“Do not underestimate the ‘power of underestimation’. They can’t stop you, if they don’t see you coming.” ― Izey Victoria Odiase
During the summer of 2008 I was writing articles a few times per week predicting an economic catastrophe and a banking crisis. When the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression swept across the world, resulting in double digit unemployment, a 50% stock market crash in a matter of months, millions of home foreclosures, and the virtual insolvency of the criminal Wall Street banks, my predictions were vindicated. I was pretty smug and sure the start of this Fourth Turning would follow the path of the last Crisis, with a Greater Depression, economic disaster and war.
In the summer of 2008, the national debt stood at $9.4 trillion, which amounted to 65% of GDP. Total credit market debt peaked at $54 trillion. Consumer debt peaked at $2.7 trillion. Mortgage debt crested at $14.8 trillion. The Federal Reserve balance sheet had been static at or below $900 billion for years.
During 2007, a risk averse senior citizen couple (my parents) who had accumulated $200,000 of retirement savings over their lifetime of hard work, could generate $10,000 of interest income in a Vanguard money market fund yielding 5%. This supplemented their modest Social Security income of $20,000 to $30,000 per year. The interest rate on savings during normal economic times was generally 2% above inflation, which hovered around 3% in 2007 according to the data manipulators at the BLS.
As the summer of 2008 progressed, I felt more disconnected. I had been doing everything possible to support Ron Paul’s candidacy for president, but the masses weren’t ready for the truth or the reality of our situation. In my opinion the country was already off-course and headed towards a debt created disaster. But the average American was oblivious. The economy appeared strong. People’s 401ks were soaring. And homeowners in many markets had seen their homes double in value – on paper. I felt stupid as I had exited the stock market and bought some bear mutual funds and ETFs during 2007 and 2008.
The stock market had more than doubled since the 2002 lows. The control fraud systematically implemented by the Wall Street cabal and their captured political hacks also drove home prices to astronomical heights, making the average home owner think they were richer than they were. Billions of home equity loans were used by delusional dolts across the land to buy luxury vehicles, take exotic vacations, and basically live far above their means. When that fake equity evaporated like a puddle in the Sahara Desert, the delusional masses found themselves living in those luxury vehicles, until the repo man showed up.
The irrationality and insanity of the Wall Street created housing bubble was perfectly captured in Michael Lewis’ brilliant takedown of the Wall Street cabal in the Big Short. When Steve Eisman interviews a Florida stripper doing a pole dance and finds out she “owns” five houses and a condo, he realizes the housing boom is a complete fraud and goes all in shorting the exotic worthless derivatives created by the criminal bankers.
September 2008 marked the beginning of this Fourth Turning, with the global implosion of financial markets, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, double digit unemployment, six million home foreclosures, a 50% collapse in the stock market, the deepest recession since the 1930s, and shell-shocked consumers defaulting on credit card and auto loans to the tune of hundreds of billions.
As consumer credit contracted, retail stores began going bankrupt in vast numbers. Mall operators were left with 50% vacancy rates. They couldn’t make the loan payments on their debt. By March of 2009 the country was in a full-blown crisis. My storage area in my basement was filled with food, cases of water and other emergency supplies. I was sure we were at the beginning of an economic period, similar but worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s.
I certainly overestimated my forecasting ability and underestimated the abilities of the ruling class to take outrageously reckless steps to retain their power and manipulate the masses into believing extreme abnormalcy was actually normal. The first outrage perpetrated by the oligarchs was passing the $700 billion TARP bailout of the feckless Hank Paulson lied and threatened to protect his billionaire buddies.
The turning point occurred on March 16, 2009 when the pocket protector wearing spineless weenie accountants at the FASB were threatened by Bernanke and his henchmen into overturning their mark to market rule and allow the criminal Wall Street banks to value their worthless mortgages at whatever they chose.
Citicorp, Bank of America, AIG, GE, Goldman Sachs, and most of the other “Too Big To Trust” goliath banks were bankrupt. They should have been liquidated using the bankruptcy process, with their good assets sold to banks who did not undertake fraudulent risks, and their executives and investors suffering the consequences.
The fear mongering and fake accounting propagated by Bernanke, Paulson, Geithner, and their corporate media fake news propaganda machines had the sole purpose of shifting the fraudulently created Wall Street private losses to the taxpayers through deficit funded handouts, free money, accounting fraud, and throwing senior citizen savers under the bus. Wall Street became richer than ever while Main Street got fucked again.
As a Ron Paul, Austrian school of economics believer, myself, along with many other logical minded rational thinking people, believed a short violent recession where bad debt was expunged from the system through liquidation and the economy was reset based on corporations and consumers acting conservatively and living within their means – using debt sparingly for long-term purposes, was the best road going forward.
I overestimated the intelligence, critical thinking skills, self-restraint and math aptitude of the masses by believing they had learned their lesson after experiencing the second Fed induced market crash in an eight-year period. I thought the American people and their leaders would come to their senses and realize the parabolic increase in debt since the 1990s had to end.
I underestimated the level of fear amongst the Fed, financiers, politicians, mega-corporations, and billionaire oligarchs when just a leveling off of credit market debt resulted in global financial implosion. And I clearly underestimated the illegal lengths Bernanke and his fellow puppets would go to in order to save their Wall Street owners and corporate, political and media parasites reliant upon the ongoing Ponzi debt scheme being sustained.
If I had only believed in the power of massive debt issuance, nine years of zero interest rates for Wall Street banks, $3.6 trillion of Fed QE to relieve Wall Street of its bad debt, hundreds of billions of debt financed corporate stock buybacks, luring millions into 7 year auto loans, and allowing Wall Street hedge funds to buy up the millions of foreclosures and rent them back to those who they had booted onto the street.
If you told anyone in 2007 the national debt would go from $9.4 trillion to $22.8 trillion in twelve years, they would have called you a loon and laughed you out of the room. Now the national debt is 105% of GDP and consumer debt exceeds $4 trillion. Millennials are enslaved with $1.6 trillion of student loan debt, up by $1 trillion since 2009. The ruling class and their propaganda machine have convinced the masses $1 trillion annual deficits are normal and sustainable. Nothing bad has happened – Yet.
Our so-called leaders have implemented the exact opposite “solutions” to a debt crisis than what was required. Of course, this is true only if our leaders were interested in the long-term sustainability of the nation and its unborn future generations. If the ruling class is only concerned with their wealth, power and control over the masses, then their actions make complete sense.
If I hadn’t underestimated the evilness, greed and egocentricity of the entrenched establishment oligarchs, I would have stayed invested in the market, reaping the 300% returns since the 2009 lows. It has certainly paid to bet on the continued treachery of the traitorous central bankers, politicians, mega-corporation executives, and the fake news media. Only truly devious, deceitful, demented wizards of financial fraud could drive total credit market debt from $54 trillion to $74 trillion as the solution to a debt crisis.
After eight years of emergency level financial suppression, the latest Fed puppet, Jerome Powell, dared to raise rates above zero and suspend the continued buying of government debt. If we were really operating in a normal economic environment, market rates would be in the 4% range. But, miniscule .25% increases over a couple years pushing the Federal Funds rate to 2.25% was too much for Wall Street and the president to handle.
They have both been throwing hissy fits for the last year, intimidating and threatening the weak-kneed Powell into cutting rates with unemployment at all-time lows, the stock market near all-time highs, and the economy in its tenth year of expansion. Powell’s cowardly surrender is proof the Fed is nothing but Wall Street’s bitch, subservient and pliable to pressure from its owners.
“They’re keeping the rates down so that everything else doesn’t go down. We have a very false economy. At some point the rates are going to have to change. The only thing that is strong is the artificial stock market. The U.S. economy is in a big, fat, ugly bubble. I will get rid of the nation’s more than $19 trillion national debt over a period of eight years. I’m renegotiating all of our deals, the big trade deals that we’re doing so badly on.” – Donald Trump, September 2016.
