page-loading-spinner
Home Economy

Economy

by charleshughsmith

Executive Summary

  • Understanding the Fed's ability to impact (or not) health & education, pensions, and inflation
  • What you can do to insulate yourself from the impacts of the Fed's financial interference
    • Mindset
    • Major expenses
    • Debt
    • Resilience
    • Income

If you have not yet read Part I: The Fed Matters Much Less Than You Think, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

In Part I, we found that the supposedly omniscient Federal Reserve is irrelevant to the engine of real wealth creation (innovation) and actively inhibits the allocation of capital and labor to innovation by incentivizing speculation and malinvestment.

In Part II, we’ll look at what else matters that the Fed either negatively influences or does not control, as well as specific actions we can take as individuals to insulate ourselves from the collateral damage caused by misguided central bank policies.

Health and Education

We all know health and education are vital to individuals and the economy, and like everything else that matters, the Fed’s influence is limited to financial repression of interest rates that enables the Federal government to avoid the sort of healthy fiscal discipline that higher rates would demand. In other words, the Fed has widened the moat around government spending, protecting it from the hard choices that would accompany massive deficits and bond issuance in a free-market economy.

Public and Private Pensions

By at least one measure, the Fed’s repression of interest rates (designed to recapitalize the banks at no direct cost to the Fed or government) has cost savers $10.8 trillion in lost income. Since the majority of savings in the U.S. are in public and private pension plans, 401Ks, and IRAs (individual retirement accounts), the Fed’s repression of interest rates has pushed these income-security savings into risky speculative asset bubbles in stocks, bonds, and real estate, and critically undermined the financial health of pensions by radically reducing their low-risk, safe returns.

How You Can Limit Your Exposure to the Fed’s Financial Interference
PREVIEW by charleshughsmith

Executive Summary

  • Understanding the Fed's ability to impact (or not) health & education, pensions, and inflation
  • What you can do to insulate yourself from the impacts of the Fed's financial interference
    • Mindset
    • Major expenses
    • Debt
    • Resilience
    • Income

If you have not yet read Part I: The Fed Matters Much Less Than You Think, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

In Part I, we found that the supposedly omniscient Federal Reserve is irrelevant to the engine of real wealth creation (innovation) and actively inhibits the allocation of capital and labor to innovation by incentivizing speculation and malinvestment.

In Part II, we’ll look at what else matters that the Fed either negatively influences or does not control, as well as specific actions we can take as individuals to insulate ourselves from the collateral damage caused by misguided central bank policies.

Health and Education

We all know health and education are vital to individuals and the economy, and like everything else that matters, the Fed’s influence is limited to financial repression of interest rates that enables the Federal government to avoid the sort of healthy fiscal discipline that higher rates would demand. In other words, the Fed has widened the moat around government spending, protecting it from the hard choices that would accompany massive deficits and bond issuance in a free-market economy.

Public and Private Pensions

By at least one measure, the Fed’s repression of interest rates (designed to recapitalize the banks at no direct cost to the Fed or government) has cost savers $10.8 trillion in lost income. Since the majority of savings in the U.S. are in public and private pension plans, 401Ks, and IRAs (individual retirement accounts), the Fed’s repression of interest rates has pushed these income-security savings into risky speculative asset bubbles in stocks, bonds, and real estate, and critically undermined the financial health of pensions by radically reducing their low-risk, safe returns.

by JHK

After the second novel in my World Made By Hand series (The Witch of Hebron) came out in 2010, I was beset by indignant reviews and angry letters from female readers over my depiction of gender and class relations further along in the 21st century. The fictional future economy I described was, in its broad outlines, similar to the future sketched by Chris Martenson and his stable of writers — a re-set to a far more local, much less complex, and downscaled economy, with a lot of formerly modern comforts and conveniences missing from the picture.

Class, Race, Hierarchy, and Social Relations in ‘The Long Emergency’
by JHK

After the second novel in my World Made By Hand series (The Witch of Hebron) came out in 2010, I was beset by indignant reviews and angry letters from female readers over my depiction of gender and class relations further along in the 21st century. The fictional future economy I described was, in its broad outlines, similar to the future sketched by Chris Martenson and his stable of writers — a re-set to a far more local, much less complex, and downscaled economy, with a lot of formerly modern comforts and conveniences missing from the picture.

by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • The inequality of the current system is becoming more and more visible, despite efforts to conceal it
  • History shows that control will break as those running the system are forced to compete more directly for a shrinking pie
  • The 3 essential indicators of instability to watch
  • The high price of a collapse of the status quo (and why developing resilience now is your best investment)

If you have not yet read Part I: Bankers Own the World, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

More Equal than Others

Like the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm, those running the current system are quick to convince us they are doing it out of service, not self-interest (many remember the testimony of Goldman Sachs head Lloyd Blankfein that he sees the bank's efforts as "doing God's work"). The media (most of which is owned by the top 147 companies discussed in Part I) reinforces the perception that the status quo is all that stands between us and economic ruin. 

Of course, there's a much darker side to the story. It requires some digging by the curious mind, but the data is there to be found. As previous mentioned, such a parasitical system inevitably concentrates wealth over time into the hands of fewer and fewer of the most privileged and most powerful. Here's an excellent visualization of how that has already happened in the U.S.:

Note that the actual degree of wealth inequality is much worse than Americans perceive it to be. That's not surprising given the absence of light shined on this in the mass media…

The Indicators of Instability to Watch For
PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

Executive Summary

  • The inequality of the current system is becoming more and more visible, despite efforts to conceal it
  • History shows that control will break as those running the system are forced to compete more directly for a shrinking pie
  • The 3 essential indicators of instability to watch
  • The high price of a collapse of the status quo (and why developing resilience now is your best investment)

If you have not yet read Part I: Bankers Own the World, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

More Equal than Others

Like the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm, those running the current system are quick to convince us they are doing it out of service, not self-interest (many remember the testimony of Goldman Sachs head Lloyd Blankfein that he sees the bank's efforts as "doing God's work"). The media (most of which is owned by the top 147 companies discussed in Part I) reinforces the perception that the status quo is all that stands between us and economic ruin. 

Of course, there's a much darker side to the story. It requires some digging by the curious mind, but the data is there to be found. As previous mentioned, such a parasitical system inevitably concentrates wealth over time into the hands of fewer and fewer of the most privileged and most powerful. Here's an excellent visualization of how that has already happened in the U.S.:

Note that the actual degree of wealth inequality is much worse than Americans perceive it to be. That's not surprising given the absence of light shined on this in the mass media…

by Chris Martenson

In the classic fantasy rom-com The Princess Bride, the beautiful maid Buttercup orders the farm boy Westley to perform numerous tasks to test his servitude. No matter the magnitude of the request, Westley simply answers "As you wish" and makes it so. Buttercup eventually comes to view Wesley with similar devotion, and true love is born.

Similarly, investors have fallen back in love with the capital markets, whose continual response their increasingly irrational hopes has been "As you wish."

Our “As You Wish” Markets Have Reached the Cliffs of Insanity
by Chris Martenson

In the classic fantasy rom-com The Princess Bride, the beautiful maid Buttercup orders the farm boy Westley to perform numerous tasks to test his servitude. No matter the magnitude of the request, Westley simply answers "As you wish" and makes it so. Buttercup eventually comes to view Wesley with similar devotion, and true love is born.

Similarly, investors have fallen back in love with the capital markets, whose continual response their increasingly irrational hopes has been "As you wish."

Total 3534 items