Babies On Drugs In America? 1984 Predicted It!

Authored by Chris Campbell via LFB.org,

Over a million kids in America six years old and under are on psychiatric drugs - mostly to treat anxiety.

Let that sink in.

I have to ask. Is the U.S. really becoming this out of touch? And I mean that literally.

Author Ray Williams, a contributor to Psychology Today, offered an important question back in 2010: “In our desire to have a politically correct and safe social environment, or an environment of instant communication, have we lost sight of the most important aspect of human development and culture  — physical touch?”

The science is in: After food, water and shelter, there’s little more important to kids, especially babies, than human contact. Without simple human contact, in fact, babies can die.

This is the case, actually, to varying degrees, for all mammals.

In many litters of puppies and kittens, for example, there are sometimes one or two animals that come out enfeebled — as the “runts.”

The weakness of the runts, felt by the mother during nursing, is a sign to the mother it likely won’t survive. To make sure her genes have the best chance for survival, she must use her limited resources wisely.

As a result, the mother doesn’t lick or nurture the runt. The mother still allows the runt to feed (other species don’t even go that far), but it refuses to show the runt affection.

It’s hard to understate how catastrophic this is for the runt. A certain amount of maternal licking and nuzzling is necessary. The affection, we now know, turns on the production of a certain growth hormone in the brain. Without it, food cannot be metabolized properly and healthy growth and development is impossible. If the runt continues to be ignored, even if it still gets plenty to eat, it will eventually shrivel up and die.

It’s the same for humans. Without human contact at the earliest of age, the immune system is essentially shot. The affected becomes vulnerable to all sorts of ailments and diseases.

But it’s not just babies…

Human contact, in kids and adults, has been shown to ease pain, lift depression and may even, oddly enough, increase the odds that a team will win a game.

And it’s the simplest thing. (Plus, it’s free!)

K.I.S.S.: When the Synthetic Gets in the Way

Indeed. In our headlong rush for “progress” in all forms, this is one aspect of our existence in which we need to “make great again,” rather than mindlessly perverting or opting for more synthetic versions. (Food and most medicine can also be added to this list, among other things.)

Progress, technological and otherwise, hold incredible potential to lift humanity to new heights — yet, if not done mindfully (which is the ideal role of conservatism, preserving that which is worthy of preservation), it can, without question, push us down to new lows.

The latter is precisely what both George Orwell and Aldous Huxley were warning us about.

Dystopia would come first with a smile and promises of a vast utopia. And, so enamored we would be, we wouldn’t even notice the glimmering of its fangs until, of course, it was too late.

Today, we invite Joe Jarvis of the Daily Bell to ask one unnerving question: Have we already reached dystopia?

Read on.

As Babies are Prescribed Pharmaceuticals, Have We Reached Dystopia?

By Joe Jarvis

Would you let a five-year-old smoke a joint? I certainly hope not. Yet that would probably be less harmful than loading kids up on pharmaceuticals.

Currently, over a million American children UNDER SIX YEARS OLD are taking psychiatric drugs. Babies are literally being doped up by the pharmaceutical industry. Over 274,000 babies UNDER ONE-YEAR-OLD are given drugs, mostly for anxiety.

Anxiety drugs for babies. Have they tried motherly love? Or is that just an old fashioned, outdated concept?

You know, I like to mention society’s similarity to Orwell’s 1984. And surely the growing police state, war on drugs, and endless military campaigns – where the enemy seems to change daily – are reminiscent of the fictional dictatorship of Big Brother.

But it seems the powers that be are working tirelessly to blend together the dystopia of 1984, with that of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

In that dystopia, there is no police state or war. Society has been perfectly designed by scientists, inspired by Ford’s assembly line. Babies are grown in the lab, cloned to all look alike, depending on their class. Parents are an embarrassing relic of the past. How silly to think a child needs family when they have the state!

The lower castes are deprived of oxygen as embryos to stunt their mental development. In America, they use fluoride in the drinking water instead.

In Brave New World, children listen to 24-hour propaganda in their cribs.

Betas hear:

Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse.

White pride, black pride, gay pride, national pride. Pride is not meant for accidents of birth. You should be proud of accomplishments and achievements, not genetics and geography.

Perhaps someone has been whispering in these radicalized children’s ears.

And how jealous the Department of Education must be of the incubators of Brave New World! They have to sometimes wait years to indoctrinate children. But at least the government gets to drug them up at a young age! And if the TV is left on, most of the programming is done for them.

Of course, the adults are drugged up in Brave New World as well, just like in America. If anyone feels the least bit anxious, nervous, sad–or any other troublesome emotion–they get “soma.” It’s the perfect mix of drugs with only pleasant feelings and no ill side effects.

The 1 in 6 Americans on antidepressants, antipsychotics, and anti-anxiety medication still have to put up with side effects.

The 50 million plus Americans on psychiatric medication sometimes kill themselves, or go mad and kill others. I guess the government is still working out the kinks. Or it’s just another creative blending of 1984 and Brave New World. In the former, the proles must be properly terrified.

And there is one more thing I can remember from Brave New World that strikes eerily similar to modern America.

At what age does the public education system start teaching sex ed? Kindergarteners in some states receive “age appropriate” – according to the government – sexual education. Some studies suggest teen pregnancies rise in areas where sex ed is taught at younger ages.

How young is too young for a sex change? Kids can now choose between 43 genders, or make up a new one! It’s like Mr. Potato head, but with their own bodies. And they will be given corresponding drugs to enhance the “natural” changes.

In the classrooms of Brave New World:

“We had Elementary Sex for the first forty minutes,” she answered. “But now it’s switched over to Elementary Class Consciousness.”

The Director walked slowly down the long line of cots. Rosy and relaxed with sleep, eighty little boys and girls lay softly breathing…

He let out the amazing truth. For a very long period before the time of Our Ford, and even for some generations afterwards, erotic play between children had been regarded as abnormal (there was a roar of laughter); and not only abnormal, actually immoral (no!): and had therefore been rigorously suppressed.

Drugging the population, programming citizens with propaganda, sexualizing children, creating class divisions.

These dystopian novels were meant to be warnings, not instruction manuals.

Aldous Huxley explores how his fictional predictions progressed in his nonfiction work, Brave New World Revisited.

Capitalism - A New Idea

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Capitalism, whether praised or derided, is an economic system and ideology based on private ownership of the means of production and operation for profit.

Classical economics recognises capitalism as the most effective means by which an economy can thrive. Certainly, in 1776, Adam Smith made one of the best cases for capitalism in his book, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (known more commonly as The Wealth of Nations). But the term “capitalism” actually was first used to deride the ideology, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in The Communist Manifesto, in 1848.

Of course, whether Mister Marx was correct in his criticisms or not, he lived in an age when capitalism and a free market were essentially one and the same. Today, this is not the case. The capitalist system has been under attack for roughly 100 years, particularly in North America and the EU.

A tenet of capitalism is that, if it’s left alone, it will sort itself out and will serve virtually everyone well. Conversely, every effort to make the free market less free diminishes the very existence of capitalism, making it less able to function.

Today, we’re continually reminded that we live under a capitalist system and that it hasn’t worked. The middle class is disappearing, and the cost of goods has become too high to be affordable. There are far more losers than winners, and the greed of big business is destroying the economy.

This is what we repeatedly hear from left-leaning people and, in fact, they are correct. They then go on to label these troubles as byproducts of capitalism and use this assumption to argue that capitalism should give way to socialism.

In this, however, they are decidedly wrong. These are the byproducts of an increasing level of collectivism and fascism in the economy. In actual fact, few, if any, of these people have ever lived in a capitalist (free-market) society, as it has been legislated out of existence in the former “free” world over the last century.

So, let’s have a look at those primary sore spots that are raised by suggesting that collectivism will correct the “evils” of capitalism.