“The U.S. economy would grow more quickly if monetary policy were eased. If we had a Fed that would lower interest rates, we would be like a rocket ship. We don’t have a Fed that knows what they’re doing. Our most difficult problem is not our competitors, it is the Federal Reserve. The Fed raised rates too soon, too often, and doesn’t have a clue!” – Donald Trump, July 2019
I certainly overestimated the campaign rhetoric truthfulness of Donald Trump as he railed against the Federal Reserve for keeping interest rates too low, creating a stock market bubble, and contributing to the parabolic rise in debt. His promise to eliminate the national debt in eight years was impossible, but I thought he might rein in spending and reduce annual deficits.
It seems men who may have the best intentions to do what is right on behalf of the American people when they seek higher office or are appointed to positions of power, such as the Federal Reserve, are summoned into a dark boardroom and informed who are the real bosses and what truly makes the world go round.
The scene in Network where business mogul Arthur Jensen informs Howard Beale about the real world and who wields the real power probably comes closest to what Obama, Trump, Bernanke, Yellen and Powell have experienced as they were “convinced” to do the bidding of the corporate interests, military industrial complex, and banking cabal.
“You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it! Is that clear? You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!
You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.
It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU… WILL… ATONE!
Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?
You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.”
So here we are, entering Trump’s fourth year in office as the Deep State and their cronies in Congress, the CIA, and fake news media use impeachment as their last straw in their ongoing attempted coup, and the national debt is up by $3 trillion since Trump took office. At the end of his first term the national debt will exceed $24 trillion and interest on that debt will approach $600 billion.
The tax cuts for corporate America and the richest individuals reduced tax revenues and resulted in corporations buying back billions of their own stock to drive the stock market to the highest valuations since the 2000 dot.com bubble. Meanwhile, Trump fed the military industrial complex with billions more, while funding war throughout the world. Rhetoric about ending wars is just bullshit for the masses. The entitlement outlays remain on an unsustainable path, as Trump and all the feckless politicians in D.C. pretend all is well. Nothing bad has happened – Yet.
The Fed balance sheet peaked at $4.5 trillion as they increased interest rates by a mere 200 basis points over a few years, still 200 basis points below what used to be considered normal. We’ve heard the boasts about the “best economy ever”, “lowest unemployment in history”, “stock market highest ever”, and “record corporate profits”, but with interest rates still at emergency levels and the Fed balance sheet a mere $750 billion lower than its peak, somehow the Fed feels compelled to cut rates and restart QE – but not calling it QE. Powell is bowing down to his Wall Street masters and Trump by taking actions which would only be taken during a recession or financial crisis.
GDP has averaged 2.5% in 2019, with consumer confidence high, consumer spending solid, unemployment at all-time lows, the stock market within spitting distance of all-time highs, and corporate profits at all-time peaks. Why would the Fed cut rates by 50 basis points, with more coming, and increase their balance sheet by $180 billion in one month, with a commitment to increase it by $60 billion a month for the foreseeable future?
Will these actions benefit the average person or the above average bank and corporate executives? Savers are again being sacrificed on the altar of corporate America. These actions by Powell and his fellow Fed co-conspirators are desperate measures disguised as planned policy actions, sold to the masses by the propaganda media as normal and beneficial to them.
As the daily Twitter wars are waged by Trump against his surveillance state foes and their confederates in Congress and the fake news media, the economic situation of the country marches relentlessly towards its catastrophic denouement. It appears no one on either side of the political divide is the least bit worried about the sustainability of an unsustainable economic paradigm.
I suppose I continue to underestimate the level of maliciousness, gluttony, and pure arrogance of those pulling the strings behind the curtain, as they rape and pillage the dwindling financial resources of our empire in its death throes. These psychopaths in suits care not for this country or its people. These globalist pricks want nothing more than pliable slaves, distracted by their iGadgets, sports, and Hollywood drivel.
The reaction by the big swinging dicks on Wall Street to the fake news trade agreement between Trump and China, along with the surprise Friday announcement by the Fed of $60 billion per month QE, was to drive stock prices skyward. I will no longer underestimate the lengths to which the establishment will go to maintain and expand their riches, power and control over our society.
I will also no longer overestimate the ability of the American populace to see through this charade and come to their senses regarding their unsustainable use of debt to try and maintain an unrealistic lifestyle. Their willful ignorance, created through government education propaganda and social engineering, will not be extinguished until the inevitable financial collapse wipes them out again.
This Fourth Turning certainly has not followed the path of the previous Fourth Turning. The existing social order has thrown every debt based “solution” at this debt-based crisis in order to avoid a 1930s like Depression. As we are eleven years into this Fourth Turning, the actions taken by the ruling class may have delayed the pain, but they have only assured the next leg down will be far worse than it needed to be. The social fabric of the country is being irreparably torn with the ongoing Deep State coup against Trump.
His impeachment and/or election of a gun grabbing socialist will surely lead to civil violence. The continued provocations between superpowers with nuclear weapons and a Middle East always on the verge of apocalypse only needs an arrogant misstep by an egomaniacal leader to trigger a global conflagration. I don’t think I’m overestimating the risk of catastrophe, but time will tell. Fourth Turnings have always swept away the existing social order in a chaotic whirlwind of death and destruction.
“The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
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Never, ever, ever, underestimate….
The Statist/Globalist/Elitist “can” will be kicked until their legs fall off or we are all dead….they will continue to come up with magical BS..such as MMT (aka money printing on super steroids) so I also have underestimated the ability of the evildoers to do evil…They will destroy this country before allowing themselves to lose a penny!
I share the concern about the progress of the 4th Turning but Congress Critter Rashida Talib is talking about arresting Trump admin officials…sounds like progress to me!
My fear though is the learned helplessness of the American people will prevent a survival reaction until the penultimate moment and then a wave of violence will be unleashed unlike the world has ever seen.
We don’t want that.
Trump was never perfect but better than nothing and way better than HRC….but his actions have been curtailed on the spending and debt reduction….to the point of being no different than what HRC would have done…which I guess is the best evidence that the POTUS ain’t really in charge!
Not much we can do but stay vigilant do the best we can in our own lives and try and stay out of the way when it all comes tumbling down….because that which is unsustainable always ends and the USA is currently operating on the least sustainable model I can imagine!
I feel ya Jim. This piece reminded me of the black night in The Holy Grail. Not sure why. Maybe it’s just the ridiculous of it all.
Ah, tis YOU who summoned the Dark Knight!
Speaking of films, just watched The Good Earth… starvation, martial law and food riots in 1930s China.
Fairly accurate, and more than a bit unsettling.
Feels like a Category 5 Fourth Turning bearing down on us. Going to have to hunker down and stay in our holes.
Very well done, Admin.
Nice imagery.
While the globalists try and play whack a mole with us.
What a recap! Thanks so much for the walk down memory lane and the adroit sitrep of where we are at. All in all a tour de force very much in league with all your best, and a tasty compliation of years of work that I absolutely enjoyed from beginning to end.
As always, thank you.
I’ll keep it simple and concise. The longer you wind a rubber band, the more violent the sudden release is. We’re in for one unprecedented snap, unlike anything ever experienced before.
Just like you, Jim, I have constantly underestimated the strength of the rubber band and have expected it to all go to hell quite some time ago. But go to hell it will.
“… I would have stayed invested in the market, reaping the 300% returns since the 2009 lows…”
I think most of us here experienced this and are poorer for it. I too thought it would go to hell in 2008-2009. Loaded up on PM’s, cash, lead, food, and water, probably like many others here. Moved, bought land in the country, planted gardens and fruit trees (still planting). Well, thank God the crash held off and gave us more time to prepare. I don’t know which scares me worse, the debt laden financial “markets” or our irreparable political divide. Either way, or both, there’s one hell of a shit storm coming… Chip
It’s never going to happen!
It’s a foundational tenet of Austrian economics that the market is more powerful than the forces that try to defeat it. That is now being tested.
Now?
