Who Really Owns Your Home?: Detroit Preparing to Foreclose on 142,000 Residents By 2016

Have you ever considered the legitimacy of property taxes? It's one thing for the government to take a cut from your income, but there's something deeply offensive about the idea of property taxes. It's the idea that you have to pay your local government, year after year for the rest of your life, for something you've already paid in full. It's complete nonsense.

It calls into question whether you even own your property in the first place. After all, do you really own it if you have to keep paying for it? It seems to closely resemble the medieval system of serfdom. The peasants didn't own the land they worked on. They had to pay a yearly fee for the right to work that land, which went towards the nobles and knights. It was protection money. So at least they had the benefit of protection from the warrior class in those societies. Can you say the same of your local police?

I digress. In reality, you don't “own” your house or the land it sits on, even if it's been paid in full. That's another benefit those peasants have on us. They didn't have to pay some bank for decades, only to have their land taken from them when they didn't pay their “yearly fee”. They were never under the illusion that the land belonged to them.

I doubt the people of Detroit have any illusions either. They're facing an unimaginable crises that threatens to put tens of thousands of residents on the streets. The city government is about to show us once and for all, who really owns the land.

This year in Detroit, there have been 22,000 foreclosures on properties whose owners failed to pay property taxes three years in a row. Of those, 10,000 are estimated to be occupied, meaning this year's foreclosures are set to oust about 27,000 Detroiters from their homes.

That’s a large number in a dwindling city with fewer than 700,000 residents, but the figures are set to get even worse. In the next couple of months, Wayne County's treasurer will be serving foreclosure notices on 110,000 more properties, 85,000 of which are in Detroit, according to its chief deputy treasurer David Szymanski. With half of those Detroit properties estimated to be occupied, this means a further 115,000 Detroiters might lose their homes next year.

In a city supposedly trying to attract residents rather than lose them, this means a potential 142,000 Detroiters—one-fifth of the city’s population—will be shown the door within the next year and a half. The city has yet to announce plans for accommodating those who get evicted.

So they're basically going to evict the bottom fifth of the city in one fell swoop. What kind of country do we live in, where a city can look their citizens in the eye and say “Sorry, you're not good enough for us. You don't make enough money to live in the poorest city in America. You're not rich enough to grace the bottom of the barrel.” They're really prepared to throw their citizens out on the coldest and meanest streets of America, while their fiscally and morally bankrupt government spends 450 million dollars on a brand new hockey stadium.

That is just wicked.

Somehow I don't think this is going to end well for the city. I don't think they're going to be able oust 142,000 of their poorest and most desperate residents. These people don't have anything left to lose, and there aren't enough cops to evict them at gunpoint. If this comes to a head, then the residents of Detroit should prepare themselves for the next major American riot.

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Cargo Hijacking is on the Rise: 44,000 lbs of Beer Stolen From Truck Stop in Florida

Earlier this week, a big rig was stolen in Pompano Beach, Florida, after the driver left it parked at a truck stop overnight. According to an  interview with the local news, this was actually one of several thefts that had occurred in the same location that month. Unlike most cargo thefts, the thieves not only took the trailer, but the cab as well.

What makes the story more interesting, is the load that the truck was carrying. A whopping 44,000 lbs of Miller High Life. While that says everything you need to know about the poor taste of the thieves, it says quite a bit more about the state of the U.S. economy. I mean, whatever happened to robbing banks? I know there's always been cargo thefts, but what drives someone to steal cargo, and more importantly, how do they sell it?

Cargo theft tells you two very important things about the society it occurs in. It tells you how bad the economy is, and it tells you how corrupt that nation is. When you look at the nations with the highest number of cargo thefts, third world countries account for majority of these incidents, with Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa topping the list. All three of those nations are known for their rampant poverty, and their widespread corruption

With that kind of poverty, everyday goods become extremely expensive. After a while the banks stop stop being easy targets. It's far more risky, and the money just isn't worth it, especially if that country is suffering from inflation. Cargo however, is a relatively easy target. You can score goods that are worth, hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions if you get an electronics or pharmaceutical load.

