The Financial Jigsaw – Issue No. 82

Quote of the Week: The impossibility of any individual or small group conceiving of all the possibilities, let alone evaluating their merits, is the great argument against central governmental planning and against arrangements such as professional monopolies that limit the possibilities of experimentation.   – Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom [1962]

NOTE – If anyone would like a free updated, 3rd edition, electronic copy of the complete book, I should be pleased to email a free pdf on request to: [email protected].  The book has many footnotes linking to relevant and explanatory Appendices, websites and videos.

As we approach 2020 and the elections in America, it is worth considering George Orwell’s concept of ‘His Party’ and how they manipulated his mind.  This is what we know about our government:

“We know the Party’s narratives: globalism, climate change, surveillance, incarceration, political correctness, open borders, free migration, fiat debt, central economic planning, socialized education and medical care, and wars on terrorism, drugs, poverty, any regime that refuses to toe the Party line, hydrocarbons, private firearms, individual rights, privacy, precious metals and cash, and socialized education and medical care. We know the Party’s institutions: governments, central banks and their central banks, intelligence agencies, military forces, police, permanent bureaucracies, multinational corporations, multilateral economic, political, and financial institutions, foundations, universities, non-profits, and NGOs. We know the Party’s overlapping mouthpieces: the mainstream media, think tanks, government and intelligence agency propaganda organs, crony executives and their companies, Hollywood, and academia. And we know the figureheads who stock governments and their allied institutions, and the Party puppeteers who pull their strings.  We also know the Party is not omnipotent. Just as Orwell’s Party went to all that trouble to ensure Winston Smith thought the right thoughts, our Party wants our belief, acceptance, and consent.”

https://straightlinelogic.com/2019/12/06/hows-that-alternative-reality-working-out-for-you-by-robert-gore/ 

            “Regimes that are losing public support always make the same mistake: rather than fix the source of the loss of public trust–the few enriching themselves at the expense of the many– the regime reckons the problem is dissent:”

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2019/12/suppressing-dissent-guarantees-disorder.html

When Events Outrun Plan B  http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2019/12/crunchtime-when-events-outrun-plan-b.html   Plan B is for risks that can be anticipated, regular but unpredictable events such tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. In the human sphere, risks that can be anticipated include temporary loss of a job, stock market down turns, recession, disruption of energy supplies, etc.  Perhaps Plan B has already been outrun according to John Williams of ShadowStats.com who reports that the Fed has lost control:  https://usawatchdog.com/

 This week we start on Chapter 14 which is part of the Introduction to Part 2.  Having prepared ourselves for personal transformation it is time to gain personal empowerment.  In this Chapter are some ideas for how to go about it, although everyone will have their own views on what to take away from the narrative.

 Here is the link to last week: Issue 81

 Now that the Brexit is due on 31st January 2020, I will continue to provide weekly updates as events progress:

 Brexit & Election Update – 13th December 2019

The Brexit deadline remains 31st January 2020 and Boris still needs to get Parliament to agree his new exit plan (WAB) during this period: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50125338   . You may follow a daily run-down on the current situation from my friend, Dr Richard North, as Brexit progresses:  http://eureferendum.com/   I have said before, Brexit is a process, not an event.

It’s correct that the UK will cease being a member of the EU when Boris Johnson’s deal passes Parliament and the country leaves the EU on January 31 2020, which is just seven weeks away. However, that will not be the end of the Brexit process which could take 10 years to complete a trade deal.  Before we look at the results of the election, first some history:

“The trend of increased political disorder in conjunction with extensions to Article 50 is irrefutable. What is not yet clear is the scale of upheaval that may be about to occur over the next eight weeks.”

https://stevenguinness2.wordpress.com/2019/12/08/snap-brexit-election-a-theory-on-what-could-happen-next/

            NOW THE RESULTS ARE IN – with an unexpected Tory landslide occurring with 365 seats and a majority of 70+ seats in parliament, the largest since the 1980s; this gives Boris total power to do whatever he wishes, which is good news for Brexit. The extreme left wing, Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn, have been devastated with only 203 seats, the least since 1935!

            The main takeaway is that UK is now clear to negotiate trade deals around the world as well as finalising a free trade deal with the EU.  More relevant though is that UK can now work much closer with America further strengthening the Anglo/American Empire and assuring increased global control to balance China and Russia going forward in the 2020s.