Prices Are Driven From the Top Down

This is unquestionably the case in the aforementioned countries, however, it is not so under capitalism. Under capitalism, each producer tries to get as much as he can for his product, but, as others are also creating the same product, those with the lowest price are the ones who will succeed. Therefore, the consumers effectively set the prices, based upon what they’re willing to pay.

But in any country where cronyism exists between big business and government, regulations can squeeze out the competition, allowing a monopoly for a given product. The definition of this marriage between business and government is “fascism.” The government makes it increasingly difficult, through regulation, for the small producer to compete with the larger producer (who gives kickbacks to the government).

Capitalism Only Benefits Those at the Top

Capitalism benefits those who produce the most, but it also benefits all others, as they have a free choice to purchase whatever products they wish, at a price they’re prepared to pay. If the producer demands too high a price, consumers instead buy his competitor’s product, putting him out of business. The consumer is therefore in charge of the price of goods. A producer only rises to the top if he produces the most affordable product (as did Henry Ford, 100 years ago, with his Model T. Through the free market, he lowered his price repeatedly and, in so doing, put America on wheels).

Capitalism Impoverishes the Masses

The free market offers more goods to more people at lower prices, which enriches the lives of all consumers, no matter how rich or poor. In so doing, it raises up the masses over time, providing them with more and better goods, education, health care, etc., enabling them to rise out of poverty. By contrast, overregulation and entitlements enslave those same people to poverty.

Capitalism Can Only Work if It’s Heavily Regulated

The whole idea of the free market is that it’s free from interference by others—most importantly, governments. If left alone, the free market will produce the goods the public are most willing to pay for, which results in an ever-self-levelling of products and prices. As soon as regulation enters the picture, the free market is compromised. What exists today is not a free market, as Adam Smith would have recognised it, but a bloated, dysfunctional socialist/fascist/capitalist mongrel of a system. Of course it doesn’t work.

Fascism is capitalism in decay.

—Vladimir Lenin

Quite so. Regulation is a cancer that slowly eats capitalism until it morphs into fascism.

Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking care to preserve the larger part for themselves?

—Socrates to Adeimantus

What was true ca. 400 BC in Athens is true today. Fascism (or corporatist cronyism) results in 99% of the population coming under the diktat of the 1%, which is made up of government leaders and corporate leaders, working in concert, to the exclusion of all others. This is, in fact, the opposite of a free market.

The creation of new wealth is the only functional weapon against poverty.

—Doug Casey

New wealth comes from the bottom up - it’s as simple as someone building a better mousetrap, or building the old one more cheaply. In such a market, both the producer and the consumer benefit.

In a fascist system, the wealth gravitates to the top, eventually choking out the middle class and expanding the poorer class, and that’s just what we’re witnessing today. The solution is not to go further in this direction, but rather to try something new… or at least new to anyone living under the fascist system. Although it still retains some capitalist overtones, it is unquestionably not capitalism.

A last word—capitalism does exist today, but it lives in select countries that have not yet given in to overregulation. In those countries, the average person thrives and has opportunities far beyond what’s allowed in the former “free” world. Should the reader conclude that his present country is unlikely to go in the direction of capitalism, he may choose to vote with his feet in order to prosper the way his ancestors did 100 years ago.

*  *  *

Today, Washington’s dangerous fascist policies have pushed the US economy to the tipping point. Years of overregulation, corporate bail outs, manic money printing, and artificially low interest rates, have bloated and warped the economy. Now it’s about to unravel… That’s why New York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video. Click here to access it now.

Ending the Golden Age of Nothingness

Sir Isaac Newton once famously said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Well, Ike knew a thing or two; for it is indubitable that he would never have had the necessary foundation of knowledge to whip up the law of universal gravitation without the works of Euclid or Copernicus before him. If not for Bach - and his father"s strict hand - perhaps Beethoven would have been a bricklayer. Without Langton and Magna Carta, the Founding Fathers never write the Constitution.

Those giants of Western Civilization were once of a sort that served mankind with wisdom, guiding their antecedents to look towards a future of beauty, freedom, and existential meaning. One Golden Age developed after another as great men were inspired to outdo the other or even to reach for the heavens in art, architecture, music, and literature.

Lately, though, it seems we"ve decided to perch instead on postmodern beings who, while great in technological stature, are cultural ogres. 

When we peer through the looking glass today, all we see, both immediately surrounding and far afield, is a desolation of ugliness and mediocrity:

• Soulless architecture that betokens our standing as utilitarian drones.


• Popular music sung (or mumbled, rather) in the gutter-mouthed patois of degenerate gang members.


• Pointless films - often written by committee and informed by focus groups - that wallow for two banal hours in quick-cut action scenes without dramatic tension; one-dimensional characters as performed by two-dimensional celebrities in third-rate productions.


• An educational system that replaces the canon of Dante, Donne, and Mallory with The Red Wheelbarrow.

Modern art affirms nothing except for mindless consumerism and appealing to our basest instincts. For all our advanced tools and broad access to them, mankind should be practically minting new artistic genius. Yet nothing today can top the achievements of those of ages gone by.

So why then does Nature no longer, to paraphrase Forster, "throw out a god" to stand out as divine amongst the "thin-hammed mediocrities", than when there were billions fewer in the world?

Because when it comes to art, profit motive suborns beauty and invites the average.

This wasteland came about when the best and most talented minds - those who could have been the next Shakespeare or Michelangelo - departed the land of the arts in favor of a life serving as cogs in a corrupted, increasingly statist machine that separates individuality and spits out utility.

When potentially great creators go where the money is, the fields of cultural endeavor are left to be tended by fools.

Soon after the best and brightest left for semi-lucrative STEM careers, the lands became fallow and our current Cultural Dark Age is the result; this abandonment has left the arts securely in the hands of green-haired Gender Studies majors and Nietzsche"s Last Man in skinny jeans.

Each passing generation then subsists off this degraded fare which nourishes neither the intellect nor the soul. Eventually, there will be no one left who can remember tasting anything better and thus the negative feedback loop is in full motion.

It will only worsen until conservatives realize that those who pump the imagery of art into the minds of the young wield infinitely more power than any engineer or writer of computer code could ever dream. That is why the left won the propaganda wars of the past few generations so completely. The cycle only breaks when the political right starts grooming their children to Make Culture Great Again.

One is constantly reading well-meaning advice in the columns and comments sections of alternative media stressing that parents should continue to nudge their children towards the hard sciences, because that"s the sector where they can procure the best livelihoods.

This is sound on the surface, especially for young adults whose gifts are geared for such work. But if you do push them towards those disciplines, make sure they are on the path to self-employment or starting their own companies. Because even in the STEM fields, conservatives hold little power.

Those kids will eventually be forced to toil for the leftists of Silicon Valley who grew up immersed in, and proudly adhere to, subversive culture.  Or the budding scientist must supplicate to those in Washington who dispense the science grants. Kiss advancement goodbye if you hold the wrong opinions.

They"ll be employed by a corsortium of elitists whose ultimate goals are not only antithetical to tradition and morality, but will hasten its extinction.

These are the oligarchs whose philosophical ends are to bring about the Singularity, to silence dissent, or level humanity under one-world governance where cultural greatness, or even humble simplicity, will be made impossible. Better that your kid become a blue-collar laborer or even a NEET with a free mind than to be servants to a wicked system.

But for those of you with children of a creative bent, consider home-schooling them (or enrolling them in carefully-selected private schools) so you can bypass an educational system that is actively airbrushing Western Man"s achievements out of the history books; a system that has perverted the traditional liberal arts beyond recognition and almost out of remembrance.

Once a sufficient number are again steeped in what is the best of mankind, they will be back on the shoulders of proper giants.

