Dustwallow suggested a thread on when people woke up and realized our economic and political system was corrupt, rigged, dysfunctional, and designed to benefit the few at the expense of the many. I’ll start it off.
I turned 40 in 2003. I knew the world had changed after 9/11 but I was still a diehard Republican. I had voted for Bush in 2000. I was outraged by the 9/11 terrorist attack and fully supported the invasion of Afghanistan. I didn’t question the rapid passage of the Patriot Act. I had never even heard of Ron Paul. I also believed the rhetoric from the Bush administration leading up to the Iraq War. I particularly trusted Colin Powell, so when he went before the world showing pictures of weapons sites and mobile labs, I was convinced.
As the Iraq War got under way and no weapons of mass destruction were found, I began to question the entire story. This coincided with my personal disillusionment with the company I had helped go from $80 million in revenue to $1 billion in revenue. My fourteen years of dedicated service was ending badly as a clueless CEO ruined the company and people I thought were friends threw me under the bus.
After leaving IKEA and being so angry at Bush’s lies that I actually voted for Kerry in 2004, I began to read the writings of Bill Bonner, John Mauldin, Richard Russell, John Hussman, Robert Shiller, Doug Casey, and many of the websites listed on the side of this page. These people opened my eyes to the evils of the Federal Reserve, inflation and debt financed “prosperity”. I began following Ron Paul and reading his articles. I questioned everything I had been taught and everything being spewed at me by the MSM.
When I witnessed the scorn and ridicule heaped upon Ron Paul by the Republican Party establishment during the 2007/2008 debates I was infuriated and decided to write an article. Lew Rockwell published Why We Need Ron Paul in the spring of 2008. I found an outlet for my new found passion at the Seeking Alpha website. My first article on the site in early August of 2008 was Is the Banking System Safe?. I wrote an article per week all through the 2008/2009 crash. I was the third most popular writer on Seeking Alpha, but as they got bigger they tried to censor and edit my articles.
That was when I started TBP version 1 with Crazy Jason. That ended in a scene remiscient of a Quentan Tarantino movie. For the last two years I’ve been running my own site with the help of some good friends at my university.
That is the story of my awakening. Let’s hear everyone’s story, even those who normally don’t post.
My awakening started the day Paulson and the democrats handed over/stold $750 billion in taxpayer dollars to banksters, and the rest of the mass corruption related to Wall Street and banksters. I started writing a book, and while doing so, I came across an article by James Quinn. I asked him if I could use the article for my book, and he said yes. Around that time I found TBP. The book got finished (admin has a copy), and the learning curve has continued sine then.
The second most significant time was the day Obama was elected president. He had no qualifications, no experience, no background, and said nothing but piles of lying bullshit during the election. I became immediately disillusioned, made much worse when he won a noble prize (as I was a scientist, and the Nobel had very special meaning to me). The “affirmative action” president; elected for no other reason than his skin color.
Two years of democratic control of this country made me utterly disgusted. I had to sell my practice to the hospital system because the government didn’t pay their bills, sometimes for months (or go bankrupt). My income was halved as a result of the government non-payment, and I realized they can get away with anything they want. I didn’t think obamacare could possibly pass, but it did. It wll destroy the healthcare system, without a doubt.
So, I have JQ/admin to thank, and having “taken the red pill” to see reality. We live in a far different country than the one I grew up in. I’ve lived in Asia and traveled all over the world, and I have kids. I’d like to bail sometimes, and I surely could; but I feel responsible for them, what kind of world they are going to grow up in. I’m optimistic that after the collapse, something better is possible. My greatest frustration has been with the government, and all they ways they have screwed with me. They have got to go, and the people of this country have given them enough rope. They will hang themselves, I guarantee it.
My awakening happened while researching for Y2K. I found dieoff.com and I went on from there.
I learned about peak oil and was one of the early joiners of the original RunningonEmpty Yahoo group that debated whether peak oil was real, and if so, what should we do about it.
I’ve been very slowly prepping since about 2003, when I bought my retreat property.
I see all of the political and elite actions of the past 30 years as expected behavior in light of the expectation of TEOTWAWKI.
Oh, and I was born in’67 and have 2 preschool kids and a total unbeleiver of a wife I am trying to save.
Admin,
I was just thinking about this very topic; when I took the “red pill.”
It was a sunday morning in early 2007, made a bowl of corn pops and turned on the idiot box and started flipping thru the channels. I stopped at the public access channel (channel 16) because a series of quotes popped up, including Jefferson and Henry Ford’s quotes about banks. I was glued and watched the whole thing, then looked it up on youtube and watched it again. It was Aaron Russo’s documentary America; Freedom to Fascism which opened my eyes to fractional reserve banking and introduced me to Ron Paul. It opened my eyes and made me start to question many things. He did an outstanding job and the movie Trading Places makes so much more sense after having learned so much about him. It lead me to his interview on the Financial Sense Newshour which lead me to your earlier writings that were published there. I still remember trying to go to your site (the old version) one day but you had gotten into it with the douche-bag webmaster or host so he shut you down and the site didn’t exist for a little while. Your site lead me to Casey Research along with LRC which lead me to Pro Libertate (Will Griggs), Walter Williams and Eric Peters (http://ericpetersautos.com/). My mind is more open to learning than it ever has.
Since then my eyes have been open, I have had periods when I have been down in the dumps and felt helpless and perpetually surrounded by completely ignorant morons but that evolved into joy when I realized I had gotten my sister and many close friends to see things more clearly, to think critically and read the likes of bastiat and visit sites like lewrockwell.com regularly. The trajectory of things isn’t good but looking for the signs of what is really going on so that myself and my family and friends have a good chance of getting through it while also having some fun keeps me going.
I even started my own site which went live yesterday (http://thestrangestbrew.com/). One of the reasons I was thinking about when i took the red pill was because I was working on emails to yourself, Lew Rockwell, Doug Casey, Dave Galland and Eric Peters to thank you guys for doing the work you do. you have gotten me to want to write myself and put my thoughts out there, even if it is for no one but myself. I was lucky, by accident/luck my mind was opened before I even turned 25, much later and i would have multiple new car paymentsm an underwater mcmansion and my mind might have been lost for good.
It is so true when Ron Paul quotes Victor Hugo, “nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
At the age of 15, I canvassed for McGovern in ’72. I was an antiwar democrat. Right after college I did some free lance writing for a local tabloid. I was assigned to cover the State Fair. It was 1980 so there were a lot of political booths. The Libertarian Party was there and I didn’t know shit about, so I wandered over to chat. The lady manning the booth was Tonie Nathan, who ran as VP on the first LP ticket. Being jewish, she loved to debate. By coincidence, so did I. We talked for about three hours. I was impressed that I couldn’t get her to contradict herself. Before I left, I asked for a reading list.
