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It’s Time to Collapse the System
For previous articles by the author go to: Gordon Gekko's Blog - http://www.gekkosblog.com
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
-- Martin Niemöller, Nazi camp prisoner
‘I’m furious with myself,’ he said. ‘I had so many opportunities to move my money abroad but was taken in by all the promises that any attempt to raid my savings was a red line not to be crossed. Experts said it was against the law. Now, I’ve lost several thousand euros. As someone who is retired, the money in my account is all I have to live on for the rest of my life.
‘What’s really upset people is that they’ve been lied to. They were told that their money was safe and that they shouldn’t move it and then they announce this. Everyone’s accounts are frozen and the ATMs have no money. Some people are struggling to get enough cash together to buy food and water...[people] just feel that they’ve been robbed by the Government.’
--Chris Drake (Former BBC Middle East correspondent, retired to Cyprus) via dailymail.co.uk
(All emphasis mine)
So what are you going to do? Are you going to place your faith in the "authorities" like Mr. Drake did? Will you wait for them to rape and pillage you? Or are you going to take matters into your own hands. It's time to take responsibility for yourself and your loved ones. The Government and the Banksters ain't gonna save you. And if you think what happened in Cyprus this weekend is a "one-off" and it can't happen to you - even if you're outside the Eurozone - think again. The fact of the matter is that this was THEFT of private property - pure and simple. And just because it was performed by mafia dressed up in Government regalia and bearing authoritative three letter acronyms (ECB, IMF et. al. – all banker fronts) doesn't mean it wasn't one. This shows us that the Government and the bankster mafia who control them are willing to go to any length to have the public reimburse their “losses” and transfer public wealth into their own pockets. And they just declared outright war against the public.
Anybody in Spain or Italy who's watching what's happening in Cyprus and doesn't withdraw their money RIGHT THIS MOMENT from their banks deserves what's coming their way. This is as loud and clear as it gets folks. And it’s not just Spain or Italy or Greece or even the entire Soviet European Union – it’s the whole world. You won't get a personal warning letter from your feudal overlords government. And you can't say you weren't warned.
But it's not just enough to withdraw your money from the banks. That's just the first step. A global financial tsunami has been brewing and the waters have been receding for a while. It is upto you to pay attention to the signs and get as far away from the coast as possible which means you need to withdraw completely from the system to safeguard your hard earned wealth. The global monetary system today is nothing more than a giant global pyramid scheme which is now collapsing (hence all the "crises"). Just as in a Ponzi scheme, those who get out first will suffer the least amount of losses. But before I explain how to get out of the system, we need to understand what “the system” is. Also remember, this system is same in all countries today.
Will you be one of these people?
A Crisis Created by the Banksters
So what is this "crisis" in Europe that we all keep hearing about? That every one of the citizens must sacrifice an arm and a leg if we are to avert Armageddon? What would happen if we don't bail out the banks and let them collapse? Would it really be so bad? The "authorities" in our academia and government would have us believe that "the crisis" is born of "natural" causes i.e. it is simply a fact/force of nature. It's nobody's fault! Greed is simply human nature and these things happen. It's the damned "business cycle". Now we must all come together like the obedient little slaves that we are and engage in shared sacrifice to "solve it" and save everyone, especially the banks.
One word: BULLSHIT.
Well, the cause of "the crisis" goes to the very heart of how our monetary/currency system operates today.
The Money
If we are to understand the crisis, first we must understand money - a topic which the masses have deliberately been kept ignorant about. A complex economy such as ours consists of a multitude of goods and services which can be in varying demands at various points of time. Hence a medium of exchange is required that acts as a proxy for all the goods and services in the market (so as to enable complex exchanges) and in the process provides information about their relative demand and supply in the market via price signals (even interest rates are nothing but price signals - the price of money and since money is a proxy for all the resources in an economy - the price at which excess capital in the economy is available for utilization). Producers and consumers then use this information to decide on the allocation of resources - what to produce, how much to produce, etc. For this allocation process to be efficient (i.e. satisfy the wants and needs of everyone with the least amount of wastage) it must be essentially decentralized, since a single entity CANNOT know what everyone wants. This is why the Soviet Union collapsed.
