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The Federal Reserve is setting America up for economic disaster
BY ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 09/18/17 12:00 PM EDT 207 TheHill.com I recently had the opportunity to read the ‘Creature from Jekyll’ Island by G. Edward Griffin, a prodigious tome dealing with the circumstances surrounding the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve system. I was taken aback by some of its provocative assertions. · America joined World War I largely to help a few bankers profit off the war (despite a long-standing Monroe doctrine that prohibited our involvement in European affairs) · The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was supported by international financial interests in order to destabilize Russia and steal the wealth of the Russian people; and · So-called ‘foreign aid’ is merely a clever means of shifting the bad debt incurred by banks and wealthy financiers to American taxpayers. The book is narrated in a notably conspiratorial tone and contains some obvious contradictions. For example, it contends that President Lincoln was once a liberator who sought to avoid being goaded into a destructive civil war by European powers jealous of America’s success, and had designs on colonizing Mexico. However, the book still raised some very good points that deserve serious consideration. One that stood out is that over successive generations, people with concentrated wealth have sought to use the American military and the purse power of the taxpayer for personal gain. In fact, Griffin argues, the creation of the current iteration of the Federal Reserve System was a political act designed to hide the fact that a private banking cartel would manage the U.S. currency. The Federal Reserve, as Griffin explains, is neither "federal" nor a "reserve." It is not owned by the federal government, and it does not hold real assets in reserve. In reality, it is a giant debt factory backed by the "full faith and credit" of the government, or taxpayers. One thing is clear. In the aftermath of the global recession of 2008, America and the world have been swimming in debt. America’s national debt alone has skyrocketed. While the Fed continues to justify flooding the market with cheap "reserve notes" based on the theory that it must supply these notes in order to support asset prices, the overall effect has been to debase the currency and prolong the pain of the American people. As an entrepreneur who owns real assets — real estate, spectrum licenses, and a publishing library, among others — I was able to benefit, at least on paper, from the Fed’s asset inflation strategy. I have been able to refinance my debt at attractive rates, and seen asset prices (but not necessarily values) climb. But others, especially workers (who derive the bulk of their income from salary instead of capital appreciation) and savers (retirees living on a fixed income), have lost under this post-recession scheme. Workers lost because their spending power diluted drastically over the past ten years. The costs of housing and energy have continued to rise in areas where the highest concentrations of jobs are located. For example, a young college graduate who wants to earn a high salary in the tech industry has to live in Silicon Valley, where even a base salary of $100,000 won’t enable them to afford to purchase a home there. Home prices are so out of line with average salaries that cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are seeing an epidemic of homelessness never experienced since the Great Depression of 1929. Savers have lost because the interest income they were counting on earning from their lifetime of saving has dwindled to less than nothing. These days, in most cases, you actually have to pay the bank to keep your money there. And so many retirees have had to tap into their home mortgages or take on additional consumer debt merely to survive. As America faces the largest retirement boom in its history – the retiring baby boomers – more than two-thirds of them do not have enough savings to retire comfortable. And on top of that the Social Security system that was to be a back-stop against poverty for older Americans is practically insolvent. The unwieldy national debt also causes friction for entrepreneurs. Governments have sought to increase taxes, regulations and fees on entrepreneurial activity in order to service the ballooning debt. This has sucked critical capital out of the system that entrepreneurs need in order to grow businesses and drive employment. With consumers still reeling from the great recession, demand for goods and services is lagging employment growth by a significant margin, further constraining opportunities for entrepreneurs. The great project to rescue the American economy by the Fed has hit an obvious wall. The debt it used to goose the economy is now gumming up the system and constraining real growth. The looming question of what actually happens when the debt bubble finally bursts is one that not even the soberest economists at the Fed have been able to confront effectively. Unless we deal finally with the false notion that "central economic planning" can replace actual capitalism as the driver of American growth, we may be in store for far, far worse. The Federal Reserve is setting America up for economic disaster
