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Page added on September 2, 2017
Why We’re Doomed…
The point is the present system cannot endure.
Despite all the happy talk about “recovery” and higher growth, wages have gone nowhere since 2000–and for the bottom 20% of workers, they’ve gone nowhere since the 1970s.
Gross domestic product (GDP) has risen smartly since 2000, but the share of GDP going to wages and salaries has plummeted: this is simply an extension of a 47-year downtrend.
Last month I posted one reason Why We’re Doomed: Our Economy’s Toxic Inequality (August 16, 2017). The second half of why we’re doomed is stagnant wages. Why do stagnating wages for the bottom 95% doom our status quo? As I noted yesterday in Why Wages Have Lost Ground in the 21st Century, our system requires ever-higher household incomes to function–not just in the top 5%, but in the top 80%.
Our federal social programs–Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid–are pay-as-you-go: all the expenditures this year are paid by taxes collected this year. As I have detailed many times, the so-called “Trust Funds” are fictions; when Social Security runs a deficit, the difference between receipts and expenses are filled by selling Treasury bonds in the open market–the exact same mechanism the government uses to fund any other deficit.
The demographics of the nation have changed in the past two generations. The Baby Boom is retiring en masse, expanding the number of beneficiaries of these programs, while the number of full-time workers to retirees is down from 10-to-1 in the good old days to 2-to-1: there are 60 million beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare and about 120 million full-time workers in the U.S.
Meanwhile, medical expenses per person are soaring. Profiteering by healthcare cartels, new and ever-more costly treatments, the rise of chronic lifestyle illnesses–there are many drivers of this trend. There is absolutely no evidence to support the fantasy that this trend will magically reverse.
Costs are skyrocketing and the number of retirees is ballooning, but wages are going nowhere. Do you see the problem? All pay-as-you-go programs are based on the assumption that the number of workers and the wages they earn will both rise at a rate that is above the underlying rate of inflation and equal to the rate of increase in pay-as-you-go programs.
If 95% of the households are earning less money when adjusted for inflation, and their wealth has also declined or stagnated, then how can we pay for programs which expand by 6% or more every year?
The short answer is you can’t.
The budgets of state and local governments also expand every year as citizens demand more services, infrastructure requires costly maintenance and upgrades, and the overall costs of providing government services rises (soaring healthcare premiums are a major driver of higher government expenses). How can households pay higher property and sales taxes if their incomes are going nowhere?
Stagnant wages = stagnant income tax revenues.
Then there’s the consumer economy that depends on ever-higher consumer spending. If wages are stagnant, how can households spend more money? The conventional answer is: we’ll blow asset bubbles in stocks, bonds and housing, and households can spend this newfound wealth.
Nice theory, but only the top slice of American households own enough of these assets to matter. Feast your eyes on these two charts of skyrocketing income and wealth inequality. This chart shows that the majority of income growth is now concentrated in the top 1/0th of 1%, and most of what’s left has gone to the top 5%. This is the only possible outcome of financialization and central-bank inflated asset bubbles.
Here’s another look at the same dynamic, but excluding capital gains, which flow to those who own most of the assets, i.e. the top 1%: the bottom 90% lost 10% in the decade 2002-2012, the top 5% gained 6% and the very top of the wealth-power pyramid, the top 1/100th of the 1%, gained 76%.
The conclusion is sobering: wages/salaries are no longer an adequate means to distribute income or paid work. Our system is broken at the deepest levels–not just economically broken, but socially broken as well. Clinging to this broken model and filling the widening gap between the super-wealthy and everyone else with more debt will doom the system.
This is why I’ve proposed a new way to organize production, consumption, work and income in my book A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology & Creating Jobs for All.
The point is the present system cannot endure. Borrowing trillions of dollars to paper over this failure won’t work for much longer. We need a new system, or we’re well and truly doomed.
Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog
64 Comments on "Why We’re Doomed…"
Dredd on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:40 am
If we are doomed it is because “we” are “doomers” (Doomers and Doomer Watchers).
Dredd on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:46 am
All hat but no cattle …
https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/59aa06c41400002000fa7b42.jpeg?ops=scalefit_600_noupscale
eugene on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:52 am
At the end of 2014, the Social Security Trust Fund was owed 2.79 trillion. I don’t consider that pay as you go. Took me about 10 seconds to learn that.