It took me about three years to come to her position. As I read Mises and Rothbard, at first I thought it was bullshit
wtf, that previous comment autoposted. Fuck it. Anyway, I’ve been a libertarian of various shades for three decades. However after 9/11 and the aftermath, I became much more radical in my views. I came to recognize Israel as the dangerous parasite that it is. I came to realize that the corruption of the power elite was beyond my wildest dreams. I stopped being able to recognize this country as the same one that I grew up in.
harry p
You are welcome to cross post your writings here on TBP.
My story is similar to yours, Admin, although my awakening was delayed by about 4 more years. The election of 2008 was the beginning of my awakening. I was completely dumbfounded at the final candidates put forth by both parties and I found myself asking “How the hell did that happen????” It set me forth on a quest for the truth. When We the People were completely ignored by our leaders when we said not just “No!” but “Hell NO!” to the bailouts, I knew then without a doubt that our political process had been wrested away from us. I was thrilled with the response of the Tea Party and attended one of the first rallies in 2009 and then a rally 6 months later left me numb. The movement had been hamstrung. My hope had been renewed by the Occupy efforts and though I support the intent, I am a bit skeptical now as to whether it will be effective. I appreciate the hard work of young people like David Degraw of AmpedStatus.com
When I began my search for the truth, it led me to the writings of people like Paul Craig Roberts, Charles Hugh Smith, Bill Bonner Chris Martenson, James Howard Kuntsler, Matt Taibbi and to web sites like Zero Hedge, Lew Rockwell, The Mises Institute, Financial Sense, iTulip and Seeking Alpha. At some point during my search, I came across the writings of Jim Quinn. I don’t know if it was via a site already listed or if it was my stumbling on Generational Theory. (Looking back, it looks like I found Jim via Financial Sense and his article titled The Shallowest Generation.) Anyway, I discovered Jim’s writings and I’ve been hooked ever since. The way he relates the times to the tunes speaks to me and I know that it gets the attention of many. I have shared his writings with many people. He has made a huge impact on many.
That “red pill” is a bitter pill, is it not, AWD? Sometimes I wish I’d never taken it. Ignorance is bliss, so they say.
QueCeraCera
Be yourself and think for yourself; and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the conclusions forced on you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance ~Elbert Hubbard
Haary P – I took a look at your site. Very nice. If I could offer one opinion – you require people wanting to post to enter their names and email addresses. You will, in my opinion, get a lot more action if you allow them to post without that requirement.
Y2K: printed off all my financials, stocked up some food/water for 2 weeks, unplugged my computer, drank heavily in celebration when it was a non-event. First real inkling of how connected and fragile the modern world is.
9/11: Hmmm, mebbe the rest of the world is not in love with US, WTF bulding 7? Yeah, bomb the fuckers!
2002-2008: Patriot Act, drones, Affpack/Iraq, rise of the TSA, WTF??? Ultra liberal doc joins the practice and politically oriented fights ensue. HZK re-examines a LOT of her (neo-con) world view.
9/2008: Manufactured global financial crash designed to put Obama in the WH. Media treatment of the 2008 prez campaign eye opening. Obama entire life story under wraps yet ignored by the press AND the Repubs makes HZK go hmmmm.
2008 elections: Widespread election fraud designed to put Dems in place to pass Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, etc…
2008-2011: join doomers.us and blog/comment, start peeling back the onion of reality. Get banned by doomers.us for peeling back onion of reality and exposing hypocrisy/stupidity/insanity of most of the members. doomers.us implodes 2 months after banning HZK. Obama’s Imperial Presidency, expansion of federal power, drones/TSA/NDAA/SOPA. WTF 900 Executive Orders?
2011: Join TBP. Life is good.
Can go back to sleep now.
I woke up in 2008 when they passed the TARP program. I knew something was very wrong and I started looking for information on the computer, which I only previously used for infrequent emails.
I remembered from 9/11 that Bush said the terrorists hated us for our freedoms and that we should shop til we dropped to prove the terrorists wrong, and I had done that as a patriotic American to improve the economy. I thought that the need for the TARP program meant that we were under some kind of financial terrorism, so I googled financial terrorism and 9/11.
I ended up getting a real education, but what I could really relate to was an article by James Quinn that my husband found on Seeking Alpha. I wish I could remember which one it was now, but it was so good, and we laughed so hard at the colorful language!! We both started reading Raging Debate every day, but not posting. There was a point when I thought you must be a lunatic using a prison computer or posting from a cave in Afghanistan, but that passed because I have finally been able to separate honesty from bullshit after years of the soft mind-control I grew up with. Thank God.
I grew up going to Cape May and Wildwood for vacations as a kid, with an Irish Dad, and now with a veterinarian husband, so a houseful of animals, a son the same general age as your kids, so the same concerns about his future. I love that you love your wife after so many years and that you do this for your kids.
I try not to post as often as I really want to because Hubby is a little bit jealous.
I have my wonderful mother to thank for leading me into right direction. She seemed crazy prepping for Y2K and buying gold in 1999, but the more I listened the more things made sense. My true moment of consciousness came in late 2002 after moving to London for work. I was still getting paid in US$ and the exchange rates started rapidly deteriorating against me (I would have lost my 401k etc if I got paid in GBP). I gave my mom a call and we had a long discussion that triggered the light to switch on. I ended up taking out a $30k loan from my parents to buy Euros which went up %25 while was there. After moving back to the states at the end of 2004 I sold my house on May 5th 2005 and put nearly all of the hefty profit into physical gold and silver never looking back.
I had an epiphany shortly after 911.
I was waiting for a ferry in Weehawken that morning and watched both towers collapse. It was so surreal. I felt like I was in a film and moving in slow motion. The terminal was evacuated and I couldn’t get home. So I drove up to the top of Weehawken, where Alexander Hamilton lost his life to Buchanon in a duel. People were exiting the carnage on the ferry and they walked off soaking wet, after being hosed down by FDNY. I picked up two people who made it out of the towers – the roads were closed so we all just stood on the cliff, watching the fires burn. The weather was stunning. Blue clear skies, sunny . I drove a convertible at the time and had the top down. A perfect day.
The smell was toxic – a mixture of chemicals and burned flesh and it lasted for weeks.
Finally, we were able to drive out of the area and I took them home. One was a really young guy – in his 20’s. He worked at the World Trade Center – it was his first job. The other was an older woman who had worked there all her adult life. Both were in shock and very anxious to get home.
