Category Archive: 5.) Charles Hugh Smith

“Fake News”, Censorship, Darwin and Democracy

Perhaps we can start by separating "news" from "analysis" from "commentary." "News" is "he said this, she did that, this happened." Analysis tries to make sense of trends that are apparent in the news longer-term--for example, why did Trump win? Is the economy actually healthy or not? "Commentary" is opinion that establishes a point of view and defends it while attacking other POVs.

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From Captive Audience to Open Democracy: Why the Mainstream Media Is Freaking Out

In its panicky rush to demonize the independent media via baseless accusations of "fake news," the mainstream press has sunk to spewing "fake news" of its own. Here's The Washington Post's criminally false "fake news" article in case you missed it: Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say.

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A Disintegrative Winter: The Debt and Anti-Status Quo Super-Cycle Has Turned

With this list of manifestations in hand, we can practically write the headlines for 2017-2025 in advance. How would you describe the social mood of the nation and world? Would anti-Establishment, anti-status quo, and anti-globalization be a good start? How about choking on fast-rising debt? Would stagnant growth, stagnant wages be a fair description? Or how about rising wealth/income inequality? Wouldn't rising disunity and political polarization...

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Charles Hugh Smith a Russian Propaganda Site?

We highly appreciate the site of Charles Hugh Smith because it integrates good economic graph with critical political comments. A couple of days ago, it appeared on a list of "Russian Propaganda Sites" that got cited by mainstream media.

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Populism in America: “Follow the Money”

If you want to understand today's populism, don't look to the mainstream media's comically buffoonish propaganda blaming the Russians: look at the four issues listed below. One of the most disturbing failures of the mainstream media in this election cycle was its complete lack of historical context for Trump's brand of populism.If you consumed the mainstream media's coverage of the campaign and election, you noted their obsession with speech acts...

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Our “Gaslight” Economy

If you don't like what these charts are saying, please notify The Washington Post to add the St. Louis Federal Reserve to its list of Russian propaganda sites. Yesterday I described our gaslight financial system. Today we'll look at our gaslight economy. Correspondent Jason H. alerted me to the work of author Thomas Sheridan ( Puzzling People: The Labyrinth of the Psychopath), who claims to have coined the term gaslighting.

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Beyond Income Inequality

Judging by the mainstream media, the most pressing problems facing capitalism are 1) income inequality, the basis of Thomas Piketty’s bestseller Capital in the Twenty First Century, and 2) the failure of laissez-faire markets to regulate their excesses, a common critique encapsulated by Paul Craig Roberts’ recent book and 2) the failure of laissez-faire markets to regulate their excesses, a common critique encapsulated by Paul Craig Roberts’ recent...

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Six Narratives on the Ascendancy of Trump

A remarkably diverse array of "explanations" of Donald Trump's presidential election victory have been aired, representing both the conventional political spectrum and well beyond.

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Why Is the US Dollar Rising?

Note the apparent breakout above 100 and the constructive similarities to the 2014 breakout that was followed by a 20% increase in the purchasing power of the USD relative to other currencies.

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The New Nobility Uses Political Correctness to Fragment the Precariats

Combine identity politics with political correctness, and the New Nobility/Oligarchy can laugh their way to the bank while their pawn-serfs fight over how many politically correct angels can dance on the head of a pin.

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How Do We Create Value When Knowledge Is Almost Free?

Credentials are increasingly in over-supply; problem-solving skills are scarce. How do we create value in an economy that is increasingly dependent on knowledge? The answer is complicated by the reality that knowledge is increasingly digital and "unownable" and therefore almost free. Financialization as a substitute for creating value has run its course.

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Healthcare: Inflation Hidden in Plain Sight

Charles Hugh Smith shows how health care costs are exploding in the United States and how this will lead sooner or later to inflation.

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Why Reshore Manufacturing? It’s the Only Way to Avoid Defective Pirated Parts

If you want to lose your brand, your pricing power and your customers, by all means, rely on a global supply chain filled with defective parts that cannot possibly be detected. Reshoring the entire supply chain so it can be trusted is the low-cost solution once you add up the total lifecycle costs of a hopelessly counterfeit global supply chain.

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The Age of Disintegration: Political Disunity and Elites At War

Historian Michael Grant identified profound political disunity in the ruling elite as a key cause of the dissolution of the Roman Empire. Grant described this dynamic in his excellent account The Fall of the Roman Empire. The chapter titles of the book illuminate the complex causes of profound political disunity in the ruling elite: The Gulfs Between the Classes: a.k.a. soaring income/wealth inequality: check.

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The Great Con: Political Correctness Has Marginalized the Working Class

So when the protected class of well-paid institutional "progressives" speak darkly of "reversing 40 years of social progress," what they're really saying is we're terrified that the bottom 95% might be waking up to our Great Con of identity politics and political correctness. To understand the Great Con of political correctness, we must first grasp the decline of the working class (self-described as "the middle class"), i.e. those who must sell...

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Rising Immigration but no Jobs

The list of pundits jostling for air time to add their two cents to discussions of hot-button issues such as immigration is endless. The airwaves and social media are overflowing with people wanting to comment on hot-button social issues, but when it comes to the the one truly critical dynamic that will shape the future--everyone's strangely silent.

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The Source of Trump’s Success: The Bigger and Bigger Wage Gap

There are many sources of rage: injustice, the destruction of truth, powerlessness. But if we had to identify the one key source of non-elite rage that cuts across all age, ethnicity, gender and regional boundaries, it is this: The Ruling Elite is protected from the destructive consequences of its predatory dominance.

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Seven Suggestions for President-Elect Trump

Make sure your administration is as diverse as America. No single act will give your enemies more ammo than populating your cabinet and administration with the Usual Suspects: Caucasian elites from Ivy League universities. These privileged "experts" have bankrupted the nation financially, morally and spiritually while enriching themselves and their privileged cronies.

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Who Lost: A Biased Media, Pundits, Pollsters, Political Parties, Warmongers, the Corporatocracy, Pay-to-Play Grifters, Neoliberals

Let's start with the Corporatocracy, which expected to once again wield unlimited influence by funding political campaigns with millions of dollars in contributions and speaking fees. A biased mainstream media. My mom-in-law was watching CBS all night, so that's what we watched. All the pundits/anchors spoke in the hushed tones of a funeral.

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Hillary Is The Perfection of a Corrupt System

Exposing the Clintons' perfection of a corrupt political system won't change the conditions and incentives that created the Clintons' harvester of corruption. Let's set aside Hillary Clinton as an individual and consider her as the perfection of a corrupt political system. As I noted yesterday, Politics As Usual Is Dead, and Hillary Clinton is the ultimate product of the political system that is disintegrating before our eyes.

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