Their Fate is Sealed

Blood Money
2008 was the wake up call. Borrowing yet more money from Third World factory slaves after 2008 was the biggest mistake our generation will ever make.

Opportunistically exploiting other peoples' economic oppression, under the assumption that "it can't happen to me", is the Faustian Assumption.

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

We are being led straight into the abyss by the most clueless dumbfucks in the history of this planet. PhDs who would fail kindergarten.

Don't worry, IT'S coming. The Fed's Dow-levitation Jedi Mind Trick is wearing off...

When the Music's Over

By ignoring 2008 and all subsequent risk, the Idiocracy has opted for the most abrupt and devastating ending to this clusterfuck. Despite insane risks, just today consumer sentiment came in at the highest level in 9 months. The underlying reason these zombies are "blind" to blatantly obvious risk is because the entire Developed World has devolved into history's largest morally void refugee camp, populated by consumption addicts incapable of seeing beyond their own immediate self gratification. These oblivious zombies have become human call options now ALL IN on the Globalized Ponzi Scheme, betting that there will always be Third World factory slaves at the ready to make their latest iGadgets. These human call options are in no way prepared for or capable of accepting less, so when they are once again proven disastrously wrong, it's going to get fucking ugly in a hurry. They will have nothing left to lose...

The Biggest Lie Ever Sold

100% of Econo-Dunces See Treasury Yields Higher In Six Months

I'm seeing a trend here. Economists now see nominal interest rates rising. Ever since the Fed tapering began in December, interest rates have been falling, confounding all predictions.

In the context of a debt to GDP ratio of 370% placing the economy under MASSIVE deflationary pressures, REAL interest rates are rising every single day...

Crash Test Dummies

100% of Econo-Dunces See ZERO Risk of Recession this Year

Economists are 100% confident that the U.S. can borrow its way to growth as it has for the past four years in a row. Thanks for the profound insight. Meanwhile, the econo-dunce text books now need to be updated to include money printing as a viable source of national income, since 100% of economists endorse the strategy. You can't make this shit up. They didn't see 2008 coming, and they don't see any risks now; so this Globalized disaster can't end until the dumbfucks who created this fiasco are monkey hammered into oblivion...

American Dream to American Nightmare

The Most Persistently Overvalued Stock Market In U.S. History
Once again, commodity prices are dead-cat bouncing which has produced a bagload of hand wringing over inflation. Let's make this debate as straightforward as possible:

Anyone who believes that the status quo and its attendant ludicrous borrowing is indefinitely sustainable, ad infinitum, is an "inflationist". Anyone who believes that the age of inflated debt, inflated bullshit, and inflated dumbfucks is long overdue to collapse in a way that makes 2008 seem like a fond memory, is a deflationist. 

Central Banks merely gave everyone five more years of cheap money to borrow themselves ALL IN on the American Nightmare...

Rome Has Fallen - Short of Being Sacked...

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" (U.S. Second Amendment to the Constitution)

What Went Wrong?

Ahh yeah...we fucked up again. We thought we had an economy, but it turned out to be a Ponzi Scheme. These things happen. That's what human beings do, we fuck everything up. The creator built a perfect world and then for some unknown reason went and created the human race. The one mistake she made. After that we said, don't worry about screwing anything up again, because we have that all covered. The first order of business was to create religion to blame God for whatever malfeasance we were about to get into. There are tens of thousands of religions and permutations thereof to choose from, but there's only ONE REALITY - you know, the one God created. So choose carefully...

All Things Fake Are Now Crumbling

Especially the People
[School knife attacker was a 'nice young boy']

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” 

– Aldous Huxley – Brave New World Revisited (h/t: ZH, TheBurningPlatformBlog)

They Don't Wake You Up From a Stoned Coma at the Top

Or Do They?

Not one day goes by when some prognosticator doesn't give some specious reason for buying into the already collapsing status quo. It's unbelievable...

Deflation v.s. Inflation: Signal v.s. Noise

The debate over whether or not the economy is seeing inflation versus deflation is mostly around timeframe. Costs for things like food, energy, healthcare and tuition keep rising, while wages continue to stagnate as wage deflation is relentlessly imported from the Third World.

If the cost of something keeps rising, and the ability to pay for it keeps falling then it will all break in the direction of deflation. But we don't have to conjecture about this, because we've seen this movie before...

Wall Street's Omerta: Greed's Code of Silence

The Flash Boyz

Everyone on Wall Street knows they are being front-run by HFT bots, but no one says anything, undoubtedly because that's the least of the corruption going on - If someone won't call the police when they are being fucked over, it means that they too are a criminal...

"Dude, where are the jobs?

When Econo-dunces coined this specious term "the consumer", jobs became an endangered species...

The Moronic Assumption: "There's No Subprime Here"

Plausible Deniability Is The Opiate of the Stoned Masses
Zombieland learned nothing from 2008. Less than nothing really. So it's guaranteed to happen again - it would be impossible for it not to happen. Cheap money was at the root cause of the financial crisis, and since that fiasco, money has only gotten progressively cheaper...Globalization's two primary exports are cheap junk and cheap money. Breaking it down in a way that even a zombie can understand - cheap money comes from Third World factory slaves who subsidize our standard of living - both through suppressed wages and reverse capital flows. Taking that cheap money to buy the bigger house and bigger car, under the premise that "it can't happen to me", is the Faustian assumption. Believing that "there's no subprime here" is the moronic assumption. In combination, these assumptions will bury anyone who believes them...

The Rise and Fall of The Great Powers

No country can remain dominant forever, however, understanding what has led the U.S. to this critical juncture informs future nation states (including the U.S. itself) that aspire to greatness...

Stewing in the Cauldron of the "Obvious"

aka. Pounding Sand Up Our Ass
That miniscule handful of people who would actually want to change the status quo to the benefit of future generations, are constantly stymied by the stagnant inertia of this decayed society. The word "obvious" itself has lost all useful value. In a society that can't handle any form of reality whatsoever, the fact that some risk or dysfunction is "obvious", means literally nothing. The bottom line in all of this is that today's thought dealers and the stoned Idiocracy at large, have not been sufficiently "motivated" to make changes...

Peak Leverage: Way Past Peak Oil

Norway shows us today just to what extent the oil industry, the car addiction, and of course global carbon emissions have been massively subsidized by Globalization. The presumed sustainability of the status quo is pivotal to attracting new investment in a high fixed cost world. Operating leverage and financial leverage have both been massively subsidized by globalization and its attendant flow of cheap money. Like the Dow, energy markets are leveraged for obliteration...

Welcome to the Hotel California

Getting into an asset bubble is the easy part. For the vast majority, getting out before it implodes is the impossible part...

Poverty's Black Hole

"Poverty is like literally being held back from enjoying life, almost to the point of not being able to breathe."

The Faustian Assumption: "It can't happen to me"

"dost thou not reckon us amongst the happy men at all?"

"Our wisdom too, is a cheerful and a homely, not a noble and kingly wisdom. Observing the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments"
...

"Yet, to salute as happy one that is still in the midst of life and hazard, we think as little safe and conclusive as to crown and proclaim as victorious the wrestler that is yet in the ring"

- Plutarch's Lives