Sissyfuss on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:57 am
We don’t need a new system when we already have one being implemented. It’s called Limits to Growth. Adapting to it will be difficult to say the least.
onlooker on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 8:30 am
Nice summation and breakdown of the totally predatory and unsustainable capitalist system in all its relentless monopolization of wealth. Of course these are all symptoms of an economic system and ways of living incompatible with the new reality of a contracting world of resources even as populations remain extremely high and still growing in some cases.
Darrell Cloud on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 9:14 am
Darwin described the process for us some time back when he said things evolve from the simple to the complex. The process of centralization is not unique to capitalist systems. It is inherent to all systems. Systems are either on a trajectory of centralization or they have peaked and have nosed over and are headed towards devolution. Socialism/Communism is not immune to this process. I am reminded of the common mentioned quote of the Soviets, “We pretended to work and they pretended to pay us.” Once all economic activity comes under the control of central planners, the system freezes up and collapses. Once true communism is achieved collapse follows.
Shortend on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 9:37 am
Get off it already, nothing lasts forever!
Bunch of crybabies and whiners.
Doesn’t take a half a brain to figure any of this out.
Got a bunch of pig headed know it alls posting here, like it means ANYTHING at all.
Get a LIFE!
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 9:50 am
If it were only the financial issues that has brought us to the brink. It is the fact there are half a dozen other predicaments all related that makes this truly unprecedented in human history. It is global and it is all inclusive. It is rich and it is poor. We live in the same world and it takes a community to provide for all. The rich may be getting richer but like a house of cards the foundation is steadily being weakened. The environment supports rich and poor alike. The rich act like it is the poor that face the worst but the rich have the furthest to fall.
Immediate doom is in our hands. If we were to make an effort and have some luck we may put off the worst for some years. If we engage in conflict we will not make it long. We are at the cross roads of multidimensional risk based existential dangers. IOW we have a facade of normalcy ready to shatter in chaos of cascading crisis. Unfortunately it will take crisis to change behaviors and at this point the dangers are becoming beyond beneficial change from crisis. Vital thresholds are going to be breached and when this happens the excessive complexity and unsustainable populations will overwhelm support systems. This is both in the developing world and the developed. All segments of the global population are now at risk.
It will come down to where the worst hits and how the contagions spread that determine where collapse happens first. It can now happen anywhere and at any time. This is a wide open vista of possibility. Houston is the latest example of a climate destabilized world. This event has knocked on into a dynamics of the oil complex and threatens our energy stability. Another hurricane in this region could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and brings the US to its knees. A war on the Korean peninsula is another variable of failure. Such a war will bring our global economy to the brink.
We are at the point where we cannot watch tragedies on TV of other places and feel safe from them. We are now all exposed but we live detached from these risks. The fact that we have not seen these global shaking events yet is no reason to believe they won’t happen. We are so digitally connected we see these things in the abstract and surreal until they strike home. It is coming to a place near you somewhere and from there everywhere.
print baby print on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 10:02 am
Interest rates are crucial thing but economists don’t understand one thing, 0.1% percent mean a lot when it is about fed rates bank rates, but when it comes to rest 99% doesn’t mean a thing not even 50% People with low wages can not pay mortgage even if it is 150$ instead of 200$ and that is a problem
joe on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 10:29 am
I was only thinking about Bush1s speech about a ‘new world order’ yesterday. I was wondering what he meant by that. The preUssr collapse system forced government to be more equal rather than risk social unrest, lower population and higher aged death rates made living hard but simple and far less pressured, wealth transfered from generation to generation fairly quickly. No generations of have nothings are passing on nothing. The third post ww2 generation of welfare state (that great nazi invented anti soviet system) children are growing up and claiming their grandparents social housing. Its becoming a positively Roman system. On top of that the leeching services economy that exists to keep the Great Unwashed sated with computer game pornographic alcoholic zombificaton cannot sustain itself outside the Fed/Treasury built house of cards, the EU, Russia, Arabia, even China is feeling the strain. Nothing lasts forever, the only debate is the how and when.
Outcast_Searcher on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 11:08 am
eugene, I learned about the SS Trust fund and how it worked when I was eight. I asked my dad, how THAT could be called a “trust fund”, when it essentially had no money in it.
