Category Archive: 5.) Charles Hugh Smith

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USA 2017-2020: An Ungovernable Nation?

2016-10-10

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2016-10-10

The U.S. needs to overthrow a corrupt, self-serving elite. Regardless of who wins the presidency, a much larger question looms: will the U.S. be ungovernable 2017-2020? There are multiple sources of the question.

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Charles Hugh Smith 2016 The Entire Economic System Is One Big Illusion

2016-10-08

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Today’s Guest: Charles Hugh Smith Website: Of Two Minds Books: Why Our Status Quo Failed And Is Beyond Reform . Charles Hugh Smith 2016 The Entire Economic System Is One Big Illusion. Today’s Guest: Charles Hugh Smith Website: Of Two Minds Books: Why Our Status Quo Failed And Is Beyond Reform . Charles Hugh Smith …

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It’s Time We Crush the Putrid Roach Motels of Philanthro-Crony-Capitalism, Starting with the Clinton Foundation

2016-10-05

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2016-10-05

Granted, the fantasy of philanthrocapitalism is appealing: take a bunch of fabulously successful entrepreneurial billionaires, grant their foundations tax-free status, and then unleash them on the world as philanthropists who will solve problems by applying the incentives of capitalism.

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Is The US Dollar Set To Soar?

2016-10-03

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2016-10-03

Hating the U.S. dollar offers the same rewards as hating a dominant sports team: it feels righteous to root for the underdogs, but it's generally unwise to let that enthusiasm become the basis of one's bets. Personally, I favor the emergence of non-state reserve currencies, for example, blockchain crypto-currencies or precious-metal-backed private currencies--currencies which can't be devalued by self-serving central banks or the private elites...

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Fun with Fake Statistics: The 5 percent “Increase” in Median Household Income Is Pure Illusion

2016-10-03

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2016-10-03

Supporters of the status quo nearly wet their pants with joy when the Census Bureau reported that real (adjusted for inflation) median household income rose 5.2% between 2014 and 2015. Too bad it was completely bogus: the supposed increase in everyone's income is pure statistical trickery.

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You Want to Fix the Economy? Then First Fix Healthcare

2016-09-29

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2016-09-29

Business Sector: Real Compensation Per Hour, Average Hourly Earnings of Production and Nonsupercisory Employees
We don't just deserve an affordable, sustainable healthcare system--we're doomed to bankruptcy without one. What is blindingly obvious to employers but apparently invisible to the average zero-business-experience mainstream pundit is this: if you want to fix the economy, you must first fix healthcare.

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Are The ‘Invisible Americans’ the Key Players in This Election?

2016-09-28

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2016-09-28

For the bottom 90% of American households, the "prosperity" of the "recovery" since 2009 is a bright shining lie. The phrase is from a history of the Vietnam War, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. Just as the Vietnam War was built on lies, propaganda, PR and rigged statistics(the infamous body counts--civilians killed as "collateral damage" counted as "enemy combatants"), so too is the "recovery" nothing but a pathetic...

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Trump, Trade and Taxes

2016-09-27

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2016-09-27

Donald Trump has made trade agreements a central issue in this presidential election, declaring trade treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as unfair and subject to cancellation or renegotiation. Setting aside the issue of whether presidents can cancel trade treaties via executive orders, let's look at the underlying issue: the erosion of manufacturing and entry-level job opportunities that lead to middle-class security...

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Why the Deep State Is Dumping Hillary

2016-09-26

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2016-09-26

The Deep State Network
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What If We’re in a Depression But Don’t Know It?

2016-09-23

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2016-09-23

Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate
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RTD Ep:46 “The FED Is Walking A Tightrope” – Charles Hugh Smith

2016-09-23

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Subscribe and share the RTD interviews and news articles… Thanks for watching this interview with author and monetary enthusiast Charles Hugh Smith. Share your thoughts below and give us a thumbs up if you enjoyed this conversation. Interview w/ Charles Hugh Smith on 8/13/15 RTD Ep:20 “Currency Created Out Of Thin Air” – Charles Hugh …

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Why the Coming Wave of Defaults Will Be Devastating

2016-09-22

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2016-09-22

Total Credit ASTDSL + ASTLL
In an economy based on borrowing, i.e. credit a.k.a. debt, loan defaults and deleveraging (reducing leverage and debt loads) matter. Consider this chart of total credit in the U.S. Note that the relatively tiny decline in total credit in 2008 caused by subprime mortgage defaults (a.k.a. deleveraging) very nearly collapsed not just the U.S. financial system but the entire global financial system.

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The Three Stages of Empire

2016-09-21

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2016-09-21

US Defense Budget
I consider it self-evident that we are in the third and final stage of self-serving Imperial decay. Though Edward Luttwak's The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century CE to the Third is not specifically on the rise and fall of empires, it does sketch out the three stages of Empire.

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Charles Hugh Smith: Optimizing Bad Policy Guaranteed to Fail

2016-09-20

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Sep 21 – Well-known author and economic commentator, Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com, explains the “optimization problem” facing policymakers and why this inevitably leads to some form of economic self-destruction… http://www.financialsense.com/subscribe

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The ZIRP/NIRP Gods and their PhD Priesthood Have Failed

2016-09-20

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2016-09-20

The priesthood's insane obsession with forcing people to spend their savings by punishing savers with ZIRP/NIRP has failed spectacularly for a simple reason: it completely misunderstands human psychology. Let's start with a simple chart of the Fed Funds Rate, which the Federal Reserve has pinned near zero for years.

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How About Presenting the Facts and Letting Voters Decide Who’s “Fit to Serve”?

2016-09-16

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2016-09-16

Ministry of Propaganda
This simple two-step process would greatly diminish the Ministry of Propaganda's influence. Here's a radical idea: how about presenting the facts and letting voters decide who is "fit to serve"? Consider the context of this presidential election and the judgment call as to who is "fit to serve":

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The Mainstream Media Bet the Farm on Hillary–and Lost

2016-09-15

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2016-09-15

The MSM has forsaken its duty in a democracy and is a disgrace to investigative, unbiased journalism. The mainstream media bet the farm on Hillary Clinton, confident that their dismissal of every skeptical inquiry as a "conspiracy" would guarantee her victory. It now appears they have lost their bet.

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It’s Time to Bring Back Bernie

2016-09-13

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2016-09-13

This tells you everything you need to know about how Hillary will operate as President: there will be no honesty, transparency or truth, ever. Hillary's bid for the presidency is no longer defensible; it's time to bring back Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee.

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If Everything Is So Great, How Come I’m Not Doing So Great?

2016-09-12

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2016-09-12

National health expenditures, Gross Domestic Product, Wages
While the view might be great from the top of the wealth/income pyramid, it takes a special kind of self-serving myopia to ignore the reality that the bottom 95% are not doing so well. We're ceaselessly told/sold that the U.S. economy is doing phenomenally well in our current slow-growth world -- generating record corporate profits, record highs in the S&P 500 stock index, and historically low unemployment (4.9% in July 2016).

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Control What You Can and the Asset Ownership of the Wealthy

2016-09-11

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2016-09-11

Our society does not make it easy to control what you can control. Assets are controlled increasingly by a smaller and smaller part of our society. Here's a couple of thoughts on productively controlling what we can control.

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