpit to denounce humanity's innate greed, avarice and selfishness doesn't change this, as seeking short-term windfalls has offered enormous selective advantages for hundreds of thousands of years.
That which is painful to those collecting free money will be avoided, and that which is easy will be pursued until it's painful. Borrowing $1.5 trillion a year from toddlers and the unborn taxpayers of the future is easy and painless, as toddlers have no political power. So we will borrow from the powerless to fund our free money spigots until it becomes painful.
It won't become painful to borrow from our grandkids for quite some time, and it will probably not become progressively painful, either, because we will suppress the pain with superlow interest rates and other trickery. The pain will more likely be of the sudden, unexpected, "this can't be happening to me" heart-attack sort: the free-money machine will unexpectedly grind to a halt in some sort of easily predictable but always-in-the-future crisis.
"Solutions" that turn off the free money spigots are non-starters, not just from self-interest but from ideology. Any attempt to tighten the spigots steps on ideological toes, as each spigot is ideologically sacred to one political camp or another.
Liberals don't want to hear about scamming of their sacred "we must help everyone in need" welfare programs, and conservatives don't want to hear about cartel looting of their sacred "free enterprise" system.
And so we have gridlock, what I call profound political disunity. Everybody at each trough of free money fights tooth and nail to keep their spigot wide open, and so the "solution" is to borrow 10% of the nation's output in "free money" every year until the free-money machine breaks down.
Each ideology worships their own version of cargo-cult economics: if we wave the dead chicken over the enchanted rocks while dancing the humba-humba, prosperity and abundance will magically return and we can "grow our way out of debt."
We're like a sprawling family bickering over the inheritance: we'll keep arguing over who deserves what until the inheritance is gone. That will trigger one final outburst of finger-pointing, resentment and betrayal, and then we'll go do something else to get by.
The "solution" is thus collapse. This model has been very effectively explored in The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization by Thomas Homer-Dixon. The basic idea is that when the carrying costs of the society exceed its output, the whole contraption collapses.
The political adjunct to this systemic implosion is that the productive people just stop supporting the Status Quo because it's become too burdensome. The calculus of self-interest shifts from supporting the bloated, marginal-return Status Quo to abandoning it.
So the root problem is the system, human nature, blah blah blah. There are no "solutions" that can fix those defaults. The "solution" is collapse, as only collapse will force everyone to go do something more sustainable to get by.
Until then, arguing about "solutions" is a sport to be enjoyed sparingly.
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You mean EuroTARP won't save the day?
Geithner Pleads With Europe To Pass EuroTARP, Obama Wants HARP 2.0+ Passed
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/geithner-pleads-with-europe-to-pass-eurotarp-obama-wants-harp-2-0-passed/
Some of us want to actually live in society, not just polish our guns on our waco compounds blabbering bible quotes and hate for da guvment.
We are a republic of states for a reason.
I want to live in a free society where peace, merit, intellectual progress, voluntarism & usefulness matters.
You may want to live in a society that rewards terrible behavior, grants monopolies to ideas, bails out the politically connected, bombs & kills for control, distributes justice based on the currency, delivers education and health care publicly, prohibits you from raising your kids or putting doing with your body what you see fit, and intervenes in every matter of the economy. If you do, please feel free to do so, just don't compel this shit on me.
Yea it's a pretty shitty system. You got me there.
Where is this free health care you speak of though?
It exists for everyone that doesn't own a home that can be taken away if the bills aren't paid.
It's free to every non tax payer or non citizen. Other than that if you're productive you're screwed.
Regardless of what you believe politically speaking, this ship is coming down.
You have to get to a lifeboat or a life preserver, any way you can.
When the dust settles we can argue to our heart's content what type of society we want.
Soma anyone
everyone is just so negative. please remain calm, all is well!
KCCO
"The Dictator" (Sacha Baron Cohen):"Why are you guys so anti-dictators? Imagine if America was a dictatorship. You could let 1 percent of the people have all the nation's wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes and bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education. Your media would appear free, but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wiretap phones. You could torture foreign prisoners. You could have rigged elections. You could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group and no one would complain. You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests."
Movie clip
While that is a pretty good quote from Sacha Baron Cohen, he's still the dick that fucked with Ron Paul and Bob Barr. Maybe he has seen the light?
I have a feeling lots of people will suddenly be "on your side!", dickless chumps like Jon Stewart included.
