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Guest Post: When Things Fall Apart: Disorientation, Desperation, Chaos
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
When Things Fall Apart: Disorientation, Desperation, Chaos
The global "shadow" banking system is unraveling, with dire consequences for financial assets and failed policies.
We're not used to things falling apart, and so our first reaction is disorientation. What we've been trained to expect by constant intervention in 
supposedly "open" markets is that Central States and central banks will "save the day" with a new intervention: an interest rate cut, a new round of money-printing, emergency loans, new bailout funds, the list has been almost endless since the initial evidence of the Great Unraveling appeared in 2007.
So when official interventions are announced to great fanfare and then fail to goose the market, we're disoriented. John Hussman neatly summarized the insanity of a market propped up only by constant official manipulation: We represent the Lollipop Guild:
Frankly, I am concerned that Wall Street is becoming little more than a glorified crack house. Day after day, the sole focus of Wall Street is on more sugar, stronger sugar, Big Bazookas of sugar, unlimited sugar, and anything that will get somebody to deliver the sugar faster. This is like offering a lollipop to quiet down a 2-year old throwing a tantrum, and expecting that the result will be fewer tantrums.
What we have increasingly observed over the past decade is nothing but the gradual destruction of the ability of the financial markets to allocate capital for the benefit of future growth. By preventing the natural discipline of the markets to impose losses on poor stewards of capital, and to impose interest rates high enough to force debtors to allocate the capital usefully, the world's policy makers are increasingly wrecking the prospects for long-term economic growth.
The problem with depending on intervention "sugar" for sustenance is that the market slowly loses its sensitivity to the mechanisms of control (insulin), and at some point the sugar no longer generates a response. We are very close to that point now, as the expected "grand EU treaty agreement" is duly issued as expected and global markets are holding their breath, hoping that some new intervention will keep the teetering financial system from falling over the edge.
This is desperation. In market after market, participants don't really have any faith in the future resilience of the fundamentals which supposedly underpin global markets; rather, they are desperately hoping the next intervention will work better than the last one. But like insulin insensitivity, the market is on a one-way slide: every intervention works its magic for a shorter period of time, and markets respond with increasing torpor to the "fix."
The next phase is chaos, as participants finally grasp that interventions will no longer save them. Then the mad rush to the exits (selling) will begin, and many will be trampled, as the bid will disappear across entire spectra of assets.
We should recall that nothing fundamental has changed since 2007. Here are two fundamentals of many which haven't changed at all: wealth is still concentrated:
and the global financial system is still overleveraged and over-indebted, meaning that every decline in asset valuation triggers a "reverse wealth effect."
As I type, the morning injection of hopium crack into the market's veins is already wearing off. We are still in the desperation stage, as central bank manipulators and Central State apparatchiks are rushing around in a panicky search for some new supply of "sugar" intervention to prop up what has been unsustainable since 2007.
The manipulations have one ironic accomplishment: the resulting crash will be larger and more chaotic than the one in 2008 because the faith that State/central bank interventions are limitless magic will have been irrevocably lost.
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crack house on no volume and we dance at 1255 for the 10th time
Happy Friday - ladies - http://hedge.ly/gFWVSm
CHS: "What we have increasingly observed over the past decade is nothing but the gradual destruction of the ability of the financial markets to allocate capital for the benefit of future growth"
There IS NO future growth, you dipshit. That's the fking problem. Oil production plateaud and the world has been in no-growth for a few years. The US considerably longer.
WE ALL GUN DIE! PEAK WHALE OIL!
How fitting: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/08/japan-whale-hunt-disaster-fundi...
Yeah, you're kinda stupid.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/how-capitalism-saved-the-whales/
And yes, we did, as a species, hit "peak whale oil": because there were hardly any left. Look up the numbers - current species counts are about 5-15% of the totals of the 1850's. Oil basically removed the profit margin from harvesting a species hunted to extinction.
So, you fucking moron, shut the fuck up.
Oh, and so long and thanks for all the fish.
good thing Captain Kirk saved them, huh?!!!!
Do you realize you said the same thing as CHS, yet called him a dipshit for it? (oil is a form of capital)
The more you know...
oil is unlike any capital. It is the most condensed form of energy the earth has ever created and proabably ever will and it took millions of years to do it. We've used half of it in a hundred. Economic growth doesn't happen without energy and the rate and quality of that growth are inseparable from the rate and quality and cost of that energy. There is nothing that comes close to replacing this substance and the exponential growth of our population and economies are coming in direct and violent conflict with oil's decline. You were born into one of the most dramatic and possibly tragic transition periods in human history and your political leaders have betrayed you by lying, delaying, and increasing every effect this transition will have.
