Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Guest post by Robert Gore at Straight Line Logic
The Russian Central Bank recently announced that until the end of June, it stands ready to buy gold for rubles at the exchange rate of 5000 rubles per gram of gold. The move has been hailed as revolutionary, heralding a regime change from fiat currencies. If only that were true.
It would be revolutionary if the Russian Central Bank made a two-way market in rubles and gold. Sellers of gold to the central bank will get back rubles, but no one can exchange rubles for gold. The ruble will still be a fiat currency. A central bank or government that sold gold for its own currency at a fixed rate would be returning to the gold-exchange standard, which prevailed in many nations during much of the 1800s and early 1900s. Right now, such a move would be so revolutionary it would upend the global financial order.
A reminder: Government and Central Bank-Led Revolutions is a book whose thickness is measured in nanometers. Traditionally, revolutions are directed against them. Under a gold-exchange standard, you don’t need a central bank, which is why monetary bureaucrats hate it. You need a gold repository and someone to print the gold-backed currency. Politicians hate it because they can’t spend currency they and their central-bank flunkies have wished into existence. If they had to spend real money—gold or silver—it would be bye-bye welfare and warfare states, and they would be the inconsequential hacks they’re supposed to be.
Since the end of the gold-exchange standard, during the reign of central banks and bankers, we’ve had two world wars (and the third may have begun), a massive transfer of resources from the productive to the unproductive, and a proliferation of government promises that will never be kept. Cheap credit has promoted private indebtedness, kept zombies companies alive, blown up asset bubbles, and diverted economic activity from production to finance.
If the Russian Central Bank buys gold, what effect will that have on the life of the average Russian? It has thousands of tons of gold already; the additional gold will do for Ivan and Natasha what the present stockpile does: nothing. For them, Russian government gold is a pet rock. The same can be said about the usefulness of the American and Chinese governments’ pet rocks for their citizens.
It’s nifty that some movers and shakers are recognizing that gold is better than fiat currencies, whose value derives from promises by politicians and central bank bureaucrats not to create too much of them. That recognition comes from the many centuries gold has held its real purchasing power and myriad fiat currencies have not. Unless and until gold becomes the monetary basis of an economy, putting it in a government vault has little practical value, although it may give hope to holders of that government’s fiat currency that someday the currency might be backed by gold.
While the Russian move highlights the shaky state of Western fiat currencies and debt—never a bad thing—it doesn’t move the needle at all in terms of the freedom enjoyed by individuals. In fact, if the poobahs of the Eurasian alliance have their way, the needle moves in the opposite direction. Pablo Escobar recently interviewed Sergey Glazyev, Russian Minister in Charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).
Over a decade ago, my colleagues at the Astana Economic Forum and I proposed to transition to a new global economic system based on a new synthetic trading currency based on an index of currencies of participating countries. Later, we proposed to expand the underlying currency basket by adding around twenty exchange-traded commodities. A monetary unit based on such an expanded basket was mathematically modeled and demonstrated a high degree of resilience and stability.
“Exclusive: Russian geo-economics Tzar Sergey Glazyev introduces the new global financial system,(LINK)” Pablo Escobar, The Saker, April 15, 2022
A new global economic system and a new synthetic trading currency based on an index of fiat currencies and twenty exchange-traded commodities, all computer-tested by mathematical modeling—what could go wrong? Why not add the phase of the moon? Another reminder: The History of Successful Government-Imposed, Multivariable, Extremely Complicated Programs is a couple of nanometers thick. The chapter concerning such programs imposed by not one but many governments working together is especially thin.
Calling Sergey Glazyev a geo-economics Tsar gives the game away. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: government. Whether they hail from Moscow, Beijing, Washington, London, Paris, Brussels, or anywhere else government functionaries and their toadies reside, belief in government—and its command and control (C&C)—reigns supreme. Nonstop propaganda reinforces belief among the subjugated. Dissenters are ostracized and punished.
But dissent we must. As the U.S. government’s hegemonic aspirations crash and burn, assuming the rest of the world isn’t incinerated, Russia and China will consolidate their power over Eurasia. To think that the initiatives they spearhead is an exercise in munificence rather than domination and power is allowing hope and delusion to triumph over experience and reality.
Putin and Xi are C&Cers to the core. They’ve risen to the top of top-down systems and they intend to stay atop their Eurasian confederated alliance. Power is a jealous beast, and these Best Friends Forever may one day decide they don’t like sharing the throne. Or perhaps they won’t, but their successors will. Regardless, there is the conceptual flaw at the heart of their Eurasian alliance: that progress flows down from the government and not up from the people. Throughout history, governments have built all sorts of things, and most of them have been about as useful as Egypt’s pyramids.
Notwithstanding that inconvenient truth, infrastructure has become a magic totem: if governments build it, progress and prosperity will come. No profit is required of such infrastructure, unlike what private parties build. Instead, we all get to bask in the glow of job creation, social benefit, synergy, development, and whatever other heartwarming terms are invoked when governments spend two dollars, rubles, yuan, or Glazyev currency units for one dollar, ruble, yuan, or Glazyev currency unit of tangible benefit.
Conveniently for the Belt and Road crowd, nobody will be toting up costs versus benefits. C&Cers are allergic to accountability. No one in China, including its rulers, knows whether the trillions of fiat yuan “invested” (a globally favorite euphemism for government spending) the past few decades in infrastructure, dams, bullet trains, high-tech weaponry, research, development, and whatever else has been worth it.
All that investment is counted as growth under conventional GDP accounting and hailed as “Chinese Miracle,” but much of it has been bought on non-miraculous credit. Good luck trying to figure out either the total tab or where it resides within China’s financial system. Chinese government accounting is as inscrutable and opaque as say, U.S. defense and intelligence accounts (which have never been audited).
Speaking of the U.S., even if its C&Cers were to give up the empire—which they won’t—and accept the reality of what’s called multipolarity, as long as those multiple poles are just various governments doing their C&C thing, the global bull market in chaos has a long way to run. There are enormous consequences from all the C&C we’ve suffered so far; multipolar C&C will merely compound them.
