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The Golden End Game – A Thought Experiment - Part One
The Golden End Game – A Thought Experiment
Part One of Two
By
Cognitive Dissonance
With limericks by The Limerick King
This is part one of a two part exploration (part two found here) into what the world might look like after a total or partial collapse of the currency/economic system from the perspective of holding Gold. As the title explains this is a thought experiment, not a dissertation filled with footnotes and references. Consider it one man’s flight of fancy, so take what you need and leave the rest. Anyone who claims they know what will actually happen is a fool greater than me.
As markets are starting to sink
The end could be here in a wink
So should I prepare?
Should I even care?
My PMs will save me!!! (I think......)
(The Limerick King)
When I first entered the business 20 plus years ago the firm I started with had a mentoring program that paired the fresh faced rookie with a veteran for the first 6 months. The idea was that for a piece of the action paid to the veteran from the rookie’s commissions, the veteran would offer hands-on review, insight and support. While some on both sides of the office divide groused over this arrangement, from management’s point of view it made all the sense in the world because now the office was raising the rookie, not just one or two managers.
I found the mentoring system to be beneficial simply because I was coming in quite a bit older than the younger shark chum fresh from the diploma mills. Most of them felt they had the world by the balls, thus as long as they showed up the (fiat) spice would flow. But I knew these financial chop shops had a tendency to chew up the rookies, and then spit them out once they’d been used and abused. Since I didn’t want any part of the rookie churn and burn I relished the chance to work with a veteran and develop good habits early rather than be left with trying to break many bad habits later.
Luckily I was paired with an old pro who quickly took a shine to me and showed me the ropes, spending far more time with me then he was ever compensated for. In fact the experience re-invigorated him and he went on to become the top producer of the office two years running. The more I learned the harder he pushed, reasoning that since I knew this, I damn well better know that. So he took most of his compensation in the form of my spilled blood and an inner satisfaction that he was making his mark. For me, the processes, morals and methods he taught me are still paying sweet dividends two decades later.
One of his demands was the weekly ritual of a portfolio review of each holding in every client account. When Friday came round he insisted I justify why this or that position was in a client’s account and quite frankly it drove me crazy. I would complain that we had done the same damn thing every week for months and not much had changed. So why was he still asking me the same questions again and again. And every time I complained he would respond with a question of his own, often dramatizing it by looking out the window or throwing the Wall Street Journal on his desk. Prove to him that the world was the same one that existed when we reviewed the accounts the last time.
And of course he was right; the world was not the same and often quite different from week to week. This trial by fire is something I still force myself to go through every Friday afternoon. Knowing the client and the world situation, if I can’t justify the position, why the hell is it still in the account? But of equal or greater value to me were my mentor’s questions each time I tried to add a new position to an account. I hated his probing and poking and often I took it personally. And that bastard knew where all my buttons were and delighted in pressing every single one until I finally wised up and stopped letting him goad me.
After we had discussed why I was adding the position, and well before I was allowed to call the client and make the pitch, he always had one final question for me. How was I going to dispose of it if things went wrong in a hurry? Or in his words, “What’s the end game on that?” At first I felt his question was downright stupid and my rote answer was always that I would cross that bridge when I got there. But he never let me get away with my intellectual laziness and he’d ask the same question 6 different ways until I saw all the possible pitfalls based upon the knowledge I had at the time.
I can still hear him today. “Don’t ever take on a new position until you have thoroughly considered how you will dispose of it under the worst of conditions.” It forced me to look beyond my nose and consider how circumstances change, and with those changes the ability to sell something that, while saleable today, might not be tomorrow. Liquidity and desirability can dry up quickly and always when it is least convenient to you and your client. This perspective broadening exercise was extremely useful beyond my business world because it can and should be applied at all (not just major) life decision points.
As this Keynesian game nears an end
And the Banksters can no longer lend
What will we all treasure?
Will gold be our measure?
Or the love of our family and friends?
(The Limerick King)
So……what’s the end game here folks? Regardless of whether we are USA centric or more globally focused, the fact is that we ‘own’ a political, economic and social portfolio that is the foundational basis not only of our wealth and investments, but of our very lives and those of our family, friends and neighbors. So have we done a fearless and thorough portfolio review or are we simply buying Gold and other precious metals, along with guns and various food stuffs, and hunkering down to wait out the storm?
