INTERESTING: What worked in the past, didn’t really work, and now is part of the problem

Thursday, January 2, 2025

https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec24/past-solutions12-24.html

What If Solutions That Worked in the Past No Longer Fix What’s Broken?December 26, 2024
“Of Two Minds” blog
Charles Hugh Smith

*** begin quote ***

You see the irony here: the more successful the old solutions were, the greater our compulsion to cling to them even as they fail.

Humans use inductive reasoning to solve problems. If a solution fixed a problem in the past, we assume it will solve the problem again. This is a rational expectation based on prior experience.

But if conditions change, the solution won’t fix the problem. It might even make things worse.

*** and ***

Make America Great Again is an explicit call to return to the solutions that worked in the past, specifically The Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, which was characterized by these policies:

1. The federal government is the problem, not the solution. The solution is to reduce the influence and financial footprint of the federal government.

2. Deregulation of private industries, starting with finance. Loosen regulations to enable financial / market solutions, even if they’re disruptive.

3. Focus on growth. Grow the economy by loosening up credit, drill baby drill, reducing regulatory burdens and taxes, etc.

4. Pursue a muscular global policy of America First. No more wishy-washy playing nice: choose sides, but choose carefully because there will be consequences.

5. It’s morning in America. We can get back on track by unleashing America’s native optimism and vigor.

These solutions from the past are compelling because they delivered decades of growth. Of course reality is complicated, and it wasn’t just these policies by themselves that spawned decades of expansion. Demographics, the “peace dividend” and many other factors helped.

*** end quote ***

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — attributed to Einstein, Ben Franklin, and Rita Mae Brown

The Federal Gooferment is “the problem” and it’s made possible by the FED  conspiracy and the “valueless unbacked” paper dollar.

I’m tired of always coming back to the same nagging over and over.  But the fundamental flaw in this problem is an unrestrained Federal Gooferment.  

Until that is put back under control and sharply limited, we have no hope of ever getting out from under the 37T$ debt.

Just silently defaulting by inflation which is what is being done to the detriment of “We, The Sheeple”.

Argh!

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VOCABULARY: The precariat is one misfortune away from insolvency

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/05/charles-hugh-smith/precarious-one-misfortune-away-from-insolvency/

Precarious: One Misfortune Away from Insolvency
By Charles Hugh Smith
OfTwoMinds.com
May 16, 2024

*** begin quote ***

As a result, a significant percentage of households that are considered middle-class are one misfortune away from insolvency.

We can summarize the changes in our economy over the past two generations with one word: precarity, as life for the bottom 90% of American households has become far more precarious over the past 40 years, despite the rising GDP and “wealth” as measured in phantom capital.

This reality is expressed in the portmanteau word precariat, combining proletariat (someone whose livelihood comes from their labor) and precarious: outside of government employment, work has become far more precarious. Where it was still common 40 years ago to work for a company for much or most of one’s career and have a private-sector pension, now private-sector pensions have vanished, replaced by self-managed 401K funds, and private-sector work is characterized by a series of not just job changes but career changes.

*** end quote ***

I blame this phenomena on the Gooferment.  Specifically, the Federal Reserve System.

The Federal Reserve Bank is a misnomer. IT ain’t “federal”. It reserves nothing. And, it ain’t a “bank”. It is a private cartel of the elite banks run for their benefit and that of the entrenched politicians.

The Gooferment’s politicians and bureaucrats spend far more than we can afford and the Fed borrows and “prints”.

“Money is a matter of functions four, a medium, a measure, a standard, a store.” He repeated that four times like poetry. “Six Characters in Money: Portable – Durable – Divisible – Uniformity – Limited Supply – Acceptability.” — CHURCH 10●19●62 (Vol 1) 978-0-557-08387-9 page 110

Unfortunately, it is no longer a store of value and hasn’t been since the 1970’s or maybe 1913.

“The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation. The whole grim apparatus of oppression and coercion — policemen, customs guards, penal courts, prisons, in some countries even executioners — had to be put into action in order to destroy the gold standard. Solemn pledges were broken, retroactive laws were promulgated, provisions of constitutions and bills of rights were openly defied. And hosts of servile writers praised what the governments had done and hailed the dawn of the fiat-money millennium.” — Ludwig von Mises

Penny candy, Nickel cigars, Dime store comics, and Quarter a gallon gas.

Are all indicators of how much the value of the U$D has been devalued.

Remember that on payday, Election Day, or any other day.

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VOCABULARY: SCROTUS: the Supremely Corrupt Royalty of the United States

Friday, June 30, 2023

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/corruption-potus-scotus-and-scrotus

The Corruption Of POTUS, SCOTUS, And SCROTUS
by Tyler Durden  — Monday, Jun 26, 2023 – 04:20 PM
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  • Until we reach that point of social transformation, we’re passengers on a ship of state doomed by rampant, systemic corruption and the collapse of moral standards and the rule of law.

*** begin quote ***

Then there’s SCROTUS: the Supremely Corrupt Royalty of the United States, the corporate bigshots, the lobbyists, the billionaires, the politically influential, the financially connected, and all the elites that are protected from consequence and therefore untouchable.

*** end quote ***

Thanks for another acronym that describes the opposite of us deplorables.

—30—

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