They will then write the great novels, paint the sublime portraits, and direct the spiritually fortifying films that can make the fields of culture fertile once more. In so doing, the mediocrities will be banished to their romper rooms where they can frame each other"s finger paintings in deserved obscurity.

By reclaiming education and the arts from the left, we can end our current Golden Age of Nothingness and maybe even repair capitalism in the process.

A new Renaissance - moored to beauty, truth, and ethics - will ennoble the Man of the West, restoring him back to a balanced, fuller humanity. It will be as a torch to burn off the fraud and moral hazard that has attached itself like a leech to our increasingly globalist going concerns. Where virtue exists in abundance, such shady and mercenary practices are reviled.

Economic patriotism and handshake deals will be back in vogue. Instead of capitalism making utility of man, man will make utility of capitalism as originally conceived.

Lord Feverstone of Dystopia USA

Proximity Is Destiny In America's Pay-To-Play Democracy

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Privilege is unearned proximity to power in all its manifestations.

My friend G.F.B. recently coined an insightful maxim: Proximity Is Destiny. The power of this concept lies in its unification of physical proximity and abstract proximity.

We all understand physical proximity can be consequential. As the Titanic settled lower in the ice-cold Atlantic, those close enough to the lifeboats to secure a seat (mostly the first and second class passengers) lived and those who were not died.

College graduates seek internships at the most successful companies because they know the connections they make by working within the headquarters might lead to a job offer: physical proximity to movers and shakers (and those with the power to hire) is destiny.

But proximity to abstract manifestations of power is even more consequential in an economy/society in which wealth and power are predominantly abstract. For example, getting an internship in the Federal Reserve doesn"t mean you can obtain proximity to the Fed"s money/credit spigot as a result of your physical proximity to the building or staff: the really powerful proximity--being close to the Fed"s money/credit spigot--is entirely abstract.

Abstract proximity is structural, and often invisible. We can"t discern an individual"s proximity to money/ credit/ privileged-information spigots by their physical locale or appearance, though we may infer their income/wealth from various status signifiers.

But signifiers don"t tell us much about abstract proximity. Two individuals may own the same status signifiers, but one earned them the hard way, and the other had the advantage of proximity to insider information.

Privilege is much in the news recently, and I wrote a short book exploring the nature of privilege: Inequality and the Collapse of Privilege. The point of the book is this: privilege requires a centralized power hierarchy, as only a centralized power hierarchy can impose or nurture privilege, often through informal power structures.

Privilege is unearned proximity to power in all its manifestations: in our world of abstract structures of power, privilege often appears informal, masking its structural nature.

This informality enables a useful (to the privileged) confusion of privilege and merit. Two individuals may appear to enjoy similar status--both own homes in upscale neighborhoods, drive luxury vehicles, vacation in exotic locales, own second homes, belong to churches, temples, clubs, charitable organizations, etc. well-stocked with wealthy, influential people, etc., but the sources of their status are very different.

One was handed all this by family connections and inherited wealth, while the other worked his/her way up from humble beginnings. The individual who managed to work his/her way up the social-mobility ladder needed proximity to opportunity, and might have been helped by mentors and plain old luck, but privilege played a relatively modest role in the journey, as millions of other people with similar social status had roughly similar proximity to opportunity.

This inherent difficulty in differentiating privilege from merit allows the privileged Elites to claim their advantageous position is all due to merit: I worked harder than the other guy, etc., when in fact it was proximity to abstract privilege and power that lofted them to the top of the pyramid.

The Power Elites always have need for hard-working, smart, honest strivers to serve their enterprises and institutions, and so they recruit non-privileged strivers to their inner circles: prep schools, elite universities, prestigious organizations, the "right" church, temple, etc., internships in higher management, scholarships, foreign postings that serve to quickly advance careers, and so on.

This proximity is very close to what they offer their own offspring. But there"s a difference, of course; their offspring can be dull-witted and lazy, and they will still get access to all these advantages.

And there is another unstated difference: the merely merit-based striver will not be invited to private gatherings, nor encouraged to find a mate in the Elite class.

Proximity is destiny, and it"s proximity to abstract but very real structures of privilege, power and capital that count.

As I detailed yesterday, proximity to the flow of cheap credit creates fortunes, fortunes that aren"t earned via merit, innovation, genius or the creation of new goods and services; proximity to cheap credit is the core dynamic of rentier skims based on the acquisition of income-producing assets.

With sufficient income and capital, you also gain proximity to the machinery of governance--our pay-to-play "democracy" in which influence can be bought to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Proximity is destiny. To understand this, we must first illuminate the abstract structures that enable proximity to the abstract but oh-so-real levers of privilege, power, wealth and influence.

Would You Quit Your Job to Build a School in Nepal?

Via The Daily Bell

After a nerve-racking, jam-packed five-hour bus ride on a careening mountain road in the Nepalese countryside, I was seriously doubting my life choices. I had quit my job, moved my stuff back home with Mom and Dad, budgeted my modest savings for the next five months, and now I was in the middle of a remote town by a river with an over-stuffed backpack.

It had all started with an application to help rebuild a school in Nepal that had been destroyed by the 2015 earthquake.

And now I was finding my way an hour up the road, across a suspension bridge, and on top of a farming terrace, where I discovered an international coalition of kind-hearted volunteers taking part in a ceremony. The village of Nagpuje was celebrating the anniversary of its school. I looked around and saw temporary learning centers and CGI structures. I was moved by the celebration, but it also struck me that this was the entire extent of the village’s development.

In the coming days, I would wake early, labor all day with my soon-to-be-family, and settle by the fire with a warm cup of tea, reflecting on our day’s work. We moved rocks, dirt, and cement, all of the necessary simple tasks. We soon learned and started trying our hand at carpentry, bending and cutting rebar, and manually mixing concrete. The project was lead by engineers, both domestic and foreign, who employed local masons from the village in which we were staying. It was clear that there was an efficient plan with effective measures; and I had the privilege of helping.

All Hands

The Internet is inundated with charitable causes to which you can donate. And while a donation is admirable, there is a slight visceral shortcoming in the satisfaction of helping. For some, a monthly subscription to a charity works. For others, myself included, there is a need to go somewhere and help in order to know for certain the effects of my individual contribution.

When you research different types of international volunteer organizations, two things become apparent. In order to be involved, you either need a specific skill or vocation, such as nursing or engineering, or you can pay money to be a part of a program.

I was discouraged. I was just a guy in his mid-20s with a film degree (read: broke) and arguably no valuable skills. But then I discovered All Hands Volunteers – a non-governmental organization specifically to do with natural disaster response and recovery; everything from tsunamis to earthquakes, and much more.

When their founder David Campbell created this organization, he had one simple goal: No matter the qualification or skill set, find average people who have a desire to make a difference in the world. All Hands Volunteers runs on grants, partnerships, and donations. They don’t charge incoming volunteers to participate. All they ask is that you set up a personal fundraising page. You work 6 days a week, and in return, All Hands provides you with:

– Room and board (meals provided 6 days, meal options always near).

– Insurance.

– Spontaneous entry and flexible length of stay.

– Genuine work that needs doing.

– Authentic cultural experiences (even and especially in state-side projects).

Generally speaking, it makes sense to charge incoming volunteers, especially if they’re spontaneous. It takes money to keep people fed, continue work on the project, make sure facilities are kept up, etc. But despite the cold hard logistics of this business model, All Hands breaks the mold. They instead rely on the raw power of human generosity.

Were it not for a steady stream of donations, this NGO might not have a place in the world. Behind each carefully selected mode of operation, there is a reliance on the decency of the average person. Not to mention, this past year All Hands spent over 84% of its budget directly on its programs, with administrative costs just under 8%. You can view their financials here.

So I decided to apply.

The Work

Soon I was leading teams of people in the day’s work, directing workflow and working in tandem with Nepali masons. We hardly shared a language, but through working together, we came to know our shared responsibilities, and how to help each other accomplish our goal: to build a school that could withstand an earthquake.