Cohen is merely an agent provaceteur posing as a comedian. The fact that he got away wtih Borat in a world that condemns Ashton Kutcher for doing a mere commercial while dressed in "blackface" portraying s guy from India is quite a tell.
Now I must watch that movie!
Jamie Dimon is a Nexus-6 series replicant. What we need to do is get him back in front of grand jury, and this time, not send in some unsuspecting halfwit to administer the Voight-Kampff protocols.
It's been twice now he got the drop, and blew a hole the size of a veal cutlet in some poor fools chest.
"They're just questions, Jamie."
Okay ...not to be knit picky.. I love the Hedge for both the information and the commentary, but I feel like I'm reading the same thing over and over from some of these contributors.
Only game left.
No longer an if, but a when.
I don't disagree with that statement.
you've been to Blenheim.
Read this for some weekend enlightenment. A much better solution than total collapse is offered at the end too.
http://www.iamthewitness.com/books/Andrew.Carrington.Hitchcock/The.Histo...
Most excellent. Thanks.
Wow!
Zombies don't eat other zombies.
At what point will the zombie countries turn on those "evil" and "greedy" countries that won't give them more money?
Zombies don't eat other zombies.
____________________________
Zombies do not eat, do not drink, do not sleep.
It is US citizen fabrication that zombies eat human flesh, brain etc
Fantasy over fantasy, US citizen style.
How's this for fantasy, Charles?
http://www.china.org.cn/china/2012-06/07/content_25585504.htm
From the same page
http://www.hutong-school.com/learn-chinese-in-china?gclid=CN6q7bGuv7ACFY...
It takes US citizens to symbolize mindless consumption through mythological creatures that do not consume.
Only US citizenism.
AnAnonymous said:
It takes AnAnonymous Chinese citizenism citizens to feign expertise on mythical creatures like zombies, making unsupported assertions as if they were facts chiseled into stone.
Made me laugh.
They just eat powdered baby flesh and roast fetuses in China. No zombies, just plain old fucked up cannibals. That happens when the central authorities starve people on melanin plastic rice while they wine and dine like the French court under Louis 16th.
You people need to organize and swing those mother fuckers from the trees. No need to live like slaves. FIGHT for your freedom and your son's freedom.
Dont worry about that. US citizenism is spreading in China. And US citizen chinese will gladly spread US citizen freedom, truth and justice, US citizen way.
Dont be on the wrong side of the fence though.
Usually, it is well known that US citizens do not enslave human beings, only sub humans or non humans, do not kill civilians, only terrorist sympathizers, militants etc
Will be the same with US citizen chinese.
Uh oh...
Poland v Greece on now.Yeah but... What about gay marriages?
They should all be aborted.
Collapse = reboot. There is nothing wrong with the hardware. Global civilization is a lot more resilient than we think. Like a damaged brain, we'll quickly figure out new ways to rewire and reconnect. This is the key tenet of Austrian economics: people left to their own devices spontaneously create higher orders of complexity.
The problem is that an Austrian collapse is not a reboot ... an Austrian collapse hands all the collateral to the creditors and leaves everyone else with very little to reboot a consumer economy with any more. There is no more land to homestead, and the 0.1% doesn't need a global economy of the current size to satisfy it's own lust for consumption ...
I complicated myself once... never do that again
No, the solution is the problem.
There are solutions other than collapse. We simply lack the courage to see and then act.
Are you sure, CD? We have already jumped off the debt ledge. All that's left now is the impact.
Word up Mr. Poopypants.....that'spretty much the only thing anyone who understands what a leverage ratio is can be optimistic about...
I would like to direct you to a more thorough walk thru the process.
John Michael Greer writes some great stuff, Try this one.
Collapse Now and Avoid the Rushhttp://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-06-06/collapse-now-and-avoid-rush
We definitely need something better than this. An open system; something with more idividual liberty and a lot less state control.
This is beginning to sound like a suicide mission...
Your mission, should you decide to accept.............
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060009/
It's unfortunate that we do not have that kind of talent available.
Sounds like the perfect setup for the New World Order, single currency white horse to the rescue after the collapse. Stand in line, labor units, survival of the fittest. And he who has the most marbles is fittest. The rest should be satisfied with the scraps that fall off the tables of the elites.
