Quote of the Day
The dynamic that leads to collapse is as invisible as the extremes. Once the organization–household, institution, corporation or nation-state, the dynamic is scale-invariant–has hardened into a brittle state of stasis, it’s impossible to shrink the budget without collapsing the entire structure.
I call this the Rising Wedge Model of Breakdown: as expenses, self-interest and debt all expand, it becomes increasingly difficult to slash expenses without triggering the implosion of the organization.
Under the guise of cutting the fat to save the muscle, what actually happens is the muscle is cut to save the fat. This is a complex process, but in summary, the most competent realize the organization is dysfunctional and cannot be salvaged in its current bloated state of denial, and so they immediately jump ship.
The naive who believe they can turn the situation around give it their best effort but the resistance to any meaningful sacrifices is so tenacious that they burn out and quit.
That leaves the delusionally incompetent who reckon they’re finally getting the power they long deserved. This leads to the substitution of PR and artifice for actually reducing the organization to a sustainable level, for what’s required is not just a revised spreadsheet but an entirely new culture and value system.
…
The story of the next decade is the playing out of the Rising Wedge Model of Breakdown / The Ratchet Effect throughout the entire status quo: households, institutions, corporations and nation-states will all hasten to cut muscle to save the fat and then wonder why everything is imploding under the weight of delusion and denial.
As noted previously, what’s required is not just a revised spreadsheet but an entirely new culture and value system. Without that, we get zip, zero, nada in meaningful adaptation to new realities.
charles hugh smith
June 5, 2025
oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: The Ratchet Effect: Easy to Spend More, Spending Less Triggers Collapse
The key takeaway is that spending less triggers collapse.
Prepare appropriately.
And Atlas shrugged.
We don’t need individual bunkers. We need a society of competence. Contribute as an adult and be cared for as an elder..
My indigenous peoples did that for centuries …
I suspect this model also fits business organizations. Good people leave because their work focus goes from work to keeping things afloat. Try hards keep going and burn out. Morons take over and release pressers that tout the new direction.
Entropy always rises.
And all of it brought to you by human greed. The culture has been changed by commercial communism.
A better life through buying the last “thing”. Or taking the latest drug.
Is just another way for evil to control.
The new culture we need is the one our forefathers tried to give us.
The realization that those that wish to control, even with consent of election. Are not there for your best interests, but their own.
Every, single, time.
And that any power one has over you will likely be used against you.
Benjamin Franklin once famously remarked about this phenomenon.
“Those who beat their swords into plow shears, will end up plowing for those who did not.”
Every, single, time.
Trade is a necessary human function. Commercialization is a parasite.
And parasites always die, one way or another. Along with those that have learned to love them.
We need to return to trading as little as possible once again. Being more self-reliant. And remembering that the 7 deadly sins are hunters of humanity. They are satan’s wolves.
Jesus told us to carry a sword for a reason.
And always to be watchful.
Right now the west has been given a ruffy. And were being date raped.
Let’s pray it doesn’t end in a snuff-film.
But that seems to be the plan.
“Good people leave because their work focus goes from work to keeping things afloat.”
It’s been my observation that Heinlein’s “bad luck” prophesy is correct; organizations decline because of pressure, usually internal pressure from bad decisions about what’s external to the organization, and the “makers and doers” seek relief by departing for greener pastures where their skills will – hopefully – still be rewarded. The result is decline feeding more decline.
Were this to happen to enough organizations the country in which they reside then also declines. I’m not suggesting it’s time to buy wheelbarrow futures, but there may be some benefit in keeping an eye on them.
Not mentioned there but often seen in local politics: when politicians are pressed by the people to spend less, they typically try to punish those uppity voters by cutting the most important functions. So police and fire departments see layoffs, while intersectional basket weaving agencies remain fully funded.
This even has a name in the literature. “Sell the Washington Monument.
Everything eventually collapses….entropic change. Sadly it’s invariably the result of stupidity, greed and incompetence.
Random thought: Will the new Democrat rallying cry be “Frugality is Fatal” ?
It’s easy to produce more stuff, to make the process more efficient. What’s hard is finding more customers who can afford to buy the stuff you make at a price that is profitable to you. Mass over-production production and borrowing led to the Great Depression when the borrowing and buying slowed and the lay-offs spiraled. We are facing that death-spiral of debt and layoffs across the globe, now, especially in manufacturing powerhouses like China (who also have a demographic problem). The only way out is hyperinflation or default, and I’d expect a mix of both.
Add to that people going crazy with woke/communism, the ongoing excess death from the vax, and now chatGPT psychosis https://futurism.com/commitment-jail-chatgpt-psychosis , and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.