Statism; and socialism, corporatism, fascism are all variants of the same authoritarian dynamic, where the state exerts authority over individuals. The difference between socialism and fascism is, in terms of the principles involved, one of degree, not kind. I.e. You Do Not Own Your Own Life.
The cause to rally behind is, in general umbrella terms, freedom. The fight is against centralized power and the curtailment of individual rights. The facilitator of that power, right now in the US, is the Federal Reserve. Get the government and quasi-government entities out of trying to manipulate and manage currency and the economy, and the rest becomes just quibbling. I would love it if the fundamental debate nowadays was simply capitalism versus socialism, but the fact is there is no capitalism now. All we've got now is massive government intervention and manipulation of the economy, and whether the intervention favors the rich or the poor, at this point doesn't matter because they're running on fumes, over the edge of a cliff. Getting back to a real and healthy economy means breaking the government's power to distort markets, especially the currency. Once we get back to that point (if ever), then I'm happy to talk capitalism versus socialism, and what can we afford to allow the government to provide, etc. But until then, to me all forms of state interference in the economy are part of the problem, not the solution.
The US fiat dollar did not become the global ”reserve currency” until 1944. That is not what built America. But in the hands of the Fed, IMO, it is what is destroying America.
The American Dream was about individualism and the opportunity to achieve success without interference from others. The American Dream was about freedom; its lifeblood was free enterprise.
Its heartbeat was America’s superior patent system. That’s what gave men the incentive to burn the midnight oil--a chance to own a property right in their own invention. A 1997 study of the inventors honored in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, revealed that 91% of the world’s greatest inventors worked in America and only 9% in other countries.
Global fascism or Red China pseudo capitalism can never give the spring to invention that our Founding Fathers gave to Americans when they included in the United States Constitution the provision “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
I have faith that men who have known freedom will always, in the end, sacrifice everything to retain that freedom. Americans are close to that point now where they will tap into that thirst for freedom that brings revolution if the few now wielding raw power do not respond to the call for change – real change, not Obama “change.”
“Government exists off surpluses created by the people whom they rule. The ruling classes, i.e., those people who refer to themselves as ‘government,’ do not produce wealth, thus their existence depends upon the expropriation of assets from others.” -- Robert J. Ringer in “Restoring the American Dream.”
It is now a question of opportunity—as things get worse, and they are going to get much worse, and when the government clamps down more and more with no redress, that desire for freedom is going to kick in, and men are going to drop everything to get that freedom back. And they are going to fight: and will kill if they have to kill as they always have, in the cause of freedom.
The start of 2010 was a good month for us even though the market was down. We have a lot on tap for 2010—our wedding, honeymoon, bachelor party, 2-3 friends wedding. If we can just keep it up in 2010 as we did in 2009 we will be truly blessed.Short answer: Nothing happens (but you knew that)
Long answer: Current law requires a budget ceiling and a vote to raise it. Violating that law would open up violation of other similar laws. Not too far down the path of similar broken laws, the states start printing their own money. In US dollars. At which point hyperinflation ignites and the USofA ceases to exist as a functioning union. Much hilarity ensues.
The monetary system of the world (not just the USA) is based upon the illusion that there will always be greater fools available to pay the last greater fool.
The only reason people remain in the room that's about to be flooded with poisonous gas is the complete and utter belief (supported by group think and conventional wisdom along with healthy dollops of denial and self interest trumping rationality) that each person can get out before the gas can over come them.
As long as the majority continues to believe in the lie, the lie remains solid and fully formed. Thus the illusion is reality because the belief (and by extension the actions) of the people makes it real. One of the realizations one has when looking at this philosophically is that reality is simply what the majority says it is.
The banks are stable despite horrendously convoluted and distorted balance sheets and non-performing assets simply because the government says they are and people want them to be. Thus they are. If a rule or law threatens to upset the illusion, it's changed to conform to the group think.
What most people don't understand is that this "reality" is extremely fragile and will fail quickly. The Fed, Treasury and the President understand this extremely well. This is why this is considered a National Security issue and every lie, theft, payoff and Ponzi is encouraged and endorsed at the highest levels. Our reality is supported by a lie and thus by extension is a lie. Since there is no more real support under our economic reality, every effort must be extended to support the lie.
