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A Biased 2017 Forecast (Part Two) In Part One of this article I discussed the failure of our brains to think rationally due to our biases and the relentless propaganda flogged by our Deep State ruling class. Viewing the future through the looking glass of the Fourth Turning keeps you focused on the three catalysts which will drive all events in 2017 and beyond. I’ve addressed my 2017 Debt forecast in Part One. Now I will make some guesses about what might happen in 2017 related to Civic Decay and Global Disorder. Civic Decay Forecast “Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.” – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
The presidential election and its aftermath tell you everything you need to know about the level of civic decay overtaking this country. The country is as divided as it was after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. There is virtually no common ground between liberals and conservatives. The pure hatred and contempt between the winners and losers in the recent election does not bode well for the country over the next four to eight years. The social fabric of the country has been torn asunder. The Clinton supporters believe anyone not on their side is deplorable, racist, misogynist, and fans of Hitler. Trump supporters believe anyone not on their side is low IQ, Muslim loving, deceitful, math challenged, and fans of a criminal. The gulf between the two sides is unbridgeable. Barack Obama, the well-dressed, polished, articulate, empty suit, who has occupied the White House for the last eight years serving as the front man for the Deep State, has done more to destroy race relations and sense of community than any president in history. His divisive rhetoric and actions over the last eight years created the atmosphere for the acrimonious election and the violent protests that followed. His failure to quell the Soros funded Black Lives Matter terrorist organization has resulted in the slaughter of police across the country. Meanwhile, his hometown of Chicago has seen 800 homicides and over 4,400 shootings in 2016 – with over 90% blacks killing blacks. His legacy is one of complete and utter failure, but his hubris knows no bounds, and he actually believes his eight year reign of error was a resounding success. Facts be damned. “A person who has not made peace with his losses is likely to accept gambles that would be unacceptable to him otherwise.” – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow Obama fears his legacy will go up in flames. When you govern through executive orders, bypassing Congress, and flaunting the Constitution, your actions can be overturned with the stroke of a pen. When your crowning achievement – Obamacare – is derided by virtually everyone in the country as an epic failure and will be repealed and replaced in short order, you realize your entire presidency was a sham and a national disgrace. Obama is flailing about in his final weeks desperately trying to keep the attention focused upon him. He is gambling with the lives of his countrymen by doing everything in his power to provoke World War III with Russia and to inflame the Middle East with his UN engineered snub of Israel. Obama doesn’t like to lose and he is acting like a churlish spoiled brat as his time runs out. He has become a laughingstock around the world. He will fan the flames of discontent in this country until he is ushered out of the White House. Here are a few suppositions about what will happen next:
Global Disorder Forecast “We focus on our goal, anchor on our plan, and neglect relevant base rates, exposing ourselves to the planning fallacy. We focus on what we want to do and can do, neglecting the plans and skills of others. Both in explaining the past and in predicting the future, we focus on the causal role of skill and neglect the role of luck. We are therefore prone to an illusion of control. We focus on what we know and neglect what we do not know, which makes us overly confident in our beliefs.” – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow The level of global disorder hasn’t been this high since the 1930s. There are dozens of potential flash points capable of producing a cascading crisis which could blow up the world. The highly touted establishment mantra of globalization has produced an interconnected web of trillions in global debt, with one quadrillion dollars of indecipherable derivatives layered on top, all dependent upon the sustenance of insolvent mega-banks and bankrupt nation states. The only thing keeping this global Ponzi scheme alive is the unfounded belief in the brilliance of central bankers and corrupt politicians. The detonator for these interwoven financial weapons of mass destruction is rising global interest rates. The global financial system will be blown sky high by a sustained high volume sovereign bond selloff. The bond market is always the canary in the coal mine. Bonds will sell-off before stocks and real estate. Bond markets have begun to sell-off in a relatively orderly manner over the last three months, with long term Treasuries falling 13%. Bill Gross recently described the growing risk: “Global yields lowest in 500 years of recorded history. $10 trillion of neg. rate bonds. This is a supernova that will explode one day.” Will that day happen in 2017? No one knows for sure, but the probability is much higher than biased “experts” believe. The substantial concentration of cognitive biases clouding the judgement of the supposed wise men ruling the world has blinded them to the tragic consequences of what happens when the mother of all bubbles explodes like a supernova. The complacency of those in charge and the trusting masses will eventually be dealt a death blow when the high frequency trading computers run amuck and wipe out trillions of faux paper wealth in a matter of minutes. The powers that be will declare no one could have seen it coming, when in actuality anyone with a basic understanding of math could have seen it coming from a mile away. Most have chosen to remain blind to reality, because dealing with it is too painful to consider. “We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.” – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow Let’s get to a few prognostications regarding global events in 2017:
“Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it. It is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously, but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.” – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow I think it is pretty obvious my pessimism bias may have skewed my predictions for 2017. I’ve been pessimistic for the last eight years and the stock market is up 200%. I try to assess the world from a logical fact based frame of mind, but for the last eight years the world has been kept afloat by a combination of debt, delusions and denial. The Deep State propaganda machine has convinced the masses we are living in normal times, despite the fact the Fed printed $3.5 trillion out of thin air and handed it to the criminal Wall Street banks, interest rates have been kept at or near zero for eight years, revelations from Snowden that we truly live in a surveillance state far exceeding Orwell’s dystopian vision, the national debt doubling to $20 trillion, proof that all financial markets are rigged, undeclared wars being waged across the globe, and a reality TV star defeating a criminal to be president of the United States. Sounds pretty normal to me. My confidence level in my predictions is quite low. But, if one or two of the low probability events comes to fruition, the financial and/or human devastation will make 2008 look like a walk in the park. I don’t have an agenda in putting forth these predictions. I’m not selling anything or hawking stocks, bonds, or gold. I don’t tout myself as an expert like the over-confident, arrogant pricks on CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, or FOX. I’m just trying to understand what is happening in this crazy universe. We live in an uncertain world. I believe an unbiased appreciation of uncertainty is the cornerstone of rationality and reason. Not acknowledging the role of luck or chance in the course of human events is setting you up for a fall. Our countries, central banks, financial complex, military industrial complex, sick care complex, global mega-corporations, and government bureaucracies are ruled by men whose hubris, arrogance, greed and hunger for power has warped our world, producing unfathomable ill-gotten profits for the financial class who can abuse justice with impunity while the average man is bullied, pillaged and abused with disregard. These well dressed, highly educated, sophisticated, soulless barbarians hide their evil deeds behind the trappings of culture, but they are revealed by their grotesque schemes, murderous policies, and war profits soaked in blood. When they lose control of this global Ponzi scheme, I hope they pay the ultimate price for their traitorous deeds. Will it happen in 2017? I don’t know. But it will happen before this Fourth Turning climaxes. “The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
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