With each passing day, I became a little closer to the local community. From the shopkeepers to the farmers, to the children who would pass by our worksite every day, waving and shouting “Namaste!” at the top of their lungs. Little did they know that they were providing a boon of motivation of a spiritual scope. Whenever we got sore, or tired, or when manually mixing concrete in the hot midday heat became too difficult; whenever we felt our strength waning with the setting sun, there they were, doing nothing other than just being kids. That was always enough.

As much as I grew to understand Nepali culture in an authentic way, I also learned so much about the world through other international volunteers. I’ve worked with people whose religious and political views are diametrically opposed to my own. We were able to learn from each other, entertain debates both serious and capricious, and learn about each other’s cultures. They were engineers, yoga teachers, travelers, students, and business owners. They were young, old, experienced, wide-eyed and determined. They were, and are, truly brilliant.

Our mission in Nagpuje, Sindhupalchowk is complete. We built two schoolhouses, a functioning bathroom, a DIY no-budget playground, and a community water tap, complete with a partition wall so women can bathe in privacy. Our goals were made manifest by the strangest group of misfits we’d ever have the pleasure of being a part.

In Nepal, it’s common to refer to everyone by a family name. Everyone is either a sister or brother, father or mother, aunt or uncle. It was this passive reinforcement that these relationships became real for me. Even though our hearts soared seeing these massive structures we built with our own bare hands, we were sad. We knew we had to leave, that’s just the nature of it.

After bidding farewell to many a volunteer, it was finally our turn. We celebrated a final night with many families in the village. We ate, sang, danced, drank, played with the kids late into the night. The following day was surreal for everyone. Our base was deconstructed. The villagers had to get used to our absence just as they got used to our presence.

But as we walked down the mountain, we could see from the far end of the path a bright, beautiful school. No matter where the road lay ahead of us, we all knew precisely what we left behind. Through nothing other than our own determination and willingness to help, we made lives measurably better. The feeling of accomplishment was so rewarding; the finest thing for which to live.

The results are fascinating. This organization attracts people from all around the world who fulfill a singular goal with a team of people. Not for pay, but for the intangible value that comes with making a genuine difference. Volunteering is only the illusion of selfless activity; the volunteer ends up receiving not just a broadened perspective, but also a changed life. In giving freely, you can reach out and hold a universal purpose: to aid the safety, growth, and development of the human race.

It’s very easy to be cynical in a 24-hour media cycle, where we are barraged by the conflict and turmoil at home and abroad. It’s even easier to make a positive change as an individual. It’s legitimately at our fingertips. If you are curious about doing something like this for yourself: this is your invitation.

The world is waiting to become a better place thanks to you.

Do Ends Justify The Means?

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I think the U.S. citizenry is being afflicted by a sort of mass insanity at the moment. There are no good outcomes if this continues. As a result, I feel compelled to provide a voice for those of us lost in the political wilderness. We must persevere and not be manipulated into the obvious and nefarious divide and conquer tactics being aggressively unleashed across the societal spectrum. If we lose our grounding and our fortitude, who will be left to speak for those of us who simply don’t fit into any of the currently ascendant political ideologies?

– From February’s post: Lost in the Political Wilderness

Given our increasingly hysterical, polarized and downright rabid political environment, I think it’s important for those of us who see ourselves as relatively conscious individuals to reflect upon our principles and how they play a role in our everyday lives. As such, today’s piece will examine the concept of whether “the ends justify the means” when it comes to achieving ones objectives, political or otherwise. It’s an extraordinarily important philosophical exercise to undertake, particularly since the turbulent period we inhabit is likely to get far more insane and divisive before it gets better.

I think many people will quickly answer the question “do the ends justify the means” without putting enough thought into it. The question is meant to be considered when it comes to premeditated voluntary actions of questionable ethics taken with a defined objective in mind. It has nothing to do with matters of self-defense, or anything in that category. For example, if someone is coming at your family with an intent to inflict harm, the ethical decision might be to harm the aggressor to protect your family despite the fact that harming another person in itself is an immoral act. Pretty much everyone can agree with this, so it doesn’t add anything to the argument of whether the ends justify the means.

That case is obvious. What about if you’re walking down the street and you see someone come from behind an old lady, hit her on the head and then struggle with her on the ground in an attempt to take her purse. You aren’t being directly attacked, so should you intervene with violence if necessary against the perpetrator to help an innocent bystander? Again, I think the right and ethical decision here is to step in to try to help the victim if possible.

In both these cases the negative “means” of violence you might be required to use against violent aggressors do indeed justify the ends — in the first instance the protection of your family, and in the second a vulnerable old lady. Given these examples, one might be led to believe that the ends can often justify the means, but I would argue that this only holds true in extreme examples such as the ones described above, and that for a principled person, the ends almost never justify the means.

When people seriously consider whether the ends of a particular action justify the means, it’s almost never in relation to scenarios like the ones described above for two reasons. First, those are extremely rare situations that many people (in the developed world at least) will only experience a few of times in the course of a lifetime, if that. On the other hand, many of us face constant but often overlooked ethical dilemmas on a daily or weekly basis. We all face situations where we are confronted with the choice to do something we know is wrong, but perhaps do it anyway either for instant gratification or in the pursuit of a larger goal. This post is focused on the latter.

Many people involved in politics swear by the notion that “the ends justify the means,” which is typically the sign of a self-serving actor attempting to justify questionable if not downright evil action in order to get what he or she wants. While pursuit of “the greater good” is often put up for public consumption, the driving force behind this sort of action is almost always personal gain of some sort. This is what most politicians do for a living, which is why they are justifiably hated by the general public.

One of my favorite books of all time is The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi. In the introduction, he writes:

He who is ever brooding after result often loses nerve in the performance of his duty. He becomes impatient and then gives vent to anger and begins to do unworthy things; he jumps from action to action, never remaining faithful to any…When there is no desire for fruit, there is no temptation for untruth or hisma. Take any instance of untruth or violence, and it will be found that at its back was the desire to attain the cherished end.

A few pages later he expounds upon the subject.

We should do no work with attachment. Attachment to good work, is that too wrong? Yes, it is. If we are attached to our goal of winning liberty, we shall not hesitate to adopt bad means. 

Gandhi clearly did not believe that ends justify the means, and I agree with this conclusion in something like 99% of the ethical dilemmas we regularly face as human beings.

Someone who wants to make the opposite argument might selectively pick certain historical instances where questionable action led to a favorable outcome overall. I don’t dispute that such instances exist, but I’d argue that for each such instance there are hundreds of examples of the exact opposite. In fact, much of the tragic state of the world as it is today can be directly linked to scores of humans constantly justifying unethical behavior in order to advance their own self interests and goals. A primary driver of so much of the unnecessary suffering in the world relates to individuals making immoral decisions they justify to themselves and others as being a necessary part of a larger goal. Notice how these “larger goals” almost always end up benefiting the person taking and justifying the questionable action? That’s your red flag.

To those of you who still disagree with my argument, think about it from the slippery slope perspective. The moment you justify one very wrong action to achieve a noble goal, what’s to stop you from next even more unethical action, or the next and the next? Nothing. This is what’s so dangerous about going down such a path. Indeed, those who fight monsters often end up becoming the exact thing they claim to be fighting. The world doesn’t benefit from this, only the person who has gained power as a result does, at least superficially. Ultimately, even that person doesn’t benefit when all is said and done. A person who attains their goal by sacrificing principles is a tormented, miserable person. They may seem to “have it all” from the outside, but deep down they hate themselves and what they’ve become. There is no peace. I believe karma eventually catches up to everybody one way or the other.