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, let alone the proper questions. So don’t look to me for instructions when the T-1000 HFT bots crest the ridge and cream our asses. But a little proactive introspection is well warranted here considering we are now entering uncharted territory. And it is uncharted territory; at least for plebs such as you and me, even though there have been fiat currency collapses throughout history. This time really is different (as were all the other times for each generation caught in the middle) if for no other reason than the massive use of financial leverage combined with the humongous explosion in global population over the last 100 years.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m basically a hard asset guy at this point in the great unwind. But as I have said in the Zero Hedge comment section several times before, it’s one thing to grow and/or protect your assets and wealth in Precious Metals (PMs) (and other hard assets) and another thing entirely to move those assets to the next game board when this one is reset, replaced or recreated.
I see and hear a great deal of cognitive dissonance in many of the articles and comments discussing PMs as the best vehicle to use when moving to dry land……….that is, when dry land finally does rises from the ocean floor to form the new capitalist capital called Atlantis Redux. I find that many are kind of fuzzy on how the actual transition/transaction will go down and nearly all just sort of insert “and then a miracle occurs” at some point in the discussion when they recite the precious metals (PM) mantra.
Let’s just say for a moment that our Gold, Silver, Platinum and Gold-plated Tungsten have all quintupled in price (as measured in whatever fiat is the favorite at the end) and we are now all sitting pretty. Do we really honest-to-God no-fingers-crossed cherry-on-top believe that the powers-that-be will simply allow us to mosey up to the cashiers cage and redeem or convert it all for whatever monetary unit reigns supreme? Really? Because from my point of view it’s just crazy talk to assume that the enemy of the state (Gold and other PM’s) will be welcomed home with a warm welcoming embrace.
Now before you bite my head off (remember boys and girls, this is just a thought experiment) understand who this essay is directed towards. Or rather isn’t directed towards. If you are capable of purchasing several LBMA Gold bars and are able to store them overseas and you can easily relocate yourself to where your Gold is, then this rant really isn’t directed towards you. While you may not be a power-that-be, you are in a class above the middle class regardless of your protestations to the contrary. I’m not saying you don’t share many of the problems others are facing, only that you have a great deal more flexibility to deal with them.
In the same respect, if you own several Gold Eagles and a couple hundred ounces of Silver, then you are also not to whom I’m speaking. Most likely you will run under the radar because your small amount of Gold and Silver is being held in the form of the U.S Eagle coin which, while not exactly produced as a numismatic, is a US Mint produced Gold and Silver coin that is considered US legal tender. So from my point of view, if Gold and Silver Eagles are held in small quantities, they will not be considered an investment, but rather savings or collectibles.
The people I am talking to are those who are converting a substantial portion of their investable assets into physical Gold. Or who are selling other assets or breaking qualified retirement accounts (IRAs, 401(k)s etc) in order to purchase relatively large amounts of physical Gold and Silver, though the focus of this essay is Gold. Their intent is not only to grow their PM assets, but to carry the bulk of their wealth over to the Promised Land when the current Ponzi Empire crashes and burns.
You know who you are and unfortunately so do the government goons if you have ever bought any quantity of Gold from an established dealer with a check, a cashier’s check, wire, electronic funds transfer or other traceable method. And because of Check 21 everything is traceable nowadays (even cash within a few degrees of separation) if you used one of these instruments to gather the cash.
The End Game is here so I'm told
Will the last valued asset be gold?
If so, keep it tight
From the thieves in the night
For they know every ounce that you hold
(The Limerick King)
Where I have a problem with the logic used by some is this. There seems to be a general consensus that Gold is the arch enemy, the Kryptonite if you will, of the out of control fiat creation by central authorities in order to extend and pretend while looting the executive bathrooms of the Gold faucets and monogrammed bathrobes. This understanding, along with a host of others, is always proffered when explaining the reason behind PM manipulation and the entire PM paper racket. And I don’t necessarily disagree with this general supposition.
