Category Archive: 5.) Charles Hugh Smith

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The Pandemic Gives Us Permission To Get What We Always Wanted

2020-05-24

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2020-05-24

Dear Corporate America: maybe you remember the old Johnny Paycheck tune? Let me refresh your memory: take this job and shove it. Put yourself in the shoes of a single parent waiting tables in a working-class cafe with lousy tips, a worker stuck with high rent and a soul-deadening commute--one of the tens of millions of America's working poor who have seen their wages stagnate and their income becoming increasingly precarious / uncertain while the...

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Consumer Spending Will Not Rebound–Here’s Why

2020-05-20

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2020-05-20

Share of total US income, 1980-2015
Any economy that concentrates its wealth and income in the top tier is a fragile economy. There are two structural reasons why consumer spending will not rebound, no matter how open the economy may be. Virtually everyone who glances at headlines knows the global economy is lurching into either a deep recession or a full-blown depression, depending on the definitions one is using. Everyone also knows the stock market has roared back as if nothing...

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The Collapse of Main Street and Local Tax Revenues Cannot Be Reversed

2020-05-16

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2020-05-16

The core problem is the U.S. economy has been fully financialized, and so costs are unaffordable. To understand the long-term consequences of the pandemic on Main Street and local tax revenues, we need to consider first and second order effects. The immediate consequences of lockdowns and changes in consumer behavior are first-order effects: closures of Main Street, job losses, massive Federal Reserve bailouts of the top 0.1%, loan programs for...

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The Way of the Tao Is Reversal

2020-05-12

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2020-05-12

As Jackson Browne put it: Don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet. We can summarize all that will unfold in the next few years in one line: The way of the Tao is reversal. This is the opening line of Chapter 40 of Lao Tzu's 5,000-character commentary on the Tao, The Tao Te Ching. There are many translations of this slim volume, and for a variety of reasons I favor the 1975 translation by my old professor at the University of...

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Surviving 2020 #3: Plans A, B and C

2020-05-10

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2020-05-10

Readers ask for specific recommendations for successfully navigating the post-credit/speculative-bubble era and I try to do so while explaining the impossibility of the task. As the bogus prosperity economy built on exponential growth of debt implodes, we all seek ways to protect ourselves, our families and our worldly assets. 

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Where the Rubber Meets the Road

2020-05-07

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2020-05-07

Longtime correspondent Paul B. suggested I re-publish three essays that have renewed relevance. This is the second essay, from July 2008. Thank you, Paul, for the suggestion. I received this timely inquiry from astute reader Paul B.: I'm interested in # 1, while you seem to take into account 300 million people in your writings--would you comment on rubber-meets-the-road impacts and proactive actions we can take to help shield ourselves (and our...

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Wrenching And Immediate Jobs Problem, Just As Consumer Prices Must Rise

2020-05-06

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Charles Hugh Smith joins us to discuss the economic reality on Main Street, totally disconnected from Wall Street. From the abrupt loss of jobs, to a consumer that’s nowhere to be found and inflation ready to run rampant, here’s robust discussion about these unprecedented, dark times… Some of the questions that developed during today’s discussion: …

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The Art of Survival, Taoism and the Warring States

2020-05-06

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2020-05-06

Longtime correspondent Paul B. suggested I re-publish three essays that have renewed relevance. This is the first essay, from June 2008. Thank you, Paul, for the suggestion. I'm not trying to be difficult, but I can't help cutting against the grain on topics like surviving the coming bad times when my experience runs counter to the standard received wisdom.

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MACRO ANALYTICS – 04-30-20 – MAIN STREET Shock!

2020-05-04

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Why Assets Will Crash

2020-05-04

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2020-05-04

US Population
This is how it happens that boats that were once worth tens of thousands of dollars are set adrift by owners who can no longer afford to pay slip fees. The increasing concentration of the ownership of wealth/assets in the top 10% has an under-appreciated consequence: when only the top 10% can afford to buy assets, that unleashes an almost karmic payback for the narrowing of ownership, a.k.a. soaring wealth and income inequality: assets crash.

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Charles Hugh Smith on how COVID 19 will affect Jobs and the Economy

2020-05-01

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http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2020/05/01/the-roundtable-insight-charles-hugh-smith-on-how-covid-19-will-affect-jobs-and-the-economy/

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With Superfluous Demand in Free-Fall, What’s the Upside of Re-Opening a Small Business?

2020-04-29

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2020-04-29

Since superfluous demand was the core driver of most consumer spending, and that demand is in free-fall, what's the upside of re-opening? The mainstream view assumes everyone will be gripped by an absolutely rabid desire to return to their pre-pandemic frenzy of borrowing and spending and consuming, the more the better. 

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The Crash Has Only Just Begun

2020-04-28

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2020-04-28

Everything, including a rational, connected-to-reality, effective financial system, is on back-order and unlikely to ship any time soon. While the stock market euphorically front-runs the Fed and a V-shaped recovery, the reality is the crash has only just begun.

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AxisOfEasy Salon #1: Hypernormalisation, Legitimacy and Simulacrum

2020-04-24

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The first episode in the AxisOfEasy Salon and Interviews series with the AoE Contributors: Charles Hugh Smith, Jesse Hirsh and Mark E. Jeftovic.

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AxisOfEasy Salon #1: Hypernormalisation, Legitimacy and Simulacrum

2020-04-24

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The first episode in the AxisOfEasy Salon and Interviews series with the AoE Contributors: Charles Hugh Smith, Jesse Hirsh and Mark E. Jeftovic.

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Overcapacity / Oversupply Everywhere: Massive Deflation Ahead

2020-04-19

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2020-04-19

Light Crude Oil, 2018-2020
The price of a great many assets will crash, out of proportion to the decline in demand. Oil is the poster child of the forces driving massive deflation: overcapacity / oversupply and a collapse in demand. Overcapacity / oversupply and a collapse in demand are not limited to the crude oil market; rather, they are the dominant realities in the global economy.

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Pandemic and Growth

2020-04-18

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2020-04-18

There is no way authorities can limit the coronavirus and restore global growth and debt expansion to December 2019 levels. Authorities around the world are between a rock and a hard place: they need policies that both limit the spread of the coronavirus and allow their economies to "open for business." The two demands are inherently incompatible, and so neither one can be fulfilled.

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There’s No Going Back, We Can Only Go Forward

2020-04-14

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2020-04-14

US financial assets now 5.6 times GDP
What I see is a global collapse of intangible capital that is invisible to most people. It's only natural that the conventional expectation is a return to the pre-pandemic world is just a matter of time. Whether it's three months or six months or 18 months, "the good old days" will return just as if we turned back the clock.

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Buy The Tumor, Sell the News

2020-04-13

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2020-04-13

Apple Monthly, 2005-2021
The fictitious valuation of the stock market will eventually re-connect with reality in a violent decline. No, buy the tumor, sell the news (tm) is not a typo: the stock market is a lethal tumor in our economy and society. 

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The World Has Changed More Than We Know

2020-04-11

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2020-04-11

Put another way: eras end. While the mainstream media understandably focuses on the here and now of the pandemic, some commentators are looking at the long-term consequences. Here is a small sampling: While each of these essays offers a different perspective, let's focus on the last two: Ugo Bardi's essay on Hyperspecialization and the technological responses described in the MIT Technology Review essay.

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