Yes, now. Two fissures recently emerged. The overnight repo rate spiked to 9%. And the fed were forced to initiate more QE although they lied through their teeth about it. That may signal a tipping point when the market has started to overwhelm the casino. We shall see.
Hasn’t it been being tested…not just now?
They can distort markets for a long time. The theory is at some point true market forces overwhelm the interventions. Are we there now? We’ll see.
“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” Yogi Berra
I have said it before, but all of those projecting timing on the next economic collapse are missing one important point:
In practice, productivity gains are off the fuckin’ charts. At NO point in history has so much been able to be produced with so little. Even greater gains are on the way via widespread adoption of 3D printers, robotics, drones, nano manufacturing, cloning, AI, quantum computing and problem solving, and technologies not yet arrived at. I advocate for nothing, just pointing these things out – in practice, they exist and will continue to be advanced whether we like or trust them, or not.
In order to hold down the peasants via prevention of wealth gains stemming from productivity gains, TPTB must dilute those wealth (productivity) gains via currency debauchery. Otherwise, they fear their power structures will be challenged AND overrun.
Timelines would be much more accurate if we were still living in 1800 or anytime, really, before wide availability and implementation of computers (I’d say around 1995). After that date (windows 95/GUI), productivity went absolutely nuts and continues to gain momentum.
As long as there are huge productivity gains, this Ponzi can continue. THAT is what the Ponzi is based on in this case; Not “new suckers”, greater productivity.
A very cogent observation. There is a very long wave,”The Ascent of Man” that goes on unabated since we crawled out of the primordial swamp. But it’s not a straight line.
A wise retort.
I believe that the undulating line you mention correlates almost directly to productivity gains.
Thank you and Touche’ Good Sir.
But how long does production continue if the consumer cannot pay?
Does a Billionaire owner of an arcade really need to make patrons pay a quarter to play to keep the lights on?
I would speculate that production is no longer truly tied to an ability to pay – that is a CONfidence issue, not an economic necessity at this point. Production is tied to….more and better future production (in TPTB minds, anyway). They own the guns, and they own or control the factories, robots, drones, etc. and therefore, the production.
Very soon, all basic necessities, and even many luxuries, will be produced with no people at all.
The ability to pay won’t be the factor that decides what is produced and who gets it.
The ability to use power and force will be – and mainly, are already.
IMO “The Big Short” ranks as one of the best films ever made.
If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it.
It’s required viewing. A great movie. Do not miss it.
Admins use of the stripper scene was top shelf madness.
As a prerequisite to viewing the film, look up and then watch ALL of Dr. Michael Burrys interviews including the UCLA commencement speech of 2012
If you come across the one where he touts cheap land with water on it, you’ll find what drove me to an airstream on a river. Unbeatable.
An airstream on a river sounds pretty damn good.
The trick to doing so with the significant other is to keep sniffles down and the “Capsule” spotless!
The small house tv shows NEVER mention airborne viruses etc.
Thank you.
I thought the movie was kind of a lame adaptation of the book, which is excellent. If you liked “The Big Short”, read “Liar’s Poker” … it’s even better.
In the rooms and around the tables of 12-Step groups, the word yet means you’re eligible too.
This piece also reminded me of a car commercial I thought I once heard on the radio:
—
“Attention area car shoppers!
At Wall Street Motors we have OVER one thousand new and pre-owned cars and trucks priced UNDER $75,000!
Lease any one of OVER 150 new plastic smart-cars for UNDER $499 a month! Yes! Lease payments for UNDER $499 a month for OVER three full years and you’ll still owe just UNDER one half of the vehicle’s original price but OVER it’s current used car book value!
What a deal on a car you can’t afford and don’t own!
HURRY! For best selection! Wall Street Motors… OVER priced and operating UNDER the radar since 1913.”
—
Lol Great article. Thanks, Jim
Wait, nothing bad has happened yet? “Savers” have eviscerated and continue to be. “I’ve” contributed hundreds of thousands to “yet” over the last decade and continue to contribute tens of thousands per year. That is “bad.”
I used to work in goobermint, including the armed services.
Bunch of numbnuts at all levels, even the highest levels.
Now with decades of affirmative action, you have this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
Stick with your non-tagline. It’s working. Thank youuuu
22, Pretty much sums up the majority of the ‘Merican public.
Also called the Useless Idiot Syndrome?
The circle jerk of Wall Street to K-Street to Capitol Street will continue . It’s a big club and average Americans are not in it !
Regardless of what you hear politically left right and all points between ! Disabling and disarming physically financially and especially firearms will be the order of the day . Bank and credit accounts frozen and food distributed by government AGW’s and local LEO’s all who will exclaim “ just doing my job”
Just like a good NAZI
Cryptocurrency anyone? Debt Jubilee? US bankruptcy overseen by Trump as planned?
No solutions? Just Fourth Turning predictions? Which leads to chaos leading to violence and maybe something close to extinction? That’s it?
You “higher power” folks have no faith. The ultimate truth is that justice exists as the agenda for humanity. It’s slow in coming maybe, but it grinds on and on one lifetime after another. What you think matters. Live up to your thoughts as a force for good.
Huh?
I’ll take gold instead of crypto thanks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xykvrGpCW6E
Thanks Admin.
So what you are saying is George Carlin was right – imagine how stupid the average person is, then consider half of the people are even stupider than that.
Pretty much sums it up.
Bread and circuses. The people keep falling for it.
George Carlin was ALWAYS right
Have as much of your monetary value as you can “in hand”.Have metals/land/tools/perhaps investment grade art/cars ect. if you also actually appreciate it/use monies you have to help in learning new skills.I would never have long term more then 20% of my net value in 1’s&0’s(market/bank ect.),can go poof too easily and I while would hate it can take that loss.
Yes,a big correction armed govt. folks may come for your actual in hand goods(or other thieves)but then they have to actually fight for it across the nation and feel the public might not be too keen on such activity.
I’ve been shoring up and gearing up, getting ready for winter and whatever else happens to happen. Back when I realized things could go tits up real quick I started thinking about living without electricity and other modern ‘comforts’ and while pondering this I realized that my grandparents didn’t have electricity, they plowed with horses and mules and made most of what they needed and used. So, I follow that model…as to a financial collapse, methinks that won’t happen until those with wealth figure out how to preserve it and once that happens….Molly bar the door.
Mygirl – not an argument, just a thought . . . why else are the prices of precious metals suppressed? If not for them to “permanize” the ongoing financial rape of the last ten, nay, twenty, nay, hundred years? And how many “mortgage-backed securities” do “they” own? How many farmers (with all of that prime farmland) are in the midst of financial ruin from this year’s . . . “freak” . . . weather (#noplant2019 and #noharvest2019), which also sets-up the rest of the nation for price-shocks (and/or shortages) at the grocery store? The blood-lettings have been ongoing, for years and years, and, near as I can tell, by now, most people are anaemic. Yet . . . it continues. They have set the system up so that, soon, they may buy everything for pennies on the dollar . . . so, are they not actively preserving it already?
My point . . . once they have beaten everyone else into desperation, the godlets will have their ultimate preservation; beggars-for-mercy (the masses) will worship them (submit to their rule, accept their own slavitude (sic), and embrace “big brother”, all without question) in exchange for food and “security”. They may eat crumbs . . . but at least they will eat. And they will stand aside while the gods destroy everyone else.
Most of us, including me, have been early on the ultimate collapse, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to be wrong. Reality always wins. Great article, Jim, I’ll post it tonight.
Big of you Robert.
Better to be a year early than a day late……
I quit reading at “the primal forces of nature”.
The Primal Forces of Nature say that the fossil-fuel underpinnings of Industrial Civilization are on the wane.
That’s why interest rates are skewing towards the negative (are effectively negative in pretty much all cases).
