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oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith

oftwominds-Charles...
The Problem With Money Isn't Money The Problem With Money is that it's complicated. To many minds, the solution to our core...
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The Problem With Money is that it's complicated. To many minds, the solution to our core economic problems is to return to sound money via either the gold standard, in which gold backs all currency, or by substituting bitcoin for gold, i.e. bitcoin becomes the coin of the...
oftwominds-Charles...
The Tax Benefits of Self-Employment Lowering one's tax burden is not the reason to pursue self-employment, but it is something worth...
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Lowering one's tax burden is not the reason to pursue self-employment, but it is something worth understanding if you're exploring self-employment. It's tax preparation time, the secular equivalent of crawling around the temple on cobblestones littered with broken glass....
oftwominds-Charles...
The Not-So-Strange Paradox of American Power and Dysfunction Americans seem to have forgotten that we are not slaves to finance-tech profits as the sole divining...
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Americans seem to have forgotten that we are not slaves to finance-tech profits as the sole divining rods to what happens next. A recent essay explores the paradox of American power: global reach amidst civic decline: The Strange Triumph of a Broken America: Why Power...
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Going Cold Turkey in our Addiction Economy We're prone to addiction, and addiction is highly profitable. They know it, and we know it. We...
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We're prone to addiction, and addiction is highly profitable. They know it, and we know it. We inhabit an Addiction Economy. We all know the cure for addiction is to go Cold Turkey: drop the denial and delusion of control, and excise the source of the addiction from one's...
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When Markets Misbehave Markets misbehave, sometimes when we least expect it. How badly they misbehave depends on the...
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Markets misbehave, sometimes when we least expect it. How badly they misbehave depends on the soundness of the hull and the level of self-reinforcing hubris. When Benoit Mandelbrot's book The (Mis)behavior of Markets was published in 2004, it was a revelation for many of...
oftwominds-Charles...
The Stoicism of the Caregiver These are difficult realities without Hollywood cliche answers. Caregivers and the costs of...
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These are difficult realities without Hollywood cliche answers. Caregivers and the costs of caregiving don't get much attention. They're not part of the news flow, and the day-to-day grind of caregiving doesn't lend itself to the self-promotional zeitgeist of social media....
oftwominds-Charles...
If We Set Aside Ideology, Is There Anything We Can Agree On? Just the experiment of setting aside ideological certainties for a moment would be instructive. ...
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Just the experiment of setting aside ideological certainties for a moment would be instructive. Humans are hard-wired to prefer simplicity over complexity, and this is the foundation of ideology, which like mythology takes a complex world and radically simplifies it to an...
oftwominds-Charles...
Automation Institutionalizes Mediocrity Meanwhile, in the lived-in world, our quality of life is unraveling in myriad ways as...
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Meanwhile, in the lived-in world, our quality of life is unraveling in myriad ways as algorithmically-driven under-competence and mediocrity are now the norm. When deployed by monopolies / cartels, automation institutionalizes mediocrity, and soon everyone forgets...
oftwominds-Charles...
Ultra-Processed Life Consuming more of this Ultra-Processed World is not a path to "the good life," it's a path to the...
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Consuming more of this Ultra-Processed World is not a path to "the good life," it's a path to the destruction and derangement of an Ultra-Processed Life. The digital realm, finance, and junk food have something in common: they're all ultra-processed, synthetic versions of...
oftwominds-Charles...
Housing: The Foundations of the Middle Class Are Crumbling Bottom line: with the loss of predictability, we've also lost any sense of future financial...
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Bottom line: with the loss of predictability, we've also lost any sense of future financial security. Home ownership has been the foundation of middle-class stability and security for so long that it defines middle-class status as much as income. From the end of World War...
oftwominds-Charles...
Why the Global Recession Will be Deeper and Longer Than Pundits Anticipate The global recession will be deeper and longer than those relying on models based on the past two...
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The global recession will be deeper and longer than those relying on models based on the past two decades of hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization anticipate. While everyone focuses on conflicts between nations, few look at the problems shared by nations. Richard...
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Three Ways to Restore Housing Affordability The choice is simple: housing is either shelter for citizens, or it's just another interchangeable...
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The choice is simple: housing is either shelter for citizens, or it's just another interchangeable speculative asset in the global financialization casino. It can't be both. We tend to think of housing becoming unaffordable as a matter of land prices, zoning and the cost of...
oftwominds-Charles...