Indeed, so many of the wars, massacres and bloodshed around the world can be directly linked to “ends justify the means” type thinking. That’s exactly what America’s insane neocons use to justify their endless wars of intervention that end up making the world a worse place than it was before. Notice how they always claim their action is to achieve good, yet it always ends up making things worse. Notice how it doesn’t stop them from making the same ridiculous argument over and over again?

Unfortunately, many people don’t have any principles to begin with and simply live their lives in the pursuit of their own superficial, materialistic or egotistical goals. These are the types of people who most often employ “ends justify the means” thinking, which is exactly why those of us who do have principles must reject this way of thinking and pursue a more conscious manner of achieving our ends. If that means our ends aren’t achieved in our lifetime that’s something that must be accepted. The means we use will reverberate in the universe forever and will benefit the world whether we’re able to point to definitive results or not.

As Gandhi also wrote:

If we take a total view, we shall see that it is not wickedness but goodness which rules the world. The wicked can prevail only when they number multitudes, but goodness will rule when embodied to perfection even in one person. Nonviolence has been described as so powerful that all forces of violence subside in its presence. Under its influence, even beasts forget their nature. Even one good person can change the world. Such a one enjoys an empire over people’s hearts…

Where wickedness prevails, there is disorder in every field of life, but where goodness rules, order prevails and people are happy. They are happy not in the sense that their material needs are satisfied, but in the sense that they lead virtuous and contented lives. As for material possessions, some men have fortunes in rupees and yet have a distracted life. That is no sign of being happy.

Gandhi was himself a victim of the violence he so despised, but his timeless message lives on and he wouldn’t harbor any bitterness or anger to those who gunned him down. I first read the words above nearly a decade ago, and they’ve stayed closely beside me ever since. I hope they connect with you as well.

Keep striving, keep learning and keep growing. Thanks for joining me on this wild ride that is life.

Our State-Corporate Plantation Economy

Authored by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

We"ve been persuaded that the state-cartel Plantation Economy is "capitalist," but it isn"t. It"s a rentier skimming machine.

I have often discussed the manner in which the U.S. economy is a Plantation Economy, meaning it has a built-in financial hierarchy with corporations at the top dominating a vast populace of debt-serfs/ wage slaves with little functional freedom to escape the system"s neofeudal bonds.

Since I spent some of my youth in a classic Plantation town (and worked on the plantation as a laborer in summer), the concept of a Plantation Economy is not an abstraction to me, but a living analogy of the way our economy works.

Wal-Mart and the Plantation Economy (August 24, 2010)

Colonizing the Plantation of the Mind (August 25, 2010)

We Need a Social Economy, Not a Hyper-Financialized Plantation Economy (November 12, 2015)

Loving Our Servitude in America"s Plantation Economy (February 10, 2017)

The Plantation Economy is extremely hierarchical. Corporations and the state are both extremely hierarchical.

In the Plantation Economy, the Company has access to nearly unlimited credit. Small businesses serving the employees and the employees have enough credit to live on but not enough to buy productive assets. As a result, the Corporation can always buy up any productive assets, expanding its monopoly.

The state also has an essentially unlimited line of credit which it can use to fund its favored cartels and state fiefdoms.

In the Plantation Economy, the Company suppresses any innovation that threatens its monopoly and the state enforces whatever means the Corporation deploys: buying up patents and small companies, predatory pricing to bankrupt competitors, etc.

The Plantation Economy is a mono-culture of large corporations and their partner in rentier skimming, the state. Our economy is a state-cartel finance-debt system; it"s only capitalist on the margins, that is, in the fringes that aren"t profitable enough for corporations to control.

The core feature of this Plantation Economy is the privileges of accumulating capital are all in the hands of the state-cartel elites. The foundation of classical capitalism is the accumulation of capital, which in our era is not just cash, factories, mines, etc.--financial and industrial capital--but knowledge capital: intellectual property, knowledge of processes, creation and control of content, research and development, control of information streams (that is, maintaining information asymmetry) and so on.

Those with unlimited access to low-cost credit can buy up or control all productive capital, including the labor of knowledge-based workers.

When an economy is optimized for global corporations, the only possible result of this arrangement is a Plantation Economy. Our economy is optimized for corporations: they have access to unlimited low-cost credit, their capital can be shifted around the globe at a moment"s notice (i.e. it is mobile), they have the tax advantages of incorporation and complex tax codes, they can declare bankruptcy without any limitations and wipe out their debts, they can engage in fraud, corruption and embezzlement and face no consequence other than a modest fine, they can suppress competition and their size enables dominance of the labor market.

Imagine if all these immense advantages were granted solely to worker-owned collectives and co-ops, and corporations were de-optimized, that is, they no longer had access to credit, their employees and managers could be jailed for systemic fraud and embezzlement, they paid high fees for merely existing and they were denied the ability to buy political influence as easily as an employee buys a loaf of bread.

The problem with a Plantation Economy is that it inevitably stagnates and collapses. Suppressing competition and innovation corrodes productivity, and as productivity and social mobility both fade, so does wealth creation.

The state-cartel Plantation eventually eats all its own seed corn via the vast expansion of credit. What appears to be "wealth" in the state-cartel Plantation is illusory asset bubbles fueled by state-engineered credit expansion.

Beneath this brittle veneer of great "wealth," the real economy is stagnating. These charts reflect this reality:

Productivity: stagnant:

New business growth: stagnant:

New credit-money issued to finance, monopolies and cartels: through the roof:

And the only possible output of the state-cartel Plantation Economy: runaway wealth and income inequality. There is no other possible output of our system.

We"ve been persuaded that the state-cartel Plantation Economy is "capitalist," but it isn"t. It"s a rentier skimming machine. Capitalism enables the accumulation of capital by anyone in a transparent market, and the capitalist state enforces a level playing field.

There"s the get-to-work horn, people. Time to labor for the rentier skimming machine and its enforcer, the state, to pay your taxes, student loans, mortgages, and all your other neofeudal "obligations" to the state-cartel elites.

For more on the inevitable collapse of Plantation economies, please see my book Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print, $5.95 audiobook.

Insider Reveals How DARPA Will Control Our Minds: "If Even 20% Of This Is True..."

Things are so far gone, that we have no idea, warns SHTFplan.com"s Mac Slavo, people have virtually no sense of how deeply we are being steered off the path.

Our very opinions, the information we receive, and the way in which our brains determine the strength of our opinions is all being skewed by algorithms, and by deliberate manipulations.

Science fiction is behind the curve of what they are actually attempting right now. A few more years of censorship and editing of content through social media, and a few more years of total integration with technology, and humanity may no longer be recognizable.

It certainly won’t be free unless some very raw facts are quickly faced and dealt with.

DARPA Insider Reveals the Coming Hive Mind Control Grid: “If Even 20% Of What This Guy Says Is True…”

Via The Daily Sheeple

The video below features a keynote by Dr. Robert Duncan regarding what can only be described as our coming hive mind control grid. He isn’t just talking about advances in transhumanism, the singularity, or artificial intelligence. He’s talking about how to control the minds of everyone on the planet and evolving humanity in a technological sense… whether they like it or not.

Duncan professes with shame that he worked on “Voice of God” weapons for the US Department of Defense, weapons which can make people think they are hearing voices in their heads in an attempt to control them. He says such weapons were tested back during Desert Storm and were quite effective at getting Iraqi soldiers to lay down arms without a shot fired.

And that’s just what they had 20+ years ago. Can you imagine what they’re working on today?

Duncan also touches on Project Blue Beam, remote neural monitoring, smart dust, and electronic telepathy technology which uses extremely low frequency waves.

Despite attempting multiple times to put a “positive spin” on this information as he nervously delivers it, what this man is saying really can’t be spun in a positive way, not with these kinds of technology in the hands of the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower once gravely warned us about. Duncan notes scientists “are brainwashed into believing that everything we are doing is of benefit to mankind, but look who pays our bills? The military. It’s all for war, it’s all for control, for government control…”

If even 20% of what this guy has to say is true…

Just… you’ve got to see this for yourself.

