Professorlocknload
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Glennda,
I don’t call it “Finance Capitalism.” I prefer to label it “Corporatism.” That’s Fascism with a happy face.
Real Capitalism generally doesn’t squander precious capital in non-productive endeavors, corruption and boondoggles.
In fact, I would posit the biggest waster/miss-allocator of capital today is in fact, the financial sector, with it’s .gov enabler running a close second.
But, what’s in nomenclature after the horse is gone?
On a timeline, what we had is gone now. If this is allowed to cleanse naturally, the renaissance will be sooner. If the State decides to “Fix It,” I’d give the process 60 years or so, about what it took with the Soviet Union.
Be sure and understand the video I posted below. Those who don’t are at risk.
Cartel forming is of course the ultimate reason to break up the banking sector (it’s as illegal as it gets).
A Cartel will ultimately collapse on it’s own accord, without government protection.
Sans an Honest Money Regime (The real crux);
Offer a publicly backed government safety net*, and you will get sloppy performers. Had these banks been allowed to simply fail, from the Savings and Loan Crisis and LTCM to present this would all have never happened. Depositors would have voted with their feet, out of the Shyster operations and into the Prudent.
It’s become so accepted now, socializing losses, that the Prudent are now forced by the “regulators” to merge with the Imprudent, diluting the ethic of the formers responsible activities, as well as their investors and depositors wealth and trust. Not to mention sending the message that responsible behavior is/will be, punished.
Moral Hazard, indeed.
But, alas, Politicians love banks, because that’s where their campaign contributions clear. Just that the Brits use 20 pages of “English” to justify that.
* It is very rare that a crew member is washed overboard on a sailboat with no lifelines.
OK,,,IMHO…
Jal, might I suggest a jewelers scale for weighing fine particles of Au in smaller transactions?
Just scroll down to the amazon “key words” block here on site and enter “Jewelers Scale” and have $10 bucks ready.
ilargi, ” It’s the meantime that’s the killer. ”
Mean buy high and sell low won’t work?Dave, you jog my memory back to 2001 when I went “all in” to gold related paper with my modest IRA. Even my tax man thought I had gone over the falls. The long side PM markets were a desert back then! Damn that was a lonely feeling!
But when a mining type feller out in Carlin let it slip he could buy it cheaper and put it back in the mine, than waste the diesel to dig it out, I had to do it.
My el cheapo crystal ball (and a little canary in the bar at Winnemucca 😉 ) has my next trigger set at “around” < $850. My best guess at average production cost, based on average demand, which, as weak hands run for dollars, will likely stabilize. With any luck, I'll trade rising (5 year old) 10 yr paper, now in that IRA, for falling Au? On Ag, well, as soon as a pre 64 quarter gets under the price of a gallon of gas again, the green light will come on. Might need that suit or toga some day, for a trip to the marble orchard, plus a couple gallons of gas for the hearse. Guess I’m just a preservation of wealth( all be it modest) bug at heart. Variable, “Might gold (and possibly silver) end up having more value in economies which may turn their backs on the USD sooner than other nations?”
China and India have already turned their backs on fiat currency. That’s a fair share of world population, maybe? Hear tell a lot of Europeans own it too.
My take is, gold producing/holding nations will support gold, non producing/non holding ones will diss it.
Also, this is too long already, but as for gold miners going under, it won’t matter. The hole in the ground and what’s “rumored” to be in it, will remain. A new “liar” will resume position on top of it when the market is ready. Has a lot to do with the nature of these here “fungible” thangs.”
ps. ZH isn’t so much gold bug. More like “Project Mayhe…..oops, can’t talk about it.
My nickle-ninety-eights worth.
Jal,
As with anything else Leviathan does, the fix always exacerbates the problem. Fixes such as price supports kill production and distribution by pricing goods, transportation and labor out of market reach.
Policies which come from people who are, and for the most part always have been, net consumers, not producers, so they don’t have any market experience. Yeah, the same crowd that created this mess will take charge of fixing it 😛
Hell, many of the insane policies put in place in the Great Depression are still with us, like Davis Bacon, Dairy Price Supports etc. Distortions caused by inept policies only spread the suffering.