Biden’s string pullers won’t let their splendid little Ukrainian war and sanctions go away any time soon, even as they destroy the U.S. currency and economy. Cutting through the propaganda is problematic, but apparently Russia is slowly attaining its military goals, taking control of southern Ukraine and the Black Sea coast, and the eastern Donbass region. Western sanctions and Ukrainian insurgency will be Putin headaches for years.
Connoisseurs of chaos have been bedazzled by the potential addition of Finland and Sweden to NATO. Finland has over eight hundred miles of border with Russia. Will Putin be any more accepting of his formerly neutral neighbor joining the Western alliance than he has been of Ukraine’s potential membership?
Finland hasn’t been the doorstep for invasions of Russia that Ukraine has been; it’s too far north. However, since World War II it’s had a modus vivendi with Russia that NATO membership would destroy, especially if NATO moves in military forces and weapons. That would be a compound migraine for Putin, and we all may end up feeling his pain. It makes one long for an investable index of chaos, which would be a guaranteed winner that might even outpace inflation.
The reality of fiat debt and currency is that their production has outstripped the production of goods and services upon which they have an ostensible claim. They may give way to debt and currency regimes linked to commodities and natural resources. Like previous regimes these will be imposed by one or more governments. Inevitably, they will fail. As long as C&C are the order of the day, such regimes will come and go. They stifle the greatest resource of all, the one that gives every other resource its value—the unfettered human mind.
We don’t yet understand the pathological psychology of those who seek power; it has barely been studied. It is safe to say that people rather than physical reality are the object of their attention and efforts. There is little to no overlap between power seekers and those who discover, create, innovate, build, and produce, who deal in the realm of physical reality. The former are often overtly hostile to the latter, and they will not allow anyone to proceed unfettered. The power seekers’ dream is the mind subservient to their whims and dictates.
Which is a nightmare for the rest of us. The theme of history has been the never ending effort to control, channel, enslave—and when the hostility is fully unleashed—destroy the mind and its products. Propaganda, censorship, suppression, Kafkaesque law, horror, mayhem, and death are the defining features of the war on the mind. In benumbed bewilderment, most people accept the grotesquely abnormal and do not challenge totalitarian plans to impose an even more grotesque “new” abnormal.
Ayn Rand said: “We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.” The consequence of the war on the mind is chaos. To understand and deal with reality, minds must be free. Not a single square inch of the earth’s surface is free. Today’s global chaos is the consequence, the tangible outcome of the malignancy besetting the minds of those who’ve made power their god.
Humanity awaits the revolution that rejects their reign, that claims and defends each individual’s right to life and freedom. Questions are the mind’s first line of defense in the war raging against it. Start with this one: why should a few exercise power rooted in violence and fear over the many, who could quickly overthrow them if they acted together?
That’s one of the best articles I’ve ever read. I’m puzzled by the people who recognize the train wreck the dollar, euro, yen, etc. are undergoing but think that somehow Russia and China have finally figured out how to make a fiat currency work. Even people who are really smart and usually right about things.
Good job.
While I don’t necessarily disagree, I seriously doubt we’re going to be trading gold and silver coins for merchandise any time soon. So what options are we left with? People wishing for shit to hit the fan and to enter into a barter economy are smoking something. It’s a world we’ll live in IF we are forced to. But it’s not a world than any of us should be hoping for. It will be dark beyond belief… Chip
We might be trading these before we’ll be trading gold. I pick it up tomorrow. 1875 – 45 long colt. (-:
Chip
A thing of beauty.
Thank you. Picked up this morning. It’s true old school and lovely to hold. Have to load and carry just like they did in 1875. I bought it to go with my Henry lever action 45 long colt. I love matching guns with the same caliber ammo… Chip
Did you get the Henry with brass receiver? That’s some old school style right there. Notice how there isn’t even any mounting hardware for a sling on that rifle? It gets carried in a hand or in a saddle scabbard. True to form. The Big Boy carbine in .45 Colt is almost quiet enough to shoot without hearing protection. Not quite. But if you need it in a hurry and don’t have time for hearing protection, you won’t blow your eardrums out of your head like you will with the Uberti.
Incidentally, the Uberti bolt spring in their revolvers is unreliable. If you plan on using that six gun when things get hot, you should replace the stock bolt spring with one from Wolff Gunsprings, which you can do for under thirty dollars. And don’t use anything hotter than standard pressure rounds in that Uberti or she’ll disappoint you. But you can run pretty much whatever you want through your Henry — even the hot loads from Buffalo Bore or Grizzly. That stuff will stop any two-legged varmint right in its tracks.
Man is a fallen angel. The very, very small percentage of the billions of souls on this planet who are psychopaths and sociopaths are drawn like moths to the flames of government, the worst institution ever invented by mankind. It’s very bedrock is immoral, sunk in coercion, force and violence.
Their lust for power and control over others darkens their souls and where they become totally consumed once embedded in that institution. Very, very few escape with their humanity and principles intact; (Ron Paul is the only one I can think of).
As Robert suggests, we can only hope that someday humanity may figure out that 99% of us believe in freedom of the individual and a live and let live philosophy. Begin by denying consent to the beast. Allow progress, innovation and prosperity to flow from the bottom up. It can start with a single flame that lights a billion candles to begin extinguishing the darkness.
“As Robert suggests…” I have to say this’ll never happen.
I think there’s a lot of evidence that, in prehistory, being led by an arrogant brute whose first resort to any problem is violence actually improved the chances of survival for the clan. Basically kill anything that might be food or a potential enemy and you’ll likely be better able to pass your genes on.
That we still reflexively allow these psychopaths to ascend to positions of power over us says a lot about the strength of evolutionary pressure. We simultaneously recognize that people like Biden, Putin, Xi, Johnson, Macron, Trudeau, ad nauseam have never held a job or produced anything of value, yet allow these assholes to run our lives as though they are guided by the gods.