"Solutions Abound" To Crush The Crony Cartels

Authored by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Rather than bemoan the inevitable failure of centralized "fixes," let"s turn our attention and efforts to the real solutions: decentralized, networked, localized.

Those looking for centralized solutions to healthcare, jobs and other "macro-problems" will suffer inevitable disappointment. The era in which further centralization provided the "solution" has passed: additional centralization (Medicare for All, No Child Left Behind, federal job training, Universal Basic Income, central banking "free money for financiers", etc.) have all entered Diminishing Returns.

The systemic costs of centralization--corruption, cronyism, soaring prices, declining quality, over-reach, insider rackets, regulatory capture by corporations and oligarchs-- are soaring as the benefits of centralization plummet.

ObamaCare was the penultimate flowering of centralization: every self-serving healthcare cartel and racket had a say in the centralized sausage-making, and the results were entirely predictable: highly profitable to the healthcare cartels and rackets, and soaring costs that rendered the program unaffordable.

ObamaCare institutionalized staggering distortions, profiteering and injustices, as those who didn"t qualify for a subsidy were ripped off to pay for all the skims and scams: meds that went from $3 to $600 overnight, etc.

All the sound and fury around a centralized one-size-fits-all "solution" signifies nothing--the solution is decentralized and local, not federal. Centralization of power, capital and control paid big dividends early on--central governments corralled the productive elements of the nation to wage wars, and capitalists forged immensely profitable integrated supply chains that fed centralized production facilities in which iron ore entered the plant and finished automobiles exited.

The benefits of centralization outpaced the costs: this was the boost phase:

The returns on centralization diminished in the waning years of the 20th century, and are now in free-fall. Whatever has been centralized--federal jobs training, federal takeover of the mortgage market, federal takeover of student loans/debt-serfdom, central bank policies that favored the super-wealthy at the expense of the bottom 95%-- have been disastrous wastes of irreplaceable time and political/financial capital.

Fragmentation is feared by the Establishment of rackets and insiders for the very reason that fragmentation is the solution. Who loses when people wake up and abandon the centralized rentier skims, scams and rackets? Those who own and control the rentier skims, scams and rackets.

Solutions abound, but they are at the local level: cities, towns, counties, communities and neighborhoods.

Rather than bemoan the inevitable failure of centralized "fixes," let"s turn our attention and efforts to the real solutions: decentralized, networked, localized.

The Illusion Of Progress

Via Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

This is precisely what you"d expect of a self-serving elite that was desperate to cloak the unhappy reality that the relative few are benefiting immensely at the expense of the many.

The core narrative of politics everywhere is progress, i.e. "moving forward." If progress isn"t being made, politicos and the system are failing.

In the past, "progressive" movements sought to advance both social and economic opportunities for marginalized groups.

For a variety of reasons, social progress has been decoupled from economic progress.

In broadly disintegrative eras such as the present, the stagnation of economic opportunity is masked by redefining progress in purely social terms: progress is defined as the social advance of a marginalized populace into the mainstream.

When the marginalized populace is comprised of many millions of individuals, social progress and economic progress are mutually reinforcing dynamics: opportunities for social advancement in the mainstream created economic opportunities, and vice versa.

Now that social/economic progress has lifted the major marginalized populaces--ethnic and religious minorities, gays--substantially into the mainstream, those remaining marginalized populaces are modest in size. Estimates of the trans-gender populace, for example, are generally less than 1% of the total population.

The marginalized groups" advances that are markers for "proof of progress" have decoupled from economic advances. Few if any social-justice promoters of trans-gender rights, for example, claim any economic gains will accompany this social progress.

The reason why social progress has been effectively decoupled from economic progress is that the woeful lack of economic progress for the bottom 90% proves financial progress is now limited to an elite comprised of Oligarchs, Nomenklatura, the Technocrat Class and a relative handful of entrepreneurs.

Everyone else has been losing ground in wages, wealth and opportunity. If we measure progress in very broad terms such as participation in and ownership of the most productive parts of the current mode of production, then this chart forces us to conclude that movement for the vast majority is now backward, not forward.

To mask this disquieting and politically discordant reality, the status quo of the Corporate Media, academia, state functionaries and technocrats has redefined "progress" to exclude hard financial data that reflects widespread, systemic stagnation for the bottom 90% in favor of "feel-good" social-justice virtue-signaling.

This is precisely what you"d expect of a self-serving elite that is desperate to cloak the potentially explosive reality that the relative few are benefiting immensely at the expense of the many. So please take your social-justice "progress" with a grain of salt the size of the iceberg that sank the Titanic: if we measure progress solely by participation in and ownership of the most productive parts of the current mode of production, a much different snapshot emerges: economic stagnation is not progress.

Servitude In America's Plantation Economy

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The only possible output of low social capital is rising inequality.

One of the themes I"ve been addressing since 2008 is the neocolonial-plantation structure of the U.S. economy. The old models of colonial exploitation that optimized plantations worked by cheap imported labor (or situated in peripheral nations with plenty of cheap labor) have, beneath the surface, been adapted to advanced capitalist democracies.

The adaptations have been so successful that not only do we not even recognize the Plantation structure--we love our servitude within it.

As noted yesterday, the current mode of production optimizes the commoditization of everything: computer chips, fish and chips, labor, expertise, everything.

This commoditization optimizes the Plantation Model of integrated production, global supply chains and distribution to global marketplaces, a hierarchical management focused on maximizing profits to send back to the owners, a ruthless focus on lowering costs via labor arbitrage (commoditize the work so it can be performed anywhere labor is cheaper/more desperate) and a fanatical desire to eliminate competition or fix prices via cartels to ensure high profits.

Global capital has optimized the Plantation Model in the form of global corporations. Wal-Mart is the quintessential example. Like a classic agricultural plantation, Wal-Mart enters a region with a diverse, employment-rich ecology of small businesses and supply chains of local and regional manufacturers and distributors, and it bulldozes the entire "forest" of businesses, suppliers and distributors with the irresistible blade of integrated global supply chains and "lower prices, always."

Wal-Mart replaces the localized economy with a low-pay, highly efficient plantation economy in which the townpeople"s only choice is to work for Wal-Mart or scrape out a living feeding the Wal-Mart workers, doing their laundry, etc.--exactly as on a classic plantation.

On a classic plantation, the wages are low and the "company store" offers easy credit, binding the workers to the corporation not just for wages but for credit.

Those few who manage to save up enough capital to start small service businesses-- laundry, cafes, etc.--must do so in the shadow of the Company, which can always drive them out of business should they speak against their corporate overlords.

A once-diverse landscape is reduced to a monoculture wasteland dependent on subsidies, either implicit or explicit. Wal-Mart"s low wages leave many of its workers" families on state aid or food stamps to survive, and so it prospers on the backs of taxpayers who subsidize its low wages.

The alternative is not some fantasy of "old-time America"--this model still exists where citizens refuse to submit to the mono-tyranny of "low prices."

Isn"t it odd how this statement--the nation does not exist to benefit corporations, corporations exist to benefit the nation and its citizenry --sounds breathtakingly revolutionary in today"s politics of experience?

One of the key concepts in the Survival+ critique is the politics of experience. This is an elusive concept because what we take for granted is invisible to us, and we have to go back in time, so to speak, to rediscover a history in which the experience of daily life was quite different from the present.

Today, we accept it as "normal" that marketing worms into every once-private area of our lives. Not that long ago, adverts and marketing were limited to print media (newspapers and magazines) and TV--fundamentally passive media.

The key concept in all marketing now is supremely pernicious: any advert or campaign which reaches deep into the last refuges of privacy is considered highly valuable.