Speaking with people today, it’s like 2008-2009 never happened. Most are still house rich and morally piss poor. Folks throwing darts at the ticker and buying stocks with their online accts. Technical Analysis? Fundamental Analysis? Motley Fool said I should buy this stock. My dry cleaner likes this one. There is (was) a saying on Wall Street. “Don’t confuse brains with a bull market.” They all think they are forkin Geniuses. The market and economy are behaving exactly as they should….reflecting the moral decay driving it. It may not be the BIG DUMP that brings everyone to his knees. But a slow slog of financial and spiritual degeneracy
Spiritual degeneracy for sure.
The millions who lost their homes sure aren’t house rich
Many of those people should have not purchased a home in the first place. And I see much of the same today. Cheap Loans + High Real Estate Prices (+ corresponding High Property Taxes) – Home Equity Loans = Biting off more than one can chew.
I’m sure the Money Oligarchs have the economic crash carefully planned for before Nov2020 and all escape routes blocked.
The idea your (SLV) silver etf or (GLD) Gold etf is somehow a safe haven in PM’s is laughable. Most only hold options and not the real stuff. Even if it does “hold” the real stuff its in another country. And surely during a massive collapse they will be so kind along with your postal carrier to mail your coins to you. It may be fine as the collapse hits to have these etfs but by the time you sell it, cash it out and take fiat dollars to the local coin store to buy some coins the real price of coins doubled in those few days. I am stacking now…..
“If we get caught they will just replace us with persons of the same cloth. So it doesn’t matter what you do. America is a Golden Calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the World’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control. Why? Because it’s God’s will and America is big enough to take the hit so we can do it again, again and again. This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves.” – Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu Fink’s Bar diatribe 1990
Blowing up the Towers, amped up the suffering and turned us into Tools.
how about a credible link to bibi’s rant?
Paul Revere rode in 2009. Loud and clear. Y’all better get “small”.
EXCELLENT work as usual Sir. The banksters have scammed many of us numerous times as we could not conceive that they could be so venal as to follow the ONE mandate they have.
“The ONLY mandate of the Central Bank is to insure the profits of the member banks, and then bail them out when they need it.”
“Sooner or later it is the Banks vs the People.” Been on for years now.
However what could the Dutch Central Bank be seeing that could cause them to come out with what the reset will need, but the currency of last resort?
Not exactly a “Gold Bug Tin Foil Hat” nutter. What do they see that caused this public disclosure, is the question??
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/central-bank-issues-stunning-warning-if-entire-system-collapses-gold-will-be-needed-start
ursel doran,
Watch the vid I posted below – it ties into your link.
And then gold will be illegal to own, again.
Enslaved with student debt? It was a decision made with the full knowledge that this money would have to be paid back. I figure we have till at least after Trump wins the next election or he loses and some insane Democrat takes over. This bank’s borrowing thing has me wondering.
Trump has the masses of patriots and normal slaves that are productive and tax payers under his hypnosis . This is why he will win, but will win barely, So the normies do not get too comfy. They will also need to make everyone feel good for the last leg down so you can guarantee they will make the dems lose bigly in CONgress to perpetuate that blissful feeling for the following 4 years to keep them distracted. They will surely keep the loudest mouths on the left so there is continued distractions.
Federal Reserve bank bail out ramping up as the banks are out of cash?
Wait.
Look at the Veritas-CNN distraction funded by Team Trump instead!
“I clearly underestimated the illegal lengths Bernanke and his fellow puppets would go to in order to save their Wall Street owners and corporate, political and media parasites reliant upon the ongoing Ponzi debt scheme being sustained.”
Apparently you didn’t get the message of 9-11-2001. The lengths they’ll go to are psychopathic and unlimited, mass murder is just the beginning.
There is absolutely nothing they won’t do to retain power and wealth.
That was the lesson.
Agree with AC. Heartbreaking lesson, too. I do think Trump will make it past the latest Rat-f——- fest of the Demoncrats plus their RINO pals, but, as AC wrote, there is nothing they will not do to keep their power. Nothing at all. But POTUS keeps fighting and so do I. So, I stay away from crowds, work on the homestead and ALL that it means to do that, and I keep my ’97 Subaru and ’86 Toyota pickup in decent if not lovely shape. And, I take a lot of comfort in what I have learned from my grandparents and others in my ranching neighborhood about how it used to be and how they got along just fine. Keep the faith.
TARP was my “Come to Jesus” moment. It caused a monumental paradigm shift in my life, far more than any other politico-economic event since I’ve been alive. My son was born that year and I just so happened to WFH the first year of his life.
Lots of Mises rabbit holes. Lots of bears talking about The Bernank. Lots of Kubler-Ross for the Republic.
On Election Day 2008, after my vote for Barr/Root resulted in the slimmest of losses, we ended up planning our next 5 years to relo where we are today.
Never thought this country could get any worse. The fudge-packing it will endure will be orders of magnitude more aggravating to the national hemorrhoids than it would have been in 2008.
I understand the seething anger that occasionally snaps and growls in this biting and accurate review of the skinning and cooking of the American middle class goose by all the usual suspects. As usual I’m with you Admin.
This vid is almost a year old but is in my mind, hands down, the most comprehensive, historically accurate, fast paced, and informative explanation of where we have been economically, where we are, and where we could be going I have seen to date.
I know many do not watch vids, give this one five minutes…if you’re not hooked I’d be surprised.
Keep in mind the Grey Wolf that was re-introduced into Yellowstone in the early 90’s and the massive success and rejuvenation on the entire ecology of that pristine national park that this Apex Predator has had, and you will never think about Gold or a Gold Standard…or the Grey Wolf…the same way if you watch this vid.
THE FALL OF THE DOLLAR: IS THE RETURN TO A GOLD STANDARD INEVITABLE?
“Is the return to a gold standard inevitable? Grant Williams, Senior Advisor at Vulpes Investment Mgmt, breaks down the history of the gold standard and the impact it will have on the future of world currency. This is a must-watch if you are reviewing your current investment portfolio.”
WOW! Great video Mark. Thanks for sharing. Now what to do with physical cash on hand and in the bank? As it just sits there and inflates away… Chip
I hope EC gets his friend Professor Mandlebooty to view this and give us the summary in plainspeak.
An excellent video…
Maybe he can talk about potatoes and Ireland.
Is EC really my friend? Did not know that….
Thanks for posting that, Mark. Good info.
Another great article, and 51 comments/vids (I’m even 6 min. in on Mark’s gold video, and the only gold we own are the videos of two and three year old great nieces and nephew-priceless)…..
The ongoing deceptions stretch belief, and again, in my mind/heart I hear “If my people…”
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2Ch. 7:14
Is the good ole USA even remotely close….
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <——== found printed on the fiat dollar
the 'good ole USA' is the snake in the wood pile…..
ordo ab chao,
I have been a serious prepper a long time.
When it comes to PMs I made sure all the other more important preps were taken care of: shelter (no debt on my home/land), water, food, self-sufficiency, medical supplies, self-defense, communication, community, barter, off grid energy capabilities, etc. first.
Then stashed cash/silver, then for wealth – gold.
Everyone is going to be at different ages/stages – courses/resources when it comes to money. But at the minimum…some cash and silver in hand outside the Banksters (way before gold depending on your individual situation) is a wise move for everyone, especially the Remnant.
Mark…
I hear ya, brother.
Haha, I’m down there at the minimum….and some of the ‘silver in hand’ landed there for payment of mowing a lawn. Dad let me use the mower to make some money as a kid, so I tied it behind my bike and would pull it half way across town to mow a yard for fitty cents or a buck. I had a one gallon Old Crow long neck whiskey bottle as my bank. Silver dimes quarters, and halves……got so heavy it cracked the bottom out of it..
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <——-==
My sentiments exactly!
Essentially the knights of the round table have collectively simultaneously realized they are the ones keeping the king in power and they feel collectively they should be in power vs one man (country-USA). The UN is now working against USA interest as they want to collectively take over as a one world enforcement ruler. They are allowing China to infiltrate Venezuela. They allowed SDR for China and others to trade petro in other than dollars.
Our national debt has doubled and we are on a slow enough track where the avg person caught here today cannot understand nor see the reset as it is just slow enough to remain unseen. These hare prevalent in history that always have some snapping point that caused a major fast reset.