Think things like hungry people in cities while fruit fell on the ground in Iowa, and government agents dumping milk on the ground and burning wheat to support prices…that couldn’t be paid in the city!
Other stupid things like California officials stopping people who had no money at the Colorado River in Yuma, AZ, in order to hold labor costs up among workers further inside the state.
Best read ever on the subject of Depressions….And it seems, deflation has brought it’s price down to our level, as well 😉 https://mises.org/rothbard/agd.pdf
First half is wonkish, but well worth the read. It presents the “OTHER” side of the story we never were allowed to hear in school.
Yeah, pipefit, all one needs do is ask oneself, how many great nations have been destroyed by hyper deflation, as opposed to how many have been decimated by currency value obliteration 😉
And, as China is investing those green paper products in gold and gold production, now being the worlds largest producer of the stuff, it just could become the new holder of a gold backed reserve currency, replacing the dollar, in future. Not to mention it’s acquisition of energy production facilities.
And Ted, yes these “confidence” things can go on a long time, true…or turn on a dime. Seems to me this Coyote, after stepping off the cliff years ago, has been walking on air a long time already. What happens when he looks down?
On housing, I’m on the sell side at present. We’ll see how it goes.
“The more desperate, the greater the illusion.”
The more desperate, the more dangerous the desperado’s. We have been living the illusion since 1913.
This all leads to final destruction of the currency now. Their chance to prevent that has passed.
Out of that come wars and genocides. The only diversion power brokers know.
On that note, I’ll stay close to the exits, thanks all the same.
Yup. Dishonest Money Corrupts. US Treasury/Federal Reserve Bank/US Congress/Coroporatocracy…all in it together. It would be no different if the Fed vanished and Con-gress issued Fiat. Every election year would be Shangri La. Every inauguration the beginning of misery.
Centralized Representative Government is not representative at all. It becomes a power source to be manipulated.
After the Euro is gone, it might be a good idea for the US States to look into a little more exertion of sovereign rights.
Local control is better for…well, the locals.
Amusing. At the bottom of this page, I found a “Greenlight Mortgage” Loan offer of 2.75 apr 10 year fixed. Ha!
That aside;
What the Fed is doing here is nothing new. It’s simply decided to destroy the currency involved.
‘Quoting the great Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises,
” There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
In other words, the Bernanke bust is coming, sooner or later, one way or another.’ Michael Pollaro
No, it didn’t come “sooner,” been years now, so it inevitably must come “later.”
No other way. Central Banks just don’t do Deflation for any longer than it takes to clear cut the woods and create paper blizzards.
Watch October! New C-Notes introduced, most likely a new QE that
could just purchase not only Securities, but Stocks, Charge Card Paper, Junk Auto Paper, Student Loans, and a tax credit of, oh, say $25,000 per household? Or, if necessary in the convoluted logic of these idiots, $50,000 coupled with a raise in the Minimum Wage to $25 an hour? $50?Think it impossible? Of course it isn’t, it’s the stuff of Crackup Booms!
All here https://mises.org/
“The EU was designed to lift all boats (or at least it was marketed to the European people that way).”
The road to hell is paved with marketing techniques depicting it as a path to a warmer cozier environment.
Central Planning in all it’s splendor. The boats are lifted, with the planners occupying the Promenade deck, while the proles man the oars below, knee deep in water. 👿
@ ozzie, perhaps of interest…
https://australiangovernmentbonds.gov.au/
But my “thang” is get out of all debt first. Stash away 6 months food supply, and 6 months living expenses in cash in possession. Then look for hedges against economic dislocation with what money you have left.
Stoneleigh is a sharp cookie, and I give her high marks on her perceptions of all this, but no one can see the future, especially what arrogant ignorant governments might do.
Best to peruse sites like this, pouring over the archives and consider it an inexpensive economics education.
The bonds have been good, but I’ve been shortening duration since late ’09.
On deeds, I keep the original in my safe, and a copy in my safe deposit box. The County Recorders office also has documentation.
Above all, don’t take any wooden nickles!