Later, I recall thinking it was incredibly odd that the FBI announced the names and background of the fiends within minutes of the attack. If they knew so much about these creeps, why wasn’t anyone from law enforcement tracking them?
When the meme developed that it was OBL and Al Queda, I recalled an incident earlier in the summer that took on a new meaning.
Back in July, I was driving down the Palisades on a park road. It was a way to break up the commute to the ferry and I recognized many of the same people walking their dogs, riding their bikes or just hanging out.
On this day tho, there was a small group of 4-5 young men – all in their 20’s, mid-eastern background, standing by the side of the road. They were next to a blue, early model Ford van that looked like it had been recently painted. They were all very well dressed – for NJ – wearing khakis and button down shirts. At the time, I thought they were graduate students. Maybe engineers on a VISA who wanted to get a look at NYC skyline. The only problem was, the position they were in did not afford a view. So, I slowed down and was about to say, “Hey guys, if you go up the hill a bit, you’ll see the GW Bridge, St. John’s Cathedral and some other really great sites.”
But I never got that far. Just as I was about to speak, one of the guys – seemed older than the others, turned and gave me the most awful look. He looked straight at me and I sensed pure evil. I stopped in my tracks, hit the gas and moved on.
I told Mr. Malone about the incident over dinner that day and got the tired lecture, “You can’t talk to strangers. This isn’t upstate NY, blah, blah, blah..”
But after 911, I wondered if these guys had designs on the GW Bridge and were scouting it out. So I walked up to an FBI agent on the ferry and told her what I saw. She told me to contact the NJ Port Authority Police. So I did.
I walked into their offices at the foot of the GW that same day. Two beefy cops who looked like they ate nails for breakfast were sitting on grey folding chairs in the atrium.
I repeated my story and asked if they wanted to go to the place where I saw these guys. They asked if I had the license plate. I said, “No.” They talked it over and decided it wasn’t on their turf. I should contact the Palisades Parkway Police. So I did.
The next day, I left home early and drove down the Hudson River along the Park, looking for an officer. I repeated my story and told the officer I was really worried the GW would be next. He said, “Me too.” I asked him if he had back-up, if there were cameras positioned under the bridge along the road in the park. He said he was it.
That wasn’t the answer I was looking for, so I contacted NJ Office of Homeland Security. I spoke to Brad, related my story. He said,”Thanks so much for calling. Have a nice day.” Never took down my name or contact info. It was a week after Gov. Jim McGreevy jumped out of the closet to escape federal influence peddling charges. Maybe Brad was dating the Gov. I dunno.
So, still concerned about the GW Bridge, I reached out to the FBI again. I spoke with an agent in the anti-terrorism task force who took the info – but not my name and contact info and hung up.
Now it’s really started to appear that the US government has absolutely no intention of protecting the GW Bridge or us from future terror strikes.
So about a month later, I call the FBI again. This time I reach an agent with a pulse, who takes my name is interested in the info and sounds like he’s gonna check it out.
Maybe he did – maybe he didn’t. I’ll never know.
But it slowly dawned on me as they passed the Patriot Act, doubled down on Iraq War, ramped up the brown shirts at the TSA that this was an elaborate ruse. I couldn’t say that publicly tho. Just kept it to myself.
By the time 2008 arrived I knew for certain that we were being conned. TARP was the final straw. I joined the Tea Party, found The Burning Platform and have used my critical thinking skills ever since.
I wish I could say I lived happily ever after. But being awake is far more interesting than walking around in a stupor. Even if it’s painful at times. At least it’s real.
Jeeze, Louise, that was a long post. So sorry about that. I really got carried away!
I’ve been a Libertarian for years. I guess I finally completed my wake up call post 9/11, specifically the Patriot Act. There is NOTHING patriotic about that shit. There is so much wrong with what this country has become….so much damage done to the Constitution and the fascist bullshit running this place. Every day is like watching a slow motion movie of the country headed down a slide into a pile of shit.
I love TBP. This place is home. I should post more. Perhaps I will but sometimes I just don’t want to get into the way of llpoh, admin, and AWD. Can’t add to something already perfect.
cool stories, people. great idea, Admin.
i was also a diehard Republican and have always had a mistrust of the government, but in the mid 2000s i saw that the GOP was just as a collectivist, control freak, big government party as the Dems. despite their rhetoric, maybe they always had been, that’s just when i took note.
given my line of work, it took the financial crisis for me to wake up, this is how i first saw it. the events of the summer of 2007 were troubling and i began to wonder but was still fast asleep. then at some point in the summer of 2008, june i think it was, barney frank assured us all the fannie and freddie were fine. i knew that was not true, so did everyone i thought, i just figured they’d be a giant and less successful version of the RTC. but then it occurred to me that the chairman of the House financial services committee is not only a fat, disgusting excuse for a human being, but he was scared and he was lying.
then came the nonsense of the Fall of 2008, the election of an amateur with marxist leanings, and finally what killed me was the detroit bailout (not just the bailout, but how bankruptcy law was broken) — this led me to the writings of those mentioned above, including TBP. i’d say i was fullly awake and aware to all angles by summer of 2009, just in time for my 35th birthday.
i’ve always been a libertarian, i just didn’t really know the term.
all hail Admin. and Jim i’m actually hoping you win our FB bet, and i hope we meet some day. you prick (heh).
Mary Malone, it was Aaron Burr who put a ball through Hamilton’s chest. He’s my hero.
Tarp did it for me. 700 something billion is over 2 billion for each of us with some to spare. I googled what s money. The deeper i got the madder I got. Read American Pie by admin somewhere and chased this site down. I am passed being pissed just waitng for the collapse. Learning about goats, cows, water, silver, gold, handtools, and reaquiring my shooting skills. may not agree with all here but love ya. Great site.
Born in 1974, studied and then later taught Mechanical and Space Engineering at Uni. At the time was seriously dating a econ/law student. Was shocked when she asked me for help with the “Econometrics” part of her honours year in economics. This is a field that’s considered “Very Hard” by economists yet the maths involved are the sort of things that first year engineering students pick up and very quickly move beyond. This was the first time I realised that all popular Macroeconomics (how countries do it) is based on really, really bad maths, and assumuptions of “Infinite dilution” of waste products and “Unlimitied supply” — while at the same time Microeconomics (how small businesses do it) is based on much tighter maths with very limited supply. The economic rules that say how many hairdressers one suburb can support are over a thousand times more rigorous than how countries manage their cash flow.
IT boom happened, jumped into IT, did quite well. Heard all the crap about y2k, saw just how much effort IT people were putting in to make it not happen. IT crash happened, heard all the punters whinging about how everything did not go to shit and how they were ‘Ripped off’ – yet I was one of tens of thousands of IT guys that did not get to go to any y2k parties. Did much, much better after the IT crash, picking up all the contracts the big businesses could no longer support.
Saw 9/11 as it happened, was watching with my Dad (also an engineer). First words out of both our mouths and the towers fell, “that’s not how buildings fall”. A couple of hours after everything fell apart watched the last building – several blocks away that was never touched even by debris – just happen to fall over, for no reason. Remembered hearing a commentator go on about how that last building was intented to be the Emergency Control Center for the Island in case of nuke war – that means it was probably the single strongest building in the entire city. Also saw video of people waving streamers while standing in the holes the planes left, just before the building fell.
Read parts of the engineer’s reports on the twin towers, realised that these were entirely based on models and NOT on evidence. Also noticed that the report was unnecessarily long, and overly complicated, it used language in a way that was intended to confuse and be deliberately hard to read – and I’ve read NASA manuals! Since found out the investigating engineers were banned BY LAW from analysing the wreckage — ergo they wrote the report they were told to write and ‘proved’ what they were told to.
Was not surprised when USAnians pointed their innate xenophobia at a scapegoat. Was not surprised that the scapegoat was one that tried moving oil off the US Dollar and onto gold or barter. Was not surprised at the claims of WMDs – this was well known amongst spooks. Was surprised that Dubya didn’t just show the receipt as proof.
Was deeply shocked that our arse licking, toad faced, shit of a Prime Minister, John Howard, jumped on Dubya’s bandwagon at an ASEAN summit, thus pissing off…. oooh … everyone else there.
Did maths over the next 5 years, saw far, far, far too many critical resources depleting, and depleting very quietly. Read up about “Peak Oil” and was surprised to find that the CEOs of most, if not all oil companies saying in the late 90s and very early 00s words along the lines of “yep, that pretty much matches our data” – yet no one else did anything about it.
Was surprised when I found out that the best way to reduce your heating/cooling bills was to paint your roof reflective white (if you’re somewhere hot) or matt black (if you’re somewhere cold) yet suggestions from governments to do that raised such a stink!
Did some research on global warming. As Prince Charles said close to 20 years ago now, “when all the scientists agree on something, that’s worrying….. they don’t even all agree about gravity!”. Watched the manufactured rise of “Climate Change Skeptics” and that stuck in my craw. **EVERY** scientist I’ve ever met is a skeptic. Data rules. If the data doesn’t match the theory, the theory is wrong. Science is based on the 3 core beliefs that 1) if you can’t prove something, it doesn’t exist; and 2) If it’s not repeatable every time, you’re wrong; and 3) every theory you have about everything is wrong – we’ll only accept it for now as ‘good enough’ if no one else can prove your theory wrong for now.
Was not surprised to find that damn close to 100% of the “Climate Change Skeptics” are USAnians. Compared to the real scientists, that are everywhere on the planet, across all countries and cultures.
Watching the increasingly theocratic and dictatorial US tear itself to pieces and consume itself, like some form of demented beast that is busy eating its own entrails while resorting to the old “wag the dog” trick that has served it so well over the past century and made it the bully of the world that it’s become.
Concerned that in its death throws the USAnians will use their weapons to “Salt the Earth” as destroying what it can’t have out of spite is totally within the very well proven pattern of acceptable behaviour for your country.
Watching the rise of the 2nd world and the fall of the 1st as they trade places, yet the 3rd world stays where it is. Can’t help thinking of IngSoc’s policies of social stabilisation from 1984 that mirror this perfectly.
Knowing that if it all goes to shit, the only place safe will be in a self-sustaining and expandable colony outside of Earth orbit. Moon at a pinch, further out at best. Also fear that this will not happen in my lifetime – and if not in my lifetime with this abundance of cheap energy, then possibly not at all.
Accept with disgust that I will never be able to watch the twin moons of Phobos and Demios rise above the horizon of Mars — even though we should be there now.
We learned about the robber barons of the 1800s and early 1900s when I was in the 7th grade. As far as I could tell, things hadn’t really changed.
I argued my point and my teacher’s response was to tell me that I was wrong and then give me suspension for disrupting class.
Thats when I realized its all been a massive charade, and that the media and educational system were playing for the rich people team.
==================================
@Mikey “Accept with disgust that I will never be able to watch the twin moons of Phobos and Demios rise above the horizon of Mars — even though we should be there now.”
To this day I can’t read about the moonlandings or watch footage of them without getting frustrated. We have accomplished so little since then. The astronaut program was what motivated me to be a scientist. I could never go to space (queasy stomach and terrible vision) but maybe if I helped support missions I could still feel like I was a part of it.
Then I got older and realized our race won’t go to Mars unless one of two things happen:
1) We start running out of room/resources and HAVE to relocate.
2) We find precious resources on Mars and the world ends up in a race to colonize it and capitalize on the $$.
Both of those options end up badly, with rich getting richer, the poor dying trying to make the rich richer, and wars all around.
I wish life were more like Star Trek, that we explored for the sake of exploration, and sought a deeper understanding of the world due to curiosity and not due to quarterly earnings.
Hooray for dreams.
As a contractor, I was working on a residential project for a client. This was late summer 2008. I had previously finished one project for this client and while working on the second contract, he proposed a third. I thought I had hit the jackpot ’cause all these jobs were pretty lucrative. But I dawdled getting the third one signed; it was in the bag, right? One day he asked when I’d get the proposal to him and I told him I’d have it tomorrow. That was September 2008. When I got home that night, it was all over the news that John McCain had suspended his campaign and hurried back to Washington to attend to the imminent financial collapse. The stock market had tanked. The next day when I tried to present my proposal to my client, he waved me off saying that he couldn’t afford it now; he had lost a bundle on the stock market downturn.
For a week I beat myself up over that, all the while wondering what the hell just happened. And one day while listening to the radio in my man-cave/work shop, I heard an interview with a guy named Gerald Celente. Yeah, that Gerald Celente. Then, later that same day it was Tom Woods’ turn to try to open my eyes through a radio interview. Up until then I didn’t know the difference between fiat and flapjacks, but after hearing these guys I was determined to find out WTF just happened. So off a’Googling I went. When I googled Tom Woods to find out who this guy was, I was presented with a couple of Youtubes of him and one of Peter Schiff titled “Peter Schiff Was Right”. I was floored. Then after following several links I hit a new ‘jackpot’, the Red Pill jackpot: The Crash Course at ChrisMartensen.com. The rest is history .
Now I regularly peruse numerous websites (most of the ones on Admin’s Favorites list) to glean updates on the calamity that awaits.
@ThePessimisticChemist
did you know that your goverment spent more on airconditioning in Iraq and A/stan in 2007 than it spent on the entirity of NASA, and non-military space exploration combined? Made me so angry when I found that out.
They stopped monitoring Voyager just when it was doing something really, really strange – it was slowing down. How? There was nothing there!
It cost waaaay less than $100k to keep monitoring it for the year – now we literally cannot find it as we do not know where to look.
2001, lying on my bed at Uni listening to “the fire this time” by grant wakefield. Changed my life on a chance purchase.
check it out below
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~gw/index02.htm
I’ve been an engineer all my life, since long before I got any degrees. Murphy’s law, skeptism, and always having a Plan B (and C) came naturally to me. I.e., I have always been a doomer. My decision to move to Alaska in ’86 was in large part due to feeling like being in West LA area was to be a sitting duck. Some of us still worried about nuclear attack in those days, not to mention EMP. Also was a neo-con style Repub. To this day, I have warm & fuzzy feelings about Reagan. But I realized the economy was in big trouble in the late ’90s, during the internet bubble. I just couldn’t see why companies that produced nothing should be worth anything. Needless to say, I missed out, because I won’t invest in something I can’t rationally explain. I also missed out on the crash-silver lining.
Flash forward to 2008 (or thereabouts), when a co-worker with similar economic views gave me a copy of “Boomers, Your Crisis Has Arrived” from Financial Sense. I read it, and it made so much sense, connected so much shit I had recognized but not been able to tie together. But I was baffled by the Boomer vs Xer distinction, as born in ’63, I had always considered myself a Baby Boomer (by conventional demographic definition), yet I identified w/ the Xer experience. I was surprised that by Strauss & Howe’s generational theory, I was, in fact, an Xer. Admin’s writing and summary of S&H inspired me to read & research more. When I couldn’t get my fix of Quinn’s writing on Financial Sense, I googled and ended up at TBP. What a country, eh? I couldn’t have found a more comfortable place to land.
Oh yeah, when you start to connect the dots. Born in the Great Depression, and the WW2 thing, Korea, always with an uneasy feeling that I don’t get it, why does everything seem not quite right? It must be me. Then, 1959, the turning point, I think.
Rickover’s “Education and Freedom.” and the year I discovered “Atlas Shrugged”. Interesting read, I thought of it as allegory, or metaphor, no idea it would be a roadmap to the 21st century.
There I was, married, reasonably good job, a new car the year before, taking university classes at night, it’s all good. And then I was drafted. WTF peacetime draft? Why am I in a standing army again? Ft. Hood, last group to be trained with the M-1 which was phased out, for why? No retraining later. WOFTAM. Then Ft. Knox, end up in Washington, DC, assigned to G-2 as security clerk.
That was the official title, some of my time was spent writing the monthly intelligence summary that was actually the responsibility of officer grade, not a disaffected grunt draftee.
And there was the captain recently back from Germany, bragging about how he smuggled fine art paintings back into the U.S. And and and … a hundred stories of misfeasance, malfeasance and more. By that time Barbara had finished the contract job she was on and came to D.C. I’d had to organize finding civilian accomodation as Ft. McNair that I was nominally based at had no married enlisted quarters. But they had General’s Row. And long-term non-coms assigned as chauffeurs, cooks, bartenders, gardeners … so this is our answer to the Cold War.
By the time Kennedy was elected, I had manuevered myself into a slot in the information office as a journalist. Good timing as there was the Civil War Centennial Commission and the re-enactment of the Lincoln inuguration and I became the go–to guy for the historical perspective and the tie to the army involvement in the bread & circuses.
A lot of time at the Library of Congress where I discovered the reality of The Blue and The Gray in the early stages of the War of Northern Aggression. Oh yeah. Don’t believe Hollywood history.
Somewhere along there, I discovered some information about the Federal Reserve System. WTF?
And, of course, being a journalist, one naturally meets others. One, Washington Post columnist with a real dislike fostered by his time at Ft. McNair. Heh. I was the leak for the scheme to save money by assigning army personnel to maintenance duties whether qualified or not. The day after his story came out, I happened to be in the back room of the press office. Seems that story caused quite a ho-hah and the most important thing was … to find the leak. (I met Tom Wolfe, too.)
And our major was making calls everywhere, not knowing I was there, everyone else that day was on assignments and away. So I heard him phone the chaplain of the command wondering if anyone had happened along whining about this arbitrary duty. So this fine Christian gentleman says (as I’m listening in the back room) “Why, major, there’s been no one, I’d certainly let you know who it was had there been.” So much for the confidentiality, eh?
And there was the scuttle butt of politicians high and low, none of which inspires you about the nation’s leadership.
Including Kennedy who came tapdancing into office proclaiming too much was spent on the military and he would be cutting back. And he began. On the grunt level, it was people being released from active duty up to three months early. I was within two weeks by comparison when the reversal happened. I’d had some leave time up my sleeve and gone back to Ohio for a short span to hear his Sunday night speech to the American people. The fucking Berlin Crisis speech. All, really, because of Krushchev … “He called me a boy!”
So I got four months, three days and two hours extra time in which the only real thing I accomplished for the army was writing the definitive History of the Military District of Washington. For which, I received a letter of commentation from the Pentagon. Which was a real hoot! because I had been censured by someone there because of the Real History I’d written and published in approved publication. Some people have no sensayuma.
So I returned to civvie street and my guaranteed job back at AT&T, except for the minor hearing impairment which was their excuse to deny me. And I wrote an Ohio politician and, yeah, got my job back. Probably the kiss of death for any career advancement there for me, making them look bad.
And then, bearing in mind, drafted for active duty still had a requirement for Army Reserve for X … and I was assigned to an artillery unit.
Well, I’d certainly learned how the game was played and took an opportunity to sign up for an evening shift, from which I was able to extricate myself from active reserve duty, being ‘in a sensitive occupation’ or some shit.
So, with this exposure to the ‘belly of the beast’, nothing since has been a surprise or shock.
It’s been a long journey and the worst is yet to come. Interesting times!
Admin, i will definitely take u up on the offer.
llpoh- thanks for the thoughts, that’s something that my friend (did most of the design work) and i were talking about last week after seeing dk rises. To get more hits and posting that is the way to go but i am not sure how that affects the # of “shit throwing monkeys” which i dont want to get too out of hand, plus it isnt nearly done yet, it was just done enough to get it out there, it isnt even searchable for engines just yet. I’ve only shared it with places i post and respect and a few close friends.
Thanks for sharing, Admin, et al. I woke up slowly, over a span of nearly 20 years. From being uber-patriiotic and conflating that with being a Republican, as well as buying into at least some of the theology peddled to buttress both (my church was not responsible for the latter), I, over time, came to see palpable lies all around me, and as they formed a pattern in my mind, patriotism became, for me, a mandate to oppose those who had hijacked our society from within and without the government.
It started with the realization, from watching family members suffer, that the courts are corrupt. Too many stories, some from the past, and some unfolding before my eyes, of courts indifferent or hostile to anything remotely describable as justice have I heard or seen to be dismissed as randomness; a pattern emerged that i could not ignore.
At the national level, the tun-up to the Iraq War, replete with stories about Saddam’s legions taking babies of respirators and how he had more tanks than Hitler, etc., was the last time I believed what the gov’t told me. As the news leaked out that most of those news reports were false, I realized that we’d been lied into war.
Reading Any Rand, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and other original thinkers helped create a scaffolding upon which the ‘facts that don’t fit’ could be arranged into a coherent whole, a counter-history of the times. Abandoning other sources, such as national review, which I’d read since age 17 back in the late 1970s, also helped, as it became clear that their line didn’t fit the facts nor their exegesis explain why things were the way they were.
All that, along with having discovered Ron Paul in the 1980s (‘The Case for Gold’) prepared my mind for a clean break with the GOP and conventional thinking. That happened when I watched the State of The Union address (for the last time) in 2003 and heard Bush ’43 shift the GWOT focus from bin Laden to Saddam. I turned to my wife and told her that I was through. FWIW, the Constitution Party got my vote the last two presidential election cycles.
There was no ‘Road to Damascus’ moment for me, but rather a progressive awakening over time. Now that I’ve taken the Red Pill, however, there’s no turning back, nor would I wish to. ‘Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free,’
I am almost 57 years old. As early as the 1970’s, when I was a teenager, it was obvious to me that our economic model of prosperity….with GDP growth year over year into infinity…was ultimately unsustainable. I just didn’t realize that the bubble would burst in my own lifetime.
Like you, I really started to question where we were headed when the Iraq war was shown to be a hoax. It was obvious to me then that the Executive branch was using the excuse of 9-11 to trample on our Constitutional protections while pursuing an unannounced foreign policy of oil hegemony.
It wasn’t until the 2008 crash that I began to educate myself about the Fed and money creation..and saw the way that corporate capture had hamstrung the political process and rendered the two party system moot.
I am grateful for the many fine bloggers and activists who have written the truth while the MSM continues to obfuscate and deny. You are among my favorites, although I seldom if ever comment.
I have also been heavily influenced by Damon Vrabel and the Renaissance 2.0 videos, which I consider to be a must watch for every American.
I have morphed from a liberal democrat into a Ron Paul supporter…consider myself a libertarian with a small L now. I am involved in the the local Transition movement and support Occupy. I admire Chris Hedges, although I no longer share his socialist leanings.
Keep up your excellent work here. I think you are making a difference…change takes time…not sure we have enough time left…but there is honor and glory in fighting for what is right, regardless of the outcome.
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ROP, Gore Vidal. He knew and write about the charade in his books. A previous poster mentioned Aaron Burr, and that brought the report of his passing earlier today to mind. He wasn’t my cup of tea in many ways, but his vision was 20/20 on the rise of the Empire.
http://todayentertainment.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/08/01/13060511-celebrated-author-playwright-gore-vidal-dies-at-86?lite
Mea culpa..that should’ve been ‘RIP.’
A MOST enjoyable and fascinating thread. Threads involving actual TBPer’s experiences … methinks we should have one or two per week.
My first “aha!” moment was when I found out that Santa Claus was not real. I am not kidding. I couldn’t fathom why my parents and teachers would lie to me. I could barely finish high school that year.
Like several above, I had been a loyal neo-con. Subscribed to National Review for several years, believed Bush, Cheney and Powell about Iraq and 911. The edges were fraying though by the time 2008 came around and my 401K dropped by about 45%. I used to watch O’Reilly regularly, and I thought it odd that in one week he went from 100% anti-TARP to supporting it, but I was still mostly a believer. In January ’09, someone left a note on my car at my office that was a specific threat but it was unsigned (pussy). So I bought a pistol, learned how to use it, and became more interested in 2A and the rest of the Constitution. As I read, I came across Oleg Volk, one of the most vocal proponents of self defense and weapons rights – highly recommended if you have not heard of him, especially if you have any doubt about the motives of “gun control” advocates (a-human-right.com). Reading of his childhood in communist eastern Europe and learning about his development of interest in firearms and self defense led me in short order to increasing anger. When O’Reilly said that he thought that Katrina was an adequate justification for gun confiscation, I knew that FoxNews was just another scam by the oligarchs. Found Denninger on one Oleg’s chat rooms, and from there I began to realize how badly we really are screwed. I grew up in Philly (other end of the city from Admin), and I found TBP when I was searching for something Philly and he had just posted an article about “The 30 Blocks of Squalor”. I’ve been reading ever since.
I’m a late Gen X born to Boomer Liberals turned “Jesus Freaks” in 1977. I was raised to hate Regan, “The Man” and especially “dead white men”, and to hate republicans, and think the main role of government was ‘the New Deal’ and ‘war on poverty’. I was raised strict vegetarian, pro animal rights, had to listen to endless Boomer music including “fortunate son” that one song about the Kent State shooting, and of course taught that The Beatles were demigods, just under that long haired peace loving hippy named Jesus. Yeah, so I was pretty much brainwashed and lied to by all of the worst aspects of Boomer culture.
In high school I started to rebel. For everyone my age, being Liberal was the “cool” thing. I took a hard turn to the right and became a young radical in the early 1990s. At 14 I silently gave up religion. I started reading Ayn Rand in my teens, and all of the books written by “dead white men” and the “evil patriarchy of America” aka Federalist Papers, and all of America’s founding documents. Became a huge fan of Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin. Campaigned against Clinton.
I rebelled further by going to an elite ‘establishment’ college in New England. One full of rich liberal Masshole types. On campus I became part of a small group of extreme radicals called “conservatives”. Some of us were Objectivists, some traditionalists, some neocon. We all hated each others philosophies, but hated the oligarchy of liberalism more so we huddled together as a “group”. We started an Ayn Rand reading group, a Rifle club, several small campus periodicals, and read reams of political philosophy and debated it with each other. We would often get into shoving and shouting matches with the 99% – aka the feminist, liberal, communist assholes that run higher education and also their legions of blind sheeple students. This was all in the 1990s, everyone wore Birkenstocks. Majors like “ethnicity, race and migration”, gay studies and women’s studies were exploding. Western civ was being cut from the core curriculum completely. I wore a suit almost everyday to my college classes, and I majored in the Deadest White Male thing I could think of: Classics (ancient Greek, Latin, western history). We were conservative in college in the 1990s. We were hardcore. I’ve NEVER considered myself a Republican, as it has always been clear in my lifetime that they are NOT conservative in any sense. I’m a Libertarian, and have been for 22 years, but I’ve enjoyed several personal conversations with Bill F Buckley jr (RIP) and Henry Kissenger, and if I HAD to choose a dark side to go to it would be Republican all the way.
My parents are still baffled. They don’t understand how this could have happened. Well – they taught me well. They taught me to be a radical and fight the man. By the time I was old enough to – well, the fucking Boomers and their politically correct, America hating communist bullshit had become ‘the man’ and their affirmative action, welfare state, 3rd world ‘Rigoberta Menchu’ socialist poison WAS the establishment. I’m still fighting it.
So, I’ve been “awake” I guess since 1991/age 14?
Great stuff. My eyes are sore from all the reading.
Amazing how many people related stories about TARP and Paulson/democrats. That was, in my opinion, the greatest act of treason this country has ever seen. The people spoke: “no bailouts” and for once the politicians listened and voted down the bailout. Then, in a back room deal with democrats, they passed it anyway. They should have been hung or shot for treason, everyone involved, and the banksters should have been left to let the markets sort out their collapse. Imagine what our nation would look like now if that had happened? I still believe all involved will be tried and convicted of treason, after the collapse.
It began with The Creature From Jekyll Island, which I read in 2000. Blew me away.
Sometime after that I dropped out of the US tax system, but eventually had to pay it all with interest, etc. It’s a voluntary system and they caused me to re-volunteer back into it.
Since then I have read all kinds of stuff and it has been on-going awakening. Hat tip to TBP, Jesse, ZH, The Automatic Earth, Chris Hedges, and many, many others. Thank you all.
Much more could be said, but I will close with the most difficult insight of all, one that I’m still trying to digest. The constitution has NEVER been the law of the land. If it had we would not see the fiat money, the SCOTUS decisions that have come down, the loss of habeus corpus, etc. Anything that resembles constitutional provisions is merely statutory. THEY allow the illusion of a constitution as long as it suits their purpose. As GW Bush said, “The constitution is a goddam piece of paper.” Just see what happens when you go into a court of law and try to invoke one or more of the constitutional provisions.
It’s never too late…
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take the red pill, see how deep the rabbit hole goes…
take the blue pill, and continue watching CNBC, FOX, CNN, MSNBC, The Kardasians, The View, Jersey Shore, and reading the NY Times. Stay an ignorant sheep for as long as possible.
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Actually, it was that same GW Bush heard one day on tv saying something about pandemic preparedness that opened my eyes.
I found a couple of pandemic flu sites and spent a lot of time there learning and beginning to prep. On one of those sites a link took me to The Market Ticker, where I really got a slap in the face!
Eventually, a link on the Ticker forum brought me to TBP where I get a kick in the ass daily! Ha!
(That’s the short version 😉 )
@newsjunkie,
Then just don’t tell him.
MM needs her kitty pics!!! 🙂
My very first eye-opening foray into alternative/conspiracy news was a book I read as a teenager, “None Dare Call It Treason.” This gist being that America was losing the cold war because it was being betrayed by its elites, who were procommunist.
A few short years later I read “None Dare Call It Conspiracy” (different authors). The gist being that a small group of insiders, mostly international banksters, controlled world events.
I’ve been hating on the elite and banksters ever since …. waaay before it was cool to do so.
After suffering the business cycles created by the Fed in 75, 80-81, 89-90, I wanted the truth. I tried McGraw Hill, Fortune, Forbes etc. I found Bill Bonner, Lord Reese Mogg and James Dale Davidson. And then while building four homes in Jeddah, SA in 93-94, I came to the realization watching other sovereign news that we were being had. I also made the acquaintance of two CIA contractors at the Al Bilad Hotel who had flown both side of Iran Contra. Using the night drop of aid as chum for the day job flying a gunship. How fucked up is that. In 94 they were flying chat to Mohamed Farrar Aideed as a back door intel loop. All the while giving those fucks an edge over our guys. When I ended my contract in Jeddah they were flying arms from Iran to Croatia for Clintons war. I became very disillusioned but awakened to the moral depravity of the Western world. I had always believed in the US. With the majority behind Bill Clintons adulterous behavior because the economy was good, I knew that free market capitalism was doomed. Contracts require trust. Immorality creates suspicion and when unpunished it spreads like a cancer. A real business killer. We are witnessing the dying patient in its final throws. Admin. This is a very depressing state of affairs but it is our burden. Past generations have had theirs. The smile of your child or grandchild brings out my hope and responsibility to keep smiling. To keep trying to cushion the impending shock to our lives and souls. No one at this point can reverse it in my opinion. It has gone too far. We must suffer total collapse to reverse moral decline. It will have to take personal suffering the likes of which we cannot imagine right now. I called off a mountaineering expedition to Bolivia this month. I need to be close by right now. We seem to be real close.
The day John McCain suspended his campaign to go back to Washington and make sure TARP passed. Been a front line shit throwing monkey ever since.
Go back to the Jason & RE days at raging debate. Had the privilege of working with James at IKEA. Not one of the ones that threw him under the bus. Speaking of which Jim, how’d Mike ever make out with that Russian prostitute?
i feel i was enlightened as a child. i knew, even then, something wasn’t as it should be. i was taught one thing and everyday, when my father watched the news, i heard another. i, also, saw things on the tv and heard things from the radio, no one else seemed to see nor hear. i discovered subliminals. my father was in the air force and i went to the base occasionally and i heard conversations i don’t think i was supposed to be privy to, so i think i know things i shoudn’t, but what military brat doesn’t? no, i knew even then there was no real usa in the fashion i was taught to believe. when the national guard shot the students at kent state , i knew nothing would stop the military or police from shooting innocent people. in 1987 i had a waking vision. i saw what is happening now and what is to come. when i told all my friends and family about my vision, they scoffed. they didn’t want to believe our own government could do the things they are and plan on doing. i told them and still they don’t believe. when the government sends its soldiers (think thugs in uniform) to get our guns, will they believe me then? i think about the german who said, ” they came for the communists, but i did not speak out because i was not a communist……..” well i’ve been speaking out now for 25 years and they are still coming to take us all away. i knew way back when i was a very young child, something wasn’t quite right. BUT NO ONE WOULD LISTEN AND NO ONE IS LISTENING NOW, EITHER.
CV, they are, it is frustrating as many (mostly seniors) don’t seem to have the ability to comprehend the truth, but we march on.
Ron Paul will have hundreds of delegates at the convention this month, that did not happen 4 years ago.
SAH
“well, the fucking Boomers and their politically correct, America hating communist bullshit had become ‘the man’ and their affirmative action, welfare state, 3rd world ‘Rigoberta Menchu’ socialist poison WAS the establishment.”
Just brilliant. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I’m still taking a nap. Wake me when it’s over.
1999. When I retired and found time to start reading what was going on in the world. And knowing that I alone was responsible for paying for the rest of my existence. You can become conservative in a hurry.
Jim, thanks for doing this… it’s fascinating to read everyone’s experiences. SSS, no dropping out. You probably have one of the best stories here.
I can’t remember an exact ‘tipping point’ for me. A ’67 birth cohort, myself, I grew up thinking that we’d probably seen the best days of America and that it could very well cease to exist (as we know it) during my lifetime. Born of first-generation parents (Silent) and immigrant grandparents (Lost) who’d escaped Hitler’s Germany and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, an appreciation for freedom was drilled into my head from the beginning, as well as the need to keep those things from ever happening here.
My parents grew up during the Depression and knew the value of learning to live off the grid, so we did, for the most part. Education was key, so we were pushed to excel in school and earn full-ride scholarships to university, where I became a scientist. Like others here with that background, you learn to think critically and question even empirical evidence, and so I did.
Fast forward to a career that has included agribusiness, investment banking, economic development/promotion for AUSTRADE, securities research and advertising/PR in several U.S. cities and the entire Asia-Pacific region. I think it was Singapore, circa 1998, when I started talking to people about buying gold and making offshore investments based on what the government was doing in the U.S. Lived through the Asian Financial Crisis and saw what economic collapse looked like, first-hand. And how/why it differed in Thailand, India, the Philippines, Singapore. Didn’t prep so much for Y2K because we’d always prepped. Depression-era parents always had months worth of food stored, and I’ve always done the same.
Was working in PR in the early 2000’s, when I had the pleasure to meet and work with Bill Strauss and Neil Howe. The Fourth Turning fascinated me, with its evidence of cyclical patterns and generational cohorts. Everything began to make sense… and I was left with a renewed sense of dread for the future. At dinner one night, Bill and I discussed for hours how the Crisis was likely to come about here; like Neil, he was optimistic that society would do the right thing and pull through.
When 2001 happened, I didn’t look for conspiracies, so much. But I did see, first-hand, how our government put together the case for war in the Middle East. I can’t say much here, other than my firm worked for one ME government and our job was to “spin” public opinion. Add to that work for a few mortgage banks, targeting sub-prime consumers, and I decided to get the hell out of that business.
Since I still work in studying consumers and shaping opinions and behaviors, I’ve remained active in generational theory mixed with economic outcomes. Found Jim’s writings on a recommendation from S&H and haven’t looked back. Learned a lot since then, and my preps have increased significantly. However, I’m also thinking about the next High and how investments now will pay off for my family far into the future. If we get there. I know I may not, because I am committed to fighting to keep our freedoms. I’m just trying to teach the next generation well.
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In 2007, my son went off to college and his last words were “dad, i left a paper you should read on my desk”. So about a week later I read it. Peak Oil paper. It didn’t hit me at first. A week later I read it again and then started searching peak oil. Oh my god. This scared the shit out of me. I was in the Nuclear Navy, and when I read Admiral Rickover’s (father of nuclear navy) speech from back in 1957, I knew we were screwed. One thing leads to another, 4 hours a night following links, going down rat holes, finding gems. Everything energy, economy, environment, ecology, denial, and politics. I feel this thread is like an AA meeting. We are all in the same boat as far as our realizations. Only one thumb down so far against AWD.
For me it was watching my dad try to run a buisness when Carter was president,21% interest rates!
While i like his thinking im really disappointed in Ron Pauls campaign.It stunk! I think if he hired an actor to point out why his thinking is right he could still get elected.
This is a very interesting thread. I was blessed to have been exposed to Austrian economics and Ron Paul at the age of 18 by one of my accounting professors in 2006. Yes, I’m also shocked that a professor in the college education system personally studied and promoted Austrian economics and Ron Paul. He was a rare gem. He had a strong interest in finance as well and had posted a commentary on his website on gold. At this time, I didn’t know anything about gold, Austrian economics, Ron Paul, or independent thinking in general but I read that entire commentary and was absolutely blown away by the data he laid out. Prior to reading this commentary, I would watch CNBC or read from MSM websites to get educated on the markets. I quickly realized that something didn’t add up here. I emailed him a hundred times at least with question after question; he took the time to thoroughly answer everyone. I believe I had an enlightening moment after reading that commentary. My way of thinking was transformed since that experience and my journey for discovering the truth in everything began at this point. I began reading everything I could get my hands on related to Austrian economics and Ron Paul. My professor passed along some financial websites to explore such as financial sense, goldseek, Ron Paul’s website, and other related sites. I quickly became a loyal follower of Peter Schiff, John Embry, Jim Sinclair, Bill Bonner, and others. I probably spent 2 hours a day at least studying Austrian economics and finance. I still do. I learned quickly at the age of 18 that you will never make BIG money as an investor following the herd. By the time I got in business school, I was light years ahead of other finance students. It wasn’t that I was smarter than everyone else but that I was informed with the truth and had a passion for business that was unusual for the typical business student. I remember having discussions with my finance professors on gold, silver, and mining equities. Of course, they refused to see the big picture that I tried to paint for them in regard to buying and holding gold, silver, and quality mining equities. Since 2006, by the grace of God, I stayed with my beliefs and convictions and didn’t let anyone change my ways or thoughts on finance, economics, and politics. It was lonely but I had this inner feeling that my views on the markets, politics, and thinking were sound. All along the way, I had family, friends, and colleagues try to tell me I was crazy or wrong or missing out on other opportunities. I was blessed to have made good money as a college student during those times and invested every extra dollar I saved into gold, silver, and mining equities and stay focused on my strategy. Last year, my dad called me and told me he should have listened to me on gold and that he wanted to invest in gold. The truth always prevails in the end but the hard part is staying true to yourself and you convictions. It is important that we should always be thirsty for knowledge and wisdom but careful to the sources we use to gain the knowledge and wisdom. One who spends much time studying Keynesian economics, will never gain sound wisdom regardless, how many hours they spend studying and applying the principles.
@purplefrog – I forgot about “Creature From Jekyll Island”. I read that right around ’92, but I didn’t know what to make of it. It didn’t seem to jive with everything I thought I knew at the time. Obviously now, it is like reading a crystal ball. I heard about the book from the late great Irv Homer (Philly AM talk radio – he reveled in being named on the list of “Most Dangerous Men In America”)