“Perhaps a study on what/how/when others “woke up” – and why they continue even in the face of social seclusion – is in order.” ——-Olga, in “Totalitarianism Part 2” thread
Awesome idea. It would be great if ALL our regulars participated. I will keep my own story brief.
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My journey first started with a few key books in my early years (before I turned 25);
—– Some book about The German Expulsion after WWII ended. I was in my teens when my dad brought it home. I don’t even remember the title. I read about the millions of Germans who were displaced from their native countries … people like my parents … and how thousands upon thousands died. It was the first time I asked myself, “How come I’ve never heard about this before?”
—- “Population Bomb”. I know a lot of people discredit Paul Ehrlich, even here, but it made a big impact on me. It was the first time I thought about too-many-people not-enough-resources. And here we are 40 years later and I’m worried about Peak Oil, Peak Water, Peak Food, Peak Ice, and even Peak Beryllium. Ehrlich was right, after all.
—- “None Dare Call It Treason”. From the introduction — “The story you are about to read is true. The names have not been changed to protect the guilty. This book may have the effect of changing your life. After reading this book you will never look at national and world events in the same way again.” They were correct, I never did look at national events in the same way again. It was my very first intro to Evil Banksters.
—- “Ugly American”. Required reading in high school. I remember I greatly enjoyed the book. Maybe I should read it again (it would be just my second reading) to see how I feel 40 years later. But this book opened my eyes for the first time to the idea that “Hey, our government is fucked up.”
—- “Flight TWA 800”. This is THE book that cemented forever in my mind that government does not exist for the people, that government is made up of liars, and that all they really ever care about is keeping themselves in a position of power & privilege. I’ve not looked back or changed my mind since.
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Aside from books, there are two other key events.
1)- The “Service Economy”, somewhere around the early 1990’s. I was a Software Engineer for Hewlettt-Packard. My territory was all of Northern Indiana. 90% of my accounts were MANUFACTURERS; —- US Steel in Gary, BF Goodrich, several auto and auto-parts manufacturers, RV and manufactured-homes businesses in the Elkhart area, two large GE plants (Specialty Transformers and Jet Engine, both in Fort Wayne), a grain silo manufacturer in Holland, Steelcase Office Furniture, and several others. Here’s what happened over the course of just a few years. One by one our software contracts dried up … either because the company went out of business, relocated elsewhere, or simply cut back monies cuz they couldn’t afford it.
You see, to cover the loss of manufacturing jobs, governmentfuks invented the catch phrase “service economy”. This is the totally fucking idiotic notion that we don’t need to actually sell manufactured products!! Screw that shit, citizen! Trust us … we can grow and prosper our nation by doing each other’s laundry for a fee. Furthermore, we’ll legislate into existence thousands upon thousands of useless paper-shuffling jobs, and government “jobs” out the ass. And if you can’t get one of those jobs … don’t worry about it … WE’LL TAKE CARE OF YOU … FREE!!! Service economy my fat ass … at that point I knew we were fucked.
2)- The Burning Platform opened my eyes. Seriously. That’s not me just blowing smoke up Admin’s ass. I recall my very first month here. I posted something. Admin called me a “neocon”. (Really). I asked him, in all sincerity, “What the fuck is a neocon?”. (Really, I had no idea). My, oh my, how far I have come … thanks to Admin and so many of you.
I read Alas Babalon as a 16 year old and it skeered the crap out of me. In 6 months I had collected shotgun ammo and food in my parents basement. Reagan was gunna Nuke the ruskies any fuckin minute and I was going to be prepared.
I laugh now about it. I was basically at ground zero living in a large american shitty. I would have been dead like everyone else.
I went to sleep for 15 years. Got on with life. Had a kid.
The kid woke me up. He is now almost 21 and is a well prepared young man. I have completed my generational duties and can now live peacefully.
Long term prep has recently taken a back seat.
I read “Creature From Jekyll Island” in ’06… funny thing back then it was very unpopular to point out the reality of our fiat money system. The giant monetary shyster dick has been going up the collective asses of Americans (and really people all over the world) for *centuries* and probably longer… it seems that more people have recently become enlightened and yet we still do nothing about it. The final realization happened around 2007 trading S&P futures and watching shit happening in real time that couldn’t be explained with any other conclusion other than severe and massive information asymmetry. The game is rigged from top to bottom in every aspect of our lives. You think JPM, GS and a handful of other bankers don’t know exactly what the fed is going to do, when and for how long, or what exactly the government policy/law is going to be 1 year, 5 years and 10 years from now then you’re just a fucking moron.
Way to get things started, Jimski!! Your prize is one year’s worth of absolutely delicious US Army MRE’s. Check your mail next week.
I should also add — Howard reminded me of this in another thread —- Animal Farm. That was only the second book (up to that point) that I read more than once (Chronicles Of Narnia was the other). Great book. Great quotes. Great insight. Eye-opening, for sure.
700 billion dollars give to bankers. Then I ask a simple question. What is money. Then I became very angered. I walked around trying awaken people. I was called crazy stupid. I warned on onutjob very few listened. Those that did had taken a similar journey.
Worked with Strauss & Howe in the late ’90s, applying their theory of generations to a few clients. Read the Fourth Turning and realized we were in for another Depression/WWII era; after hearing the stories of my parents about growing up in that era, I decided to start preparing to return to the farm and live off the land. Virtually stopped the globe-trotting lifestyle I’d had up to then, choosing to save every penny instead.
Watched 9/11 happen, then Katrina. Since I knew S&H so well, I knew to watch for the change in sentiment that signals a 4T. It seemed to take forever, but it finally came with the TARP bailouts following the Lehman collapse. That’s when I really got busy, buying land, getting back into gardening and food preservation, gearing everything toward a much-reduced standard of living.
