Tag Archives: Production

The Global Power Shift Isn’t West to East–It’s Not That Simple, by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on June 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

The power shift is going to be from those who borrow or beg to those who produce. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

The mercantilist dependence on exports for growth, a winner for the past 70 years, has reached diminishing returns. Rather than be a source of growth, it’s a source of stagnation.

Conventional wisdom holds that geopolitical power is inevitably shifting from West to East. It isn’t quite this simple. The real shift is occurring between three sources of power that are not so neatly geographic:

1. The commodity exporters

2. The mercantilist exporters of products

3. The consumer-importing nations

Gordon Long and I tease apart the many dynamics in this complex power shift in Tectonic Shift of Mercantilism Revalued (42 min). There are three starting points: neocolonialism, mercantilism and importer by choice.

In classic colonialism, the colonial power expropriated commodities by force. The invaders took control of commodity-producing nations via military force and then oversaw the extraction of low-cost raw materials to provide the home markets with cheap materials to feed the colonial power’s valued-added manufacturing. The manufactured goods were then sold in the captured markets of the colonial states.

In what I call the Neocolonial Model, the control mechanism isn’t military force, it’s financialization and globalization. The Neocolonial Power extends cheap credit to the commodity exporting nation, and the state and its citizens gorge on this heretofore unavailable banquet of debt. Soon the state and its enterprises are creaking under unsustainable debt loads, and the Neocolonial Power swaps assets for debt, buying up the most valuable resources on the cheap or extracting the wealth via interest payments and refinancing.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Banking, Business, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Geopolitics, Governments, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged , , ,

This Is Your Last Chance, by Robert Gore

Posted on January 18, 2022 | 68 comments

This is Part One, Part Two will be posted 1/21.

The indictment is long and strong. A cabal of politicians, governments, courts, medical authorities, pharmaceutical companies, multinational agencies, the mainstream media, academics, and foundations, particularly the World Economic Forum, have concocted responses to a virus and its variants that have robbed the people of rightful liberties, are a mechanism for the imposition of global totalitarianism, and have amplified rather than reduced the virus’s dangers, inflicting severe injury and death that will last years, perhaps decades, and afflict millions, if not billions, of victims (See “The Means Are The End,” Robert Gore, SLL, November 13, 2021).

This is their last chance. They can reverse course and pray to whatever demonic deity they pray to that it’s enough to prevent the retribution they deserve, or they can perish in the destruction they’ve created. They will reap what they have sown, their time is up.

This is it, the last gasp of the psychopaths who express their contempt and hatred for humanity by trying to rule it. Compulsion, not voluntary and natural cooperation. Power, pull, and politics, not incentives, competition, honest production, and value-for-value trade. From each according to his virtue to each according to his depravity.

“The Last Gasp,” Robert Gore, SLL, March 24, 2020

Their time is up. This assertion may appear as recklessly foolish as Luke Skywalker’s ultimatum—“Jabba, this is your last chance, free us or die!”—did to Jabba the Hut at the Sarlacc Pit. It’s not, but to understand why requires an understanding of slow moving (on human time scale) but enormously powerful forces. Most history studies the wrong things and most predictions are straight line projections of the present and recent past.

The linchpin of history is innovation, not governments and rulers. We don’t know who ruled whom when humanity lived in caves, but we do know that someone tamed fire, someone planted seeds and cultivated them for food, and someone invented the wheel. With such steps humanity emerged from the caves and began building civilization. Even at this early stage one thing was clear: innovation creates new capabilities and opportunities and serves as the basis for further innovation.

Government is the acquisition of resources that enables those who govern to exercise control over those whom they govern. This presupposes resources, which presupposes production. Government is always subsidiary to production, yet most history focuses on the former and treats the latter as a secondary matter. This is looking down the telescope from the wrong end. Before a government can take someone must make.

Continue reading →

68 Comments

Posted in Banking, Business, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Cronyism, Culture, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Education, Entertainment, Financial markets, Governments, History, Law, Media, Morality, Movies, Philosophy, Politics, Science, Society, Technology, Tyranny, War

Tagged ,

How to Protect Your Local Economy From the Great Reset, by Brandon Smith

Posted on February 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

Looming financial and economic collapse may mean all economies are local. From Brandon Smith at alt-market.us:

 

This article was written by Brandon Smith and originally published at Birch Gold Group

Over the years, I have written extensively about the concept of economic “decentralization” and localization, but I think these ideas are difficult for some people to visualize without proper motivation. By that I mean, it’s not enough that the current centralized model is destructive and corrupt; it has to start breaking down or show its true totalitarian colors before anyone will do anything to protect themselves.

Sadly, the majority of people tend to take action only when they have hit rock bottom.

In recent months the pandemic lockdown situation has provided a sufficient wake up call to many conservatives and moderates. We have seen the financial effects of pandemic restrictions in blue states, with hundreds of thousands of small businesses closing, tax revenues imploding and millions of people relocating to red states just to escape the oppressive environment.

Luckily, conservative regions have been smart enough to prevent self destruction by staying mostly open. In fact, red states have been vastly outperforming blue states in terms of economic recovery exactly because they refuse to submit to medical tyranny.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Economics, Economy, Governments, Politics

Tagged , ,

Europeans Discover the Myth About ‘Safety Nets’ the Hard Way, by John Tamny

Posted on September 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

Cranking out a fiat currency is not a safety net. The only real “safety net” is one based on actual production. From John Tamny at realclearmarkets.com:

Economic discussions would be much better if it were understood that no one receives dollar, euro, yen, pound or yuan “aid.” They receive the goods that those currencies can be exchanged for. Money on its own doesn’t feed, shelter or clothe. It’s only useful insofar as it’s accepted by the producers of actual goods and services.