What I don’t get is the idea that if Gold has been considered ‘contrary’ or ‘dangerous’ to the unfettered debasement of fiat in the past and present, thus the reason for the manipulation, then why would this suppression and resistance to the ‘Golden enemy’ by the powers-that-be suddenly disappear precisely when the powers (or more accurately their agents and puppets) are desperate and have the most to lose? It is clear to me, and judging by the comments clear to many others here on Zero Hedge, that these guys and gals play for keeps, consistently pushing nearly all their chips to the center of the table in an endless game of bluff and intimidation.
More important to me, at least for the purposes of this essay, is that those lovable sociopaths would rather burn to the ground than play to lose or walk away. This, by the way, is precisely why they rarely lose. They play for keeps and they’ve been doing so for thousands of years. They not only have the power, but they know how to use the power they have. Meaning they are ruthless cutthroat bastards who see you and me as cattle to be consumed or beasts of burden to be used. And I’m being kind for the sake of the weak stomachs among us.
As best as I can tell the general assumption is that when the partial or total collapse comes (not if because we are talking worst case scenario here) the failed powers that be, perhaps inspired by some public hangings and decapitations, will pack up their lawn chairs and vacate the levers of power, allowing more responsible adults and even some advanced children to take over and save the day. Or at the very least, the expectation is that the new kids on the block will clean up the mess left behind by those traitorous bastards and that they will do so in a reasonably fair, open and egalitarian manner. Let me take a moment to collect my thoughts before rendering my opinion on this matter.
I DON’T THINK SO!
Why am I so confident of this? Well, from studying history of course. And by history I mean good old fashioned world history dictated and approved by the Empire for high school or college textbooks. You see, from the perspective of long term history, while we may have a new production company and support system for the global Ponzi screenplay, as well as fresh faces to fill the role of puppets, enablers and useful idiots, and even a (relatively) new political system to emotionally and culturally unify us all as we labor away in our hamster cages, the Ponzi is at its central core the oldest con in the books.
Essentially we are all experiencing plantation living at its highest and most efficient evolution to date, where the sole purpose of our existence is to serve our immediate masters who then serve their masters who then serve their masters in an ever narrowing pyramidal hierarchy. This goes on until it reaches the point where at the top we find several hundred to a thousand elite scattered across a number of blood-line families that share the power and spoils. And there is serious evidence available to be examined by the determined researcher that there might even be another level (or two) above that.
BTW for the most part, but with certain exceptions, you will not find these elite of the elite on any list of richest people in the world. I personally suspect that many of those who you do see listed are in fact the public caretakers of the wealth of others and who are paid handsomely to play the role and weather the slings and arrows of public scorn in exchange for growing the assets and guarding the anonymity of the real owners of Mother Ship Earth.
The Powers That Be are concealed
Their identities won't be revealed
They will hide from the light
And continue their fight
Until all of our fates have been sealed
(The Limerick King)
History is full of examples of crumbling empires and nearly all of them seem to share several characteristics. First and foremost in my mind is that regardless of how dire things may seem to be, the collapse progresses much slower than expected. It always seems like today’s bad news signals the end of the world as we know it….until tomorrow’s even worse news hits the ticker.
Grab Mr. Peabody and fire up the WABAC (pronounced ‘wayback’) machine to travel a few years into the past, say to 2007, and consider some of the headlines we saw and the reactions they provoked. What were considered Earth shaking events back then are nearly routine today, no big deal really. This is a severely misunderstood and underappreciated, and thus under weighted, counter balancing force to the general insanity level. The (normalcy bias) force is strong in you young Skywalker.
I suspect this isn’t so much because the powers that be are holding it all up, but rather it is the common folk living on the ground floor of this insanity that are doing the heavy lifting. Never underestimate the desperate desire of those who are chained to the plantation to preserve that plantation even when it would be easier and saner just to walk away. This Stockholm syndrome conditioned mind is of course exploited by the masters to rape and pillage long past the normal or even expected expiration date of the Empire.
