Goldentine (Substack subscriber)
"I really appreciate your economic insights and focus on self reliance. Thanks for making the case that small, independent, and agile is a survival strategy that can work. I have always had that instinct, but your writing has provided a logic that allows me to see through the mirage of mainstream economic data and plot a course that is within my reach."
Jane VanFossen (Substack subscriber)
"You are better than I am at using precise words to describe transformations I've been witnessing in recent years. My feelings are amorphous, your words have a sharp, definitive edge. That's why your writing is valuable to me."
Brian Hull (Substack subscriber)
"Charles, I've followed your work for years, and find loads of value in your original insights. My apologies for being a content freeloader up until now. I believe you are one of the hardest working authors in this space, as evidenced by your prodigious works, and the quantity is matched in quality. We're all better off for it. Thank you. Brian "
Kelly (Substack subscriber)
"I supported your work because of the ultimate purpose of your writing: taking control of and improving our own well-being and security. Plus, you sound a lot like my father (who has been gone for many, many years and I miss him). I feel like your writing is a reflection of what he would be telling me now about how to deal with the days, weeks and years to come. Thank you."
"This guy is THE leading visionary on reality. He routinely discusses things which no one else has talked about, yet, turn out to be quite relevant months later."
Walt Howard, commenting about CHS on another blog.
"You shine a bright and piercing light out into an ever-darkening world."
Jeremy Beck
Extra-Special Bonus Aphorisms:
"There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity."
(Douglas MacArthur)
"We are what we repeatedly do." (Aristotle)
"Do the thing and you shall have the power." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."(E.F. Schumacher, via Tom R.)
"He who will not risk cannot win." (John Paul Jones)
"When we drink coffee, ideas march in like the army." (Honore de Balzac)
"Progress is not possible without deviation." (Frank Zappa, via Richard Metzger)
"Victory favors those who take pains." (amat victoria curam)
"The man who has a garden and a library has everything." (Cicero, via Lee Bentley)
"A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts." (CHS)
"Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything." (Napoleon Bonaparte)
"The way of the Tao is reversal" Or "Reversal is the movement of Tao." (Lao Tzu)
"Chance favours the prepared mind." (Louis Pasteur)
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill)
"Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures." (Rumi)
"The realm of gratitude is boundless." (CHS, 11/25/15)
"History doesn't have a reverse gear." (CHS, 12/22/15)
Smith's Law of Conservation of Risk: Every sustained action has morethan one consequence. Some consequences will appear positive for a time before revealing their destructive nature. Some consequences will be intended, some will not. Some will be foreseeable, some will not. Some will be controllable, some will not. Those that are unforeseen and uncontrollable will trigger waves of other unforeseen and uncontrollable consequences. (July 8, 2014)(thanks to Lew G. for retitling the idea.)
Smith's Neofeudalism Principle #1:If the citizenry cannot replace a kleptocratic authoritarian government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only.
The Smith Corollary to Metcalfe's Law (The Network Effect): the value of the network is created not just by the number of connected devices/usersbut by the value of the information and knowledge sharedby users in sub-networks and in the entire network. (CHS, 4/6/16)
My Credo of Liberation: I no longer care if the power centers of our society--the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system--are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests.(Thank you, Klaus-Peter L., for reminding me)
"We've become a culture of excuses rather than solutions: solutions alwaysrequire sustained effort and discipline." (CHS 4/9/16)
"Fraud as a way of life caters an extravagant banquet of consequences." (CHS 4/14/16)
"Creativity = problem solving = value creation." (CHS 6/4/16)
"Truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems." (CHS 7/21/17)
"We live in a system of human emotions that masquerades as a science (economics)." (CHS 1/1/18)
"Always remember, your focus determines your reality." (George Lucas)
"Diversity is for poor people. Sameness is for the successful." (GFB)
"When power dissipates suddenly, it dissipates completely." (CHS 7/14/19)
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." (Henry David Thoreau)
"Markets cannot price in the value of non-monetized natural assets such as diverse ecosystems." (CHS 7/14/19)
"Magical thinking isn't optimism, it is folly." CHS 1/3/22)
"Tune in (to self-reliance), drop out (of hyper-consumerism and debt-serfdom) and turn on (to relocalizing capital and agency)." (CHS 1/5/22)
"The path to everything you desire starts here: like yourself as you are right now." (CHS 11/20/22)
"There are only two signals: how many essentials you produce and share and if you're consuming less with better results. Everything else is noise." (CHS 12/17/22)
"Liberation is no longer needing any confirmation or feedback from others or the world for one's sense of self.Wealth, fame, recognition, admiration, praise, prestige, approval, sainthood, martyrdom, success: none are needed, none are desired." (CHS 12/26/22)
"When fame, wealth, prestige, status and glory are out of reach, you're free to pursue other more valuable things." (CHS 2/6/22)
"It is the sacred duty of every activist who seeks to better their community to grow and share as much life-giving food as is humanly possible." (CHS 6/15/23)
"Being anonymous, gray and unknown is the ideal state of freedom." (CHS 3/15/24)
"We seem to have entered a world of anti-leisure and anti-productivity in which the unpaid shadow work demanded to keep all the complicated digital bits in motion obliterate our leisure and productivity." CHS (5/22/24)
"It is axiomatic that failing systems work the best just before they fail catastrophically." Ray W.
click here for more Extra-Special Bonus Aphorisms.
