– IF CONSUMERS ARE SO F%#KING CONFIDENT WHY AREN’T THEY SPENDING? (The burning platform, Aug 30, 2014):
The sheep have been told their confidence is at a 7 year high by the propaganda peddlers working at the behest of the oligarchy. The sheep are also told that 10 million jobs have been added since the GOTUS played his first round back in 2009. The sheep have been told the record highs in the stock market prove that all is well. If the .1% are doing fantastic, some of the wealth must be trickling down. The sheep are told that QE and ZIRP were really to save Main Street and not the bonuses of Wall Street (at record highs by the way). The sheep are told to fear ISIS, Iran, Assad, Putin, and China. The sheep are told U.S. energy independence is just around the corner and to ignore the fact that gas prices have tripled in the last ten years. The sheep are told drones will keep them safe and the DHS militarizing the police is just for their safety and security. The sheep are told guns are dangerous in their hands, but not in the hands of the government. The sheep passively eat their iGadgets and barely bleat while being led to the slaughter house.
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What a great question. The answer is simple. Propaganda is only one leg of a stool holding up a government……..and there can be no balance on one leg.
Nobody is buying or spending because the fear of job loss and poverty has hit almost everyone…….once fear sets in, it takes generations to get rid of it.
My parents grew up during and after the Great Depression. My mother grew up in great wealth, and she became an advocate for the downtrodden her entire life……it never affected her spending……she gave most of her money to the poor, leaving herself vulnerable to scam artists and the like…….
My father was the son of a banker……not the Wall Street type. His father spoke eight languages, and served as an interpreter in WWI. After the war, he went to work for a bank in San Francisco, dealing with foreign currencies, and their people. It was an unusual niche, and he occupied it for 40+ years. He lived in a little house in San Mateo, took the train to work every day, and played piano as his relaxation. He also walked many miles a day…….but, if you were married to the woman he was with, you would walk a lot, too. He was a good and sensitive man, she was an insensitive harridan.
Even as a small child, I felt for him. He was not the kind of banker one sees these days. I cannot imagine him sitting in a corporate boardroom listening to the endless prattle of bureaucrats. His music was wonderful. It gave me a love of music that has been part of my life all these many years.
It is difficult to spend money when you don’t know if you will still be employed when the bill comes due. I read someplace the job contractions had gotten better, a couple of thousand dollars less than 300K this WEEK in initial job losses.
We are bleeding jobs at better than a million a month…….the so called recovery is a joke……..on the people. Lie after lie after lie has been fed Americans fool enough to listen to US media……and now it is so awful, nobody wants to listen.
Unemployment that goes on for years is the new normal. Who can survive? Even those who had a year’s savings put aside as I did eventually found it was not close to being enough……
The dollar is losing value as fewer nations use it any longer. I remember the first time I was in a foreign country that would not accept the dollar………it was quite a shock. In this country, we have been very fortunate with such things, but that, too, is coming to an end. The world has moved away from us, and we will soon be very aware of the difference.
It was just a matter of time, but the time is about up.
Some say silver and gold is the answer……..I think it will be food…….but who knows?