Also, collapse (partial or total) is a relative term. For the financial elite, politically powerful and top tier business people, collapse is just another word for a really severe business cycle downturn. When conditions become harsh, the script is always the same. Shed useless eaters, strip all usable assets and sell the estate to the last of the greater fools, then move on to a more favorable business location. So by the time the barbarians are at the gate, the rich and powerful are long gone and have stripped most of the wealth from the kingdom.
In the modern era this means that the rape and pillage of the middle class is the purpose and eventual outcome of any severe recession/depression. So of course it is the purpose of the ongoing collapse. See ‘The Great Depression’ of the 1930’s for the Cliff Notes on the coming fun and games…exponentially escalated by $708 Trillion (notional value) in derivatives. But always remember that the explosive firepower released back in the 1930’s is nothing compared to the massive potential energy that is about to be released. The real purpose of can kicking is to try to slowly release that energy rather than to allow it to go BOOM all at once. Consider it a form of extended game play for the elite.
When the global reset is complete
And the Kleptos are in full retreat
Secure family and friends
For their game never ends
And they'll never accept their defeat
(The Limerick King)
The true powers that be have a long history of backing all sides in nearly every conflict or collapse. So it is not a stretch to assume they are supporting the very barbarians who are beating the door down while also relocating their kin from the collapsing empire. If you spend any time studying the blood lines of the rich and powerful, despite our general indifference to this seemingly inconsequential subject matter, to Earth’s owners the blood lines are carefully massaged, managed and manipulated in order to maintain a balance of power and influence among the bickering kings and queens. Do not underestimate the utmost importance of blue blood hierarchies or of the interconnected web between supposedly bitter enemies and plantations/countries. If it is important to them, then it should be considered life and death to us.
Inside the sprawling plantation the conditioning of the slaves is ongoing and ever changing and relies heavily upon the older, more experienced slaves to indoctrinate and condition the new ‘volunteers’, thus cementing the bond that is often expressed as nation or community…..or more properly ‘misery loves company’. For several thousand years religion was the center of the indoctrination process and controlled by the blue bloods, all of whom had no aversion to donning priest’s robes to spout the all important rites and rituals. A close inspection of history shows that while the vehicles of power shifted and morphed, the methods used and the personalities involved always remained the same.
Closer to the modern era, there was a shift to the sharing of power between religious centers and blue blood families who presided over kingdoms. Again, there really wasn’t a divide, only the public appearance of division. Mom usually decided which son became King and which became a Cardinal or Pope, thus assuring her it all remained in the family.
Over the last several hundred years the center shifted once again to the façade of central governments organized under ideological memes such as democracy, communism, socialism and of course the more traditional blue blood families aka Kings, Queens and royal families, sometimes along with a quasi democratically elected congress designed to create a false sense of self control for the naïve native slaves.
Regardless of the method or ideology used today, they are all simply more sophisticated methods to organize and exploit the plantation and nothing more. In much of the so called ‘free’ world today, giving the slaves the illusion of freedom of (limited) choice has been found to dramatically increase productivity. An intelligent plantation manager will allow any work rules as long as they still maintain order while increasing efficiency because strip mining the human and mineral resources of Earth is the one and only goal of the ruling elite.
Preserving your wealth can be fun
The first thing you'll need is a gun
Trust no one you meet
Each night soak your feet
Just in case it is prudent to run
(The Limerick King)
Regardless of whether the financial elite remain in place or move on during or after the collapse, there will still be some type of procedure set up to exchange the old slave script for the new slave script. Without a doubt there will be different tiers or exchange rates depending upon which social and/or economic class you reside in. And rest assured the transition will not be fair and it will be used to extract whatever remaining wealth the middle class still holds. This is a given, but it will not be readily obvious or even visible since most of the dirty work will occur behind closed doors and well in advance of the general scrum.
There is also no doubt, once again predicated by a careful reading of history, that regardless of the leadership actually holding office, when the gates are busted down (or as is more likely the case pulled down from within, often via false flag attacks), in order to placate the increasingly restless slave population, fresh faces will magically appear from the cloning rooms to offer stirring speeches and heartwarming platitudes about how all the slaves must engage in mutual sacrifice and work even harder to ensure that the elite make a clean getaway before the cleansing fires are set and the system is finally rebooted. I can’t wait for the games to begin because I still have more cognitive room left over for that hope and change thingy.