 A brand new Parliament was formed on Friday 13th December when Boris had an audience with the Queen.  Details of Parliament’s deliberations when sitting can be found here:

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/business-papers/commons/votes-and-proceedings/#session=29&year=2019&month=8&day=25

 NOW THAT UK IS DEFINITELY EXITING EUROPE – I will continue to comment on EU events:

France maybe following Britain’s example and we could have a FREXIT on our hands as Europe continues to fall apart.  Martin Armstrong has a good review:

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/france/frexit-is-france-hurling-toward-exiting-the-eu/

 PART 2

 CHAPTER 14

Personal Empowerment

 “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

T.S. Eliot – “The Rock” 1934

 “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Albert Einstein

 Having prepared ourselves, by finding the courage to change the way we think about our life management systems, it is now appropriate to examine how our modified attitude can help us learn from some real-life experiences to be found in our present economic system.

A real-life vision of the New Economy by a wise individual in America

“When I didn’t feel like Massachusetts was conducive to my idea of freedom I moved. It wasn’t just the politics of the state, but also the climate. I hated being cold and miserable for half the year, so I did something about it. I moved to Florida where the growing season was longer, and the winter was much shorter and milder.  I negotiated a non-monetary exchange for my rent and food. I created garden beds, tended the crops, built structures, raised chickens and milked goats. This arrangement is not for everyone but for me it is perfect. I feel free and close to nature and I know what I am eating is not poisoning me and I also know that I am not contributing to corrupt food industries. I am concurrently reducing what I have to pay the government for the crime of being productive.

And even though I live out in the country and had to play around with various hotspots in order to get a proper internet, I was able to set myself up to use the internet to earn what money I needed to live.  Please forgive me for feeling that individuals do have the power to shape their lives for the better. However as I wake up every morning and feel the benefits of this liberating philosophy it is hard for me to see the future as dark and dreary.  Please don’t mistake my optimism for ignorance. I realize that there are plenty of bad people out there trying to ruin my future and control my life. But letting them get the better of me would only help them achieve their goals. I don’t ignore the evils they are doing, but I do ignore what I cannot control.

You must always have a backup plan, and I don’t think of where I am now as a final destination, far from it. There are so many options; I may move out of the United States altogether; I may start a company and I will definitely write more books and see where that takes me.  Never have individuals had more power than they do now. The government cannot keep up. Individuals are freeing themselves faster than they can be oppressed. And I will continue to free myself and promote my optimistic vision of the future because I honestly believe and feel in my daily life that it is the truth.”

It is not expected that everyone would relish a lifestyle as described here as many will prefer to remain in cities.  Nevertheless the principles of being, in part, ‘off-grid’ will apply wherever one chooses to rest a weary head.

 The Fourth Turning Strauss & Howe

I believe in the cycles of history and that generations to come will be influenced in the way they design their lifestyles by the generations before them.  It is clear that we are moving rapidly to a crisis which will cause significant changes in the way we live our lives.

Since President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 much of the press have made note of Steve Bannon’s interest in an influential book published in 1997 called, “The Fourth Turning: “What Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous With Destiny.”

In this book, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe, make the argument that our ideas about the nature of history, linear time and progress are illusory, and that if we want a more accurate concept about the way that history unfolds we would do well to study the ancient Greek concept of cyclical time.

 This concept views national and global historical phenomenon not as random occurring events, or the linear march of historical ‘progress,’ but instead sees them as recurring archetypes placed into a larger tapestry of a greater repeating historical cycle.

According to Strauss and Howe, the relative geographic and historical isolation of the United States provides a unique opportunity to view this cycle unfolding regularly and predictably every 80 years.  This 80-year cycle can be divided into four stages or seasons, each lasting approximately twenty years:

  1. High: The initial stage occurs immediately following a period of crisis. The high is characterized by strong institutions, a sense of collective destiny, and a weakness of individuality. The most recent example of this would be the period of prosperity and conformity in the U.S.A. immediately following the conclusion of World War II.
  2. Awakening: The second stage, or turning, is a period of questioning established values and asserting one’s independence from established norms and morals be they spiritual or political. This stage may be seen as a rebellion of the previous era’s emphasis on material wealth and conformity. The 1960’s, with the psychedelic revolution, anti-war protests, Civil Rights marches, and New Age spiritual movements can be seen as recent characteristics of this second stage as well as Reaganomics and the mid-1980s Wall Street ethos.
  3. Unravelling: The emphasis on autonomy and the questioning of spiritual, political, and individual authority in the Awakening stage eventually destabilizes society, leading to the Third Turning, in which institutions are weak and suffer loss of trust while the subjective experience of the individual is emphasized. This stage can be thought of as the inverse of the initial high stage, where collective destiny is replaced by atomization. A recent symptom of this stage would be the culture wars, corporate malfeasance and lack of faith in government, social justice movements and political correctness.
  4. Crisis: The Fourth Turning, a destabilizing event, usually involving warfare, and leads to the destruction and reconstruction of institutions of power. In the face of destruction, Americans are forced to unite and forge a vision to restructure a disrupted society. This fourth stage can be seen as the inverse of the Awakening stage, and the authors cite World War II as the defining event of the most recent period of crisis following 2008.

 Strauss and Howe predicted that the next Crisis period that the U.S. would face would happen sometime around 2005 and end around 2025. Anyone who has been paying attention over the last decade would have a difficult time refuting this.

 The financial crisis of 2008 threw the planet into discord and we are now just beginning to see some of the political ramifications. We may be reaching the apex of this crisis in 2019/20, or at least we will witness a significant acceleration.

The institutions that once defined American stability are rapidly crumbling. Mounting debt, unsustainable consumerism, and illegal immigration are chipping away at a once sturdy foundation of America.  Not to mention moral decay and all the personal deprivations that can be conceived like extreme homelessness, poverty, wealth inequality and today, bizarrely, even our children’s’ genders are at risk.  The tiny minority of the ‘LBGTQ’ are both morally corrupt and are vocal far beyond their representation driven by celebrities and the extreme PC community often found in universities.

The robust civil discourse needed to solve these problems has been interrupted by advocates of social justice, sometimes violently. Recent small skirmishes between the two sides may be headed toward larger eruptions.

Emboldened by a mainstream media apparatus, which functions as a mouthpiece of the Deep State and globalist interests*, activists are determined to overturn democratically elected officials and disrupt law and order on the grounds that they personally disagree with the results.* http://www.alt-market.com/index.php/articles/4026-who-are-the-globalists-and-what-do-they-want

This shattering of social norms seems to be the apex, or perhaps the precursor to the major crisis event described by Strauss and Howe in the Fourth Turning and it is proving to be a global movement.

In Part 1, we have studied all the reasons why a crisis will soon be upon us and Straus & Howe merely reinforce the belief that major social and economic changes are at our doorstep.

To be continued next Saturday

Extra current commentary:

This video describes the fomenting angst which is fracturing our societies especially across the western world; well worth your time learning about ‘hypernormalisation’:  [2+ hours – it’s big]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c/adam-curtis-hypernormalisation

Note: This is viewed via BBC iPlayer.  Download the App first and then you can run the video on your computer.

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Author: Austrian Peter

Peter J. Underwood is a retired international accountant and qualified humanistic counsellor living in Bruton, UK, with his wife, Yvonne. He pursued a career as an entrepreneur and business consultant, having founded several successful businesses in the UK and South Africa His latest Substack blog describes the African concept of Ubuntu - a system of localised community support using a gift economy model.

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Lars
Lars

“Quote of the Week: The impossibility of any individual or small group conceiving of all the possibilities, let alone evaluating their merits, is the great argument against central governmental planning and against arrangements such as professional monopolies that limit the possibilities of experimentation. – Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom [1962]”

Though the acclaimed prof at Chicago U publicly championed free markets and subsidiarity, ((Friedman)) worked for FDR and advocated for government job creation programs and income tax withholding. Also, though he criticized the performance of the Federal Reserve and eventually advocated that it be abolished, his proposal that it be replaced with computerized mathematic algorhythms was a quintesssential example of central planning nonetheless.

robert h siddell jr
robert h siddell jr

The English are finally jumping out of the New World Order’s EU pot of boiling water; now ya’ll must stop their Muslim Invasion before you wind up in an Islamic Caliphate Hell. You must fight on the beaches, in the cities and the ditches to stop and repel the Incorrigible Barbarians.

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