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100924011904AAC8ylk
Yup. Expansion of money and credit as growth. Seems we’ve strayed from the real path we should have taken. Not “Growth,” but “Evolution.”
” ~~~ Since I’m learning, I reserve the right to change my mind.~~~”
Excellent, JAL. More often the better, way I see it! It’s a sign of advancement in the scheme of things.
More I learn, the less I “know.”
“And we don’t tell people to change their lifestyle in order to save the planet, [ but to save their own asses “]
Bravo, there Ilargi! And the last half of that sentence is the key. My friend, THAT is the incentive element that will fix it all!
Let pain bring about change. It’s a harsh, but natural solution.
Pain at the pump? Well, gas consumption is falling. Pain at he grocery? Garden supplies and seeds soaring. When consumption is less affordable, it will ultimately be reduced…like it or not. Two by four, meet side of head.
Free, Underground, Alternative, Shadow, Local or what ever you want to call them, markets, will find equilibrium eventually.
The power of Voluntary Association.
Now, if all the holy anointed interventionists, alchemist social mechanics and special interests would just get out of the way, the process could begin. It will happen anyway, so why stall it?
Not to worry, Cyprus is about to become the richest nation in Europe, at least for a short while!
https://www.businessinsider.com/trucks-carry-cash-for-cypriot-banks-2013-3#ixzz2OqWjV42E
I’ll grant that this Cyprus mess might have been sparked by some sort of misguided strategy, ie; my posit that the incompetents that triggered it wanted to attempt to churn velocity.
But at this point I’d suggest it has turned into an out of control wildfire. I believe the process of throwing the lessor entities to the wolves has begun in spades.
Disintegration of the Euro is gaining speed now, add the complication of geopolitical posturing between Russia, China and the US. That spells Proxy War. What more convenient place to conduct that than Europe? Already have all the maps from the last two, and the US economy could use the boost, no? And Putin needs a popularity makeover at home.
A European Spring might be next up.
After observing the events of the last week, I’d get liquid and physical. If it isn’t real and in your hands, you don’t own it. Someone at ZH mentioned money in a bank account isn’t yours, it’s really an investment in the bank, like shares.
When one thinks about that, it makes sense. They re-lend it and share some of the interest with you, in return for your taking the risk with them. Now, is 0.10% an adequate risk premium in light of the present state of affairs?
All this FDIC stuff is propaganda, left over from the last confidence restoration campaign. It’s already been reduced to $250 k per depositor, from $250k per account, in any given institution. What do that say to ya?
And, the best made plans…and planners…
I’m with Steve from V on one point, maybe a couple of others as well. Stagnant hoardings, as attempts to preserve a modicum of assets, kill money velocity, the only thing preventing the Keynesian dream progressing toward it’s point of destruction, into the dust bin with Wiemar.
They might imagine all that cash coming out of the negative interest accounts world wide now. As a bank run starts small, then exponentially expands, so does a run on where to spend the proceeds, while they are still worth anything.
This could very well be an attempt to light a fire under the reluctant consumer. Ill advised, it only serves to scare the horses further, but par for econ savvy impaired micro managers of a government controlled capitalism (fascism). The same logic that builds empty cities in China and proposes a $20 an hour minimum wage. Sure, driving up the cost of productivity will create more jobs, right? I mean, just mandate that struggling small businesses pay $200 an hour and we’ll all drive Hummers. Gas will stay the same price though, yes?
Accomplishing this transition from savings to spending through the slow steady process of debasement was getting the manipulators nowhere. They were only able to stay slightly behind the rate of de-leveraging with their print fest. Admin costs (non productive elements) skim off too much of the newly created loot. They might be finally realizing it takes ever more money creation just to stay in the same place.
Of course, getting through to the anointed is like attempting to get building permits, ” I have a customer that would like to build a…’NO!’ Wait, just hear me out, he would bring jobs…’NO!’ May I speak to your supervi…’NO! Is there any way to…’NO!’ “
Mish has a nice piece on the positives of all this up. https://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/03/from-smoldering-ashes-comes-good-news.html
Seems there is an ever growing chasm developing between the managers and the managed in our twisted system where the non productive rule over the producers, the latter demanding more and more supervision (protection?) be imposed on themselves as things deteriorate. Diminishing returns, maybe?
