Remember when we spoke about giving up every last penny of our wealth to get rid of the bloodsucking elites that are killing our childrens’ futures?
After reading this commentary, you will have the concise MATH, (there’s that word again), and course of the nation that explains why you feel like a hamster on crack, and can’t sleep at night. The numbers do not lie.
FOREWORD: At certain times, focusing on the big picture is important not just for investment success, but for personal welfare, and even survival. We believe such times are here. It is estimated that 98% of Americans have never held a gold coin in their hands. Yet 100% of Americans regularly handle Federal Reserve Notes. From a contrarian standpoint, the financial message from those two statistics is clear. Even so, gold is much more than money or an investment medium; it stands for liberty and throughout history has facilitated escape and ensured freedom. Never having touched a gold coin is the monetary equivalent to never having breathed fresh air, felt the warmth of sunshine, looked up at the stars or risen from the gutter. Fiat Federal Reserve Notes are becoming nothing more than sewage decomposing in the vast, toxic septic tank of predatory Washington politics, epic Federal Reserve arrogance and error, blatant Wall Street fraud and outright Master Class plunder. Below, we outline America’s troubling and compounding predicament, and urge you to think about how to protect yourself from its consequences, both financially and personally.
Thanks to the endless barrage of feel-good propaganda that daily assaults the American mind, best epitomized a few months ago by the “green shoots,” everything’s-coming-up-roses propaganda touted by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, the citizens have no idea how disastrous the country’s fiscal, monetary and economic problems truly are. Nor do they perceive the rapidly increasing risk of a totalitarian nightmare descending upon the American Republic.
One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.
According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report on wealth, America’s private net worth was $53.4 trillion as of September, 2009. But at the same time, America’s debt and unfunded liabilities totaled at least $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion), or 225% of the citizens’ net worth. Even if the government expropriated every dollar of private wealth in the nation, it would still have a deficit of $66,600,000,000,000.00 ($66.6 trillion), equal to $214,286.00 for every man, woman and child in America and roughly 500% of GDP. If the government does not directly seize the nation’s private wealth, then it will require $389,610 from each and every citizen to balance the country’s books. State, county and municipal debts and deficits are additional, already elephantine in many states (e.g., California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York) and growing at an alarming rate nationwide. In addition to the federal government, dozens of states are already bankrupt and sinking deeper into the morass every day.
The government continues to dig a deeper and deeper fiscal grave in which to bury its citizens. This year, the federal deficit will total at least $1,600,000,000,000.00 ($1.6 trillion), which represents overspending of $4,383,561,600.00 ($4.38 billion) per day. (The deficit during October and November, 2009, the first two months of Fiscal Year 2010, totaled $296,700,000,000.00 ($297 billion), or $4,863,934,000.00 ($4.9 billion) per day, a record.) Using the GAAP accounting method (which is what corporations are required to use because it presents a far more accurate and honest picture of a company’s finances than the cash accounting method primarily and misleadingly used by the U.S. government), the nation’s fiscal year 2009 deficit was roughly $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion), or $24,700,000,000.00 ($24.7 billion) per day, as calculated by brilliant and well-respected economist John Williams. (www.shadowstats.com) Fiscal Year 2010’s cash- and GAAP-accounting deficits will likely be worse than 2009’s, given government bailout and new program spending that is on steroids and psychotic.
Putting Fiscal Year 2009’s $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion) deficit another way, 17% of America’s private wealth, accumulated over a period of 235 years, was wiped out by just one year’s worth of government deficit spending insanity.
Given this, is it any surprise that Treasury Secretary Geithner has announced that the release of the nation’s FY 2009 supplemental GAAP financial statements has been delayed? Remember, this is the same Secretary Geithner who bullied people to cover up the sordid details of the AIG, or more accurately, the taxpayer-funded, multi-billion dollar, Santa Claus bailout and bonus bonanza for Goldman Sachs. Do you really think this government, characterized as it is by fiscal and monetary secrecy, lies, chicanery, cronyism and stonewalling, wants the people to know what is actually happening? Obviously, it does not, so it hides from the public the inexcusable facts.
It is estimated that the top 1% of Americans control roughly 40% of the nation’s wealth. In other words, 3 million people own $21,400,000,000,000.00 ($21.4 trillion) in net private assets, while the other 305 million own the remaining $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion). 77,000,000 (77 million) Americans (the lowest 25%) have mean net assets of minus $2,300 ($-2,300.00) per person; they live from paycheck to paycheck, or on public assistance. The lower 50% of Americans own mean net assets of $27,800 each, about enough to purchase a modest car. Obviously, it would be impossible to retire on such an amount without significant government or other assistance. Meanwhile, the richest 10% of Americans possess mean net assets of $3,976,000.00 each, or 143 times those of the bottom 50%; the top 2% control assets worth more than 1,500 times those in the bottom 50%. When you combine these facts with Wall Street’s typical multi-million dollar annual bonuses, you get an idea of wealth inequality in America. Historically, such extreme inequality has been a well-documented breeding ground for totalitarianism.
