Home

The sands beneath what’s scarce and what’s over-abundant are shifting.On a recent visit to the welding shop where my niece’s husband works, I asked him if they had enough welders for their workload. His answer surprised me: “If you asked every wel…

Thus do the lazy complacent passengers drift inexorably toward the cataracts of collapse just ahead.The boat ride down to the waterfall of systemic collapse is not dramatic, it’s lazy drifting: a lazy complacency that doing more of what worked in …

Thus do the lazy complacent passengers drift inexorably toward the cataracts of collapse just ahead.The boat ride down to the waterfall of systemic collapse is not dramatic, it’s lazy drifting: a lazy complacency that doing more of what worked in …

Triffin’s Paradox demands painful trade-offs to issue a reserve currency, and it demands the issuing central bank serve two competing audiences and markets.Judging by the headlines and pundit chatter, the U.S. dollar is about to slide directly to zero….

With only 56 trading days and fewer than 80 calendar days to the election, the Deep State camps seeking to torpedo Trump’s re-election have reached the do-or-die point.Back in June I speculated that the only way the Deep State could deep-six Trump’s re…

This is why denormalization is an extinction event for much of our high-cost, high-complexity, heavily regulated economy.A collapse of major chunks of the economy is widely viewed as “impossible” because the federal government can borrow and spend unli…

Here’s what denormalization means: there was no “New Normal” for the dinosaurs.Everyone talks about the “New Normal,” as if there’s a guarantee that life will return to normal. But the “New Normal” is De-Normalization, which I defin…

Two simple regulations would drive a stake through Wall Street’s corrupt, evil heart.While the corporate media is focused on the presidential election, perhaps the more interesting question is: could Wall Street Lose the election? That is, could W…

A fully financialized, totally debt and speculation-dependent economy is terminal once leverage and debt stop expanding exponentially.We all know the movie scene in which the character is wounded but dismisses it as no big deal, and then lurches into t…

The reliance on “good news” narratives dooms our financial system and economy to a death spiral once reality breaks through the induced euphoria.”Markets” that never go down aren’t markets, they’re signaling mechanisms of the Powers That Be. Marke…

We have three basic ways to counter the destructive consequences of stress.We have all experienced the disorientation and “brain freeze” that stress triggers. The pandemic and the responses to the pandemic have been continuous sources of stress, i…

Social media offers hope of achieving higher social status, something that is increasingly out of reach in our winner-take-most economy.I’ve often addressed the decline of social mobility and the addictive nature of social media, for example, Why …

Few appear willing to follow the probabilities of a future in which a vaccine cannot possibly be the “magic cure” everyone wants.Let’s attempt the impossible and set aside all preconceptions we might have about a vaccine for Covid-19, and think it thro…

The self-sustaining recovery is a fantasy that’s evaporated.What looks like a powerful, can’t-lose rally to newbies is recognized as distribution by old hands. In low-volume markets (as in the past few months), insiders holding large pos…

No federal bailout or stimulus can reverse these three dynamics, and no amount of legerdemain can replace the spending of the top 10%.Few of those anxiously seeking a rebound in consumer spending take into account the top 10% of households account for …

Not only is our lifestyle on back-order, so is our sanity.Yesterday I mentioned our collective inability to make sense of the contradictory messages of the status quo and our own experience. This inability to reconcile completely contradictory mes…