Robert’s ending question, “why should a few exercise power rooted in violence and fear over the many, who could quickly overthrow them if they acted together?” isn’t going to get an answer based on reason. There’s just a hell of a lot of people wanting/needing a Daddy to tell them what to do and think.
“Why should a few exercise power rooting in violence and fear over the many…” Ever see “Deadwood”? There was no government. There was a town with for lack of better word, “oligarchs” in charge. Did they not use force? When has force ever NOT been used in all of history by those “in charge”?
Only God on earth can give us perfect existence. If you leave it up to man, you are well and truly fucked… Chip
The need to acquire power is in our DNA and is probably why we are at the top of the food chain, at least for the moment. Some of us, either by nature or because power is a drug to which we habituate, become consumed by the unquenchable lust for power. They accumulate as much power as their intelligence, cunning, ruthlessness and strength permit. The perplexing question is whether this disease of powerism comes from our original gene set and we are slowly evolving away from that genetic disease, or whether it comes from a recent mutation (perhaps in the last 10-12,000 years) and is becoming more prevalent because the nature of civilization selects for it. If the former, we should be ok if we can hold off the last of the powerists until the trait becomes extinct. If the latter, we better start aggressively selecting against it. It is too bad we cannot select only leaders who do not want the job.
It’s like Pavlovian training.
If unfettered liberalism and individualism got us into this mess, why can’t they get us out?
The exact opposite of liberal minded individuals are who got us into the mess we’re in today.
I would need some proof for that.
Perhaps first you would offer evidence (or at least arguments) that “unfettered liberalism and individualism” got us into “this mess”.
Most likely is that your use of “liberalism” is wrong. Authoritarian collectivists began calling themselves “liberal” when people caught on to the truth of “socialism”. In case you haven’ t noticed, authoritarian collectivists also stopped calling themselves “liberals” when people caught on to the fact that the “liberalism” they espoused wasn’t liberal at all.
Read a Houellebecq book, or let himself quote Tocqueville to you:
Also there is a psychological model that every human goes through 4 phases in his life, like a pendulum: 1. Right after birth it’s “me, me, me”, hunger, warmth, touch. 2. Within a few weeks it changes to “my position in the social interaction with my mom” and later family and childhood friends. 3. Around puberty it swings back to “me, me”, breaking away from the social circle and becoming a true Individual. 4. The final pendulum swing is you want to “become part of something bigger”, meaning you accept there is something [permanently] higher in value than yourself, in your early- to mid-20s of age.
Now Liberals [older than Twens] are usually people forever stuck in phase 3. (While that’s better than the majority of [Western] people who are nowadays in permanent phase 2 a/k/a ‘Infantilism’, it’s still lacking phase 4 which is required to build sustainable societies. And the fact that there exist many others ways than liberalism to destroy a society, in no way exonerates liberalism.)
Man was never an angel. Man will never become angels. The End.
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” … the flames of government, the worst institution ever invented by mankind. ”
Probably true. But, useless info. What would be useful is for you to propose a reasonable alternative, here on earth.
I’ll propose a constitutional republic with strictly limited powers in strictly limited arenas of action. A division of powers, a rule of law based on the Common Law and the natural rights of human beings. A government required by law to treat everyone equally under the laws.
It’s not really my idea… Perhaps you heard of it somewhere else?
A very good initial reading but…there has to be a principle, an accepted ethos, that says ANY deviation from the absolutes of non-coercion, non-initiation of force, and the promotion of ideas inimical to freedom shall be dealt with as treason.
We have a system of laws that are parsecs away from what the Founders clearly envisioned. There has been one nibble after another until now, almost the whole of constitutional constraint has been devoured.
I propose this in all seriousness: yes, a constitutional republic and why not recycle the one we were bequeathed. It really has hardly been used at all. Add in the sweet note: a lawful PURGE of anyone, at anytime, with no legal consequences when the principles of freedom are encroached on, even just a bit. We have lost nearly all of the prize because we allowed the incrementalists to ply their devilish trade. Time now to balance the scales: any INTERPRETATION of a limitation of non-coercion, false value in the currency, appeal to sovereign immunity etc. etc. shall be punishable by DEATH. No exceptions, no do-overs.
Now that is a republic worth keeping.
Not enough people seem to realize that our legal system is as arbitrary as it is corrupt.
I have the idea that even a strictly limited government must be supported by taxation.
Some would claim that the idea of taxation is inimical to freedom, so, that would make me guilty of treason in their eyes, just for arguing that taxation is necessary.
I would argue that the idea of opposing all taxation is treasonous by reason of acting to deprive a necessary and limited government of the means to exist, thus creating a state of anarchy that is inimical to individual liberty.
The Constitution contains, in its original form, very good means of strictly limiting taxation, i.e. that Direct taxes must be apportioned, and Indirect taxes must be uniform.
An honest reading and application of those limitations means that any tax laid directly on persons or their property must be apportioned, meaning clearly that if you tax my wages or salary, which are my property, you must tax everyone’s property by the same amount. Not the same percentage, but the same amount.
In the case of indirect taxes, they must act uniformly. If a tariff is to be laid on imports, it must be laid uniformly on all imports. If a sales tax is to be levied, it must be levied uniformly on all sales.
The clear intent of the limits on the taxing power is to ensure that the government can’t play favorites through taxation. If they take $100 from me, they must take $100 from everyone. If they tax my sale of goods or services at a rate of 10%, they must tax all sales of goods or services at the same rate.
Somehow you need to explain, or explain away:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Had the Federalist been Christians, they might have realized how flippin foolish that was.
But nobody figured that those freedoms would devolve due to lack of Religous faith (not my idea, read the Founders) into a Capitalist Dictatorship, compliments of the very desire for money that has run unchecked via bribery and monopolies.
This was the 100th comment, btw.
It’s a revered tradition amongst some of us with nothing better to do.
The Federalist were Freemasons and Deists. Those are wholly incompatible with the message of Christ.
Being a Deist who looks with admiration on the teachings of Jesus, I disagree.
Coming from a family who were/are Masons and Eastern Stars, but who are/were almost entirely Christian, and tried to be good Christians, I disagree further.
