The Way Out | James Howard Kunstler

[Tace]

James Howard Kunstler -- World News Trust

March 30, 3015

It’s not what most people think: a return to some hypothetical “normality,” with the ghost of Ronnie Reagan beaming down like a sun-god under his lopsided pompadour, and all the happy self-driving GM cars toodling back and forth from WalMart-to-home loaded to the scuppers with new electric pop-tart warmers and 3-D underwear printers. (Or drone deliveries of same from Amazon.com.)

I mean, surely the thinking folk out there must be asking themselves: what is the way out of this Federal Reserve three-card-monte, one-percenter-stuffing, so-called “economy,” and what is the destination of this society when that mendacious model for living fails?

I digress for a moment: there was a chap named Richard Duncan on the pod-waves this weekend (FSN Network) putting out the charming idea that quantitative easing (QE -- governments “printing” money to buy their own bonds) had the effect of “cancelling debt” and that it could continue for decades to come. I don’t doubt that there are Federal Reserve officers who believe this. The part they leave out -- and Mr. Duncan also left it out until pressed -- is that there are consequences. Consult the operating manual of the universe, and you will find that there really is no free lunch or get-out-of-jail card.

The truth is, when you rig a money system with price interventions, distortions, and perversions, they will eventually express themselves in ways destructive to the system. In the present case of world-wide QE and central bank monkey business, these rackets are expressing themselves, finally, in wobbling currencies. In many nations, people are deeply unsure of what their money is worth, and how much it might be worth a month from now. This includes the USA, except for the moment our money is said to be magically appreciating in value compared to everyone else’s. Aren’t we special?

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[DonCoquixote]

1. au contraire

"All this surely implies a reduced role for the national government, and maybe the states, too. You could call it a lower standard of living, or just a different way to live."

No, the reason why the corporations have made big the economy the way it is is because there has been no givernment to stop them from destroying railroads and manipulating finances. It will take strong federal, state, county and even local governments to actually make the walkeable cities you ask for.

[Tace]

2. DonCoquixote: I Agree

We, The People, need to wrest control of our future from corporations, including banks. We need to assert our prerogative through our government, at all levels. Fuck this shit. Our government grants the corporate charters. Corporations are meant to operate under our sovereign license. --Tace

[abelenkpe]

3. +1000

[gregcrawford]

4. Our so-called "economy" is based...

... on the manipulation of money. But our money is not backed up by anything of actual value. We no longer have a manufacturing base of any substance, and we've been off the gold standard for-bloody-ever. The snake oil salesmen call it a "consumer-based economy," which is a monumental crock of shit, especially when the consumers are able to buy less and less because their salaries are not keeping pace with inflation, which is also measured with smoke and mirrors.

The whole house of cards is a con game, and we're the marks. Until we decide not to be...

What Wall Street does on a daily basis is illegal in most of the civilized world, like Canada, for instance. We have to take them down before they take us down, maybe for good this time.