The One True Test of AI Intelligence The point of this thought experiment is to reveal the true nature of our relationship with AI: we...
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The point of this thought experiment is to reveal the true nature of our relationship with AI: we only love it as a mindless slave that makes us rich. From the earliest days of artificial intelligence, what test proves AI equivalence with human intelligence has been the...
oftwominds-Charles...
Here Come the Chaos Monkeys The Chaos Monkeys are so masterful at distracting and confusing us with sensory-digital overload,...
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The Chaos Monkeys are so masterful at distracting and confusing us with sensory-digital overload, we're not even aware of the game until the extortion begins. Chaos Monkeys excel at distraction and extortion. They appear suddenly, leaping about in disorienting mayhem,...
oftwominds-Charles...
POD People 2025 In one way or another, we're all POD People now, for precarity, ordeals and debasement are the New...
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In one way or another, we're all POD People now, for precarity, ordeals and debasement are the New Normal. In the cultural zeitgeist, the term Pod People refers to the novel and film franchise Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which nomadic aliens reach Earth and spawn...
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Corporations as Modern-Day Warlords Read carefully between the lines, for all this will come to pass. Let me start by offering an...
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Read carefully between the lines, for all this will come to pass. Let me start by offering an apology to all those whose blood pressure will skyrocket upon reading this thought experiment. As we all know, science--the real thing, not "science"--advances via informed...
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Roaring 20s or Great Depression 2.0? The binary ahead is the result of a simple law of Nature: adapt or die. Will we revel in a New...
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The binary ahead is the result of a simple law of Nature: adapt or die. Will we revel in a New Roaring 20s of exhilarating expansion, or will we suffer a Great Depression 2.0? Gordon Long and I explore this binary in our latest podcast. Why is the next decade a binary of...
oftwominds-Charles...
The Economy of Denial: Addiction, Extortion, Deception Denial doesn't end well, and the 'Economy of Denial' is destined to deconstruction. Even the...
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Denial doesn't end well, and the 'Economy of Denial' is destined to deconstruction. Even the most opinionated become circumspect when the discussion turns to The Addiction Economy, for the term The Addiction Economy calls things by their real name, which disrupts our...
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After the Tariff Earthquake The fires that have been ignited are not yet visible. There's a eerie calm after an...
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The fires that have been ignited are not yet visible. There's a eerie calm after an earthquake. Those trapped in collapsed buildings are aware of the consequences, but the majority experience a silence, as if the world stopped and has yet to restart. The full consequences...
oftwominds-Charles...
Trade, Tariffs, Currencies, Colonialism, the Gold Watch and Everything The present-day tariff-trade-war conflicts boil down to Neocolonial strategies to gain control of...
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The present-day tariff-trade-war conflicts boil down to Neocolonial strategies to gain control of markets for exports and resource extraction on terms that are only favorable to the Neocolonial power. The title of today's essay pays homage to the inimitable John D....
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The AI Fad Just Burned to the Waterline Sometimes wide moats and billions of dollars to blow lead not to glory but to hubris, which beckons...
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Sometimes wide moats and billions of dollars to blow lead not to glory but to hubris, which beckons Nemesis. While everyone was busy reassuring themselves the stock market was still A-OK, the driver of the market--the AI fad--just burned to the waterline. Yes, the current...
oftwominds-Charles...
Is DeepSeek a Sputnik Moment? I'm not sure that "software will eat the world," but it could consume the stock market bubble in a...
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I'm not sure that "software will eat the world," but it could consume the stock market bubble in a single gulp. Is DeepSeek a Sputnik Moment? Let's break it down. The Soviet Union's October 1957 launch of the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, stunned the U.S.,...
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Lots of Solutions, But for Which Problems? If the "solutions" being offered are features of self-liquidating systems, they aren't solutions,...
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If the "solutions" being offered are features of self-liquidating systems, they aren't solutions, they're problems. Problems, problems, problems. No worries, we have solutions. Solutions abound, but the question is: are they actually resolving the core problems, or are...
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The Financial Kessler Effect Like orbiting space debris, every loan that has been collateralized by an illiquid asset is a...
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Like orbiting space debris, every loan that has been collateralized by an illiquid asset is a high-speed projectile with the potential to disable any other part of the system it impacts. Complex systems can undergo what's known as phase shifts, where the state of the system...
oftwominds-Charles...
The Global Trade Game: Jokers Are Wild There may be no winners of the game of Global Domination (tm), and that is likely the best outcome....