I suggest that you are ignorant of the beliefs of both Deists and Freemasons.
So, Deist…
…will every knee bend and every tongue confess that Christ is who He said He is? He said: Unless you believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.
Do you believe that? Because if not, then how can you look with admiration on anything which came from a Man who said such things of Himself?
Either He is who He said He is, or He was a madman and all of His teachings should be shunned. Quite the predicament.
Masonic teaching demands fealty to its own, forsaking and renouncing all others. The oath of the first degree of Scottish Rite Masonry includes renunciation of all other systems of belief in a carefully worded vow which the initiate must recite verbatim. Christian teaching demands the same — it is an utterly exclusive doctrine. A man can be either or. He can never be both.
Religion, or lack of it, had nothing to do with the perversion of our Constitution and the alteration/destruction of our system of government.
The contest is between those who believe that people, for the most part, are competent to run their own lives as they see fit, and those who believe that people must be led by those who are somehow uniquely suited to know what’s best for everyone.
That people who believe themselves to be ‘elites’ should settle on a mercantilist system of government should not be surprising; that’s what Kings and Emperors thought for centuries, and it worked well for them.
All systems of the world have no provision for the natural and pervasive rot which is part of all physical life cycles. Many of the systems work well indeed, for a time, until they don’t. But no system of this world, or of mankind, has or ever will have what is needed to circumvent the curse of natural rot. What is needed is a Savior. Otherwise, death is the destiny of all men and systems of mankind.
Only Jesus’ benevolent dictatorship (1,000 years) will succeed. Come quickly, Lord. We really, really need you!
as far as i can understand, only the saved will be alive during that 1000 yr period.
“the dead in Christ will be raised first, and the rest of the saved will rise into the air to meet him. Everyone else? Instant carrion. Thessalonians.
After the 1000, the heavenly palace returns and touches down, (splits/spreads a mountain), the rest of the dead (previous to the 2nd coming) are raised (must be by God/Jesus) and encouraged by satan and his minions to attack the Heavenly Palace. Before that can transpire, Heavenly fire consumes all until there is nothing left to burn. “To each according to his works”, Etc.
KJV seems to be consensus, even then language is a concern.
KJV verbatim, with plenty of explanation/interpretation. Worth a look, or 10000 at least by now. ⬇️
https://bible-studys.org/
Yes, the Lord Jesus will return and rule for 1000 years in the Millenium. However, it is not a dictatorship. Nations still have choices to make. And by the end of the 1000 years, Satan is released one last time and many nations and people will choose against Jesus’s reign one last time. So in totality, it is proven that we humans are beyond hope on our own. We need to be a new creature in Christ.
As I said above, absent God running things, there are few options available. I would say the original founding fathers had it about as close to perfect as men can ever get. Up and until the War of Northern Aggression. That’s about when all bets were off… Chip
I mostly agree with you about the war of northern aggression (Stinkin Lincoln). However, I think it started far earlier when the articles of confederation were proposed to be replaced by the constitution. I think it was Patrick Henry that said “I smell a rat.” He was right.
“You may be right, I may be crazy”… (Billy Joel)… Chip
I bet we could agree with each other for hours on that stuff, but PH saying that is a new one to me. I have noticed the pattern of the working Patriots being the anti-Federalists. There was far from unanimous agreement post-war. Anti-federalists proved correct on all their criticisms.
Perhaps Federalists were the RINOs of that day.
For the most part, I believe the Federalists were people who saw a need, at that particular time and place, for a national government strong enough to ensure the survival of the new United States. I think they also believed that the people’s desire for liberty would act to maintain the government within it’s constitutional bounds, or, as Jefferson believed, that periodic revolutions would keep returning us to the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution.
The Constitution of my state contains an Article that says “From time to time, it is necessary to return to First Principles.”
I do agree with Ken31 that the anti-federalists saw exactly how the weaknesses in the Constitutional framework would indeed lead to what it led to. We should use their insights to emend the Constitution.
The Confederacy started the war, and had every intention of turning U.S. territories into additional slave states. Lincoln was certainly justified in doing everything possible to prevent having slavery extended across North America.
In any case, I see the perversion of the Constitution having begun much earlier, for instance when the Supreme Court decided to declare that the national government was Sovereign, because it needed to be, and because governments had always been Sovereigns. This indicated a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution, which made the national government sovereign only in the few areas in which it was granted power to act.
And of course, the new government almost immediately began perverting the meaning of the limits on the taxing power by laying a high tax on whiskey, a tax they did not apply uniformly to all products as they were required to do.
I respect your opinion.. The war started over money. The North (which had more population and thus more votes) (this is why democracy’s suck) was placing burdensome tariffs on Southern cotton in order to finance the Northern industries. They had to finance them because they couldn’t compete with England’s industries (they had a hundred or more year head start). I think the tariffs were 60 percent. Lincoln pledged, if elected, to sign a bill that would rise the tariffs on cotton to 90 percent (if my memory serves me). Hello war of Northern Aggression. See Thomas Delorenzo’s books.
The human intellect is not capable of working under such a system, as there will always be human greed, the desire to control others, psychopaths exist and always will.
The true reasonable alternative is for all humans (all sinners) to repent and truly saved and converted. Without Jesus Christ, the human race is doomed. Humans cannot overcome its sinful and evil nature and humans cannot over come the evil spiritual powers led by Satan who wants to destroy all of humanity. So trying to find a solution outside of Jesus Christ against the evil/sinful human nature and against the evil spiritual powers is a lost cause.
Dr. Cynthia McKinney is another. Ron Paul should have been president.
I voted for him when he ran as a Libertarian. Not many people did.
How would you know?
It’s easy enough to find. In 1988, Ron Paul got 432,179 votes for president. That was .05% of the votes cast. Not very many…
It doesn’t take anywhere near 99%. A clear minded and dedicated minority is enough, and a simple majority far more than enough. And BTW, nowhere near 99% of people ever believed in individual liberty, individual rights and limited government.