Do or Die! Seen from that point of view, everything that's going on is perfectly understandable.
The lie holds until the first person breaks the pact and heads for the exit. It takes no more than one. Then the stampede erupts because while nobody wants to be first, everyone wants to be second.
I think California is that "person" at the sovereign level. As goes Cali, so goes the nation, so goes the world and in rapid fashion. We will see, come summer, if Cali stays within the illusion or bails.
Cunning lions await the herd as it lumbers forward, trustingly, behind their dear leader. If divided, the weak in the herd are slowly picked off, unless...
In the early stages of capitalist systems, interest and principal can be serviced out of the debtor’s cash flow. In the final stage of “mature capitalist systems”, they cannot.
Capitalism’s final stage is what Minsky calls “ponzi-financing”, when debt payments can only be made by additional borrowing. This is what the US, the UK and Japan are doing today, having to borrow against tomorrow in order to pay yesterday’s bills.
For 50 years, not one Dollar of new debt created by the US government to fund the activities it does not wish to tax for has been repaid. The debt has simply been “re-financed” with new debt being sold to retire the existing debt.
(www.the-privateer.com)
At some point, the end finally arrives. Ponzi-financing cannot service debt forever. Investing in unhedged paper assets is the bet that it can.
"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government." - Patrick Henry
"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Thomas Jefferson
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." -George Washington
"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity." - Thomas Jefferson
In a nutshell (because my education took years, so you can't expect me to give you the important background to my argument in one posting, or even several) this system is f*cked. Our debt-to-GDP ration is well beyond what other empires experienced just before their collapse. Our central bank is monetizing thin air to pay off the financial blackholes created by unregulated/out-of-control over-the-counter derivatives that are valued at well over $600 trillion globally, and our government is planning to borrow every last unit of currency under the moon in order to keep from falling into a fiscal abyss. How the hell does anyone expect this is going to turn out anything but very, very badly?
There are now literally tens of trillions of dollars of liabilities stretching from here on decades into the future. Our debt-based monetary system means these liabilities will only increase in cost and interest as time goes on. From where are the revenues going to come? The pace of productivity and wealth creation in this nation will have to inflate accordingly. How is this going to be accomplished? Do you have any answers? Does anyone?
We took a quantum leap from billions to trillions--a thousand-fold increase--in our economic discourse. It follows then that our GDP will have track this increase to keep up with the new normal. Again, from where are the revenues going to come? Are they going to be conjured up again like magic, so that we go from trillions to quadrillions as the new new normal? Or are you going to be expected to magically increase your productive output 1000 times to make up the difference, along with every other American (including children 1 and older, since we’ll also be needing more manpower for the job, way more than we have even if you include the illegals)?
WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR ALL OF THIS?
The answer never comes. Oh yeah, this is simple to solve, they say. They'll just "add liquidity" to the market, then "drain it", as if this was just a matter of doing the dishes, and all the complaining and fussing and fearing and loathing and hemming and hawing was all just a matter of no one wanting to pony up to the sink to actually do the deed. But no, that’s just a cheap distraction. So the question remains:
WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR ALL OF THIS?
I’ll tell you who: Us. As in you. And I. Or at least those of us that are silly enough to file and pay taxes (I don't know about you two, but I do not submit to extortion, otherwise known by the letters I-R-S). And how many people like me do you think there are now? Probably just a relative few. We're the "out there" nutballs. We're the ones that make wild-eye predictions of economic collapse and social chaos to follow. We're the ones who get pooh-poohed. Until the government keeps pulling shit like this. Then we grow in numbers. The disgusted; the disenfranchised; the disaffected. We find each other, learn from each other, and spread the wisdom. We watch as the government creeps upon our God-given freedoms like a depraved predator, one after the other, picking them off until one day we’ll be left naked and defenseless. But we prepare, and in the meantime we keep introducing new people to the mouth of the rabbit hole. And if you’re courageous, and intelligent, you’ll go in. And the deeper down the rabbit hole you go, the more you realize that real money—gold and silver—is the answer.
