Stories By Charles Hugh Smith
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Controlling the Herd
The Grand Irony of RussiaGate: The U.S. Becomes More Like the U.S.S.R. Every Day
August 10, 2018When the Soviet regime exiled Sakharov in 1980, everybody assumed the USSR was permanent and impregnable...
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Controlling the Herd
The Schizophrenic Deep State is a Symptom, Not the Disease
July 20, 2018The nation's elites are not just divided--they're exhibiting signs of schizophrenic breakdown: disassociation and a loss...
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Economy and Finance
Our Institutions Are Failing
July 16, 2018Incompetence has been institutionalized, and is now the accepted norm. Schools fail, municipal agencies fail, oversight agencies...
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Economy and Finance
We Are All Hostages of Corporate Profits
July 6, 2018The economy and society at large are now totally dependent on soaring corporate profits and the...
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Economy and Finance
U.S. Healthcare Isn’t Broken–It’s Fixed
May 18, 2018If you want to understand why the U.S. healthcare system is bankrupt, financially, morally and politically,...
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Controlling the Herd
How Safe Are We? Our Blindness to Systemic Dangers
May 15, 2018How do we explain our obsession with relatively low risk dangers and our collective blindness to...
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Controlling the Herd
Before You Tell Me What You “Know,” Tell Me Your Sources
May 9, 2018We can no longer trust data and conclusions being published as impartial by institutions that were...
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Economy and Finance
Taking the Pulse of a Weakening Economy
May 4, 2018Corporate buybacks provide the key analogy for the economy as a whole.
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Controlling the Herd
The Blowback Against Facebook, Google and Amazon Is Just Beginning
April 27, 2018The typical corporation can buy political influence, but Facebook and Google are manipulating the machinery of...
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Controlling the Herd
Connecting the Dots of Big Data, Soaring Corporate Profits and Trade Wars
April 23, 2018It's self-evident that we cannot possibly understand trade, soaring corporate profits, Facebook's data collection or the...
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Economy and Finance
Our Strange Attraction to Self-Destructive Behaviors, Choices and Incentives
April 19, 2018Self-destruction isn't a bug, it's a feature of our socio-economic system.
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Controlling the Herd
The Problem with a State-Cartel Economy: Prices Rise, Wages Don’t
April 2, 2018The vise will tighten until something breaks. It could be the currency, it could be the...
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Editor's Choice
15 Years of War: To Whose Benefit?
March 28, 2018What did the nation gain for the tragic loss of lives and crippling wounds suffered by...
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Controlling the Herd
Is Profit-Maximizing Data-Mining Undermining Democracy?
March 19, 2018If targeting political extremes generates the most profit, then that's what these corporations will pursue. It's...
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Economy and Finance
The Death of Buy and Hold: We’re All Traders Now
March 8, 2018The percentage of household assets invested in stocks fell from almost 40% in 1969 to a...
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Economy and Finance
Career Advice to 20-Somethings: Create Value as a Mobile Creative
February 27, 2018This advice is not age-specific. The Mobile Creative approach to creating value applies equally to people in...
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Controlling the Herd
Russian Meddling: Gagging on the Irony
February 19, 2018The irony that is most gagging is that America's power elite is destroying the nation's social...
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Economy and Finance
Three Crazy Things We Now Accept as “Normal”
February 12, 2018How can central banks "retrain" participants while maintaining their extreme policies of stimulus?
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Economy and Finance
Central Banks: From Coordination to Competition
January 23, 2018No one central bank can reflate the entire global economy, and yet that is the only...
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Economy and Finance
Un-Merry Christmas: The Perverse Incentives to Over-Consume and Over-Spend
December 22, 2017Rather than establish incentives to conserve and invest wisely, our system glorifies waste and the destruction...
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Controlling the Herd
Jedi Mind Trick: The Disturbing, Destabilizing Abnormal Is Now Normal
December 19, 2017If the "America" displayed in the Corporate Media seems like "the Real America," then this is...
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Economy and Finance
Regulating Cryptocurrencies–and Why It Matters
December 18, 2017A Wild West free-for-all is conducive to scammers, and so some thoughtful regulation that protects users...
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Economy and Finance
Three Bubbles/Strikes and You’re Out
December 12, 2017Those betting on a fourth bubble of even greater extremes will find their time at bat...
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Economy and Finance
What Is Money? (Yes, We’re Talking About Bitcoin)
December 8, 2017Good ideas don't require force. That describes the Internet, mobile telephony and cryptocurrencies. Bad ideas require...
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Controlling the Herd
The Internecine Deep State Conflict Moves to Stage Two
December 1, 2017High-profile figures across the mainstream media are toppling like dominoes. Doesn't it seem a bit peculiar...
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Editor's Choice
Our National Madness
November 21, 2017Fakery and trickery are not solutions; they are a form of self-delusional madness that destroys the...
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Controlling the Herd
The Demise of Dissent: Why the Web Is Becoming Homogenized
November 20, 2017Simply put, the web is becoming Orwellian. There's plenty of approved "diversity of opinion," but dissent...
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Editor's Choice
The Superhero Complex: Are We Incapable of Saving Ourselves?
November 16, 2017If we felt empowered in daily life, would we be so enamored of superheroes constantly saving...
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Economy and Finance
Is This Why Productivity Has Tanked and Wealth Inequality Has Soared?
November 15, 2017Needless but highly profitable forced-upgrades are the bread and butter of the tech industry.
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Controlling the Herd
Our Culture of Rape
November 8, 2017The engine of our culture of rape is the elevation of the entitled-insider class to untouchability:...