The problem isn't "free" money. Its that resources are directed to the 1% and with the slowdown that pipe must be kept running. The 99% must make the necessary sacrifices to prop up the elites. Nothing to do with meritocracy, everything to do with theft by leverage and plutocratic reign.
is the drachma going to be part of the single world currency?
Breakup of the euro would be a good thing, imo. Contagion be damned, maybe we could finally end too big to fail.
Collapse, Blah, Blah , Blah.
the system has prove resilent so Tyler is impatient for his doom and gloom by the minute ranting to move into reality.
Life is not assymetrical, that's your problem Tyler.
Now we have mostly pass the time where investors had daily panic attack stance. Now time and painful decision will allow the system to repair.
It will happen too slowly for those of us that have only one life. but the Euro-zone will survive and thrive.
Go outside, enjoy spring.
And if it doesn't you are screwed. Right?
"and If" ..... go out, get some fresh air.
thx....will save to read later
re-reading "road to serfdom" by Hayek and making booknotes in my blackberry. Parts about how info beyond our control in daily capacity of comprehension are quite relevant to todays circumstances. Chapter is called "Material Conditions and Ideal Ends" p. 202-219
over 40
under 40
what is everyone's age here?
Well over 40, but still very childish.
The citizenry of the PIIGS countries have made a big mistake in allowing this to fester for so long. For months, if not years, TPTB have known that this experiment was a failure.They have spent all of their time since positioning themselves to benefit from the collapse. The citizenry meanwhile has played the game of hoping and failed to seize the initiative. They (perhaps we all) will be well screwed over in the end.
The Solution is "Collapse:. So simple, so true, just the timing.
Seems that Webster Tarpley was right about Ron Paul. I didn't want it to be true, but Tarpley is usually always on point. Fucking drag. Romney is no different than Obama, as we know, and the situation is just going to deteriorate before it gets better.
Metals, and prep. Take the steps.
The Hegemonic Gangster Machine rolls on.
Most people, I think, would argue that the course our system has taken is that people with a knack for making money by exploiting the weaknesses of the system have knocked millions out of the game and christened themselves the remaining "producers."
Perhaps it's the hustlers who've pulled this off who the vast majority of us, and the system itself, cannot afford.
Of course, thinking like that might lead one to ask if it's any better for a single person to own a billion dollars than it would be to allow private ownership of nuclear or biological weapons. Realistically, why is one form of universally recognized power okay and the other not?
This is inconsistent with the homespun "liberty" philosophy of the day, however. Of course, every philosophy becomes absurd when taken to its ultimate extreme.
Since that seems to be the philosophy of the hour, however, and it seems to benefit those with most of the money who also (surprise, surprise) control the media, we won't be hearing any meaningful discussion of it any time soon.
fuck yeah; we need a honest society with honest money.
The solution to US citizenism ailments is even more US citizenism. US citizenism cures itself.
We gotta get you into the club, aa! Gimme a call--I wanna sponsor you for citizenship.
It's so fucking sad hearing you constantly crying for food from the other side of the window, impotently barking and growling at everybody inside the shop--I just can't take it anymore.
Call. Me.
202-282-8000
For citizenship? If you knew...
'Americanism' is not a citizenship, a nationality. It is a state of mind, a mental framework, a set of beliefs.
Keep claiming that when US citizenism is written to be different from US citizenship, it means that US citizenism has to be the same as US citizenship.
US citizens are duplicitous.
You've got my number: Use it.
Us US citizens are generous.
Sounds like you've been hurt and carry some "baggage." Let's face it, that consuming bitterness and anger only shields a world of pain.
But that's alright, we're here for you!
It's hard to know what citizenship really is without walking a mile in us shoes (not the ones made up the road from you there in Shanghai, think metaphor). Come over and try it . . . otherwise it will always be just bitterness and envy amplified by ignorance doing your talking.
Hell, we could set you up in a nice McMansion next door to me (be ready to move on 15 minute notice when the po-po arrive) and even get you into a job suitable to your talents and accomodative of your emotional baggage (might even find it therapeutic . . . what you've always really been looking for):
The Job For You
Again, feel free to call me!
aha, thank you for confirming my "reading" of your words,
while I don't agree with everything you post, I have never felt the prickle of annoyance others do, as my allegiance to the state is non-existent.
indeed, all "citizenism" is a state of mind, a subscription to fictitious entities based on stories told repeatedly, mistaken as truths.
stockholm syndrome. . .
