Wealth Without Work

The Great Illusion Were you forwarded this email? [Sign-up to The Daily Reckoning here.]( [Unsubscribe]( [Daily Reckoning] Wealth Without Work - “If we don't call the bubble a bubble, it won't pop”… - Money for nothing… - A system that optimizes corruption… Recommended Link [Urgent Crash Warning for September 20th, 2021]( [Read more here...]( Everyone already knows that the stock market is in a bubble… But now some experts are starting to predict that the bubble will burst sooner than anyone expected and hit harder than anyone could have imagined. With some experts saying that we could see a stock market sell-off of 80% or more as soon as next week… This could completely decimate the retirement saving of millions of Americans all at once. So if you care about you and your family’s wealth the time to act is NOW. That’s why we flew in one of the top traders in America to tell you exactly what you need to do to get ready for this impending crash… But hurry, because if you wait until Monday, it could already be too late. [See His FREE Presentation Now]( San Francisco, California September 18, 2021 Editor’s note: Money for nothing — the seductive dream of many. But today, Charles Hugh Smith argues that it is delusional to expect to get rich while producing nothing. It is a lesson many Americans may soon learn. [Charles Hugh Smith]Dear Reader, Allow me to summarize the dominant zeitgeist in America at this juncture of history: Grab yourself a big gooey hunk of happiness by turning a few thousand bucks into millions — anyone can do it as long as they visualize abundance and join the crowd minting millions. Beneath the bravado and euphoric confidence in our God-given right to mint millions out of chump change, a secret plea lurks unspoken: Please don't pop our precious bubble! The big gooey hunk of happiness available to all depends on one special form of magic spell: If we don't call the bubble a bubble, it won't pop. And so Wall Street shills spew endless "research" (heh) proclaiming that the forward price-earnings ratio of 21.1 will only slightly exceed past norms, and so on — in summary: If we don't call the bubble a bubble, it won't pop. Everyone’s All in on the Everything Bubble What differentiates this bubble from the 1720 South Sea Bubble, the 2000 dot-com bubble or the 2007–08 housing bubble is: This bubble includes every asset class and has sucked the entire populace and economy into its magic maw. The bubble has swept up housing, stocks, junk bonds, commodities, cryptocurrencies, NFTs and numerous collectibles — the bulk of America's household assets are now firmly lodged in the maw of the Everything Bubble. Here is a sampling of recent headlines in America: I Turned $10,000 Into $6 Million in 6 Months My Cat Turned $6,000 in My Robinhood Account Into $6 Million by Walking on My Keyboard I Turned $100 My Aunt Gave Me for My Birthday Into $6 Million in One Trade, Buying Way Out-of-the-Money Calls on a Meme Stock I Turned $23 Into $6 Million So Easily I'm Going to Sleep My Way to $60 Million OK, so these are slight exaggerations, but the zeitgeist is very real. Recommended Link [WARNING: Major Shock Coming For Utility Payers]( [Read more here...]( If you pay a utility bill... Then please drop what you’re doing and watch this short video clip immediately. It reveals a STUNNNING collection of facts that could impact your personal financial situation very soon. In short… It exposes how some of the most important energy companies in the United States, like… - PG&E… - Duke Energy… and… - Southern California Edison… Are preparing for a major disruption of the U.S. energy sector by teaming up with none other than… Tesla Inc. What do they know that everyday Americans don’t? [Get More Details Here]( The Great Illusion Of all the mass delusions running rampant in the culture, none is more spectacularly delusional than the conviction that we can all get fabulously rich from speculation while producing nothing. The key characteristic of speculation is that it produces nothing: It doesn't generate any new goods or services, boost productivity or increase the functionality of real-world essentials. Like all mass delusions, the greater the disconnect from reality, the greater the appeal. Mass delusions gain their escape velocity by leaving any ties to real-world limitations behind and by igniting the most powerful booster to human euphoric confidence known, greed. Lost in the mania of easy wealth from speculative trading is the absence of any value creation in the rotation churn of moving bets from one table to the latest hot game: In flipping houses sight unseen, no functionality was added to the house. In transferring bets on one cryptocurrency to another or from one meme stock to another, no value to the economy or society was created. In the mass delusion that near-infinite wealth can be generated without producing anything, creating value has no value: The delusion is that I can get rich producing nothing but speculative gains, and then I can buy all the stuff somebody else is making. Work Is for Suckers The fantasy powering the speculative frenzy is once I get rich, I'll stop working and live off my wealth. It's interesting, isn't it, how everyone can get rich via unproductive speculation, quit their jobs and then live off the productive work of somebody else who failed to get rich off speculation? The Great Illusion. Maybe that's why all the containerships are lined up at Long Beach, waiting to unload the goodies made in China for American speculators to buy. This is what happens when the incentive structure of the economy decays so that being productive has little upside (i.e., working is for chumps) while speculating is all upside (get rich quickly and easily). Everyone knows great empires became great by transferring their critical supply chains to competing nations, living it up on borrowed/printed money, exploiting the highest bidder wins regulatory/governance system and incentivizing speculation while pushing wage earners into debt-and-tax servitude. Bone up on your history, Bucko; all great nations got there by quitting boring, tiresome productive work to speculate on illusions of value with borrowed money. Recommended Link [Will this tech kill 5G forever?]( [Read more here...]( One of America’s leading tech investors believes so. It’s all thanks to a recent (and little-understood) Federal government decision that could radically reshape the tech industry. If you own 5G stocks… or get your cellphone or broadband from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T Mobile… you need to see this. [Click Here To Learn More]( A System That Optimizes Corruption This is the result of monopolies and cartels becoming the financial and political power centers of the nation. They end up treating employees as chattel to lower costs, offshoring critical supply chains to squeeze out a few more dollars of profits, engineering products to break down (planned obsolescence), buying regulatory barriers and "free passes" and tax breaks galore with all the billions showered on financiers and other fraudsters by the Federal Reserve. In a word, a system that optimizes corruption. This is how you hollow out a nation and guarantee collapse. The most rewarding "skill sets" are a sociopathological obsession with maximizing profits by any means available and speculating with Fed free money for financiers. The millions of "retail" speculators are simply picking up the cues being given by the billionaires who gained their wealth by issuing debt to fund stock buybacks and other financial manipulations. Working for monopolies and cartels is for chumps because monopolies and cartels have zero incentive to share profits with mere employees. Their profits are made not by taking care of their workforce but by regulatory capture, artificial scarcities and financialized destruction of competition: First, borrow billions thanks to the Fed and Wall Street, destroy the competition (for example, the taxi industry) and then, once the competition has been wiped out, jack up prices because now consumers have no choice other than another member of the cartel. Phantom Wealth Speculative "wealth" is phantom wealth, a flickering illusion of prosperity. All speculative bubbles pop, and all speculative bubbles inflated by borrowed money and central bank manipulation pop even more ferociously than bubbles funded by actual savings. By incentivizing speculation and corruption, reducing the rewards for productive work and sucking wages dry with inflation, America has greased the skids to collapse. As with all mass delusions, the incentives to continue believing are immense, and the incentives to reconnect with reality are few. So in conclusion: The speculative gains to be made in the collapse of the mass delusion will be spectacular. There's nothing like the collapse of a hollowed-out, completely corrupt economy to generate outsized profits for nimble speculators. Just keep your speculative winnings on Number 22 on the roulette wheel. (A Casablanca movie reference....) Regards, Charles Hugh Smith for The Daily Reckoning Editor’s note: Our colleagues believe [one of the biggest stock market sell-offs in history may be imminent.]( Imminent, as in days away. And once the sell-off hits, they say there will only be two kinds of people... Those who get caught in the slaughter… and those that use this opportunity to their advantage to potentially make a small fortune. Which category would you rather be in? The good news is, our colleagues have specific instructions on how to avoid the potential carnage: View this [“disaster preparedness presentation”]( immediately to get the details of exactly what plays you need to make now to set yourself up to potentially profit… Including a play that could potentially 40X your money in just weeks or months during a market crash. Are our colleagues right about an imminent market crash? You decide for yourself. [Go here now and make up your own mind.]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for reading The Daily Reckoning! We greatly value your questions and comments. Please send all feedback to [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:dr@dailyreckoning.com) [Charles Hugh Smith][Charles Hugh Smith]( is an American writer and blogger, and serves as the chief writer for the blog "Of Two Minds". Started in 2005, this site has been listed No. 7 in CNBC's top alternative financial sites, and his commentary is featured on a number of sites including Zerohedge.com, The American Conservative, and Peak Prosperity. Add feedback@dailyreckoning.com to your address book: [Whitelist us]( Additional Articles & Commentary: [Daily Reckoning Website]( Join the conversation! Follow us on social media: [Facebook]( [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [RSS Feed]( [YouTube]( The Daily Reckoning is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press delivering daily email issues and advertisements. To end your Daily Reckoning e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from The Daily Reckoning, feel free to [unsubscribe here.]( Please read our [Privacy Statement](. For any further comments or concerns please email us at feedback@dailyreckoning.com. 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