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There may be no winners of the game of Global Domination (tm), and that is likely the best outcome. Okay, players: jokers are wild, but with a twist: the entire deck is jokers. Since everyone at the table will have five Aces, nobody wins. Welcome to the Trade War Poker...
oftwominds-Charles...
The Crises Yet to Come "Controlling the narrative" to justify destabilizing asymmetries won't change the consequences. ...
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"Controlling the narrative" to justify destabilizing asymmetries won't change the consequences. That the Trump Reformation / Counter-Reformation is disrupting various nodes of the status quo is viewed as an existential crise by many. The choice between Reformation /...
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Welcome to the DeepSeek Disruption (DSD) In summary: bloated headcounts, no new sources of revenue from AI, and limitless content with no...
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In summary: bloated headcounts, no new sources of revenue from AI, and limitless content with no scarcity value. Welcome to the DSD: DeepSeek Disruption. I've been fruitfully engaged in a lively dialog with readers on my Substack regarding my post yesterday Is DeepSeek a...
oftwominds-Charles...
The Wile E. Coyote Recession So where are corporate profits going to come from as globalization, price-gouging, planned...
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So where are corporate profits going to come from as globalization, price-gouging, planned obsolescence, shrinkflation and immiseration run out of rope? We all know there's a time lag between the moment Wile E. Coyote runs off the cliff at full speed and the moment he...
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AI Is a Digital Parrot: Word-Traps, False Logic and the Illusion of Intelligence Word traps and false logic don't lead to dominance of the future or monopolistic grips on limitless...
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Word traps and false logic don't lead to dominance of the future or monopolistic grips on limitless profits. The heart of the current euphoric expectations for AI is a simple but problematic proposition: the equivalence of function equals intelligence. If using natural...
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Begging Bowl '25: I'm Looking for Two Readers Willing to Help Me Buy a New Thrift-Store Shirt The goal is to move incrementally toward a kind of happiness that actually makes us happy. That's...
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The goal is to move incrementally toward a kind of happiness that actually makes us happy. That's the goal of my work. I admire unvarnished honesty, which is scarce. And like everything else that's increasingly scarce, it behooves us to hoard our stash. In the unvarnished...
oftwominds-Charles...
What's "Normal" in a Hyper-Normalized World? Now that the entire economy depends on these hyper-normalized speculative bubbles for its "growth"...
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Now that the entire economy depends on these hyper-normalized speculative bubbles for its "growth" and "wealth," there is a profound fear of a future based not on artifice but on the real world. Humans are quick to habituate to current conditions, i.e. consider them normal....
oftwominds-Charles...
The Power of Our Behavior Why is any reduction in consumption posed in terms of unbearable sacrifice, when no sacrifices are...
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Why is any reduction in consumption posed in terms of unbearable sacrifice, when no sacrifices are necessary to consequentially reduce consumption? When we think of the word power, we associate it with external forces: energy, technology, the government, etc. But our own...
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Last Gasp of the Landfill Economy It seems we're supposed to mourn the last gasp of The Landfill Economy. Perhaps we should celebrate...
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It seems we're supposed to mourn the last gasp of The Landfill Economy. Perhaps we should celebrate its demise. Globalization's great gift wasn't low prices--it was the collapse of durability, transforming the global economy into a Landfill Economy of shoddy products made...
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A Decade of Headwinds These headwinds will persist for the next decade or two. The stock market is rallying hard...
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These headwinds will persist for the next decade or two. The stock market is rallying hard after a brutal sell-off--not an uncommon occurrence. As we savor our winnings in the ship's first-class casino, it's not a bad idea to step out onto the deck and gauge the weather. ...
oftwominds-Charles...
The Family Home: From Shelter to Asset to Liability The deflation of asset bubbles and higher costs are foreseeable, but the magnitude of each is...
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The deflation of asset bubbles and higher costs are foreseeable, but the magnitude of each is unpredictable. With the rise of financialized asset bubbles as the source of our "growth," family home went from shelter to speculative asset. This transition accelerated as...
oftwominds-Charles...
This Nails It: The Doom Loop of Housing Construction Quality Add in the doom loop of an unprecedented credit-asset bubble and housing as a sector is in trouble. ...
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Add in the doom loop of an unprecedented credit-asset bubble and housing as a sector is in trouble. Sorry for the punnish-ment, but this nails it: How Contracting Work Became a Race to the Bottom The reality of being a contractor includes labor shortages, brutal...