Sometime around then, I found TBP from one of Jim’s 4T articles and realized there was a like community of people. The deep insight into government and corporate manipulation of data, the militarization of police, the capitulation of the MSM — all that and more has come from being a part of this online community.
I still work in my job consulting with major companies on strategies to reach their customers, and my understanding of how society is / will change has been invaluable to that. But I’m ready to ‘head for the hills’ as soon as things get bad enough.
1. Turning off the TV and finding alternate news and more productive ways to use my time.
2. Technology Slavery by Ted Kaczinski. You should read his manifesto from a couple decades ago. He NAILS what is wrong with society as a result of the “that was easy” mentality. Technology, while good in some aspects – the BAD overwhelms the good.
3. Uncle Eric books from Richard Maybury. Simple reading, much of what you might know. But worth a re-read because it puts it all together so easily.
4. Watching what society has become just by observation. “Dumb fuks” everywhere who think that just because they know “how to google” it makes them smart.
PS – “The Shallows” was also a good read as well. Fascinating – all the way back to the timepiece and cartography.
In the technical world – things happen so much faster and with so much complexity – no one actually sits down and contemplates anything anymore.
We’ve lost generations of deep thinkers. Well, a few still left – thank GOD for TBP.
I was riding high on the hog of the tech bubble. Headhunting accountants, bookkeepers and the occasional IT guy for a permanent and temporary labor company. In late ’99/early ’00, all of a sudden I noticed a distinct reduction of jobs available in the metro area. Talked to a few other recruiters and became aware that thanks to Y2K, and the subsequent buildout of telecom/internet systems countrywide, come Jan 1, 2000, there were literally millions of employees that were very well paid, and were very redundant.
But the massive drop in employment was covered with a trickle of layoffs, and little hiring, as reality (no longer needed employees) and Wall Street (growth no matter what), took their sweet ass time making the needed adjustments. Then, even though the effects of NAFTA and China-Free Trade were already showing, the gubment increased our taxes AND the importation of H1-B visas (with their limits raised just as our employment situation dried up), it made no sense.
Fast forward, I saw the transfer of techs from building networks, to spying on them, from importing H1-Bs because their were four times more jobs than qualified techs, to no jobs and even more imports.
I saw, time after time, the gubment make the call that would do nothing but wipe out small American business and gift their former customers to the multinationals.
I saw the people panic, and the ratification of the Patriot Act.
I saw thousands of small businesses, and their employees, fade away YEARS before the rest of the country had a clue anything was wrong (remember Michigan’s “One State Recession?” One state my ass).
By the time I found Jim on Seeking Alpha (’08ish?), I had nearly arrived at the conclusion that the American Dream was dead and gone and we were completely FUBAR.
So, the awareness started in the late ’90s, horror in the mid 00’s, resolve to “do something” around ’07/’08 and the sad realization that democracy is evil when you are the one paying for it, and in the minority, around ’12.
Besides that, I’ve always been a “radical.” I was warning people back in the 80s about the evils of seatbelt, drinking and drug mandates coming from the Feds. Attempting to sound the alarm about trading freedoms for perceived safety. Naively believing the bullshit that we ‘murkins were special, different, aware, wanted freedom, wanted self-determination.
It has taken a little less than 30 years to finally realize that “we” are most certainly none of those things.
We are sheep, we are lazy, we are indulgent, we are hypocritical, and we are vengeful.
In short, we are human and we’ve kept the Republic as long as we could.
All I know is that I’m glad to know all you fellow doomers. Someday, when the internet (or electricity) is a sad vision from our past, maybe I’ll sit around at night, missing it, missing this place, missing you all.
If god, or luck, is with me, that is.
Perkins, ‘Confessions of an economic hitman’. I spent two or three weeks walking around like a shell-shocked soldier thinking everything I worked for and believed was basically bullshit. Made me question everything around me, and I knew the answer before each and every question – and only due to the petrodollar and its ability to bully others who live in squalor (who I made fun of then) and export inflation. The very idea that one day I might have to compete with some guy on the other side of this big marble shook me to my foundations – still does actually. This is mostly why I hammer on boomers…..dare I say it, please forgive me, but……’you didn’t build that’. I get it, why can’t you?
The Fourth Turning, holy shit – now that’s a book. Epic read.
Recently, on a lesser scale, I’ve been reading about SDR’s at philosophyofmetrics.com – very worthwhile…..really helped me get a few last puzzle pieces I was struggling with.
I don’t think you get ‘targeted’ by visiting site like this or posting comments. TPTB want to tell you, they’re telling you in so many ways what they’ve got planned – and I think in their sick and perverse sense of ‘fair play’, those who learn/live/thrive are ‘worthy’ (yeah its sick, I know). From movies, statements, events, public and political – its all there if you care to wake the fuck up and put down the I-thing and pay attention. But I’m preaching to the choir, sorry. Now…. their minions at various levels, an altogether different story. They’re the ones I worry about cause I’ve no idea how many feet of chain are on those sick fucks tether.
Anyway, to think that TPTB feel my existence is a joke and my life is the punchline is just so arrogant there are no words.
I read the first edition of this book when it came out. I think it was 2003 if my memory serves me.
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@TeresaE, you’ve been at this awhile – I admire your torch carrying abilities! Up to 2010 I was an asshole conservative republican type. Got a drop of truth and wanted all I could get – which is why I just don’t get the sheeple. I found zerohedge and then TBP – still need both like air. And increasingly so, a few of the posters here as well, not the least of which being admin. So, in a rare warm fuzzy moment, thanks to all.
A few years ago I sit down and read the Bible . John Calvin (his writings ) or the Reformed Faith. Then Idols for Destruction by Herbert Schlossberg .Then I discovered that thing called the internet. This is when my blindness started to lift .Think GOD !!!!I have to admit before I read these books I was an AWD like AWD.I knew something was terribly wrong with me ,this country and this world.I have mostly gotten over my anger and depression .Now there is just DREAD .
