Category Archive: 5.) Charles Hugh Smith

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The Coming Revolt of the Middle Class

2021-01-28

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2021-01-28

That's how Neofeudal systems collapse: the tax donkeys and debt-serfs finally rebel and start demanding the $50 trillion river of capital take a new course. The Great American Middle Class has stood meekly by while the New Nobility stripmined $50 trillion from the middle and working classes. As this RAND report documents, $50 trillion has been siphoned from labor and the lower 90% of the workforce to the New Nobility and their technocrat...

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The Dangerously Diminishing Returns on Monetary and Fiscal Stimulus

2021-01-21

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2021-01-21

Allow me to translate the risible claims of Jay Powell and Janet Yellen that their stimulus policies haven't boosted wealth inequality to the moon: "Let them eat cake."

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Is 2021 an Echo of 1641?

2021-01-14

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2021-01-14

If you don't discern any of these dynamics in the present, what are you choosing not to see? The reason why history rhymes is that humanity is still using Wetware 1.0 and so humans respond to scarcity, abundance and conflicts over them in the same manner.

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2021: If It Wasn’t For Bad Luck, We Wouldn’t Have No Luck At All

2021-01-11

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2021-01-11

If we have indeed begun a sustained "reversal of fortune", it might be prudent to consider the possibility we're only in the first inning of a sustained run of back luck.

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The Tyranny Nobody Talks About

2021-01-08

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2021-01-08

All the tricks to hide our unaffordable cost structure have reached marginal returns. Reality is about to intrude. There is much talk of tyranny in the political realm, but little is said about the tyrannies in the economic realm, a primary one being the tyranny of high costs: high costs crush the economy from within and enslave those attempting to start enterprises or keep their businesses afloat. Traditionally, costs are broken down into...

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The Coming War on Wealth and the Wealthy

2021-01-06

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2021-01-06

The Fruit of Financialization
Here's looking at you, Federal Reserve--thanks for perfecting 'legalized looting' and neofeudalism in America.

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2020 Was a Snack, 2021 Is the Main Course

2021-01-04

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2021-01-04

One of the dishes at the banquet of consequences that will surprise a great many revelers is the systemic failure of the Federal Reserve's one-size-fits-all "solution" to every spot of bother: print another trillion dollars and give it to rapacious financiers and corporations.

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2020 the “Worst Year Ever”–You’re Joking, Right?

2020-12-29

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2020-12-29

So party on, because "the worst year ever" is ending and the rebound of financial markets, already the greatest in recorded history, will only become more fabulous.

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Big Media: Selling the Narrative and Crushing Dissent for Fun and Profit

2020-12-22

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2020-12-22

The profit-maximizing Big Tech / Big Media Totalitarian regime hasn't just strangled free speech and civil liberties; it's also strangled democracy.

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When Social Capital Becomes More Valuable Than Financial Capital

2020-12-20

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2020-12-20

This devaluation of financial wealth--and its transformation to a dangerous liability-- will reach extremes equal to the current extremes of wealth-income inequality.

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Can 20 Years of Deflation Be Compressed into Two Years? We’re About to Find Out

2020-12-17

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2020-12-17

Extremes become more extreme right up until they reverse, a reversal no one believes possible here in the waning days of 2020.

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One Little Problem with the “All-Electric” Auto Fleet: What Do We Do with all the “Waste” Gasoline?

2020-12-15

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2020-12-15

Primary energy consumption by source, 1965-2018
Regardless of what happens with vaccines and Covid-19, debt and energy--inextricably bound as debt funds consumption-- will destabilize the global economy in a self-reinforcing feedback.

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2021 is Already Optimized for Failure

2020-12-01

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2020-12-01

One sure way to identify a system "optimized for failure" is if all the insiders are absolutely confident the system is "optimized for my success". I often discuss optimization here because it offers an insightful window into how systems become fragile and break down.

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A Dimly Lit Thanksgiving

2020-11-27

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2020-11-27

Our overweening faith and confidence in our wealth and power make this a dimly lit Thanksgiving. A public expression of gratitude by victorious sports stars, lottery winners, etc. is now the convention in America: coaches, teammates, family and mentors (or agents) are recognized as an expression of the winners' humility and gratitude for everyone that contributed to the success.

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Our Frustrations Run Far Deeper Than Covid Lockdowns

2020-11-25

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2020-11-25

The reality is the roulette wheel is rigged and only chumps believe it's a fair game. It's easy to lay America's visible frustrations at the feet of Covid lockdowns or political polarization, but this conveniently ignores the real driver: systemic unfairness.

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Why I’m Hopeful About 2021

2020-11-24

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2020-11-24

What we need is not a return to the corrupt, tottering kleptocracy of 2019, but a re-democratization of capital, agency and money. I'm hopeful about 2021, and no, it's not because of the vaccines or the end of lockdowns or anything related to Covid. The status quo is cheering the fantasy that we'll soon return to the debt-soaked glory days of 2019 when everything was peachy.

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Vaccines–Too Little, Too Late?

2020-11-22

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2020-11-22

Covid hospitalized
Trust in institutions, authorities and Big Pharma is scraping the bottom of the barrel, and rushing these vaccines into mass use with extremely high expectations of efficacy is setting up the potential for a devastating loss of trust in the vaccines should they fail to live up to the claims of 100% safety and 95% effectiveness.

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U.S. Healthcare Is Unraveling

2020-11-19

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2020-11-19

Covid hospitalized
The confidence that there will always be facilities and professionals to care for us is no longer realistic. I've covered the systemic problems of U.S. healthcare for over a decade, and as a result I've attracted numerous healthcare professionals as correspondents.

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Don’t Blame Covid: The Economy is Imploding from Over-Capacity and Corrupt Cartels

2020-11-17

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2020-11-17

Now that the bubble has burst, the hope is that removing the pin will magically restore the burst bubble. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Here's the fantasy: if we stop the shutdowns, the economy will naturally bounce back to its oh-so wunnerful perfection of Q3 2019. This is a double-dose of magical thinking and denial.

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Prepare for Winter

2020-11-16

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2020-11-16

Realism must precede optimism or the optimism will collapse as the tsunami of reality comes ashore. It's time to prepare materially and psychologically for a winter unlike any other in our lifetimes.

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