This simple truth is hopefully useful as a backdrop to what’s happening in Europe right now. As Liz Alderman of the New York Times reported on Tuesday, Europeans are presently suffering rather painful job cuts. In Alderman’s words, “At BP, 10,000 jobs. At Lufthansa, 22,000. At Renault, 14,600.”

To the half awake in our midst, what’s happening is a statement of the obvious. Some of the most stringent lockdowns related to the coronavirus happened in Europe. The shutdowns in France were the strictest, including limits on simply leaving one’s home. The virus spread despite, but so did economic contraction.

That contraction spread was a blinding glimpse of the obvious. Lockdowns by their very name limit activity, including that related to work. With Europeans suddenly experiencing reduced personal and economic mobility, production was naturally going to decline.

All that, plus the only closed economy is the world economy. A not insubstantial portion of Europe’s economic vitality is a consequence of production elsewhere. Translated, tourism looms large on a continent that increasingly limited the inflow of tourists. European goods of the car and clothes variety similarly enchant the world’s citizenry, but with global demand a consequence of supplying first, it’s no insight to say that Europe’s countries suffered economically the lockdowns that took place far from Europe.

Continue reading→

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Banking, Business, Collapse, Currencies, Debt, Economy, Governments, Medicine

Tagged , , ,

On Quarantines and Trees, Pencils, Technology, Art and Music, by Doug “Uncola” Lynn

Posted on April 24, 2020 | 1 comment

A meditation on the wondrous inventions we use and take for granted every day. From Doug “Uncola” Lynn at theburningplatform.com:

Due to some sustained winds, I had a large limb of a sizable ash tree blown down. And, in consideration of the Emerald Ash Borer, which is sort of the COVID-19 of ash trees complete with its own federal quarantine regulations, I decided not to save the tree.  Instead, I chose to cut it down in 18-inch chunks, stack it, and let it season in the round.  Then, as needed, I’ll split it and restack it prior to its ultimate delivery into my high-efficiency wood burner on some crisp winter day.

Although I am sad to lose the tree I find myself grateful for technology, and capitalism, when undertaking such tasks.  These gratitudes cross my mind when disassembling the saw and using an air compressor or vacuum to clean the components. Or as I’m sharpening the chain and oiling things up for storage, I’ll think of those who designed and built the machines; creations that are, truly, three-dimensional manifestations of intelligence, logic, and love.

I’ll wonder how many people have benefited from such inspirations.  I’ll think of Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”and the “rising tide of capitalism” lifting all “boats”; and the “I Pencil” essay… those beautiful words written by Leonard Read. He was a libertarian peer of Austrian School of Economics luminaries like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. He was an author who founded the Foundation for Economic Education; and he had the surname of Read. The irony.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Capitalism, Culture, Science, Technology

Tagged ,

13 Illustrations of the Benevolence of Capitalism, by George Reisman

Posted on November 24, 2018 | Leave a comment

Why capitalism works. From George Reisman at mises.org:

By the “benevolent nature of capitalism,” I mean the fact that it promotes human life and well-being and does so for everyone. There are many such insights, which have been developed over more than three  centuries, by a series of great thinkers, ranging from John Locke to Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand. I present as many of them as I can in my book Capitalism.

I’m going to briefly discuss about a dozen or so of these insights that I consider to be the most important, and which I believe, taken all together, make the case for capitalism irresistible. Let me say that I apologize for the brevity of my discussions. Each one of the insights I go into would all by itself require a discussion longer than the entire time that has been allotted to me to speak today. Fortunately, I can fall back on the fact that, in my book at least, I  think I have presented them in the detail they deserve.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Government, Money, Morality, Philosophy, Politics, Trade

Tagged , , , , ,

Local government foils evil terrorist entrepreneurs once and for all, by Simon Black

Posted on November 16, 2018 | 1 comment

Food trucks and renting out your own home or apartment threaten the American way of life, but fortunately local governments are on the case. From Simon Black at sovereignman.com:

Tens of thousands of years ago, humankind was practically an endangered species.

Our early proto-ancestors had little means to protect against the harsh elements or defend against terrifying predators.

And finding enough food was a constant challenge.

Tribes of humans would roam from place to place, foraging for whatever they could eat until they had exhausted nature’s resources… and then be forced to move on to a new location.

And the idea that early humans were champion hunters is largely myth; we were scavengers for the most part, nibbling scraps off dead animal carcasses that had already been picked clean by predators higher up the food chain.

It was hardly a sustainable way to live.

Then everything changed around 10,000 years ago.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Debt, Economics, Economy, Government, History, Labor, Law, Media, Morality, Politics

Tagged , , ,

He Said That? 10/20/15

Posted on October 20, 2015 | Leave a comment

Consumption, in the long run in which we are all dead, ultimately cannot be greater than production. Who knew? From David Stockman:

In short, the affliction of Keynesian economics brought many ills to the modern world, but repeal of Say’s Law was not among them. You can have a one-time credit party, but when it inevitably ends, consumption spending defaults to that which can be financed from current incomes. Consumption is the consequence of production and income, not its cause.

Red Swan Descending

Leave a comment

Posted in Debt

Tagged , ,