This post was published at The Alex Jones Channel
What’s Killing the Middle Class? (Part 1)
The rising asymmetry of rewards within our economy has many drivers. We all know the middle class that actually owns capital and wields political influence is shrinking. As I noted last week in Redefining the Middle Class: It Isn’t What You Earn and Owe, It’s What You Own That Generates Income, defining the middle class by household income alone is a misleading metric, as it leaves out the critical factors of debt and ownership of productive assets. A household may have an income of $150,000 and appear well-off by that metric, but if they are mired in debt and own virtually no productive assets or wealth that can be passed on to future generations, they aren’t middle class–they’re well-paid proletariats. So what’s killing the middle class? If you read the dozens of articles on the decline of the middle class in the mainstream (corporate) media, you soon discover there’s a short list of the usual suspects: 1. Globalization / outsourcing 2. Technological changes / automation 3. “Winner take all” asymmetry in rewards for specialized skills Clearly, each of these has squeezed the incomes of all those between the jobless poor and the wealthy reaping the lion’s share of the rewards from globalization and technological change.
This post was published at Charles Hugh Smith on SUNDAY, MAY 07, 2017.
Is This WalMart ‘Free-For-All’ A Taste Of Things To Come?
by Stefan Stanford via AllNewsPipeline.com,
In the new story over at Survival Dan called ‘During The Collapse: Where To Go And What Places To Avoid’, he reports that when IT hits the fan, America’s ‘population hubs’ will likely explode with violence, looting and the total breakdown of law and order as resources become next to impossible to get and the masses suddenly realize the government isn’t coming to save them.
Whether that be via total collapse, WW3 coming home to roost upon US soil or a ‘grid event’ that leaves tens to hundreds of millions either without power or access to the money in their bank accounts, the video directly below from a WalMart in Mexico gives us a very small taste of what that world without law and order can quickly devolve into.
Showing what happens when suddenly ‘lawless people’ realize that there aren’t enough security guards in a Wal Mart store to stop them, we witness the kind of all-out ‘free for all’ that we’ll likely see in a collapse event, though the smart people would be carrying out food, toilet paper and other necessities instead of flat screen TV’s. And in an all-out SHTF event, we’d expect that the people will likely be fighting with each other for the few remaining resources as they are now in Venezuela where children are literally starving to death.
Following Alt Market’s Brandon Smith warning that ‘a full spectrum crisis is about to take place’ a Wal Mart in Mexico gives us a small glimpse of what might happen here once it all comes crashing down amid more signs that what we’re witnessing in Venezuela may be coming to America.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on May 7, 2017.
Is North Korea The Excuse China Needs To Launch Monetary Armageddon?
If one were only to get their ‘news’ via the main-stream media outlets, it wouldn’t be wrong to assume when it came to the understanding of what is really going on across the globe, along with the consequences, most haven’t a clue. This point is made manifest with no greater example than the elections currently taking place in France.
I’m sorry, but the French election doesn’t trump, to all but exclusion, the potential for the breakout of WWIII. That is – unless you’re the main stream media. Yes, one has the potential for near immediate electoral upheaval (i.e., A potential Frexit, and possible finality for the E. U. experiment.) However, the other has the potential for a near immediate global war. That, of course, is the current standoff with N. Korea. And the reaction via the main-stream media? (Insert most recent Kardashian escapade here.)
Not to belittle the French elections and their possible consequences should the results go awry for the entrenched bureaucrats (not to mention the financial markets.) There is another standoff which may bring even more immediate consequences than the other.
Currently the Korean peninsula is in play much the same way Cuba was during the Kennedy administration known as ‘The Cuban Missile Crisis.’ The overall situation and its possible consequences for missteps are eerily similar.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on May 8, 2017.
The French Elections – What Now?
Macron won about 65% to Le Pen 35%. Even Obama came out in support of Macron which obviously confirms Macron is the supporter of the establishment – not change. The bias of the global press is clear in their labels. They label Emmanuel Macron as the ‘independent centrist’ and Marine Le Pen as the ‘far-right’ as applied by CNN – and we all know they are always for the establishment and against the people. Indeed, CNN seems to play the roll of Marie Antoinette who journalists reported she said ‘Let them eat cake’ or in French ‘Qu’ils mangent de la brioche’ upon learning that the peasants had no bread to eat, which back then was enriched with eggs and butter. Mainstream media has no regard for the people and only attempt to manipulate the people to maintain the status quo. Mainstream media do not want to rock the boat any more than the bankers. They want to keep everything as is and are distinctly part of the problem why we are in this economic mess. The mere fact Le Pen beat all the mainstream parties since World War II distinctly illustrates that all is not well in the land of Oz these people live in. Le Pen’s showing that about one-third of the population are fed-up with the status quo forewarns this is not over yet.
This post was published at Armstrong Economics on May 8, 2017.
The Myth of the Rule of Law
Any state, no matter how powerful, cannot not rule solely through the use of brute force. There are too few rulers and too many of us for coercion alone to be an effective means of control. The political class must rely on ideology to achieve popular compliance, masking the iron fist in a velvet glove. Violence is always behind every state action, but the most efficient form of expropriation occurs when the public believes it is in their interest to be extorted.
Mythology is necessary to blunt the violent nature of state power in order to maximize the plunder of property – and, most importantly, provide an aura of legitimacy. The perception of legitimacy ‘is the only thing distinguishing a tax collector from an extortionist, a police officer from a vigilante, and a soldier from a mercenary. Legitimacy is an illusion in the mind without which the government does not even exist.’1
State authority, and public obedience to it, is manufactured through smokescreens of ideology and deception. These myths sustain the state and offer an illusion of legitimacy, where orders, no matter how immoral or horrific, are followed because they are seen as emanating from a just authority. The state cannot implement violence against everyone everywhere and overwhelm the host, so the battle is waged against the hearts and minds of the public. Fear is exploited, language is distorted, and propaganda is spread, while narratives and history are tightly controlled. The gulag of state power, first and foremost, always exists in the mind.
This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on May 8, 2017.
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