The reset will include a 90% devaluation of the dollar and stock market, i am speaking within a week. Like a rubber band eventually snapped but under slow motion it took a few milliseconds to fully contract. In a time line of decades a week is similar to milliseconds. Main concern is real estate taxes, govt rewriting laws to interfere with private contracts (mortgages). Because nearly every mortgage has a govt bond backing it they will get ultimate power in revaluing your mortgage debt to current devalued dollar.
I have studied Venezuela and see how easily that would be the case here. 2 pounds of apples in January of 2017 cost $96 Bolivars. July 2018 they cost over $652,000 Bolivars. Today they cost $293,000,000. If you have $100,000 mortgage you could easily owe trillions. If the govt interferes with private contracts. Which surely they will to dave the too big to fail. Seems gold will fix that while junk silver allows you to eat daily. However your property taxes could easily go from $1,000 a year to $80,000 a year so you need a way to convert something of value to hang onto your property. Either apples, gold or silver. You get it yet?
Got it loud and clear
Why don’t you review Mark’s video above … give one of your most excellent examples of what this pile of debt is liable to do…
What does this look like?
“The reset will include a 90% devaluation of the dollar and stock market, i am speaking within a week.”
Expound on this…
“Our national debt has doubled and we are on a slow enough track where the avg person caught here today cannot understand nor see the reset as it is just slow enough to remain unseen. These hare prevalent in history that always have some snapping point that caused a major fast reset. ”
This observation of yours, Mandlebrot, is chilling:
However your property taxes could easily go from $1,000 a year to $80,000 a year so you need a way to convert something of value to hang onto your property.
Why would you post the same article in the thread of the same article?
I was trying to link to a link I posted and that did not work out.
I recently started digging into what happened to the average person in Venezuela if they owned a home with a mortgage. As you know in all socialism there is nothing but favors. So it is very subjective. However, I found that they can act dictatorial and some were forced to mark their mortgage to market under the new currency laws while others were not.
However, these favoritisms started showing up about 18-24 months later once full collapse was set in. What I found was there was a short period of time and surely if you paid off your mortgage with a bag of apples just a few months later you would be mad as you could have waited and paid it off with only one apple.
However the elites there changed some peoples mortgages to the new dollar so if they owed $100,000 they would end up owing $300,000,000 under the new currency. They also have odd realty laws where the govt provides basic housing and only certain people have land owning rights. They feel land is socialized and should be owned by the State (People in a socialist think).
My concern here if all mortgages have a govt finger (backed by bonds, or TARP or anything govt related) the govt may reprice your mortgage in the inflated dollars. Our bankers here are too greedy and smart to allow us or afford us the short window to use the hyperinflation and use a bag of apples to pay off a home. However one thing screws them and that is the value of gold which will surely knock their fisat dollar out. This is my conclusion.
You have gold for big things like paying off the mortgage, paying the annual tithe in realty taxes and you have silver for bribes, daily or monthly things and you have the correct barter items for everyday living. Have at least one ounce gold per family member as a final resort to flee the country. Or silver in this case. Gold could be used to charter a plane but you could easily be taken once everyone shows up and the pilots know there is gold on the tarmac….
Most importantly you stay hidden and not flaunt what you have, have trusted people around you. You will become a high value target, family will be kidnapped, threatened, some possibly will die once its found you have these resources. Do I even need to remind you to have security.
I am assuming some treasonous democrat will have already enacted gun confiscation and banned weapons. I can tell you absolute, when they ban guns you have less than 5 years until the end. Happened every single time in every collapse situation. There are some other examples like Australia banned guns. Seems first world country’s are much more patient and take longer than 5 years but the Aussies were always pussies compared to the USA when compared to gun ownership.
One thing is certain it will be short and sweet here because the military industrial complex piddles everywhere but on their own door step. You really believe a few cave dwellers in Afghanistan held off our military for years? They needed it too look like it was hard so they could grease the money slide of new appropriations Bills in Congress. Our Patriots here unfortunately have no idea they are the fish in the barrel. The drone tech and microwave tech we have. Red Dawn resistors wont last a week once they go after them.
They know everything because they will record everything with drones and simply rewind and see where the fighters came from. Eventually some, a very few handful, red dawn types will use the sewers and pop up to fight and the drones wont know but they will catch on eventually and use tech and find every revolutionary. This cannot be won in the streets unfortunately. There are no Geneva Conventions protections for us by or from our own govt.
We must win this in a the sham of elections for if it turns spicy time the people will surely loose and if our own military backs down, the UN and others will be invited to take their leisure with our women and children using our or other tech in which makes us proverbial fish in a barrel. The only way we could put up resistance is like seen everywhere (suicide bombers). You always see this because it is the only way around the massive tech as pea shooters (guns) will be a joke unfortunately.
High value targets will be in safe zones and untouchable after the kick off so the opportunity for change is zero once the game has started. Even the failed drone attack on Maduro shows its too hard even for well funded well coordinated attempts. If we do not fix this now even under the false pre tense of a Republic once the charade is removed of a Constitutional Republic you have no idea the tech that will be used on us here. There are numerous laws prohibiting that tech from being used internationally but none here. Please listen and understand this. The rambo gung ho here wont last 18 seconds. Imagine a man and spear against an F22 fighter jet. But even worse due to the tech they have.
Aussies did not ban guns. What a maroon.
To those who think the patriots don’t have a chance:
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. ” – Mike Tyson
What will bring America to it’s knees…financial destruction, World war, civil war, natural disaster? Whatever happens just remember there are no coincidences, we may die but it is also our moral imperative to thin the herd of parasites.
Resolute,
I’m leaning towards hot Civil war (we are well into lukewarm) followed by economic collapse (we are well into the unstoppable slide)…or the reverse. It’s like trying to decide in-between one of the double mint twins??
Either one can be triggered at will by the Luciferican Globalists and will be at their choice of timing.
As far as bag‘in and tag‘in the Golden Horde I suspect all the farmers in this part of the edge of rural, and spread out suburban cul-de-sacs, both of which are only a half hour car ride from two small cites with two modest but typical EBT ghettos, with various low end trailer parks scattered around like fleas on a dog, and one small aging biker gang (Boomer bikers are still dangerous just slower and they take naps) the back hoes scattered around here will come in handy dandy one day soon.
I have a high stack of bags of lime in my barn for my two outhouses…but in a pinch…I won’t flinch.
It’ll take more than two terms of DJT to undo the financial damage that has been done by the Fed and our ruling classes. It’ll take him that long just to start hanging some of the traitors in congress assuming we can get that far without things really going to shit. One day at a time I guess…
IDK Francis, the national debt is up by 28% in less than three years of Trump, just imagine what eight years of Trump spending could do. He is the terminator and you can bet the Club has no intent on hanging other Club members,
I think it’s more complicated than that. I guess time will tell.
Not really.
https://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy.html
Unfortunately, DJT is not fixing or undoing anything Francis. I love what he says, and tweets but his actions are all that matter. He is a tool to keep the normies normal and paying taxes and distracted so they do not catch on yet and remain sheep. So sad….I so wanted to believe…
#ExposeCNN Project Veritas Insider BLOWS the Whistle! CNN Breaking News! (video)
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2019/10/exposecnn-project-veritas-insider-blows.html
Anyone who isn’t aware that Trump has been in on the game from the beginning, either didn’t investigate his history, or just hasn’t been paying attention since he was appointed.
And then there’s the fact that no one gets onto the final presidential ballot unless they’ve been selected to be there by the puppet masters.
Either candidate will follow the agenda they are given, so it doesn’t matter who wins.
The game is rigged folks, just like the stock market.
Trump may have signed on to ride the economy to ground, so the parasites running this shit-show (including himself) can snap up assets at fire sale prices.
And they got a 2-fer, since he’s also managed to rope in most of the conservatives and the populists and sell them down the river.
George nice summary of the “it is all theater” meme.