If the government decides to expropriate (steal) or commandeer (e.g., force into Treasuries) America’s private wealth in order to buy survival time, such a measure will be designed to destroy the common citizens, not the elite. Insiders will be given advance warning about any such plan, and will be able to transfer their money offshore or into financial vehicles immune from harm. Assuming that the elite moves its money to safety, there would then be $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion) in American debt and liabilities supported by only $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion) in private net worth, for a deficit of $88,000,000,000,000.00 ($88 trillion). In that case, each American would owe $285,714.29 to balance the country’s books. (Remember to multiply this amount by every person in your household, including any infant children.)
If the common people suspect that something diabolical was in the works, a portion of the $32 trillion in non-elite wealth could be evacuated as well prior to a government expropriation and/or currency devaluation, resulting in less money for the government to steal. What these statistics mean is that it is absolutely impossible for the government to fund its debt and deficits, even if it steals all of the nation’s private wealth. Therefore, the government’s only solutions are either formal bankruptcy (outright debt repudiation and the dismantling of bankrupt government programs) or unprecedented American monetary inflation and debt monetization. If the government chooses to inflate its way out of this fiscal catastrophe, the United States dollar will essentially become worthless. You can be absolutely certain that a PhD. in economics, such as Dr. Bernanke, is well aware of these realities, despite what he might say in speeches. For that matter, so are Chinese schoolchildren, who, when patronized by Treasury Secretary Geithner about America’s “strong dollar,” laughed in his face. One day, perhaps America’s school children will receive a real education so that they, too, will know when to laugh at absurd propaganda.
The government has announced that during the fiscal years from 2010 through 2019, it will create an additional $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion) in deficits, an amount that is almost certain to be understated by trillions given the country’s current economic trajectory. The government assumes that this vast additional deficit will be funded by others, such as the Chinese, as it is a statistical fact that the United States will be incapable of funding it.
Furthermore, with the budgetary equivalent of a straight face, the Office of Management and Budget reports in its long-term, inter-generational budget projection that the United States government will experience massive, non-stop deficits for the next 70 (SEVENTY) years, requiring the issuance of tens of trillions of dollars of additional debt. The OMB does not project even one year of surplus during the entire seventy year budget period.
These deficits and debts are now so gargantuan that they have become surreal abstractions impossible even for sophisticated financiers to begin to comprehend. The common citizen has absolutely no idea what these numbers mean, or imply for his or her future. The people have been deluded into thinking that America’s arrogant, egomaniacal, always-wrong-but-never-in-doubt fiscal witch doctors and charlatans, including Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Geithner and Ponce de Bernanke, have discovered a Monetary Fountain of Youth that endlessly spits up free money from the center of earth, in a geyser of good will toward the United States. Unfortunately, this delusion is false: there is no Monetary Fountain of Youth, and contrary to the apparent beliefs of the self-deified man-gods in Washington, D.C., the debt and deficits are real, completely out of control, and 100% guaranteed to create catastrophic consequences for the nation and its people.
When government “representatives” deliberately sell into slavery the citizens of a so-called free Republic, they have committed treason against those people. This is exactly what has happened in the United States: the citizens have been sold into debt slavery that they and their descendants can never escape, because the debts piled onto their backs can never, ever be paid. Despite expensive and sophisticated brainwashing campaigns emanating from Washington, claiming that America can “grow” out of its deficits and debt, it is arithmetically impossible for the country to do so. The government’s statements that it can dig the nation out of its fiscal hole by digging an even deeper chasm have become parodies and perversions of even totally discredited and morally disgusting Keynesianism.
The people no longer have elected representatives; they have elected traitors.
The enslavement of the American people has been orchestrated by a pernicious Master Class that has taken the United States by the throat. This Master Class is now choking the nation to death as it accelerates its master plan to plunder the people’s dwindling remaining assets. The Master Class comprises politicians, the Wall Street money elite, the Federal Reserve, high-end government (including military) officials, government lobbyists and their paymasters, military suppliers and media oligarchs. The interests and mindset of the Master Class are so totally divorced from those of the average American citizen that it is utterly tone deaf and blind to the justifiable rage sweeping the nation. Its guiding ethics of greed, plunder, power, control and violence are so alien to mainstream American culture and thought that the Master Class might as well be an enemy invader from Mars. But the Master Class here, it is real and it is laying waste to America. To the members of the Master Class, the people are not fellow-citizens; they are instruments of labor, servitude and profit. At first, the Master Class viewed the citizens as serfs; now that they have raped and destroyed the national economy, while in the process amassing unprecedented wealth and power for themselves, they see the people as nothing more than slaves.
America’s public finances are now so completely dysfunctional and chaotic that something far worse than debt enslavement and monetary implosion, terrible curses unto themselves, looms on the horizon: namely, a Master Class-sponsored American dictatorship.