Every crumbling Empire always reaches into the same bag of tricks when the heat is on and the slave nation becomes restless. After all, the elite must maintain order so that the fleecing can be completed. ‘Order’, especially near the end of the End Game, is usually maintained by a heavy handed police and/or military presence via outright martial law or the stealth version implemented by (executive) decree. Let the head bashing begin. Desperate puppet leaders will most certainly do desperate things, first to maintain their own illusion of power, then just to save their asses. Count on it.
Two tricks of the deception trade that often work hand in hand are scapegoat harvesting combined with war mongering, which usually leads to out-right-war in order to deflect attention and blame those evil elites over there and their supporting band of vicious baby eating enablers, indentured servants and wage slaves. And while it might be an old trick, even the oldest, it still works every single time it is used because we slaves would rather support the devil we know then to take a chance and actually live free. Spend enough time in a locked cage under dehumanizing conditions and the jailer no longer needs to lock the door anymore. We slaves will keep ourselves just fine, thank you very much.
While I could extend this list of common denominators for several more pages, let me cut to the chase and list the one commonality that is near and dear to my heart and the core function of every central government that administers the (crumbling) Empire……..to be a blood sucking parasite. The bottom line is that governments, Kings and religious orders do not ‘produce’ anything nearly equal to their consumption no matter how you measure it, unless you have been drinking their Kool-Aid. These entities will consume from all sources using one or more of the following strategies; regulation, taxation and ultimately confiscation.
In Chapter Two we will examine the third method as the end game worst case scenario draws ever near.
11-20-2011
Cognitive Dissonance
Special thanks to The Limerick King for his wonderfully apropos limericks. It is an insult to describe the process of condensing complex subjects into 5 lines of prose as ‘writing’. The term ‘stupid good talent’ just begins to scratch the surface of what The Limerick King has to offer. Thank you TLK.
I also wish to thank Dagny Taggart for the ongoing and wonderfully diverse conversation that always leads to further inspiration. Thank you Dagny.
PS: For those who just can’t get enough of The Limerick King, below please find some more of his work that just couldn’t be fit in. Momma always told me never to waste a single mouthfull of The Limerick King.
To those who think gold is the cure
For everything fake and impure
You may get your wish
If gold catches fish
By making an outstanding lure
As the great global reset draws near
Consider the things you hold dear
Will others agree
With the value you see?
If so you have nothing to fear
My wealth is so precious to me
Without it I just couldn't see
Life would be dour
I'd lose all my power
I'm spawn of The Powers That Be...
- advertisements -
Lots of good stuff in this article. A few comments.
If you are worried the predators-that-be will steal your gold, don't stand there frozen in the headlights. If you are afraid to hold gold during the coming assault on gold, RIGHT NOW is a great time to convert all your assets into Platinum. At slightly over $1400, platinum is a freaking steal. Platinum is much rarer than gold, yet costs about about $200 per ounce less. Solution to "fear of predator attacks on gold" is simple. Buy platinum or convert your gold [and silver] to platinum. Note: I doubt the predators will confiscate silver... too many industrial applications.
The behind-the-scenes predators-that-be do indeed pull the strings, and do indeed survive no matter what, and slowly take over again no matter what happens. However, in one utterly crucial respect, this time is different... very, very different. And that respect is the overwhelming quantity and sophistication of monitoring and destruction technology the predators-that-be have at their disposal. MAKE NO MISTAKE, the predators-that-be know that this time they can convert earth into a permanent slave planet. I want you all to consider this carefully. This time really IS different versus previous times in history...
Throughout most previous times in history, humans (including the predators-that-be) didn't even know whether the earth was flat or not, and didn't even know whether whole other continents existed or not. It was always possible (by accident or intention) to escape the "civilization" controlled by the predators-that-be and predator-class, and wander to empty lands - what we call "frontiers" in retrospect. Well, given satellite technology, everyone now knows for certain no more empty continents exist on earth. We also know what will happen to any large scale attempt to erect floating [free/libertarian] cities on the ocean. The predators-that-be will send their predator-drones and aircraft carriers to force them to comply with whatever "international law" version of global-governance-slavery they decide to impose.
Anyone who has been awake the past few decades can also see quite clearly how the predators-that-be are making sure outer-space never becomes a new frontier. The predators-that-be know with complete clarity that the very best people will escape authoritarianism given any chance. That's why the USA managed to advance from ZIP, ZERO, NADA to landing men on the moon in a mere 9 years... yet has made virtually ZERO advances towards space (or moon/mars/asteroid) habitation in more than 40 years after the moon landings.
That's right, these over-the-top craven predators-that-be have the most overwhelmingly insane delusions of grandeur imaginable. They intend to enslave EVERY sentient being in the entire universe, not just planet earth, and make it stick forever. And given the cluelessness of the masses, and given the timidity of those who understand, and given the technologies they now have to monitor, enslave and dominate or destroy every technology that might help us become independent and advance ourselves towards freedom --- they will succeed. They have succeeded. And unless something extraordinary happens very soon (like a serious uprising that weeds out this 0.001% of humanity and their paid thugs (another 0.1%)), their dominance of EVERY [known] sentient being in the universe will become permanent. Anyone who wants to wait for ET to save our asses is just flat out crazy.
I won't walk all over this article by posting an article about "what can be done about the fall of mankind and the end of honesty, ethics, liberty and individualism" at this late date. A few approaches do exist, and would work given modest support. But the predators-that-be have been quite effective at making almost everyone think only super-short-term, so serious cooperation on such efforts is almost impractical at this point (beyond something that slips by within their fake framework, like a freak win for RonPaul). So I guess I'll close with this comment. Get real. Get ready. Get serious. Get prepared. And be ready to take very serious, very physical actions within the next 12 months.
In the medium term, what is absolutely crucial for benevolent beings is a frontier where braver and more enlightened sentient beings can escape the predators. THAT is the only long-term solution, and space is the only appropriate place for that given size and unbearable energy cost of "enforcement techniques".
Why do the TPTB want to enslave us? Does enslave mean wage slaves? Don't they need us to be prosperous to buy their shit?
They wish to enslave us in order to produce the goods they consume, and serve their every whim. The next stage of their plan is to kill off 80% to 95% of the population of earth so they have more wide open spaces, and so all earth resources are available for them only.
honnestann, I don't know much about outer space, but just learned that if we took all the empty space out of matter, say in this particular case the empire state building, it would be a grain of sand that weighed 250 billion pounds, and so the universe itself, collapsed into just matter would be a grapefruit of unimaginable weight.
I understand what you are saying, and I am meek, but something extraordinary will happen very soon to all of us here on earth.
There will be a great shaking. It has already begun. It will topple the power and plans of us all,and the great ones, and there is one refuge, and that is God in your heart.
Ask for mercy when you see what you are. Beg for mercy. It is a hard film to watch every thing you've ever done.
Oh sure. Some magical fictional delusion will save your ass and mine, topple all the predators, and forgive you for sticking your head in the sand and begging for mercy. GROW UP.
Let's wait and see.
Excellent moniker. I'm hoping it's drawn from John's writing from Patmos.
Ooh, militant atheism - with just a hint of reverse evangelism. Why so angry? Would you have so denigrated those who fought King George under the Pine Tree Flag?
http://tinyurl.com/7ega36g
Probably so. Your bad attitude tells me that you are probably most angry that you aren't attractive enough to survive on prostitution. You sustain yourself on fantasies of the badass womyn of Aliens and Resident Evil. Good luck with that. Me - I'll be grateful for every single soul out there praying when SHTF.
Look people. Assuming there IS a god, do you REALLY believe his plan is for you to just lie around and wait for him to take care of everything for you? Really? If so, you are seriously deluded. The predators will take actions and shred you to pieces while you sit frozen in their headlights. Brilliant plan, but I have a better one --- observe, think, act.
The Deus Ex Machina. You beg for mercy. Coward.
Another laudable effort CD and demonstrative of your considerable powers of reasoning. I wish to forward you some observations of my own which I suspect you will find to be thought provoking. Suggestions as to methods of delivery?
Please send your comments, questions and any spare Precious Metals to......
Zhcognitivedissonance at gmail dot com
You still be one cuhrazy bitch! Been off your meds a while?
I only do the good stuff.
"this time is different" maybe believing this statement, im falling into the trap of being conditioned to accept the new outcome of game being played for seems like eternity? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but i believe we dont have the resources to maintain our population another 10, 20, 100 years. I can make an argument that nobody gets out of here alive if they cant feed themselves...... no matter where on earth you live population will decrease. By how much? think about a time before coal and oil. good luck maintaining control in a decreasing population scenario
It's good to see balance of priorities in the comments. It begins with water, food and shelter. Without those three, there is nothing to protect. Next, in a situation in which one man has gold, another has silver and the third has a side of beef, who is the rich man? Easy answer, if the supermarket shelves are empty, the cash registers and ATMs don't work, and the local security is suspect. All of the bases have to be covered.
http://georgesblogforum.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/the-daily-climb-2/
The 2011 Gold Council ad in India. It's a hoot! Too bad you don't understand the language, the sub-titles leaves a bit to be desired.
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/tv/world_gold_council_diwali_2011
OP was tl;dr
too many petitio principiis such as the assumption that somehow gold is an enemy of the State. I honestly don't think they care a shit about it. It's a MINOR asset.
And yeah, there will still be pawn shops trading gold for paper...
well said and said and said and...
looking forward more saids to come
Hyperinflation Watch - More Deficits, More Debt - James Turk
A Christmas wish...
Hoe, hoe, hoe, hoe.
Merry Christmas.
Dem's da local hoods (crime family) appropriately attired in their future crib - if they are not lynched by a very angry mob first.
Yo Ben, Barry, whassup? Need smokes?
WB7, have you been using the Banzai Labs Future Viewing Crystal Ball?
I have coveralls just like that!
Only thing missing is "Old Sparky" in the corner.
You're a sick one Mr. Grinch Banzai7.
That's a good thing BTW.....just in case you weren't sure. :>)
Anyone who claims they know what will actually happen is a fool greater than me.
Complete devotion to an ideal is the secret of its attainment. It is not wishing and hoping for things to go right but persistently working toward the goal of perfection.
The discussion of confiscation of anything or the condition of what could be, should be, will be, are merely unconstructive ideals. Mans past and present methods has been to develope the sense of strife. See yourself, man or woman who is up against the stone wall, exhausted from all the chaotic bullshit and crap that surrounds us daily --the solution to any of your questions is to let go of the condition, simply. What will the next national movement be ? hopefully the political system will be completely broken down and replaced with we the people.
I know that my back is against the wall, is yours.
CD thanks another great mental breathing exercise
Complete devotion to an ideal is the secret of its attainment.
This is PRECISELY why the predators-that-be always win. They have had complete devotion to their mission to "enslave the world" for at least several hundred years. If producers were anywhere near as devoted and organized, the predators-that-be and predator-class would be toast in very short order.
"Complete devotion" : Templars, Djihadists, Inquisitors, Soviet communists, SS... Blind faith. Never the knowledge tree will enlighten them. Where oh where are they now these men of blind faith...? And where is the "tree" that fathered them?
You answer that and you know why "predators", like TRexs, only win upto the time when their time-line makes them obsolete in relation to the knowledge tree. Never despair, always care, and learn from pain and deprivation; its then that the knowledge tree is most precious..... Lessons of the tales of Montsegur and the laurel tree....a page of human history that prefigured its repetition so often, as during WW2. We may be in for another dose of it...that can no longer be considered "off limits".
As your examples prove, predators sometimes lose battles. However, they are winning the war, and that's what we all care about.
what producers want is freedom, and nobody is creating more of that.
!!!!! EXACTLY !!!!!
"CD thanks another great mental breathing exercise"
Nicest thing anyone has said to me in a while. Stay tuned for Part Two....same time, same channel tomorrow (Wednesday).
The truely rich have gold and silver too, and they don't want it confiscated, so there will be no confiscation, especially because there is no regional bank gold and coins in circulation to confiscate this time, unlike the 1930s. They could confiscate thorough taxation, the rich don't mind that because they can avoid it.
