We are at the point in the history of the USA that the Soviets found themselves circa 1990. The state has taken on so much that it cannot manage any of it. Too many management crises at once are spinning out of control and any one of them might bring down the regime. I hope it goes as well for us as it did for the Soviets.
We call these regime-crises "scandals." They come in two flavors, entertaining and existential. The entertaining ones do not matter, for example, the Syria conflict, the loss of Afghanistan, the Benghazi thing, about which Hillary spoke for most Americans when she said "What difference does it make?" Then there is the "stealing our phone bills" scandal. Now that one is funniest because it is not bloody.
The existential crises are three-fold: Romney/Obamacare, unfunded pension liability and the currency, as it relates to barter, money & credit.
Romney/Obamacare was designed to fail, as a step toward a single payer system put in place to fix the problem, something scheduled to be effected after Hillary wins in 2016. This will cap her career with her lifelong goal to which she so nearly succeeded in 1994. This is existential because it truly does pit the producers in the USA with the parasitical progressives. If this actually falls apart, vast swathes of Americans, progressives, will be alienated from the regime. The progressives understand the producers will still produce under Romney/Obamacare, so they will not go anywhere, alienation is not an option for producers. But if the worm turns, and USA heads back to freedom, then all is lost for several generations. The last best hope for progressives would be a military takeover.
Unfunded pension liability is the inability to pay out on pensions. People depending on pensions bet that it is possible to be fairly indolent for 20-40 years and then unemployed for another 20-40, and that would work out. If one credits pensions with unlikely prospects, the numbers are still dire. Those who saw the 2008 crash coming see another one coming this summer/fall. It is necessarily far worse, which will make things even more out of control. The adjustments are underway right now: fixed income dependents getting hammered, high gas prices, high food prices, reduction in quality and service, high housing prices. Paychecks and property are being scraped to make ends meet. The last thing you want in the next 30 years is a paycheck, pension or property in USA.
Finally, there is a crisis of currency. USA led the way in lending fiat credit at fractional reserve for usury to inflate a boom like none seen before in history. This spread worldwide, and can be denominated in currency. Money, properly defined is today gold and silver, and people on both sides of that debate overstate their cases. Money is demanded at the end of the line, and we are in a long term process. Forget about money for now. Preppers expect barter to be a big thing. But that ignores that in reality people would rather extend credit than make an onerous barter deal. (I'd rather you owed me something else later than take your goat for my eggs now.)
Now ignore anyone who talks about the problem of banks not extending credit. Fiat credit in all of history has been a case of fraud, lending credit with nothing to back it up. It is "legal" today, but still clearly fraud.
When I say credit, I mean it is backed by an asset. If I have a dozen eggs, and you have a goat, and I don't want a goat or parts thereof, I may very well say, "for these eggs, you own me 4 quarts of goats milk." That is credit. And note, it is credit without interest (usury.)
Trade local and worldwide once worked on this basis. With USA in the lead, such practices were first overwhelmed by the "cheap credit (of course it was cheap, it cost nothing to create)" of banks, legalized by the state which salivated at the taxing opportunity of seeing all credit monetized and centralized through banks. So that is the history of the last 90 years.
When this system finishes coming down, and it is failing, asset backed credit, something banks and the state cannot provide, will necessarily re-emerge. Get ready for that.
I would like to hear from readers in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, small business people, who are one way or another financing their businesses. USA will soon need to know what you know: how do you do it? You can either reply below or just email me and I'll post any answers I get.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
We call these regime-crises "scandals." They come in two flavors, entertaining and existential. The entertaining ones do not matter, for example, the Syria conflict, the loss of Afghanistan, the Benghazi thing, about which Hillary spoke for most Americans when she said "What difference does it make?" Then there is the "stealing our phone bills" scandal. Now that one is funniest because it is not bloody.
The existential crises are three-fold: Romney/Obamacare, unfunded pension liability and the currency, as it relates to barter, money & credit.
