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How Stupidity is Manufactured

10/31/2018

 
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 Yes, manufactured. It’s done all day, every day, and especially in the most advanced parts of the world. And I can prove it to you.


Please look at this diagram (above) and tell me which of the lines on the right side, A, B, or C, is the same length as the line on the left.


That isn’t too hard, is it? A is obviously shorter and B is obviously longer. The answer is C.


This diagram was part of an experiment run back in 1951 by a psychologist named Solomon Asch. And as you might expect, when people were asked to identify the same-length line in a neutral setting, more than 99% did it correctly.


But then, Asch had the study participants surrounded by actors who maintained that either A or B was the same length and that C was not. In other words, the participants were intimidated into conforming to what they knew was wrong.


With such intimidation, 75% of the participants said (at least some of the time) that C was not the same length as the line on the left.


In other words, three quarters of these normal people could be made to act very stupidly. No force was involved and no threats were involved, just the intimidation that comes from conformity pressures… the fear of standing alone.
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It turns out then that stupidity can be manufactured and that it can be manufactured very efficiently. 75% is a serious supermajority.


Is This Being Done to Us? Of course it is.

Click here to read more of this article.

Anthony Deden:  Investment value in an age of booms and busts: A reassessment

10/27/2018

 
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​A few months ago, Grant Williams interviewed the legendary Anthony Deden in a two hour interview. That interview alone was worth the annual subscription to RealVisionTV and I highly recommend it.

A few days ago, Anthony Deden gave this talk at the 35th Anniversary Conference of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer in New York. With a H/T to Jesse Felder, this speech by Tony Deden is an amazing description of the challenges we face in a world without honest money…without honest weights and measures.​

"In the financial world, there is a bear market in prudent men as there is in real owners. If you look for prudent men, skip the boardrooms of the world of finance."

To read Tony Deden's full speech, click here for the automatic download.


Big Bear and Big Panda Just Joined the Discussion – Vice President Mike Pence Reveals Central American Invasion Horde is: “Financed by Venezuela”…

10/25/2018

 
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Posted on October 24, 2018 by sundance

Well, there it is.  Quietly within the deliberate words from Vice-President Mike Pence a revelation that explains the origination of the Central American invasion force.  For those who are not deep in the geopolitical weeds, the subtlety can pass unnoticed; for those who travel within the deepest international conflicts, Pence’s words here are as subtle as a brick through a window:

[…] “Financed by Venezuela; and sent North to challenge our sovereignty and our border”…
Announcing the migrant caravan is “financed by Venezuela” is a direct notification the Central American invasion force is being funded by Russia and China.  Venezuela doesn’t have any money to sustain its own operational government – let alone a 10,000 person convoy.  Venezuela is entirely reliant upon massive investment from Russia and China.

In fact China owns 49% of Venezuela’s state run PDVSA energy production. A collateral system where Beijing takes oil as payment for prior loans the Maduro regime cannot pay back.  With the crippling treasury department sanctions President Trump put on Venezuela last year, Trump has punched Maduro and Xi-Jinping hard.

With Mike Pence pointing a finger at Venezuela the politics behind the invasion force begin to make much more sense.  The invasion objective takes on a geopolitical angle directly targeting a series of U.S. policies that are against the interests of Russia and China.

It helps here to remember the strategic moves taken by President Trump that have put the geopolitical/economic squeeze on both China and Russia...

​To read more of this article, click here.

From where you sit

10/25/2018

 
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H/T to Grants’ Almost Daily,

Last week, a pair of Deutsche Bank AG traders were convicted of conspiracy and wire fraud charges related to the rigging of Libor, the interbank rate which is used to set the value of trillions of dollars of debt instruments around the world. 
 
Reckless and selfish as the defendant’s purported actions may be, their conviction is an opportunity to ponder existential questions. The following is an open-meeting exchange between James Grant and then-Fed Governor Jeremy Stein, as documented in the July 12, 2013 edition of Grant’s:
 
Q. Good morning, Governor.  James Grant of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer. Could you help us understand the economic difference – not the legal one, but the economic distinction – between the private manipulation of Libor, on the one hand, and the public manipulation of markets, on the other, doing business as zero interest rate policy, quantitative easing, Operation Twist, the “portfolio balance channel”? What ever did happen to the price mechanism?
 
A. You know, that’s a hard question for me to answer, because [laughter] I don’t see the connection between these two whatsoever. I mean, obviously, the Libor set – you know, it is a set of criminal and near-criminal activity, which is a very substantial policy concern. A lot of effort is going into trying to, you know, both reform Libor itself, look at other benchmarks, see if they’re more resilient. That’s a whole set of issues. To be frank, I just don’t see the connection to that and the monetary policy side

How Living Two Years Under Socialism Made Me a Capitalist

10/15/2018

 
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 How Living Two Years Under Socialism Made Me a Capitalist by Dov Fischer

The Whirlwind Is Already Here

10/9/2018

 
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This is an excellent analysis of the deeper ideologies at war in the West. Highly recommended. 

The Whirlwind Is Already Here

In Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s defense before the Senate Judiciary Committee to refute the unsubstantiated allegations by Christine Blasey Ford regarding an alleged sexual assault 36 years ago, he charged the Democratic senators on the committee with sowing “the wind for decades to come…[and]…the whole country will reap the whirlwind.”

​For more of this story, click here.

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Do They Know Something We Don’t? Corporate Insiders Are Selling Stocks At The Fastest Pace In 10 Years

10/4/2018

 
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A lot of things are starting to happen that we haven’t seen since the last recession.  A few days ago, I wrote about the fact that home sellers in the United States are cutting their prices at the fastest pace in at least eight years, and now we have learned that corporate insiders are selling stocks at the most rapid pace in ten years. 

So why are they dumping their shares so quickly?  Do they know something that the rest of us do not?  Certainly nobody can blame them for taking advantage of the ridiculously high stock prices that we are seeing in the marketplace right now.  But stock prices have been very high for a while.  Why is there such a mad rush for the exits all of a sudden?  According to 
CNN, corporate insiders have sold 5.7 billion dollars worth of stock so far in September…

For more on this story, click here.

RETURN TO GETTYSBURG: THE FIFTH EPOCHAL SHIFT IN THE COURSE OF WAR

10/4/2018

 
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With a hat tip for Jim Rickards, this is a great read.

It’s a spot of ground at Gettysburg the Park Service guides rarely frequent. Over a thousand monuments dot the battlefield, but none are here. Yet for those who view the past as prologue this patch of grass just south of the Lutheran Seminary holds a prescient place in history. It was exactly here late on the first day of battle in 1863 that Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet held their Socratic dialogue that would change the course of American history. And over the next half century this dialogue would serve as a seminal marker in the evolution of the art of war.

For more on this story, click here.



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    Author

    Kevin Massengill is an entrepreneur, investor, and award winning Fortune 500 senior executive with a track record of massive business growth.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

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