Other than swap meets and individual transactions at local community levels, we’ve never really given free market capitalism a chance, because it can’t thrive in captivity, just as Chanterelle mushrooms can’t.
I believe the day will come, as faith in complex institutions disintegrates, we will have no choice but to embrace the concept again, when the discomfort becomes like a rock in the shoe for enough folks, resulting in their ignoring the ranting and flailing of the controllers, as they stand on the side of the road with their hands out.
Good take on it Ilargi, it just doesn’t make anymore sense than…
It’s needs a TARP, I tell ya. We need to throw a TARP on it or else we’re all gonna die! Hank Paulson fixed it all in 07. It’s been TARPED.
Personally, I find it fruitless trying to 2nd guess beings as naive as econ illiterate pols. Most are only there because they can’t make it in the real world, or as Moonbeam Brown said, ‘They are good liars.’
The logic could be complex, or even as simple as “Where are we going to get the money to save this ship? Why, the deposits in the banks of course, isn’t that where the money is, after all?”
As for the depositors in Cyprus, put this to a popular political face “They didn’t save that.”
And why can’t we just dump 3 wire bales of money on Cyprus? The extra weight!…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs23CjIWMgA
Back on track. I’ll refer this little post as another piece of the Beppe puzzle. No politician rises to the top accidentally. Not even clowns, community organizers or CIA directors sons. Of course, firewalls are carefully placed around these designs, making them quite anonymous.
Italy's Top Pol Beppe Grillo Being Groomed for Disruption by Soros?
I alluded to this somewhere else, but here again, this is why the DOW is more important than a little economy that represents less than 4% of world economic activity. This is also where, ultimately, Beppe must go to gain “enlightenment.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_installations_in_Italy
Then, with permission, he may go on to pretend to lead.
Bottom line? Not hard to figure out, but suffice it to say, the DOW is the core, the Euro Zone is the periphery. We may not like it, but only the masochistic will deny it. And yes, the US will end up breaking it all to pieces again, so it may be reconstructed in a more “corporate democratic” way. I mean, where else are the big shots gonna get their Lamborghini’s?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-12/what-recession-2012-lamborghini-deliveries-50-us-34-europe
On another note, the more I read illiteracy rate related headlines, the more J.T Gatto makes sense. Not questioning so much what the “educated” don’t know, but asking what they have been taught that just ain’t so.
The DOW, I suppose. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Machiavelli/Sun Tzu/Mike Corleone
@Golden Oxen “Where are the champions of getting second hand smoke from tobacco banned hiding, or 32 0z sodas; isn’t this much more deadly? “
They are in power now. That “personal health” agenda is no longer needed. Now, the new improved agenda towards absolute control will be the financialization of the entire energy consumption realm, and food, as a caloric energy source, will be included. The mantra is now “Carbon Tax,” alongside “GMO” patent protection/promotion. Then, when that is mastered, “Water” will be the last frontier to be commandeered. Never mind two thirds of the worlds surface is covered with it. It just irks sociopaths that it does not yet all belong to them.
That’s when the gates of the Forbidden Cities swing shut.
“Brave New World,” this is, eh? A fine Matrix.
But…They got by with Agent Orange contamination of vast geographic and demographic “collateral.” Been a great boon to the Medical Industry. And clears the streets of some pesky war vets too.
What’s the harm in a little “Round-up” ready seed cartel defending itself? Like Agent Orange, these franken innovations are for the general public welfare.
The Corporatocracy thrives under the auspices of “bringing good things to living, bringing good things to life,” yes?
As an anointed Corporatist Commando in Chief might proclaim, “Gotcha Covered, Monsanto.” Isn’t that right Justice Roberts? Sotomayer? Anyone? Hello?
Stop the Supreme Court? Sure, but wait, let me go long https://www.geogroup.com first. You’ll be another “Corporate Customer.”
“Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.” ~ Lily Tomlin
Not all voted for this oppression. There were other choices on ballots than D-R-D-R-D-D-D
When they come for the Monsanto opposition… https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-24/ron-paul-when-they-came-raw-milk-drinkers%E2%80%A6
Insurance as a business?
Ah, insurance. It’s a racket. Maybe why Al Capone ran with it. Numbers is numbers, whether Keno or insurance. I figured it would become a powerful lobby when it was made mandatory auto drivers obtain it, one state at a time, until it became universal. (.Gov protection?)
Then mortgage insurance, flood insurance and now mandatory health insurance. By now the Insurance Industry has accumulated a house full of it’s own politicians, “insuring” it’s own perpetuity.
To mention TEPCO? Well, the nuclear power industry is back end loaded. The closer to decommission a nuke plant gets, the more susceptible to catastrophic loss it becomes. In the end of life of one of these things, all the back loaded risks and expenses come due. Even in absence of a meltdown, the byproducts that are the volatile substances that power them must be transported, processed, insured and maintained for decades.
As many as are now approaching this timed danger zone, who/what is going to cover their “pre-existing” conditions?
In addition, upon failure of these political campaign financing insurance racketeers, how long will the ultimate “re-insurers,” the taxpayers of the world, be willing to bail them out?
Won’t the fixed income trailer park inhabitant in Oregon question why he must pony up to rescue owners of million dollar beach houses in NY? Or might the resident of St. Paul MN be reluctant to bail out folks who built on an earthquake fault in California? A desert dweller in Elko NV finding himself obligated to save a below sea level flooded neighborhood in Louisiana?
I’ll add this little anecdotal ditty. I am reminded of the unfortunate Snow Bird Canadian lady sitting on a bench, in tears, at an Arizona airport last December, in excruciating pain, even through the heavy morphine dose. Seems she slipped and fell and had broken her collar bone.
She had gone to an emergency room and discovered her homeland “insurance” wouldn’t cover surgery in the US. Instead, her “insurers” booked a series of flights for her, promising she would be back in Canada in a day or two, and everything would be just fine.
OK, fine it is I guess, if the injury and drugs didn’t do her in, and the pain didn’t permanently traumatize her. But alas, seems the insurance premiums/taxes keep us so broke we can’t save enough to pay directly should an emergency crop up. Humm? Is there a fat middle man in here somewhere? One who knows what’s better for us than we?
Pavlov’s dogs, possibly? Like those little third stop lights on cars we become so used to that, upon becoming common, rear end collisions make a comeback? The illusion there is no need to self insure? Dunno.
And to think my mother in-law’s cattle rancher father traded a calf to the Doc in exchange for delivering her back in the early 1900’s. Things must have been awful before the invention of F.I.R.E. 😉
” @Golden Oxen,I am having a problem figuring where the lawyers will stand in the mayhem, any suggestions? “
Bill Shakespeare had a great suggestion on what to do with them. Besides, what would be left for them to plunder?
So, who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-14/guest-post-deflationary-spiral-bogey
” we can only postpone deleveraging by turning trillions of dollars of the public’s funds, and their children’s, into zombie money,”
And postpone it will be, until the guns are collected. An armed society doesn’t go “Zombie” passively.
As in Spain, Argentina and Greece, and soon in France and Italy, Americans will find themselves beating on pots and pans and torching newspaper racks as their only recourse. Tyranny won’t care. He who is left with the only guns, will make the rules.
We are quibbling over nickles and baubles while our Liberty is evaporating. The worlds rulers have entered self preservation mode. Proles beware.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-28/department-homeland-security-purchase-7000-assault-weapons
@Phil, ” They’re not going to anymore, so we’re each going to have to contribute a LOT more into our pension funds in future.”
We in the productive sector can’t contribute anything to our own pensions here in California. Any residual we have goes to fund calpers, in the form of some of the highest taxes in the nation.
We end up on a meager social security stipend and a retired state “worker” ends up on $50,000-$80,000 a year plus bennies.
This whole government pension scheme is nothing but income redistribution.
See, when calpers needs more funds it simply goes after the taxpayers. When I need more, I have to take a night job.