Money, then, is an information mechanism which lets the producers and consumers perform calculations as to the most efficient allocation of resources at any given point of time (a software, if you will, controlling the hardware of the economy). It must be some good that is universally acceptable - that the market has "elected". And just as you need a standard scale of unvarying length to perform measurements of distance, you need a substance whose supply remains fairly constant over long periods of time to perform calculations of economy. Fortunately, the market discovered such a substance fairly long ago - Gold (as evidence that it is the substance, I present Gold's highest stocks to flow ratio of any "commodity" and the only one whose demand does not vary with supply). Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, it all went horribly wrong.
How It All Went Wrong
Now imagine someone wanting to control the economy for their benefit; wanting to have something for nothing i.e. somebody who wants to STEAL from those who are productive. Enter the mafia banksters. All they would need to do is control the medium of exchange or money and voila! But there's only so much Gold to go around. What if you want to appropriate unlimited resources from the economy for your benefit? You need something you can create at will. Enter paper money. So gradually, over period of time, operating behind the curtains, banksters in cahoots with the politicians replaced paper receipts for Gold (just take a look at the higher denomination US dollars circa late 1920’s) with paper tickets backed by NOTHING. An IOU for Gold became an I-O-U-Nothing. Knowing their worthless paper money wouldn't be a voluntary choice, they enlisted the Government as their enforcer and accomplice using bribes and threats (hence the legal tender laws, and for those of you who don’t know or remember, I present the Executive Order 6102). Hurrah! Now they could print and spend as much as they wanted! But alas, there is a fly in the ointment - if they directly used this paper money, the currency would quickly dilute and the scam would fall apart. What to do? Yup, "lend" the money. Thus began the creation of the biggest Empire of Debt backed by the most powerful mafia the world has ever seen.
A Global Ponzi Scheme
So this is how the scam works. Realize that the bankers need to do two things:
- Keep creating new money supply
- Keep extracting the already created money
Make no mistake, the second is as essential as the first otherwise the money supply would increase too fast in relation to the goods and services produced, the currency would decline in purchasing power too quickly and the scam would fall apart. They first need to ensure that you do the work and create production for them to appropriate via the extracted money (and maybe some freshly printed money on the side – who’s watching anyway?).
They achieve the first by loaning new money out of thin air (mostly via entries in a computer today). The Banks1 "lend" "money" to both the Government (government bonds) and the citizens (credit card, home loans, etc.). Lending to the government is an important part of the scheme as they have to bribe the enforcer of their scheme. The politicians don’t give a shit, its free money so far as they are concerned - it is the citizens who will pay it back. Plus who doesn’t love unlimited free money? The Government can issue as many bonds as it desires knowing the Central Bank2 stands ready to buy all of them with freshly printed money, if other morons don’t. The banksters also ensure that there will always be a demand for loans as lending means they demand paying back of the principal as well as the interest. But realize this: they NEVER created money for the interest, only the principal. So how will someone – whether government or citizens – ever pay back the interest? They can’t. They’ll have go bowl on hand to – you guessed it – the banksters. This is why debt in all the nations (both government and private) always increases. Increasing debt is a feature of the system, not a bug. The system is operating exactly as was designed - to trap the people in perpetual debt slavery. And contrary to what you may hear from “experts” and the MSM, the amount of debt in the society will never go down and will never be repaid but - as I will explain below – only end with the collapse of the currency system.
Now this demand for repayment also ties in to the second part of their scheme – extraction. This is how they do it:
- A huge portion of the Government taxes you pay go towards paying the interest on the government bonds which the bankers own i.e. indirectly your taxes are being paid to the bankers. No wonder the IRS and the Federal Reserve came into being together.
- A huge section of the society is always in debt. This is not hard to fathom – a huge portion of your income is extracted via taxes and loan payments on your personal debt. Now, personal debt is not a choice under such a system as availability of unlimited money (credit) for goods in the economy creates price inflation making them out of reach for most people unless they take on debt. Just ask around – how many of your colleagues, friends, relative are in debt? Yup.
Do you see the sheer evil genius of it? Basically the banksters have created a system where they give money from one hand, take it back from the other – all the while making you run on the treadmill of jobs (slavery) – THEIR slavery. They are free to spend the extracted money-out-of-thin-air as they want but you have to do productive work for it. Make no mistake – this is modern day slavery - earlier they used chains and whips, now they use debt.
