Category Archive: 5.) Charles Hugh Smith
Are the Rise of Social Media and the Decline of Social Mobility Related?
Social media offers hope of achieving higher online social status without having to succeed financially in a winner-take-most economy. I've often addressed the decline of social mobility and the addictive nature of social media, and recently I've entertained the crazy notion that the two dynamics are related. Why Is Social Media So Toxic?
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The Hidden Cost of Losing Local Mom and Pop Businesses
What cannot be replaced by corporate chains is neighborhood character and variety. There is much more to this article than first meets the eye: In a Tokyo neighborhood's last sushi restaurant, a sense of loss "Eiraku is the last surviving sushi bar in this cluttered neighborhood of steep cobblestoned hills and cherry trees unseen on most tourist maps of Tokyo.
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Charles Hugh Smith on the End Game for Monetary and Fiscal Policies
Click here for the full transcript: http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2019/04/01/the-roundtable-insight-charles-hugh-smith-on-the-end-game-for-monetary-and-fiscal-policies/
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The Fed Guarantees No Recession for 10 Years, Permanent Uptrend for Stocks and Housing
A classified Federal Reserve memo sheds new light on the Fed's confidence in its control of the economy and the stock and housing markets. In effect, the Fed is guaranteeing that there will be no recession for another 10 years, and that stocks and housing will remain in a permanent uptrend.
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Apple’s Rotten Core
Entering commoditized, fiercely competitive low-margin services cannot substitute for the high-margin profits that will be lost as global recession and saturation erode iPhone sales. Apple has always been equally an enterprise and a secular religion. The Apple Faithful do not tolerate heretics or critics, and non-believers "just don't get it."
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Is the World Becoming Wealthier or Poorer?
There is nothing intrinsically profitable about either robotics or AI. At the request of colleague/author Douglas Rushkoff (his latest book is Team Human), I'm publishing last week's Musings Report, which was distributed only to subscribers and patrons of the site.) The core assumption of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and other plans to redistribute wealth and income more broadly is that the world is becoming wealthier, and so the pool of income and...
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When Are We Going to Tackle the For-Profit Monopolies Which Censored RussiaGate Skeptics?
We either take down Facebook and Google and turn them into tightly regulated transparent public utilities available to all or they will destroy what little is left of American democracy. The RussiaGate Narrative has been revealed as a Big Con (a.k.a. Nothing-Burger), but what's dangerously real is the censorship that's being carried out by the for-profit monopolies Facebook and Google on behalf of the status quo's Big Con.
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The Media, Mueller, the Big Con and the Democratization of Narrative
Falling for a con is painful. The first reaction is to deny being conned, of course. The second is to blame skeptics for being correct in their skepticism. Here's the fundamental "story" of the Mueller Investigation: elites don't like "the little people" democratizing public narratives.
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Politics Has Failed, Now Central Banks Are Failing
With each passing day, we get closer to the shift in the tide that will sweep away this self-serving delusion of the ruling elites like a crumbling sand castle. Those living in revolutionary times are rarely aware of the tumult ahead: in 1766, a mere decade before the Declaration of Independence, virtually no one was calling for American independence.
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Which Nations Will Crumble and Which Few Will Prosper in the Next 25 Years?
Adaptability and flexibility will be the core survival traits going forward. What will separate the many nations that will crumble in the next 25 years and those few that will survive and even prosper while the status quo dissolves around them? As I explain in my recent book Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic, the factors that will matter are not necessarily cultural or financial; being hard-working and...
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While the Nation Fragments Socially, the Financial Aristocracy Rules Unimpeded
If there is one central irony in American history, it is this: the citizenry that broke free of the chains of British Monarchy, the citizenry that reckoned everyone was equal before the law, the citizenry that vowed never to be ruled by an aristocracy that controlled the government and finance as a means of self-enrichment, is now so distracted by social fragmentation that the citizenry is blind to their servitude to a new and formidably informal...
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The Coming Crisis the Fed Can’t Fix: Credit Exhaustion
Having fixed the liquidity crisis of 2008-09 and kept a perversely unequal "recovery" staggering forward for a decade, central banks now believe there is no crisis they can't defeat: Liquidity crisis? Flood the global financial system with liquidity. Interest rates above zero? Create trillions out of thin air and use the "free money" to buy bonds. Mortgage and housing markets shaky?
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What Sort of “Democracy” Do We Have If Everyone’s Goal Is Maximizing Their Government Swag?
A democratic republic is a government in which power flows from citizens to their elected representatives. The American revolutionaries did not make a big distinction between republic and democracy, for in the context of the late 1700s, the dominant political structure was monarchy, and democracy meant the people have the final say via elections.
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How States/Empires Collapse in Four Easy Steps
There is a grand, majestic tragedy in the inevitable collapse of once-thriving states and empires: it all seemed so permanent at its peak, so godlike in its power, and then slowly but surely, too many grandiose, unrealistic promises were made to too many elites and constituencies, and then as growth decays to stagnation, the only way to maintain the status quo is to appear to meet all the promises by creating money out of thin air, i.e. debauching...
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Charles Hugh Smith The World is Awash in Debt and Can’t Raise Interest Rates & Trump May Not Run
If interest rates rise to normal historical levels then this will collapse the everything bubble. So the central banks will try to lower interest rates into negative territory to try and maintain their ability to maintain debt servicing which are taking more and more of the pie of what’s received in tax revenues. For example …
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Here’s The Problem: The Pie Is Shrinking
Scrape away the churn and distraction and the problem is simple: the pie of prosperity is shrinking, and the "fixes" are failing. The status quo arrangement is based on the endless expansion of "growth" and debt, which is the monetary fuel of more, more, more of everything: money, energy, resources, goods, services, jobs, wealth and income, all of which make up the elixir of prosperity.
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The Source of Killer Inflation: Services
The soaring cost of services is driven by a number of factors. What will the future bring: fire (inflation) or ice (deflation)? The short answer: both, but in very different doses. Goods that are tradeable and exposed to technologically driven commodification will decline in price (deflation) while untradeable services that are difficult to commoditize will increase in price (inflation), generating a self-reinforcing feedback loop of wage-price...
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What If Politics Can’t Fix What’s Broken?
This is the politics of decline and collapse. The unspoken assumption of the modern era is that politics can fix whatever is broken: whatever is broken in society or the economy can be fixed by some political policy or political process-- becoming more inclusionary, seeking non-partisan middle ground, etc.
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CHARLES HUGH SMITH: ELITE DUMBING DOWN MIDDLE-CLASS INTO DUST!
http://www.portfoliowealthglobal.com/Smith MUST-READ FOR INVESTORS: LP(S) – Attack LP(S) – Bear LP(S) – Drama Shelter your Portfolio from the Bonds COLLAPSE: http://www.PortfolioWealthGlobal.com/Bonds Get Immediate Access to our Exclusive Report on the Coming STOCK MARKET CRASH: http://www.portfoliowealthglobal.com/crash/ Download Our Top 5 Cryptocurrencies for 2018 AT: http://www.portfoliowealthglobal.com/top5/ The Gold Bull...
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Charles Hugh Smith On Debt & Demographics Leading To Government Crisis and Financial Repression
Click here for the full transcript: http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2019/03/01/the-roundtable-insight-charles-hugh-smith-on-debt-demographics-leading-to-government-crisis-and-financial-repression/
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