Category Archive: 5.) Charles Hugh Smith

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Expropriation and Impoverishment: “Capitalist” Greece and “Socialist” Venezuela

2017-02-07

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2017-02-07

Greek Debt
Yesterday I noted that not all assets will make it through the inevitable financial re-set. ( Which Assets Are Most Likely to Survive the Inevitable "System Re-Set"?) Those that are easy to expropriate will be expropriated, and those assets vulnerable to soaring taxes, inflation and currency devaluation will also be hollowed out.

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Which Assets Are Most Likely to Survive the Inevitable “System Re-Set”?

2017-02-06

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2017-02-06

Share of Gross Domestic Income: Compensation of employees,
Your skills, knowledge and and social capital will emerge unscathed on the other side of the re-set wormhole. Your financial assets held in centrally controlled institutions will not. Longtime correspondent C.A. recently asked a question every American household should be asking: which assets are most likely to survive the "system re-set" that is now inevitable?

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The Central Banks Face Unwelcome Realities: Their Policies Boosted Wealth Inequality, Failed to Generate “Growth”

2017-02-05

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2017-02-05

U.S. Fed Summary
Rather than be seen to be further enriching the rich, I think central banks will start closing the "free money for financiers" spigots. Take a quick glance at these charts of the Federal Reserve balance sheet and bank credit in the U.S.

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GoldSeek Radio – Feb 3, 2017 [CHARLES HUGH SMITH & JIM ROGERS] weekly

2017-02-04

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GoldSeek Radio’s Chris Waltzek talks to Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html and to Famed investor Jim Rogers http://www.jimrogers.com/ http://www.goldseek.com/ http://radio.goldseek.com/

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What Would a Labor-Centered Economy Look Like?

2017-02-04

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2017-02-04

Wealth Pyramid 2015
How about moving the power to create money from the apex of the pyramid down to its lowest level? Let's spend a moment deconstructing the word "capitalism." Note it contains the word Capital. So far so good. Obviously the key concept here is capital. So what is "capital"? It turns out there are multiple kinds of capital. The most familiar kinds are tangible: cash, orchards, factories, water rights, tools, and so on.

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GSR interviews CHARLES HUGH SMITH – Feb 2, 2017 Nugget

2017-02-03

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GoldSeek Radio’s Chris Waltzek talks to Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html http://www.goldseek.com/ http://radio.goldseek.com/

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Why Our System Is Broken: Cheap Credit Is King

2017-02-02

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2017-02-02

Global Bond Market
You want to fix the economic system, reduce political bribery and reduce rising income inequality? Shut off the cheap unlimited credit spigot to banks, financiers and corporations. Cheap credit--newly issued money that can be borrowed at low rates of interest--is presented as the savior of our economic system, but in reality, it's why our system is broken.

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The Collapse of the Left

2017-01-23

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2017-01-23

Shares of Gross Domestic Income
The Left is not just in disarray--it is in complete collapse because the working class has awakened to the Left's betrayal and abandonment of the working class in favor of building personal wealth and power. The source of the angry angst rippling through the Democratic Party's progressive camp is not President Trump--it's the complete collapse of the Left globally. To understand this collapse, we turn (once again) to Marx's profound understanding...

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25 Years of Neocon-Neoliberalism: Great for the Top 5 percent, A Disaster for Everyone Else

2017-01-22

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2017-01-22

The global wealth pyramid
It cannot be merely coincidental that the incomes and wealth of the top 5% have pulled away from the stagnating 95% in the 25 years dominated by neocon-neoliberalism. One unexamined narrative I keep hearing is: "OK, so neocon-neoliberalism was less than ideal, but Trump could be much worse." Let's start by asking: would Syrian civilians agree with this assessment?

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The Central Bankers Are Going To Shutoff The Spigot And The Economy Will Rollover:Charles Hugh

2017-01-21

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Today’s Guest: Charles Hugh Smith Websites: Of Two Minds http://www.oftwominds.com http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/ Books: All of his books can be found on his website. Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform Get a Job, Build a Real Career… Why Things Are Falling Apart and What We Can Do About It A Radically Beneficial World Most …

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Will Our Grandchildren Wonder Why We Didn’t Build a Renewable Power Grid When It Was Still Affordable?