Romney/Obamacare was designed to fail, as a step toward a single payer system put in place to fix the problem, something scheduled to be effected after Hillary wins in 2016. This will cap her career with her lifelong goal to which she so nearly succeeded in 1994. This is existential because it truly does pit the producers in the USA with the parasitical progressives. If this actually falls apart, vast swathes of Americans, progressives, will be alienated from the regime. The progressives understand the producers will still produce under Romney/Obamacare, so they will not go anywhere, alienation is not an option for producers. But if the worm turns, and USA heads back to freedom, then all is lost for several generations. The last best hope for progressives would be a military takeover.
Unfunded pension liability is the inability to pay out on pensions. People depending on pensions bet that it is possible to be fairly indolent for 20-40 years and then unemployed for another 20-40, and that would work out. If one credits pensions with unlikely prospects, the numbers are still dire. Those who saw the 2008 crash coming see another one coming this summer/fall. It is necessarily far worse, which will make things even more out of control. The adjustments are underway right now: fixed income dependents getting hammered, high gas prices, high food prices, reduction in quality and service, high housing prices. Paychecks and property are being scraped to make ends meet. The last thing you want in the next 30 years is a paycheck, pension or property in USA.
Finally, there is a crisis of currency. USA led the way in lending fiat credit at fractional reserve for usury to inflate a boom like none seen before in history. This spread worldwide, and can be denominated in currency. Money, properly defined is today gold and silver, and people on both sides of that debate overstate their cases. Money is demanded at the end of the line, and we are in a long term process. Forget about money for now. Preppers expect barter to be a big thing. But that ignores that in reality people would rather extend credit than make an onerous barter deal. (I'd rather you owed me something else later than take your goat for my eggs now.)
Now ignore anyone who talks about the problem of banks not extending credit. Fiat credit in all of history has been a case of fraud, lending credit with nothing to back it up. It is "legal" today, but still clearly fraud.
When I say credit, I mean it is backed by an asset. If I have a dozen eggs, and you have a goat, and I don't want a goat or parts thereof, I may very well say, "for these eggs, you own me 4 quarts of goats milk." That is credit. And note, it is credit without interest (usury.)
Trade local and worldwide once worked on this basis. With USA in the lead, such practices were first overwhelmed by the "cheap credit (of course it was cheap, it cost nothing to create)" of banks, legalized by the state which salivated at the taxing opportunity of seeing all credit monetized and centralized through banks. So that is the history of the last 90 years.
When this system finishes coming down, and it is failing, asset backed credit, something banks and the state cannot provide, will necessarily re-emerge. Get ready for that.
I would like to hear from readers in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, small business people, who are one way or another financing their businesses. USA will soon need to know what you know: how do you do it? You can either reply below or just email me and I'll post any answers I get.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
2 comments:
With respect to pensions and retiring, I think that the whole concept of retiring at some age, like 62, then doing nothing for another 30, 40 or more years is irrational, wasteful and just dumb - assuming one is still able-bodied both physically and mentally to do something. This current concept of retirement is a recent concept - old people in the past just "downscaled" their work duties - instead of working in the fields or milking cows, they just did less labor intensive work such as peeling potatoes in the kitchen or knitting I suppose for the rest of the family or village - they never completely retired like people think of today (think entitlement), unless they had some serious age-related physical or mental disability, like severe arthritis, dementia or a stroke. People always contributed to some degree if able I believe - there was no State government-sanctioned safety net - the family was the safety net. I believe this current concept of retirement can also be bad for society in that older, experienced people are not present in the workplace to pass on their knowledge to younger workers - "institutional" knowledge or stuff that one just can't learn in books, but through experience and mentoring becomes less common. Personally, I never want to retire - I want to do something that I like doing that others value as well. I cannot take a vacation for more than a week before I start to go stir-crazy. Being productive and doing good work that one likes and others appreciate is good for one's health and mental wellness - and good for society as well.
Retirement can actually kill you according to this article:
http://www.moneynews.com/PeterOrszag/Retirement-job-life-expectancy/2013/06/12/id/509525
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