Throughout history, the type of situation in which America now finds itself has been a fertility factory for tyranny. The odds of an outright overthrow of the people by the Washington and Wall Street Axis, or more broadly, the Master Class are increasing dramatically. The fact that so few people believe an American dictatorship is possible is exactly why it is becoming likely.
Dictatorships have blighted history and ruined lives since the beginning of civilization. In recent times alone, tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu, Amin, Hussein, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim, Pinochet, Milosevic, Tito, Batista, Peron, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Marcos, Somoza, Mengistu, Bokassa, Sese Seko, Franco, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, and Castro have power-sprayed blood onto the screen of time and ravaged mankind with murder, torture and human oppression. A full catalog of history’s tyrants would require a book of hundreds of pages. In the past 100 years alone, over 200 million human beings have been annihilated by wars, ethnic cleansings and government assassinations. Just when we think that civilization has been able to rise above tyranny’s inhumanity and disgrace, a new dictator appears on the scene to start the process all over again. Every time this happens, fear and submission paralyze the vast majority of the affected masses, leading them to “follow orders” and lick autocracy’s blood-stained boots.
History has proven to tyrants that oppression works. In fact, it is easy to control a populace, once you control the money, markets, military (including police), media and minions (the recipients of welfare, social security, free health care, government jobs and the like, who are dependent upon the state and likely to be compliant). This is exactly where the United States is today.
Recent American events paint an ominous picture of a Master Class that is now in total control.
When 90% of the American people vehemently rejected the $700,000,000,000.00 ($700 billion) TARP bailout plan, the Master Class put it on a fast track and approved it anyway.
When a clear majority of the American people said no to a government takeover of Chrysler and GM, the Master Class poured billions of taxpayer dollars into those corporate sinkholes and took them over anyway.
When the people said no to multi-trillion dollar crony bailouts for the bankers and insurers whose corruption had caused global financial mayhem, the government pledged to those elite insiders more than $13,000,000,000,000.00 ($13 trillion) of the people’s money anyway.
When the people expressed astonishment and anger that Wall Street planned to pay itself record 2009 bonuses, in the midst of America’s worst-ever fiscal and financial crisis caused by them, Wall Street stuffed its pockets with taxpayer-supported bonus money anyway.
When the people said no to a proposed $40,000,000,000.00 ($40 billion) bailout of AIG and its elite trading partners such as Goldman Sachs (an amount that subsequently exploded to $180,000,000,000.00+ ($180+ billion)), the Master Class went underground, covertly misappropriated taxpayer money and made the payoffs anyway.
When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalized at enormous taxpayer expense, the government approved $6,000,000.00 individual pay packages in 2009 (150 times the average American wage) for the CEOs of both failed companies anyway.
When a clear majority of the people said no to nationalized health care, even after being bombarded by a multi-million dollar, lie-drenched propaganda campaign designed to bamboozle them, the House and Senate passed nationalized health care bills anyway.
When more than seven million American workers lost their jobs and were subsisting on unemployment benefits and food stamps, federal government employees, who now earn DOUBLE what private sector workers earn, were given another round of pay and benefits increases anyway.
When private sector workers’ 401Ks and IRA retirement plans plummeted in value due to economic collapse and endemic Wall Street-orchestrated market corruption (including systemic front running, flash trading, naked short selling and other manipulations), government “defined benefit,” lifetime-cost-of-living-adjusted pension plans, despite already being underfunded by $2,000,000,000,000.00 ($2 trillion), were made richer than ever anyway.
The long, shameful litany of events signaling the total divorce between the Master Class and the people of the United States doesn’t stop there. It goes on and on.
The message from the American Master Class to the American people is simple and clear:
We Defy You.
Governments that openly defy the people are either already totalitarian or in the process of becoming so. Monetarily, the United States clearly functions as a totalitarian dictatorship already, with a Federal Reserve that operates in secrecy, creates limitless amounts of debt and currency at will, and showers trillions of dollars upon favored Master Class insiders with zero transparency or accountability whatsoever. The Federal Reserve is so shameless about its dictatorial powers that it flatly refuses to provide details about multi-trillion dollar bailouts and rescues of privileged elites, in open defiance of Congress and the people. The fact that they get away with these blatant acts of defiance demonstrates the true extent of the Master Class chokehold on America.
If the Master Class were a benign despot and if its policies and programs actually worked, that would be one thing. But that is not the case. Rather, its programs are in a complete shambles.
Every single government entitlement program in the United States is bankrupt. This includes Social Security ($17,500,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $17.5 trillion); Medicare Part A ($36,700,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $36.7 trillion); Medicare Part B ($37,000,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $37 trillion); Medicare Part D ($15,600,000,000,000 underfunded; $15.6 trillion), Government and military pensions ($2,000,000,000,000 underfunded; $2 trillion), Food Stamps (current underfunding difficult to measure because the number of recipients is exploding; hundreds of billions underfunded versus original projections, minimum); and the list goes on. The above underfunding amounts are NET of projected tax receipts over the next 50 years. But the current recession has invalidated virtually all long-term budget and tax receipt assumptions, meaning that the true underfunded amounts are now greater than current, already mind-boggling estimates.