But What Does All This Have To Do With “The Crisis”?
Everything. Because there remains yet another fly in the ointment, which even the bankers don’t have a solution for as its genesis lies in the very system they have created – central control of money. This central control of money causes huge misallocations in the economy. What is a misallocation? There is a lot to this which I can’t cover in this article such as manipulation of interest rates, so I recommend you do a bit of your own research (especially refer to the work of Austrian economists such as Mises), but briefly: Since the money is now centrally controlled for the benefit of the few (government and the banksters), all the price signals go haywire. Money is handed out to connected but incompetent people who produce NOTHING, people who produce are taxed to death and money is transferred to insiders in the money system, investments are made where none are required (e.g. real estate) which results in things being produced which have no demand whereas things that have demand (e.g. food) are not produced. The inefficiencies in the system become huge and vast productive resources are wasted. There is a whole bunch of consumers and spenders (including the banksters) but not a lot of producers. All of which means that over time two things happen in such a system:
- Overall money supply increases but the extractions start to decline. This is because loans are being made but not as many of them get paid back.
- The amount of goods and services (which people want anyways) available in the economy also start to decline.
An increasing money supply and declining production results in the decimation of the currency’s purchasing power as evidenced in the charts below. These charts are for the USD, but hold true for every currency in the world today:
Unlimited Money...
.... Leads to Unlimited Debt
And the corresponding chart for price of Gold:
Gold price since 1973 (before this it was “fixed” at $35 an ounce after the 1933 robbery). Just to be clear, it is not the gold that is rising, but the USD that is declining.
The Dollar's Purchasing Power Since the Creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913
If you take the limit case for the last chart, you get hyperinflation – the currency becomes worthless (which correspondingly means Gold becomes literally priceless – remember, it is the real money) and the game is over – and as you can see, we are VERY close to it. No more looting. This is what the banksters are so afraid of and this is “the crisis” – their desire to continue pillaging the people. They NEED the extractions to continue, not only because it is their “income” and to prevent “losses” (both these terms mean nothing to someone who owns the money supply as they can always create more) but because otherwise the money supply would increase exponentially (the bad loans already made). This would kill their franchise - the currency. This is also why they can’t just print up and use any amount of currency they need.
But eventually the misallocations become so huge that there is nothing left to extract. The productive citizens have already been bled dry. This need for extractions is what is behind all the demands for “austerity”, the reason for directly robbing the bank accounts of the people. But no matter how much they extract, it doesn’t make a difference because the misallocations will always keep on increasing. The currency is doomed. They might be able to slow the process but hyperinflation is guaranteed in a fiat money system. Eventually, it only matters who gets out first before the currency collapses. So the only question is:
Will you get out in time?
What happened in Cyprus is simply an overt manifestation of what they've been doing all along. It’s just that up until now there were enough productive resources in the economy for them to extract. But as the malinvestments increase and the productive base of the economy keeps on shrinking, as it must for reasons outlined above, they will directly try to appropriate private assets to "cover their losses" (keep the franchise alive). Which means they will need to employ ever more forceful tactics to subdue the populace. Cyprus is just a test run by the global banking oligarchs. Once they are aware of and have prepared for the fallout, they WILL implement this in every nation on earth. How long before you think they will come for you? It’s only a matter of time.
So What to Do?
By now it must be clear that if this looting scheme has to ever end, this fake money system has to end. And whether you like it or not, end it will because as outlined above, the system contains in itself the very seeds of its destruction. Think of it as virus - a parasite - that has infected an otherwise healthy global economy which must be rid of. A forest fire, if you will, that must clear the dead plants (malinvestments) to make way for the new. It is the law of nature. But if the host - YOU - doesn't fight back, the parasite of global banksters will kill the host alongwith itself. If you don’t collapse the system, the system will collapse you. Do you wish to sink with the collapsing system or be one of the survivors to begin a new one?
There are two interdependent objectives at play here. If you choose to take steps for one, the other automatically follows:
- Healing the economy: The system must be collapsed for the much needed capital reallocations to productive hands to begin. Sure, collapse is a guaranteed outcome, but the sooner it happens, the lesser the damage to the economy and faster the recovery.