2017-01-16

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2017-01-16

Total Primary Energy Consumption
Anyone seeking clarity on the energy picture a decade or two out is to be forgiven for finding a thoroughly confusing divide. On the one hand, we have reassuring projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) that assume current production of fossil fuels will remain steady for decades to come.

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Dear Self-Proclaimed “Progressives”: as Apologists for the Neocon-Neoliberal Empire, You Are as Evil as the Empire You’ve Enabled

2017-01-15

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2017-01-15

Federal Government Support
Dear Self-Proclaimed "Progressive": I love you, man, but it has become necessary to intervene in your self-destruction. Your ideological blinders and apologies for the Establishment's Neocon-Neoliberal Empire are not just destroying your credibility, they're destroying the nation and everywhere the Empire intervenes.

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What’s Truly Progressive?

2017-01-14

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2017-01-14

The New Normal
What's progressive? Pushing power, agency, skills, capital and solutions down to the individual, household, community, enterprise, town and city levels and focusing on doing more with much less.

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The Eight Forces That Are Pressuring Profits

2017-01-13

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2017-01-13

Spending by the top 5% pulls away from the 95%
If there is any economic assumption that goes unquestioned, it's the notion that profits will remain robust for the foreseeable future. This assumption ignores the tidal forces that are now flowing against profits. Any discussion of corporate profits must start by noting the astonishing rise in U.S. corporate profits since the heyday of the late 1990s dot-com boom. From $800 billion to $2.4 trillion in a few years is not just extraordinary--it's...

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Why Don’t the U.S. Dollar and Bitcoin Drop to Their Tangible Value, i.e. Zero?

2017-01-09

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2017-01-09

Bitcoin January 2016 - January 2017
I have covered the many reasons why the U.S. dollar (USD) has strengthened in dozens of posts over the past 5 years, (Could the U.S. Dollar Rise 50%?, January 12, 2011), and I described the positive dynamics of bitcoin last summer in An Everyman's Guide to Understanding Cryptocurrencies (June 13, 2016), back when bitcoin was under $600.

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Why Profits Are Faltering

2017-01-08

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2017-01-08

National Income: Corporate Profits
Profits are faltering for structural reasons that are not easily resolved. The bedrock assumption of the Bull market is that corporate profits will keep rising indefinitely. Hiccups are allowed, but current stock market valuations are implicitly based on profits expanding.

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We Can Only Afford One, So Choose Wisely: Social Security/Medicare, Cartel Cronyism or Inflation (a.k.a. Central Banking)

2017-01-07

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2017-01-07

U.S. Healthcare System, Health Expenditure, Life Expenctancy
Here's the problem with central banks seeking higher inflation: costs go up but wages don't. It's easy to quantify the annual cost of Social Security/Medicare, and not so easy to calculate the cost of Cartel Cronyism and Central Bank-created inflation.Cartel cronyism is a hidden tax on the entire economy, as is Central Bank-created inflation.

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Prosperity = Abundant Work + Low Cost of Living

2017-01-06

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2017-01-06

Net Annual Change in the Number of Firms
If we seek a coherent context for the new year, we would do well to start with the foundations of widespread prosperity. While the economy is a vast, complex machine, the sources of widespread prosperity are not that complicated: abundant work and a low cost of living.

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Fragmentation and the De-Optimization of Centralization

2017-01-05

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2017-01-05

US Healthcare System
Many observers decry the loss of national coherence and purpose, and the increasing fragmentation of the populace into "tribes" with their own loyalties, value systems and priorities. These observers look back on the national unity of World War II as the ideal social standard: everyone pitching in, with shared purpose and sacrifice. (Never mind the war killed tens of millions of people, including over 400,000 Americans.)

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Why I’m Hopeful

2017-01-02

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2017-01-02

santa2010
Readers often ask me to post something hopeful, and I understand why: doom-and-gloom gets tiresome. Human beings need hope just as they need oxygen, and the destruction of the Status Quo via over-reach and internal contradictions doesn't leave much to be happy about.

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