While the above statistics are terrifying enough to any citizen with a functioning brain, what is Twilight Zone-eerie and a far more serious cause for alarm is the casual indifference with which the Master Class is now making the country’s dire and irreparable fiscal circumstances even worse.
The nationalized health care program will cost at least $1 trillion over the next ten years, and most likely multiples of that. It is being crammed down America’s throat by a bankrupt government that does not have the money today and will not have the money tomorrow to pay for it. Worse is the fact that the same government that has bankrupted each and every existing social program now intends to directly or indirectly control the health care of all citizens. Based on the government’s existing track record and the health care program’s enormous complexity, invasiveness and cost, the probability that it will become a national fiscal and humanitarian catastrophe is roughly 100%.
“Cap and Trade” is a multi-trillion dollar tax scam being foisted onto the American public without a legitimate debate or popular referendum. You might be surprised to learn that “Climate Revenues” are already included in the federal budget, starting with $79,000,000,000.00 ($79 billion) in fiscal year 2012, which begins only 20 months from now. During fiscal years 2012 through 2019, the government expects to collect $646,000,000,000.00 ($646 billion) in “Climate Revenues,” a completely new tax category. Have any of your elected traitors told you that they have enacted $646,000,000,000.00 ($646 billion) in “Climate” taxes beginning twenty months from now and continuing forever? These “Climate Revenues” are based on junk science, lies and hysteria, and have been pimped by greed-diseased parasites who seek to make billions from operating and manipulating the Cap and Trade “marketplace.” Favored elitists such as Hank Paulson, Al Gore, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, among others, have positioned themselves to profit from the nation’s upcoming Cap and Trade tax misery and economic debilitation.
The reality is that the giant Ponzi scheme called the United States of America is running out of money. In any Ponzi scheme, money must constantly be poured into the top of the funnel in order to pay the redeemers at the bottom. As the number of redeemers has grown, tax receipts have fallen far short of covering their withdrawals, a problem that has now become an outright government funding emergency further aggravated by the fiscal, financial and economic crises.
If the Washington and Wall Street Axis were not legally able to create and distribute counterfeit American money, the Ponzi scheme would have collapsed already. Trillions of new, out-of-thin-air, printing-press and electronic “dollars” have bought the Axis additional time, but new sources of revenue must immediately be found to keep the scam alive. Congress is fully aware of this reality. Outright tax increases would be bad politics during a recession that is morphing into a depression, and also bad for 2010 re-election campaigns, so they cannot be implemented. Therefore, Congress continues to advance the health care and Cap and Trade agendas, which are nothing but taxation Trojan Horses festooned in righteousness and sanctimony, despite overwhelming popular opposition.
If the nationalized health care program is passed, revenues and fees will kick in immediately in 2010, whereas costs will not begin to accrue until 2012 and later. The government plans to spend the revenues immediately to forestall a total fiscal collapse. Nationalized health care has absolutely nothing to do with health care; it has to do with creating an immediate revenue stream to help fix the current government funding crisis. Similarly, Cap and Trade has nothing to do with fixing the environment. It, too, is nothing more than a massive tax increase similarly designed to address the government’s epic funding shortfall, with thick slices of pork thrown in for privileged insiders and deceitful propagandists like bloated “Father of the Internet” and now “Savior of the World” Al Gore.
The last thing the Master Class wants is for the people to understand the disastrous state of the nation’s finances. Master Class brainwashing tells the people that it is “negative” and “pessimistic” to look at the facts, despite the fact that psychological health is characterized by the ability to identify and deal with reality. The Master Class wants the people to put on Bozo the Clown happy faces and let sugar plums and green shoots dance in their brains as they write one check after another to pay for Cap and Trade, nationalized health care, and a mind-numbing assortment of other taxes and fees.
On Sunday night, November 30, 2009, North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Il (a name that says it all, even better than Made-off’s), an international poster child of Master Class psychological illness, devalued his country’s currency by 99%. This vicious tyrant, who has given birth to a national hell on earth, is chauffeured in Mercedes Benz limousines, drinks the finest imported whiskies and dines in imperial dignity on foods prepared by personal chefs while his citizens starve to death on the streets or, at best, eke out a subsistence living. Kim became paranoid that the people were actually figuring out how to improve their pitiful, impoverished lives in tiny ways, so he decided to wipe them out. The people were given one week to exchange their money at a rate of 100 old Won for 1 new Won. Any lifetime family savings in excess of roughly $700.00 were simply confiscated by the North Korean government. To keep the people in line, the military and police were put on high alert, fully prepared to kill or arrest any protesters.
On January 9, 2010, Venezuela’s strong man Hugo Chavez devalued his country’s currency by 50%, overnight and without warning, causing immediate inflation, shortages of food and supplies, and general financial chaos throughout the nation.
While you might be shaking your head in pity over the plight of the citizens of North Korea and Venezuela, ask yourself this: could this not happen in the United States?
