Stories By Charles Hugh Smith
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Controlling the Herd
It’s Not Just Politics That’s Broken–The Status Quo’s Model of “How the World Works” Is Broken
August 26, 2014Even if reformers succeeded in ridding the political system of cronyism and favors-for-campaign-contributions--two essentially impossible reforms,...
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Economy and Finance
Is the $5 Bill the New $1 Bill?
August 25, 2014Healthcare, government services, events, food purchased away from home and live entertainment are increasingly unaffordable to...
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Economy and Finance
The Crazy-Making Fed
August 21, 2014The Federal Reserve's communications and policies are a form of crazy-making double bind.
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Economy and Finance
Don’t Think It Won’t Happen Just Because It Hasn’t Happened Yet: Loss of Faith in the Fed
August 18, 2014Much of the supposedly godlike power of central banks is participants' faith in their powers to...
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Economy and Finance
We’re Relying on Phantom Wealth to Fund Our Retirement
August 14, 2014Phantom wealth cannot possibly fund unprecedented retirement and healthcare promises.
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Economy and Finance
The Joys of Being Productive
August 10, 2014Lost in the frenzy to persuade us to consume more and take on more debt are...
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Economy and Finance
What Are the Options for Those Who Can’t/Won’t Get a Corporate/Government Job?
August 6, 2014To understand alternatives to conventional corporate/government jobs, we have to understand "the economy we have, not...
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Economy and Finance
How Economies Collapse: Systemic Friction and Debt Are Self-Liquidating
August 5, 2014Paying for unproductive friction with borrowed money has generated the illusion that free to me is...
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Economy and Finance
Why America’s Healthcare (Sickcare) System Is Broken and Unfixable
July 17, 2014Large-scale rackets like sickcare cannot survive without a Central State that collects taxes and funnels the...
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Economy and Finance
You Want a Solution? Try Not to Get Hurt When It Collapses, Then Start Over
July 14, 2014Once the deadwood piles high enough, the random lightning strike ignites a fire so fast-moving and...
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Controlling the Herd
Neofeudalism’s Tax Donkeys (Yes, You) and the Battle for Control of Resources
July 10, 2014Those who own the resources and influence the political control of those resources are the New...
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Controlling the Herd
The Most Destructive Presidencies in American History, Part 2: The Fatal Incoherence of the Bush/Obama Foreign Policy
June 19, 2014The tragic reality is the Bush II/Obama administrations have made the world a far more dangerous...
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Controlling the Herd
The Most Destructive Presidencies in U.S. History: George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama
June 17, 2014After 13.5 years, there is more than enough evidence for reasonable people to conclude that the...
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Economy and Finance
The Generational Short: Banks, Wall Street, Housing and Luxury Retail Are Doomed
June 15, 2014People who grow up in a specific milieu are naturally prone to sharing broadly similar perceptions...
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Economy and Finance
Still Think the Fed Isn’t Fueling Inflation? Check Out This Chart
May 30, 2014Just as we can't eat iPods, we can't subsist on official reassurances that the Fed and...
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Economy and Finance
Why Are Food Prices so High? Because We’re Eating Oil
May 28, 2014Food moves in virtual lockstep with the one master commodity in an industrialized global economy: oil.
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Economy and Finance
The Essential Role of Volatility, Stress and Dissent
May 26, 2014The individual or system that never experiences dissent, volatility or stress is systemically unhealthy and increasingly...
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Editor's Choice
Memorial Day 2014: Just Following Orders
May 26, 2014Large-scale evil requires surrender of autonomy, coercion by a central authority and a willingness to follow...
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Economy and Finance
The Destabilizing Truth: Only the Wealthy Can Afford a Middle Class Lifestyle
May 6, 2014The truth is painfully obvious: a middle class lifestyle is unaffordable to all but the top...
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Controlling the Herd
Please Stop Me Before I Vote for a Bought-&-Paid-For Demopublican Again
May 2, 2014You want to clean up politics? It's easy: make sure every candidate who accepts millions of...
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Economy and Finance
This Is How Empires Collapse
April 23, 2014Before an empire collapses, it first erodes from within.
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Economy and Finance
How To Get a Job Despite the Economy
April 14, 2014In the economy we have, getting a college degree no longer guarantees a good job, or...
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Economy and Finance
Are We Losing Practical Life-Skills?
April 11, 2014Poverty and lack of life skills are causally connected. Practical skills are human capital, which is...
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Controlling the Herd
Fed to the Sharks, Part 1: The Fed Takes Our Money, Gives It to Banks Who Loan It Back to Us at 16%
April 8, 2014We're being Fed to the sharks, every day, one morsel at a time. What a way...
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Editor's Choice
Does Our System Select for Incompetent Sociopaths?
March 27, 2014What is the shelf life of a system that rewards confidence-gaming sociopaths rather than competence?
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Editor's Choice
Finally, a Plausible Scenario of What Happened to Flight 370
March 17, 2014The scenario that best fits the facts is a spontaneously initiated "drastic political protest" by the...
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Editor's Choice
What Happened to Flight 370? An Analysis of What Is Known
March 13, 2014Much of what we've been told about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 doesn't add up.
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Economy and Finance
America’s Make-Work Sectors (Healthcare and Higher Education) Have Run Out of Oxygen
February 10, 2014If we strip away obscuring narratives, we can clearly see that the two employment sectors that...
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Economy and Finance
Who Has the Time and Motivation to Comprehend the Mess We’re In? Almost Nobody
January 17, 2014If we don't understand the problem or the dynamics that are generating the problem, it is...
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Economy and Finance
The Widening Chasm
May 8, 2013An independent, critical account of the American economy would soon raise questions about the structural causes...