OfTwoMinds
How Breakdown Cascades Into Collapse
Maintaining the illusion of confidence, permanence and stability serves the interests of those benefiting from the bubbles and those who prefer the safety of the herd, even as the herd thunders toward the precipice. The misconception that collapse is an all or nothing phenomenon is common:
VIEW POSTWelcome to the 21st Century Sequel of the Catastrophic 1600s
As the chart below on ‘how systems collapse’ illustrates, the loss of stabilizing buffers goes unnoticed until the entire structure collapses under its own weight. Disruptive extremes of weather: check Rising geopolitical tensions with no diplomatic resolution: check Multiplying scarcities in essential commodities: check Domestic disorder accelerates as extreme positions harden into irreconcilable conflicts: check
VIEW POSTHere’s Why America’s Labor-Shortage Will Drive Inflation Higher
Great swaths of the American workforce are already on strike or slipping away from the dead-end treadmill. America’s labor shortage is complex and doesn’t lend itself to the simplistic expectations favored by media talking heads. The Wall Street cheerleaders extol the virtues of “getting America back to work” which is Wall-Street-speak for getting back to exploiting workers to maximize corporate profits.
VIEW POSTThe $50 Trillion Plundered from Workers by America’s Aristocracy Is Trickling Back
As I often note here, when you push the pendulum to an extreme of wealth and income inequality, it will swing to the opposite extreme minus a tiny bit of friction. The depth of America’s indoctrination can be measured by the unquestioned assumption that Capital should earn 15% every year, rain or shine, while workers are fated to lose ground every year, rain or shine.
VIEW POSTHousing Bubble #2: Ready to Pop?
All debt-fueled speculative bubbles pop, even as cheerleaders claim otherwise. The expansion of Housing Bubble #2 is clearly visible in these two charts of house valuations, courtesy of the St. Louis Federal Reserve database (FRED). The first is the Case-Shiller Index, which as you recall tracks the price of homes on an “apples to apples” basis, i.e. it tracks price movements for the same house over time.
VIEW POSTA Few Things About Reinforced Concrete High-Rise Condos
There is a downside to steel reinforcing bars: they rust. The second most remarkable thing about the sudden collapse of the Florida condo building was the rush to assure everyone that this was a one-off catastrophe: all the factors fingered as causes were unique to this building, the implication being all other high-rise reinforced concrete condos without the exact same mix of causal factors were not in danger.
VIEW POSTContributors
Mark E. Jeftovic
Mark is the co-founder of easyDNS and the editor-in-chief of #AxisOfEasy. He is the author of Managing Mission Critical Domains & DNS (Packt UK, 2018) and Unassailable: Protect Yourself from Deplatform Attacks & Cancel Culture.
The Canadian Bitcoiners
Joey Tweets and Len the Lengend are the hosts of The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast, and you may recognize them as the voices (and faces) behing the AxisOfEasy Podcast. CanadianBitcoiners.com
Charles Hugh Smith
Charles Hugh Smith is the author of numerous books and writes from OfTwoMinds.com.
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