Stuck In Reverse And Descending Into Trauma
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John Vachon Rain. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Jun 1941 US Q3 GDP was revised up by the BEA to 3.89%, but that’s no longer what financial markets react to
[See the full post at: Stuck In Reverse And Descending Into Trauma]Apropos of nothing, despite being what I thought was exceedingly reasonable in my downplaying of the Ebola outbreak I still feel like I was played. One has to keep reminding yourself to pay no attention at all to the things everyone is paying attention to.
Yes, it has been the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’, in their overwhelming greed and manipulation of the purported free markets, that has brought the scourge of deflation to the capitalist system. Suppresion of wages, exporting of the manufacturing base, financialization and privitization, have popped the bubble of western civilization. How ironic it happens as we discover the irreversable contamination of the single ecosphere inhabited by humanity. It could easily be mistaken for divine retribution, were not science advanced enough to eliminate the possibility of said intervention.
Boy oh Boy, has Mr Kunstler got a powerful style of writing.
He is right as rain of course, the entire thing is a big fake. Make believe wealth, fueled by make believe Fed money.
Yet most hate Gold, cannot imagine it’s return being a partial solution to the insanity, and continue to look for solutions to the madness with make believe credit based money at the center of the system. It won’t work.
“We can have good jobs for everyone, all it takes is to have what we need, produced in our own communities and societies, instead of having it shipped over from China.”
Cough cough …
take from Peter to pay Paul.
Lets move the misery to China. It cannot come back to bite us.
cough … cough
Lance Roberts says that $3.7 trillion in “welfare” was paid at the Federal level from 2009 to 2013? I call BS. How has that figure been derived? What are its component elements? The actual data for the period 2009-2013 (five FYs, 2009-2013 inclusive) is closer to $2.4 trillion out of expenditures of $17.1 trillion, or 14.0% of Federal spending. (See https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_fy13) Moreover, I’m leery of anyone who focuses on all the supposed “benefits” the “takers” are receiving from those who control a mere 90% of all the wealth in the country. Further, Roberts pulls the typical right-wing con artist trick of ignoring the whole set of taxes almost everyone pays–state income taxes, FICA, sales taxes, real estate taxes (either directly or as a component of rent), excise taxes, you name it. Factor in “subsidies” (read: welfare) for Big Business, agribusiness, and banks, a whole raft of tax breaks for the so-called “job creators”, a bloated Pentagon budget that acts as a welfare program for the defense industry, and the whole sick spectacle of the upward transfer of wealth over the last 35 years, and you have a thoroughly dishonest analysis. I also knew it was typical wingnut crap when he used the buzzword “amnesty” to describe Obama’s move on immigration. This BS Roberts is spewing is part of the Right-wing line that Obama has “massively” increased spending and “dependence”. Check the data out here: https://crfb.org/blogs/fiscal-fact-checker-how-much-has-spending-increased-under-president-obama
In other words, Roberts is lying.
jal – “take from Peter to pay Paul.” More like “take BACK from Peter what should never have been taken from Paul.” You said, “Lets move the misery to China. It cannot come back to bite us.” Well, it’s biting us the way it is. Isn’t it a lot ridiculous to have something produced in India or China, and then shipped all the way back over here? Aside from the tremendous waste of energy, I wonder how that would fly in their countries. I kinda don’t think they’d go for it.
Yosef – it’s like Golden Oxen said, “The entire thing is a big fake, make-believe wealth.” The elite get to hide their assets in tax havens, enjoy favorable capital gains, get to borrow at next to nothing, lobby for contracts and advantageous laws, secure monopolies, are privy to insider information, commit fraud, rig rates, launder money, create “financial innovations” (which are really just tools for them to steal), etc., all without seeing the inside of a cell.
Good article from Zero Hedge – “Food Stamps are Corporate Welfare”:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-17/foodstamps-are-corporate-welfareIn the article, two more links are given: “Where Food Stamps Go To Die” and “The Stock Market: Food Stamps for the 1%”. The elite make their money from nothing (well, I guess it costs them a lot in campaign contributions and lobbying fees), some of which gets fed back down to us. Then, as you say, we work and pay taxes, and it goes back up to the government, who then pay off the campaign contributors with cozy contracts/beneficial laws and then they look the other way when crimes are committed by these contributors. It’s a great big circle whose gears are slowly grinding to a halt.
But I agree that we have become too dependent. It’s been a slow creep. I’ve seen the same behavior in ordinary life, between friends, and it never works out well. Had we maintained our independence, saved for our own retirements (instead of relying on a Ponzi scheme), not consumed our brains out, we would not be in this predicament. We have let them control us.
Under the guise of helping us (which we fell for), they have got us and they will leave us with nothing if we don’t stop them. We have done it to ourselves.
Karl Denninger had a good video re the U.S. debt and how he sees it could be corrected. He blames a lot of the problems on the health care industry/lobby. He has two pie charts from I believe 1998 and the present that show where the money is being spent. The biggest changes were in Medicaid, Medicare and Interest payments. Karl says there’s a medical monopoly. He advocates people have catastrophic health insurance for the expensive, unexpected, but should be able to pay their doctor $100.00 cash for a simple ten minute appointment. The money that would be saved could go elsewhere, like paying off debt. Anyway, have a listen.
Balance Sheets don’t matter in Centrally Planned Economies. The Planners will set all GDP numbers from now on.
What isn’t understood here is, the Planners own it all now. It will be as they wish.
Think Soviet/fascist hybrid. That’s where it is and has been going all along. Total redistribution and control of the means of production is where it ends, but that’s after several generations.
It’s just how it is. In our lifetimes there will be no going back. Time to choose. Travel with ’em, or drop off the radar and travel independently. Oh, and not a good idea to be in the periphery when the core (The US) calls in all markers. Weapons of War are, after all, GDP components too.
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