Charting gasoline prices against income and GDP provides some interesting results.
Since rapidly rising gasoline prices are in the news, let’s look at some charts of gasoline and the economy, courtesy of frequent contributor B.C. These depi…
Charles Hugh Smith
What’s Next for Capitalism After the Current Version Implodes?
by Charles Hugh Smith • • 0 Comments
Has the centralized nation-state model of global capitalism finally reached its autumn?
Predicting the end of Capitalism has been a popular pastime since the term was coined. The reason why this particular parlor game is so fruitless is that …
Charles Hugh Smith
When Risk Is Disconnected From Consequence, the System Itself Is at Risk
by Charles Hugh Smith • • 0 Comments
If we understand risk cannot be eliminated, it can only be transferred, then we will understand why the current financial trickery in Europe and elsewhere is doomed to fail.
The entire global economy’s fundamental financial instability can be trace…
Charles Hugh Smith, Contributors- Economic and Financial, Must Read
What Happens When Phantom Profits Vanish?
by Charles Hugh Smith • • 0 Comments
As the U.S. dollar strengthens against other currencies, the phantom corporate profits generated by a devaluing dollar will vanish.
One of the dirty little secrets of the stock market rally is that the rising corporate profits that powered it ar…
Charles Hugh Smith, Contributors- Economic and Financial, Must Read
Presidents Day: Why Can’t We Nominate Our Own President? We Can, We Are
by Charles Hugh Smith • • 0 Comments
Why can’t the American public nominate their own candidate for president? It turns out we can, and are doing so for the first time in American history.
If the last 12 years have revealed anything, they have shown beyond reasonable doubt that both S…
Charles Hugh Smith
When Debt is More Important Than People, The System Is Evil
by Charles Hugh Smith • • 1 Comment
The Empire of Debt has only one end-point: a death spiral. It is evil and must be dismantled.
Ethics has no place in the Empire of Debt. The financialized Status Quo is careful to limit the language used to describe the situation in Greece …
Charles Hugh Smith, Contributors- Economic and Financial, Must Read
Do We Really Know Greece’s Default Will Be Orderly?
by Charles Hugh Smith • • 0 Comments
The market seems to be pricing in an orderly Greek default or a successful “firewall” around the potential instability. Are the unknowns really all known?
The equities market is acting like we know Greece’s default will be orderly and no threat …
Charles Hugh Smith, Contributors- Economic and Financial, Must Read
The Grand Game of Perception Management
by Charles Hugh Smith • • 0 Comments
The economy will expand if you believe it is expanding–because you’ll be “animal spirited” into buying a lot of stuff on credit that you can’t afford.
It all boils down to perception–that’s the insight at the heart of the Grand Game of Percept…
Charles Hugh Smith
The Grand Failure of the Econometric Model
by Charles Hugh Smith • • 0 Comments
If the conventional econometric model based on metrics like forward price-earnings ratios and a declining unemployment rate is so accurate, then why did it fail so completely, totally and utterly in predicting the 2008 meltdown?
A certain flavor…
Charles Hugh Smith
It’s Not Just Gasoline Consumption That’s Tanking, It’s All Energy
by Charles Hugh Smith • • 0 Comments
It’s not just gasoline consumption that’s declining–petroleum and electricity consumption are also dropping. Is that indicative of economic growth?
A number of readers kindly forwarded additional data sources to me as followup on last week’s en…