Let me rebut that, not personal with you, this theme is emotional, not factual and is a constant refrain here at TBP.
Your narrative says everything is “rigged” elections, economy, stock market etc. Nothing is organic and “real” reflecting the will of the American people, the market, underlying economic activity…everything is controlled and pre-ordained.
OK….please explain why Trump would sign up for the harshest most outrageous prosecutions, impeachment, investigations, personal daily attacks in the media and the real threat of assassination. In your narrative….Trump is willingly subjecting himself to this abuse after being selected by (who does the selecting?) as part of a plan where the payoff is that he gets to buy assets cheap?
Really that is simply absurd.
The uproar and the ongoing effort to remove Trump from office started before his inauguration and continue with ever more violent energy and hysterics.
Isn’t a simpler explanation that Trump is, in fact, the glitch in the system that is being attacked in deadly earnest in a contest for control of the USA?
Trump is having limited success and making some stupid decisions but the attacks from the Administrative State (deep state, globalists, elites, take your pick) are overwhelming.
With your narrative there is simple learned helplessness and defeatism….if everything is controlled what is the point of any of this….we are fucked.
OK, well I beg to differ based on the facts….
Golf clap…
It’s simple. He does what we say or they die.
Or maybe not.
Leave the kid alone, asshole
Uncalled for…
So now a Trump was made to run for President or his family would be killed. Really ?
Yes. Really.
@the Ghost of Z……
By the time stamp, this little gem has been posted for right at twelve hours, and I’m the first to give it an up vote. Valuable info that people seem to just dismiss, or ignore leaning on the ‘white knight’ theory, I guess.
The connections cited to a family that goes back far into history as ‘moneychangers’, who easily have manipulated/directed the financial course of nations over the last couple hundred years…..
I contend it is the luciferian theology that is ‘behind’ it all, DC being ground zero. The stage is being set for a new order
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <——-==
Ordo- Ground zero is City of London for finance. Take a look at the three locations that operate as a separate country within a country where “they” are above the law. City of London, DC and the Vatican and to be sure the Vatican is the head of the Hydra.
It’s easy to run a mafia cabal where there are no restraints of law and order. Amazing that the faithful just can’t send enough money to the religious joke that is the Vatican. The stupid it burns white hot that the sheep never question the authority of these criminal zones.
Protectors of the City of London. No joke.
“It’s simple. He does what we say or they die.”
——–
Asinine statement. Trump didn’t choose to run for the presidency to do what “we” say. (Who is “we” in your statement?)
Trump was recruited by military intelligence to implement their plan to take back the constitution from the Obama shredding and guide the USofA through bankruptcy. Ending the Fed is part of that plan.
It’s a diversion. He’s our guy. Our fall guy.
Maybe DJT was not really in the “club” and this was his ticket in after the collapse?
Another brilliant article.
I am 56 years old and have apparently lived through many a financial “crisis”. But the truth is, I never knew it because I was working and always had a “job”. In other words, a financial crises is only a crises for those who feel its effects directly.
I have since learned that the only way to get by and through the next one since I am “retired” (meaning I no longer work in the corporate world), is to have as much saved up as I can. Not in a bank, but in a well hidden safe at my house protected by an easy to find dummy safe with little in it.
My savings include food, silver money, and an assortment of things with unlimited shelf life that are available everywhere today for next to nothing but one day will be very scarce for purposes of barter.
I save silver dimes more than anything else, because once the paper is worthless I will need something to spend and nobody will have any change.
Yes, there will be a “crisis”. Yes, a lot of people will suffer, but will also probably become healthier due to not eating as much poison food as they currently do. Yes, the banksters will steal everything from everybody, but only if it has been placed in their system by the ignorant.
The “crisis” doesn’t have to be one for you. but it will be if you wait for someone else to either get you prepared or to save you. And if you expect the PAPER “money” you have in the bank or your pension will save you, good luck with that.
I will not go through a crisis, but sadly I will have to watch others suffer through it.
I wish I had more neighbors, like you and mtnforge.
Not a big fan of the Gold Grabber FDR…but I love his dimes too!
Do you really think people who don’t want PAPER money would want silver dimes? Maybe I’ll trade you some beef for whiskey!
Once a sense of normalcy returns, the silver and gold will be acceptable, but in the beginning, it will be barter for something you need. I have been stockpiling lead as I believe I will always be able to trade a box of .22LR for some gas, flour or rice.
TXRancher,
It’s not either or…and there will be different stages during and after TSHTF when different prep will not be valuable but invaluable, for different reasons, at different times.
Cash will be KING at first…then worthless.
Silver Dimes will be KING coming out of a time of chaos as beings who are human start to reorganize and look for 5,000 year old value to exchange.
Yes, barter will be KING…but there will be more than one KING of reemerging commerce.
I plan on having all the KINGs.
All types of prep, including silver dimes acquired before will be impossible or super expensive to acquire during and after.
Think big picture…acquire all the pieces of the puzzle before the game starts and remember……………………………………
where do you get your silver dimes at face value,or is it possible?
I used to volunteer to count and wrap the coins at my office from the vending machines and would run across a silver dime or quarter several times a year. By the time I retired 3 years ago, it was one or 2 a year. Other than finding one in loose change, you have to purchase them at market value.
I actually travelled to a few rural banks in 2010 and purchased half-dollar coins (as many as they had
… maybe 50 bucks two or three times. I got five silver halves total.
Not worth it… but it was true the rarely used coins are still around.
Tampa,
I’m a hoarder (not really cuz everything I horde is still wildly available…for now) of silver dimes, quarters, half dollars, Morgan Silver dollars and American 1 oz. Eagles since the early 80’s…and a lot of other ‘stuff’.
To TN’s point I have worked in the Vending industry since 2002…these coins are 99.999% gleaned out of circulation. If you want to own some ‘pre 1964 junk silver’ dimes (a wise move) go here.
Silver at today’s market value is probably the greatest fire sale price since 99ish.
(Donkey – HOLD!)
Good company, good cost, reliable, PMs are insured and come in disguised as industrial parts if the package is heavy.
https://sdbullion.com/silver/junk-silver
I’m 65 and did feel the effects of recession especially in 1981 when the firm I recently started working for laid off 12 out of 20 people in their office Newly married with a baby I had to scramble to eat
You scrambled to eat a baby? (he he…)
Great essay! A pretty darn good dissertation on some really really FUBAR’d shit.
Like to share my insights, they have to do with debt, or not having any debt. I think it is because of how my grandparents raised me, I have never had debt in my life. I saved and worked hard, have bought everything cash on the barrelhead, first property I got for $11,000, 5 acres and a beat up single-wide on a full foundation, it was kind of abandoned, run down, unoccupied for 11 years. It was no palace, but I owned it lock stock & barrel. Lived there and fixed it up a over the years bit at a time from paycheck to paycheck, sold it for $54,000, bought another 5 acres, decent house, for $46,500 clear and free. The folks selling it wanted 77 grand, I looked at it, pulled out a bank check for $50,000, said I’ll give you 46,500 right now, today, I’ll go down and open an account at the local bank and have your money today. They said let us think about it. I drove away and not 10 minutes later they called and said yes.
How I live, what I do seems to have no connection to the financial madness written about here. It don’t matter how crazy shit gets. I got food, roof, transportation, tools and equipment to earn a living with. Nobody has a finger of claim on any of it.
Over the last 20 years I have watched, and it all seems just to pass me by.
I never buy new vehicles, I find older used, and lovingly rebuild them. In the last 38 years I have owned three Chevy pickups, kept them in good running shape, and laughed all the way to the bank as the old saying goes. When I sell one, I get enough to buy the next. Then invest in fixing it up real nice. It only costs about 2500-3000 dollars to do a decent job of refurbishing, with mostly new parts and tires. Far less expense for insurance, taxes, registration, interest, depreciation etc. It is a lot of money saved over 38 years, i live pretty self reliant, have off grid solar/wind power, built a concrete roof-water cistern system, raise as much of my own food as possible and do a lot of trade for stuff I can’t or do not raise, make wine and beer, hunt for game meat, chop and split wood for heat off my wood lot and cut down trees for other people for the firewood, help my farming neighbors, etc. It is a good wholesome life.