Chinese overpopulation cures itself, too. Long Pork will be back on the menu. Make sure you're with the crowds when it goes down AA, and not holed up in the building when they come, else you'll get made into pot stickers. That or grab a couple of co-workers and frog march your supervisor out the front, to toss to the riotous masses.
you should talk to your co-workers about planning that at lunch. Just like we discussed before.
As US citizenism is gaining ground in China, it is very unlikely that the Chinese overpopulation problem is going to cure itself.
Oh, no.
HAPPY FATHERSDAY DAD!
BTW I'M SUPPORTING THAT FUCK-STICK ROMNEY, please pass the mashed potatos...
Well son, I've been around for a long time, and it seems to me, its don'ts matters whose you vote for. You get fucked either ways; sometimes double penetrated, but that's another story... pass the carrots and peas please.
The solution is the let the FRAUD collapse. Odius debt needs not be paid.
Glass-Steagall
American Credit System
Wealth creating projects
The oligarch WANTS everything to collapse, see re: Green fascism. Same people, same agenda.
Man, do we need a 3rd party candidate... maybe Daniels/Paul? Bayh/thune? Hell, even Hillary/Stockman? BO is a turd... but Mitt will pander to the Dimon-mob crooks and also attack Iran in his first month!
great idea. that worked so damn good with that Perot guy, we should do it again. How about we quit voting for the same machine? It's an illusion people, meant to snare you as surely as Dancing with the Lardassians, getting those must have granite counter tops or your "hero" jock sniffing worship games do.
Do what you can to collapse the system, while you prepare how you're going to survive it.
To be honest, I'd really like to see the Presidential limosine with a dog carrier strapped to the roof.
Mitt and the mutt.
Relatively speaking, wouldn't you prefer a man who loves his dog compared to one that eats them?
Sometimes it's the little things that tip the scales.
http://youtu.be/oGLKnAvzlg4
Fuck Mr. Waturi.
Might seem painless borrowing from nexgen now but wait till you are old and nonproductive for the new look of eugenics to administer some blowback pain for the damage caused by lack of discipline and regard for those other than ourselves, those who temporarily have no voice or tools for our demise. The day will come...
Silver has 10,000 industrial uses and has been money through out history.
Probably a good idea to buy some while its dirt cheap.
The more physical we all buy the closer we get to the reset.
Let's not forget the 8 million pound gorilla in the room. When the U.S. military decides to ditch the status quo, everyone from Obama and Brenanke on down will be in leg irons. The MASS ARRESTS are coming any day now. http://tinyurl.com/cd5cyjo/
There are two problems consistently made by this author, Charles Hugh Smith. One is believing in the right/left paradigm, which doesn't exist. Hegelian Dialectic. There is only more central control and less central control. All political parties seek more control. Democracy is another construct that is closer to total control than total freedom. American was not founded as a Democracy, but a Republic.
The author uses this facade to write articles railing against the machine when he is in fact part of the machine's construct. Therefore, the exercise of reading these articles is pointless. The reasoning leads nowhere but down a black hole.
The solution is to abolish central control and to reinstate the rights of the people as INDIVIDUALS to make their own choices. In that system, if maintained, you cannot have endless debt or war, and you cannot infringe on the rights of people without corrupting the system. Self interest in that sense would enforce sound economics, not spoil it.
The constitutional republic worked until people abolished it, in practice, by failing to guard against it's corruption. It has nothing to do with republicans or democrats, but has everything to do with people giving up their sovereignty.
Such is the path of all groups of people who allow themselves to be regulated by the decisions of others. Once that first decision is made, the path is set and will not stop. Democracy is collectivism. Politicial parties are collectivism.
They are the enablers of a destructive system that will not stop until total collapse. That is the only point in which the author was correct in his article. But he misses the origins.
It's best not to use "solution," even if another meaning is meant. It's simpler to just say that collapse is inevitable.
Ruger AC556 and 10k rounds of 223 bitchez!
election, even the unrigged one, is a component of the system. it cannot solve anything.
a collapse would be the easy way out. no, it won't be that easy. things will rot to the core. it will take a long long time. life will be unbearable for the majority. everyday things today will be luxuries tomorrow.
i wish we could have a sudden collapse or a reset, but alas it seems very unlikely. just study the fall of the roman empire and you will see why.