In a democracy, each party bids for votes with the money it intends to steal after it has won the election.
Bill Bonner on Democracy
Economies don’t fail. They do exactly what they want to do exactly when they want to do it.
Fed chiefs fail to improve them. Politicians fail to understand them. And everybody fails to appreciate them.
Bill Bonner on Market Failure.
Since banking is not a business that creates real wealth, it can only enrich its owners by taking money from other people. It does that by: (1) printing money (and buying the banks’ deadbeat assets); (2) fixing interest rates at artificially low levels (taking money that should rightfully belong to savers); and (3) generally encouraging inflation to rob everyone.
Bill Bonner explaining that the Fed is a vast cartel charged with making for its members and clients.
Economists cannot know what is ‘better.’ They can only know what is ‘more.’ They have numbers. They can count. They can add up ‘more’. As for ‘better,’ they have no idea. So, in their little minds, more is better.
That is the thinking that has driven the profession...and much of the world economy...to absurdity. Throughout the last 50 years, more looked so much like better, no one worried too much about the difference. More cars. More houses. More food. More gadgets. What was not to like?
But the cost was more debt. And by the 21st century the burden of debt had become so great that the system could no longer move forward.
Bill Bonner on Too Much of a Good Thing.
By the late 20th century, economists — especially leading economists — had ceased being useful. They had become a nuisance. They closed their eyes to what an economy actually is…and to how it works…and focused on their own world — a make-believe world of numbers and theories, with little connection to the world that most people lived in. And now in the 21st century, they are up to mischief. And part of the mischief involves not noticing things that are right in front of their noses.
Bill Bonner on Economists
The modern social welfare state was invented by Otto von Bismarck in the mid-19th century. The idea was simple. Governments required the consent and support of the masses. That was the lesson that Republican France had taught the world and that Bismarck had learned. You could get a lot more out of “citizens” than you could out of “subjects.” The subjects of Frederick the Great might reluctantly pay their taxes...and might join his armies. But they would always keep a distance — emotional and physical — between themselves and their masters. War and government were Frederick’s business, not theirs. Monarchs might retain the loyalty of their subjects. They could claim some of their money, too. But even the Sun King, Louis XIV, the man for whom the term “absolute monarch” was coined, was lucky if he collected 10% of the kingdom’s GDP in taxes. As for his soldiers, every one of them wanted payment. In real money.....
In the course of the 19th century, monarchy was gradually replaced by some form of representative democracy or republicanism..... The main reason was probably because it is easier to squeeze and bamboozle a citizen than it is a subject. The real genius of modern democracy is that it makes the citizen feel that the government and its workings are somehow the product of his own aspirations.
Bill Bonner on Too Much of a Good Thing
Why so many unemployed? Because economics professors have taught 3 generations of economists that a command and control economy will work. It won’t. But a command and control economy is good for economists and do-gooders, who get jobs commanding.
Bill Bonner pretending to give a commencement address to the class of 2012 at the University of Virginia.
The popular media stirs group feelings and mob emotions. The crowds at the arena...the thousands at the coliseum and those in the stalls at the theatre — they need heroes and villains, not complex ideas and ambiguity.
Of course, ideas can be made accessible by the masses. But only by stripping out the complexity and nuance, making them so barren and so remote from the whole story that they are rarely more than collective fantasies, shared as feelings...
The masses don’t want to think. They just feel. Every flack...and hack politician knows that feelings sell. Not ideas.
That’s why Ron Paul...an idea guy...is trailing Mitt Romney at such a distance.
The masses form their opinions...choose their candidates...and spend their money on the basis of feelings. Real thoughts are banished.
The presidential race is really little more than a contest to which line of guff most voters will take...that is, how they will feel about the candidates and their themes.
Bill Bonner on Economic Recovery Education.
Back in the time of the Great Depression, millions of Americans were still not completely caught up in the money economy. Many still lived on the land. They kept pigs and chickens. They tended their own gardens and “put up” their own canned goods. They cut their own wood to heat their houses. They pumped water from their own wells. Many still made their own clothes. When the Depression came, they could hunker down and wait it out.
Today, the average household can’t wait 10 years for de-leveraging to do its work. Heck, it can’t even wait 2 months. Both parents work. They’ve got two cars. And two mortgages. Money in; money out. 24/7... No garden. No firewood. No chickens. No time to wait. No time to sit still. Just bills...bills...bills... They’ve got to work...they’ve got to earn money...they’ve got to spend...
Bill Bonner on Where to Wait.
Wall Street sells dreams...hopes...and pies in the sky.
Sure, its labor force tends to dress well. They often go to the best schools. They are smart. They are presentable. But get close enough, and you will see they struggle to mask the moral strain of flogging hopeless investments to people who they believe were “born yesterday.”
Wall Streeters are not bad people. They are not dumb people. Neither saints nor sinners, they are just like the rest of us. But their industry encourages a huge fraud: that they are there to help you make money.
They are not. They are there to help themselves make money.
How?
By taking it from YOU.
The financial industry is very large and very profitable. The service it pretends to provide is helping to match worthwhile investment projects with the capital they need. The service it actually provides is separating fools from their money.
Bill Bonner on Wall Street.
It is rare for a decent man to seek public office. He is ashamed of pandering. He is embarrassed by the stupidity of his own slogans. He is appalled by the low-lifes and quasi criminals with whom he must associate and from whom he must beg support.
