middle class

Off The Cuff: The Destruction Of Coherent Ideas

In this week’s Off The Cuff podcast, Chris and James Howard Kunstler discuss:

The Shale Oil Booby-Trap
- Fake prosperity that will tank the markets when it ends
Could The US Government Nationalize The Oil Industry?
- It very well could
The Destruction Of Coherent Ideas
- To fail to plan is to plan to fail
What Are We Willing To Give Up?
- A better future depends on abandoning some of our self-destructive luxuries

In this week’s podcast, Chris and Jim tackle a wide range of issues — from shale oil, to Jeffrey Epstein, wokesterdom, the financial bubble, social malaise, and the future of society. One deficit particularly concerning to Jim is our culture’s inability to have coherent discourse.

If we can’t engage in understanding and intelligently debating with one another, how will we ever devise effective solutions to the many challenges we face?

Click to listen to a sample of this Off the Cuff Podcast or Enroll today to access the full audio as well as all of PeakProsperity.com’s other premium content.

Off The Cuff: The Destruction Of Coherent Ideas

by Adam Taggart

In this week’s Off The Cuff podcast, Chris and James Howard Kunstler discuss:

The Shale Oil Booby-Trap
- Fake prosperity that will tank the markets when it ends
Could The US Government Nationalize The Oil Industry?
- It very well could
The Destruction Of Coherent Ideas
- To fail to plan is to plan to fail
What Are We Willing To Give Up?
- A better future depends on abandoning some of our self-destructive luxuries

If we can’t engage in understanding and intelligently debating with one another, how will we ever devise effective solutions to the many challenges we face?

Click to listen to a sample of this Off the Cuff Podcast or Enroll today to access the full audio as well as all of PeakProsperity.com’s other premium content.

The Self-Employed Middle Class Hardly Exists Anymore

by charleshughsmith

Of course, the easiest path to financial independence is being born into a wealthy, well-connected family.

But since few of us win that born-rich lottery, this article addresses the important question: How do “the rest of us” carve out financial independence?

The Self-Employed Middle Class Hardly Exists Anymore

by charleshughsmith

Of course, the easiest path to financial independence is being born into a wealthy, well-connected family.

But since few of us win that born-rich lottery, this article addresses the important question: How do “the rest of us” carve out financial independence?

In this week's Off the Cuff podcast, Chris and Mish discuss:

Trend Reversal?
- The New Year starts with a surprise
6 Years of Extreme Global Monetary Intervention
- With more to come?
Big Trouble Brewing in Asia
- Don't bet on East eclipsing West anytime soon
Middle-Class Squeeze
- Getting even tighter in the future

Off the Cuff: Trend Reversal?

by Adam Taggart

In this week's Off the Cuff podcast, Chris and Mish discuss:

Trend Reversal?
- The New Year starts with a surprise
6 Years of Extreme Global Monetary Intervention
- With more to come?
Big Trouble Brewing in Asia
- Don't bet on East eclipsing West anytime soon
Middle-Class Squeeze
- Getting even tighter in the future

Middle Class? Here’s What’s Destroying Your Future

by charleshughsmith

According to the conventional account, the Great American Middle Class has been eroded by rising energy costs, globalization, and the declining purchasing power of the U.S. dollar in the four decades since 1973. While these trends have certainly undermined middle-class wealth and income, there are five other less politically acceptable dynamics at work:

The divergence of State/private vested interests and the interests of the middle class
The emergence of financialization as the key driver of profits and political power
The neofeudal “colonization” of the “home market” by ascendant financial Elites
The increasing burden of indirect “taxes” as productive enterprises and people involuntarily subsidize unproductive, parasitic, corrupt, but politically dominant vested interests
The emergence of crony capitalism as the lowest-risk, highest-profit business model in the U.S. economy

Middle Class? Here’s What’s Destroying Your Future

by charleshughsmith

The divergence of State/private vested interests and the interests of the middle class
The emergence of financialization as the key driver of profits and political power
The neofeudal “colonization” of the “home market” by ascendant financial Elites
The increasing burden of indirect “taxes” as productive enterprises and people involuntarily subsidize unproductive, parasitic, corrupt, but politically dominant vested interests
The emergence of crony capitalism as the lowest-risk, highest-profit business model in the U.S. economy

The Middle-Class Survival Guide

by charleshughsmith

Executive Summary

Recognize the signs of serfdom
Calculate your income's vulnerability to the system
Don't count on high inflation to inflate away your debt obligations
10 strategies you can start implementing right now to defend against the forces trying to sap your quality of life

If you have not yet read Part I: Middle Class? Here's What's Destroying Your Future, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

In Part I, we surveyed the key dynamics that have eroded middle-class wealth and income over the past 30 years. Some of these were conventional (higher energy costs) and some were unconventional/politically unacceptable (financialization; neofeudalism).

Regardless of what you identify as the primary cause, that the middle class (and labor in general) has lost ground since the early 1980s is undeniable, as is the ultimate failure of debt-dependent “growth.”

What can we do about it? It seems to me there are two responses:

Avoid becoming a serf in the new financialized feudalism
Avoid becoming dependent on the Status Quo and avoid collaborating/supporting those elements of the Status Quo that subsidize and protect the parasitic, inefficient, and unproductive sectors of the economy.

Getting Real About Serfdom

I am going to cut to the chase here, and I expect many of you to disagree. Debt is serfdom, period.

I often illustrate this point by asking two simple questions…

The Middle-Class Survival Guide

by charleshughsmith

Executive Summary

Recognize the signs of serfdom
Calculate your income's vulnerability to the system
Don't count on high inflation to inflate away your debt obligations
10 strategies you can start implementing right now to defend against the forces trying to sap your quality of life

If you have not yet read Part I: Middle Class? Here's What's Destroying Your Future, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

What can we do about it? It seems to me there are two responses:

Avoid becoming a serf in the new financialized feudalism
Avoid becoming dependent on the Status Quo and avoid collaborating/supporting those elements of the Status Quo that subsidize and protect the parasitic, inefficient, and unproductive sectors of the economy.