“Begin by denying consent to the beast. Allow progress, innovation and prosperity to flow from the bottom up. It can start with a single flame that lights a billion candles to begin extinguishing the darkness.”
This is a stirring statement, but essentially useless.
How does one go about “denying consent”?
How do you imagine a “single flame” will somehow result in the dismantling of the regulatory state, and the repeal of the great majority of “Federal Laws”? That will be a hard task even for a majority acting in concert.
But yes, don’t help them, and deny them the distortions of language and morality they use to camouflage their actions. Expose them whenever possible for what they really are. Be aware that even that will become ever more dangerous. Do it anyway.
PS I forgot to put my name in the box- Wideguy.
What I don’t understand is why Russia is forcing the EU to convert their Euro’s to Rubles to buy Russian commodities. The EU can print as many Euro’s as they want, it’s still the same as using fiat to buy hard assets. Now, if Russia forced the EU to purchase it’s commodities in gold that’d be something there.
Sure, they can print the euros they need, but that just adds to their pile of inflation. Meantime, Russia’s Gazprombank remains unsanctioned (because Europe needs the gas), so those euros can be used to buy the very few things Russia needs from the West. Lots of speculation that gold might be on the list of things to buy as well.
I’m trying to figure out who in the West is selling to Russia. Aren’t all the ports blocked? It’s certainly not coming overland nor from the air. What products are the West selling that equals the value of the commodities Russia is sending to the West. If Russia is not getting the same value as goods from the West as it’s shipping there, then Russia is still losing via the devaluing of the Euro.
There are shipping trackers online. Monkeywerx features a few. Even since the beginning of hostilities, you can observe a huge number of ships in the Black Sea, both oil tankers (in red) as well as cargo (in green). There has been a steady stream from the Bosphorus to the port of Novorossiysk, both in- and out-bound.
Thanks
My only question is how does he stay up on You Tube?
I am suspicious of that fact.
So jaded…
Well Mark, he shows a round earth, and then talks about satellite phones. Both of which you don’t believe in with a flat earth perspective. So I’m shocked that you shared this at all.
Let me say though, that although we disagree on this point, I don’t find pretty much anything else you’ve ever posted that I disagree with. I can understand your being skeptical of everything. I’ve said before and will say again, one of these days I will submit a factual post on this subject to admin. I won’t do it until I can do it right and with respect pointing out the talking points of both sides of the argument.
We’ve got more important things going on now and when we all die, which will happen, we’ll all see the truth. Best of luck to all, regardless of which side of this argument you fall on… Chip
Does he show a round Earth? Because the outline of Greenland is Mercator indexed size. How is that possible when showing a globe?
And satellites do exist, they just don’t move around a sphere.
Thing is, you have no mathematical model to prove how that is possible over a flat/round earth disk. I appreciate what you have accomplished and am envious of your accomplishments. You on the other hand do not appreciate what engineers and scientists have accomplished. You think because you can’t observe it or understand the science behind it that it’s just a big lie.
Let me see you rotate a baseball six inches above a big round disk without being attached to anything. This is your model of the earth/sun relationship. Send me a video of it.
As you told me when I said you can see the curvature of the earth from a twenty story balcony on the coast, you said, “since you live so close to the coast go take a picture and come back and post it, I’ll wait”. Well my friend, I’ll wait for your mathematical equations and your video evidence of how an orb (the sun) can rotate above a disk without falling into it.
I’ve been studying and using true science for fifty years. Tell me just how your experiences match up with mine? No offense. You’re just wrong on this point HSF… Chip
All self-respecting southerners know the Sun and Moon are suspended with nylon fishing line. That’s why you can’t see it. Titanium bolts fasten the fishing line to the transparent aluminum dome over the earth, which includes mechanical rotating gears to give us the days and the seasons. The dome machine is powered by a Cummins in line twelve cylinder turbo diesel. And gravity is nothing more than centrifugal force resulting from the machine spinning around on its side like a toy top.
MYSTERY SOLVED!!!
See how easy this is?
There are no effective ways to isolate global commodities markets and it is a psyop to pretend otherwise.
Russia is exportin its Rubbles (lowering inflation) while raising Euro inflation. Domestically it has backstopped its currency with gold.
Good reply– it’s not the same for a simple increase in euros to purchase rubles. The Russians can adjust the exchange rate euroruble accordingly as mounds of useless debt are amounted by NATO.
Let’s not forget either that NATO countries and their people who are sanctioning Russia only account for appx 1.5 billion people which leaves over 6 billion people from China, India, Asia, Africa and South America to purchase Russian goods.
The only ones being truly hurt by the sanctions are the stupid countries imposing them.
I think it incorrect to say Russia has “backstopped its currency with gold.”. From what I’ve read, they will not let you turn your rubles in for gold.
I responded to this earlier below in that it is my understanding that you can turn your Rubbles into gold if you are A: Russian and B: not engaged in international trade with it in any way and C: in Russia. As to the practical and the reality, I do not know.
It mostly allows Russia to defend it’s Ruble against speculative attack, without using their physical gold reserves.
You want to dump your Rubles? No problem, here you have some Euros, or Euros exchanged into Dollars. (Also remember there are not that many Rubles, and Ruble-denominated debt, out in the wild.)
Thanks
I tried to post this video but according to utube it’s unavailable. Here’s the tile. Put the head phones on and crank it up.
Russia Victory Day 2021 Red alert 3 Soviet march
I think I got it. They’re taking those Euro’s and buying GOLD. The leaders in West are so clueless.
Lucky for us the Federal Reserve Bank got rid of our gold decades ago, so we don’t have any for the Russians to buy!
It takes FOREVER for an upvote to register here. Bet many people don’t even bother to try any more. I click on some 5 or more times and still it refuses to register! Fix it, please!
It must be you. I be upvote’n my ass off all day, no problemo.
It would be something if Russia actually made the ruble convertible at the rate they recently set for them to buy gold with rubles. But of course they won’t because their stock of gold would evaporate in short order, leaving them with a huge pile of rubles.