A friend of mine turned me on to TBP towards the end of 2011 right about the time Admin posted “Bad Moon Rising” which opened my eyes to what the straight skinny was concerning political and economic events that were going on around me that I had been oblivious to previously. I haven’t missed many posts or comments since and continue to be cynical and distrustful of our owners. Much appreciation to the truth tellers who contribute to this site and the opinions and discussions shared by all.
Thanks Stucky for getting this going.
I had been thinking about the ongoing frustration we have with people who will not wake up. I like to analyze reasons for things, so I tried to figure out what the difference is between those who doze on and those of us who keep shouting to the deaf, those who roll their eyes as we plead for their very survival.
I tend to be responsible, loyal, a team player, the perfect candidate for sheepledom, where I resided for most of my adult life. On occasion I went my own way by doing things like having a baby at home, starting my own school, teaching hardened (male) inmates in the prison system. The whole time, however, I always sensed that a lot of stuff didn’t quite add up. There was always a vague uneasiness about the storyline. I now understand that what was operating was my sense of intuition, a life tool I had trained myself to ignore for my whole life. The thing that really caught my attention was 911and the subsequent ME wars. I could no longer ignore what my gut was telling me.
I’ll finish my story but want to digress here. Remember a couple of years ago when we did the personality type survey? I think 95% of the participants were INTJs. There were a few variations, but I think every single person possessed the N (for intuitive) component. Today I reviewed iNtuiton and its opposite quality, Sensing. What I rediscovered is that Sensors are concrete, realistic, live in the present, are aware of surroundings, notice details, are practical, and factual. They are concrete thinkers, processing information through their five senses. On the other hand, iNtuitives are future-focused, see possibilities, are inventive, imaginative, deep, abstract, idealistic, complicated and theoretical. They process information through patterns and impressions; they read between the lines.
After reviewing these factors I had an aha moment regarding the sleepyheads. I just bet you that most of them are Sensors. In their practical take on life, they have not yet seen that anything really bad is happening because their world still appears to be fairly normal. This also explains why they can be easily fooled by a false narrative if it confirms the environment they perceive. I suspect many of them are becoming alarmed by the border crisis because they can literally sense things are changing.
In short, we iNtuitives speak a foreign language to the Sensors. All the things that could possibly happen don’t concern them. When they see concrete evidence, then they’re on board. It is a good reminder that when we do try to awaken someone, if we can approach it from good evidence rather than possibilities, we might be more successful. This requires facts and figures, not generalities.
Back to the story. When I decided to start investing my meager fortune, I quickly determined that only a contrarian investor would be able to make money. So I started reading everything I could on the web. Naturally I started down the rabbit hole where truth is stranger than fiction. I would read articles by this guy named Jim Quinn on the Dollar Collapse site. At the same time I stumbled on Ron Paul very early in his ’08 campaign. The good doctor taught me a lot, and I began to understand why my gut had been poking me all those years. Now the world made a lot more sense. I spent a lot of time on the Daily Paul website (still go there regularly). One day I decide to check JQ’s site, and I was immediately hooked Sometimes it suffers from testosterone poisoning,
but my people are here, most of whom are much smarter than me, so I learn from you too.
I must say, reading your personal stories of enlightenment has been of the more fascinating reads so far.
Look forward to hearing from the rest of the gang when they get home from Supporting Free Shitters (aka, work).
Hell Stucky Iam at work
I guess I’ve been “awake” since Kennedy was assassinated in ’63 and I was 11. My Dad (who hated Kennedy) nevertheless smelled a rat and didn’t buy into the Warren Commission. He bought a book “None dare call it treason” and I read it after him. Read “1984” and “Animal Farm” in HS and that helped the process along. Congressman Lee Hamilton visited our HS and during the Q&A I asked him for one good reason why I should fight and die in Vietnam. He didn’t respond; moved on to the next question. Seems that’s his m.o. Luckily my birthdate drew a high number & I wasn’t called. Lost a few classmates over there though. More recently “Confessions of an economic hitman” and “Crossing the Rubicon” by the late Michael Ruppert. Eyes wide open at this point and I don’t believe a damn thing the government says, including the “BS-BLS” reports or any other economic metrics. It’s all lies supporting a house of cards which are guaranteed to soon crumble.
Don’t tell Llpoh he’d fire my ass and push me onto the food stamp roles.
The start of it would have been in 75, going to a progressive school district, we moved around a lot when I was a child, and being told we “don’t do that here” when I asked why we were not saying our pledge of allegiance, I looked around and wondered if I had landed in some communist or fascist place. This at 11 year old. That’s when I began my revolt over the revolting progressives.
Watching CNN news in the early 90’s and hearing bald face lies from the talking heads.
But 96 really sealed the deal, as I witnessed the police being powerless, incapable, incompetent or unwilling to stop heroin dealers. I mean those people were total scumbags, killers, manipulators and it looked like the law was there to protect them,,, Yeah I knew we were heading down the tubes at that point, the population is so blind, ignorant and apathetic.
All I have been able to do since then is what i’ve done most of my life, gather knowledge, resist group think, and pray to god that he allows me to do good and be good.
And there have been other influences, relatives, who were in the wars, teachers that taught the truth and what would happen if Communist overwhelmed us, The Bible has been a big part of it all, that book is pure knowledge, the sprit realm, have always been sensitive, seen and experienced things that most people don’t, walking away from certain death without a scratch on more than one occasion. Books that come into your life that add to your knowledge at the right time. Finding Steve Quayles websight, which lead me here.
Not much left to it now, except patience, being alert, prepared as well as I can be, and not giving in an inch, the older I get the more stubborn I have become.
