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What If We Ditched Quantitative Easing and Just Printed (and Distributed) Cash?
(August 30, 2010)

Notes from the Proprietor
(August 28, 2010)

Did The Roman Empire Have Corporations?
(August 27, 2010)

Shock Troops of Corporate Empire: Hip-Hop, Fast-Food and Social Media
(August 26, 2010)

Colonizing the Plantation of the Mind
(August 25, 2010)

Wal-Mart and the Plantation Economy
(August 24, 2010)

The Ratchet Effect: Fiefdom Bloat and Resistance to Declining Incomes
(August 23, 2010)

Why Is Income Disparity Widening?
(August 21, 2010)

Why Nothing Changes
(August 20, 2010)

Nothing Has Changed
(August 19, 2010)

Two Americas: The Gap Between the Top 5% and the Bottom 95% Widens
(August 18, 2010)

The Great Disconnect (The Bullish Case for Stocks Part 2)
(August 17, 2010)

A Note on Sentiment (The Bullish Case for Stocks Part 1)
(August 16, 2010)

True Confessions (on Liberty and the Republic) (guest essay)
(August 14, 2010)

Large-Scale Solutions: Protecting the Commons, Individual Choices
(August 13, 2010)

Plunge Protection Team, Your Red Phone Is Ringing
(August 12, 2010)

The "Big Fixes": High-Tech R&D and Behavioral Changes
(August 11, 2010)

Big Fixes, Small-Scale Fixes and Being Pragmatic about Technology
(August 10, 2010)

The Non-Financial Cost of Stagnation: "Social Recession" and Japan's "Lost Generations"
(August 9, 2010)

How Frugal Are You?
(August 7, 2010)

Credit Is Financial Crack Cocaine
(August 6, 2010)

Bailout of Housing = Bailout of Banks
(August 5, 2010)

Seven Headwinds for the U.S. Economy
(August 4, 2010)

Why Japan Is Doomed (and the U.S. and E.U., too): Demographics, Low Savings, Ballooning Debt
(August 3, 2010)

Disconnect Between the Real Economy and Stocks May Widen
(August 2, 2010)



July 2010 entries

June 2010 entries

May 2010 entries

April 2010 entries

March 2010 entries

February 2010 entries

January 2010 entries

December 2009 entries

November 2009 entries

October 2009 entries

September 2009 entries

August 2009 entries

July 2009 entries

June 2009 entries

May 2009 entries

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February 2009 entries

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December 2008 entries

November 2008 entries

October 2008 entries

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August 2008 entries

July 2008 entries

June 2008 entries

May 2008 entries

April 2008 entries

March 2008 entries

February 2008 entries

January 2008 entries


                                                                       





                                                                       


All content, HTML coding, format design, design elements and images copyright © 2008 Charles Hugh Smith, All rights reserved in all media, unless otherwise credited or noted.


Extra-Special Bonus Aphorisms:

"There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity." (Douglas MacArthur)

"Success: To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, submitted by J.P. Bahner)

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
(Theodore Roosevelt, submitted by Kenneth R.)

"Economic history is a never-ending series of episodes based on falsehoods and lies, not truths. It represents the path to big money. The object is to recognize the trend whose premise is false, ride that trend, and step off before it is discredited." (George Soros)

"To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it -- who can say this is not greatness? (William Makepeace Thackeray, recommended by U.Doran)

"Daydreams of a fair world which would treat him according to his real worth are the refuge of all those plagued by a lack of self-knowledge." (Ludwig von Mises)

"The way of the Tao is reversal." (Lao Tzu)

"Chance favours the prepared mind." (Louis Pasteur)

"It is neither necessary to hope to undertake, nor to succeed to persevere." (William of Orange)

"You must have a willingness to do something when everyone else is petrified. You must learn the lesson of following logic over emotion." (Warren Buffett)

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill)

"Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures." (Rumi)

"May a fair road always be open to you." (CHS, April 2, 2006)

"A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts." (CHS, May 2008)

"You don't miss what you no longer want." (CHS, August 2008)

"Food is wealth, health is wealth, energy is wealth; all else is illusion." (CHS, December 15, 2008)

"Meaningful work and meaningful skills make a meaningful life, even if the work is unpaid." (CHS, March 6, 2009)

"If you like eating, begin liking dirt." (CHS, April 6, 2009)

"Either we restrict the foods we eat when we have a choice, or our diet will eventually be restricted by chronic diseases." (CHS, May 9, 2009)

"Greed is a wonderful motivator but fear works much faster." (Riley T., Sept. 2008)

"Democracy can be likened to two wolves and one lamb voting on what to have for lunch." (unknown source, submitted by Tim B.)

"Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice of life energy." (Nikola Tesla, sunmitted by Kenneth R.)

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." (Eric Hoffer, submitted by Angry Saver)

"In times of change, learners will inherit the earth." (Eric Fromm, submitted by Tom P.)

"Do the thing and you shall have the power." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"Radical self-reliance begins with rock-solid personal integrity and a willingness to ask cui bono-- to whose benefit?--of every arrangement."
(CHS, October 30, 2009)

"Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything." (Napoleon Bonaparte)

"Concentrations of wealth disrupt the ecology of power."
(CHS, March 13, 2010)

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." (George Orwell)

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." (Leo Tolstoy)

"The path out of darkness begins with those exasperatingly persistent individuals who are constitutionally incapable of capitulation." (Winston Churchill)

"The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty." (James Madison, submitted by Ken R.)

"We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?" (Jean Cocteau)

"I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center." (Kurt Vonnegut, via Chinle)

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen." (Mark Twain, via Dublin Mick)

"But we are told that we need not fear; because those in power, being our representatives, will not abuse the powers we put in their hands. I am not well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollection, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers. I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny. Happy will you be if you miss the fate of those nations, who, omitting to resist their oppressors, or negligently suffering their liberty to be wrested from them, have groaned under intolerable despotism! Most of the human race are now in this deplorable condition; and those nations who have gone in search of grandeur, power, and splendor, have also fallen a sacrifice, and been the victims of their own folly. While they acquired those visionary blessings, they lost their freedom."(Patrick Henry)

"When sacrifice, trade-offs and accountability are anathema, then so too is liberty." (July 17, 2010, CHS)

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." (Mark Twain)