In the meantime, Russia can buy lots of real things with all the Euros they get for the oil and gas they sell to Europe, as long as they do it before the Euro becomes worthless., and the Europeans will be stuck with rubles.
I can give an indication of just how bad the financial situation in China is. For 6-1/2 years I worked for the international exploration and production group of one of China’s big 3 oil companies. The international arms of these oil companies are essentially those subsidiaries that deal almost exclusively in E&P in US dollars.
One thing to note about Chinese government accounting is that as they own nearly all state industry, most all debt accumulated by the central government gets pushed down to these government owned entities – cement, steel, oil, etc. So although the CCP may carry little debt, its state controlled industries carry incredible amounts. These state controlled industries also do not discount their cash flows and do not depreciate or deplete investments. Eg, if some steel company builds a rebar factory and spends 6.6 hundred million Yuan and for some reason it is unable to produce a single piece of rebar, 10 years later that factory is still worth 6.6 hundred million Yuan. This is the trick they use in their own currency but in US dollar world it gets messier.
The international arm of the oil company I worked for had an inventory of 74 exploration and production licenses worldwide and only 3 produced a positive cash flow in 2014. Of these 3, 2 were marginally economic – I worked for the crown jewel where we produced a “dividend” (what Chinese call profit) to Beijing of around USD $750 MM per year.
In late 2014, we got to peer behind the curtain when our EVP of growth visited Houston to relay to us the results of his annual pilgrimage to Beijing with hat in hand asking for capital budget money along with hundreds of other state owned enterprises. They basically gave him a presentation – the one he showed us so this was straight from the panda’s mouth – that detailed the central planners’ plan to pull our international entity out of debt. Now, our group had 4,000 employees contained within a larger group that had over 1.2 MM employees. But our little group had somehow managed to accumulate over USD $700 BILLION in debt. At first we thought this was in Yuan and were assured it was not. Then we figured there were extra zeros and again were told no. Now scale this up – we were a tiny sliver of a giant state owned corporation that was one of hundreds of giant state owned corporations. If this tiny sliver could pile up such an astronomical amount of debt, imagine what the aggregate debt must be for these hundreds of giant state controlled entities?
The Chinese basically hide their debt using the shit rolls downhill method and it eventually somehow magically disappears when hits ground level. They can do this easily within their own borders and with Yuan, but back in 2014 they hadn’t quite figured out the monetary magic trick when it came to other currencies. I saw similar practices in Indonesia back in 1997 prior to the Asian meltdown. The financial tiger we all fear is made of paper and it spontaneously combusts once it leaves its borders.
One of the smartest commentators I know of, Richard Maybury (earlywarningreport.com), has said for years that China is a massive pile of malinvestment. Couple that with its “different” conceptions of property and contract rights, and I look forward to China being a robust contributor to the world’s ever-increasing chaos.
It’s extremely easy to find videos of China’s “Ghost Cities”. Entire huge uninhabited acres of malinvestment. Pretty hard to believe in the superiority of their vision when you see the incredible waste.
Hey, China needs these ghost cities. If you beleive that nutcase Nancy Lieder at zetatalk.com. It’s the best comedic read since Weekly World News folded.
I miss BatBoy and Ed Anger.
And that’s not the case for the US?
Overpriced cardboard houses and malls out the wazoo,
years of large-scale fracking that is mostly economically unprofitable and could only be “paid” [for a while] by continuously newly created credit?
It certainly is the case for the US, no doubt about it. I’m just unsure who’s winning the race to the bottom, us or China. They’ve got all the factories, but I’m not convinced they have less of a balloon economy than we do.
That our economy is still less of a command and control economy than China’s is in our favor.
Our government does not yet have the power to malinvest on a scale anywhere near what the Chinese have been doing for decades now
If fracking for natural gas is as you say “unprofitable”, how is it that it exists without government subsidies and despite considerable governments impediments?
Additionally, malls are/were privately owned and privately financed, which is not at all like China’s state owned and financed industries and cities.
Thanks for a great article!
The Chinese seem to me to be likely to conclude that their only way out is war. It looks far too much like the “leaders” of the U.S. have decided the same thing, only they want us to lose.
I’m struggling to understand how they do this, but I sure appreciate the explanation. Nothing about the Chinese “miracle” seems to add up to a sustainable economy. Every time I read something about the CCP wisely guiding their unique state capitalism into a prosperous future, there’s always a lot of hand-waiving in lieu of explanation as to how they can produce so many things at less than cost to sell to the world.
They are engaged in economic banditry that is only possible because the largest bandits are Centreal Banks. They don’t even need to give a shit about being sustainable while the heist is on, and they don’t.
I don’t fully get it.
Your explanation is 2014, and now -as always when the US get into turbulent financial waters itself- they create a shortage of dollars in the debt markets, to artificially support the dollar. So foreign companies holding USD-denominated debt get into a pickle.
But in the end, the key question is who is holding that USD-denominated debt, and has to eat the loss in case of debtor default.
Any information you have, on that aspect?
Look here for who holds ‘our’ debt.
https://groups.ischool.berkeley.edu/USTreasuryOwnership/index.html
Two categories at the top “Domestic” and “Foreign”.
My speculation is the Chinese do not care about the debts, because those are essentially foreign fiat denominated debts. What they have in your example is $700B of E&P value and they got it for free. I always believed this was the Chinese plan – pile up debt, accumulate resources, when the global fiat crash happens and all the debt is wiped out, they can seal the borders and be wealthy isolationist traders.
All the factories and mines and workers will still be there.
Interesting theory. We are, IMO, shifting from a financial economy to a commodities economy (globally). Fiat is not going to mean shit. The only question is how long they can continue the illusion that fiat is king… Chip
And so will their 20,000 tons of gold. Unhypothecated gold I might add, unlike the gold sitting in the NY Federal Reserve Bank vaults.