He explained that if a corporation ran a trust fund like that, people would go to jail, but that government could do that and call it a trust fund all it wanted. All they had to do was pass a law and declare it so.
I asked him why we should trust such a system. He said that’s why he made very sure he saved lots of money, and didn’t count on government promises to take care of him or the family.
This state of affairs is sad, but certainly nothing new. I’m 58 now.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 11:15 am
Exactly, OS, I do not expect to see any of my sizable SS contributions. I live as though there will be no financial future of living off a pension. I fully expect to work until I can’t. I am now farming with that intent. I have downsized my life considerably compared to when I was younger. Collapse in place and get used to the idea of working until you die.
Outcast_Searcher on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 11:22 am
So we’ve had rising inequality since the early 80’s. Of course, historically, we’ve had periods of rising and falling inequality which have lasted for decades.
Given the general trend of income inequality since about 1910, the general rule seems to be that during good economic times, income inequality rises.
Wages falling as a percentage of GDP only means that over time, automation is doing more and more of the work. Just consider farming and factory work. What percentage of those two types of work are now done by machines vs. people?
Why should this suddenly mean doom now? It doesn’t.
OTOH, to me it does mean that we should confront the obvious, and take steps to do something about it.
Seriously exploring and actively experimenting with a UBI (universal basic income) would seem like an excellent place to start).
For example, Charles Murray wrote a very interesting book called “In Our Hands”, which would completely replace the current “anti-poverty” programs in the US with a UBI. It would also provide a system for catastrophic medical insurance coverage which would solve the majority of the medical insurance cost issue in this country, by having people pay for their own minor medical issues (and thus care about what medical care costs).
Oh, and by 2020, this would be saving more and money every year, vs. the current trajectory of costs for the BAU system of government anti-poverty programs. By 2030, it would be saving a TON of money every year.
And every adult 21 or over would have a UBI
.
It would be far better to accept the reality of the vast majority of jobs going away as A/I becomes a reality — and deal with it.
But the way our government works, we’ll wait until all the driving jobs are gone, all the basic skill jobs are gone, the US debt is a complete disaster, and then spend a decade fighting about a solution.
Welcome to modern government at work.
Bloomer on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 11:36 am
Modern Western governments work for the elites not the majority of people. Taxes for the .1 of the 1% have steadily declined since “Morning in America” as have tax revenue in inflation adjusted dollars.
The New Deal has been transformed to The Raw Deal for the majority of citizens in America. Politicians continue to use race and religion issues as a political wedge to divide the country.
onlooker on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 11:46 am
OS, you seem to talk like the Economy is somehow not connected to the Environment. Everything is different now, because we have never been so depleted in our principal energy resource Oil. Ditto for some other important resources. We are also in a precarious position in terms of food supply related to the situation with Oil but also water and the condition of the soil. You seem to be copying Adam, in saying that doom did not happen therefor it will not going forward completely missing the central theme of pretty much all we discuss on this site. And that is that our situation as a species is growing ever more problematic because of our enormous population and because of how our impacts are degrading our environment and depleting resources. Beyond that fact that economic growth probably will never again exist and make the inbalance between retirees and the workers supporting them ever greater is the underlying worsening status of our planet combined with our enormous population. But stay in your little economic box and consequences will awaken you
bobinget on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 12:31 pm
@extremums
More
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-09/01/content_31408818.htm …
First #3 supplier, Venezuela, now #2 KSA .
Some may recall. I posted Bank of China notice of shifting from Petrodollar to yuan (to price oil, gold)
Follow-up:
Today, Saudi Arabia American’s #2 supplier shifts
to yuan. Huge doesn’t come close to proper a agitative. Yuan rises on world markets USD drops along w/ PoO.
Denial is an important survival strategy.
Denying the fact that China passed US as #1 crude importer last year, denying the Chinese economy is growing four times faster then US, denying AGW,
denying every industrial nation in the world thinks
Americans went off our rockers electing (and keeping) a crazy, dumb-assed crook as president, denying US infrastructure in extremums.. why go on?