NA -
Your not the only one to recognize it, believe me........
No/de-growth background if interested...
The Broken Machine -- http://dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=419
Yoko Kato (Mainichi) on the end of "exploitation capitalism" (1600-2000) -- http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/94/new-stage-capitalism.html
My only problem with any less extractive/exploitative system is the statism invariably needed to implment. Too-big-has-failed is true of govt not just banks. If "democracy" has redounded to $15,100,000,000,000 worth of obese diabetic Baby Boomers awaiting entitlement checks, I shudder at what "real socialism" would produce...
Thanks for killing the mood this Friday night Trav-san.
You got to be kidding me. There is an ocean of unexploited oil in Alaska. The Fed just won't let them drill there. By the time they do allow drilling, it will be too late to save the economy. It takes years to bring on new supply even when you already know where it is. If the PTB wanted growth, we'd have growth. What we are seeing is "Directed History" at its best. It doesn't have to be this way. Wake up sheeple!
Ullitmately you look for a way to dispose of humans to equal out the balance sheet. This read should set some things straight on what will ultimately happen: Silent Weapon
I'd hate to disappoint you, but it's even worse:
Watch this, then ponder on the implications, then say "zombie apocalypse" out loud, so you can get used to how it sounds.
Not fucking kidding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nADFJlAggnY
Our fate rests in the hands of psychopatic lunatics.
Have a great weekend! (I know I will)
“Frankly, I am concerned that Wall Street is becoming little more than a glorified crack house”
That would be a great improvement from the less than inglorious meth lab that it is now.
It'd be much easier and save on resources to just release a plague rather than a bunch of "zombies." Zombies destroy property and waste natural resources (ie lead bullets) trying to kill one another. Just infect everyone with a plague and let them die. The cost is disposing of the bodies. We're essentially talking about the same action though. Scroll down to logistics in the document above and read from there to get a logical explanation of why the top tier of our monetary system would need to dispose of the masses.
Human remains (however toxic) will provide useful energy when burned. I have a link somewhere about a serious proposition in the UK. I'll post it when I've found it.
Quite! Of course depopulation is THEIR plan. Voluntairy or involuntairy. Funny how this doesn't match with demographics that call for more (newborn) to join the ponzi scheme: I.o.w. our economies in THEIR plans are destined for the scrapheap. Anyone that doesn't see this purpose now (with which I do NOT agree or consent), did not pay attention. The scale is mind boggleling, and IMO there's the real chance these depopulation scemes go too far and result in an extinction event.
As for releasing a simple plague, that's too easy. The germans found out EHEC of last spring was a deliberate attack.
- the origin of this pathogen was in packaging of food, not the food itself
- it was released on multiple places at once. (a naturally occurring pathogen would have a single point of origin)
- the EHEC strain had a DNA structure that consisted of multiple agressive e-coli strains, with some BLACK PLAGUE DNA mixed in.
See here page twelve top left article, second column, middle: Article title: "Bundesregierung: Ehec breitet sich weiter aus."
http://issuu.com/europaahorn/docs/szd11531
So, you might be right, and there's a plague (or multiple versions) in storage, but IMO it would be slower, but more effective to mess up people's emotional responses, and what distingishes them from animals; the higher consciousness, and associated cognitive functions of course. Mindless automatons are easy to control, and psychopaths without any ethical consideration would turn on each other and do the dirty work themselves. Culture (religion) has proven itself to be a formidable hurdle on the path to a NWO.
Possible snag is of course that any flu virus (on which the VMAT-2 inhibitor is supposedly "bolted on") mutates very quickly and will be out of control within months. It could turn harmless, or very nasty indeed. I'm not a biochemist, it would be interesting to see some peer reviewed research, though that will never happen, of course.
Thank you for posting that link..I'm stunned. I know TPTB are sociopaths, but I guess I didn't fully grasp what a sociopath is until I saw that.
Great link thanks I've passed it on.
Maybe it is just my cognitive disonance acting up, but it seems that video may be a hoax.
http://metabunk.org/threads/317-Debunked-FunVax-Pentagon-Briefing-on-Rem...
they'll use their race-specific bio weapons first. If they target the god gene, they may find that adulation of the state also withers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62WooMKWzEI
TROLOLOLOL.
You might want to use actual science next time (which is far more scary):
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/15/6753.full?sid=e0378183-9131-4e6b-90bd...
