Fundamentals or faith?

In a recent post, Mish mocks the federal reserve's "macroblog" which laments the fact that its models are not working to an even greater degree than the fed had previously thought.  So now Q1 "growth" rings in at -0.3% instead of -0.2%.  The fed's post points out a number of things that they think drive the herd to consume more including low interest rates, high stock prices and low oil prices along with consumer sentiment and low unemployment.  I love the sophistry used to hide the true intent of the words: "counterfactual forecast" is nothing more than a forecast which the subsequent facts didn't match.  In other words, a "blown call".



The fed is proving what I already know to be fact.  People are not objects.  You cannot manipulate them like some chemical process and assure yourself of some desired result. This is because people and thus the herd has free will.  This results in a degree of chaos that appears just when you least expect it to.  Said differently, the true fundamentals are unknown and unknowable (especially when everything is controlled by a fraudulent money supply).  Said differently still, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Of course, I don't think any of this is as it appears.  The fed isn't really scratching its head wondering what the people are thinking or why they aren't piling on more debt in order to consume more.  As Mish points out, disposable income is becoming harder and harder to come by.  This is causing the herd to become more conservative.  Period.  And it's not just conservatism in spending.  Wild reckless spending of "mad money" or "found money" leads a person to forget his roots, forget his humanity.  When the mad money dries up, the herd member can again see his station in life and begins to act the part again in ways that do not at first blush appear to be related to not having spending power.

Whether or not you think the Bible has any religious value, one has to see that it does understand the nature of man pretty well.  In other words, the Bible is full of wisdom if nothing else.  In the Bible, after mentioning the commandments, Jesus says that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to Heaven.  If you want to believe that the intrinsic state of humans is to have humanity (i.e not giving false testimony or stealing or being adulterous or killing people), the implication is that wealth makes it more difficult for people to be human.  I certainly believe this to be true.

Take a look at Hillary Clinton.  By this detailed account she is rich with a net worth between 13 and 25 million dollars.  Of course, for politicians, a big part of their real net worth is their campaign fund which they can use like a piggy bank or ATM while avoiding taxation and while avoiding many questions of where the money came from.  As you can see from this WSJ article, between Bill and Hillary, some one billion dollars has flowed into their campaign funds over the years.  To think that there has been any real accounting on that money is to believe in the tooth fairy.  So Hillary is rich beyond belief not by working for it but by donations which makes it all "found money" or mad money or whatever you want to call it.  It is the act of receiving money that was not worked for which makes one feel kingly or elite.  I assert that this is largely what makes people forget they are just people and which leads to liberalism over conservatism.

Hillary is also a liar.  The article speaks for itself.

Also, if selling her access to US government to foreign powers was a form of theft then she is a thief of the worst kind.

And if Bill was an adulterer, Hillary is at the very least a lesbian adulterer.  What, you say? That old rumor again?  No sez I, I'm referring to the recent casual admission by none other than Yoko Ono that she and Hillary were lovers back in the 70s.  One should consider the timing of this announcement relative to the new conservatism.  If Yoko really wanted the best for Hillary then she would shut her face.  But in truth, she really wants the truth known, at least subconsciously (most herding signals such as the new wave of conservatism work on the brain at the subconscious level), just like recently departed Joan Rivers wanted us to know about Obama.  Rivers died unexpectedly after she did this.  Someone should start digging a grave for Yoko maybe too?  Of course, Hillary is also rumored to have had hetro affairs and many point out that Chelsea looks nothing like Bill and a lot like Webb.

All that's left is for Hillary to be involved in murder.   Many people contemplate murder in their lifetimes and I guess that Hillary is no different in this regard.  I suspect that the only real consideration for her is whether it could be tied back to her.  I can see Hillary pushing a button where billions just cease to exist and then having a big party about it later that evening.  She doesn't care two shits about people IMVHO.  Of course there are websites that detail "Clinton body counts".  While some of it may be fact, none is verifiable so it's not worth mentioning any further for now.  But if Yoko, who has lived accident-free for 82 years now, has an accidental death or near death experience in the next 6 months I'm going to blame Hillary. ;  )
 
The elite, by virtue of having numbers in a bank account and lots of possessions honestly feel that everyone else below their financial station is a bug, a nuisance, a useless eater; we are of little consequence to them even if we are needed in order to mow their lawns, clean their toilets and make their goods.

The fed cites a bunch of data but magickly omits what really matters from their models: the vanishing middle class.  With more and more of the population living hand to mouth already, and with more mandatory taxes coming down on them in the form of Obamacare, etc., where is all this hoped for consumption growth supposed to be coming from?

So the fed is throwing a bunch of bullshit out there, masquerading it around as facts that matter and then publicly lamenting its model failures like some kind of whacko scientist looking for zero point energy or perhaps an alchemist of olde trying to buy more time from the king who has been paying him to turn lead into gold.

Another way of looking at it is that the fed is the high priest of a false religion.  It uses Mammon money (AKA something for nothing money) to get people to sell themselves into perpetual bondage.  We have a faith based economy operating on a faith based currency and the fed is literally telling us to "keep the faith".  I guess that makes the fed a false prophet.  Or perhaps the correct term in this case should be false profit.

Regardless of the public antics of the fed, what I see is this:  everyone who is foolish enough to take on debt for consumption has already done so.  They are either tapped out in terms of what they need, will be allowed to borrow, and in many cases, of what they can even physically store.  People have more "stuff" than they know what to do with already and the new stuff being offered simply isn't good enough to tempt them to throw out all the old stuff and take on more debt chasing the acquisition of new stuff.

Look at the Apple watch: as hyped a product as ever I have seen.  But in many reviews two things jump out.  1: Apple watch is no better and sometimes is worse than the Android based alternative and 2: these watches are mainly trinkets.  You still have to carry the cell phone and then you have another device alerting you to stuff you don't need to be alerted about, another device whose crappy battery life makes you a slave to charging it, and another device which really doesn't help you do anything more than you can do today with a smart phone.  In other words, largely useless "status tech".  Maybe these devices will pull their weight at some point but only a fool would go into debt to buy this overpriced junk right now.

So this is what we are up against.  The elite think everything is fine and they wonder why the little guy isn't enjoying the party.  The little guy is hoping to keep his job and worrying about what will happen to him and his family if his part time job goes away.  The little guy is also getting old and beginning to worry more about retirement, or lack thereof.  Work until you die...

Somehow I just don't think all of this is going to end well.