Financial Markets Definitely Destabilizing – Charles Hugh Smith

ross 02/18/2018  •

Excellent choice Greg. Charles is a clear logical thinker that I can identify with. UBI is not the solution to robotics. Part of the solution is diversity into the countryside,whereby communities can grow their own quality food , make things they need and be off the energy grid. We should be looking at quality of life in community and our ingenuity in making things work. Our economies are now 8 times more productive than 60 yrs ago, yet the masses are far worse off. If you don’t pay people enough money to consume the products they make, there will be no economy. New money added to any economy should never be created as debt, as it the major tool our elites use to enslave us.

David 02/18/2018  •

Regarding the loss of wealth. I’ve been in the poorest countries one day, and the richest county the next (i.e., U.S.). My experiences have taught me one thing. Those who have nothing, have nothing to lose. Those who have everything, have everything to lose. In the U.S., we have everything to lose. Prepare yourself!

Regarding college education. I am tired of whining brats who feel that a college education is a right. It’s not. I worked to cash flow my college education. Fast forward 25 years…. we put our three children through college. How did we do it? We worked hard, saved money, lived in very small homes, drove beat-up cars, passed on expensive vacations, and scrimped on everything else to the point of squeaking. By the way, all of our kids worked as well while going to college. They were debt free when they graduated and they are all debt free today!

My mother’s greatest quote. When I was 1o years old, a person at a grocery store was trying to buy a large bag of dog food with food stamps. When the cashier said that dog food wasn’t eligible under the food stamp program, the person stormed off and came back with 4 large packages of ground meat. My mother said nothing…. until we got to the car. Her quote: “When people arrived in the colonial states, they had two options: 1) work (and work extremely hard), or 2) die. That was reality.

America was built by very hard working people. Not so much anymore. We have become a nanny state where the government wants to spoon feed everyone, and where everyone expects the government to give them everything. Whatever happens to the U.S. economically, as a country, we have brought it onto ourselves.

Someone, please have a box of Kleenex ready for all those future crybabies who have chosen a life of debt because they wanted everything today and were unwilling to practice a little self-discipline. Those lifestyles of fancy cars, huge homes, and a life of pretending, will come crashing down. If it does, they’ve earned it!

Dr Darryl Jewett 02/18/2018  •

Gov’ts in the US have devolved into a sadistic communist oligarchy. Gov’ts in the US have adopted a system of recruitment and promotion that rewards political and bureaucratic expedience instead of professional qualifications and accomplishment. Exactly like that of the Soviet Union or other similar empires of malevolent repute. Except that the US is much much much worse than the Soviet Union every was (yes, I am acquainted personally with people who lived under the Soviet Union and have spent time recently in the US and they can’t believe how different the myth of the US and freedom is from reality). The American people should be very frightened of these developments. Because this is what a death panel looks like. It’s a system that decides who lives and dies. The only criteria is the degree to which an individual enables representatives of the oligarchy and their addiction to power and control. Most people in the US won’t figure this out until it’s too late.

James Hastings - "Cherokee center of the world" 02/18/2018  •

A thousand years from now…..Ezekiel advises us……concerning Gog and Magog and Gomer and all his hordes….”On that day thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme…….to carry off plunder, to carry away SILVER and GOLD, to take away cattle and goods, to seize great spoil….In the latter days I will bring you against my land.”…Ezekiel 38

Gold and Silver have always been wealth, will be wealth in the Millenium and will be wealth after Satan’s last release and destruction…Rev 20:7

Tad 02/18/2018  •

Probably little difference between domestic and offshore drilling other than offshore rigs are substantially larger and would take a bit longer to install. An office tower and apartment building above a drilling machine.

If onshore exploration in Anwar is defined by drilling at shallow depths, then production wells would yield almost immediately I would think.

The twenty-five cent infrastructure tax will probably occur, and with money printing destined for further economic stimulus, I think we’ll see rapid pump increases, regardless of it legislative prospects.

One thinks about the last snowflake that sets it off.

A certain logic says solve the immigration problem for “Real Americans,” and overseas remittances would decrease; domestic GDP might see an uptick; some of the 93 million unemployed Americans would find hope again; the anticipated hyperinflation might never occur, but a deflation episode would almost certainly occur.

To say it is all about the debt, probably means little to a crypto currency holder.

Mike R 02/18/2018  •

I’ve been following Charles for years. Makes a ton of sense.