I look at world markets every single morning. What I’ve noticed since Convid and perhaps a bit before (when the Fed started the pumps in Septemberish 2019) is that for more days than not, the Chinese markets were in the red. And that is continuing today. It’s rare to see up days for more than one or two days and then the downward trend continues. Not sure what to make of that just sharing my observations… Chip
“Government and Central Bank-Led Revolutions is a book whose thickness is measured in nanometers.”
he means metaphorical revolutions right? Not literal ones? Because I’m pretty sure that book would be substantial.
As Mr. Gore said in his excellent article, actual revolutions were against central banks and the governments that created them.
The first thing that came to mind were the bolsheviks getting funded by the same western banks that were behind the creation of the federal reserve.
I don’t think the Russian Central Bank has thousands of tons of gold actually in its possession, but if it did get there, it could exchange rubles for gold IF it could avoid being gamed by players in the gold spot market….I would suggest exchanging rubles for gold at a 30% premium to the spot market, and watching the market carefully for manipulation…Gold is potentially worth at least 10x the current price…
I tried finding that Warren Buffett gem on gold vs. productive assets but gave up. He opined that if you took all the gold in the world, it’d fit in a 75′ X 75′ X 75′ room and be worth as much as (IIRC) a couple of oil majors such as XOM, plus X thousands of acres of farmland. Oh, and plus umpteen millions in ‘walking around’ money. He ends up with, “Which would you rather have? A lump of metal that does nothing or productive assets?”
Ever wonder where “pieces of eight” came from? In the pirate era, even then no one could buy anything with a gold coin–they had to cut it into eight pieces to be meaningfully spendable.
You need to get outside of Buffett’s framing of the discussion.
How you know those productive assets will remain productive?
How long to sell some bigger piece of farmland, if you want to buy something else which is expensive and caught your fancy?
What would you prefer, “savings” in a fiat currency, or a resource-backed currency? [needn’t be gold; choose anything from crude oil to guano]
How you know those productive assets will remain productive
Given the current state of accounting and bubble economics, how do you know if they ever were?
https://www.businessinsider.com/buffett-on-gold-2012-2
Anglo American financial machinations =4th Turning. We don’t know where this will end. Buckle-up.
there you go. that’s the truth and we all know it. no one, save God, knows where and when this train ride ends… Chip
First of all hat tip for your Glazyev critique, not many got those points and I agree.
(However I’m not fully convinced Glazyev is now the central influential person for future Russian CB and economic policies… and sometimes I’m even wondering if I’m falling for some special kind of highest-level Russian trolling.)
But your wishful thinking about a Russia-introduced gold-backed currency also, like many others, fails to explain how they [Russians] would be able to overcome Gresham’s law “bad money drives out good” and not lose a large part of their gold reserves in the process.
Something feels off on that comparison…
Still has a better jibe, to me, than ‘the trillions of fiat dollar “invested” into the FIRE economy’ by the West.
Sounds like ‘studies indicate that we need to conduct more studies’ to me.
I could be wrong, but my understanding is the Russian gold window is closed to foreigners and foreign transactions to prevent “bad money driving out good”.
A “gold-backed currency” that deserves that name, would be one with an open exchange window.
Imagine Russia would introduce that tomorrow.
1. What would happen?
2. What does Robert in his article has to say about that?
Using debt to finance infrastructure is much different than using debt to pay off your voting base. One creates something useful to all, the other rewards non producers for their vote and support… Chip
A new global economic system and a new synthetic trading currency based on an index of fiat currencies and twenty exchange-traded commodities, all computer-tested by mathematical modeling—what could go wrong? Why not add the phase of the moon? Another reminder: The History of Successful Government-Imposed, Multivariable, Extremely Complicated Programs is a couple of nanometers thick. The chapter concerning such programs imposed by not one but many governments working together is especially thin.
In a just world that world serve as the syllabus for a Master’s program in Political Science or Economics.
Today, it is only mentioned in darkened corners of the Internet.
I don’t agree with eerything in this one, but it still outclasses anything found in modern journalism and makes a very solid case.
HSF
Thanks, I don’t think my writing has ever been cited as syllabus material.
I hope you’ll post the stuff with which you don’t agree on this one. Many times that’s more interesting and fun than the stuff with which commenters agree. Especially from people like you who know how to disagree without being disagreeable.
Maybe not, but it should be compared to what we see in the MSM. Whether we agree on every point or not, you don’t lie, you don’t obscure, you don’t omit. You lay all the facts out in a rational way. You don’t have an agenda but for the truth. And that is all that anyone can ask of his fellow man. Keep after it Robert. You’ve nothing to apologize for… Chip
Cool.
If the Russian Central Bank buys gold, what effect will that have on the life of the average Russian? It has thousands of tons of gold already; the additional gold will do for Ivan and Natasha what the present stockpile does: nothing. For them, Russian government gold is a pet rock.
Tons of gold held by a soveriegn nation has more power than a hundred ICBM’s (if they were real).
If you happen to live in a nation that is solvent- and that’s what specie represents- your standard of living and insurance against an uncertain future, is assured.
Currency is the pet rock in the hands of a homocidal maniac.
Currency is the pet rock in the hands of a homocidal maniac.
At present, every government on the planet is well stocked with homicidal maniacs. Much as I admire some of Putin’s tactical and strategic moves, I don’t exempt the Russian government from that statement. If a government is on a gold-exchange standard where it sells as well as buys gold at a set price, then I agree with you as to the arrangement’s benefits, and we can undoubtedly cite other benefits as well.
If, however, the government only buys gold and doesn’t operate a two-way exchange, then I don’t see any benefit to its citizens. The U.S. government supposedly has had a big pile of gold since it cut gold’s link to the dollar in 1971. There is no limit on the amount of fiat currency and debt it can create. The gold, as far as we know, is not collateral for any U.S. debt, although there is even doubt about that. There are rumors that some or all of it may be leased into the paper gold market. It doesn’t circulate; it’s essentially inert. It’s no guarantee of government solvency. It can only be sold once to satisfy debts and there are no assurances that there will be enough or that the debt will be a one off and not incurred again.
There are indications that Russia is heading a different direction than the U.S., and one day it may institute a true gold-exchange standard. But only if they do will the government and central bank’s stockpiles of gold mean anything to the average Russian.