That's why a shipment of Miller isn't so surprising. According to Freight Watch International, an organization dedicated to tracking cargo theft around the world, the number of cargo thefts in the United States has only increased by a small amount. However the cargo that's being stolen has changed drastically. Food and drinks are now the most popular targets (you can check out their eye opening report here).

In an advanced, wealthy society, food should be one of your cheapest monthly expenditures. Unfortunately, we're not an advanced wealthy society anymore. Food isn't cheap for the average person. That's why we've been seeing stories like the 180,000 eggs that were stolen last March, or the $400,000 truck load of walnuts that were nabbed in California last year.

This is the mark of a nation in decline. This is the mark of a nation in decline. Not only does it signal economic collapse, but rampant corruption as well. After all, how can you sell 44,000 lbs of stolen beer without having to pay somebody off? How are you going to find a vendor willing to take that load?

Keep in mind that often times, the thieves may not know exactly what they're getting. They just know that whatever is in that truck is valuable to somebody, and there's a large amount of it. So why take the risk of stealing something so large and hard to conceal, if you don't even know if there's somebody willing to buy it?
This implies that there are plenty of people willing to buy it. Either that, or there are plenty of state officials that are willing to look the other way, for a price of course. If you grease the right palms, you might be able to reintroduce these goods back into the supply chain without anyone noticing.

So if we can judge the state of a country by the goods that are stolen from it, we can clearly deduce two things about America. We're a nation with a standard of living that is rapidly declining, and a society that is becoming corrupt at all levels.

That's why countries like the United States and Russia have some of highest rates of cargo theft in the world, despite being fully developed nations. We're becoming more corrupt, and the wealth gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow, leaving most consumer and essential goods out of reach for the average person. Unfortunately, this is a long term trend, so you can expect to see incidents like these happen more often as we continued to decline. And boy, do we have a long way to fall.

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Our Bubble Economy Is On Its Last Gasp

Over the years I've heard the cries of “Economic Collapse Ahead!” more times then I care to remember. I'm sure you have as well. Ever since the crash of 2007-2008, it seems like nearly every internet voice has claimed at one time or another, that we are headed for an apocalyptic market correction (and just around the corner too!). This of course, is not without merit.

You'd be a fool to think that we're on a sustainable course. It has come down to a matter of simple arithmetic. From federal and municipal debt, to stock market and housing speculation; from personal credit to student loan debt, we're in heaps of trouble. We can project how much society as a whole will earn in the future, deduct how much we owe, and how much we will owe, and see that none of this will ever be paid for. At this point there is a 100% probability that the system will crash. The only question left to ask is, when?

And therein lies the problem. Those of us who have been calling it like it is, and speaking of this in terms of inevitability, must look like “chicken little's” by now. Most people view the world through a very short term window. It's been six years since the crash of 2008, and the average person will have tuned out the warnings by now. They don't understand this one fundamental rule when it comes to predicting economics and geopolitical events-it is shockingly easy to predict the fall of any given system. It's near impossible to predict when it will fall.

In addition, there is another outcome that many of us have failed to recognize. What if the system doesn't fail so decisively? What if there isn't a dramatic collapse like we saw during the Great Depression? While there have been many economic bubbles throughout history, and we are no doubt in a pretty serious bubble as we speak, the nature of this debt cycle is fundamentally different than in past decades.

Recently, strategists for Deutsche Bank released a startling study in regards to government debt. They decided to investigate whether or not the bond market is currently in a bubble. What they found was, unlike previous eras, the past 20 years has seen no lag between economic booms and busts:

It has long been our view that over the last couple of decades the global economy has rolled from bubble to bubble with excesses never fully being allowed to unravel. Instead aggressive policy responses have encouraged them to roll into new bubbles.

This has arguably kept the modern financial system as we know it a going concern. Clearly there have always been bubbles formed through history but has there been a period like the last 20 years where the bursting of one bubble has consistently led directly to the formation of the next?