- Preservation of wealth: By this I don’t mean preservation of the fiat digits in your account. Wealth is not currency notes but the real resources and people of this world. When the reallocations start you need to be ready either by already owning productive assets (whatever is left of them) such as farmland etc. or claims to them that will be universally honored (Gold).
Yes, the global bankster oligarchy is powerful. It’s David vs. Goliath, I know. But as powerful as the Goliath is, he has a weak spot you can hit:
The Currency
Think of this as guerrilla war. There is no sense in outright confronting a huge and powerful enemy because you will be decimated. But there are peaceful and strategic yet powerful steps you can take, namely: Vote with your feet. Reject the currency. The system cannot survive if you don’t participate. I know you can’t do it overnight but you can start to minimize your participation. And know this: If a majority of you does even one of the below, the system will collapse overnight without so much as a shot fired. Here is what you need to do:
1. Leave as little cash as practically possible inside the banking system. As a rough guide, keep only that much which you are willing to lose (as in 100% loss). Yes the banks will collapse, but that is the desired outcome. Contrary to what the authorities want you to believe, we will survive just fine without the banks. Sure, there will be some short-term hardships involved but think of it as an alcoholic recovering. Longer term it will be healthier. Don’t fear “the contagion”
"Clearly this is a negative development for European assets but in the terms of contagion we think it is quite limited,"
What this guy means is that he thinks people aren’t clever enough to realize that the banksters are going to loot everyone. He expects people to bend over and take it. Prove him wrong. Let the damn contagion begin!
2. DO NOT be invested in any paper securities inside the system such as bonds, stocks, derivatives of ANY kind, even though they may be "guaranteed" by the mafia government and/or may carry "AAA" ratings. If you still trust "sovereign guarantees" or rating agencies after all that has happened, I'm sorry but you deserve to lose your money. Dump ALL paper assets. Now.
3. Convert the maximum possible amount of your fiat money into Gold and Silver, but remember to pay cash only and hide them in a secure location which you can access anytime (and as of the great Cypriot robbery, no bank lockers are safe anymore). If you need to understand why it is important to buy Gold and why this will preserve your wealth – especially during a currency collapse - please read this and this. If the country you reside in is making hard for you to buy PM's - MOVE, for this is an indication of depredations to come. If they are requiring identification/ tracking if you buy over an X amount, just keep buying a little below it as many times as required (guerrilla warfare). But keep it discreet. And, yes, I know the government can confiscate PM’s but nothing’s stopping them from confiscating your fiat digits either. There are no guarantees in life. At least this way you still have a chance.
4. Although precious metals in your own possession is the safest place to park your hard earned savings, if you wish or need to diversify beyond the precious metals, invest only in real assets in safe jurisdictions. By safe I mean which are furthest from the control of feudal lords of western "civilization", although I'm not sure there are many these days. The best real asset I can think of aside from PM's is cultivable farming land, but I’m sure there are many others.
5. Where practically and legally feasible for you, stop paying back bankster debt. Starve them of the interest payments. If its cheaper to fight them in court than paying back, do it. Use their system against them. If you want to double the impact, use the fake debt-money you just appropriated from them to buy Gold and Silver3.
6. Minimize usage of bankster money in daily transactions by using alternative currencies (such as Bitcoin) which they cannot track and tax. Disclaimer: I haven’t done much research on Bitcoin or other such p2p currencies, so do your due diligence. The only guarantees I can make are for Gold. If your circumstances permit, try to start making a living outside the bankster controlled wage-slave economy. The lesser number of slaves there are to exploit, the faster the system will collapse.
7. Wake up as many people as you can. Let's make this shit viral.
So, unless you want a bankster at your doorstep with a gun to your head – like it happened in Cyprus - it’s time to take the fight to them. Rip them banksters a new one! Let this not happen to you:
He who panics first, panics best. Clearly, these people didn’t know it!
And if there ever was a picture worth a thousand words – or 3,835 in this case :-) – this is it:
1The Banks refer to both the Central Banks and ordinary commercial banks such as Citibank, JP Morgan etc. The latter are simply fronts for the Central Bank.