Of course Saudi Arabia is switching from a nutty coke fueled petrodollar to a more stable yuan.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 12:41 pm
Bob, do you have more details on the shift you call so huge with KSA and the Yuan? Bob, put those numbers in perspective with other numbers. Are you capable of that or are you the one in denial that maybe you have a huge chip on your shoulder with a emotionally focused sinophile agenda. I still can’t figure out why you hate the US? Is it like a “I told you so” thing? China is growing more important economically globally but nothing like your proselytizing. China also is faced with enormous systematic dangers you never utter a peep about. It is that lack of balance that says you are peddeling a personal message.
bobinget on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 1:50 pm
Davy, look again. I did include a link.
Oh, yuan won’t replace Petrodollar right away.
Inevitably, yuan will become the world’s reserve currency. Not to worry, both of us will be nourishing our home gardens by then.
If you still have doubts about Venezuela or Saudi Arabia, note that KSA delivered 6% of it’s total exports to US. Venezuela’s all went to India.
WE are now technically dependent on regular SPR withdrawals. 21.2 M B p/d supplied is a difficult,
dangerous, complicated and thankless task.
I advise being polite to any Canadian you meet.
Buy them a drink, lunch, dinner.
Once SPR runs dry we are once again dependent on Canada’s oil sands, like it or not.
If any penny stock investors are reading this
look at SDRL and OBE, worth a shot. (I own both)
Plantagenet on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 2:11 pm
The US and EU are stagnating, while China and India are growing rapidly.
Capitalism isn’t dead —- its just moved to a new address.
Cheers!
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 2:24 pm
Bob, can you define inevitable? Do that then put that in context of you comment. You think it is inevitable as in an opinion. Bob, I don’t think you understand our global world. You are playing a board game. The world economy is a fabric not a rope. You pull on it and it tears. As for the Canadians they keep telling me the Canadian tar sands are American. I think Canadians should be less anti-American becuase their economy is more dependent on mine than mine on theirs.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 2:53 pm
Bob, where are your numbers? “Chinese yuan rises in global oil markets as Saudi seeks funding in RMB”. The article you highlighted is a vision not reality with numbers. The reality is much less than your “Huge doesn’t come close to proper a agitative.” Bob, get me some numbers and get back to me when you are able to sensationalize. This time you are sensationalizing “nuttin”.
Boat on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 4:33 pm
Outcast_Searcher on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 11:22 am
I don’t like the idea of getting paid unless there is some kind of cause and effect. Universal income for having no children for example. The less water and energy you use maybe a lower price for fruit and vegetables. Voluntary behavior based incentives will be more palatable to those who do work or invest.
Boat on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 4:52 pm
Bob,
Do you read this report?
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_neti_a_epc0_IMN_mbblpd_m.htm
Remember a couple of weeks ago you predicted US oil at $60 around the end of the month? I countered and said less than $50.
Drum roll please…….WTI at 47.29 Ladies and gentlemen, bow legged ants and cross eyed mosquitoes…..we have a winner. Next prediction please.
Outcast_Searcher on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 5:38 pm
Onlooker, when we’re not having a huge oil glut where prices are so low doomers are alarmed by the impact on producers, be sure and get back to us on how oil depletion is such a problem.
Oh, and down the road when most cars are BEV’s and expensive oil is stranded due to lack of demand, good luck explaining how too much oil depletion is a problem.
Since you’ll object to anything that doesn’t sound like quick doom, see Tony Seba’s Youtube video on the transformation to EV’s.
Outcast_Searcher on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 5:41 pm
Boat, I don’t necessarily like the idea of getting paid for no work. But if the majority of folks have no work in 30 years, letting them starve or be homeless or break the economy under the current hugely inefficient system sounds like a far bigger problem to me.
I’m open to better alternatives. What would they be? The A/I and automation is coming, like it or not.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 6:00 pm
AI and automation is just more tech candy. We are nearing a point where diminishing returns will make them unaffordable for less complex tasks. How much richer will society become? We are near many limits but the tech crowd just ignors them. Show me the numbers that indicate a transformation is happening. It is just more techno fantasy.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 6:05 pm
BEV’s are still insignificant. When there is serious fleet penetration get back to us. In the meantime ICE is the name of the game. Talk is cheap with the technos. The walk is where they get subdued.
Boat on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 6:06 pm
Electrification Alone Will Save 42 Percent Of World Energy Demand, Stanford Prof Says
“We find that by electrifying everything in these countries and by providing that electricity with clean renewable energy, power demand goes down about 42 percent without really changing much habit,” says Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of Stanford’s Atmosphere/Energy Program. For example:
• About 13 percent of all energy worldwide is used to mine, transport and refine fossil fuels, so the elimination of fossil fuels immediately provides a savings of 13 percent. Jacobson includes the mining of uranium in this calculation, envisioning a future in which renewables also replace nuclear power.