Essentially, our current system has been dying a very slow death. It's running out of steam. Not only has there been no recovery since the crash of 2008, there has been no recovery for over 20 years. Each economic bubble has been fueled from the remains of the previous speculative mania. Our whole economy has been running like a drunken frat boy, desperate to keep drinking to put off the inevitable hangover. However, the hangover is frighteningly near:

What we found was that bonds are where the bubble has migrated to. This is not to say that the bond market bubble is about to burst — far from it — but that it is a necessary condition for maintaining the debt ladened financial system that has been the by-product of major crisis management over the last two decades. The worry is that there is nowhere left for this bubble to go given that it is now in the hands of the lenders of last resort (governments and central banks with regulators ensuring other large captive buyers).

Although we think this bubble needs to be maintained to ensure the solvency of the current financial system, the best case scenario is that it slowly pops over time via negative real returns for bondholders. The worst case scenario being future restructuring.

This is why for all these years, we've heard the cries of "economic collapse ahead" but have never seen it come to fruition. They've always figured out a way to shift the bubble to different markets before it all came crashing down. Who knows? Maybe they'll pull it off again, but I'm not holding my breath. The bubble has finally landed on the lender of last resort. The debt has no nowhere else to go.

They're out of bullets. The frat boy has had his last drink and the county is dry. I know without a shadow of a doubt that our economy, and by extension our whole society is ready to collapse. And it will.

Just don't ask me when.

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Our Dystopian Future: Humans Need Not Apply

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As we speak, humanity is being hurled into the unimaginable. Technology is advancing at a rate far beyond our means of adjusting to it. At first sight, it almost appears to be more of the same. Our species has always been a tool maker. Every physical challenge has been met with a new gadget to make that task easier. While we often think of the industrial revolution as the hallmark of this advancement, this has been going on since the stone age. What sets our time apart from previous ages however, is the nature of the tools we're making.
We aren't just reinventing the wheel anymore. This isn't the stuff of hammers and spears and gunpowder. This isn't like factories and textile mills forcing human labor into obsolescence. We've finally reached a point where the human mind itself may become "old fashioned".

That's a heavy concept to take in. After all, how could the minds that built these machine become obsolete? It's hard for us to accept, because the human brain is such a remarkable piece of nature. Over the past 200 years, we've come to accept that the machines we build can ultimately replace the labor that makes our lives difficult. It's a difficult transition, rife with unemployment and poverty, but ultimately beneficial in the long run.

Automation can give us a safer world as it eliminates dangerous jobs. It can take over mundane tasks, giving us more of that precious time we love so much. Most importantly, it can save us money. Ultimately, this abundance of time allows us to imagine more, and create new ideas. The surplus capital allows us to invest in those ideas, and create new jobs to replace the ones that we lost.

That's why the current state of technology is so alarming. It's beginning to replace a crucial step in that process. The machines we build are starting to replace our imaginations and our creativity. If you don't believe me, take a few minutes to watch this video.

As you can see, nothing is off the table anymore. It used to be comfortable to think that, no matter what happens, we still have our minds. We still have that one special thing that the machines can't possess. A brain that is capable of creativity. Surely, no matter how far technology would advance, we would at least still need people to create and maintain the machines. But if a computer can replace the imaginative spark of the human mind, then no job is safe in the future.

We should have seen the writing on the wall when Kasparov lost to Deep Blue. As stated in the video, chess used to be considered a purely human endeavor, involving strategy and creativity. It was a comforting notion, right up until the moment a computer defeated our greatest player. And when machines learn to replace doctors and lawyers, and even write articles, and compose music, what exactly is left for humans to do? If current trends continue, then the human mind will be relegated to the ash heap of history (the smartphone generation is acting like it already has).

It's hard to fathom what kind of future this would entail. While I believe the human race will survive this, automation will likely lead to the collapse of our high tech civilization. I can only think of two possible futures, and neither of them have a happy ending.