@Ted,
I think Europe seems so quiet because the corporate media prefers it that way. They are busy with royalty today.
Not everyone is under administration orders though…
https://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/01/20000-layoffs-in-spanish-banks-40-pay.html
Seems to me;
On spending and gdp…some believe government can substitute for a shortfall in real wealth creation, by burning more wealth in the form of new debt.
Here’s the problem with exponential (by necessity) increases in government spending to shore up “GDP”.
https://economicedge.blogspot.com/2010/03/most-important-chart-of-century.html
Seems we get less and less “growth” per printed buck spent (borrowed), and as Ilargi asks, where is all the debt being hidden?
Positive GDP is no more a reliable indicator of anything at this point, but increasing debt. Nothing real is being produced. Au Contraire, real productivity (wealth creation) is being destroyed by carrying costs and dilution of currency value.
If this worked over the long run, we could simply add to our own net worth by maxing out the credit cards, as long as we didn’t deduct the debt we took on from the cash advance. Then, just throw the bill away each month, or sell it to the Fed/Public. But then what would they do with it?
Charles Ponzi would be fascinated!
@ Ilargi
(in fact, the best anti-gun law would be to ban paying for them with credit)
But I thought a gun put to the head was a necessary incentive for taking on credit in the first place? Horse/cart, maybe. Dunno 😉
ps. Thanks for the prompt heads up on the email breach!
@ Ilargi
Obama said this about Tim Geithner recently: “When the history books are written, Tim Geithner is going to go down as one of our finest Secretaries of the Treasury…”
Would that be this Timmy G.?
But then, “O” is, after all, responsible for the appointment of the “greatest” Attorney General in the history of the US…no? OK, in the eyes of a banker, maybe.
My take? In the end, no Rule of Law, no trust. No justice, no peace.
A couple questions were asked here somewhere. What will cause the equity market to face reality, and what would happen if the PTB stopped spending? When the monetization stops, the music stops.
The Austrians are right. There is no way out of a credit induced bust, other than stop deficit spending, allowing deflation to “adjust” the excesses through default. Or death to the currency by printing press, thereby negating the debt.
The Federal Reserve (the financier of the corporatocracy) has chosen the latter, moral hazzard be damned. But. Management of perception (We’re in the money…) can only continue until a child finally steps forward and declares the emperor, indeed, has no clothes. Not many adults seem to have the panache, other than on a few sites like this and ZH and Mish.
I posit that the oil price spike was caused by excess printing (credit) as is the food price spike at present. As was the house price bubble. OK, add the S&P to that as well. Gold price is a given.
These psycho’s have generated the biggest bond bubble in the galaxy, in a misguided effort to ignite another borrowing binge, by a broke public, before they hit the corner they now find themselves in. Age old reaction (human action?). Too many bucks chasing a static resource pool. This is “O’s, and his enabler Ben’s worst nightmare. Keynes’ as well.
When the child steps forward and makes the aforementioned declaration, I plan on being as far out of sight of the bond and equity markets as I can get. I’ve ridden out a 7 on the richter, but this one is going to be off the chart, and I don’t want to get any on me, thanks.
I would also venture that some CB players in China, Russia, Japan etc might be twitchy fingered here as well. Not to mention a whole bushel basket of Insurance Co. pension actuaries.
Interesting memory just flipped a switch in my head, regarding that last category of speculator. As I recall, Mish stated some years back, before this all snowballed, and I paraphrase ‘We’ll know this is all over when the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation is bankrupt.
As my economist kid says, as she constantly pulls me back to center, upon my asking why inflation can’t just go on forever, in a controlled fashion…” You can print money, but you can’t print resources and productivity.”
How? The above ‘splains that. When? If I knew that I wouldn’t be writing this. No need to, from Nirvana.
Seems like a nice scenario. If one could find Galt’s Gulch without the DHS following along…for ones own safety, mind you.
And if an inkling of a rule of law survives the expected rout. But…
If one plans on surfing through what’s coming, it might be advisable to relocate to Doheny right now, before the all consuming State closes all avenues of choice in it’s seizure of resources and available assets, as well as the means of their production. Ala, the old Soviet Union?