This is but a small cross section of my life debt free. Nobody owns me, other than the one thing of property tax slavery to the county. But that is $325 a year. So it is manageable.
All this insanity going on seems to buzz right over the sphere of my life. Other than the possibility if shit went south and violent elements became a thing, I would hardly notice. I hardly notice but for a great essay like this piece here.
My point here is that construct of fiat/debt serfdom wouldn’t be near the monstrosity it is if more of us lived debtless. If we where more a nation of farmers, artists, mechanics, inventors, home business, cottage industry home school orientated, nowheres the amount of these crooks and tyrants could mess with us. There wouldnt be the kind of money they can steal floating around. I’m not connected to that system of wealth stripping.
I think that is why we had such a long run at being a constitutional republic till the war of northern aggression changed the situation to one of corporate/crony administrative/regulatory state tyranny. Why the Confederation wanted to righfully and lawfully secede. They refused to be slaves to the money grubbers.
They have always depended on an economic victim class, cash cows, to strip mine, make into debt serfs.
It is so easy to say up yours!
I’ve done it most of my life with no trouble. I simply have lived within my means, know how to cut corners, when to scrimp and penny pinch, and when to invest in myself. It is real easy. Most of my major investments in myself just run along quietly happily paying me back. It is small amounts, but $50 bucks here, $20 over there, $100 end of the month, over a years time, then a decade, it really adds up. Plus I’ve denied those cockroaches getting their greasy meathooks on the wealth I create.
If I can do it, so can others. Nothing hard about it, only takes steady perseverance and prudence.
And want to say, I’m not college educated, I don’t even have a high-school diploma, been a welder all my life, always had a job because I worked hard and had a good reputation, never missed a day, and kept my nose clean, and everything I own is owned outright.
So, in my perspective, why would you make yourself a slave to debt? I mean, nobody can make you this kind of slave, you have to choose to do so. Why so many out there do so is a real conundrum to me I think I’ll never understand.
mtnforge,
The answer to your last paragraph is because ‘common sense’ has always been uncommon…but the last few generations it has gone from scarce to being at the top of the human attribute endangered list.
My story isn’t exactly like yours but it rhymes.
Great post!
Think I took that for granted, common sense, no pun intended but it makes a lot of sense. Lot of important things seem in short supply, like Prudence, or rather lack of prudence. So many think they aren’t responsible, in fact fully justified because they think they are morally superior for putting their BS on others, but oh brother are they ever in for a surprize when what they sow comes back around. That right there seems to me to be the total absence of prudence. Maybe one of the most important issues of our time, now that you made me think about it in ways I never did.
Good observation. Appreciate you.
No one grasps how rewarding it can be to delay gratification until you can pay cold, hold cash.
Congratulations. Once you get debt free, there is no going back! It is pure liberty. (except for the property taxes, of course…)
when’s the last time you heard the phrase,”i’m saving up for …”–
now,throw it on the cc–
“Patience is one of the great virtues” my grandmother would drill into my thick little skull when I was a kid.
And, “Don’t waste nuthin'”
You said it MG! Very well said. Bravo! I think you summed up something so vital, in certain ways it is a most viable solution, or remedy to many things so many struggle with.
Makes you think just who will be the survivors and winners in what seems to heading down the pike. Maybe the premier survival skill even.
That’s it in a nutshell. The first step in fixing what’s broken is to stop using the broken thing- namely a rigged economy. Get out of it, incur no debt, dial back your wants and desires and let that space fill up with new skills and pastimes, in every financial interaction offer to trade or barter, etc.
Pretty soon, you’re free.
Yeah, hear that, your thinking and mine are very similar, can remember chastising myself a number of times over the years almost word for word, or at least similar refrain.
I keep wondering whats up the ruling scumbags sleeves. I mean other peoples money is running out, there’s too many of the SOB’s now divvying up the pie of spoils, they are after all the total epitome of greed avarice and hubris, the rest of us are fiat chattel slaves and lower than a snake belly in a wagon rut to them. And worse. But greed is as greed does, and they are not about to quit being thieves.
The debt instruments are husks ready to blow away in a wind of financial racketeering collapsing.
It keeps banging around my skull they will weaponize something else that creates power. And the only thing that makes sense is physical gold. They are hoarding it, at least the ones who can accumulate quantities of it where it can be used as an economic weapon. Never mind the manipulations they are running to artificially control the natural price discovery of gold, as they do with all other commodities. Only thing seems something that is totally like their hideous greedy operating proceddures is to inflate the price of gold past us unwashed to be able to afford according to our basic buying power and financial resources, then do what they did with 401’s, after enough suckers buy in, they crash the price, buy up everything in the panic, then repeat.
Hypothetically speaking, some human scum simply need to be given a dirt nap. In vast numbers. Till there’s none alive. Or they will re-infect the world with their evil.
Just saying.
Mtnforge for someone so “uneducated” without a high-school diploma your language and writing skills are superb. Jus sayin…..fyi you are spot on and many envy the fact that this stuff passes right over your head as you live and enjoy life. kudos to you
Nobody’s free in a Police State.
If only we all had a billionaire to back us, we really could be free. Some people just have all the luck.
Dial back your wants and desires……goy don’t need nuthin’.
Correct. We voted in a Jew Tool. Just like all the other jew tools till you go back to Jack Kennedy who got shot in the head, because he knew the real deal and they hated him for it.
Why do people believe in turnings when all the crashes have been made to order on a bankster timetable? They could make it happen today or 200 years from now regardless of what the turnings urban myth says.
Ding, Ding, Ding….Winner, winner chicken dinner for Josh. NOTHING is random in this steaming pile Josh, thanks.
4th Turnings are about more than bankster crashes.
100! I just realized my email is wrong. My ragtag flag bag is MIA!
Is this it?
Just in time for Halloween, comes TBP reminding us that real life is much scarier than Freddy Krueger, Jason or Leatherface combined.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I feel like an idiot because I just read this in 2019! O. M. G. 29 Trillion was given under TARP to banks. However the real number of derivatives market os over 139 Trillion dollars with no clear owners of the underlying securities because banks and wall street firms can resell the security each time it is bought with another option. O. M. G. We are nowhere out of this and the wealth of usa dollars was stolen and they used it to buy hard assets for themselves and then forced the usa govt to issue debt, debt which the American taxpayer must pay. O. M. G. This system is completely broken and cannot be fixed. You cannot fix what was stolen. It was not just broken. O. M. G
Are we there yet ?
https://www.truthinaccounting.org/about/our_national_debt
What I didn’t lose in the tech bubble bust, I pissed away, being convinced by doom porn to get completely free from the soon to collapse market. I learned way too late to never trade on common sense.
I pulled my 401k and paid penalties in 2010.
I could have been a bajillionaire by now.
Me too.
Me three. We should have a party with our monopoly money.
Mary… I told my husband that in my side of the barn/workshop (plumbed, of course) I want a hot tub. He started grousing about the cost and expense and I reminded him about that bag of Portuguese Escuidos I brought home from the Azores that time.
We diverted into the Azores on the way home from Riyadh one year. (It was a very cleverly devised divert, if you ask me.) In one of the trinket shops along those streets that would barely qualify as ALLEYs here… we took a taxi.
If I had KNOWN we would be careening around curves so tight the driver honked the horn constantly and at least three times we swerved onto sidewalks and almost INTO buildings to avoid other taxis, everyone honking like mad.
It was 1986 and I was on my third trip from Saudi, so was “old crew” instead of newbie. I had already stopped to exchange my dollars for local currency at the BX cashier and had a whole 36,000 funny looking Escuido Notes that somehow equaled 20 bucks.
Four of us crewdogs jumped in that taxi and took off to explore the little island while the maintenance crew tried to fix the problem which required our divert while exiting Europe.