• About 23 percent of energy use will be saved because electric power is more efficient than combustion. An electric car, for example, uses about 85 percent of the energy in its battery to move the car, with the rest lost as waste heat. A gasoline powered car only uses 17 to 20 percent of its energy to move the car, with the rest lost as waste heat. So the transport sector alone could see massive improvements in efficiency, Jacobson says, of up to 80 percent. Across other sectors, including heating and heat pumps, the savings are smaller, but still enough to save 23 percent of the world’s energy use.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2017/08/31/electrification-alone-will-save-42-percent-of-world-energy-demand-stanford-prof-says/#371195f23a49
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 6:29 pm
An important step for China but this also shows how difficult it is to promote the Yuan as a stand alone alternative to the dollar. These contracts have to be convertible into gold because confidence in the Yuan alone is not there. This is a blow to the petro dollar but also an admission the Yuan does not have a reserve currency status.
“De-Dollarization Accelerates: China Readies Yuan-Priced Crude Oil Benchmark Backed By Gold”
http://tinyurl.com/y73ueaa5
“The world’s top oil importer, China, is preparing to launch a crude oil futures contract denominated in Chinese yuan and convertible into gold, potentially creating the most important Asian oil benchmark and allowing oil exporters to bypass U.S.-dollar denominated benchmarks by trading in yuan, Nikkei Asian Review reports.”
“It is a mechanism which is likely to appeal to oil producers that prefer to avoid using dollars, and are not ready to accept that being paid in yuan for oil sales to China is a good idea either,” Alasdair Macleod, head of research at Goldmoney, told Nikkei.”
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 6:36 pm
Boat, what about the energy losses to power up the batteries? I agree the electric motor is very efficient the problems is with the batteries. The problem is with the intermittency of the grid sources that must be FF supported. Sounds like more fake green math to me. There is more too at as usual.
GregT on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:03 pm
“These contracts have to be convertible into gold because confidence in the Yuan alone is not there. This is a blow to the petro dollar but also an admission the Yuan does not have a reserve currency status.”
The US Dollar itself gained reserve currency status because it was backed by gold. Nixon slammed shut the gold window in 1971 due to trade and budget deficits. Since 1971 the USD has lost over 80% of it’s purchasing power due to inflation. This is in effect is a hidden tax on anyone who holds the dollar. That hidden tax directly benefits the USA, and nobody else.
Makati1 on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:13 pm
Nice history lesson, GregT. I suspect that the Chinese have more than enough gold to back their currency until the IMF starts using the SDRs.
“IMF calls for dollar alternative” (2011)
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/10/markets/dollar/index.htm
“China Rallies Around Yuan as IMF Mulls Reserve-Currency Inclusion” (2015)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-rallies-around-yuan-as-imf-mulls-reserve-currency-inclusion-1434366682
“China’s yuan joins elite club of IMF reserve currencies” (2016)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-currency-imf/chinas-yuan-joins-elite-club-of-imf-reserve-currencies-idUSKCN1212WC
It is only a matter of time until the dollar falls.
GregT on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:13 pm
Coincidentally, Nixon slammed shut the gold window at the same time in history, that U.S. oil production would reach it’s peak.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:24 pm
“That hidden tax directly benefits the USA, and nobody else.” Who says? “Nobody else” that is a bold emotional statement. You got the back up on that? Emotions aside don’t you think it is a little more complex than that?
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:24 pm
ooh, listen to the bric bank cheerleaders. I like the 2015, 2016 links, makat. Tell me how far the yuan has gone since then? You have any numbers on how the dollar will fail and the Yuan rise? Come on get those google requests going. I am curious.
GregT on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:30 pm
You’re a finance guy Davy. Please explain to everyone here what other country who holds US dollars benefits from the inflation of those dollars. All emotions aside.
Thanks.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:36 pm
You have a finance background too grehg so you have said and I asked you first. “nobody” is a strong emotional word is that it or was that a little too emotional?
GregT on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:43 pm
Sorry Davy,
I’m sure that you understand perfectly well what I meant by nobody. In case you’re honestly having a problem figuring it out. No, other, country.
