Charles Hugh Smith

A key argument appears to be based on incorrect data. Specifically, as I write this, the OP states that the number of housing units per capita in the US is at an all-time high, per this plot (unless the OP changes it): https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2023/housing-per-capita8-23a.png Federal data shows otherwise. Here's the actual number of housing units divided by number of persons in the US: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=18r64 Otherwise, I'm reluctant to call the US housing market a "bubble," because I haven't seen the classic signs of financial mania.

Like the sibling comment says it's a marathon. Especially because the strongest leverage points require people to change their way of thinking which requires first gaining their trust and then feeding them quality information. This book[1] is an attempt to apply systems theory to our political system. I recommend it as a concise explanation of a perspective that highlights the faults in our current way of thinking. What is needed is a common reference system for people to have productive political discussion and I feel systems theory provides that, if only the information was more widespread. [1]: http://www.oftwominds.com/ARBW.html

Follow the Turkish rabbit, my Millennial friends (or are you with Cypher: "Ignorance is bliss."). Knock, knock: http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay13/politicizing-GenY5-13.html

Money quote from this piece feels relevant: "Once you enable students to borrow $36,000 a year, then magically the costs of a year in college (or for-profit school offering worthless "skills" that do no more for the hapless student than a high school diploma) rise to $36,000" http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapril11/consumer-devolution-two4-11.html

Looks like they've been doing a bad job. They've created a pretty massive destabilization bust of the dollar, with a massive unrecovered crash since the inception of the fed [0]. Not long after the fed's inception, there was massive GDP destabilization[1], and then further boom-and-bust cycles. Unemployment cycles circa before/after fed don't look terribly different either, especially if you exclude war time. In fact there was a pretty terrible boom-bust cycle about 20 years after the fed's inception. [2] Which all does have me double checking all of this. We're getting long lag times, one giant bank bust in slow motion except distributed across all of us with USD going to zero, and even after the fed was created an awful great depression which some economists have theorized the fed even made worse. Moving back to the response time -- it was a genuine question. I have no idea. Maybe the fed speeds up response by having an endless ability to quantitatively ease. Or maybe it acts like a big flywheel. [0] https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2012/Dollar-value1776-2008a.gif [1]. http://visualeconsite.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/RealGDPperCa… [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/US_Unemployment_18…

Americans are desperate. May not be felt among the HN crowd, but standards of living in the US have been declining consistently for a long time [1]. Remember that Trump was not re-elected to a second term initially specifically because he failed to deliver on his promise of "MAGA". He instead did a Jeb Bush presidency, complete with Wall Street (Mnuchin) and the CIA (Pompeo) running the country exactly as would have occurred had Bush won. So Americans tried Biden, in the hopes of a return to Obama era America. This obviously didn't happen, as standard of living continued to decline. So they tried Trump again, in sheer desperation. I don't see a positive future for the US, as it is so clearly a declining empire, exhibiting every textbook symptom. The startup/tech crowd loves talking about cheap phones and "services", but the reality is bleak outside of this narrow tech bubble. 1. https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjun24/negativity6-24.html

I agree, and I suspect most people are just engaging with the title more than its actual contents. To me this reads as a bit perma-bear/conspiracy theory inspired. The article is lacking in pretty much any evidence to support its claims besides the FRED graph of disability claims. Also I'm pretty sure that graph is showing almost the opposite of what they're saying it shows. The number of non-participants (of working age) in the US labor force has actually been very static since June 2020, following a sustained jump during early COVID: [0]. The number of participants has been increasing steadily since then: [1]. The graph [2] shows the number of people in the labor force with a disability so combined with graphs 0 and 1 I'm pretty sure it's showing that people with disabilities are participating more in the labor force and/or that more working people are getting diagnosed with conditions (like ADHD) that qualify as disabilities (if I had to guess, likely because of telemedicine taking off in 2020). It does not show non-participation in the labor force due to disability like they imply. [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS15000000 [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV [2] https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2024/disability8-23a.png

The second image of the blog post (not mine) sums up a lot of my views about the bureaucratic lifecycle we are seeing: https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec10/lifecycle-bureaucracy12-10.html

The NOAA currently hosts over over 37 petabytes of 'comprehensive atmospheric, coastal, oceanic, and geophysical data' and was established in October 1970. It sometimes seems the more data we have the more gloom and doom we get. I'm not one to use emotional quasi religious terms like 'denier' but that does give pause for thought. The NOAA started out Surveying the US coastline in 1807 as the 'U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey' to provide nautical charts to the maritime community for safe passage into American ports. It's morphed like all giant government bureaucracies into well over 11k people now apparently surveying the entire planet and collecting vast troves of data. https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec10/lifecycle-bureaucracy12-10.html

There is an about page: https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

> "The race isn't to maximize profits, it's to survive the inevitable deflationary spiral in prices as competitors are forced to pass along cost savings to customers to retain market share." https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay19/tech-deflationary5-19.html Is this supposed to sound horrible?

