Category Archive: 5.) Charles Hugh Smith

Are Older Workers Propping Up the U.S. Economy?

Are 55 and older workers propping up the U.S. economy? The data is rather persuasive that the answer is yes.The chart of U.S. employment ages 25 to 54 years of age and 55 and older reveals a startling change.There are now 20 million more 55+ employed than there were in 2000, an equivalent of the entire workforce of Spain.

Read More »

Can We "Export Inflation?" Yes We Can, Yes We Are

A strong currency exports inflation to those nations which do not issue the currency. Though it's difficult to be confident of anything in the current flux, I am pretty confident of three things: 1) price is set on the margins 2) currencies are the foundation of every economy 3) the financial forecasts issued to calm the public do not reflect operative geopolitical goals.

Read More »

How Much of "Inflation" Is the Price Being Jacked Up Under the Excuse of "Inflation"?

The problem for global corporations feasting on "Inflation" profiteering is that the vast majority of consumers can't afford another lavish vacation, overpriced vehicle or specious subscription.

Read More »

When You Can’t Go On by Charles Hugh Smith, Chapter by Chapter

Hear it Here - adbl.co/3OFQ1MB When I burned out, what I wanted but could not find was a practical guide by someone who had experienced burnout themselves. None of the material I found spoke to what I was experiencing or to my sense that our economy is now optimized to burn people out. I decided to write the guide I wanted but could not find. This is my experience of burnout, reckoning and renewal. This book is my account of what helped me....

Read More »

The Roundtable Insight – Charles Hugh Smith on the USD, Emerging Markets and Investment Implications

Http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2022/07/28/the-roundtable-insight-charles-hugh-smith-on-the-usd-emerging-markets-and-the-investment-implications/ Support us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/roundtableinsight

Read More »

What Can The Beatles Teach Us about Management?

Own your work. Don't give it away or let others profit at your expense. Leverage it when opportunities arise. What can The Beatles teach us about management?Young readers may wonder why The Beatles still matter 52 years after the band broke up. It's a fair question.

Read More »

When You Can’t Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal By: Charles Hugh Smith

Hear it Here - adbl.co/3OFQ1MB When I burned out, what I wanted but could not find was a practical guide by someone who had experienced burnout themselves. None of the material I found spoke to what I was experiencing or to my sense that our economy is now optimized to burn people out. I decided to write the guide I wanted but could not find. This is my experience of burnout, reckoning and renewal. This book is my account of what helped me. The...

Read More »

There Won’t Be Any Winners Because The Status Quo Is Corrupt Everywhere

Systemic corruption on this vast scale optimizes failure and collapse. Debating which nations will "win" as the global economy unravels is a popular but pointless parlor game.Since the status quo in every nation is deeply, profoundly, systemically corrupt, there won't be any "winners," there will only be losers.

Read More »

What’s Truly Important? The Global Revaluation Is Accelerating

How much gold will you trade for a few eggs? It depends on how hungry you are. Two ideas will help us understand the rest of this tumultuous decade: core-periphery and the revaluation of what's truly important: systemic adaptability, transparency, accountability, risk, capital and resources.

Read More »

Why the Labor Shortage Isn’t Going Away

It's getting hard to fill toxic low-pay jobs, and that's not going to change. The nature of work and the labor market are changing in ways few discern or perhaps are willing to discern because these changes are disrupting the exploitive system they want to remain unchanged. But refusing to discern change doesn't stop change.

Read More »

The Real Policy Error Is Expanding Debt and Calling It "Growth"

Waste is not growth, and neither are the unlimited expansion of debt and speculative bubbles. The financial punditry is whipping itself into a frenzy about a Federal Reserve "policy error," which is code for "if the music finally stops, we're doomed!"

Read More »

The Only Real Solution Is Default

The destruction of 'phantom wealth' via default has always been the only way to clear the financial system of unpayable debt burdens and extremes of rentier / wealth dominance. The notion that the world could always borrow more money as long as interest rates were near-zero was never sustainable.

Read More »

US Dollar Strength: “Unintended Consequences” Or “The Empire Strikes Back”?

How unintended can these consequences be? My guess: not very. A great many people got the U.S. dollar trade wrong. The conventional view held that "printing money", i.e. expanding the supply of money, would automatically devalue the currency. It isn't quite so simple, it seems.

Read More »

Calm Before the Tempest?

Is it beyond conception that the core actually strengthens for a length of time before the unraveling reaches it?Let's start by stipulating the obvious: no one knows the future, and most of the guesses--oops, I mean forecasts--will be wrong. Arguing about the forecasts now won't make any difference as to which ones are correct and which ones are wrong.

Read More »

Why Nations Fail

The irony is that the suppression of dissent is the suppression of competing ideas that generate systemic stability via rapid adaptation. Nations that appear stable may fail once they're under pressure.

Read More »

You Know What Would Be Really Irritating? A Crazy Rally to New Highs

It would be very irritating to have a rally suck in all the bears salivating for a crash from a bear-market rally peak and then decimate the shorts with a rally that soars rather than collapses to new lows. As a contrarian, I'm always squinting at the consensus and wondering if it is really that easy to be right.

Read More »

The One Solution to All Our Problems

Pick one, America: national security of the essential material foundation of everything, the industrial base, or "global markets," maximizing greed / corporate profits.Sorry about the clickbait title.

Read More »

The Most Valuable Form of Money Nobody’s Seen–Yet

What is "money"? "Money" is a claim on the essentials of life. Ration cards are claims on essentials.Many people expect "money" will soon be tied to commodities. Agreed. It's called a ration cardthat grants the holder the right to buy a specific quantity of essential goods at a specified price.

Read More »

Why the Housing Bubble Bust Is Baked In

Putting this all together, it's clear that the source of the current housing bubble is the explosion of financial speculation fueled by central bank policies. Those benefiting from speculative bubbles have powerful incentives to deny the bubble can bust.

Read More »

The Age of Discord

It's very difficult to find common ground that supports cooperation in the disintegrative stage of scarcities, rising prices, catastrophically centralized power and social discord. Today's topic echoes Peter Turchin's 2016 book, Ages of Discord, which I have often referenced in blog posts.

Read More »