2 The Central Bank is nothing but just a façade for creating money out of thin air and a front for the global banking aristocracy.
3 I forgot to include this point earlier. If you can think of any more ideas, feel free to email me at the email address provided on my blog or post them in the comments section below (or on my blog) and I will include them in a subsequent post.
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this guy is basically Karl Marx's son : Its all a big hoax and its called statist capitalism; is his conclusion.
Not true, if finance is a means to an end, then its passive and the entrepreneur, the creator of product/market value coincidence, stays center stage.
The same thing happened when they invented the Church. It was supposed to be a means to an end : to allow the individual interface with the supernatural in passive mode; it became its very opposite it became the end ITSELF; like banking today.
We should learn from past experience and never fall for same sleight of hands; but we lose living memory intergeneration wise.
Don't forget the purpose of life is the individual voyage, the adventure of life. Don't let these middle men who speak for the supernatural or for the new god, the financial MARKET, take away your life, your adventure. THey are not value creators they are blood suckers and debt creators; they build the cage of servitude. But they will pretend they are agents of general good through power networking, all the while they defend their own interests.
Only the people and those who protect the general good can prevent both anarchy and oligarchy from submerging the individual, at the two extremes of the political life spectrum of society. Neither libertarian selfishness; "I am an island unto myself" nor blind faith in totalitarian memes "I am a servant of the vision imposed by my gods", can make us progress. We should avoid both temptations.
Its balance in prudence and courage, justice and moderation, in faith, hope and charity. A good individual in a strong society that defends common good in debate, by legislation and then by acts. To find general good is not easy it requires separation of powers amongst the elites and constant vigilence by the people. It requires positive vibes in society based on THESE values.
The founding fathers of USA are a good example of that balance. But they built a state and asked the individual to not only exemplify those values thru personal excellence but also to defend it for the weaker ones; without solidarity no nation, no life.
"Like Midas I am cursed, everything I touch turns to gold. My dream is now inedible and undrinkable, and I am its prisoner..."
"Only the people and those who protect the general good can prevent both anarchy and oligarchy from submerging the individual"
So, a "group" solution?
"Anarchy" is overplayed. There's a BIG reason why the authoritarians are always quick to use this word and to speak ill of anarchism. And just who has the right "vision" of what is NOT "anarchy?" How certain is it so? Figure that most we do is unsustainable and that this unsustainability is a certain formula for producing, well, for producing what is stated as NOT wanted- "anarchy." Entropy is always present, and the more energies that have been built up to restrain it the greater it's force will unleash come time our unsustainable forces are no longer prime. "Anarchy" is the unwind to excess, it's "deflation" to the things that "inflation" has wildly expanded.
The "solutions" to be found are more likely to be come from "anarchy" than from "group-think."
"[The founding fathers] built a state and asked the individual to not only exemplify those values through personal excellence but also to defend it for the weaker ones; without solidarity no nation, no life."
And no more stellar demonstration could be found than the genocidal actions against the natives. There are only TWO reasons that set the "American" story from all other nationalistic conquest stories:
1) It occurred farther away from any existing nation than had ever happened before (distance made a huge difference);
2) "Conquest" wasn't performed against a group of peoples with a well written history.
A third reason could be given as there being a far greater, more virgin source of resources than had ever been "discovered." When there's more bounty there's less of a chance of mutiny within the group of pirates.
@ seer, "The "solutions" to be found are more likely to be come from "anarchy" than from "group-think."
Thanks for that! The sauce will be reduced down to the worlds smallest minority, and that entity will eventually lead the New Renaissance. That be the individual. "Empowerment" of the individual is key. That's what many of our Founders had in mind. They didn't advocate bigger better State.
Voluntaryism, if one must "ism" the idea.
Just to clarify, absence of central control isn't necessarily "Anarchy." Hell, put the human contents of a ship wreck on a deserted island, say 25 people, and a basic form of governance will develop. Might even split into several like minded groups. Most likely, the smaller the troupe, the more mutual benefit would be respected.
Old concept. Even practiced in early tribal systems. Voluntary societal contribution has always trumped forced contribution/theft, from the point of max benefit to all.
Might want to loiter around here > for a while. http://freedomainradio.com/
And surrendering a little liberty for the security of the protection from those "anointed" with your best interest isn't always wise. As you stated who decides what's best for you?
