Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Bonfire of the Vanities: Epic Hubris to Mass Psychosis

Note to Bill(ionaires): Try not to shit your pants when your slave trade ends with a big fucking bang:
The world's richest man says that the end of poverty is in sight by 2035. However, as it stands now, globally, 1% of the human population has twice as much wealth as the bottom 90%. So, apparently Gates hasn't figured out Microsoft Excel yet. Suffice to say, it's amazing how much patience one can have for failed economic models when others are doing the suffering, and the next Davos Summit is around the corner: http://ponziworld.blogspot.com/2012/09/state-of-globalized-ponzi.html 


Or Gates could just read the OxFam report which states the exact opposite of what he said.
"In November 2013, the World Economic Forum released its ‘Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014’, in which it ranked widening income disparities as the second greatest worldwide risk in the coming 12 to 18 months. Based on those surveyed, inequality is ‘impacting social stability within countries and threatening security on a global scale.’"

Billionaires Will Be the Last to Realize It's All Just a Ponzi Scheme
Fortunately, all of this self-absorbed tom foolery will end in short order. We are just waiting for Dow Casino to finish up a text book 14 year broadening top pattern. Unfortunately, our dunced thought dealers and their billionaire sponsors didn't consider the mass psychosis that this human disposal machine, referred to as the globalized "economy", would generate...


A Bit of the Old Ultra-Violent
The average number of school shootings per year going back 75 years is ~3 or less. Many years had no shootings. So far in 2014, there have been five already, including this one at Purdue University this afternoon. It's not even the end of January and 2014 is already almost twice the historical average. Prorated by the number of weeks, the 2014 shooting rate is 200% higher than 2013 which was an all time record high (by a long ways). At this rate, there would be 90 shootings in 2014.



Got Prozac?
The Central Bank-sponsored sugar high is wearing off
The homogenized corporate economy has created a wholly transactional society. Social bonds that used to run deep have been whittled down to meaningless small talk and Facebook chats. Human interest has been narrowed down to two all pervasive topics (sports and entertainment), crowding out all meaningful discourse. If a subject can't be summed up in one overarching platitude, then the eyes glaze over instantly. Any attempt to discuss detailed matters is "too much information". Is it any wonder that this society hasn't realized that they are being lied to constantly by plastic buffoons? I gave up years ago trying to explain the economic risks to people I know, because almost no one was willing to listen. Now, like everyone else, I just pretend that the mass stupidity will last forever. Unfortunately, human beings were not intended to be corporatized widgets. Meaningful social interaction is critical to our survival as a species. We are social animals that thrive on interdependency. This Yuppy Disneyland we've created is generating mass psychosis that has only been papered over with by soccer tournaments, shopping sprees, and massive doses of pharmaceuticals. Add in junk food and junk culture and the toxic stew of psychotic-inducing chemicals goes into manic overdrive. A society that is addicted to external gratification will have no means of controlling its latent rage when the dopamine stops flowing. My advice - keep a low profile and don't get caught between the mobs and the drones i.e. shelter in place, if at all possible.



Social Mood Peaked in 2000
According to Robert Prechter at EWI, social mood peaked in 2000 which affects their interpretation of the stock market wave counts. If they are correct, then these last two bubbles were merely "echo booms" or massive retracement "B" waves indicating that the next wave is a massive "C" wave DOWN.

Consumer Sentiment
Bolstering the EWI viewpoint, consumer sentiment peaked in 2000



Jobs and wages also peaked in 2000



The Biggest Lie Ever Bought and Sold
Further deflating the myth of this five year "expansion" - I adjusted GDP for inflation, debt accumulation (deficits) and population growth. More irrefutable proof that the U.S. "recovery" is just a massive fucking lie.

True per capita GDP is well below 2007 levels:



And of course, the global economy peaked back in 2007. 



Printing Money to Artificially Inflate the Stock Market
[Dow with Fed Balance Sheet (blue line)]
Only A Society this Fucking Stupid Would Try This




Bonfire of the Vanities 
The rich and famous are partying at Davos this week, blithely ignorant to how the rest of the world lives:
“The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.”

You Can Be Dumb or You Can Be Greedy, But You Can't Be Both...
"Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, a Davos stalwart, likens the situation today to the eve of World War I, exactly a century ago, when the world’s rich and its rulers stumbled toward the most horrific conflagration in history:"

“Complex societies rely on their elites to get things, if not right, at least not grotesquely wrong,” wrote Wolf, and today, “the elites need to do better. If they do not, rage may overwhelm us all.”

Oh well, too late... 

#REF Does Not Resolve: Billionaire Wealth
I suggest that Gates and his billionaire buddies figure out Excel soon and otherwise study the Globalization diagram below a bit closer. If they did, they might realize that it contains a subtle circular reference. As they will soon find out, their "wealth" is no more than a hollow illusion consisting of unsecured IOUs backed by the full faith and credit of lying politicians and soon-to-be bankrupt angry mobs. In Mitt RomneyBot's vocab, these mobs are the post-crash "87%", not to be confused with today's pre-crash "47%".

Globalization For Idiots and Assorted Billionaires
http://ponziworld.blogspot.com/2014/01/it-was-good-for-some-while-it-lasted.html


Let Them Eat Mega-Yachts
Continuing with the Bonfire theme, apparently Monaco has become over-crowded with billionaire yachts. There are too many billionaires with too many yachts. So we just learned of this new $400 million dollar yacht designed to replicate Monaco - including the casino, the harbour and the streets. The idea is that instead of taking your yacht to Monaco, you bring Monaco to your yacht. 
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/drive-the-monaco-f1-circuit-on-this-mega-yacht-2014-01-21



Batten Down the Hatches
We are in totally uncharted territory - surrounded by liars and buffoons in every fucking direction. Meanwhile, social mood peaked years ago and has been manipulated higher by Central Banks buying a Dow-inflated sugar high.  

Now, that sugar high is wearing off and the trend towards anarchy is clearly accelerating. When Dow Casino collapses for the last time, it's going to get FUGLY in a hurry. 


P.S.
In case the NSA is logging my keystrokes, I have to declare officially that I get my so-called "Marxist" income inequality information directly from the CIA Factbook:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html

Voodoo Economics in CIA terminology:
"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households. Since 1996, dividends and capital gains have grown faster than wages or any other category of after-tax income..."

"US revenues from taxes and other sources are lower, as a percentage of GDP, than those of most other countries..."

"Long-term problems include stagnation of wages for lower-income families, inadequate investment in deteriorating infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension costs of an aging population, energy shortages, and sizable current account and budget deficits - including significant budget shortages for state governments."

As always, you can't make this shit up...