(for the mouth breathers: shows how a tiny microwave to the brain, just under your right ear, removes belief from ethical choices. Hmm... not sure why that'd be important, let me check my Iphone)
Disclosure: having been deliberately infected by a version of the newest 'religion disease', against my will (hello Steven - how's DC? and Israel? Fuck you btw, hope you're still amused, although not sure how you spent the $15k ;) Too bad I'm a philosopher, eh?1 Or did you believe that whole "learnt response" shit, while I was forming antibodies? That was stupid of L.) I was able to deconstruct it within 2 weeks of initial infection. Pros: Damn, I know why Fundamentalists don't use critical thinking, the Religious perception layer is wicked good memetically / pleasure reward to signs / pattern recognition. Cons: Might as well be tripping on acid, same reality <-> truth variables.
#Hardasnails
a tiny microwave to the brain, just under your right ear, removes belief from ethical choices
That's sky-high overstatement of the findings in the experiment. It appears you intend to deceive the reader.
No, actually it isn't.
You're doing a double-perception-blind fallacy here.
A 'tiny' microwave to the brain (and 'tiny' here means: not damaging), just under your right ear, DOES impact beliefs on ethical choices. That's the entire point of the peer reviewed science you might have just read. Quite clearly, magnetic waves to certain parts of the brain DO effect behaviour, both ethical and behavioural. This isn't so amazing, given we've been putting electrodes on chimp brains since 1897.
Durrrr... Science: Brain works electrically and other ways. We induce electrical / wave forces: it reacts. Not exactly amazing there. Shit, we pump it full of drugs (prozac, acid, alcholol you name it) it we can also alter the chemical reactions as well.
FUCK ME. SCIENCE. IT WORKS.
(and you'd be scared at the real hard core stuff that you can do to a brain if you have access, via drugs or electromagnetic waves. Try some stuff from the MRI scans of Coke / Pepsi trials, and how they taste exactly the same, and how branding is wiring your mind. Fuck me, you're a novice in this field)
You're assuming that I'm referencing things such as mobile phones, which hold an even tinier current. I wasn't. But the stupids might have imagined that was the inference. And thus, you took the bait.
/tard
Now that's you've reined in your assertion, sure. But I responded when you said this: a tiny microwave to the brain, just under your right ear, removes belief from ethical choices
That's a lie. That's not what the experiment found. The experiment found that beaming microwaves at subject's brains caused a slight (statistically significant) attenuation of the importance of personal beliefs when making moral decisions.
It doesn't "remove" it.
The fact that you get all huffy when someone calls out your claim doesn't speak so well for your honesty on this point.
I read the paper months ago when you first posted the link. You've dragged out a misinterpretation of the results of other scientific papers you've rehashed here, too. (I recall some lovely bullshit you pushed about video games programming people into some kind of transhumans. Whatevs.)
You're a pretty blatant propagandist. Which is too bad, because you obviously know some stuff and have an interesting perspective.
Now then Moriarty, just pop on these headphones, we want you to listen to some nice music, at the end you will be a very different person, and we shall welcome you to the new world.
I'll give you a +1.
It is rare that people have read the sources, so I tend to knee-jerk into a shock n awe to get them to read it themselves properly. But please... reference it to the post I was responding to, which is some fake power-point mock-up shot in any university in the universe to make money for Alex Jones & co. The bar was fairly low.
Here's a freebie; keep an eye on this site: www.sickweather.com. It might become socially significant if it gets traction in the next 6 months.
Here's another one getting my attention: Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence
So. Footnotes. We've come to this? Where does it end?
Tunga has been hearing radio waves in his head since he was 3. Does he complain about it?
Kids.
"... and turn a fanatic into a normal person, and we think that would have a dramatic effect on the middle east"
LOL, yes, most Israeli West Bank settlers will suddenly wonder what the fuck they're doing with their lives and go back to New York.
The aligory used by the author leaves me to believe this design was done by a machine and not a human. Perhaps the machines do not become self-aware over night but may take decades of the transition of man into a machine thinking sociopath. Rothchilde must have been a sick fuck.
There were 3 tip-offs to today's rally:
1) Closing TRIN of 5.1 yesterday
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$TRIN&p=D&yr=0&mn=6&dy=0&id=p57770263082
2) IBD Top 50 never really sold off during the end of day bloodbath yesterday
http://clearstation.etrade.com/cgi-bin/bbs?post_id=9918856
3) Everybody and their dog was betting on Europe failing if a deal wasn't reached. And the number of Euro shorts and Dollar longs is monstrous.
its funny you only appear on up days
see; "crack house" and "meth lab" above.
3) nope. not my dog. he don't know europe from shinola. he was only betting that it might be the day the sun shined on his ass, same as he does every day. someday he's going to be right.
based on that pic..is the bernanke a moop?