Pirates indeed. Most Americans fail to understand that the greatest of the Nation's 'patriots' where also the ones who were profiting the most from criminal enterprise. And then of course there was all of that free Indian land.
http://www.boston-tea-party.org/smuggling/John-Hancock.html
If only the Native Americans had enjoyed the foresight to build casinos 200 years ago, maybe they'd be in charge of the land of their fathers right now.
I can see Custer and the boys catching some square dance action in the music hall, then gambling away the last of their guns and ammo on a Blackjack table.
GG, I agree mostly with what you said, but the USD is super bid. You would have made a ton of cash on that, reasons? Asia, South America are inflation central. It's kinda offsetting outright inflation in the US.
How long will Asia, more so China tolerate imported inflation from US and Japan? A: Till they go to war with Japan, then gold will be a safe haven. Bets on China dump USTs to finance a war, which is costly and they don't want to print. But black markets in USDs will continue till the endgame.
From DowJones:
Argentines paid about ARS8.75 per dollar on the black market, compared with about ARS8.05 last Friday, according to the newspaper El Cronista, which publishes an average of rates collected from underground currency dealers.
Television station TN also reported a black market rate of ARS8.75, without citing sources.
Meanwhile, the cheap, but difficult to get, official dollar was quoted closing at ARS5.0950 on the regulated MAE wholesale exchange market.
A trader at a Buenos Aires-based foreign exchange house attributed Wednesday's spike in the "blue dollar" to speculative buying in the wake of new regulations aimed at curbing the outflow of dollars for tourism.
"It's crazy," said the trader, who asked not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the subject. "Day by day people are seeing fewer and fewer ways to buy dollars... Nobody wants to sell their dollars."
It is kind of curious that few want to sell their US Dollars.
It is only supply and demand in action. Obviously the has been a large, gargantuan supply of US Dollars that were created. There must be a corresonding demand for them somewhere. And I see the demand for US Dollars everywhere I go. Everything I see is priced in US Dollars.
But sooner or later, and my bet is on sooner, as in every Bubble market, the Demand for those US Dollars will wane. And the problem is that too many of them really exist. But everyone will be dumping them. Nobody will want them. And you will not be able to trade them off for anything.
Take heed as that day approaches.
but black markets in USDs will continue till the endgame.....and beyond! my tin foil hat keeps tellin' me that pre-geitner $20's outside this country will retain their full value, while we wheelbarrow our rertired old geitners' in for those new cute colored ones that have been stuck in the printing press since about '08.
Simple to follow FREE Premium Welcome Advice is in Short Supply Globally and GG delivers.
To Joe "ToolBag " and Steve from Lala Land you SoB's suck on this here, Bigboy ; two Benders who could be sharing a cell soon!
"It’s Time to Collapse the System"
Couldn't agree more.
Keep only the minimum amount of $ in the banks.
Boycott the political process.
Boycott state-supported enterprises ( General Motors, etc. )
Boycott the TBTF cheerleaders ( Berkshire Hathaway, Warren "Obama" Buffet, Charlie "Just Suck It Up" Munger ). Who needs Heinz ketchup anyway.
Boycott all corporate swine sucking at the government teat .
Who is paying for this shit show ? The wealth creators. Stop spending and people will start to listen.
Well, it's been known for quite awhile that your lack of interest in the political process has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the political process takes in interest in you.
Ignore it at your own peril.
LOL...sounds like our lack of interest is bothering you. Why is that?
Just pointing out the obvious. Not that it really matters that much, frankly.
It's so nice to see you again, GG! Now, if we can bring back Cheeky, Andy, Project Mayhem et al...
After the 2008 crash I was able to wake up thanks in part to ZH. Gordon Gekko was instrumental in me seeing the golden lights.
Thanks and Thanks for this post.
Here here.... Thanks GG, for all of it.
Anyone else remember when you could post anon..... Those were some FC days!
In addition to the financial counter-terrorism tactics (barter, PMs, BCs, self-directed savings, alt-skilling, etc), one can also add psy-ops to the list of acts to collapse the system. I'm talking about the peaceful civil disobedience of talking smack to The Man.
Know your rights and don't let the fuckers push you around. http://youtu.be/u4Ku17CqdZg
I guarantee you this wears at their psyche and makes many of them question their place in the universe, at least sub-consciously.
I go jogging 4-5 times per week and one of my routes goes over a ParknRide/HOV overpass, where every on/off ramp is HOV only. These fucking cops sit up there and wait for the occassional single driver - who simply want to avoid a 3 mile detour to get to their bus - to take the HOV exit/onramp. Every time I jog by I ask the cops if this is the best they can do? I tell them how upseting it is to see them so-called 'serving' our community in this capacity. They hate it when I do that, I know it wears at them (or at least I like to think it does).
Fuck the collective hive, resistance is not futile.
True story: The other day I walk into Starbucks with my 5-year-old son, he sees SIX of the local cops sitting there sipping lattes and yukking it up and says, "Daddy, why are the policemen in starbucks and not out catching bad guys?" They all heard him. I looked at the group and said, "Good question, Son." I got blank stares from the group. It was classic. Fuck 'em.
Because they are the bad guys , son.
For me, the light-bulb moment was when I REALLY took my most valuable learning from the military to heart- "Set the example," was a quote that I always clung to, even brandishing it superciliously, but, FINALLY, I realized that this method of being was a better investment of one's time and energy than trying to "convert" others while one was not an example of what that "conversion" is. I suppose that it's also protection from being a hypocrite, something that I absolutely loath...
In the case of the cops, I don't want these people to be better cops, I'd want them to be independent from authoritarianism. And, the sooner that they have the ability to "BE" the example through doing, rather than doing a better job at being part of the System, the better off we'll all be.
+1
I think there's something in when people are doing evil, destructive things, to tell them clearly that we KNOW they are doing it, that we are watching them do it, and that even if they are 'small fry' they are still on the bad side.
Most people, deep down, don't really want to be the hated ones. It sets up a real cognitive dissonance for many, when you are clear and vocal that this is who they are. No-one really wants to be on the wrong side of history; it's just human to want to believe that you're living a good life.
Gordon, you say:
"The best real asset I can think of aside from PM's is cultivable farming land, but I’m sure there are many others."
Do you still consider this true in countries where land is subject to property tax? That's my biggest deterrent at the moment from buying land. We're still renting, but trying to consider now whether to change that; feels too much like the Irish peasantry on English 'owned' land, living and working on something that they could be thrown off from at any time.
One of the most important sentences for gold-owners to consider: "And, yes, I know the government can confiscate PM’s but nothing’s stopping them from confiscating your fiat digits either. There are no guarantees in life. At least this way you still have a chance."
The risk of PM confiscation is something we all have to come to terms with, and strategise for. I think we all need to accept this risk, and learn to hide, hide, hide. Not sure there is any good way to do this (strategise) on a public blog.
Renting does not excuse you from paying property tax. The land owner only has one place to get the tax money and that is you. Taxes go up, rent goes up.
You could say when taxes get too oppressive you can always move and not lose your money or property if you are a renter. But move where? Where can you go that there are no taxes?
Why do people refuse to understand the simple concept that any tax (or increase) always gets paid by the end consumer?
If theres nobody behind you to pass it on to...you're paying. Simple as that.
Cultivatable farm land serves a dual purpose. One can grow much of one's food (especially if one is vegetarian), and it is psychologically and physically healthy to work in a garden. There is even the possibility of giving, trading or selling part of your production.
Tax issues are an important consideration. (you don't really own land, you rent it from the government) I've been looking at Northern Florida, and with agricutural exemptions plus homestead exemptions, taxes are not too onerous, but one must always be aware that land is immovable and subject to increased taxation at the whim of government. I have friends in both the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Acreage/farm property taxes in both can be surprisingly cheap. ($100 annually for 30 acres for instance, but this is not flat, easily worked acreage of course) An added benefit is that the governments are both incompetent and mostly will leave you alone.
Here's the rationale that I finally came to terms with re buying land:
1) I wasn't getting any younger.
2) Land can produce income.
3) If your neighbors see you as hardworking then it's a good bet they'll respect you and be less likely to turn you in for some quick buck; if you produce food and they are your customers then you're doubly protected.
4) They ain't making any more of it.
5) One cannot expect to plop on to land and instantly be productive, it takes a LONG time (esp if you don't have much in the way of prior experience and or knowledge).
6) Lots of stuff to help get you going is relatively cheap right now, this isn't a sure thing tomorrow: I'm racking up a LOT of hours on my tractor while diesel is still cheap! (long-term "maintenance" will be done via animals)
7) PMs AREN'T for holding forever; they're meant to be applied toward productive purposes.
8) Food, Shelter and Water.
If you cannot fathom being a farmer then DON'T buy land. I figure that if it came down to it I'd rather work for someone else on land that I KNOW and have brought along than I would on land that I didn't know and had no real stake in. I will die a farmer rather than a gypsy. Sometimes you just put your stake in the ground and lash yourself to it.
Oh, a bonus item:
9) We're all going to die anyway, so why not live as though that's the way you want*: always being fearful of the future kills one's life. * Keeping in mind, of course, that when you wake up in the next day that you can say that you earned the right to another day (from your efforts the previous day).
Nice comment. Thanks!
Looks like Dylan Ratigan might be taking your advice.
http://www.dylanratigan.com/2013/03/20/putting-our-money-where-our-mouth...
http://www.dylanratigan.com/2013/03/20/whole-foods-love-local-heroes/
I guess it would depend on how much tax. Dont buy anywhere you think it's overvalued - scour places internationally for cheap but fertile land perhaps. I do own some land (inherited and was bought decades ago) but I haven't done much reasearch on buying land myself as I'm personally more focused on staying mobile at the moment.
Same here. Many times throughout history, mobility has made the difference between life and death. Voting with one's feet, like! Good pair of hiking shoes and the ability to put 'em to work might be better than digging in to defend dirt.
Also might be a good idea to geographically diversify basic survival assets, even within the country.
By my reckoning, a power that will take savings accounts certainly won't differentiate that from other forms of property.
I don't think I'm exaggerating in saying we are seeing "Government By Emergency" on an ever increasing scale as this rout progresses.
Cornered power is nasty.
www.kugli.com/Classified_Ads/adid/463276/adtitle/Fire_sale_investment_pr...
1. Taking out a long-term lease protects you from confiscatory property taxes, that will remain the owner's risk. 2. Tropical property is twice as productive.
3. Look at a place with rather rudimentary government. Coffee land in Vietnam or the Philippines comes to mind.
Land for future urban development in the developing world is even better.
When I was in the Philippines 30 some years ago, you had to be a Filipino to own land.
It's still that way. Only chance is to have a Filipina wife and get the land in her name.
Gordon, superb article.
Do not forget about other 'hard' assets: skills, barter goods, that kind of thing.
Also, people should remember these guys like to go to war to cover/aid their schemes.
Right on.
In a society that thinks little of taking your life, it's foolish to think they're too concerned when they take your stuff.
gg, i live my life keeping as much $ out of the banks as possible. i utilize it it very little, i have a nice bartering system in place already. i turn my fiat into PMs as often as possible.
the rest just works itself out. i've been trying to get this system to crash forever, it seems. not enough other people (sheeple, or worse) willing to help out. but i can't worry about them, i can only worry about myself.
salvation lies within. it's absolutely true, and the only thing you need to place your faith in. don't let one idiot poster ruin faith for everyone.
thanks for the article, will circulate it far & wide.
A manager (i. e. pimp) at Goodfellows, at the time, the best titty bar in DC, was a philosopher at heart.
He told anyone who would listen, "either you are a player, or you get played."
I have no idea how this knowledge came to me;)
Great to see you back Mr. Gekko.
Thanks :-). Great to see many of the old timers still hanging around here at ZH.
blood. it covers a multiple of sins. it will flow - for sure.
Good article GG. Thank you.
http://ia700504.us.archive.org/11/items/DasManifestzurBrechungderZinskne...
Black & White
Yeah, but were there any conditions attached?
Oh, dear!
I think we have an opportunity here.
Once the air clears of all the fighting.
It's been long now since I don't use banks for savings... I fully agree: let's make them collapse.
And let's prosecute corrupted politicians and other SB.
i agree - we should do whatever we can to make this thing happen sooner rather than later so we can move on...