As more people discover the answer, the dollar takes one step closer to irrelevancy. Once it reaches that point, you have hyperinflation. Once the dollar enters hyperinflation the game is over; or rather, it just begins. But then that's a matter of perspective :)
Will the dollar cross that line of confidence? After all of my study, I sincerely believe it will and am convinced beyond a shadow of doubt about that conviction. I’ve been waiting for someone to come along and explain how I’m wrong about this. Despite my rhetoric, my eyes and mind are open. Convince me. Anyone?
In short: follow Austrian school of economics. I'm not saying they have ALL the answers, but so far it seems they have pretty damn nearly all of them.----------------------------------Ask yourself these questions:
1) What system is collapsing? The one in the US? I.E. the dollar?
1a) If the dollar collapses, what does that mean domestically?
1b) What does it mean internationally?
2) Is the FDIC solvent?
2a) If not, how safe are your bank accounts?
3) Are the firms in which you have your various retirement accounts solvent?
3a) Really? Are you sure? Did you check their balance sheet?
3b) Including all their hidden liabilities?
3c) If not, how safe are you accounts with them?
4) Does America strike you as a financially strong country?
4a) If not, do you think America will remain the world's sole superpower indefinitely under these conditions?
4b) If not, what does that mean for the dollar, the world's reserve currency, and the unit of account upon which all other world currencies (except gold) are based (again, domestically and internationally)?
Mull that over.
But here's a spoiler. The answer to all the above is:
Don't wait until inflation eats away your savings. Every day you wait is like an ounce of silver slipping out of your hands, lost forever.
History is your teacher. All others are substitutes. Including me.
I am Chumbawamba.
But whatever may be our situation, whether firmly united under one national government, or split into a number of confederacies, certain it is, that foreign nations will know and view it exactly as it is; and they will act toward us accordingly. If they see that our national government is efficient and well administered, our trade prudently regulated, our militia properly organized and disciplined, our resources and finances discreetly managed, our credit re-established, our people free, contented, and united, they will be much more disposed to cultivate our friendship than provoke our resentment. If, on the other hand, they find us either destitute of an effectual government (each State doing right or wrong, as to its rulers may seem convenient), or split into three or four independent and probably discordant republics or confederacies, one inclining to Britain, another to France, and a third to Spain, and perhaps played off against each other by the three, what a poor, pitiful figure will America make in their eyes! How liable would she become not only to their contempt but to their outrage, and how soon would dear-bought experience proclaim that when a people or family so divide, it never fails to be against themselves.
PUBLIUS.
"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names -liberty and tyranny."
It is because an affinity for and an understanding of the political mindset causes me to understand what decision makers will do…and why. Because a politician follows the political calendar, s/he only concerns himself/herself with the time horizon leading to the next election.
Anything requiring decisions beyond the date of the next election will be the responsibility of whoever is on the next watch. If the politician in office today is in office after the next election, a shrug of the shoulder indicates that worries of that kind can be dismissed for now to be dealt with later.
So major and difficult, but necessary, decisions are inevitably deferred. In their place spending money gives the appearance of concern and of doing something to fix the apparent problem. Aren’t those elected officials doing what we elected them to do? It certainly looks as if they are.
More cynical observers would characterize these actions by the political class and their senior bureaucratic minions as buying time hoping that something positive might magically emerge.
Those who are super cynical would even conclude give-away programs are designed simply to bribe the voters in order to curry goodwill for another term at the levers of power.
What all this means is that there is no discipline or inclination to do anything of real value in fixing the core economic and financial problems. That being the case, new programs, more spending stimulus and money creation will always be the order of the day. Hence the currency will devalue and investors will find gold as their best safe-haven refuge.
The dollar will devalue because massive dilution caused by incessant money creation allows future obligations to become more manageable – for government – because it is the only way that it can meet its future obligations for employee pensions, accumulated debt, Medicare and social security.
A nominal dollar which buys much less in the future than it does today is still a dollar. Unfortunately the holders or recipients of those devalued pieces of paper will find they are essentially fraudulent promises.
These realities make gold the closest thing to a sure-bet investment. They are also the reasons why gold will go much higher than most of us allow ourselves to contemplate.
Buckle your seatbelts and enjoy the ride ahead!
November was a another solid month with a 5.89% growth. I am looking forward to breaking down my yearly net worth in January. I didn't do to much this month and don't really see December being an exciting month, as I am going to ride it out the rest of the year, unless gold has a strong decline.
Posts
All Comments
