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Monday, February 11, 2013

The U.S. Economy Is Now Dangerously Detached From Reality

Recently I was asked to give a presentation on the current state of the global economy to a local group of concerned citizens here in Northwest Montana. I was happy to oblige but when composing my bullet points I realized that, in truth, there were no legitimate economic numbers to examine anymore. You see, financial analysts have traditionally used multiple indicators of employment, profit, savings, credit, supply, and demand in their efforts to divine the often obscured facts of our financial system. The problem is, nearly every index we used in the past, every measure of capital flow and industry, is absolutely useless today.

We now live in an entirely fabricated fiscal environment. Every aspect of it is filtered, muddled, molded, and manipulated before our eyes ever get to study the stats. The metaphor may be overused, but our economic system has become an absolute “matrix”. All that we see and hear has been homogenized and all truth has been sterilized away. There is nothing to investigate anymore. It is like awaking in the middle of a vast and hallucinatory live action theater production, complete with performers, props, and sound effects, all designed to confuse us and do us harm. In the end, trying to make sense of the illusion is a waste of time. All we can do is look for the exits…

There is some tangible reality out there, but it is difficult to find, and there are few if any mainstream numbers to verify. One has to remember always that the fundamental world of money and trade revolves around real people and real circumstances. No matter how corrupt our economic system is, as long as there are human beings, there will always be supply and demand that cannot be hidden. We have to look past the “official numbers” and look at the roots of trade. Where has demand fallen? Where has supply diminished? Where are the tangible goods and needs and how have they changed?

Let’s first start with the mainstream version of our system, looking at each aspect of the economy that no longer represents the truth of our situation…

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If your not involved with the government in some way,your not getting ahead.

Anonymous said...

People are detached from reality in general, Salisbury and area politicans as an example. They allowed the area to become too dependant on a handful of employers and the "limbs" these businesses produced. Like for instance Sby U. The U employs a far too great percentage of area residents both directly and indirectly. Now Sallie Mae,the quasi gov't backer of student loans is facing a crisis similar to the mortgage crisis of a few years ago. When this bubble bursts Sby is going to feel severe economic loses including and not limited to those landlords who provide student housing.

Anonymous said...

I agree 1:10. I far as I can tell, this town has three major economic centers, SU the largest, the hospital and Perdue corporate. Another smaller entity seems to be the three drug manufacturing firms on the north side. SU is threatened by the student loan debacle, the hospital is threatened by Obama-care and Perdue is threatened by the continual high price of corn compared to the low selling price of chicken. From national trends I think the drug companies will be just fine and probably expanding. Overall this does not bode well for an already economically depressed area.