True, Robo, however, there is no EU "Deal". IT willnot be ratified by all, so part of the EU is going away. It is starting to crumble with the "arrangement" which is not a deal. So the indications that the markets went up because a "deal" has been reached is wrong, and therefore like all the other rumors that were all false concerning "saving the EU" about 29 times to my count, has always ended up "being a crises again".
So the cycles are narrowing quite a bit, and soon nobody is going to believe these EU liars anymore. I don't, and this market is insane and anyone that trades in it deserves to lose all their money.
Right on. The EU was either a lapse in mass intelligence or a conspiracy. When is a German not a German?
When they are a Greek. They, or any other nation in the world, do not have the same environment, society, culture, needs and wants, etc. So who thought you could put these european nations all in the blender, hid the homogenise button and pour out a tasty treat with an infinite shelf life.
Game over.
Happy Friday Robo, Risk Asset Markets most certainly drove higher, however, I believe it had more to do with the 'decisions' presented earlier today by the Drakozel - Excerpt from a referenced Associated Press article earlier today - URL to full article below - Basically the Drakozel is promising no investment risk - Full Backstop (unless you are the average EU citizen taxpayer then you are screwed).
http://hosted2.ap.org/OREUG/86053d8662944f7698388c63189f97c6/Article_2011-12-09-EU-Europe-Financial-Crisis-QandA/id-35950d6582bb4b269d9e6d536cdae3c7
willien1
EXACTLY THE OUTCOME THE BANKS WANTED
and...
England protected "The City"...which is the Bankers Keep
England has gone mid-evil.
Where are you from?Langley?NSA HQ?Quentico?Corporate HQ?What is your computing power?Are you bigger than HAL?
Then what is taking so long? Bring it already!
Closed out my short. I cant play this rumor market anymore.
Ready to move to my land in the american redoubt. This pot smoking agnostic swinger sees more kinship in the tea party than with socialists, I mean Democrats.
In the event of a financial meltdown, are there any countries that stand to improve their rank in the world pecking order?
well, up here in canada, real estate only goes up, and, we've got beavers on our nickels!
Canada has a lot going for it.
In spite of their socialism which has worked better than most.
Of course being a commodity country with a small population hasnt huet right now.
top : soon you'll be joining the socialist train.
Canada's primary benefit is riding the coattails of our defense system without having the corresponding expendetures...
You forgot curling and the fact that folks skate to work in Toronto in the winter, eh. :D
sabra1
real estate only goes up
Yes, and CACA dies not stinky Poo in Canuckia......................
Your turn is coming,you are an INCH away from meltdown.So, get ready if your not.
On this one, Shit Rolls UPHILL also.
I call Montana the poor man's Canada. No Socialism, but WAY too much Jesus! That and... Clean water. Clean air. Hydro. Wind. Solar. Crops. Bakken shale, Coal, etc. -- wish we could secede or become a new Canadian province. Oh that's right. We will be. Just as soon as the Keystone XL gets through Congress and hits Pres Newtie's desk. Who knew energy "progress" would stop with Johnny D? Johnny D, I suppose. "I drink your milkshake!"
WAY too much Jesus!
Like the country song where doods get arrested for having "too much fun"? What do you think is the proper Jesus dose? Or are you simply saying that Christianity is too prevalent in MT for it to become South Saskatchewan?
Just curious what you mean...
Whether overdosing on Jeebus or not, I'm not sure why anyone in Montana would want to become South Taxskatchewan, perhaps the most rabidly statist province in the entire Canadian confederation (aside from Quebec, of course).
Egypt, Libya? They're just starting over, they've already hit the reset buttons over there...
How about a "timeline" on this massive unwind? We see the interventions, bailouts and rumor half-lifes decreasing a lot. Where are we in this continuium? What is the outside year date? Inside year date? Or isit months?
Try decades, the show must go on...
Not likely. To oversimplify, all you need to look at is 3 things over any length of time inclusive of at least the last 10 years:
1) Real Interest Rates
2) Outstanding Debt (Sovereign and Retail)
3) A chart of the multiple of (better yet, the log of) #2 that is held in derivatives
The three-card monte cannot defuse these things from meeting their limits. Look at how much more pronounced and frequent the actions have been in just the past 2-3 years.
It's a fool's game to believe the TPTB cannot string this out...it's a bigger fool's game to think they can indefinitely.
My 2 oz.
Edit: John Williams has held 2014 as the outside date for hyperinflationary depression. I'm not a predictor, but that's as well educated a guess as any.
That's always undefined by doomsayers, or revised when it doesn't happen.