I remember that dinner cost almost 50,000 Escuidos and crewmate named Milt Dunn (whom I later named a character after in a book because what a GREAT NAME to play around with!) tipped the waiter with a 10,000 Note and said “Thank you my good man. Have Charles bring round the car, would you?”
And we all laughed and laughed because we had no idea what we just ate nor how much it cost.
We stopped in a trinket shop and I purchased a little dust collector for my collection for about 6,000 of the notes and brought the rest of them home.
They looked like Monopoly money, kind of like OUR US dollars look to me now. Colorful and bright. Our dollars were so old fashioned and dull, weren’t they?
Like our childhoods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=42&v=ShURwnhVI5g
PRESIDENT TRUMP DELIVERS REMARKS AT VOTER SUMMIT
But did you catch his AIPAC speech Mark?
BL,
Oh yea man, I am studying both sides of the coin, and both his faces in both speeches.
I didn’t put any comments up. Thought this was worth the information, especially on the opening prayer, and the judges besides other things he said. No doubt he has been a mixed bag. The above came out of the good bag.
There is always hope for a changed heart – no matter your past…I know that every time I look into a mirror.
There is no doubt he is supported by the Zionist Crime Family. I have stated that I believe what we are seeing is a Games of Thrones war in-between various international Crime Families for control of the emerging NWO.
If Trump didn’t have the Zionist support and hadn’t made a truce with the Bushes (agreeing to take on Barr to oversee it) he would have gone down with the Mueller frame or been assassinated by now. They are not just coming after him but his family. No one stands in the White House without alliances, unless you want to get shot. It been like that since Kennedy.
He is surrounded by vipers including his daughter and 666 son in law.
In the end I’m going with Bible prophecy…Trump has defiantly bought us time…but how much more is the big question to me…I know where we are headed and what happens once we get there.
The Ezekiel 38 War could be coming up? We will see…sure seems like the sides are getting set.
I just passed on TC’s vid to my inner circle. I gave it a 1000+ on another thread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI74zSMQvC8
Interesting. Just started watching…
I am at 25:40.
Just past the first discussion of the purchase/naming of 666 building.
Reflecting on T4C’s mention of the Baron Trump Science Fiction adventure from 1893. I wondered then if Truth was trying to emulate Fiction, or, if somehow Fiction had managed to Dictate Truth. And, while I am a Trump Supporter in both Theory and Practice, I think those who control the Narrative control too many people around him.
There really is a very small pond in which elitist children fish.
And, yes… there appears to be some sort of guidelines about who can marry who in certain levels of our society. Those guidelines seem to follow certain codes of ancient religions, but linking them to government control is more of a stretch than I am willing to accept.
However, there are things that pique.
The naming of the Tower was intentional. That number is one most people would avoid, not adopt and proudly display. It is an attempt to display something obvious and make it trite.
RG has an essay on truth that seems to be worth a reading this morning, but as with all of RG’s work, his practical and methodical way of approaching written discussion* requires more than the seven minutes between commercial breaks or the half hour smoke break I took three or four times a day. (Seriously, those of you who worked with smokers know what I am talking about… you also were glad they were gone. We stunk the office up, didn’t we?)
MG,
The whole Game of Throne Crime Family reality fascinates me, especially exactly who they are by individual leaders within Bankster/Corporate families, secret societies, open societies, think tanks, foundations, mafias, cabals, alphabet soup agencies, media companies, tech companies, dictators, political organization, shadow government/gang army ant organizations etc.
I’m trying to just identify the major players historically and individually and understand their evolution.
Know your enemy.
This vid peeled away some of the Yankee NY/NJ con and how it feeds the beast.
Looking forward to his JKF vid, the kid can investigate.
I hope he knows how to be gray, if not invisible, at this level of exposure I suspect they could come for him.
The market can be irrational far longer than you can be solvent (especially when the gubmit rigs the market).
I agree with admin….bad times a ‘comin. Prepare to fight.
https://youtu.be/HdNn5TZu6R8
“The market can be irrational far longer than you can be solvent”
Lol! A friend just quoted that to me.
How about the market can be irrational longer than you can retain your sanity?
Mary,
Yea, but if you have enough ‘principle’, no ‘debt’, and to Donkey’s point no ‘greed’…Mr. Market can be as coo coo as it wants to be, who cares?
Hard Assets & Self Sufficiency are the best sleeping pills out there, and you don’t need a prescription just long term planning.
A second attempt to post this but now without comments!!!!!
A must read. The system was broken and is unfixable is all I will say.
Unrelated to this actual post – there’s that guy who’s been harping for the last year on the trucking industry indicators that a downturn is coming, basically saying the same thing every 6 weeks or so about orders for big trucks being in the terlet. I wasn’t real alarmed by that myself.
When actual drivers notice freight seems light, turn around times are fast, no extra loads, then that’s a real indicator. It was last time. And for those interested, that’s now what I’m hearing at the kitchen table. Nothing real urgent, just a bad (but persistent) smell on the breeze. Like most Americans there’s not much I can personally do to get ready, but if you can – then do.
Look up class 8 orders, YOY. The last time it was like this was Nov 2008.
Nothing I’m saying is life or financial advice buuuut..
One of the mutual funds I am invested in currently is making 10% per month. Further to the cautionary anecdote in this bit… Don’t have a pole and not a stripper.Perish the thought but if a dolt like me is making that kind of return on a gold investment it might be time to re-evaluate if it is wise to be invested in this casino…
I know I’m late. I got a 14 yr old grandson with migraines and who can blame him with a nusto mother like he has. Nevermind..anyways, it’s not your problem.
A whole bunch of people smarter than me thought this whole thing was going to blow up years ago. Paul Craig Roberts said something similar in an interview on USA Watchdog last weekend. He was even more morose. Seems to think the Fed can keep this going on as long as they want. He actually said “There are no more black swans”.
Some time back someone said (paraphrasing) “When the last bear throws in the towel, it’s time to panic!”
I have more pressing matters than TEOTWAWKI. It will have to wait until my family issues have settled down. Or, maybe not. Oh, here is a a link to the PCR interview for anyone who is interested. I am going to get ready for bed. Sleep seems to be an enigma for me, lately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKw_T9BDL4c
Oh, and 22, I know what you think about PCR and so does everyone else..just sayin;)
Mary,
My wife has been sleeping poorly, I gave her a little CBD oil under her tongue (her first time taking it) and some melatonin 90 minutes before her target sleep time.
She fell asleep on time and slept like a rock through the entire night.
I can never get her to ‘try stuff’ but I think I have converted her to these two.
If you have lavender, fresh, dried or in pure oil form, make sure she has some in the air at night (steam or diffuser). If you want to learn to distill your own oils, look up Rick Simpson’s oil and see how he managed to heal a shitload of people in Canada of a lot of cancer. Although he focuses on THC and CBD oils, I have discovered I can distill my own florals (rose is a POWERFUL anti-depressant, as is geranium. But Geranium is almost OVERWHELMING in pure oil form. I called it “old lady bait” when Poppa was with me.)
I made some basil oil too this summer. That sort of enterprise will move to the barn. Some of the herbals seem to blend better with the cedar and oak aroma of my home than others. Basil is one of the “others.”
I, personally, am glad I bought my oils information before the FDA outlawed those sort of books. Now, any reference to “medicinal” content of various oils made from roots and herbs will get you CENSORED.
No medical advice of any kind allowed except those approved by FDA.
Yep, lavender is defiently a relaxing and soothing addition.
Help make this go virial…as it is the kind of vid that must reach the masses. I know most here know this inside out, but most also know Joe Six Pack and Jane Amazon don’t.
It is fast paced and super educational.
KILLER BANKERS ARE HUMANITY’S ENEMIES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzqeyKT6rkM&t=328s
So what’s new??? Life for the last 30 years has been a shit sandwich and every day we take another bite. It will not change until we decide we do not wish to eat the shit anymore!!