TEN MINUTES AFTER THE TITANIC
STRUCK THE ICEBERG
By Charles Hugh Smith
(condensed)
We are like passengers on the Titanic ten minutes after its fatal encounter with the iceberg: the idea that the ship will sink is beyond belief.
As we all know, the “unsinkable” Titanic suffered a glancing collision with an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912. Ten minutes after the iceberg had opened six of the ship’s 16 watertight compartments, it was not at all apparent that the mighty vessel had been fatally wounded, as there was no evidence of damage topside. Indeed, some eyewitnesses reported that passengers playfully scattered the ice left on the foredeck by the encounter.
I think this perfectly describes the present. Our financial system seems “unsinkable,” yet the reliance on debt and financialization has already doomed it, whether we are willing to believe it or not.
Yet few of us are willing to entertain an exit from the belief system that supports the Status Quo. We are like passengers on the Titanic ten minutes after its fatal encounter with the iceberg: we can’t believe this grand ship could sink, so we do nothing while it is still possible to influence our fate.
The financial system of the United States of America is like the Titanic. Hubris led many to declare it financially unsinkable even as its fundamental design was riddled with fatal flaws and the human pilots in charge ran it straight into the ice field at top speed. Ten minutes after the collision, the Titanic’s passengers had 2 hours and 30 minutes before the “unsinkable” ship sank. How much time we have left is unknown. |
