Category Archive: 5.) Charles Hugh Smith

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Is Housing a Bubble That’s About to Crash?

2022-05-05

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2022-05-05

We are all prone to believing the recent past is a reliable guide to the future. But in times of dynamic reversals, the past is an anchor thwarting our progress, not a forecast. Are we heading into another real estate bubble / crash?

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Doom Porn and Empty Optimism

2022-04-29

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2022-04-29

If we can't discern the difference between doom-porn and investing in self-reliance, then solutions will continue to be out of reach. I'm often accused of calling 783 of the last two bubble pops (or was it 789? Forgive the imprecision). Like many others who have publicly explored the notion that the status quo isn't actually sustainable despite its remarkable tenaciousness, I am pilloried as a doom-and-gloomer (among other things, ahem).

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Crash Is King

2022-04-26

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2022-04-26

This may be one of many revaluations of capital vis a vis labor and resources and core vis a vis periphery. You've heard the expression "cash is king." Very true. But it's equally true that "crash is king:" when speculative excesses collapse under their own extremes, the crash crushes all other narratives and becomes the dominant dynamic.

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What’s Your Plan A, B and C?

2022-04-22

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2022-04-22

Nothing unravels quite as dramatically as systems which are presumed to be rock-solid and forever. Here's the default Bullish case for stocks and the economy: let's call it Plan Zero. 1. The economy and equities can grow forever (a.k.a. infinite growth on a finite planet in a waste-is-growth Landfill Economy)

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A Couple of Thoughts on Big Numbers

2022-04-20

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2022-04-20

Let's ask "cui bono" of the $33 trillion in added debt and the $9 trillion added to GDP: to whose benefit? I've been thinking about how hard it is to get our heads around big numbers.

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Debt Saturation: Off the Cliff We Go

2022-04-19

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2022-04-19

When the system can't borrow more and distribute the insolvency, it implodes. I started writing about debt saturation back in 2011. The basic idea is we can continue to borrow and spend as long as one of two conditions hold: 1) real (inflation-adjusted) income is rising, so there's more income to service additional debt, or 2) the cost of borrowing declines so the same income can support more debt.

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Yes, It Is Different This Time

2022-04-15

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2022-04-15

Most people would be horrified by a 40% decline in their "investments." When bubbles pop, speculative assets don't drop 40%, they drop 90% or even 98%.

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For Freak’s Sake, People, Even the Crash Test Dummies Are Nervous

2022-04-08

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2022-04-08

Those trusting the Fed to be visibly weak, corrupt and incompetent forever might be in for an unwelcome surprise. When even the crash test dummies are nervous, it pays to pay attention. Being in a mild crash isn't too bad if all the protective devices inflate as intended. But in a horrific crash where nothing goes as planned, it's like speeding in a ready-to-explode Pinto and being side-swiped by a semi on Dead Man's Curve.

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It’s All the Aliens’ Fault

2022-04-03

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2022-04-03

As for our central banks' defaulting on their lines of credit with the Martian Central Bank--that's another alien intervention we'll live to regret. I hope this won't shock the more sensitive readers too greatly, but I've discovered undeniable evidence that all our planet's problems are the result of alien intervention. Yes, aliens exist and are actively intervening in humanity's activities, to our great detriment. Wars, plagues, The...

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Calm Before the Storm?

2022-03-28

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2022-03-28

Stocks don't vanish when sold; somebody owns the shares all the way to the bottom. These owners who refuse to sell because they have convinced themselves the next dip will be the hoped-for resumption of the bullish trend are called "bagholders."

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Autocracy’s Fatal Weakness

2022-03-23

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2022-03-23

This desire for compliance and consensus dooms the autocracy to failure and collapse because dissent is the essence of evolutionary churn and adaptation. The various flavors of autocracy (theocracy, kleptocracy, dictatorship, etc.) look remarkably successful at first blush but they all share a fatal flaw.

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How Healthcare Became Sickcare

2022-03-22

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2022-03-22

The financialization of healthcare started two generations ago and is now in a run-to-fail feedback loop of insolvency. Long-time readers know I have been critical of U.S. healthcare for over a decade. When I use the term sickcare this is not a reflection on the hard work of frontline caregivers--it is a reflection of the financialization incentives that have distorted the system's priorities and put it on a path to insolvency.

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Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy by: Charles Hugh Smith

2022-03-19

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National Security is not just military force. In an age of scarcity, security is a degrowth economy of energy independence, social cohesion and civic virtue. All nations, including the United States, face systemic crises that are reinforcing each other at an explosive point in history.

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The Roundtable Insight with Charles Hugh Smith on The Great Awakening Vision

2022-03-17

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Http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2022/03/17/the-roundtable-insight-charles-hugh-smith-on-the-great-awakening-vision/ Link to the Article on the alternative Great Reset - http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2022/03/08/the-great-awakening-an-alternative-great-reset-based-on-the-principles-of-the-austrian-school-of-economics

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Risk Accumulates Where No One Is Looking For It

2022-03-17

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2022-03-17

All this decay is so incremental that nobody thinks it possible that it could ever accumulate into a risk that threatens the entire system. The funny thing about risk is the risk that everyone sees isn't the risk that blows up the system. The mere fact that everyone is paying attention to the risk tends to defang it as everyone rushes to hedge or reduce the risk.

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Serf-Expression

2022-03-15

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2022-03-15

Eventually the "flock of timid and industrious animals" changes their minds about how much exploitation by the few is acceptable.

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The Roundtable Insight with Charles Hugh Smith on The Great Reset Agenda

2022-03-13

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Here is the link to the article referenced in the podcast - http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2022/02/10/the-great-awakening-an-alternative-great-reset-based-on-the-principles-of-the-austrian-school-of-economics/

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The Upside of a Crushing Recession

2022-03-11

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2022-03-11

Unbeknownst to those trembling in fear of a crushing recession, the crushing recession they fear is the only curative for a fatally distorted system which has lost touch with reality. Everyone looking at the inevitability of recession with alarm is forgetting the many upsides of recession, especially one that crushes all attempts to reverse it with the usual tricks.

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If You Want to Build Back Better, Reshore Our Entire Supply Chain

2022-03-09

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2022-03-09

It is entirely accurate to say that the U.S. is addicted to waste and distant sources of essentials. The downside of dependency is in the air. The U.S. has allowed itself to become dependent on other nations for essentials, a policy that I view as an insanity fueled by greed. The problem with dependency is the cost can't be calculated until it's too late. Restoring independence is a massive, costly undertaking, but if you wait until the cost of...

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Geopolitics and Degrowth

2022-02-26

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2022-02-26

The Geopolitics of Degrowth holds that real power flows not from waste, centralization and coercion but from decentralization, relocalization and the free flow of value. Conventional geopolitics is all about more: more military power, more sanctions, more coercion, more influence. The Geopolitics of Degrowth is all about the the power of less: wasting less, consuming less, needing less from other nations, reducing dependence on rivals,...

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