The mistake we doomsayers make is in underestimating the totality of the control of the current situation by TPTB. We doomsayers have consistently underestimated the tenacity of the enemy. That fact bears thinking about, and should prompt us to question any assumptions we've made about the future.
Suppose all of us are dumped into San Franscisco Bay with a mandate to swim to Honolulu. Bettors are wagering on the farthest distance any one can make before meeting his fate. Ten miles? Fifteen miles? Who knows.
Point is the bet is irrelevant because the fate of all is sealed by the conditions.
If you focus on trying to extract value as a function of getting the timing right, you're in the wrong game. Focus on maximizing the return achieved by being well prepared for the end state, and less on making hay on the things in the interim.
You're right except in your analogy everybody dies! It was Keynes that largely founded the church of holy toilet paper that makes the world go round, right? Well, wasn't it he who said: "Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." All I know is HDGE and EUO killing me this week.
The BOE is 400 years old.
HTH.
Or is it different this time?
plus, the inter-bankster-collateral sucks and it's hard to tell how deep the shit is around some "institutions"
Shut up and give me my lollipop already. Pretty please? With sugar on top?
The concentration of wealth is irrelevant to this subject. You can have functional markets no matter what the distribution of wealth is. The leverage alone is the issue.
Adam Smith didn't think so. In fact, his entire theory rests on the premise that markets are made up of a large number of small players, none of whom can significantly affect prices unilaterally.
If we take your argument to its logical conclusion of complete inequality: one person owns everything and everyone else is broke (are we there yet?). It's fairly obvious there cannot be a market in such a case, and it won't be functional. Even the situation we have now has too many large players (GS, JPM, MS etc) that don't just trade in the markets, they make the markets.
All the "big players" piss and drink out of the same bucket.
Soemthing tells me that Merkel's little statement "I've done what I came to do" is pretty much her way of saying "well, we've done all we can, god speed"... Did you see the look on her face in the picture of her being driven away from the summit... She's a broken woman...
...Black Thursday Bitchez...
she knows the bank situation is hopeless....its runaway train.
Excellent post Tyler...
We are very close to that point now, as the expected "grand EU treaty agreement" is duly issued as expected and global markets are holding their breath, hoping that some new intervention will keep the teetering financial system from falling over the edge - CHS
Oh come on Charles! This condition is not an aspect of being close to the edge! Rather it is representative of already enjoying the "rush" on the way down that accompanies every dope fiend as they do their imitation of the Wile E Coyote, waiting to hit, as all those crack rocks "chase" [what matters] him to the bottom.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a9/Gogogo.jpg/250px-Gog...
Wile E. Coyote analigy is good.
Why does he chase a skinny bird? There is no prize if he is caught
He single sources all his contraptions ACME, so there is no free market
When he overshoots the mile high cliff, there is no way back but he stands in mid air for a short time, secretly knowing the rapid acceleration to the bottom.
I think we have started the fall but, like Wile E., spent a few breif seconds suspended in cartoon mid air.
at some point the sugar no longer generates a response.
This phenomenon - well described by this article in my view - is akin to what substance-abuse therapists call "cocaine blues." The markets will be getting 'the shakes' all to soon. Regional, retail bank runs to me is the flare in the night...
Sovereign armageddon, that is a credit bust and world investment breakdown is coming soon. And yes, disorientation, desperation and chaos will follow.
Yet, the Sovereign Lord God, Isaiah 4:9-14, has ordained a resolution of the crisis. A credible sovereign stands in the wings. He and his banking partner will come to rule a united Europe through yet another and even more powerful stability compact than the one signed December 9, 2011; and this superior fiscal compact will be never, ever, be voted on.
At the appointed time, not any human action, but rather, God will open the curtains, and onto the Europe’s stage will step the Europe’s New Charlemagne, Revelation 13:1-4, and his Banking Partner, Revelation 13:10-11. These sovereigns will develop the Eurzone into a type of authoritarian revived Roman Empire. These sovereigns, and their stakehold committee will be Europe’s financial supervisor, and will oversee the seigniorage of diktat. Their word, will and way of will provide a new moneyness, and the people will be amazed and follow after it, placing their confidence and trust in it, giving it their full allegiance, Revelation 13:3-4.
a butterfly flaps its wings
... and Tunga leaves the mostly unscrewed cap to a salt shaker in a downtown resturant. MuHaHaHaHa!
It's been a while now since the top 5% NEEDED the 95%. Seems like now they don't WANT the 95%.
The problem for the 5% is just how to survive getting rid of the 95%. I'm sure the "best" minds are working on it. Fuck all.
If there is a mad rush to the exits won't it be into gold and silver? How do you turn $100 trillion in vanishing financial assets into PMs?