As I recall, most of the 60’s surfin’ safari sounds didn’t originate in Leningrad. Not sure those enduring that little social experiment had a lot of ability to surf their way merrily through it. And I can’t imagine any central power not dispatching it’s most profitable minions hither and yon across the countryside, into every nook and cranny of micro communities. Those minions be the tax assessors.
A big assumption here is that the majority retain enough semblance of freedom, with which to even take the liberty of waxing down the board, let alone “shootin’ the tube.”
Pretty hard to extrapolate the last 100 years of relative freedom to choose, into the next 100 years of emergency/unknowns. I think it can be considered a given that when central authority is threatened, bad things happen to proles.
‘Till later, Hang Ten…
“2. If someone comes up with a way to continue building The Pyramids (extremely large capital-eating projects) without using slaves”
I’ll kick that up a notch.
There will be slaves and masters as long as there are governments. The more consent granted by the governed (slaves), the more intense the control over them.
Not to worry, they will provide you with just enough calories to maintain minimum productivity, as long as you cooperate.
Why, Ilargi, I think you are becoming a Voluntaryist. A “Free Thinker” as it were.
Got to “cultivate our own gardens.” Anyone who leans toward state solutions, is advocating the use of force to fulfill his own agenda.
https://www.voluntaryist.com/howibecame/alexknight.html#.UOyN62ddATA
“As individuals we need to drastically reduce our dependence on the runaway big systems, banking, the grid, transport etc., that we ourselves built like so many sorcerers apprentices, because as societies we can’t fix the runaway problems with those systems, and they are certain to drag us down with them if we let them.”
And there, my friend, you have it! The very essence of Liberty. The key. The individual. As Mackay put it…
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
“So the vigilantes have been crowded out by central banks the world over.”
The vigilantes are in the bonds. Holding on for survival. There must be a profitable alternative for them to bolt. There isn’t. All is now nationalized by the Fed, which is attempting to present the illusion of functioning markets, in hope of somehow finding an exit strategy someday, from it’s ill advised seizure of…well…any semblance of free market functions. There is no exit door now. Only the ultimate destruction of the currency involved, wherever such hubris is practiced. This includes China. Wealth creation is not found in empty high rise apartments, in empty cities, either.
We are on our own.
Seems to me, a good solution to the energy deficit is to encourage population shifts from the extremes of the North and East, to the milder regions of the South and West. Wasn’t it, after all, cheap energy that enabled growth in frigid northern climes in the first place?
In Europe, maybe more Mediterranean climes should be considered?
Has anyone ever studied the difference between the carbon footprint/monetary cost of structure heating and cooling in San Diego as opposed to Toronto? Detroit as opposed to San Francisco? Orlando/Salt Lake City? London/Rome? Stockholm/Cypress?
I would certainly prefer (and in fact now enjoy) life in mild climates rather than end up sitting in a cold house under an electric blanket every winter.
I would think one could get a bit closer to energy “sustainability” by locating in a place where achieving the comfort zone only requires 10 degrees of heat from outside temperature to inside, as opposed to 60 degrees.
@ Ilargi; “Make that One Last Chance. Luckily those sorts of errors are rare for me. But still…”
Yeah, I’m still dreading my first mistake too, but on to the point.
To advocate “rule” by “executive order” is anathema to Representative Democracy, wouldn’t you say? I mean, sure, under Mussolini the trains ran on time, but I thought the point here was to send “Representatives” to Washington, not “Rulers”?!?
What we have here instead is protection of the corrupt by government, not representation of the electorate. How may we expect a Corporatist President to suddenly change spots? Unless of course, the process might add even more $millions to his already rapidly expanding “nest egg.”
Didn’t Lord Acton have a little saying ’bout power?
Voluntarily or by decree, you ‘vil be optimistic and you ‘vil like it!
It seems the power has always believed “Too much liberty is a bad thing.” It’s now becoming consensus. Tell it long enough, often enough, and, well?
Was Putin really that far off the mark when he said the US is becoming more like the old Soviet Union every day?
Political evolution, I guess.
