Sentiment vs. Reality: Total Disconnect

by Simon Black
Sovereign Man

Recently by Simon Black: It Starts: The Government’s Plan To Steal Your Money

Exactly three years ago, we launched this daily e-letter… and needless to say, it’s been eventful.

It should be clear by now that the topics we routinely discuss in our daily conversations are actually happening:

• The grand fiat experiment is unraveling.
• Governments are, in fact, going bankrupt.
• And they’re turning the heat up against their own citizens in a desperate attempt to maintain the status quo.

Here in Europe, bank runs are becoming commonplace, and depositors are being frozen out of their accounts without warning. Politicians in many countries have seized private pensions and are once again touting capital controls as the panacea.

Meanwhile, privacy continues to be stomped out in the worst possible way. Western governments have made coordinated assaults on everything ranging from banking privacy to Internet usage. It never stops.

To boot, Google just reported an alarming increase in government requests to block, censor, or obtain user data; this year’s requests are on course to quadruple last year’s 3.3 million requests.

And then there’s the printing… the endless expansion of sovereign debt and silly pieces of paper that are being passed off as money by handful of morally bankrupt individuals who control the whole game.

These politicians and bureaucrats still haven’t figured out that nations don’t become wealthy by printing paper currency… or by raising taxes, or through big entitlement programs, or by going into debt.

Going into debt and consuming does not create wealth. It temporarily creates the illusion of wealth… until the house of cards collapses.

Just like individuals, nations become wealthy by being productive and saving.

None of this is rocket science. And yet, the guys controlling the system don’t seem to get it. They’re doing all the wrong things, worrying much more about their own electability rather than getting the hell out of the way.

In Europe, a lot of people have finally started waking up to this reality; they at least understand that they’re dealing with serious problems that aren’t going away.

In the United States, I’m not so sure.

I just spent about a month on the ground in the US, and I came away with a feeling of tremendous discomfort. Never before have I seen such a massive disconnect between sentiment and reality.

Everywhere I went – Dallas, Los Angeles, Reno/Lake Tahoe, Denver, New York, and San Francisco, everything appeared to be fine. Shops and restaurants were full, the mood was light, and people seemed fairly optimistic that things were OK.

There was definitely no air of doom and gloom like there is here in Europe.

And yet, the real story in the US is disastrous:

• There has been no meaningful growth in years.
• The true rate of unemployment is a postwar record high.
• Foreclosures and bankruptcies are on the rise once again.
• The average American’s income and net worth are both much lower than 4-years ago.
• The federal government is totally insolvent, as are most state and local governments.

The numbers don’t lie. They have no sentiment, they don’t feel optimistic or pessimistic. They just are what they are. And they’re terrible.

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June 21, 2012

Copyright © 2012 Sovereign Man

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