Chris Martenson
Chris and I spent last week down in Charleston, SC at a gathering of thought leaders. Participants included politicians, scientists, economists, diplomats, astronauts, financiers, media personalities, entrepreneurs, entertainment executives, and others of specialized expertise. It was a humbling group to mingle with.
The general purpose of the event was to share observations about the opportunities and challenges our society faces, and to spark new thinking as to how to address them.
Chris and I spent several days attending and participating in panel discussions (there were hundreds to choose from) as well as in private conversation with many of the luminaries there. Our detailed observations from Day 1 and Day 2 are available for our enrolled members (enrollment required).
The experience was valuable for us: it sharpened our thinking on a number of fronts. We think it will be useful for you to understand how, so you have a sense of where our minds are as we look forward to the year ahead. What follows are our high-level observations and generalizations. As always, something gets lost when you reduce a rich experience into a few ideas, but with that caveat in place, here’s what we came away with:
Perspective for the New Year
Chris and I spent last week down in Charleston, SC at a gathering of thought leaders. Participants included politicians, scientists, economists, diplomats, astronauts, financiers, media personalities, entrepreneurs, entertainment executives, and others of specialized expertise. It was a humbling group to mingle with.
The general purpose of the event was to share observations about the opportunities and challenges our society faces, and to spark new thinking as to how to address them.
Chris and I spent several days attending and participating in panel discussions (there were hundreds to choose from) as well as in private conversation with many of the luminaries there. Our detailed observations from Day 1 and Day 2 are available for our enrolled members (enrollment required).
The experience was valuable for us: it sharpened our thinking on a number of fronts. We think it will be useful for you to understand how, so you have a sense of where our minds are as we look forward to the year ahead. What follows are our high-level observations and generalizations. As always, something gets lost when you reduce a rich experience into a few ideas, but with that caveat in place, here’s what we came away with:
The US federal government is barreling towards a certain fiscal train wreck. While there is much being gleefully reported about the return of the shoppers…er, consumers…uh, patriotic citizens…spending more than they have, there is almost no hope of growth returning fast enough to offset the amount of budgetary deterioration that now seems to be baked into the cake.
As always, one component of the problem is that the US political leadership has absolutely zero experience with controlling spending, let alone cutting spending. Where austerity is being attempted in Europe (at great pain, too…if you have not seen this video of the recent Greek riots, it is both remarkable and disturbing) the current civil unrest shows that citizens don’t necessarily dutifully accept their politicians’ belt-tightening policies.
The plan, such as it is, for the US fiscal and monetary authorities seems to be to keep up the government spending (including the Fed’s QE efforts) for as long as necessary until self-sustaining growth returns.
The Federal Budget Deficit and the Looming Crisis
PREVIEWThe US federal government is barreling towards a certain fiscal train wreck. While there is much being gleefully reported about the return of the shoppers…er, consumers…uh, patriotic citizens…spending more than they have, there is almost no hope of growth returning fast enough to offset the amount of budgetary deterioration that now seems to be baked into the cake.
As always, one component of the problem is that the US political leadership has absolutely zero experience with controlling spending, let alone cutting spending. Where austerity is being attempted in Europe (at great pain, too…if you have not seen this video of the recent Greek riots, it is both remarkable and disturbing) the current civil unrest shows that citizens don’t necessarily dutifully accept their politicians’ belt-tightening policies.
The plan, such as it is, for the US fiscal and monetary authorities seems to be to keep up the government spending (including the Fed’s QE efforts) for as long as necessary until self-sustaining growth returns.
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