Charles Hugh Smith: Who Gets Thrown Under the Bus in the Next Financial Crisis?

[ThePythonicCow]

In his latest blog post, Who Gets Thrown Under the Bus in the Next Financial Crisis?,Charles Hugh Smith addresses the question of which Americans will suffer the most in the next financial crisis.

In Smith's analysis, the dominant power, which he calls the "Deep State", is the National Security State which enables a vast Imperial structure that incorporates hard and soft power--military, diplomatic, intelligence, finance, commercial, energy, media, higher education--in a system of global domination and influence.

This resembles, in my view, the same hidden state that Joseph P. Farrell is referring to when he speaks of a Hidden Global Finance System, a system of power and finance that is completely independent of the publicly-visible global finance system.

Smith holds that this Deep State, not the big banks or publicly-visible global finance system, are the dominant power over humanity.

Smith concludes that this Deep State will choose not to allow the U.S. to collapse, as the U.S. is too valuable to the Deep State as the crown jewel of its power. Hence, unlike many other nations (Greece, Spain, Egypt, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, Thailand, Venezuela, the Arab Spring, the Colour Revolutions, etc., etc.), where popular revolts have occurred that overthrew or threatened to overthrow governments, the Deep State does not want such a popular uprising to threaten their control of the U.S.

"A hungry mob is a angry mob." (Bob Marley).

There is beyond doubt a pile of debt, derivatives and other such promises to pay that vastly exceeds what is actually available. That pile will collapse. Most of those debts and other such instruments of financial entanglement will fail. That's a given. The public finance institutions, such as the US Federal Reserve, the US Treasury and the Too Big to Fail Banks, have exceeded their mandate too far.

The point of Charles Hugh Smith is that the Deep State (the "bastards in power", as I would term them) will have considerably say in how this collapse occurs. They have a choice between starving millions of Americans, in the manner done in so many other nations prior to bringing in IMF austerity measures, or they can collapse this pile of debt and derivative paper, keeping most Americans at least minimally fed with social programs (e.g. "food stamps") and a still partially functioning economy.

Charles Hugh Smith predicts that the Deep State will choose to take out the publicly visible financiers, allowing the debt to fail and markets to crash, rather than allowing mass riots, uprisings and revolution in the American streets.

The US Military and the US Gestapo (aka Dept. of Homeland Security) may well be planning for riots in the American streets, but not because they expect to be overwhelmed by those riots, but because they expect to maintain the upper hand and to quell any such riots before the bulk of Americans become actively involved. This I anticipate will be easily accomplished. Given the mass surveillance, the mass police/military power and the mass propaganda (aka "News") institutions on the side of the government, and given the mind numbed passive state of most Americans, it's a nearly certain bet that for each rioter, there will be a thousand catching glimpses of that rioter from the safety of their sofa, viewing their television screen, munching their toxic, nutrient deprived snacks, drinking their fluoridated water, ...

For a good read, and for what might be the most accurate forecast of what's in store for Americans, read Charles Hugh Smith's Who Gets Thrown Under the Bus in the Next Financial Crisis?.

[gripreaper]

Interesting article. The US as a corporate asset does need some restructuring (from the controllers point of view) as the corporation has become too crony and too bloated, which the owners allowed and fostered in the last 80 years to implement the roll-out of their desired products to implement their own agendas.

Yet, once the corporate objectives have been met and the facilities fully amortized, it is time to restructure. As part of this corporate restructuring, the human capital assets (excess people) need to be trimmed, the administrative department (wall street) needs to be scaled back, and the machine (military and infrastructure) needs to be retooled.

The US is just a corporate asset, and the restructuring is just business. All departments are up for review and are slated to be sliced, diced and retooled. This will include cleaning out the fat in all areas, while leaving the basic infrastructure in place to keep the machine running.

This will include keeping the dollar as the world reserve currency, although it will be reset in order to give it global stability, while clearing out the leverage which is not tied to assets and returning to some semblance of "mark to market". Large swaths of the labor force will need to be eliminated so that the corporate machine runs more efficiently at maintenance levels of production, scaled back from the massive growth production of the last 80 years.

This massive growth was allowed for the roll-out of technology for the hidden black-ops, and now it is time to return to the efficiency of a maintenance corporatocracy. The details of how this restructuring will occur are immaterial. The FACT that this restructuring is underway is undeniable. Its just business.

[LivioRazlo]

Posted by Paul (here)
The US Military and the US Gestapo (aka Dept. of Homeland Security) may well be planning for riots in the American streets, but not because they expect to be overwhelmed by those riots, but because they expect to maintain the upper hand and to quell any such riots before the bulk of Americans become actively involved. This I anticipate will be easily accomplished. Given the mass surveillance, the mass police/military power and the mass propaganda (aka "News") institutions on the side of the government, and given the mind numbed passive state of most Americans, it's a nearly certain bet that for each rioter, there will be a thousand catching glimpses of that rioter from the safety of their sofa, viewing their television screen, munching their toxic, nutrient deprived snacks, drinking their fluoridated water, ...

I'm not sure if this quoted portion of text is your opinion or of Charles Hugh Smith, but I have to disagree.

Posted by Paul (here)
"A hungry mob is a angry mob." (Bob Marley).

This is what I feel will be the essence of an uprising in the U.S., survival. We shouldn't have to pay for the greed and mistakes our elected officials have made and when survival really hits home for the un-awakened, I feel that fate will be on our side.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by LivioRazlo (here)
This is what I feel will be the essence of an uprising in the U.S., survival. We shouldn't have to pay for the greed and mistakes our elected officials have made and when survival really hits home for the un-awakened, I feel that fate will be on our side.

The point of Charles Hugh Smith's article is that the poorer half of America, the 50% with essentially no savings, will not face a survival threat. They will still get food. The Deep State will choose it to be that way, just so that few American's (an easily squashed "minority") revolt. Those with savings may lose the savings, but they too won't face mass starvation.

I think we have already seen ample evidence that gross displays of greed and grievous misconduct by our elected officials are not sufficient to get the average American off his or her couch.

Apparently it will take the existential threat of starvation or death to do that. Smith forecasts that such a threat will not be forthcoming. We (Americans) will get our free (GMO, toxic, nutrient depleted, fluoridated, pesticide ridden, mind numbing, health impairing, ...) "food".

[giovonni]

Charles Hugh Smith predicts that the Deep State will choose to take out the publicly visible financiers, allowing the debt to fail and markets to crash, rather than allowing mass riots, uprisings and revolution in the American streets.

Totally agree !

The idiot pons will go first.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Paul (here)
The point of Charles Hugh Smith is that the Deep State (the "bastards in power", as I would term them) will have considerably say in how this collapse occurs.

Well, I'll be danged. The term "Deep State" is not just coming from Charles Hugh Smith.

A week ago, Mike Lofgren, a former GOP congressional staff member with the powerful House and Senate Budget Committees, was interviewed by Bill Moyer. Lofgren talked about what he calls the Deep State, a hybrid of corporate America and the national security state, which is “out of control” and “unconstrained.”

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-YhDnQKIGbE

[Corncrake]

Thanks for posting. I have just watched the Bill Moyers interview - interesting to see something one is so aware of - though in an ill-defined sort of way - 'the deep state' being expressed on main stream television. Or is Bill Moyers mainstream? Loved the Upton Sinclair quote too - so apt.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Corncrake (here)
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Aha - that's why the mods and admins are more aware on this forum - the lack of salary .