Yeah even if the whole world be against me I will not change or have false hope in liars cheats hypocrites. One parting thought by John Rappoprt sums it up quite nicely for me.
“The rebel is able to defend himself against delusion all the way into the core of his own mind. He discovers and invents his own reality, and he doesn’t suppose that any other human being has to agree to the contents of that reality”
@Gayle, you make a very good point – it makes sense that a group of INTJ would congregate here. Differently, but similarly, I was fascinated in T4T by the all-but-one signers of the Declaration of Independence being of the Nomad archetype. It seems like time and time again only certain keys open the lock – they did a briggs test over at Martenson’s Peak Prosperity ‘positivity camp’ a while back, same thing….lots of INTJ’s. You can’t throw a stick over there without hitting an INTJ boomer. Anyway, good call.
Seeing what happened after Hurricaine Katrina started waking me up. Living in Vegas at the time , I realized that should a similar disaster happen in that region, that town would go Lord Of The Flies faster than did New Orleans.
Thereafter, I bought my first handgun.
My eyes were opened not only to the ineffectiveness and impotence of government intervention, but also the brutality of people who were self-serving in times of disorder. And as a physician, I thought I was savvy, that I had seen it all. Not even close.
Then the crisis of 2008 came, and the bailouts, and in Vegas, the real estate collapse; I started reading a Blog called EconomicRot, based out of Vegas. One of the links was to TBP, and upon first visiting here, I was hooked–rather like someone who is watching the horror of a car accident in fascination, unable to look away, despite how terrible the scene. I then read the Fourth Turning, and I found the theory compelling–a way of loosely predicting a future based on interactions of generations which unrelentingly leads to a period of massive crisis and resolution. Isaac Asimov, in his Foundation series, one of my favorite works of science fiction, posits a similar science called “Psychohistory” which reminded me greatly of the generational theory put forth by Strauss and Howe.
I then read The Creature of Jekyll Island, and various books regarding collapses in history, by authors such as Jared Diamond and Joseph Tainter, and ultimately some works by Orlov and Kunstler.
I suppose I find myself addicted to “Doom Porn”, like others here, but I really cannot bring myself to think magically like much of the rest of our country, Western society,or the whole world, really. I can’t see how any of this, to use Admin’s favorite phrase, will end well.
My awakening is somewhat embarrassing and was a result of my own naivety and stupidity. The internet was taking hold in the late 90’s and I got caught up in the “tax freedom” movement. Followed Irwin Schiff’s advice and stopped withholding of federal taxes on my paycheck. Joined http://www.givemeliberty.org and attended their conferences with Larry Becraft, William Benson, former IRS special agent Joe Banister, Devvy Kidd, etc. The IRS was soft back then, very few “tax cheats” and non-filers were being pursued.
Then the hammer dropped in 2003 and I was hit with penalties and fines that were 5x what I had not paid in the taxes themselves. The hyped real estate market saved my ass. My house was worth 3x what my mortgage was, so I took out equity and paid off the fines/penalties/back taxes. I could have gone to jail if I hadn’t hired a former IRS lawyer to represent me.
I’m still convinced the entire federal tax system is a scam and the majority of Americans do not have to file or pay. But the courts are rigged and I then “woke up” to the fact that laws aren’t what we think they are. (Listen to Jordan Maxwell sometime on the meaning of words, especially words in Black’s Law dictionary.)
I made a commitment to somehow get back at the feds. I became an independent federal contractor and made up my losses 4 times over, from their own coffers.
So there you have it, I’ve bared my soul. Confessional over.
I woke myself up. I did not begin investigating things until I was about 16 but long before that I clearly recall having a sense that something was just not right. I’ve always been skeptical of just about everything. For as long as I can remember I’ve never wanted to have kids. I could never explain why and I doubt that I understood it myself. Part of me figured I’d come to regret the decision but the older I get the more I understand it was the right decision even if I do come to regret it someday. I’ve also always been a “worrier”. I knew the world was a cold hard place and I could accept that but I had a feeling that it was being “made” colder and harder for some reason. I could not imagine bringing a kid into this world and leaving them behind.
In high school I became keenly interested in govt debt. I knew that businesses and individuals could never carry such enormous debt loads so it made no sense that a govt could. I remember asking many of my teachers how this was possible but not a single one could answer the question. I got the distinct impression that none of them had ever even considered the question.
Between high school and 2006 I got pretty busy with life and did not devote any effort to educating myself with respect to what we call doom porn. I could never shake the feeling that something was just not right. I continued to feel about a half step out of sync with the world.
I first began educating myself in 2006-2007. One of the first meaningful things I came across that connected the dots was The Crash Course by Chris Martenson. It was like finding the answers to a dozen different mysteries and it really brought things into focus. Being a skeptic I watched the crash course again, this time taking notes on all of the facts presented and I began trying to prove the crash course was wrong. I was in denial but I had a pit of the stomach feeling the info was correct. After trying to disprove the facts contained in the first 14 (out of 20) videos with a 100% failure rate I concluded that it was correct.
It was while trying to disprove the information I came across that I discovered TBP and a hundred other similar sites. I discovered Charles Hugh Smith, Ferfal Aguire, Mike Shedlock, Gonzalo Lira, Davos, Turd Ferguson, Silver Doctors etc. Although I remained skeptical, each seemed to hold another piece of the puzzle. I read millions of comments posted by readers of this same info. Many seemed to be correct but rather irrational in their assessments. I was looking for what you might call The Grand Unified Theory of Doom Porn.
Enter TBP. I was still digging for info pretty hard so it took me awhile to figure out that “admin” was the site owner and he authored many of the best posts here. At first I thought TBP was more of a Drudge type site that collected and posted stories from all over which it is. The main reason I kept coming back here was because of the comments. I lurked for a long time because the comment section seemed like a street brawl who’s main purpose was to rip away all the bullshit and distil the remainder into pure doom porn truth. People here could whip up on each other like nowhere else on the web on one thread and be the best of pals on another thread the same day. I’m like that in real life.