On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, an Obama hero, outlawed gold ownership overnight by signing Executive Order 6102, which gave the people three and one-half weeks to surrender all privately-owned bullion to the government for a price of $20.67 per ounce. On January 30, 1934, nine months after collecting the people’s gold, Roosevelt devalued the dollar 69% overnight, by raising the gold price from $20.67 to $35.00 per ounce.
Since its founding in 1913, the Federal Reserve has devalued the dollar by 98+% thanks to endless money printing and debt creation, a corrosive and impoverishing process that is now accelerating. In the past year, the Fed has engineered $20+ trillion in bailouts, subsidies and guarantees for well-connected and lucky scavengers and opportunists, an amount equal to roughly 40% of the total private wealth created in this country since its inception. All because a few elitist government man-gods with an almost perfect record of error and failure have deemed in their imperial wisdom that it shall be so. The citizens, whose hard-earned wealth is being systematically destroyed by this continual, government-decreed monetary debasement were never invited to the debate or given a say, which is par for the course for dictatorships. This massive de facto devaluation now hangs over the people’s wealth like a great monetary sword of Damocles.
Conceptually, whether it is a 50% overnight devaluation in Venezuela, a 69% overnight devaluation in the United States, a 98% devaluation in America over time, or a 99% overnight devaluation in North Korea, what is the difference? The fact is: there is no difference; monetary debasements are all the same. In each and every case, the people’s wealth is stolen via government edict, while the people stand by helplessly and in shock.
So one must ask: For whom does the bell toll? A foreign “them,” or a domestic us? Who is to say that you will not be told tomorrow morning that, effective immediately, in accordance with some perversely named mandate such as the “American Monetary Security, Wealth Preservation and Terrorism Prevention Act,” enacted by emergency for “the safety of the nation and the financial well being of the citizens,” all existing currency and bank balances will be redenominated in “New Dollars,” at a conversion rate of 1 new for every 100 old currency units? Would this not simply be another, almost predictable act of defiance toward the American people by the Master Class? And if that happened, do you honestly believe that the Master Class would not have been alerted in advance and allowed to make special preparations for itself ahead of the devaluation? Do you think they intend to go down in the same ship as the people they defy? If such a currency devaluation were announced, what could you do about it? March on Washington? But how would you get there if your money had been wiped out?
Despite what you may hear from State Media, which includes virtually all establishment news organizations, particularly financial ones (e.g., CNBC), America is on the precipice. No bankrupt nation in history has ever defended or preserved the freedoms of its citizens. In fact, it has been the exact opposite: in desperation, bankrupt governments have routinely plundered their citizens’ wealth and imposed totalitarian controls. What will make things different for the United States, the largest debtor nation in all of recorded civilization?
The United States government cannot ever, possibly pay its debts, is pathologically incapable of controlling its spending or curbing its hunger for both domestic and international empire and persistently refuses to tell the American people the truth. If America’s citizens were told the truth and given the benefit of true leadership, as opposed to the guile and dishonesty of an endless array of political liars and hacks, perhaps they could rally and defeat the problems that afflict them. But instead, they are fed by the Master Class a steady diet of narcotic propaganda that deludes, confuses and enervates them. The truth cannot set people free if it is never told, and that is the essence of America’s gathering tragedy.
In a future article, we will detail specific developments you should watch for to chart the course of America’s ominous and potentially deadly national storm. The current, grave situation is already a clear call to action. When the signals become even more urgent, it will be late in the game to take protective action, and possibly too late. Citizens should begin to prepare now not just for financial survival, but for the personal security of themselves and their loved ones should a Category 5 economic and political hurricane rip into the nation, something that becomes more likely every day.
With respect to personal finances, in virtually every national currency devaluation and major political upheaval in the past, gold has represented sanctuary for the affected people. Gold has not just preserved wealth, but personal freedom as well. While governments can devalue fiat currencies, they cannot, by edict, devalue gold. Yes, they can try to manipulate its price, but unless all governments join in the collusion, ultimately the price will return to market. The market for gold is global, and demand exists in all nations and among all peoples. Should the government attempt to confiscate gold, it will be an outright admission that the financial system is collapsing, and the people will know better than to hand over to a corrupt government their only means of survival. The most important point is this: devalued currencies never rise again. Once they are destroyed, they are gone forever, and those whose wealth had once been denominated in them are wiped out. As you have no doubt heard before, not one fiat currency has survived over time, and that is an indisputable fact. More significantly, no fiat currency has ever suffered the abuse that has been inflicted upon the United States dollar, meaning that it is at extreme risk. Gold has been money for 5,000 years. It has not merely survived, it has prevailed over each and every fiat currency collapse throughout history. Given this, the most important financial question a person can ask him- or herself today is: How is my wealth denominated at this time? And given its denomination, is my wealth likely to be safe in current and evolving circumstances?
One thing is certain: as the epic David and Goliath monetary battle unfolds, between the people fighting to defend their hard-earned wealth on one side, and a Master Class that greedily and pathologically wants to plunder them on the other, the price of gold will become extremely volatile for a period of time. Volatility will, in fact, tell you that the War on Wealth has officially been declared, and will be your signal to do whatever you must to protect what is yours. As the government Goliath and its Master Class allies short tonnes of bullion into rigged futures markets in a desperate attempt to make gold look dangerous and risky, the Davids will be coming forth not just in the United States but from all corners of the globe, buying 10 grams here and one ounce there. There are 6.8 billion Davids, versus one diseased Master Class that numbers in the small millions. There is no way the Master Class can defeat the people, if the people finally rise up and say “No More of Your Plunder. No More of Your Cold and Soulless Financial Oppression. No More of Your Cynical and Godless Exploitation.”
If you find the above argument compelling, you should consider how to protect yourself from Executive Orders that could be issued at any time, under any pretext, and that could be extremely hostile to your financial and/or personal health and well being. One simple way to start is to purchase one ounce of gold for yourself and each member of your household, and much more if you can afford it. That is not financial advice; it is merely the common sense generously communicated to you by history.
Stewart Dougherty
Stewart Dougherty is a specialist in inferential analysis, the practice of identifying historic and contemporary patterns and then extrapolating their likely effects upon the future. Dougherty was educated at Tufts University (B.A., magna cum laude), and Harvard Business School (M.B.A. and an academic Fellow). He can be reached at stewartdougherty@cs.com. He is not affiliated with or compensated by those he references or recommends. He does not offer investment or trading advice, and nothing in this article should be construed as such. This article represents the author’s personal opinions, and nothing more. The reader has the author’s permission to share, print, forward or post this article provided that the content is not changed and the author is acknowledged.
For my brother Shtuey, and because I walk in the light. THE MONSTER STANDS WITH ISRAEL!
Reserved for the Department of Homeland Security
HR40 – Slave reparations: http://logisticsmonster.com/2009/04/06/hr40-8million-commission-on-slavery-reparations/
$8 million for a commission to determine whether African Americans should be paid reparations for slavery… How many African Americans do you know that have ever, in this lifetime, been a slave to the Americans? What about a commission to determine if people of Scottish and/or Irish descent should be paid reparations because their own ancestors were shipped off to “The Colonies” as slaves in the hundred-odd years before the Revolution earned them the freedom they should not have been stripped of in the first place! Look at your American history, you’ll see. Entire cities were built in this country by the sweat and toil of men and women of the Isles. The Scottish Highlands and much of Ireland would not be as unpopulated as they are now if it had not been for slavery. So why should we not also be awarded reparations on behalf of our own ancestors who lived and died for what would eventually become the American Dream? Cities, people, not cotton fields. Think about that.
This is just another attempt to make certain people feel that they are entitled and more deserving of recognition for the past.
I believe every ethnic group could come up with reasons why they might be entitled to reparations. But I have just on question , if it so bad here why are so many coming illegally or willing to risk their lives to get here.
The past is just that unless we are going to dig up the former slaves and give them the reparation what the hell is the point. I am not entitled to any compensation for any wrongs that had done to my ancestors so how is this any different.
The truth of the matter is the ancestors of the slaves are much better off here than they would be if their ancestors had be left in Africa.
Of course slavery was and is wrong but sometimes the unintended consequences of the wrongs in the past benefit those in the present.
Meant to say:
The truth of the matter is the descendants of the slaves are much better off here than they would be if their ancestors had been left in Africa.
I had read about this before. Unfortunately, I think this type of legislation ends up being divisive. Our country has a checkered past at best dealing with many different ethnic groups but if we want to talk about repaying a debt what about the native Americans? Personally, I think we have to start working together to accomplish the best for this country. We aren’t going to do this by rewarding any one group. We can only do it by recognizing the sacrifices of all people that have built this country, from the Chinese that died building railroads to the Japanese interred during WWII to the African Americans that were enslaved during our early history. We would be bankrupt as a country if we tried to financially reward every wrong. I think we need to concentrate on what is currently happening in our government through the transfer of our money to the banks and corporations. If every person would stop this insane bickering about the past we would recognize the wolf at the door. He isn’t black, white, yellow or red but corporate. He picks your pocket and then tells you to say “Thank You!” Our legislators have been taken over by these corporate interests. They are owned by them and they have become “family”. We need to pool our resources regardless of our past or we will continue to be derailed by political bait and switch programs such as this.
I have always believed that any tpye of slavery is wrong, but I have had nothing to do with it and will not pay any of my hard earned money for it. I will not appolize for something I did not do. If you need money go to your own people and homeland for it. They sold you out for beads. They helped round up their own people and put them on the boats. My ancestors paid the price of their life for starting this country. What do you owe me? I have lost 2 sons, so who is going to pay me for my pain and sufering? I do not hold everyone responsible and have chose to move on and live in the present. Lord help us. Get over yourselves.
To Jenn S.- You wrote exactly what I was thinking all the time I was reading the post. My Celtic heart is very happy to find a kindred spirit. My Scots-Irish ancestors dealt with every bit as much pain as did the African slaves, in addition to fighting in the Revolutionary War.
And what about the bonded servants? Aren’t their descendants just as deserving of any reparations money that is floating around?
And to Silent Kate – we’re already bankrupt, thanks to the usurper in the White House and his partner in crime, George Bush, who with the help of Henry (Goldman Sachs) Paulson, along with those corporate robbers that you mentioned, put this country on the slippery slide to devestation.
John Conyers has had this bee in his bonnet for a long time and just feels the time is ripe to spring it when we are all sidetracked by the financial crisis, and he has a like thinking cohort in the White House.
Good timing, Conyers. Just spend a little more money to fund a commission to spend even more money to take from us more tax money to pay for some imagined harm our ancestors may have done to the slaves.
We need to mount a determined protest against even spending the $8 million much less the amount of reparations they will want. Start calling and typing again people. Let’s demand our reparations, too. Maybe they will then let well enough alone.
ATTENTION, Diamond. I sent you an email on Snowe. Hope it helps a little. More later, I hope.
P.S. Diamond, I sent a second email. This one regarding Siemens and Debevoise and Plimpton. The thing is they went to two slightly different email addresses. I didn’t notice until they were sent. Hope you get them both ok. I don’t know why I have two email addresses.
Slavery was abolished a hundred and fifty years ago and unless I’m wrong they were freed. If those low lifes in DC want to pay reparations to people who deserve them, how about the Native Americans, they were murdered by the millions and their country was stolen from them. Africans were sold into slavery by and large by their own countrymen, if anyone owes them anything its their African and Eyptian brothers. Those morons in DC will suck up to anyone, or support all kinds of ridiculous causes to garner votes.
Well…that sure sounds good, in a totally PC kind of way, but what will it prove? I have read the Constitution, and I don’t find that slavery was mentioned. Readers, have I missed something? And what about the slavery currently being perpetrated by the Obama administration? When can we expect reparations for that? This bill is as bogus as the day is long as well as being insulting! By what stretch of the imagination do they think that handing out money will EVER give back what has been taken??? Now that it’s been printed, the paper is worthless, except for reprocessing into pulp, or into insulating material. and this is for Conyers: Ever wonder why politicians get so little respect? This is a good for-instance!
My family didn’t come to this country until long after slavery was abolished. My grandparents came from “the old country” to escape pogroms and persecution. I’m second generation American on my dad’s side, third generation on my mom’s. My family had nothing to do with slavery, and I’ll be damned if my hard-earned money is going to be used to give welfare to someone who may or may not be descended from slaves.
As others have said, if we’re handing out “sorry we screwed your ancestors” check, how about including Native Americans, Chinese, Irish, and WOMEN. Women were (and still are, as far as I’m concerned) subject to discrimination, treated as chattel, enslaved, and abused.
Do we REALLY need to spend $8 billion to understand the effects of slavery? This is just another way to feed white guilt and control the masses through that guilt.
Conyers, you can count me out. Slavery’s done with. Get over it. Teach people to take responsibility for their own lives. Work to eliminate discrimination against ALL people if you want to change things. Handing out my money to people who haven’t earned it is unacceptable. And won’t help to create change. It’s only going to foster anger.
SFIndie,
You are right on the money. The only people that should be paying reparitions are the descendants of the slavers and slave owners, which I’m sure a little research would show are basically the same people raping our economy now!
I feel & agree with everyone here. But I think it is just another way to keep the people apart in this country and keep discrimination alive
All of that happened BEFORE you and I were born. It is where it belongs…in the history books. Now they want to pay all the descendants of the slaves? They need to get over it. “Oh, you enslaved my great great grand daddy, and now you owe me for all the embarrassment I experienced in my life.” It’s just another mass “welfare program” for all those “poor people” who refused to make something of themselves, and live off the public assistance.
First, unlike Congress, thanks for even reading the bill, Diamond Tiger and then thanks for posting it.
I was so appalled when I read this, but even just reading the comments restores my equilibrium. So thanks to those who took the trouble.
This is mind-boggling. And as Silent Kate says, if we reparate, shouldn’t we start with the American Indians?
It is still astonishing to me that AAs always consider themselves so much more important, so much more put-upon, than “people of color”. which is how other American “races” identify themselves.
And I think it’s important to remember, as someone else has said, that AA “pundits” and journalists speak only to their own AA experience. People of color are not consulted on racial matters by AAs.
I am second generation American and my spousal unit is a native american….I will stop paying taxes if this crap passes. Come get me.
The way things are happening so fast, we might just as well sign over ALL of our income to NObama. After all isn’t that what they want? Then again,Diamond, maybe you should use “Turbo tax” after all it worked for “Tax Cheat Timmy”. Not only did he not pay his taxes, he got hired on with the Government.
1sg – I already changed my w-4 so that I am not paying federal withholding. if this keeps up I will stop fighting for my company, get laid off and let bambi take care of me while I do other things. Frakkin’ idiot.
So “they” want to appropriate $8 Million? Well, once the White House and Acorn are through with the Census, that means each AA will get $1.00
The rumor has it that all the tea parties will be infiltrated by Acorn and the “Obamaites” on the 15th….sounds like fun!
How about reparations to the current slaves. We are all slaves to the IRS and the Federal Reserve Bank. Our birth certificates are their chattel on us and our Social Security number is our serial number. If reparations are to be paid, then give us our constitution back, kill the Federal Reserve, go back to real money (silver and gold- not paper) and I’ll call it even!
It is so great to hear that we are strong and still willing to speak our minds. Something we should never lose. Great Americans with great strength and our hearts will not be broken by this fake. Hold our heads high. If he were a true American he would not try to distroy this great nation.
I am all for giving them $8 Million with one condition!!
We follow their ancestors back to when they were slaves and any welfare money that they or their ancestors have received is subtracted from the $8 million. If the money they and their ancestors have received is more than the $8 million then they owe the American tax payers who have been supporting their lazy asses for the last 80 years the difference!
I am so sick of people feeling like they are owed something no matter what color they are. Stand up people take responsibility for your lives and quit sucking on Uncle Sam’s Teet!
This must be the racist corner of the web. Or perhaps it’s just a nesting place for ignorance. The U.S. Supremem Court has recognized recently that the evil effects of slavery continue, as do most sociologists and educators. Clarnece Thomas helped himself to the benefits of affirmative action, then voted against it, calling it demeaning. Many Native Americans are today enriched by gambling, yet wrongs to them were still wrong. We paid the Japanese survivors of the internment camps $20,000 each and spent more than $8,000,000 on a comission to study FDR and his racist cohorts. Surely we can convene a high-level nonpartisan commission to study this issue. That is all this bill does. Why are you bloggers afraid to find out how the unfathomably evil institution of slavery in this nation affects our citizens today?
First and foremost you ppl,everyone except Practical Madman, need to start thinking for yourselves and do as you know and not what youve been told. History is just that his-story.If you knew the true history of this country and how it became what it is today it would terrify you. The issue on in re reparations is just a chip off the iceberg of lies and deceit that consumes the entire nation. If youve studied reparations you would know that anyone that was ever awarded such relief had a nationality. African American is not a nationality, black is not a nationality its an adj./color, negro is not a nationality, and colored is not a nationality .If studied, one will find that these names were given to the Moors by the europeans during the slavery era in order to strip them of thier inalienable and indigenous rights to the land. The Geneva Convention,Pan American Conf.,Bustamante Code and the Morrocan treaty of Peace and Friendship with the United states 1787 proves the info revealed to you. It should further be noted that Obama is not the first so black president of the country, hes the 8th,with the first president ever being John Hanson, whom was also a Moor,dark skinned Asiatic. Dont think youre going to find this guy in your local library either,oh no we cant let that out. however you will find him on the back of the $ 2 bill sitting at the table wearing a fez, Moorish religious garb.QUESTION:why does the $1 bill bear the Moorish Pyramid w/ the All Seeing Eye of Allah?thats something one should also think about if they really believe that they were all slaves and brought here on ships. The truth is they were here and have been here centuries before we ever came. The Moors are the oldest living race of ppl on the earth and were dark skinned not black. You might wonder exactly what im trying to say, the point Im trying to make is that the land we know today as south, central and north America technically belongs to the Moorish Americans known today as African Americans. Unfortunately, they dont know who they are, in order for them to be recognized by the other nations of the earth (UN) they must first have a nationality without this they are nothing to us but mere property. We’ve done well for ourselves by keeping them in captivity, but according to the scriptures the 400 years of captivity was over last year in 2008. This is why Obama,whom we put in office, was elected. We need them now for the earth is getting closer and closer to the sun. They are the true Gods and Godesses of the earth the so called black woman is the mother of virtue and the matriarch of civilization.They taught us civilization and allowed us to live amongst them long enough to carry out our mission now it is time for us to go back to which the caves we descended (caucasoid mountains). If they had a clue of how wealthy they truly are and how much debt we are in to them for doing business on thier land we may see an uprising. Yes the Practical Madman is absolutely right, every working class or unemployed citizen are alike whether you gross $100,000 per year or $100 per year, you are all slaves and owned by the government thru the Social Security Ad. and the birth certificate. This was one of the greatest if the greatest scheme in all of our history.This fraud not only allowed us to strip them of thier land but also of every inalienable and indigenous right they have as sovereign kings and queens. I can go on and on revealig the truth now,because our ruling and oppression of the moorish empire here in said USa is almost over. In fact Obama will be the last president ever believe it or not. The land must be returned to the original man and its inhabitants according to scriptures otherwise the Creator/Creatress will continue to inflict the wrath upon us. The problem is how are they going to run their own independent government when they cant even stand to look at each other? They know nothing of their holy Prophet whom we know wasnt Yawshur/Jesus as so many of them continue to believe and worship faithfully.They dont even realize what they are doing but one day soon they are going to run like wild animals away from the church and return to being spiritual not religious because religion is law.
And I thought I was out there…