Wealth

Why The Status Quo Is Doomed

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wealthCharles Hugh Smith – We’re like the passengers on the Titanic 10 minutes after the mighty ship struck the iceberg: there is virtually no evidence to those on deck or those snug in their warm cabins that everything they reckoned was safe and secure was doomed to perish.

Only those who witnessed the damage below the waterline and who knew the limitations of the ship’s design grasped that the loss of the ship was inevitable and could not be reversed.

The current world-system (call it whatever you like–cartel-crony neoliberal-state capitalism, etc.) is as doomed as the Titanic, for the same reasons: the design of the system is the source of its failure.

I recently had the opportunity to discuss the inevitable systemic failure of the current arrangement with Chris Martenson of PeakProsperity.com and Cris Sheridan of the Financial Sense Newshour. The podcasts are:

With Chris Martenson: Fixing The Way We Work: Closing the wealth gap with meaningful work (44:54)

With Cris Sheridan: Book Interview: A Radically Beneficial World

Why is the current world-system doomed?

1. Automation will not just continue replacing human labor–the pace of this trend is increasing exponentially. Continue reading →

Billary Clinton and the Perfection of Consumerist Narcissism

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commoditizationCharles Hugh Smith – I don’t think it’s coincidence that Bill Clinton’s presidency and Christopher Lasch’s landmark analysis The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations both date from the same year, 1993.

Clinton solidified the modern presidency’s narcissistic obsession with public approval (the political equivalent of “likes” on Facebook) and the exploitation of that popularity for maximum self-enrichment.

The relentless charm offensive and rapacious exploitation of Billary’s proximity to power has yielded a fortune once reserved for tech titans and hedge fund superstars:

Hillary And Bill Clinton Report $139.1 Million In Taxable Income Since 2007

This sum doesn’t include the tens of millions vacuumed up by the Clinton foundation machine, which distributes tribute to further the interests of the Clinton dynasty under the convenient guise of charity.

This is not to single the Clintons out as bad eggs in an exemplary system; it is to identify them as the stars of a thoroughly corrupt system. The Clintons did not make the political system; they have simply proven themselves the most adept at milking it for fame and fortune.

If the system encourages raking in millions, why not rake in millions? You’d be crazy not to. If we could skim $250,000 for a short speech on the travails of ageing Lotharios (or whatever else we wanted to blather on about), would we turn it down?

In this system, sincerity is what you spray-paint on whatever position that polls identify as popular. Hillary is especially adept at changing her accent to align with what her machine has identified as the dominant class in the audience of the moment.

Presidents in the culture of narcissism are caretakers, not leaders. When bank profits are at risk, the president OKs deregulation or bailouts to insure bank profits are unfettered by capitalism. Continue reading →

Wealth Destruction For The 99.9 Percent

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Sartre – Blaming the 1% for diminished prosperity avoids the real reasons for designed poverty. In round terms, the seven billion souls that populate this planet translate into seventy million to be part of the 1%. Well, that amount is still a very large number to blame for the systemic transfer of riches into the hands of the few. A far more relevant approach is to examine the .001% or around seven million that fall into the mover or shakers of asset and possessions. Before targeting this group of mega wealth, that figure includes a very significant number, who are non players when it comes to global politics or transnational finance.

wealthRecent record art sales illustrate the insulated existence that wraps the super rich in a different world from ordinary people. The Washington Post writes, What it looks like when the .001 percent fights over art.

“Welcome to Christie’s,” Pylkkanen said, without missing a beat.

It was that kind of night, with Christie’s selling a record $852.9 million worth of contemporary and post-war art. There were new records for 11 artists, including Twombly, Ed Ruscha, Peter Doig, Martin Kippenberger and Seth Price, according to figures released by Christie’s.”

Not exactly familiar household art celebrities, this version of trickledown economics is only for the in crowd. A Reuter report, Life continues sweetly for the .001 percent, continues. Continue reading →

What is Wealth? Lure Of The Hamster Wheel

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Part 1

“The first wealth is health.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Susan Boskey ~ Spinning on the hamster wheel of progress, burdened by the stress of over-commitment, debt, sleeplessness, and concerns about the future, we soldier on the best we can. Such is the commonly told back-story of modern life. Who knew the price of gaining the supposed good things in life would ultimately come at the cost of spiritual, emotional, mental, and/or physical well-being? The thought of stepping off the wheel may be scary, but for those who sincerely want to take back their life, tangible steps abound to help them regain priceless quality of life.

thinkGiven the abundance of practical advice available to help people exit the matrix and recover their quality of life, part 1 of this series necessarily covers the lure of the hamster wheel in the first place: What is the primary reason more people don’t take advantage of these strategies and tactics? Actually, it’s not all about the money. There is an allegory about crabs in a pot that pretty much says it all. The story goes that as one crab scales the inside of the pot to claim his freedom, the other crabs work to pull him back down with them. “Hey, where do you think you are going, anyway?” Continue reading →

Only The Wealthy Can Afford A Middle Class Lifestyle

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OfTwoMinds  May 6 2014

The “middle class” has atrophied into the 10% of households just below the top 10%.

CharlesHughSmithThe truth is painfully obvious: a middle class lifestyle is unaffordable to all but the top 20%. This reality is destabilizing to the current arrangement, i.e. debt-based consumerism a.k.a. neofeudal state-cartel capitalism, so it is actively suppressed by the officially sanctioned narrative: that middle class status is attainable by almost every household with two earners (a mere $50,000 annual household income makes one middle class) and middle class wealth is increasing.

It’s not that difficult to define a middle class lifestyle: just list what was taken for granted in the postwar era of widespread prosperity circa the 1960s, four decades ago.

In What Does It Take To Be Middle Class? (December 5, 2013), I listed 10 basic “threshold” attributes and two somewhat higher thresholds for membership in the middle class:

1. Meaningful healthcare insurance (i.e. not phantom “insurance” with deductibles that cost thousands of dollars a year that offers no non-catastrophic care at all)
2. Significant equity (25%-50%) in a home
3. Income/expenses that enable the household to save at least 6% of its income
4. Significant retirement funds: 401Ks, IRAs, etc.
5. The ability to service all debt and expenses over the medium-term if one of the primary household wage-earners lose their job
6. Reliable vehicles for each wage-earner
7. The household does not rely on government transfers to maintain its lifestyle
8. Non-paper, non-real estate assets such as family heirlooms, precious metals, tools, etc. that can be transferred to the next generation, i.e. generational wealth
9. Ability to invest in offspring (education, extracurricular clubs/training, etc.)
10. Leisure time devoted to the maintenance of physical/spiritual/mental fitness Continue reading →