Hate to tell you this but you dont want a direct exchange right now. That would ruin a country. Look at the opium wars… Silver got drained and a war broke out. This isnt the only time a direct exchange ruined a country.
I really dislike short sighted analysis because these fin ‘ experts’ dont understand a complete history of finance and econ
If you are going to write your opinion make sure you know you shit.
Connoisseurs of Chaos would be a good title for a James Bond movie.
Definitely a thought-provoking article, Robert, and the last two paragraphs really brought it home.
Consequently, I will be considering the following (from your penultimate paragraph) for some time:
– Chaos as a result of the “war on the mind”
– Liberty as deriving from free minds dealing with reality
– Global chaos caused by malignant minds besotted by the worship of power
Thank you for the post
If I can get Uncola to think “for some time,” it feels like my work here is done. Thanks for the comment.
Great post Robert. So good in fact, I’ve sent it to people I would not normally share such things with as they don’t possess the mental capacity to understand what is happening. So be it. I refuse to apologize for my (or your) well researched and reasoned thoughts… Chip
Well thank you, sir.
Benoit Mandlebrot woulds endorse this article. Good work.
Great piece. I decided years ago the only hope for a peaceful existence personally, was to seek out a place with the poorest, most dysfunctional government I could tolerate. Part of freeing ones self is removing all dependence on the state… it is then you begin to experience just how irrelevant and wicked the Psychopaths-in-Charge are. My advice to people who are finally realizing just how screwed we are, is to begin laying the groundwork for what comes next. Whether we call it a 4th turning or a 4th industrial revolution, start engaging now before everything completely crumbles.
Excellent!
Great article Robert!
SUPERB work here sir!
The additional issue is that here in N. America, the PTB, Banksters and Pollies have completely demonetized gold & silver as a currency. Not so in East India where both gold / silver as jewelry are in daily use as currency.
A fascinating video tour of the gold souk in Dubai is an eye opener.
The videos here of a guy offering someone a Double Eagle worth $1,800 or a silver dollar worth $25, vs a candy bar is indicative, as they pick the candy bar every time.
I am fascinated with watching what the Chinese are eventually going to do with their acquisition of 20,000 tons plus, of gold and buying the JPM vault under the high rise office building in N.Y., and the Barclays vault in London.
How about a gold backed Yuan, or perhaps a NEW gold backed digital currency that can be put on ALL the phones around the world to be used to buy anything anywhere, or who knows what, but they did not make these moves without a lot of malice aforethought. IMHO.
Chaos. Yes. That is the way of the next few years. And surely some of this as well:
Chaos is defined as “complete disorder.” Break this down a little further and you get to a Jordan Peterson definition where outcomes do not match up with expectations. There’s always a bit of that, but imagine a world where ONLY unexpected results come from any and every action taken. How long until even the most grounded people are simply paralyzed from terror.
A little deeper, more scientific definition of chaos is a system in which small changes in input can result in massive changes in outputs. The Butterfly Effect in shorthand. Well, not only have we seen more than a few examples of that over the past years, but recently we have begun seeing some massive changes in INPUTs. And that’s what brings down empires. No one ever brings up the notion of a change so foundational that it breaks every system at the same time. A sea change from a negative feedback environment (healthy) to a positive feedback environment (exponentially destructive). Again, that is the basic premise of Tainter’s “Collapse of Complex Societies.”
Hell, I bring it up here quite a bit and think about it a lot and I can’t really imagine it.
Certainly one possible outcome in this mess is that diminishing food supplies lead to further diminishment of food supplies until we reach Dmitry Orlov’s Fifth Stage of Collapse…Cultural Collapse or more a less a War of All Against All. Near total destruction without the need for Nuclear War.
This is what the Digital Tyranny people tend to miss. Both those who want it and those who fear it. The digital world rests atop an impossibly complex structure of code, people, machines, energy supplies, social cohesion, cooperation, maintenance efforts, physical layers (copper and silicon and more), banking, economies of scale, growth expectations and probably 100 other systems I am not considering. The people at the top are sitting in penthouse suits in the Tower of Babel and imagine nothing could be more inevitable or eternal than the growth of their power and influence.
Now that that rant is over, let’s address the gold issue. First, I am a big proponent of gold and buy as much as my wife will let me. Now, in the past, and a very long past at that, losses in confidence in fiat have always been fixed by gold. Nothing else has ever worked.
It is easy to say that a return to a gold standard of some sort is inevitable, which as Rick Rule is fond of saying, must never be mistaken for being imminent. But I can’t really picture it working in today’s environment. It would have to have a tech aspect added. There are several crypto-backed gold platforms today–I have some money in a couple of them–and maybe that is the future. Hell, I hope so. If things could go more or less the way they are now, but with sound money. That is literally the best possible future imaginable.
Ultimately, however, I am with Chip…the only likely future in which we trade gold and silver coins is a very dark and difficult one. Maybe we could build a decent world from that structure however and maybe that is the most likely path.
Maybe this and maybe that. It’s all in play and I have no idea which way is up let alone which way things will go, because of, you know…
CHAOS.
As to the last question, please refer to the Myanmmur intervention after their last fraudulent election.
More heathen drivel, we are living in the last days and this clown has no clue.
Where we have evolved to or devolved to reviewed here.
Biden status now, reviewed for Reality.
Further to…
Good start, very solid interesting facts presented throughout. I could have done without the soft-sell revolutionist/ communist idealism that besmirch the closing paragraphs.
Guys you have to stop these ads of perverts kissing. I don’t need to or want to see it flashed on my screen when reading an article.
“MULTIPOLAR CHAOS” — as there are things in the political sphere, there are even MORE CONSEQUENTIAL THINGS in the NATURAL / PHYSICAL SPHERE.
Didja know our magnetic poles are shifting RAPIDLY? When have they done so before? Of what consequence is this?
For those who seek to find what is of the most consequence to ALL LIFE ON OUR PLANET here’s a 5 minute vid which is the last of a just shy of 30 part playlist: