by The unprecedented credit-fueled bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate are popping, and America’s corrupt leaders can only stammer and spew excuses and empty promises. Unbeknownst to most people, America’s leadership made a pact with the Devil: rather than face the constraints and injustices of our economic-financial system directly, a reckoning that would require difficult choices and some sacrifice by the ruling financial-political elites, our leaders chose the Devil’s Pact: substitute the creation of asset-bubble “wealth” in the hands of the few for widespread prosperity. The Devil’s promise: that some thin trickle of the trillions of dollars bestowed on the few would magically trickle down to the many. This was as visibly foolish as the promise of
Topics:
Charles Hugh Smith considers the following as important: 5) Global Macro, 5.) Charles Hugh Smith, Featured, newsletter
This could be interesting, too:
RIA Team writes The Benefits of Starting Retirement Planning Early in Your Career
Swissinfo writes Swiss residential real estate to remain in demand in 2025
Thomas J. DiLorenzo writes Stakeholder Capitalism and the Corporate KPI Cult
Swissinfo writes Parliament stalemate on abolishing Swiss homeowner tax
The unprecedented credit-fueled bubbles in stocks, bonds and
real estate are popping, and America’s corrupt leaders can only stammer and spew excuses and empty promises.
Unbeknownst to most people, America’s leadership made a pact with the Devil: rather than face the constraints
and injustices of our economic-financial system directly, a reckoning that would require difficult choices and
some sacrifice by the ruling financial-political elites, our leaders chose the Devil’s Pact: substitute
the creation of asset-bubble “wealth” in the hands of the few for widespread prosperity.
The Devil’s promise: that some thin trickle of the trillions of dollars bestowed on the few would magically
trickle down to the many. This was as visibly foolish as the promise of immortality on Planet Earth, but
our craven, greedy leadership quickly sealed the deal with the Devil and promptly inflated the greatest credit-asset
bubble in human history.
Rather than trade away one’s soul, America’s leaders traded away the future security and stability of the nation.
By refusing to deal with the real problems exposed by the collapsing financial scams in 2008-09, our leaders–both
the unelected Federal Reserve and the elected “best government money can buy”–chose to bail out the scammers who
had greased their palms so generously and sacrificed the prosperity of the many to do so.
This is more or less the equivalent of sacrificing innocents at the altar of the gods to ensure the leaders’
rule will continue to be successful.
The Devil was delighted to serve up the illusion of godlike powers to our corrupt, greedy leaders.
The deal looked oh-so win-win: we enrich the top few percent and offload the costs and sacrifices on the powerless
many, who were told that they would benefit from the trickle of cash leaking out of the super-wealthy’s
bulging pockets.
But now the Devil is demanding his due: the unprecedented credit-fueled bubbles in stocks, bonds and
real estate are popping, and America’s corrupt leaders can only stammer and spew excuses and empty promises.
All this amounts to begging the Devil to renegotiate the deal because now the downside is not just visible but
inevitable. So sorry, America’s leadership–the Devil doesn’t respond to pleas or threats. Sorry about that; the
deal stands as agreed. All your bogus gains and powers will evaporate, and then the destruction really begins.
How does all this end? In ruin, of course. Our craven, self-serving leadership may well bleat, “the Devil
made us do it!” but that is not true: they fell all over themselves to sell the future stability and security of
the nation for the quick-fix riches of bubbles and corruption.
My new book is now available at a 10% discount this month:
Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $8.95, print $20)
If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by
becoming
a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
Recent Videos/Podcasts:
Charles Hugh Smith on Why Many are Resigning From Their Jobs (35 minutes, with Richard Bonugli)
My recent books:
Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States
(Kindle $9.95, print $25)
Read Chapter One for free (PDF).
A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet
(Kindle $8.95, print $20,
audiobook $17.46)
Read the first section for free (PDF).
Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook)
Read the first section for free (PDF).
Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic
($5 Kindle, $10 print, (
audiobook):
Read the first section for free (PDF).
The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake
$1.29 Kindle, $8.95 print);
read the first chapters
for free (PDF)
Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print)
Read the first section for free
Become
a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email
remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.
| Thank you, Roger and Iveta M. ($100), for your outrageously generous contribution to this site — I am greatly honored by your support and readership. |
Thank you, Robert B. ($60), for your marvelously generous contribution to this site — I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership. |
| Thank you, Alan G. ($50), for your magnificently generous contribution to this site — I am greatly honored by your support and readership. |
Thank you, Joseph P. ($25), for your monumentally generous contribution to this site — I am greatly honored by your support and readership. |
You Might Also Like
How Vulnerable Is Your Personal Supply Chain?
2021-12-20
How vulnerable is your personal supply chain? For the average American, the answer is: very. Americans consider abundance and ready availability as birthrights so basic they’re like the air we breathe. The idea that shelves could become bare and stay bare is incomprehensible. yet that is the world we’re entering, for a number of complex reasons.
Xi’s Gambit: China at the Crossroads
2021-12-10
If Xi’s gambit succeeds, China could become a magnet for global capital. If success is only partial or temporary, China may well struggle with the structural excesses that are piling up not just in China but in the entire global economy.
The Long Cycles Have All Turned: Look Out Below
2021-12-03
But alas, humans do not possess god-like powers, they only possess hubris, and so all bubbles pop: the more extreme the bubble, the more devastating the pop. Long cycles operate at such a glacial pace they’re easily dismissed as either figments of fevered imagination or this time it’s different.
Top 1% Gains More Wealth Than the Combined GDPs of Japan, Germany, UK, France, India and Italy, Bottom 50%–You Get Nothing
2021-11-18
Given that political power in America is a pay-to-play auction in which the highest bidder wins, how this incomprehensibly lopsided ownership of wealth plays out is an open question.
Whistleblowers Torpedo Facebook and Pfizer: Who’s Next?
2021-11-07
If America’s total dependence on corporate profits and stock market/housing bubbles is
just fine because the bubbles just keep inflating, there’s nothing left but rot.
Revenge of the Real World
2021-11-04
The status quo response would be amusing if the consequences weren’t so dire. Rather than stare at empty shelves, you have two options for distraction: you can don a virtual-reality headset and cavort with dolphins in the metaverse, or you can trade various forms of phantom wealth that always go up (happy happy!) because the Fed.
Doing 90 MPH on Deadman’s Curve: A Few Thoughts on Risk
2021-10-26
When the wreck is recovered, witnesses will wonder why they took such heedless, foolish risks. You’re in the back seat wedged between tipsy revelers, the driver is drunk and heading into Deadman’s Curve at 90 miles per hour. Nobody’s worried because the driver has never crashed.
America Is Now a Kleptocrapocracy
2021-10-23
I hope everyone here is hungry because the banquet of consequences is being served. I’ve coined a new portmanteau word to describe America’s descent: kleptocrapocracy, a union of kleptocracy (a nation ruled by kleptocrats) and crapocracy, a nation drowning in a moral sewer of rampant self-interest in which the focus is cloaking all the skims, scams, rackets and bezzles in some virtuous-sounding garb, a nation choking on low-quality junk ceaselessly hawked by robocalls, spam, phishing and Big Tech manipulation.
Tags: Featured,newsletter