Category Archive: 5.) The United States
Welcome to Neocolonialism, Exploited Peasants!
In my latest interview with Max Keiser, Max asked a question of fundamental importance: (I paraphrase, as the interview has not yet been posted): now that the current iteration of capitalism has occupied every corner of the globe, where can it expand to for its "growth"?
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Financial Repression Is Now “In Play”
A FALLING MARKET CANNOT BE ALLOWED – at any cost! The Central Bankers have clearly painted themselves into a corner as a result of their self-inflicted, extended period of “cheap money”. Their policies have fostered malinvestment, excessive leverage and a speculative casino approach to investments. Investors forced to take on excess risk for yield and scalp speculative investment returns, must operate in an unstable financial environment ripe for...
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What Happens When Rampant Asset Inflation Ends?
Yesterday I explained why Revealing the Real Rate of Inflation Would Crash the System. If asset inflation ceases, the net result would be the same: systemic collapse. Why is this so? In effect, central banks and states have masked the devastating stagnation of real income by encouraging households to take on debt to augment declining income and by inflating assets via quantitative easing and lowering interest rates and bond yields to near-zero (or...
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Where Will All the Money Go When All Three Market Bubbles Pop?
Since the stock, bond and real estate markets are all correlated, it's a question with no easy answer. Everyone who's not paid to be in denial knows stocks, bonds and real estate are in bubbles of one sort or another. Real estate is either an echo bubble or a bubble that exceeds the previous bubble, depending on how attractive the market is to hot-money investors.
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Ending a Taking Economy and Creating a Giving Economy (Part 1)
The world can no longer afford a taking economy, where “make a killing” is the motto. Together we need to create a giving and sharing economy that helps us all “make a living.” This essay will unveil the present unjust and unworkable economic system that punishes responsibility and rewards fraud.
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This Is How Quiet Fascism Works
So my little-visited Wikipedia entry was minding its own business, not bothering anyone, until I dared to criticize the Clinton Foundation. The next day, my Wikipedia entry was taken out and shot by a mysterious "editor." It was just coincidence, right, that my Wikipedia entry had been available for years without offending anyone, and then suddenly it's deleted the day after I dared to criticize the Clinton Foundation.
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USA 2017-2020: An Ungovernable Nation?
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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It’s Time We Crush the Putrid Roach Motels of Philanthro-Crony-Capitalism, Starting with the Clinton Foundation
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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Fun with Fake Statistics: The 5 percent “Increase” in Median Household Income Is Pure Illusion
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
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?
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
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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What If We’re in a Depression But Don’t Know It?
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The Three Stages of Empire
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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How About Presenting the Facts and Letting Voters Decide Who’s “Fit to Serve”?
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
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
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?
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
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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