Category Archive: 5.) Charles Hugh Smith

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The Big Reversal: Inflation and Higher Interest Rates Are Coming Our Way

2017-11-07

Bank of Japan Balance Sheet, 1998 - 2016

This interaction will spark a runaway feedback loop that will smack asset valuations back to pre-bubble, pre-pyramid scheme levels. According to the conventional economic forecast, interest rates will stay near-zero essentially forever due to slow growth. And since growth is slow, inflation will also remain neutral.

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What’s Driving Social Discord: Russian Social Media Meddling or Soaring Wealth/Power Inequality?

2017-11-05

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-11-05

The nation's elites are desperate to misdirect us from the financial and power dividethat has enriched and empowered them at the expense of the unprotected many. There are two competing explanatory narratives battling for mind-share in the U.S.: 1. The nation's social discord is the direct result of Russian social media meddling-- what I call the Boris and Natasha Narrative of evil Russian masterminds controlling a vast conspiracy of social media...

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What the Kennedy Assassination Records Reveal: Uncontrollable Incompetence

2017-11-04

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-11-04

One way to interpret the intelligence community's reluctance to let all the Kennedy assassination archives become public is that the archives contain evidence of a "smoking gun": that is, evidence that the intelligence agencies of the United States of America were complicit in the assassination of the President.

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Observations on Wealth-Income Inequality (from Federal Reserve Reports)

2017-11-03

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-11-03

Percent of Families with business equity, 1989 - 2016

There's a profound difference between assets that produce no income and those that produce net income. To those of us nutty enough to pore over dozens of pages of data on wealth and income in the U.S., the Federal Reserve's quarterly Z.1 reports and annual Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) are treasure troves, as are I.R.S. tax and income reports.

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Where To Invest When (Almost) Everything’s in a Bubble

2017-11-02

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-11-02

S&P 500 and US Home Price Index, 1980 - 2017

Many things that are scarce and thus valuable cannot be bought on the global marketplace. Now that almost every asset class is in a bubble, the question of where to invest one's capital has become particularly vexing. The ashes of wealth consumed by the 2008-09 Global Financial Meltdown are still warm, at least to those who never recovered, and so buying assets at nosebleed valuations in the hopes of earning another 5% aren't very compelling to...

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12 08 14 – MACRO ANALYTICS – Oil-Drenched Black Swan w/Charles Hugh Smith

2017-11-02

by Charles Hugh Smith

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What Could Pop The Everything Bubble?

2017-11-01

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-11-01

Selected Consumer Goods and Services Price Changes, 1996 - 2016

As central bank policies are increasingly fingered by the mainstream as the source of soaring wealth-income inequality, policies supporting credit/asset bubbles will either be limited or cut off, and at that point all the credit/asset bubbles will pop.

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Stagnation Nation: Middle Class Wealth Is Locked Up in Housing and Retirement Funds

2017-10-30

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-10-30

The majority of middle class wealth is locked up in unproductive assets or assets that only become available upon retirement or death. One of my points in Why Governments Will Not Ban Bitcoin was to highlight how few families had the financial wherewithal to invest in bitcoin or an alternative hedge such as precious metals.

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CHARLES HUGH SMITH Central Banks will close and Currency will change

2017-10-28

by Charles Hugh Smith

and

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Why Governments Will Not Ban Bitcoin

2017-10-28

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-10-28

Value of Financial Assets for Families with holdings, 1989 - 2016

Those who see governments banning ownership of bitcoin are ignoring the political power and influence of those who are snapping up most of the bitcoin. To really understand an asset, we have to examine not just the asset itself but who owns it, and who can afford to own it. These attributes will illuminate the political and financial power wielded by the owners of the asset class.

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Charles Hugh Smith Will The Private Sector Grow Fast Enough To Meet The Demands Of The Public Sector

2017-10-27

by Charles Hugh Smith

Click here for the full summary: http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2017/10/27/the-roundtable-insight-charles-hugh-smith-on-will-the-private-sector-be-able-to-grow-fast-enough-to-meet-the-demands-of-the-public-sector/

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RMR: Exclusive Interview with Charles Hugh Smith (10/23/2017)

2017-10-23

by Charles Hugh Smith

Charles Hugh Smith – Of Two Minds Blog joins “V” to discuss the move away from central banks utilizing cryptocurrency, how economic gain is realized by only by the top 1% and how blockchain could transform the internet for the good of society. We are political scientists, editorial engineers, and radio show developers drawn together …

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Which Rotten Fruit Falls First?

2017-10-23

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-10-23

I predict the current investigations will widen and take a variety of twists and turns that surprise all those anticipating a tidy, narrowly focused denouement. The theme this week is The Rot Within. To those of us who understand the entire status quo is rotten and corrupt to its core, the confidence of each ideological camp that their side will emerge unscathed by investigation is a source of amusement.

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GDP Is Bogus: Here’s Why

2017-10-22

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-10-22

The rot eating away at our society and economy is typically papered over with bogus statistics that "prove" everything's getting better every day in every way. The prime "proof" of rising prosperity is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which never fails to loft higher, with the rare excepts being Spots of Bother (recessions) that never last more than a quarter or two.

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Fraud, Exploitation and Collusion: America’s Pharmaceutical Industry

2017-10-22

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-10-22

The rot within manifested by the pharmaceutical industry almost defies description.The theme this week is The Rot Within. America's Pharmaceutical industry takes pride of place in this week's theme of The Rot Within, as the industry has raised fraud, exploitation and collusion to systemic perfection. What other industry can routinely kill hundreds of thousands of Americans and suffer no blowback? Only recently has the toll of needless deaths from...

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The Fading Scent of the American Dream

2017-10-18

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-10-18

The theme this week is The Rot Within. It's been 10 years since I devoted a week to the theme of The Rot Within (September 17, 2007). Back in 2007, I listed 16 systemic sources of rot in our society, politics and economy; none have been fixed. Instead, the gaping holes have been filled with Play-Do and hastily painted to create the illusion of shiny solidity.

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About Those “Hedonic Adjustments” to Inflation: Ignoring the Systemic Decline in Quality, Utility, Durability and Service

2017-10-17

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-10-17

The quality, durability, utility and enjoyment-of-use of our products and services has been plummeting for years. One of the more mysterious aspects of the official inflation rate is the hedonic quality adjustments that the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes to the components of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The basic idea is that when innovations improve the utility (and pleasure derived from) a product, the price is adjusted to reflect this...

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Migration of the Tax Donkeys

2017-10-16

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-10-16

Dear local leadership: here's the formula for long-term success. A Great Migration of the Tax Donkeys is underway, still very much under the radar of the mainstream media and conventional economists. If you are confident no such migration of those who pay the bulk of the taxes could ever occur, please consider the long-term ramifications of these two articles.

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Are You Better Off Than You Were 17 Years Ago?

2017-10-15

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-10-15

We tend to measure what's easily measured (and supports the status quo) and ignore what isn't easily measured (and calls the status quo into question). If we use gross domestic product (GDP) as a broad measure of prosperity, we are 160% better off than we were in 1980 and 35% better off than we were in 2000. Other common metrics such as per capita (per person) income and total household wealth reflect similarly hefty gains.

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The Consent of the Conned

2017-10-12

by Charles Hugh Smith

2017-10-12

Every single line item in our entire Bernie Madoff scam of a system is cooked. My theme this week is The Great Unraveling, by which I mean the unraveling of our social-political-economic system of hierarchical, centralized power. Let's start by looking at how the basis of governance has transmogrified from consent of the governed to consent of the conned.

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