Doug Casey – Page 5 – The Burning Platform

One World Purple People Leaders

by Uncola for TheBurningPlatform.com

On November 16, 2016 I posted an essay which was actually the conclusion of a three part series, comparing current events with those of the French Revolution and with a touch of Charles Dickens thrown in just for fun.

The concluding essay, entitled: “The Good, the Guilty and the Guillotine”, addressed various national uprisings that began in 2011 and proposed the possibility of an incipient Purple Revolution taking place in America. Furthermore, Donald Trump was compared to the Biblical Samson as one who, potentially, could collapse the twin columns of the political Right and Left before a new phoenix arises from the ashes. And finally, the aftermath of the inevitable forthcoming cataclysms were questioned along with the assertion that no middle ground could be ceded between the opposing forces.

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Doug Casey on the U.S. Military

Via Casey Research

Nick Giambruno: Doug, I know you’ve been thinking about how the Greater Depression will unfold. It’s no secret the government has created the biggest credit bubble in history through endless money printing—euphemistically called QE—and now “NIRP” (negative interest rates). But I understand you’ve had a different “bubble” on your mind lately…

Doug Casey: Yes. I’ve been thinking about the gigantic bubble in military spending in the U.S. And how it’s one of the worst things that can happen, and at the absolute worst time. The U.S. Government is bankrupt, we’re about to go into the trailing edge of a monumental economic hurricane, and both of the presidential candidates are talking about vastly increasing military spending.

From an economic point of view, money spent on the military is almost totally wasted. It’s worse than money spent to dig holes during the day and then fill them in again at night—at least that does no actual damage. The “product” of the military is killing people and destroying property. And the amount of money the U.S. spends is provocative to other powers, who feel they have to counter with their own spending. Arms races never end well.

I’m going to say some unflattering things about the military, and realize it will probably shock most Americans to hear them. Americans still have a high regard for the military—far too much. They see it as one of the few American institutions that still “works.” They see it as something defending them from evil outside the borders of the “homeland”—which, by the way, is a very recently coined term. But the military is actually just another government bureaucracy, like the Post Office. Albeit much more heavily armed.

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“The Greater Depression Has Started” – Comparing 1930s & Today

Submitted by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

You’ve heard the axiom “History repeats itself.” It does, but never in exactly the same way. To apply the lessons of the past, we must understand the differences of the present.

During the American Revolution, the British came prepared to fight a successful war—but against a European army. Their formations, which gave them devastating firepower, and their red coats, which emphasized their numbers, proved the exact opposite of the tactics needed to fight a guerrilla war.

Before World War I, generals still saw the cavalry as the flower of their armies. Of course, the horse soldiers proved worse than useless in the trenches.

Before World War II, in anticipation of a German attack, the French built the “impenetrable” Maginot Line. History repeated itself and the attack came, but not in the way they expected. Their preparations were useless because the Germans didn’t attempt to penetrate it; they simply went around it, and France was defeated.

The generals don’t prepare for the last war out of perversity or stupidity, but rather because past experience is all they have to go by. Most of them simply don’t know how to interpret that experience. They are correct in preparing for another war but wrong in relying upon what worked in the last one.

Investors, unfortunately, seem to make the same mistakes in marshaling their resources as do the generals. If the last 30 years have been prosperous, they base their actions on more prosperity. Talk of a depression isn’t real to them because things are, in fact, so different from the 1930s. To most people, a depression means ’30s-style conditions, and since they don’t see that, they can’t imagine a depression. That’s because they know what the last depression was like, but they don’t know what one is. It’s hard to visualize something you don’t understand.

Some of them who are a bit more clever might see an end to prosperity and the start of a depression but—although they’re going to be a lot better off than most—they’re probably looking for this depression to be like the last one.

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Doug Casey on Making the Most of Your Personal Freedom and Financial Opportunity Around the World

By Doug Casey

(Editor’s Note: This is Doug Casey’s foreword to Casey Research’s Handbook for Surviving the Coming Financial Crisis.)

Right now, we are exiting the eye of the giant financial hurricane that we entered in 2007, and we’re going into its trailing edge.

It’s going to be much more severe, different, and longer lasting than what we saw in 2008 and 2009.

In a desperate attempt to stave off a day of financial reckoning during the 2008 financial crisis, global central banks began printing trillions of new currency units. The printing continues to this day.

It’s not just the Federal Reserve that’s printing. The Fed is just the leader of the pack. The U.S., Japan, Europe, China… all major central banks… are participating in the biggest increase in global monetary units in history.

These reckless policies have produced not just billions but trillions in malinvestment that will inevitably be liquidated. This will lead us to an economic disaster that will, in many ways, dwarf the Great Depression of 1929–1946. Paper currencies will fall apart, as they have many times throughout history.

This isn’t some vague prediction about the future. It’s happening right now. The Canadian dollar has lost 25% of its value since 2013. The Australian dollar has lost 30% of its value during the same time. The Japanese yen and the euro have crashed in value. And the U.S. dollar is currently just the healthiest horse on its way to the glue factory.

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Doug Casey: Why Gold Is Money

Guest Post by Doug Casey

It’s an unfortunate historical anomaly that people think about the paper in their wallets as money. The dollar is, technically, a currency. A currency is a government substitute for money. But gold is money.

Now, why do I say that?

Historically, many things have been used as money. Cattle have been used as money in many societies, including Roman society. That’s where we get the word “pecuniary” from: the Latin word for a single head of cattle is pecus. Salt has been used as money, also in ancient Rome, and that’s where the word “salary” comes from; the Latin for salt is sal (or salis). The North American Indians used seashells. Cigarettes were used during WWII. So, money is simply a medium of exchange and a store of value.

By that definition, almost anything could be used as money, but obviously, some things work better than others; it’s hard to exchange things people don’t want, and some things don’t store value well. Over thousands of years, the precious metals have emerged as the best form of money. Gold and silver both, though primarily gold.

There’s nothing magical about gold. It’s just uniquely well-suited among the 98 naturally occurring elements for use as money…in the same way aluminum is good for airplanes or uranium is good for nuclear power.

There are very good reasons for this, and they are not new reasons. Aristotle defined five reasons why gold is money in the 4th century BCE (which may only have been the first time it was put down on paper). Those five reasons are as valid today as they were then.

When I give a speech, I often offer a prize to the audience member who can tell me the five classical reasons gold is the best money. Quickly now – what are they? Can’t recall them? Read on, and this time, burn them into your memory.

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