Bill Bonner on the US election. The entire article is worth a read and a laugh.
Everybody wants wealth, power and status. (The rich are just better at it.)
They want to get it in the easiest possible way.
And the easiest way is to take it away from someone else.
That’s what government does. It allows the rich to get rich...supporting their stocks and real estate holdings with artificially low rates and expandable paper money. Then, when the rich go too far, it bails them out with even lower rates and even more ersatz paper money. The rich get their dividends; the politicians get their sinecures and campaign contributions; the middle classes lose their jobs, their houses, and their standards of living.
The masses never even try to figure this out. They only know that the game is rigged against them...and they get angry.
Bill Bonner on Misunderstanding Capitalism
Few people really like capitalism — even people who call themselves capitalists. The feds could probably round them all up and gun them down in an afternoon. Capitalism is too chancy…too unpredictable…and too uncontrollable. No wonder so few people are fond of it; capitalism is a poor friend. It is disloyal. It is mischievous and willful. It is hard to get along with.
Capitalism offers is no sure route to success. You can be smart, work hard, and go to the best schools. There is still no guarantee that you will succeed.
Nor, once you’ve succeeded, is there any sure way to maintain your wealth, power and status. Wealth has no fidelity, neither to any one person, group, or family. It goes where it wants. It is fickle and unreliable.
Bill Bonner in Everybody Hates Capitalism
The Lehman bankruptcy was a much more important event than 9/11. It marked the end of a 60-year credit expansion. Maybe it marked the high water mark for the US Empire, too. And the beginning of the end for the US dollar-based world monetary system.
Bill Bonner on
Dead Men Don't Spend
The real problem in Washington and the economy is deeper…it won’t be fixed by bipartisan cooperation – because both parties are wrong. They have to be wrong. They have to respond to the marginal voter, who is a lunkhead.
Bill Bonner on Misconceptions About the Consumer's Role in a US Recovery.
You always have to separate the cheap and tawdry from what is really worthwhile. You can't recognize something that is beautiful unless you can also recognize something that is ugly. And you can't really appreciate the truth unless you can compare it to a lie.
"Trouble is, it's not all equally balanced out. For every truth, there are hundreds of lies. For every noble, honorable, sincere and intelligent man there are hundreds of jackasses.
Bill Bonner
That's the great beauty of a real economy! It rarely takes you where you want to go...especially if you're an activist central planner or an interventionist finance minister. But no matter how much you struggle with it...no matter how badly you manipulate it...no matter how much you try to stitch it up with rules and regulations...
...it ALWAYS takes you where you deserve to go.
Bill Bonner
If the idea of democracy is that voters put their heads together and select the most worthy candidate, the whole thing is a fraud. Just look at Congress. What voters really do is select the fellow with the best haircut, the best line of guff, or the smoothest fundraising machinery. And it helps to have name recognition. That’s how popular actors – such as Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger – were able to break into the business. People do not really select the best man for the job; they have no way of knowing what the job is or who would be best for it. Instead, they buy their candidates like bath soap...based on the jingle that most appeals to them.
Bill Bonner writing about America.
Capitalism doesn’t like it when idiots have too much money. So it uses people like Goldman to help take it away from them. That’s what Lloyd Blankfein meant when he said Goldman was doing “God’s work.”
We don’t know if God wanted Goldman to blow up the world economy…but capitalism seemed to be calling for it. And it looked like capitalism was going to blow up the bomb tosser, too. Unfortunately, the feds stepped in. They bailed out AIG…and the whole financial industry – including Goldman. Now, they lend the big banks money for practically nothing…which the banks lend back to the feds at 4%. The banks make money. They restock their reserves with US Treasury debt. And the feds get to finance their gigantic deficits. It’s great for everyone – until it blows up too.
Bill Bonner on Separating Fools from their Money.
There are more clowns in economics than in the circus. They invented an economic model that has been very popular for more than 50 years – particularly in the US and Britain........ The new theories seemed to give everyone what they most wanted. Politicians could spend even more money that didn’t belong to them. Consumers could enjoy a standard of living they couldn’t afford. And the financial industry could earn huge fees by selling debt to people who couldn’t pay it back.
Never before had so many people been so happily engaged in acts of reckless larceny and legerdemain. As time wore on, more and more people lived at someone else’s expense. Lobbying and lawyering became lucrative professions. Bucket shops and banks neared respectability. Every imperfection was a call for legislation. Every traffic accident was an opportunity for wealth redistribution. And every trend was fully leveraged.
If there was anyone still solvent in America or Britain in the 21st century, it was not the fault of the banks. They invented subprime loans and securitizations to profit from segments of the market that had theretofore been spared. By 2005 even jobless people could get themselves into debt. Then, the bankers found ways to hide debt…and ways to allow the public sector to borrow more heavily. Goldman Sachs did for Greece essentially what it had done for the subprime borrowers in the private sector – it helped them to go broke.
As long as people thought they were getting something for nothing, this economic model enjoyed wide support. But now that they are getting nothing for something, the masses are unhappy....
Taxes are going up. Services are going down. And taxpayers are being asked to pay for the banks’ losses…and pay interest on money spent years ago. Until now, they were borrowing money that would have to be repaid sometime in the future. But today is the tomorrow they didn’t worry about yesterday. So, the patsies are in revolt.....
The rioters can go home, in other words. The system will collapse on its own.
Bill Bonner on The Patsy Revolt.