The most likely outcome would involve a continuation of what we're facing now. An advanced civilization with an extreme wealth disparity between those who own and run the machines (at least until they too become obsolete) and the poverty stricken masses, working for pennies to compete with the machines (if they're even working at all). That is the greatest danger when it comes to automation. It tends to give a small group of people a vastly disproportionate amount of wealth and power.

On the other hand, the spread of automation may be more democratized, as we've been seeing with technologies like 3d printing. It may result in everyone having access to cheap, on demand goods and services. Unfortunately it still doesn't solve the problem we're facing. The crux of the matter, is the advancement of thinking machines capable of duplicating the human mind on a massive scale. Whether that kind of power is held by a tiny elite, or distributed to the population at large, it still results in the human race becoming obsolete. I suspect this society would be incredibly prosperous, with little work to be done and plenty of free time. The kind of Jetsons or Star Trek future that people have been dreaming of for decades. Still, these sci-fi franchises failed to truly explore the possible outcomes of a fully automated society living in peace and abundance.

While humanity has often dreamed of a utopian world, there is a nightmarish dark side to such a society, that few have had the courage to explore. Among the few who did, was a researcher by the name of John B. Calhoun. You may have heard of him and his famous “mouse utopia” experiments.

From 1946 until the late 70's, Calhoun built a series of rat and mice enclosures to explore the implications of overpopulation in humans. He would select several healthy mating pairs, and release them into their new homes, which were often capable of supporting thousands of rodents. He would ensure that no matter how large their population grew, there would always be enough food and water. He maintained a clean habitat, free of predators and disease. They had all of their needs met and the only limitation placed on the rodents, was space.

As to be expected, the population would explode in every experiment, but they would never reach the full capacity of the habitat. As time went on the population was would level off, and soon the rodents would begin to completely lose their minds.

Males became aggressive, some moving in groups, attacking females and the young. Mating behaviors were disrupted. Some males became exclusively homosexual. Others became pansexual and hypersexual, attempting to mount any rat they encountered. Mothers neglected their infants, first failing to construct proper nests, and then carelessly abandoning and even attacking their pups. In certain sections of the pens, infant mortality rose as high as 96%, the dead cannibalized by adults.

Subordinate animals withdrew psychologically, surviving in a physical sense but at an immense psychological cost. They were the majority in the late phases of growth, existing as a vacant, huddled mass in the centre of the pens. Unable to breed, the population plummeted and did not recover. The crowded rodents had lost the ability to co-exist harmoniously, even after the population numbers once again fell to low levels. At a certain density, they had ceased to act like rats and mice, and the change was permanent.

And in later experiments:

After day 600, the male mice just stopped defending their territory, listless mice congregated in the centers of the Universe. These gangs would burst into pointless and sporadic violence. Females stopped reproducing and even started attacking their own young. Mortality rose phenomenally. Roaming mice either attacked or attempted to mount others, irrespective of relation or gender, cannibalism and other acts of depravity consumed them. These were the feral ones.

Then there were the ‘beautiful ones.’

The ‘beautiful ones’ withdrew themselves ever so quietly, removing themselves from the sick society. Solitary pursuits began to define them; eating, drinking and grooming among others. No scars on their back or hairs out-of-place, these mice behaved like a separate race. They saw the world through their narrow scopes, as they tossed, turned and tried to cope.

Researchers also noted their lack of intelligence.

While these experiments are often cited when discussing overpopulation, I find it to be much greater examination of how twisted a “utopian” society would actually be. Every need was met for the rodents, and yet they still turned into something so base and horrifying, even for an animal.

Humans are made to be challenged. If every want and need is satisfied, we quickly devolve into madness and brutality. This shouldn't come as any surprise, as it is what we've seen in the ruling class of every society in human history. Very few people are capable of getting everything they want without turning into monsters.
So what will the future of technology, and specifically automation, bring to the human race? A technocratic elite using their machines to impose their will over the jobless masses? Or perhaps a decadent utopia? One will end in violent rebellion and the other will end in madness. Both will end in collapse, leaving humanity to start from square one again.