Where the only public adverts were once billboards, now there are adverts on the shopping carts in the supermarket--another violation of what could be considered temporary private space--and on the floor of the supermarket. Even the rubber dividers used to separate one"s own purchases from the next customers now display an advert.

The colonization of the plantation of the mind is now complete. It is not coincidental that those citizens who "consume" the most media are also the biggest buyers of junk food and its accompanying junk worldview based on consumption, faux novelty ("get the new chicken-bacon-cheese-double-burger today!") and a passive disengagement from the real world: we endlessly watch cooking shows rather than actually cook real food in our own kitchens.

The plantation of the mind optimizes consumption, impulse buying and short-term thinking: just buy the junk we"re pushing, and what happens to you afterward is your problem.

Experience itself has become so derealized that we don"t even recognize our perceptions and experiences have been organized into neatly internalized plantations.

It doesn"t have to be this way. As I explain in the Survival+ / Survival+ The Primer chapter entitled The Crisis of Neoliberal (Predatory) Global Capitalism, global capitalism has reached the limit of the plantation model in terms of exploiting new colonies around the globe and exploiting new sources of cheap, abundant energy.

The only possible output of a hyper-financialized Plantation Economy is rapidly increasing wealth and income inequality--precisely what we see now.

What we need is a social economy, an economy that recognizes purposes and values beyond maximizing private gains by any means necessary, which is the sole goal of hyper-financialized Plantation economies.

Given the dominance of profit-maximizing corporations and the state, we naturally assume these are the economy. But there is a third sector, the community economy, which is comprised of everything that isn’t directly controlled by profit-maximizing companies or the state.

What differentiates the community economy from the profit-maximizing market and the state?

1. The community economy allows for priorities and goals other than maximizing profit. Making a profit is necessary to sustain the enterprise, but it is not the sole goal of the enterprise.

2. The community economy is not funded by the state.

3. The community economy is locally owned and operated; it is not controlled by distant corporate hierarchies. The money circulating in the community stays in the community.

4. The community economy is not dominated by moral hazard; the community must live with the consequences of the actions of its residents, organizations and enterprises.

The community economy includes small-scale enterprises, local farmer’s markets, community organizations, social enterprises and faith-based institutions. Its structure is decentralized and self-organizing; it is not a formal hierarchy, though leaders naturally emerge within civic and business groups.

The Plantation Economy institutionalizes poverty, parasitic finance, externalized costs, moral hazard (since the corporate/state overseers do not live in the community being cannibalized) and centralized wealth and political power. These are the only possible outputs of the hyper-financialized Plantation Economy.

Once the Plantation Economy has displaced the community economy, opportunities for work and starting small enterprises shrivel, and residents become dependent on state social welfare for their survival. By eliminating the need to be a productive member of the community, the welfare state destroys positive social roles and the inter-connected layers of the community economy between the state and the individual.

When the individual receives social welfare from the state, that individual has no compelling need to contribute to the community or participate in any way other than as a consumer of corporate goods and services. State social welfare guts the community economy by removing financial incentives to participate or contribute.

Why is the community economy so important? The community economy is first and foremost the engine of social capital, which is the source of opportunity and widely distributed wealth.

Corporations cannot replace communities for the simple reason each organization has different purposes and goals. The sole purpose and goal of a corporation is to expand capital and profits, for if it fails to do so, it falters and expires.

The purpose of a community is to preserve and protect a specific locale by nurturing social solidarity: the sense of sharing a purpose with others, of belonging to a community that is capable of concerted, collective action on the behalf of its members and its locale.

It is not accidental that the current system of corporations, banks and the state increases inequality and erodes the community economy: the only possible output of low social capital is rising inequality.

(I discuss community economies in my book A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology and Creating Jobs for All.)

We have a choice. We can continue loving our servitude in our Plantation Economy, or we can choose another model and another mode of production.

U.N. Official Admits Global Warming Agenda Is Really About Destroying Capitalism

Submitted by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,

A shocking statement was made by a United Nations official Christiana Figueres at a news conference in Brussels.

Figueres admitted that the Global Warming conspiracy set by the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, of which she is the executive secretary, has a goal not of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity, but to destroy capitalism. She said very casually:

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”

She even restated that goal ensuring it was not a mistake:

“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”

I was invited to a major political dinner in Washington with the former Chairman of Temple University since I advised the University with respect to its portfolio. We were seated at one of those round tables with ten people. Because we were invited from a university, they placed us with the heads of the various environmental groups. They assumed they were in friendly company and began speaking freely. Dick Fox, my friend, began to lead them on to get the truth behind their movement. Lo and behold, they too admitted it was not about the environment, but to reduce population growth. Dick then asked them, “Whose grandchild are we trying to prevent from being born? Your’s or mine?

All of these movements seem to have a hidden agenda that the press helps to misrepresent all the time. One must wonder, at what point will the press realize they are destroying their own future?

Investors.com reminds Figueres that the only economic model in the last 150 years that has ever worked at all is capitalism. The evidence is prima facie: From a feudal order that lasted a thousand years, produced zero growth and kept workdays long and lifespans short, the countries that have embraced free-market capitalism have enjoyed a system in which output has increased 70-fold, work days have been halved and lifespans doubled.

No Hope for Humanity

By EconMatters

We discuss the real problem facing global growth right now, the massive government debt and credit bubble in this video. Republicans and Democrats keep Spending and Borrowing like there is No Tomorrow.

The global financial numbers don`t make sense, governments and central banks cannot add to their balance sheets in an infinite manner, and expect global growth to buck the current downtrend. Moreover, who is left to buy now, where is the incremental buyer in the financial system? We have a Global Financial Ponzi Scheme, the numbers just don`t add up, financial gimmicks with no basic structural finance soundness underneath, are a house made of cards and doomed to crash, this is where we are at currently in global finance. The Global Financial System is the Real Big Short, it is the Biggest Short we have ever seen in the history of Financial Markets!

We have met the endgame, the can has been kicked as far down the road, the inevitable rubber meets the road reality day is here, now pay up. You cannot lower interest rates any lower, you cannot borrow any more, you cannot add any more to central bank`s balance sheets, governments cannot borrow anymore money through unsound deficit financing. Now rates are going up, inflation is going up, as there has been too much money printing, currency devaluation, and central bank inspired fiat capital created chasing too few real goods in the global economy. And Moreover, you cannot "Trade War" your way to prosperity through these populous movements which are a reflection of the reality on the ground of the Global Zero Sum Game of a few Winners and a lot of Net Losers. The reality is that at this point structural changes need to be made that respects finance principles and basic capitalistic models.

Since politicians and central bankers are too weak and incompetent to do anything but kick the can down the road creating further debt, credit and asset bubble "Days or Reckoning" the only true Reality Check and form of discipline comes via a Global Recession and Financial Market Crash. This is the Forced Reset Option that occurred in the second half of 2007!

Who is going to regulate Central Banks and Governments because they have done far more harm to the stability of capitalism and financial markets than any investment bank, hedge fund, or financial institution in the history of financial markets. Until we have systemic changes in many areas, and no I don`t think Donald Trump is the savior, just like President Obama wasn`t, we are going to struggle mightily as a society both locally and globally. At this point, there is still no light at the end of the tunnel, There is No Hope for Humanity!

This basic point, and it is a finance and capitalistic point is that if you cannot afford to provide a good job and future for your children, then you don`t have kids, period. Until this basic economic fact is adhered to, the entire financial system is in trouble, because the numbers just don`t add up anymore. And advances in technology are only going to make this finance law of nature worse, and providing a basic income for a bunch of "idle population" because there are no jobs for them, is just more unsound Finance Can Kicking.

