Category Archive: 5.) The United States

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Our Selfie Society Is Incompatible with Democracy

2016-09-08

Now that the U.S. is a neoliberal selfie society, we have the worst of all possible worlds in terms of a failed, doomed democracy. Each individual's liberty to do whatever you want, be whatever you want, go wherever you want, etc. (within the legal boundaries set by the state) is the core of the American Dream. The individual's civil liberties and right to the unlimited pursuit of happiness is sacrosanct.

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Our Impoverished, Pathological Society

2016-09-06

by Charles Hugh Smith

2016-09-06

If asked what's intrinsic to human happiness, most people in consumer societies will offer up answers such as money, status, a nice house, etc. But as Sebastian Junger observes in his book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, what's actually intrinsic to human happiness is: meaningful relationships within a community (i.e. a tribe); opportunities to contribute to the group and to be appreciated; being competent at useful tasks and opportunities for...

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Intriguing Eruditions: The weak month of the stock market

2016-09-02

by Lance Roberts

2016-09-02

On Tuesday, I noted the end of summer and the entrance into one of the weakest months of the year statistically speaking. “We can confirm BofAML’s point by looking at the analysis of each month of September going back to 1960 as shown in the chart below."

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The “Secret Sauce” of the Byzantine Empire: Stable Currency, Social Mobility

2016-09-01

by Charles Hugh Smith

2016-09-01

One of my reading projects over the past year is to learn more about empires:how they are established, why they endure and why they crumble. To this end, I've recently read seven books on a wide variety of empires. The literature on empires is vast, so this is only a tiny slice of the available books. Nonetheless I think these 7 titles offer a fairly comprehensive spectrum:

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Trump By a Landslide?

2016-08-29

by Charles Hugh Smith

2016-08-29

If we believe the mainstream media and the Establishment it protects and promotes, Trump has no chance of winning the presidential election. For starters, Trump supporters are all Confederate-flag waving hillbillies, bigots, fascists and misogynists. In other words, "good people" can't possibly vote for Trump.

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China’s Great Divide: A New Cultural Revolution?

2016-08-26

by Charles Hugh Smith

2016-08-26

In Asia, it's generally seen as unpatriotic to criticize one's country in public, even if you disagree with its direction and leadership. The cultural norm is to maintain the "face" of one's country by hiding its ills from outsiders. This reticence is especially evident in China, which suffers from the memory of being subjugated by the Western imperialist powers in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

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What Are the Odds that the 2020-2022 Olympics Will Be Cancelled?

2016-08-24

by Charles Hugh Smith

2016-08-24

In the modern era (1896-present), the Olympics have only been cancelled in wartime: 1916 (World War I), 1940 and 1944 (World War II). But world war is not the only circumstance that could derail the Olympics; a global crisis in energy, finance or geopolitics could send the risks and costs of the Olympics beyond the reach of most participants.

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What the Fed Hasn’t Fixed (and Actually Made Worse)

2016-08-19

by Charles Hugh Smith

2016-08-19

The Fed has not only failed to fix what's broken in the U.S. economy--it has actively mad those problems worse. The Federal Reserve claims its monetary interventions saved America from economic ruin in 2009, and have bolstered growth ever since. Don't hurt yourself patting your own backs, Fed governors past and present: it's bad enough that the Fed can't fix the economy's real problems--its policies actively make them worse.

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It’s Time to Abolish the DEA and America’s “War on Drugs” Gulag

2016-08-18

by Charles Hugh Smith

2016-08-18

It's difficult to pick the most destructive of America's many senseless, futile and tragically needless wars, but the "War on Drugs" is near the top of the list.Prohibition of mind-altering substances has not just failed--it has failed spectacularly, and generated extremely destructive and counterproductive consequences.

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Stupid is What Stupid Does – Secular Stagnation Redux

2016-08-17

by Eugen von Böhm Bawerk

2016-08-17

Which country, the United States or Japan, have had the fastest GDP growth rate since the financial crisis? Due to Japan’s bad reputation as a stagnant, debt ridden, central bank dependent, demographic basket case the question appears superfluous. The answer seemed so obvious to us that we haven’t really bothered looking into it until one day we started thinking about the demographic situation in the two countries.

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Why Wages Have Stagnated–and Will Continue to Stagnate

2016-08-15

by Charles Hugh Smith

2016-08-15

Mainstream economists are mystified why wages/salaries are still stagnant after 7+ years of growth / "recovery." The conventional view is that wages should be rising as the labor market tightens (i.e. the unemployment rate is low) and demand for workers increases in an expanding economy.

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What Does It take to Be Upper Middle Class?

What's left unsaid is much of the upper middle class is prospering due to privileged positions that are increasingly at risk of disruption. What does it take to be upper middle class? According to one analyst, the answer is: at least $100,000 a year for a family of three. The Growing Size and Incomes of the Upper Middle Class (Urban Institute).

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What Killed the Middle Class?

If the four structural trends highlighted below don't reverse, the middle class is heading for extinction. Everyone knows the middle class is fading fast. I've covered this issue in depth for years, for example: Honey, I Shrunk the Middle Class: Perhaps 1/3 of Households Qualify (December 28, 2015) and What Does It Take To Be Middle Class? (December 5, 2013)

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Honey, I Shrunk the Middle Class: Perhaps 1/3 of Households Qualify

If it takes more than $126,000 to fund a qualitatively defined middle class lifestyle, what sense does it even make to call this "middle"? The Pew Research Center's recent report The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground: No longer the majority and falling behind financially made a media splash, as it reported that less than 50% of adults are members of the Great American Middle Class.

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The Self-Employed Middle Class Hardly Exists Anymore

The revenue breakdown of non employer businesses in 2011

It's sobering that in a nation of 317 million people (of which 145 million people file tax returns), only 3% of all those reporting income are self-employed people earning enough to support a middle class life without the additional income earned by a working spouse. Many people rightly aspire to improve their household's state of resilience through actions such as storing emergency supplies, starting a vegetable garden, and learning basic...

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Endangered Species: The Self-Employed Middle Class

Including the professional class, perhaps 3% of the workforce is truly independent. Being self-employed (i.e. owning your own small business that does not require employees) is an integral part of the American Dream. Many start out dreaming of a corner office in Corporate America, but as they move up the ladder, many become disillusioned by the process and the goal: do I really want to spend my life making big-shots even wealthier?

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Neofeudalism 101: Strip-Mining the Upper Middle Class

This Neofeudal structure is unstable by its very nature. I have often examined the Neofeudalist structure of the U.S. economic hierarchy, and the many social and financial fault lines running through this creaking structure.

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How Many Slots Are Open in the Upper Middle Class? Not As Many As You Might Think

Even the most educated workers have declining wages

Not only are there not that many slots in the upper middle class, the number of open slots is considerably lower. If America is the Land of Opportunity, why are so many parents worried that their princeling/princess might not get into the "right" pre-school, i.e. the first rung on the ladder to the Ivy League-issued "ticket to the upper middle class"? The obsessive focus on getting your kids into the "right" pre-school, kindergarten and prep...

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US Economic Indicators

US Recession Indicators Concurrent Indicators

The four best US economic indicators, in form of concurrent indicators, can be seen at Doug Short, here in detail.

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The Decline of Small Business and the Middle Class

The U.S. economy has become less entrepreneurial over time

The only way to not just survive but thrive as an entrepreneurial enterprise is to destroy fixed costs and labor overhead. It is not coincidental that the middle class and small business are both in decline.

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