BY ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 09/18/17 12:00 PM EDT 207 TheHill.com I recently had the opportunity to read the ‘Creature from Jekyll’ Island by G. Edward Griffin, a prodigious tome dealing with the circumstances surrounding the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve system. I was taken aback by some of its provocative assertions. · America joined World War I largely to help a few bankers profit off the war (despite a long-standing Monroe doctrine that prohibited our involvement in European affairs) · The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was supported by international financial interests in order to destabilize Russia and steal the wealth of the Russian people; and · So-called ‘foreign aid’ is merely a clever means of shifting the bad debt incurred by banks and wealthy financiers to American taxpayers. The book is narrated in a notably conspiratorial tone and contains some obvious contradictions. For example, it contends that President Lincoln was once a liberator who sought to avoid being goaded into a destructive civil war by European powers jealous of America’s success, and had designs on colonizing Mexico. However, the book still raised some very good points that deserve serious consideration. One that stood out is that over successive generations, people with concentrated wealth have sought to use the American military and the purse power of the taxpayer for personal gain. In fact, Griffin argues, the creation of the current iteration of the Federal Reserve System was a political act designed to hide the fact that a private banking cartel would manage the U.S. currency. The Federal Reserve, as Griffin explains, is neither "federal" nor a "reserve." It is not owned by the federal government, and it does not hold real assets in reserve. In reality, it is a giant debt factory backed by the "full faith and credit" of the government, or taxpayers. One thing is clear. In the aftermath of the global recession of 2008, America and the world have been swimming in debt. America’s national debt alone has skyrocketed. While the Fed continues to justify flooding the market with cheap "reserve notes" based on the theory that it must supply these notes in order to support asset prices, the overall effect has been to debase the currency and prolong the pain of the American people. As an entrepreneur who owns real assets — real estate, spectrum licenses, and a publishing library, among others — I was able to benefit, at least on paper, from the Fed’s asset inflation strategy. I have been able to refinance my debt at attractive rates, and seen asset prices (but not necessarily values) climb. But others, especially workers (who derive the bulk of their income from salary instead of capital appreciation) and savers (retirees living on a fixed income), have lost under this post-recession scheme. Workers lost because their spending power diluted drastically over the past ten years. The costs of housing and energy have continued to rise in areas where the highest concentrations of jobs are located. For example, a young college graduate who wants to earn a high salary in the tech industry has to live in Silicon Valley, where even a base salary of $100,000 won’t enable them to afford to purchase a home there. Home prices are so out of line with average salaries that cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are seeing an epidemic of homelessness never experienced since the Great Depression of 1929. Savers have lost because the interest income they were counting on earning from their lifetime of saving has dwindled to less than nothing. These days, in most cases, you actually have to pay the bank to keep your money there. And so many retirees have had to tap into their home mortgages or take on additional consumer debt merely to survive. As America faces the largest retirement boom in its history – the retiring baby boomers – more than two-thirds of them do not have enough savings to retire comfortable. And on top of that the Social Security system that was to be a back-stop against poverty for older Americans is practically insolvent. The unwieldy national debt also causes friction for entrepreneurs. Governments have sought to increase taxes, regulations and fees on entrepreneurial activity in order to service the ballooning debt. This has sucked critical capital out of the system that entrepreneurs need in order to grow businesses and drive employment. With consumers still reeling from the great recession, demand for goods and services is lagging employment growth by a significant margin, further constraining opportunities for entrepreneurs. The great project to rescue the American economy by the Fed has hit an obvious wall. The debt it used to goose the economy is now gumming up the system and constraining real growth. The looming question of what actually happens when the debt bubble finally bursts is one that not even the soberest economists at the Fed have been able to confront effectively. Unless we deal finally with the false notion that "central economic planning" can replace actual capitalism as the driver of American growth, we may be in store for far, far worse. How to Prevent Identity Theft: A Step-by-Step Guide By Lance Cothern Centsai.com A few years ago, I noticed a fraudulent charge on my credit card. I notified my credit card company, and they took care of it. I thought I was simply a victim of credit card fraud. A few days later, I logged in to that same credit card account and saw a pending balance transfer for more than $3,000. To say I was a bit freaked out would be an understatement. How could this happen? My credit card company should have been on high alert after the last fraudulent transaction. I’d even had a new card issued to make this type of thing even more difficult to happen again. After calling my credit card company a second time, I managed to get the fraudulent balance transfer stopped. Unfortunately, what I learned from my company was even scarier. I asked how on Earth someone could initiate a balance transfer without my permission. The representative explained that the company thought it was me who had called. The caller had given my Social Security number (SSN) to my credit card company to verify my identity. Scary. What is Identity Theft Exactly? Identity theft is when a fraudster acquires your personal identifying information and uses it for their financial gain. The balance transfer was now identity theft in my eyes. Sadly, I’m not alone. According to a Bankrate survey, 41 million adults in the United States have had their identity stolen. I now take extra steps to protect my identifying information whenever possible. There are companies out there that will help protect you from becoming one of those 41 million identity fraud victims. Check out your options for identity theft protection here. How to Protect Yourself From Identity Theft 1. Guard Your Identifying Information When I visited doctor’s offices and other similar establishments in the past, I completed every form they asked me to fill out. These forms often ask for your SSN. After my experience with identity theft, I paused and wondered why doctor’s offices ask for that information. Insurers shouldn’t use your SSN to identify you, so why do doctors need it? I learned that they use your SSN to report your delinquent bills on your credit reports. Now I no longer give out my SSN to anyone who doesn’t actually need it. Instead, I just leave the line blank. If somebody requests that I fill it out, I ask why they need it. Most of the time, the party asking for my SSN will let the issue go. 2. Check Your Statements Another way to prevent identity theft is to regularly check your financial statements. Make sure you recognize every transaction on your statements. If you don’t, contact your financial institution immediately. This is how I caught my credit card fraud and identity theft. If you get your statements mailed to you, make sure that you actually receive them. Some thieves will steal these from your mailbox to help them commit fraud. 3. Check Your Credit Report Simply checking your statements won’t prevent all identity theft. Criminals often open accounts in your name. If they don’t have statements mailed to you – which smart criminals won’t – you may never know about that account. It’s absolutely imperative that you check your credit report regularly. You’re entitled to a free copy of your credit report once a year from each of the three major bureaus. You can get your report at AnnualCreditReport.com. You can also receive free credit reports in full from sites like CreditKarma.com, Quizzle.com, and WalletHub.com. Once you receive your credit report, look for new accounts that you don’t recognize. If you find any, contact the listed phone number and investigate. 4. Initiate a Credit Freeze Thankfully, I’ve never had any unauthorized accounts opened. But if that does happen, it can be a real headache. If fraudsters can open one account, chances are they can open more. The last and most effective way to prevent identity theft is to put a freeze on your credit report. When you freeze your credit report, no new credit can be issued to you. You have to unfreeze your credit prior to applying for any new accounts, though, or you will be denied. You will have to freeze your credit report separately at each of the three major credit bureaus – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The price varies by state, but it usually ranges from costing just a few dollars to being free. You may also have to pay a fee to lift your credit freeze before applying for new credit, as well. If your credit suffered before you managed to freeze it, you may want to enlist the help of a credit repair company. Just make sure that the company is legit, or it could damage your credit further. To find a trustworthy credit repair company, check out our guide on the subject. Identity Theft is No Joke I was lucky that my case of identity theft was very minor. Others aren’t so lucky. Cleaning up the results of a stolen identity takes a long time and can be a major headache. You should always regularly monitor your accounts and credit reports regardless of whether you think you’re at risk for identity theft. My Three Years in Identity Theft Hell
Hounded by bill collectors, searched at the airport, thwarted in a house hunt. Here’s how I got free—for now. By Drew Armstrong Bloomberg.com September 13, 2017, 5:01 AM EDT September 13, 2017, 8:03 AM EDT The banker at Wells Fargo looked across her desk at me with the pained expression of somebody who wants to sell you something but can’t. “I see you already have several accounts with us, Mr. Armstrong,” she said. “Are you sure you're a new customer?” I was and I wasn’t. I had accounts everywhere, and most of them weren’t mine. This wasn’t the first time, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Between 2013, when my identity was stolen, and this May, I tried to prove to credit bureaus and banks that I was me and not the thief. The fake accounts he created shut me out of crucial parts of the consumer finance economy. I was denied credit cards, got harassed by collection agencies, and was told not to bother putting my name on a mortgage application for a house my wife and I were trying to buy. The other me was living it up. Back in August 2013, wielding a driver’s license with my name and his picture, he opened accounts at four banks in two days and got a credit card with Bank of America. He hit the exclusive Delano Hotel in Miami Beach. He shopped at Whole Foods. He sold an RV to some Texans online, didn’t deliver it, then sent their $39,000 to Russia. There’s footage of him at a Wells Fargo branch, according to an indictment filed by prosecutors. He sits there posing as me, opening accounts. I got the first call from the police two months later. It would take more than three years for them to bring the case to its conclusion. In the meantime, our lives kept intersecting while the cops and the FBI followed me. Him. And it wasn’t just banks. Flying to London for work, I was waiting in the business class lounge when I heard my name called over the intercom. There were two men there with badges. “Are you carrying any monetary instruments?” one of them asked as they went through my bags. They pulled out my credit cards and money clip. There was a single, tattered dollar the texture of suede. “One dollar, cash,” the border agent wrote down on a scrap of paper. Every time I entered or left the U.S., I'd be pulled aside, my bags searched, and let go up to an hour later. Once it happened on the jetway as I was boarding. More often it was in a back room full of other detainees. In Atlanta, on the way back from a wedding in Brazil, I saw two customs agents looking over somebody’s open Tupperware container. “It's a rat,” one of them said. It was, in fact, a dried rat. Eventually I explained my situation to the TSA. After I got a letter with a “redress number,” I traveled with it clutched in my hands like the promise of safe passage inCasablanca. I was never searched again. Mine wasn’t the only life my impostor was living, and it didn’t always go so well for him. He had at least one other fake ID, which raised a flag with at least one bank manager. When the manager went to make a copy, the guy ran out of the branch and jumped into a getaway vehicle, according to an affidavit filed by the FBI agent investigating the case. I spent hours on the phone with Bank of America, explaining to one representative that I’d never had their card. “Thank you for being a Bank of America customer,” she said. It’s a nightmare Americans go through every year. There’s another you out there, living your life while you wander among the financial and bureaucratic wreckage they’ve left in their wake. More people are likely to be victimized after the massive hack of 143 million Americans that Equifax Inc. announced last week. In that breach, thieves took Social Security numbers, addresses, driver’s license data, and birth dates. Those are “the keys to the kingdom,” said Bo Holland, CEO of AllClear ID, an identity-monitoring service. “Once you have somebody's name, social, birth date, and address, you can go and open new accounts.” Which is exactly what my guy did, according to the financial records. He had used the bureaucracy to become me, and I would have to use it to detach us. “At the front end, it was so easy for the thief to get in there like a tornado, and you’re left doing the cleanup,” said Eva Velasquez, CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit that helps people dealing with ID fraud. There’s a logic to the maze you have to run to expose fraudulent financial accounts. In an economic system where U.S. consumers carry $12.73 trillion in household debt, you shouldn’t be able to just call up, say “it wasn't me,” and leave thousands of dollars in obligations by the wayside. But do they have to make it so hard? “You have to get the language right, you have to be sure you’re talking to the right department of the right agency in the right organization,” Velasquez said. “You have to get the right forms. At least a couple of them, you’re going to have to repeat those steps, because somebody didn’t get the right note or it got lost.” I spent hours on the phone with Bank of America, being passed around from department to department. I explained to one (very helpful!) representative that I’d never had a Bank of America credit card. “Thank you for being a Bank of America customer,” she said toward the end of our call. I started to say something but stopped. Here’s what I sent them, in the end: a signed statement saying I was me and that the accounts were fraudulent, an affidavit I’d filed with the Federal Trade Commission swearing I’d had my identity stolen, copies of my driver’s license, passport, and Social Security card, a lease, two phone bills, a letter from the Justice Department, the criminal complaint filed by the prosecutors, and Bank of America’s own credit card records. It occurred to me that if anyone got their hands on that, they’d have everything. BofA sent me things, too. I got a 1099-C tax form. My impostor ran up credit card bills, which the bank had written off. That counted as income, and I’d need to consider it in my taxes. They also mailed me checks. They had overcharged the fake me $105.37 in fees, so they issued a refund to the real me. The checks are still in a file. I never cashed them, afraid I might re-entangle my life with my fraudster’s. We are buying the house after all (my wife and I, not the guy and I), but I’m not to participate in the financing process or include my assets or wages in the application. That can mean a higher rate on the loan, one credit expert told me. While I was suffering, the other me hit Miami Beach, sold a phantom RV to some Texans online, sent their $39,000 to Russia. There’s footage of him at a bank, as me, opening accounts. “Resolving identity theft issues is a complicated process,” said Betty Reiss, a Bank of America spokeswoman. “We make every effort to work with victims and help resolve their situation as quickly as possible.” There are ways to protect yourself, if you know about them, which I didn’t in 2013. Consumers can set up fraud alerts with the credit bureaus, telling financial institutions to take extra care before they allow a new account. They can also ask for a credit freeze for stronger protection. “Fraud alerts are free, and they alert all three bureaus and every creditor in the country,” said AllClear’s Holland. “But unfortunately not many people take the steps to use them.” Part of the problem, said both Holland and Velasquez, is that we make it too easy in the U.S. to access important information or open new accounts. “We demand convenience over security,” Velasquez said. “When you have an experience like you’ve had, convenience becomes less of a priority.” Both suggested more use of two-factor authentication, like a password and a code sent to your cellphone, instead of easily circumvented authentication questions like confirming a high school mascot or a mother’s maiden name. I got security questions very much like those when I went to the website of one of the three major rating agencies to get a copy of my credit report and entered my Social Security number and date of birth. One showed me a list of addresses and asked which I’d lived at recently. There was an address in Florida and several others I didn’t recognize. None of the above, I clicked. And promptly was locked out. The man who can answer that question is in prison. Yet the mess he created is probably still out there, waiting for me to walk into a new bank and find out he’s been there first. Suddenly, "De-Dollarization" Is A Thing
ZeroHedge.com Sep 16, 2017 11:40 AM Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com, For what seems like decades, other countries have been tiptoeing away from their dependence on the US dollar. China, Russia, and India have cut deals in which they agree to accept each others’ currencies for bi-lateral trade while Europe, obviously, designed the euro to be a reserve asset and international medium of exchange. These were challenges to the dollar’s dominance, but they weren’t mortal threats. What’s happening lately, however, is a lot more serious. It even has an ominous-sounding name: de-dollarization. Here’s an excerpt from a much longer article by “strategic risk consultant” F. William Engdahl: Gold, Oil and De-Dollarization? Russia and China’s Extensive Gold Reserves, China Yuan Oil Market (Global Research) – China, increasingly backed by Russia—the two great Eurasian nations—are taking decisive steps to create a very viable alternative to the tyranny of the US dollar over world trade and finance. Wall Street and Washington are not amused, but they are powerless to stop it. So long as Washington dirty tricks and Wall Street machinations were able to create a crisis such as they did in the Eurozone in 2010 through Greece, world trading surplus countries like China, Japan and then Russia, had no practical alternative but to buy more US Government debt—Treasury securities—with the bulk of their surplus trade dollars. Washington and Wall Street could print endless volumes of dollars backed by nothing more valuable than F-16s and Abrams tanks. China, Russia and other dollar bond holders in truth financed the US wars that were aimed at them, by buying US debt. Then they had few viable alternative options. Viable Alternative Emerges Now, ironically, two of the foreign economies that allowed the dollar an artificial life extension beyond 1989—Russia and China—are carefully unveiling that most feared alternative, a viable, gold-backed international currency and potentially, several similar currencies that can displace the unjust hegemonic role of the dollar today. For several years both the Russian Federation and the Peoples’ Republic of China have been buying huge volumes of gold, largely to add to their central bank currency reserves which otherwise are typically in dollars or euro currencies. Until recently it was not clear quite why. Now it’s clear why. China and Russia, joined most likely by their major trading partner countries in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), as well as by their Eurasian partner countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are about to complete the working architecture of a new monetary alternative to a dollar world. Currently, in addition to founding members China and Russia, the SCO full members include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and most recently India and Pakistan. This is a population of well over 3 billion people, some 42% of the entire world population, coming together in a coherent, planned, peaceful economic and political cooperation. Gold-Backed Silk Road It’s clear that the economic diplomacy of China, as of Russia and her Eurasian Economic Union group of countries, is very much about realization of advanced high-speed rail, ports, energy infrastructure weaving together a vast new market that, within less than a decade at present pace, will overshadow any economic potentials in the debt-bloated economically stagnant OECD countries of the EU and North America. What until now was vitally needed, but not clear, was a strategy to get the nations of Eurasia free from the dollar and from their vulnerability to further US Treasury sanctions and financial warfare based on their dollar dependence. This is now about to happen. At the September 5 annual BRICS Summit in Xiamen, China, Russian President Putin made a simple and very clear statement of the Russian view of the present economic world. He stated, “Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.” To my knowledge he has never been so explicit about currencies. Put this in context of the latest financial architecture unveiled by Beijing, and it becomes clear the world is about to enjoy new degrees of economic freedom. China Yuan Oil Futures According to a report in the Japan Nikkei Asian Review, China is about to launch a crude oil futures contract denominated in Chinese yuan that will be convertible into gold. This, when coupled with other moves over the past two years by China to become a viable alternative to London and New York to Shanghai, becomes really interesting. China is the world’s largest importer of oil, the vast majority of it still paid in US dollars. If the new Yuan oil futures contract gains wide acceptance, it could become the most important Asia-based crude oil benchmark, given that China is the world’s biggest oil importer. That would challenge the two Wall Street-dominated oil benchmark contracts in North Sea Brent and West Texas Intermediate oil futures that until now has given Wall Street huge hidden advantages. That would be one more huge manipulation lever eliminated by China and its oil partners, including very specially Russia. Introduction of an oil futures contract traded in Shanghai in Yuan, which recently gained membership in the select IMF SDR group of currencies, oil futures especially when convertible into gold, could change the geopolitical balance of power dramatically away from the Atlantic world to Eurasia. In April 2016 China made a major move to become the new center for gold exchange and the world center of gold trade, physical gold. China today is the world’s largest gold producer, far ahead of fellow BRICS member South Africa, with Russia number two. Now to add the new oil futures contract traded in China in Yuan with the gold backing will lead to a dramatic shift by key OPEC members, even in the Middle East, to prefer gold-backed Yuan for their oil over inflated US dollars that carry a geopolitical risk as Qatar experienced following the Trump visit to Riyadh some months ago. Notably, Russian state oil giant, Rosneft just announced that Chinese state oil company, CEFC China Energy Company Ltd. Just bought a 14% share of Rosneft from Qatar. It’s all beginning to fit together into a very coherent strategy. Meanwhile, in Latin America: De-Dollarization Spikes – Venezuela Stops Accepting Dollars For Oil Payments Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said last Thursday that Venezuela will be looking to “free” itself from the U.S. dollar next week. According to Reuters, "Venezuela is going to implement a new system of international payments and will create a basket of currencies to free us from the dollar,” Maduro said in a multi-hour address to a new legislative “superbody.” He reportedly did not provide details of this new proposal. Maduro hinted further that the South American country would look to using the yuan instead, among other currencies. “If they pursue us with the dollar, we’ll use the Russian ruble, the yuan, yen, the Indian rupee, the euro,” Maduro also said. The state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, known as PdVSA, has told its private joint venture partners to open accounts in euros and to convert existing cash holdings into Europe’s main currency, said one project partner. This first step towards one or more gold-backed Eurasian currencies certainly looks like a viable and — for a lot of big players out there — welcome addition to the global money stock. Venezuela, meanwhile illustrates the growing perception of US weakness. It used to be that a small country refusing to take dollars could expect regime change in short order. Now, maybe not so much. Combine the above with the emergence of bitcoin and its kin as the preferred monetary asset of techies and libertarians, and the monetary world suddenly looks downright multi-polar. Why You Might As Well Be Painting A Giant Bulls-Eye On Your Bank Account
ZeroHedge.com Sep 6, 2017 8:45 PM Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com, Vegetarians be forewarned… you won’t like what follows. We slaughtered a pig yesterday at the farm. I have two freezers full of pork now, and countless strips of bacon curing in the kitchen. I’ve written about this before– out here at the farm I’m able to organically produce almost everything that I eat… meat, eggs, rice, nuts, and just about every kind of fruit and vegetable imaginable. A lot of it gets canned and stored. We even grow wheat which we turn into organic flour, plus oats and all sorts of other grains. As I’ve described in the past, this is a pretty powerful feeling. I know that, no matter what happens in the world, I’ll always have a source of food. And even if it’s all rainbows and buttercups from here on out, I get to eat clean, organic food. There’s hardly any downside. Invariably as I meet people throughout my travels around the world, I’m always asked why I spend so much time in Chile. I usually tell them about my business ventures here and that I founded a company that’s rapidly becoming one of the largest blueberry producers in the world. But when I talk about the farm and growing my own food, people often respond with furrowed eyebrows and a hint of derision– “Oh, so you’re, like, preparing for the end of the world…” It’s as if embracing a little bit of independence and self-reliance requires paranoid delusion and chronic pessimism. Fortunately I’m no longer in middle school, so my decisions aren’t based on what the cool kids might think. In truth I’m wildly optimistic about the future. Yes, there will come a time when bankrupt western governments will have to suffer the consequences of their reckless financial decisions. And if history and human nature are any guides, there will also likely be more war… whether it’s conventional, cyber, or financial. Financial markets will spasm and crash. Then soar to new highs. Then crash again. And forever continue this boom/bust cycle. But despite these challenges, our species has unprecedented access to technology and opportunities that were literally inconceivable just a few decades ago. The fact that you’re even reading this was completely unimaginable when I was a kid growing up in the early 1980s. So, yeah, plenty of challenges before us. But the future is bright for anyone with the common sense to acknowledge these risks and the willingness to take basic steps to reduce their exposure. It’s not about fear or paranoia. Normal, intelligent, rational people have a Plan B, especially when certain risks are so obvious. Example- if you happen to be living in the most litigation-prone, lawyered-up country that has ever existed in the history of the world… a place where frivolous lawsuits abound and horrendous penalties are the norm… WHY ON EARTH would you hold 100% of your assets, income, and livelihood there? You might as well paint a giant bulls-eye on your bank account. |
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