I love honesty, even brutal honesty and this place has it. I still troll the interwebs seeking out more truth but TBP has become home. It just fits like an old pair of blue jeans and a well worn t-shirt. It’s more that a doom porn site too. I learn a tremendous amount of info here about an even larger range of subjects than a site like this would be expected to provide. I feel I owe AWD a debt of gratitude for helping me find the right solution to a decade long ankle problem. I owe admin as well for providing such a dynamic place to discuss the things we do. He’s a better man that I because I would have pulled the plug long ago if I had to deal with the bullshit he puts up with. I won’t try to name them because I’ll leave many out but I also owe many of the regulars here for the daily education I receive even if it just means seeing things through their eyes.
Maybe this place fits better than any other due to the high proportion of INTJ’s that seem to gather here. Most of you seem like brothers and sisters than strangers. NO other site provides that. I still feel out of sync with the world but now I know why.
I was a semi die hard republican/conservative, Glen Beck follower, Rush is right kind of guy, Fox News only watcher, please and thank you.
It was my then 20 year old son (10 years ago) after we got into a very heated discussion about how America had the right to do whatever necessary to keep Nukes out of the hands of those evil muslim bastards.
He turned me onto Ron Paul, I checked him out and I found his message very refreshing. I was a local Tea Party member but soon after the chapter turned into a “only republicans can be trusted” kind of club. So I quit the local Tea Party and registered Libertarian, first time I ever registered a party affiliation.
When the market crashed and I was tired of paying a broker to lose my money I started to look online for any info I could find.
That lead me on a long Internet search, first serious hit was Peter Schiff, that lead me to Casey Research, they had a great article on the Fourth Turning, in my search for more 4T info that lead me to a link to a oddly named blog, The Burning Platform.
The info presented by Jim and the insight of the posters is invaluable, TBP is my morning wake up and sometimes my worst nightmares, but I would rather go into the future with just a shred of foresight, than go in like a blind pig lead to slaughter.
Thanks for this site, thanks for all that Jim does, and thanks to all the posters.
What woke me up was Reality + Austrian Economics + Ron Paul = on a government watchlist.
Everyone, hold on.
“bb” is about to read his 1st book ever & report back to us. I can’t wait.
My guess is it’s Dr. Seuss, although that plot may be too tough for him.
Obomber is right on U didn’t build that. The Chinese probably did.
Also, U probably borrowed the $ then had it built & are still paying on it.
Hey, he got 1 thing right in 8 years, by accident.
I was always a bit of a contrarian – I read both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead in HS and thought they sounded reasonable should things ever get that bad – not really understanding that in her mind they had been that bad for quite sometime.
My discovery that I was an INTJ was a HUGE eye-opener – it put so much of my difficulties within my interpersonal life into perspective. It was a massive “coming to terms / finding the words” moment. I wasn’t wrong – I just thought logically and didn’t believe “feelings” should hold so much weight in decision making times. Silly me.
And then having kids and having to deal with the Public School system – the coddling and “everyone gets a trophy” bs was a constant irritant and I was one of the few not invited back for a subsequent tour of duty on the PTA.
But it was the financial crisis of 2008 that did me in. I had thought I was an informed individual but was floored by what was happening – it was a real ego hit to comprehend how little I actually comprehended.
[This is the part where I get banned from TBP]
The local paper ran a list of financial websites to help understand what was going on and one of them was Ritholtz’s “The Big Picture” and that was all she wrote.
I discovered what the web truly was and in doing so discovered how very little I really knew – and it was the links within the comments that I found the most fascinating and sent me down the most rabbit holes.
By leaps and links I landed at ZH and TBP and dozen and dozens of others. I discovered rulers and owners and that esoteric “crowd control” is as old as humanity.
I think it is this appreciation for the internet that is behind the great divide – the sheeple in my life are either not curious [a temperament] or they are deathly afraid of doing their own research, coming to their own conclusions because someone, somewhere might tell them how wrong they really are and how foolish they really look.
I want someone to change my mind – to show me where my thinking is flawed – to force me to look at something from a different perspective.
I’m keenly aware of how little I know and the chance to learn anything is absolutely thrilling.
9/11 was my BIG wake up call, I was working that day and the TV was on in the waiting room of the clinic where I work.. As I watched the towers fall I thought, “Man, that really looks like a building implosion”. No I never got on the conspiracy bandwagon, but I knew saw what and I knew something was not right. At that moment that famous quote from “The wizard of Oz” popped into my head, “……Toto we are not in Kansas anymore…..” After that I started softly preparing for the STHTF . I watching a PBS 90 minute documentary on Irag last night , and I thought that now more than ever, we are in for a good whippin’ because of the overall arrogant attitude of so many US Administrations, and that whippin’ will probably come much sooner than anyone of us expects. So yes, I prepare for the worst and pray for the best, and my wife of 39 years is starting to realize all my rants of all these years were not as crazy as she once thought. John
I pretty much read all the above mentioned books when they first came out. I was out of the Army and in college in Florida when Pat Frank’s book was published. I’d already made a couple of round trips across the dateline and had been stationed in the Little Pentagon in Paris when the Hungarian Crisis erupted.
LBJ’s “Great Society” and the “War On Poverty” sounded like BS to me, from the gitgo. Science fiction speculation about trends–“If this goes on”–put me in Condition Yellow about the world around me. Awareness of international factors increased with my penny-ante bullion trading.
The late 1980s sez to me that the US was headed into a Saturday night spree. My own experience was that such is followed by a singalong with Kristofferson or Cash about coming down.
Anyhow, all this prepping stuff has been trivially easy, for me. I have the skills, knowledge and “stuff”.