That's interesting. I hadn't heard of this before. The evidence is pretty well set out in Kathleen Tobin's "The Reduction of Urban Vulnerability: Revisiting 1950s American Suburbanization as Civil Defence." https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/Cold.War.Urban.Vulnerability.pdf The vast majority of proposals are from before 1956 -- i.e. before the Soviets demonstrated their own high-yield thermonuclear weapons. The degree of decentralization required to mitigate against the multi-megaton bombs of the later 1950s would have been truly staggering.

The suburbanization (or decentralization) was promoted by the Federal Government as a deterrent against nuclear strikes https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/suburbs-defense-07-10.html

> A long-forgotten, under-appreciated aspect of encouraging widely dispersed suburbs was rooted in Cold War defense against nuclear attack. https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/suburbs-defense-07-10.html

Income for bottom 90% has declined http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2015/income-growth4-15.png

Some of the logic behind the incentivization of all this was to make the US less vulnerable to nuclear attack during the Cold War. Basically it would be harder to kill all of us if we were more spread out. http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/Cold.War.Urban.Vulnerability.pdf

> Broadly speaking the US economy is quite healthy In reality, it's the exact opposite of "quite healthy". Here's a good overview of what's up: http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug15/bear8-15.html

These two charts tell the story: http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2014/total-credit6-14.png http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2014/usfed-balance-sheet6-14.png Read the whole thing: http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjune14/central-planning6-14.html We are in a debt bubble propped up by massive central bank intervention all over the world. The intervention will fail at some point and well get a bout of deflation just like in 2008, only this time more severe.

I think this graphic might point towards some of the reason that college is so pricy: http://www.oftwominds.com/photos10/lifecycle-bureaucracy.png Although it is somewhat cynical...

Here's the actual original: http://www.oftwominds.com/blogsept12/future-of-work8-12.html

This American mentality of "the big entrepreneurial idea" that produces some millionaires is why we have such a lousy unemployment rate and low skill workforce compared to Japan and Germany, not to mention huge trade deficits. The problem is that the first generation idea stuff isn't where the jobs and long term money are. The long term social benefits and sustainable jobs are in perfecting and iterating products and production methods. http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjune11/manufacturing-finance6-11.html

If you liked those graphs, you will probably enjoy the graph of land prices in Japan when they had their housing bubble: http://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct06/japan-bubble.html

This writer (http://www.oftwominds.com/asia-crises.html) has some interesting perspectives on the challenges China will face such as availability of energy and water, and the impediments to advancement posed by corruption in the current industrial-government system. I don't know if the author I linked to is knowledgeable, just something I read a couple days ago which seems quasi-relevant.

Sorry, I am multi-tasking, and that poorly. I will look up some of the references, the names that seem to be coming to mind (looking over my RSS feeds) are Kuppy from Adventures in Capitalism, Chris Martensen from Peak Prosperity, Simon Black of Sovereign Man, Charles Hugh Smith of Of Two Minds, I think less-doom-prone authors on fee.org and mises.org. It is highly likely a biased list, I seem to have been gravitating towards the overall message of decay/decline, helped along by the citations of urban areas not doing too well in various places throughout the US. I live very rural along the northern coast of California, so more selection-bias there, as well. Yes on my debauchery reference, QE, TARP, increasing debt (temporary removal of the debt ceiling - oh boy), increasing obligations incurring more debt (social programs, retirements and benefits), the general idea of borrowing from our future to live for today that seems to be the current m.o. And now apparently little in the way of an anchor for US currency (or other central bank nations, for that matter) since removal from the Gold standard, and recently the demise of Bretton Woods as other nations seek ways around being forced to use US currency. This leads me to conclude that we are on the down-slope of Charles Hugh Smith's S curve: https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar19/empires-collapse3-19.html Have to run, cooking (experimental tomatillos, tomatoes, and Cilantro sauce) as well as doing some remote tech support.

I agree that artisan work can't replace an entire economy. But I also don't think that artisan work will be the only viable means of earning a living in that world. Notably, I don't think the corner store (in terms of local services) is going very far. Sure, retail has an enormous battle to fight. But that's just one front. People will always depend on each another for one thing or another. Beyond retail, whether it's local products like food or local services like domestic contracting or professional services, I think the community will play an even more significant role than it does now in spite of a burgeoning global scene. I've been deeply influenced by Charles Hugh Smith's writings on community. It's a term we tend to devalue, but it's one Smith thinks is a fundamental building block for the future. He's a bit extreme, as he tends to expect a large macro-disturbance, but his ideas are sound. Here's one piece: http://www.oftwominds.com/blogsept13/community-economy9-13.html