By Charles Hugh Smith – Many things that are scarce and thus valuable cannot be bought on the global marketplace. Now that almost every asset class is in a bubble, the question of where to invest one's capital has become...
By Charles Hugh Smith – What the Federal Reserve is actually whining about is not low inflation—it's that high inflation isn't pushing wages higher like it's supposed to. It's not exactly a secret that real-world inflation is a lot higher than the official rates...
By Charles Hugh Smith – The demise of the US dollar has been a staple of the financial media for decades. The latest buzzword making the rounds is de-dollarization, which describes the move away from USD in global payments.
By Charles Hugh Smith – Almost lost in all the dollar estimates of property damage is the human loss, suffering, and stress. I am not an expert in repairing flood damage, or in dealing with insurance companies, FEMA or all the other pieces...
By Charles Hugh Smith – The high housing costs crush wages argument is more nuanced. The high cost of housing means that much of the nation's available capital stock is invested in housing, rather than in productivity-boosting...
By Charles Hugh Smith – The problem with stagnant wages is our socioeconomic system requires ever-higher incomes to function. One of the enduring mysteries for conventional economists is why wages aren't rising for the bottom 95%...
By Charles Hugh Smith – Solutions abound, but they aren't one size fits all ideologies. It isn't just coincidental that ideology shares so many dynamics with addiction. Though ideology is a faith-belief dynamic rather than a chemical process, both require...
By Charles Hugh Smith – Any nation-state that meets these four requirements is fully exposed to a global loss of faith in its economy, debt, a balance of payments and currency. There's an entire sub-industry in journalism devoted to the idea...
Jun 22 – Charles Hugh Smith discusses the growing social and economic parallels between Ancient Rome and the US in terms of debt-dependence, wealth disparity, worship of “unproductive celebrity,” and many other areas...
By Charles Hugh Smith – We want this time to be different so badly, we can almost taste it. If you visit San Francisco, you will find it difficult to walk more than a few blocks in central S.F. without encountering a major construction project.
As with many other complexities, opaque systems in the US, only those toiling in the murky depths of the healthcare system know just how broken the entire system is. Only those dealing daily with the perverse incentives...
Any currency is only truly "backed by gold" if it is convertible to gold. There is something intuitively appealing about the idea of a gold-backed currency—money backed by the tangible value of gold, i.e. "the gold standard." Instead of intrinsically...
It's your choice, America—you can keep your cartels and the captured government that enables and protects them, or you can fix what's broken and unaffordable. If there is any goal that might attract support from across the political...
These eight forces are structural, and cannot be erased by tax cuts or policy tweaks. If there is any economic assumption that goes unquestioned, it's the notion that profits will remain robust for the foreseeable future. This assumption ignores...
So let's imagine a scenario in which tens of trillions of at-risk wealth suddenly seek an alternative--any alternative to staying in an asset class that's circling the drain. As my colleague Davefairtex observed recently, the paint isn't...
It will be the middle class that accepted the notion that "real estate is the foundation of family wealth" that will be stripmined by higher taxes on immobile assets such as real estate.
What happens when an electricity-dependent society and economy has an extended loss of electrical grid and communications? One of the hidden realities of modern life is its fragility. For example, few people are aware of the precariousness...
The only way to govern successfully is to actually solve the underlying systemic problems, but doing that requires overthrowing a corrupt, self-serving elite. Regardless of who wins the presidency, a much larger question looms...
Which blocs/nations are most likely to face banking/liquidity crises in the next year? Hating the US dollar offers the same rewards as hating a dominant sports team: it feels righteous to root for the underdogs, but it's generally unwise...
We don't just deserve an affordable, sustainable healthcare system—we're doomed to bankruptcy without one. What is blindingly obvious to employers but apparently invisible to the average zero-business-experience mainstream...