Trouble is, this slow-motion train wreck has been slow enough that my body is plumb “wo’ out”. I have the know-how, but most of the can-do left town. But that’s all right. I’ll just sit and watch and clutch. 🙂
Been monitoring the voting …….. it’s been 5 hours and 30 comments until there was a thumbs down vote. That’s got to be some kind of record.
bb received the down vote …. not surprising ….. and I believe it was by Econman.
Tommy said:
” they did a briggs test over at Martenson’s Peak Prosperity ‘positivity camp’ a while back, same thing….lots of INTJ’s. You can’t throw a stick over there without hitting an INTJ boomer.”
I seem to recall most of the comments over at Martenson’s site struck me as irrational and and too politically correct. That was back before he had finished creating the Crash Course. There were definitely some excellent comments and thoughts over there but the signal to noise ratio was a bit to low for my tastes. Once the Crash Course was completed I moved on.
Tommy, are you the guy who was/is living in his car in LA? If so, and if you don’t mind, what is your situation now?
Well, I don’t remember when exactly, but growing up, my dad always was critical of the government. He always said they were there to pursue their own interests, while occasionally throwing you a small bone. “They weren’t there for the love of helping people”, he said. As a younger guy, I admit, sometimes I thought he was just bitter. He may have been in some ways, but surely he was right about that. Other stuff was also on the red in the shitmeter, like the gulf wars. Never could bring myself to trust Bush. So I always just knew something was off, but I could just not put it together and never really thought about it. I was too busy with other things school, work, etc. It was during crash that I just could not believe for the life of me that NOBODY knew what the fuck had happened. Everywhere in mainstream that was their book. How could then these “expert” fucks that so confidently talked about everything as if it was certain not be able to explain such a catastrophe, yet reassure you about how much they knew. You can’t get away with shit like that anywhere else. That’s when I started reading on my own and, really, guided by common sense and some critical thinking, I came across Peter Schiff and Jim Rogers. That is when I opened my eyes a little wider. Also the book Confessions of an economic Hitman, the series The Century of the Self, etc. Eventually I came to TBP, don’t remember how exactly. I liked the admin’s style and critical thinking point of view. His ability to digest and regurgitate information in great articles has been also very helpful.
Hi guys. I read a lot but hardly ever post. TBH, the last time I posted anything was the INTJ thread, if I remember correctly. I, too, am an INTJ.
My “come to Jesus” moment was watching a 60 minutes documentary on the real estate collapse, and finding that in many cases all you had to do to get a mortgage from a reputable bank was have a pulse.
Actually, I get a lot of cynicism from my father, who always told me that if he shook hands with a politician, he would immediately check his pocket and make sure his wallet was still there (that his pocket hadnt been picked). Then I learned from George Carlin that there is a big club, and we ain’t in it.
Then I started reading everything that I could get my hands on. Denninger, TBP, Zero Hedge.
I’m surprised that they have been able to keep all of the balls in the air to this point. I thought we were toast a couple of years ago. Still don’t know why we aren’t.
Econman ,did you give a thumbs down?*
I S ,I am glad you think of me as you brother on the TBP .I wrote something for you on the child neglect post.
Stucky , it took a while for me.My marriage had failed but I still had a good job until 2008 when the economy came close to collapsing. They closed the company and moved my job overseas. I was disgusted with life in general. Looking back on it now I’m glad it happened. I started looking for answers about GOD , Government , Economics to name a few areas. Still looking but now I know where to look..
Waco.
Once the scales fall off, doesn’t take much to grok the paradigm.
Everything after is just deck chairs.
“What woke YOU up???”
The day I returned from my 3rd deployment to Vietnam (November 1972) and more recently, Ron Paul’s views on national defense, which pretty well match mine. So, I jump-started my mind over 41 years ago. It’s been a work in progress ever since.
I was 28. I’ve pissed off colonels, generals, the Department of Defense, U.S. ambassadors, senior CIA officials, and, just once, the White House. I came out on the other end with three things intact, my honor, integrity and unbending loyalty to the Constitution.
I stumbled upon financialsense.com back in 2002. I found the articles very enlightening. Sadly, the website became too mainstream and the articles became too repetitive. I rarely go there now.
What woke me up ?
Little bb ,started licking me and gave me morning wood .
I was flipping channels hungover one morning and stumbled onto a public access channel that was showing aaron russo’s america:freedom to fascism. It introduced to libertarianism, shined the light pn the federal reserve and introduced me to ron paul. Later talking to a friend he realized i had woke up and he directed me to financial sense and that is where i read some of jim’s articles before puplava started worrying about not pissing off the oligarchs.
bb says:
“What woke me up ? Little bb ,started licking me and gave me morning wood .”
Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’, I guess.
That’s a faint memory for me – morning wood. Enjoy it while you got it, bb.
anybody remember the 70’s “The Bankers” and “Superpower”?
Just wanted to say I owe all you a very big debt. I do not remember when I stumbled on the TBP platform. But I remember when I was like WTF? Way back in Bushes 1st term when he passed the prescription drug “reform” that would cost god I forgot how much. But we where already running a huge deficit. And I remember thinking we already do not have enough money so we are going to create another big entitlement with the boomers about ready to be retired. wtf?
I have never posted before because I work in the Intel community. (please do not hurt me). I just want to say never contribute to conspiracy that which is explained by stupidity (I do not know where I heard that from).
What is hard for me is that I feel trapped. I started my career doing intel only the longer I worked it and more I read as I grew up the more I realized it is all a giant lie…I am only 35. But with access to no true secrets like Snowden (and even he is completely ignored by 99% of the people) but close enough to sniff the truth, but only because I have BS in History.
However, I can make more money to support my family, a wife and 2 kids(both under 4 yrs. old) staying in the matrix than going Galt. Ya know….the more I make the more silver I can buy…the more I stay out of debt (primary residence is 100% paid off etc).