From there, humanity will have to find a new way to define itself. Traditionally, we have always separated ourselves from the animals, based on our amazing mental faculties. Specifically, our ability to build tools, shelter, weapons, and technology in general. If we want to escape this horrifying future, we're going to have to pursue a new path (perhaps spiritual?) that will improve our lives and satisfy our innate urge to learn and explore. Because the path we're on now is a dead end.

Maybe I'm wrong about all of this. Looking back, it seems like technological progress has always been beneficial to the human race (even if it was often used for evil purposes). And yet I still have a nagging feeling about this. I hate to sound like a Luddite but, just this one time can we stop and ask ourselves, is this still in our best interest? Is this still progress?

Personally, I have faith in the free-market and liberty in general. The market has almost always favored technological advancement, because that has been the greatest factor in raising our standard living. It'll either continue to do so, or it wont. If this kind of technology stops being in our best interest, then the market will select against it. At least that's what I hope.

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 When the Capital is in Shambles, the Nation isn't Far Behind

 

These days Greece is still reeling from the global economic downturn, and stands as the most prominent example of the failure of European socialism and the European Union. The signs of decay and waste are all around. The only remains of Greece's final years of prosperity, are the empty shells of the Olympic stadiums that were constructed ten years ago. They stand as a testament to the hubris of that nation's central planners. More than 8 billion Euros were spent preparing Athens for the games, much of it spent on structures that would never be used again. The stadiums are now left to rot, riddled with graffiti and weeds sprouting through cracks in the stands.

Truth be told, the signs of decay could be seen throughout the capital in the years leading up to the crash. I had the opportunity to visit Athens back in 2007, and while I found it to be a wonderful city for the most part, you didn't have to look very far to see cracks in the veneer.

For one, there were packs of feral dogs roaming the streets. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Fortunately they were quite friendly, but only because the city made sure to keep them well fed. Before the Olympics, the city began a campaign to deal with the dogs by setting up feeding stations to keep them docile, and spaying them to control their numbers. Still, you couldn't walk more than a couple blocks without being approached by a feral dog (or two or three or six).

That wasn't the only problem though. There might have been issues with the water as well. I was told not to drink out of the tap, and treat the water the same way you would if you were in Mexico. From time to time you could see soldiers (or police?) on the streets with MP5 sub machine guns, standing around with no clear purpose.

If you walked the road leading up to the Parliament Building you could find diseased beggars huddled along the sidewalk, afflicted with something I could only compare to Leprosy (could you imagine seeing that on the way to your state capital?). Once you reached the Parliament building you would be swamped with outraged leftist protesters.

Overall, the city was a powder keg. It wasn't obvious to me at the time, but it's apparent now, that Greece was in the early stages of collapse. There was just enough smiling people and busy restaurants to make you think you were walking through a clean city with a bright future. Once you dug a little under the surface though, it was clear that the city, and by extension the whole country, was on the brink of disaster.

So, if it were possible to judge a nation by what you saw on its streets, what would your conclusion be for America? If a nation's capital is in shambles, what does it say about the future of that nation? If we took a look at Washington D.C. will we see what's in store for the rest of the nation? Let's take a look at the conditions in D.C and see what our children can look forward to:

In Washington, the right to protect yourself has been completely discarded. It's impossible for a civilian to conceal carry a firearm without breaking the law, and the types of weapons you can own are severely restricted. You can't store a loaded gun in your vehicle, and God help you if you happen to have a weapon that's legally registered out of state.

But don't worry, there's plenty of cops around to keep you safe. Washington D.C. has the highest number of cops per capita in the nation, with an average of 61.2 officers for every ten thousand residents. Perhaps if D.C. was its own state, they could rename it the Police State.

