Source: Charles Hugh Smith

Resilience is a key attribute of sustainability. We cannot speak of sustainability without considering resilience, for a fragile system is only sustainable in the short-term and at great cost…

…A family with three sources of income is more resilient than one with a single source, and a household in which all three incomes are earned at the same enterprise is less resilient than one with three incomes from three independent sources…

…Transparency adds, obfuscation and lies detract, as they destroy trust and legitimacy.

Mutual benefit adds, benefitting only a tiny Elite detracts.

Extraction of wealth from the community and exploitation of its people detract, as institutions which do so are dependent on fragile systems of dominance and control.

Leverage and debt both dramatically increase systemic fragility. Savings and capital increase resiliency.

Inner strengths such as integrity, faith, and goals are resilient; inner weaknesses such as greed, self-absorption and lack of integrity are fragile.

Shared goals create resiliency, a welter of competing self-interests leads to fragility.

Taken together, these attributes help us understand why the status quo in the U.S. is so extremely fragile, from the household level to the highest levels of government.

Just as over-leveraged banks are fundamentally insolvent, so too are over-leveraged households fundamentally insolvent.

A culture dependent on lies, obfuscation and propaganda is terribly fragile, as the truth eventually topples all seemingly invulnerable fortresses built on half-truths and outright lies. The same can be said of individuals who have constructed their lives on artifice, dishonesty, denial and self-absorption.