Thursday, March 16, 2017

When Polarization gets Dangerous


The Roman Empire probably believed that they had invented the wheel when they increased the money supply by removing the silver content in their coins and replacing it with copper.  When the silver content of the coins reached zero, the Roman Empire collapsed in 476 a.d. The elitist Romans were invaded by hoardes of barbarians in search of a better life. These days we just vote.

In 1971 an event known as the "Nixon shock" took place. The famous (or infamous) Nixon shock was a series of economic measures undertaken by United States President Richard Nixon, the most significant of which was the unilateral cancellation of the direct international convertibility of the United States dollar to gold. Simply put, the politicians removed the disciplinary shackle of gold from our coins (notes) and placed themselves in charge of the money supply. At the time US national debt was $398 billion, the Dow was about 1000, the money supply was $658 billion and being a millionaire was the American dream. Today the national debt is $20 trillion, the Dow is at 21000, the money supply is $14 trillion and being just a millionaire is a nightmare. Removing the gold from our currencies has made the rich...stinking rich, the middle class is in tatters and the poor live in "inner cities" and rural America. More polarized than this picture is difficult to imagine.

With this in mind in January I wrote "Hillary Clinton declared "We are stronger together!" Donald Trump stated “People talk about how we’re living in a globalized world, but the relationships people value most are local—family, city, state and country." Those two sentences elegantly describe the fault line that is splitting entire nations and continents right now." Polarization is an exclusively man made peculiarity conceived by human nature in the form of greed, arrogance, lust, fear and temptation amongst other excesses. 

The fault lines have been exacerbated by a high tech and medical revolution that, believe it or not, is only in its infancy (I will be writing about some of the ramifications next week). The name of the game for our kids and their kids.... is a good education. The educated and street smart are pulling away from the majority of folks. The Trump plan to create more debt will only emphasize the pain. Multiply that by the planned deficits in Europe and other countries, and we have a prescription for troublesome times.

Its a fact that at least 80% of the US budget goes to social security (25%), Medical benefits (25%), Safety net programs for the poor (10%), Defence (16%) and interest on the debt (7%). What does that leave for discretionary spending, tax cuts and infrastructure? Not much. Acclaimed analyst Richard Russel provided a no-option "quick fix" twenty years ago by saying "The creation of debt with expensive dollars and repayment of that debt with devalued dollars is an easy and temporary political solution to the problem." Another way of phrasing the above so that we all understand is -  "Kick the can down the road". The politicians have devalued our buying power and the barbarians are cloaked in a Trojan horse awaiting the right polarizing moment. This is an perhaps a reality for some of us to contemplate in more sober moments.


“Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us.” 
― Donna Tartt

“Sometimes you hit a point where you either change or self destruct.” 

― Sam Stevens

Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction - Erich Fromm

And I know I'm paranoid and neurotic, I've made a career out of it - Thom Yorke

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