Here is my recipe for making America a place where everyone can live and thrive:
1) Massively slash the military budget, and pull out of the dozens of countries where we simply no longer belong.
2) Use that new found from the wasteful military lost money to create a social security matching fund, whereby the 8% taken from your paycheck, is matched by 8% from the government. This becomes your new 401k, and they phase out over time, the Social Security wasteful program, becoming YOUR MONEY in your account, rather than a slush fund for the government to confiscate from you.
3) Break up all of the monopolies that have spread like the plaque, including especially Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and particularly all of Buffet’s monopolistic company’s, the big pharma monopolies, and penalize them with 40% taxes, until they do break up, to allow for true competition. Buffet only chooses company’s who are ‘moated’ with massive protections, such as insurance monopolies, who really are protected by government itself.
4) eliminate ALL corporate lobbying, and all donations by PACs or pooled funds, and only allow individual donations to $1000. Break up the foundations like CLinton’s who’s soul purpose is to raise illegally gotten funds, to unethically influence elections.
5) Emphasize massive investment in making America energy independent. Use ALL fuels, including and especially nuclear, whereby we become the lowest cost energy provider to all the factories that we or the world need’s. That is the major key to bringing back factory’s, and even energy hungry high tech servers.
6) Eliminate the health care and health insurer monopolies, and create TRUE cross border competition. Note DC can’t and won’t do this until #4 is addressed, and we eliminate the corporate lobbying.
7) Create tech schools, that don’t require 4 year degrees, but emphasize skills that today’s modern, robotic factories need. Make them super affordable, and instead of paying massive subsidies for ethanol, direct those subsidies to co-fund these schools.
8) Wipe out all government funding of student loans, and collapse 50% of the colleges out there, handing out costly $200000 degrees for courses that dont produce well paying jobs. No university should be allowed to charge more than $10,000 per year for ANY degree. Period !
9) Eliminate college athletics, that suck millions and millions away from education, and massively discriminate against smart students who actually come to learn.
10) Eliminate student scholarships of any kind, which also discriminate heavily against the majority of the student population.
11) Convert all state employee pensions, such as for teachers, or unions, that are all now mostly insolvent to 401k like plans. These pensions are highly mismanaged both in what they invest, and they overtly bad promises they made. Reduce All of the high paying pensions currently being paid out, that are paying out in many cases WAY MORE than $100k per year. The especially egregious ones, paying out over $250k to $500k annually, reduced to below $100,000.
12) Eliminate workers compensation plans. They kill companies and are highly abused costing small businesses billions every year, and creating the unlevel playing field charles talks about between small and large business.
13) Eliminate malpractice suits, and insurance, and prevent lawyers from being able to sue for these things. Lawyers and our inept judicial system has totally killed our economic system.
14) Put federal caps on property taxes for all homes that are priced under $500,000, and reduce those property taxes to be no more than $8,000 per year, graduated downward as the price of the home is lowered. Property taxes are the number 1 killer of affordable homes.
15) Eliminate ALL state income taxes. Make states be more accountable, and only be allowed to collect sales taxes.
16) Force builders and real estate developers, to build 1 affordable home (i.e. under $200k), for every luxury home they build, that is over $750,000. Same thing with apartments and condo’s.
17) Put massive import taxes on every country who taxes us on our exported goods. Same rates they place on ours, we place on theirs.
18) Eliminate all hiring of foreign based support workers, who live in foreign countries. for jobs that support functions here in the US. (i.e. high tech, phone support, computing, graphics, everything). They MUST live here and be legal citizens, if they are answering phones for tech support, providing internet based tech support, computing, social, everything. If US based companies want to hire, foreign workers, it must be only for serving services in those countries. US Companies have gotten super lazy and could easily train and hire here if they wanted to. Outsourcing has made things WAY too easy. Our unemployment (real which is around 22%) would drop like a rock, and wages would go up for all. These higher wages would result in more re-cycled dollars to US based businesses, and it would create a virtuous circle of a higher standard of living. Companies are liars and cheaters who say they need to hire foreign workers, for work that can be done here on our soil. They are taking advantage of all the privileges our taxpayers pay for, to have a better country to live in, by paying CEO’s and upper executive teams egregiously higher wages than they pay the employees, creating the most unbalanced, and largest pay gaps ever in any country’s history between CEO’s, upper execs, and the workers. These profits are ill-gotten, and going directly to the highest paid in all corporations.

Steve Twitchell 02/18/2018  •

Great interview. But as always would love to hear more on how to prepare.

BTW FC in comments above really nailed it. I would also add that if “small business” is the life blood of new ideas and new business, then why are most of the laws set up to favor corporations?

Also, wonder why no one is pointing fingers at the sheriff in Florida. He had some 39 times that he could have arrested and brought even minor charges against Cruz which would have kept him from legally purchasing a gun. Not only did the FBI not do their job but neither did the sheriff. And, worse, it was over a very long time. Why do these people stay in power?

Tommy 02/19/2018  •

Too much anxiety over worldly issues. The best infinity is yet to come.

Diane 02/19/2018  •

Well, if this is true…..Bitcoin is not such a great investment

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/taxes/cryptocurrency-maybe-become-a-tax-nightmare/

Flattop 02/19/2018  •

GREG: Tell me if I am thinking wrong
It would appear someone is motivating these shootings to increase the pressure to outlaw our guns. I am now becoming concerned that people within the DOJ (FBI swamp people ) are involved in these shootings, by sinply looking the other way..
Each one of these shooting leave many unanswered questions..

Flattop 02/19/2018  •

GREG: Please give us your assessment of AG Sessions. As for me, The walk don’t match the talk.

Mohammad 02/19/2018  •

Greg,

As i said before, Kushner is the key to get to Trump:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-19/kushner-probe-crosshairs-mueller-shifts-russia-china

“Kushner In Probe Crosshairs As Mueller Shifts From Russia To China”

Hmmmm….

Mohammad

Aldo Ray 02/19/2018  •

Mueller’s ‘Pit Bull’ Andrew Weissmann Busted
https://saraacarter.com/muellers-pit-bull-andrew-weissmann-busted-withholding-evidence-previous-case/
The wicked witch is Busted!
Pip Pip Hurray!
Pip Pip Hurray!

Jerry 02/20/2018  •

Globalist preparing for WW III
http://valdaiclub.com/multimedia/video/russia-in-the-middle-east/

Julius Pratt 12/03/2022  •

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