So I am sorry, but I have to take care of family 1st before the collapse. Please forgive me
Three parts. First, the Vietnam era, bookended by all the events of 1968 unfolding on TV in front of my 11yo eyes. Punctuated by working on my first political campaign, and my mom letting me skip half a day of school to go see the candidate speak, Bobby Kennedy. (Give me a break, I was 11–no one is politically conservative at 11.) Then, a week later, mom letting me stay up late to hear his victory speech (California primary), and seeing him get blown away.
(My first sentient memory is seeing Oswald get it on live tv five years earlier–no wonder I am cynical and bitter.)
The other bookend to that period in my developing mind was reading the Pentagon Papers.
Second, one big reason I chose the medical field is I reasoned that it was the one field where concern for the patient, and for humanity as a whole, would trump selfishness, greed, ambition and the other human foibles. When push came to shove, the needs of the patient in front of you would decide the issue. And, unlike commercial concerns, merit would determine who would rise and who would fall in this scientific, humanistic field.
Boy, was that a harsh shattering of my naive assumptions. Ambition, backstabbing, quest for wealth and prestige was just as bad as I saw in other human endeavors. Well, live and learn.
(When I started residency, five years into the medical industrial complex grinder, I befriended a Wall Street guy who quickly became and remains one of my closest friends. He held a reciprocal naive view–that his advancement would be governed by his profit and loss as a trader, nothing else. Trading bonds and mortgage derivatives, in the late 1980s, was the ultimate meritocratic environment–you make money, you win and advance. He learned the hard way that it very much mattered who you schmoozed, which country club you joined, who had your back at the next level. This confirmed vicariously that every human activity is corrupted by human shortcomings, no matter how they keep score.)
Third, by the mid-2000s I had not read much economics and finance. And the little I had studied was the orthodoxy of financial analysis so I could manage my retirement investments. I had inherited the family home in the Sacramento area, and while I was visiting in 2005 I noticed a newspaper headline about house prices falling. I knew that such an unusual occurrence in Cali real estate had meant bad news in the past. So I started reading. And reading. From scanning hundreds of online blogs, I learned about subprime, mortgage derivatives (just like my buddy traded nearly 20 years before, but on steroids), credit default swaps, et cetera et cetera. The more I read from blogs and mises.org, the more I learned and the less I paid attention to the economic/financial party line.At the same time, I was trading a little bit, mostly Apple stock around the introduction of the iPhone.
Then one day, as I’m watching my trading screen and I see the market panicking, I too panicked, and sold. Sold a bundle. About an hour later, the market bottomed, and reversed. Reversed hard, for the last 90 minutes of trading. Something happened, but none of my online sources had a clue. Until ten minutes after the market closed, an emergency rate cut was ‘announced’. Then and there, it was obvious the announcement came 90 minutes prior. (BTW, thanks to my wall street friends for not sending me a text that day–clearly y’all knew, but don’t bother hitting Howard up on the blackberry.)
That was a moment of clarity–4:15pm, August 16, 2007. All the proof I needed that Wall Street, and by extension the rest of the economy, was an insider game, run by the Federal Reserve. And I was an outsider.
If I have to pick one moment, even more than seeing Bobby Kennedy gunned down, more than cracking open the Pentagon Papers, more than not getting a plum job at the main hospital, being told I was the most qualified but because I didn’t play nice with the right administrators, getting fucked up the ass by the Federal Reserve Open Markets Committee jolted me to consciousness.
Funny, one of the first economic blogs I read was this one. When I first crossed this path, I thought the burning platform was a little too far out there, and I didn’t immediately mix it into my rotation. But, a few years later, I was a little more informed, and this site, articles and comments, wasn’t so far out.
My journey into the truth was a long, slow progression from a very early age. My parents told me about Santa Claus and when I figured out he was impossible, I determined that my parents were liars.
I asked an adult what makes stars twinkle and was told it’s like the lights on your Christmas tree. Riiiight, so now adults, in general, are liars. Hell, I really wanted to know.
I was told by my Catholic teachers that all Protestants go to hell no matter how good they are. That didn’t make sense to me and I determined that teachers lie.
I read about the Inquisition and the Crusades and determined that religion was a crock.
With early adulthood came the observation that during an election campaign, many promises are made that are immediately broken after the election and I determined that politicians are liars. Ninety-nine percent of them anyway.
I watched the Cuban Missile Crisis unfold, live on TV, when I was only 13. I was horrified that nuclear bombs were potentially headed our way the next day. Terrified, I ran out into the street to warn everyone. No one listened, no one cared.
At 18, I was eligible for the draft so I emigrated to Canada. Luckily, the Prime Minister at the time, Trudeau, refused to kidnap legal immigrants to his country and send them back. Of the half dozen friends I had, 3 died in the mud of Vietnam. Years later, I discovered that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a lie. How many of my once fellow Americans died and were maimed on a lie?
Fast forward some 50 years later and the Internet happens. It didn’t take long to discover truth that the mainstream media ignores and finally, just plain LIES about http://www.whatreallyhappened.com and that was the first website that blew it wide open for me. It was started years before 911 happened but Micheal Rivero was first on the scene the very next day with questions by witnesses and qualified experts.
Since then, I have never looked back.
My interests are mostly the economy, investing and politics but I also indulge in the strange but possible, given what we know about how virtually everything we’ve been told has been a big fat fucking LIE.
TBP is one of the best, I regret not finding it sooner,,,, but there are SO many deserving of your attention. And there are only so many hours in a day, even if you ARE retired.
Admin
When are you going to chime in?
So many great books recommended here. Thanks to everyone. Especially Stucky for starting this exchange.
In 1974, both my car and home air-conditioning (in Florida, August) crashed same week. From sheer desperation, walked to neighborhood used book store with kids to escape the heat. One of the gems discovered there was a 79 page oldie but goodie by John Howland Snow. Snow’s “Government By Treason” was the proverbial alarm clock that left me longing to go back to sleep. Info covered every aspect of Bretton Woods Act, and so much more too regarding Keynesian shenanigans than I ever wanted to know. Mr. Snow’s book was published in 1946, yet every consequence he predicted has come to pass.
Too often, for past 40 years, I’ve cursed fate, and the day I found Snow’s book. Why oh why shouldn’t life be lived without a care in the world as the fat, dumb and happy get along just fine, minus the grief and struggle everyone here has experienced. Yeah, we all know, life isn’t fair.
A few other good reads, not already recommended, but probably read by all here, are:
“The Government Racket: Washington Waste from A to Z” Martin L. Gross
“The Road to Serfdom” F. A. Hayek
“The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy” Thomas Sowell
“The Coming Anarchy” Robert D. Kaplan
“Triple Cross” Peter Lance
“Philip Dru: Administrator” Edward Mandell House
“Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism” Robert Jay Lifton
“War of the Flea” Robert Taber
“Where Liberals Go to Die” James T. Evans
Anything authored by James Grant, C.S. Lewis.
Sorry if this is too much. Cut list short as there are so many other good reads already listed by others here.
“The Burning Platform opened my eyes. Seriously. That’s not me just blowing smoke up Admin’s ass”
Quinn let me use a Rome post of his for a book I wrote. He was very cool about it. Then I finally saw TBP, and it’s changed my life. It’s gotten me to prepare for what is coming. It enriches my life on a daily basis. I get to hang out with Stuck, and every other person on here, the coolest, smartest, most grounded, sensible, funny, deep, well, not enough superlatives. And from all over the country, but like a a hang-out, bar, party, barbeque, bachelor party, you know; lots of fun and insight. Greatest blog their is, free for all, controlled anarchy. It’s whatever we make it, and we make it good….
Well, I started like bb, with the Bible 🙂 . After the uprising in my country (1989) you could buy one. Then in the early 90`s I read all the writtigs of Alvin Tofller and his wife. Then mid 90`s the Internet was available in my country too. It stared with the dial-up tehnology but it was better than nothing. I found the Seeking Alfa website and I followed there two contributors: Admin and Peter Schiff.
I started to visit also the Daily Reckoning and Doug Casey`s website. That`s it.
Peace.
I started to wake up in 2003. I turned 40 and my world was turned upside down. My 14 year career with IKEA was unraveling as the shrew CEO didn’t like truth or facts. I had voted straight Republican my entire life and fully supported the invasion of Iraq because I believed our leaders. By 2004 I realized it was all a lie. The company I had helped grow from $80 million to $1 billion shit canned me in May of 2004. I didn’t hook on with Toll Brothers until October, so I did a lot of reading that Summer.
I started reading John Mauldin’s weekly newsletter. He turned me onto Richard Russell. I subscribed to his daily newsletter and started investing in gold mutual funds and physical gold. In one of his newsletters Russell mentioned a Congressman named Ron Paul and how he was the only person who understood the reasons for our economic situation. I was curious and started to read everything Ron Paul wrote.
John Mauldin later re-posted an article written by Doug Casey in 1998 about someone flying a plane into the White House and discussing some book called The Fourth Turning. I ordered the book and it blew me away. It put history into an understandable perspective. With every bit of new knowledge I became more awake.
I was miserable working for Toll Brothers. It was a soulless corporate fiefdom. I was responsible for forecasting. Everything I read from Russell, Mauldin, Casey, Bonner, Shiller, etc. told me that an epic housing and stock market crash was coming. I bought bear funds in 2006, but everything kept rising. I knew I had to get away from Toll Brothers for my health and sanity. I snagged a Senior Director position at a university in December 2006. I knew a university would withstand a financial collapse better than the corporate world.
I continued reading the contrarian writings of various people. Then 2008 arrived. The Republican presidential primaries grabbed my attention because Ron Paul was running. As I watched the assholes on Fox and the rest of the MSM scorn and try to trivialize his views I was infuriated. I needed to release my fury, so I wrote an article that I was going to send to local newspapers in Phila. It was titled – Why We Need Ron Paul. I had never written an article in my entire life. None of the newspapers would print it. I had come across Lew Rockwell’s site through Ron Paul’s writings. I sent the article to him and he loved it. He posted it on his website and I caught the writing bug.
Lew, Seeking Alpha, Op-Ed News, Financial Sense and a couple other sites would pretty much post anything I would write. I started pumping out an article per week about the US Banking system, the unsustainablity of our economy, the housing bubble and other political and military issues. My articles about impending financial collapse got a tremendous amount of negative comments on Seeking Alpha. I would be involved in all day firefights with assholes. It honed my debating skills.
Smokey was one of my biggest supporters on Seeking Alpha. Then September 2008 arrived and everything I wrote about came true. But Seeking Alpha wanted to be an investment site, so they started censoring my articles and my comments. That was when TBP version 1 was built by Jason Rines. We’ve gone through four more versions since.
I’m still waking up. Last night Avalon and I had our first firearms training session. The ex-military guy – Chris – was awesome. Of course, Avalon shot better than me. I knew that would be the case. One more session and we’ll buy our first handgun. We’re slowly but surely preparing for the Brave New World.
I can honestly say that I’ve learned far more from the TBP monkeys than I’ve provided. I don’t know what I’d do without this dysfunctional family of miscreants, malcontents, and future domestic terrorists. I’ll keep this forum going for as long as I’m able.
Thanks for helping me wake up.
Welcome back Howard……….you’ve been missed!
Admin ,you are welcome . I knew one day you would recognize my brilliance and cherish my wisdom.