GregT on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:50 pm
And Davy,
Get help.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:54 pm
OOPs, you mean no other country. OK, I agree nobody was an emotionally poor choice of words. Can you back up no other country? “No” is like “nobody” being very binary and decisive. There is no grey in “no”. It is black and white which fits in well with the world according to grehg. You are very good at the binary stuff. What I find so hilarious is we are way off the original topic of the Yuan and oil contracts and benchmarks and now off into emotional anti-Americanism. How about we get back on topic and discuss a really potentially important topic and leave the anti-American emotions aside.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 7:56 pm
Looks like someone else needs help. Where is your boyfriend makat? You guys do better as a gang effort
Makati1 on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 8:08 pm
In today’s news:
“De-Dollarization Accelerates: China Readies Yuan-Priced Crude Oil Benchmark Backed By Gold”
“Red Cross Admits It Doesn’t Know How Hurricane Harvey Donation Money Is Spent”
“”Don’t Mess With Yellowstone Supervolcano” Geologists Warn NASA”
“Are Grocery Chains About To Join The Retail-Bankruptcy Bloodbath?”
“”Ole Miss Goes Bananas”: Dear Parents, How’s This For A $40K A Year Education?”
“Harvey Could Bankrupt The Federal Flood-Insurance Program”
“Antifa Is Playing Right Into The Hands Of A Burgeoning Police State”
“Pension Ponzi Exposed: Minnesota Underfunding Triples After Tweaking This One Small Assumption…”
“Infuriating: Police Arrest on Duty Nurse For Refusing to Break Law”
“Coming To A Town Near You: Expert Warns That No-Go Zones Are Growing In America”
And on and on…
GregT on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 8:12 pm
“Where is your boyfriend makat? You guys do better as a gang effort”
Give it a rest already Davy, and grow up.
Makati1 on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 8:16 pm
In other news:
“Washington Is Preparing for Nuclear War in Europe” (If they succeed, it will come home to America.)
“Threatening China: US Intends Increased Military Patrols in South China Sea”
“US Contempt for Rule of Law: Dismal Bilateral Relations, America’s Deep State Confronts Moscow”
The US is getting desperate to get a big war going. They see the end of America as a power and the revolt of their citizens if they cannot distract them big time. I hope they fail at the attempt and go down whimpering. Consequences…
Makati1 on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 8:17 pm
GregT, those who have mental problems seldom realize or accept it. Davy and Boat are two perfect examples. I now expect some childish rant in reply.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 8:23 pm
In today’s news:
makat, just tell people to go to Zerohedge. It will save you all that work. I am surprised your boyfriend hasn’t squawked at your new sources of news. He hates ZH. I am also tickled because for the longest time you told me ZH were part of the ministry of propaganda. Of course you won’t reference any of ZH articles on China now will you? You just make sure and list the anti-American ones. Isn’t that a definition of propaganda? Selective presentation of facts is propaganda isn’t it? Does makat have double standards on what is and isn’t propaganda?
GregT on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 8:24 pm
“What I find so hilarious is we are way off the original topic of the Yuan and oil contracts and benchmarks and now off into emotional anti-Americanism.”
As near as I can tell Davy, you are the only one here who is getting all emotional. What I first wrote above is entirely on topic, is a fact, and is in no way Anti-Americanism. Take your red, white, and blue blinders off Davy.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 8:30 pm
I guess that is why you are explaining yourself for us. You know, because you don’t want us to think you are being emotional and for god sakes not anti-American.
Makati1 on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 8:41 pm
GregT, Davy is all emotion and no rationality or even thought. As is obvious, when he sees something not US flag waving, he automatically defines it as “anti-American”. He doesn’t seem to realize that most of the world is anti-American these days. A country cannot go around bombing everyone who doesn’t agree with them without blow-back. And, it is coming. I think he knows that and is frustrated because his choices are so limited.
Being unable to rationally debate the positive side of America (if there is one these days) he resorts to name calling and putdowns, which only makes him sound immature and uneducated. He seems unable to resit the need to do so. What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Maybe he thinks that his method will eventually prove he is correct if he keeps doing it?
Davy on Sat, 2nd Sep 2017 8:45 pm
makat, please be discreet, does your Filipino boyfriend know about grehg?