Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
The most effective factor that would occur to America can be the destruction of its bank card and a deep, extended recession that emptied the punch bowl of phantom bubble wealth and the phantasm of countless credit score.
Cash being scarce saves us from many pernicious types of mischief, and having an excessive amount of cash/credit score results in disaster. That is after all the precise reverse of the traditional perception that having plenty of cash makes life not simply simpler however expansive and, nicely, as good as human life might be.
On the size of nation-states, having an excessive amount of cash/credit score results in the disaster of wars of alternative, as having a pair million silver ducats to play with opens the door to Imperial temptations, for instance, assembling an excellent fleet of warships and sending this Armada to overcome troublesome England.
I simply completed studying what is probably going the definitive account of the Spanish Armada: Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and England’s Deliverance in 1588.
Digging deep into the intensive archives of the period, the authors’ translations of Philip II’s voluminous correspondence makes it abundantly clear that the galleons of silver arriving yearly from Spain’s colonies within the Americas gave the Empire and its management the means to conduct ongoing wars within the Netherlands and Italy, conquer Portugal and its island possessions, defend the Empire’s far-flung holdings within the Caribbean and the Philippines, in addition to entertain quite a lot of different pricey Imperial schemes, from a proposed invasion of a bit of China (Philip II correctly handed on this request) to establishing a fort to defend the freezing, windswept Straits of Magellan from interlopers looking for to plunder Spanish holdings within the Pacific. (This undertaking somewhat predictably resulted in catastrophe and was deserted after squandering treasure and lives.)
Sending an invasion fleet to overcome England was a two-fer for Philip: a Holy Struggle to return Protestant England to the Catholic religion, and a way to root out the piracy of Sir Francis Drake and different English privateers on the supply.
With out the thousands and thousands of silver ducats jingling in his pockets, Philip wouldn’t have been in a position to pursue yet one more pricey navy journey. Updating the dynamic of an excessive amount of cash/credit score results in disaster, had the U.S. lacked the power to borrow a few trillion {dollars} to fund wars of alternative in Iraq and Afghanistan, these wars would have remained pipe-dreams of the neoconservatives bent on a secular model of a “holy battle” to impose “our lifestyle” on different nations (by no means thoughts no one else may afford such extravagance).
Within the personal sector, we would look at Fb/Meta’s disastrous squandering of billions of {dollars} on a quixotic race to scoop up the legendary treasures of digital actuality, a quest that may have bankrupted an organization with a smaller pile of ducats awaiting the misadventures of the management.
All of which leads us to the current, and America’s catastrophic splurging with the nation’s bank card, a card with no higher restrict, or so it appears, till it is too late and the curiosity funds destroy the celebration.
Shortage of sources, time and money power innovation, experimentation, self-discipline, accountability, deferred gratification and resourcefulness as a result of these are the one reasonably priced problem-solving instruments obtainable.
In distinction, an abundance of ducats and credit score encourages the sins of procrastination / avoidance of arduous selections, narrative management as an alternative choice to precise problem-solving, lack of accountability, delusions of grandeur, the destruction of self-discipline and the normalization of corruption.
Having an excessive amount of cash / credit score additionally provides free rein to all of the basic sins: extreme pleasure, unbridled greed, wrath (take out the frustrations of failure on weaker events), envy / class warfare, lust for energy, gluttony in all issues and sloth / incompetence / waste.
The most effective factor that would occur to America can be the destruction of its bank card and a deep, extended recession that emptied the punch bowl of phantom bubble wealth and the phantasm of countless credit score. As soon as the ducats and credit score disappeared, then we might lastly be compelled to begin truly fixing issues somewhat than papering them over by borrowing and squandering extra trillions.
As soon as seated on the banquet of penalties, we might be compelled to give up the delusion that narrative management accomplishes something apart from pushing aside the inevitable reckoning.
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