The basic laws of Finance and Capitalism have to be respected, the finance numbers have to add up or make sense. If the world continues to create more people than there are good jobs, the finance equation continues to break down, and humanity continues down its current path of systemic breakdown. We are basically still pretty stupid animals, and unless we "smarten up" considerably there is No Hope for Humanity, and we are in for a lot of "Finger Getting Burned on the Stove Learning Events" and "Finance Principle Disciplining" as a recurring theme for Humanity. The question is will Humans ever "Smarten Up" and Learn from these past mistakes?

And by No Hope, I mean from the Global Zero Sum Game of Winners and Losers, a few Global Winners and most of the World as Net Losers depending how exceptionally well they are able to navigate the multitude of financial, economic and politic landmines of incompetent structural policies by governments, central banks and religious leaders around the world.

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Reflections On Trumplandia: America "Embodies Elements Of A Societal Disintegration"

Via Edelweiss Journal,

Reflections on Trump’s America

That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.

Perhaps it was inevitable that a man like Mr Trump would some day end up in the White House. Immodesty notwithstanding, he is intelligent, patriotic, and richly endowed with that American can do disposition. His election, at least within the context of financial markets both in America and elsewhere, has been greeted thus far with the exuberance and fervour reserved for the second coming of an industrial revolution. Yet, even as one ought to welcome Mr Trump’s businesslike ideas for a country that has veered further and further into an economic unknown, there is scant reason for the boundless euphoria of anticipated greatness—the subject of this brief essay.

To some folks, Mr Trump’s words and promise to “make America great again” resonated with those of the late President Reagan. On one hand, it seems that he understands what’s what. In a September interview with Reuters, he accused the Fed of having created a “false economy” (true) and “keeping the rates down so that everything else doesn’t go down” (also true). Responding to claims of alleged economic robustness, he said: “The only thing that is strong is the artificial stock market.” On the other hand, the grandiose economic policies and promises he has outlined demand a cheap dollar and even greater deficits and debt creation. His administration faces a federal debt of $20 trillion, unfunded liabilities of more than $100 trillion and 50% of a population dependent on (most, in fact, feel entitled to) some kind of government spending, which translates to the fact that much more credit/debt is a necessity and not an option. When Mr Reagan took office, circumstances were a lot different. Thus, the euphoria among financial and political pundits is unlikely to last long. The exuberance of the moment, no matter the soundness of expectations, may, for a while, give rise to higher share and dollar prices, but its consequences are trivial.

It’s hard to know what Mr Trump means with the words “Make America Great Again.” No one seems to have asked him. The first three words could well refer to some artificial conditions that merely generate confidence, enthusiasm—and retail sales. It is the again that holds the clues as to his understanding and motivation. If America was great, what was it that made it so? This isn’t a subject for short essays.

Most Americans over the age of fifty would concur with the description of America today by Strauss and Howe:

The America of today feels worse, in its fundamentals, than the one many of us remember from youth, a society presided over by those of supposedly lesser consciousness. Wherever we look ... we see paths to a foreboding future. We yearn for civic character but satisfy ourselves with symbolic gestures and celebrity circuses. We perceive no greatness in our leaders, a new meanness in ourselves. Small wonder that each new election brings a new jolt, its aftermath a new disappointment.

The authors are not alone in this description. In Leonard Cohen’s words, everybody knows. But while we agree that something has changed (for the worse), we are likely to find considerable discord among sociologists, historians, economists and theologians as to the nature of the greatness that America may have once possessed. Mr Trump does not tell us what the great in his slogan is. One suspects that his definition is similar to the one he would generously bestow on himself. But it can’t be so. From Strauss & Howe again:

Not long ago, America was more than the sum of its parts. Now it is less. Around World War II, we were proud as a people but modest as individuals ... Where we once thought of ourselves collectively strong, we now regard ourselves as individually entitled ... Popular trust in virtually every American institution—from business and governments to churches and newspapers—keeps falling to new lows. Public debts soar, the middle class shrinks, welfare dependencies deepen, and cultural arguments worsen by the year.

And on the subject of the much admired American sense of optimism:

Optimism still attaches to self, but no longer to family or community. Most Americans express more hope for their own prospects than for their children’s—or their nation’s. Parents widely fear that the American Dream, which was there (solidly) for their parents and still there (barely) for them, will not be there for their kids. Young householders are reaching their midthirties never having known a time when America seemed to be on the right track. Middle-aged people look at their thin savings accounts and slim-to-none pensions, scoff at an illusory Social Security trust fund, and try not to dwell on what a burden their old age could become.

Honesty compels us to agree, but it also demands we temper the exaggerated optimism for political remedies. “The basis for optimism is sheer terror,” wrote Oscar Wilde. Indeed, judging only by the vigour of the animal spirits unleashed on Wall Street, we want to believe that the advent of a new American president will miraculously chart a road to some illdefined greatness whilst avoiding the accumulated and compounded consequences of decades of folly.

Generally, financial problems, whether in a family, corporation or a country, are symptoms of a larger underlying problem. Greece is a perfect illustration. Even in the European scene at large, an astute observer can easily discern that the financial problems of today are largely rooted in the idiotic ideas of a common currency, Pax Europa and the utter chaos they have spawned. The American situation is distinctly more complex insofar as it also embodies elements of a societal disintegration. From Strauss & Howe:

We perceive our civic challenge as some vast, insoluble Rubik’s Cube. Behind each problem lies another problem that must be solved first, and behind that lies yet another, and another, ad infinitum. To fix crime we have to fix the family, but before we do that we have to fix welfare, and that means fixing our budget, and that means fixing our civic spirit, but we can’t do that without fixing moral standards, and that means fixing schools and churches, and that means fixing the inner cities, and that’s impossible unless we fix crime. There is no fulcrum on which to rest a policy lever. People of all ages sense that something huge will have to sweep across America before the gloom can be lifted—but that’s an awareness we supress. As a nation, we’re in deep denial ... individually focused yet collectively adrift ...

At the heart of the matter lies the undefined “greatness” being promised by Mr Trump—an oblique reference to the political and moral marvel of the Founding Fathers—as perceived within the ruins of a republic which has disintegrated into a system of soft-despotism from which there is no peaceful escape in the short-term.

Thus, the election of Mr Trump, however better he may be perceived by some as against his opponent, is of no real significance. Putting aside personalities and the superficial political distinctions that divide them, over a longer perspective, Trump’s America will be no different than Obama’s America or Bush’s America or what would have been Hillary Clinton’s America in that it retains the illusion that the people are in control, when in fact they have no say over anything of any consequence.

Soft-despotism was coined by Alexis de Tocqueville, a 19th century French diplomat, historian and author of the remarkable Democracy in America, published in 1835 as a treatise on the social consequences of unchecked democracy and advice as to arresting its demise. Soft-despotism is a state in which people live obliviously in a mild sort of obscured tyranny despite the existence of external cursory forms of liberty and rights to property. Tocqueville’s words from 180 years ago appropriately describe the status quo and the elusive pursuit of an uncertain greatness:

Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions: they want to be led, and they wish to remain free. As they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain …
[Emphasis added]

By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience …
[Emphasis added]

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the
shepherd.

This is the present state of America and the whole of our western world, more or less. The Soviets were better at it. They managed something not wholly different, except with less overhead. Man does have a strong desire to be led. It’s so much easier to have someone else direct his actions. He only pursues liberty after being ruined by a long courtship with serfdom. This is indeed why the American Founding Fathers did not refer to leaders—a modern political rank whose antecedents are rooted in tyrannical regimes.

Without doubt, these reflections may be altogether pointless to those unburdened by a principled and moral framework in political economy, or those for whom the pursuit of short-term gain holds priority. To others, ourselves included, anxious as to the long-term implications for the soundness of our savings, the patrimony we are to leave another generation or merely the rights we barely hold as to our own property and its disposition, proper reflection is an indispensable component of critical action.