And after thoroughly neutering their residents of the right to defend themselves, and putting an armed guard on every street corner, they still have one of the highest violent crime rates in the United States. To their credit, they only rank 46th out of America's most dangerous cities, which is a far cry from even a decade ago when they had more than twice as many murders every year.

However, the cops can't pat themselves on the back for this one. The lower crime rate is due to the gentrification of the city, not gun laws or police patrols. Which brings me to another point. The city also has one of the widest wealth gaps in the nation:

The booming District of Columbia features the wealthiest high-income strata among big U.S. cities and more poor people than the national average, leading analysts to call it a microcosm of the larger U.S. economy.

Middle-class jobs hollowed out by the 2007-2009 recession have failed to come back. A flood of mostly young, educated newcomers has helped revitalize once-blighted neighborhoods, but is wiping out low-cost housing within sight of the Capitol.

To top it all off, their infrastructure is crumbling at a frightening pace. 99 percent of their roads are in poor or mediocre condition, 30 bridges are considered structurally deficient, and their water system is going to need over several billion dollars for updates and repairs over the next 30 years. The state of their roads is costing drivers $311 million in repairs every year, and their public transport system is sub par to say the least.

You have to remember, if you live in a country where the power and authority is heavily centralized, whatever manifests in the capital is eventually going to make its way to the rest of the nation. And we can already see the writing on the wall. An infrastructure that is in pieces, a wealthy elite telling us what we can and can't do, and an oppressive police state to back them up.

I was lucky enough to see a beautiful Athens before it was squandered by elites and burned to the ground by riots. I can't say I feel lucky now.

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The Cracks Are Showing In the Housing Market Once Again

If you observe current events, it can seem like there are economic emergencies everywhere. Every segment of the economy appears to be under immense pressure. What with the massive student loan debt, federal debt, municipal debt, derivatives, and a stock market that seems to magically rise above it all, flying in the face of all logic and common sense, it's surprising that the whole thing hasn't come tumbling down yet. And yet, the next collapse may come from somewhere that is very familiar to us. It appears that many of us haven't learned anything from the last bubble.

It's possible that the next wave of economic malaise may come from the housing market once again. Economists were expecting another increase in home building and loans. Instead, housing starts dropped 9.3 percent last month, and building permits fell 4.3 percent across the nation.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal is telling everyone that there's nothing to see here (which is tantamount to telling a crowded building that the smoke isn't from fire). They're claiming that these recent declines are in fact, due to an unusually rainy season in the Southern United States. Apparently there has been a 30 percent drop in housing starts in the South. In the same paragraph the article mentions that there has been an increase of 28 percent in the Midwest and 14 percent in the Northeast. Surely those numbers alone would offset the bad weather in the South. The article also fails the mention the Western United States, where I can assure you that rain has not been a factor for quite some time.

Mortgage rates also fail to explain the situation, as they've been dropping significantly the past 6 months. Perhaps a better explanation would be the 5 percent decrease in home loan applications that took place in a May and June, which was also coupled with a slight decrease in the average loan size. Doesn't that make real sense? That perhaps not as many people can afford to buy a home, and maybe construction companies and investors are beginning to see the writing on the wall? 2+2=4, and stuff like that?

The truth is the housing market, and the economy at large, has never fully recovered. That hasn't stopped the price of housing from returning to pre 2008 levels in some areas, and the skyrocketing price of the stock market. The true nature of these events is obvious, when it can be seen that these prices have gone up significantly since Bernankes QE4 dumped billions of dollars into the economy every month. It would make sense that the markets are finally beginning to crack up, since Yellen has expressed her desire to stop quantitative easing entirely this year. Again, 2 and 2 equals what now?

Don't let yourself get caught up in these schemes. The Bernankes, Yellens, Buffets, and Soros' of the world expect you to buy buy buy just as they're getting around to selling. They rely on hype and insider secrets to fleece regular folks who enter these markets. They're trying to prop up the corpse of this economy like it's “Weekend at Bernie’s” and they expect us to buy it, literally and figuratively. Well, all I can say is, don't.

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