Loved the "body double" theory of the truely rich, that the ones we see are not the true holders of the world's wealth. The really rich don't need to confiscate your PMs, they are going to get that wealth anyway. They don't care if all the hedgies in the world are bankrupt and you replace them as the nouveau riche, they are going to get that money eventually. So no, I'm not convinced yet they will confiscate gold or make it illegal to hold. Our servitude has progressed too far. They can actually let you cash out and they will get it anyway.
I'll tell you how the predators-that-be think. The clueless morons of the world hold their wealth in paper (though most are in fiat-debt and are therefore slaves). We hold our wealth in gold, which at least is real, rare and has utility. The predators-that-be create fiat, fake, fraud, fiction, fantasy, fractional-reserve debt "money" out of thin air at zero expense, take the interest fools pay when they borrow it, then convince governments to give them toll roads/bridges/etc to finance [sovereign] debts. These assets (paid for by citizens and taxpayers) are then PERMANENT cash cows for the predators-that-be that assure them riches and power forever. You can be sure these predators will be handed the state and national parks and endless other real, natural or constructed resources within the next few years.
Why confiscate gold when you you can tax it and participate in the move.
sigh...gold BULLION was illegal to hold. BULLION.
ONE type of gold. If you're stupid enough to let the law bother you, and you're going to get sand in your vagina over it, then just curl up in a ball and suck your thumb.
My mom had a gold wedding band, my dad had a gold bracelet while gold BULLION was illegal to hold. And there were still people playing COMEX for LBMA bars. The gold market didn't grind to a halt simply because specific coins were made illegal to possess.
Just beat all your krugerrands into a calf and call yourself a jew, FFS
When the black communitity stop trading their bling for federal reservve notes... the top will be in.
i live in the hood. we are there.
the fresh faces redeem themselves in the blue bloods gold
.
and training
Thanks, CD for a thought-provolking piece and I'm looking forward to your conclusion tomorrow.
I too enjoy the comments here at ZH almost as much as the content and always find something to take away.
In the meme of being prepared, let me share a worthwhile book I just completed reading "Alas Babylon" by Pat Frank. It's dated, but reading it brought to mind just how much we take some things for granted that just may not be available in a post-collapse world. In the book, one of the items no one has available is salt. You might not even consider it, but we use salt for many things and need it to live.
You also might want to check out Mike Ruppert's site http://www.collapsenet.com/262.html
Ruppert wrote one helluva book too "Crossing the Rubicon".
Good luck to us all and enjoy your family & friends this holiday season. We may not have another one under these sorta normal conditions.
I've been a fan of Michael Ruppert's for well over a decade. "Crossing...." is a must read both for the newbie as well as those who think they have heard it all.
Thanks for listing his new web site. It is nice to see him back out there shaking things up again.
This video from the site illustrates what Hank Paulson really wanted to say in his one-page bailout!
http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resources/collapsenet-public-access/must...
Damn fine article cd, merry christmas zh.
Thank you. Please come back for Part Two tomorrow, same time, same channel.
Your article played to my fears and stoked them, CD... and... I get it. I read about hedge fund managers being told of Fannie and Freddie and MF Global and I know the game is rigged. I don't know much about the Illuminati but one gets a sense they're out there... the Squid, etc.
My only counterargument is... Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sergey and Larry, Eric Schmidt, Sam Walton, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, Michael Jackson, even... Thomas Edison, Samuel F B Morse, Samuel Insull, Burt Rutan, Clyde Cessna, Henry Ford... middle-class guys, for the most part, and some from truly hardscrabble origins... definitely not hereditary members of the ruling class... who made big fortunes to massive fortunes and changed the world.
If the hereditary elites' control is so pervasive, how or why would they allow a Bill Gates to become the wealthiest man in the world?
As long as I have people in my life to love, enough to eat, a warm, dry place to sleep and the means to make software, I'm going to be reasonably happy. I have a few hobbies and a couple are kind of expensive to indulge, but nothing I can't live without. Of course it sucks that eventually my body will rot out from underneath me, but so far nobody's figured out how to beat that.
Onward and upward, and onward through the fog... TI
There is a limit to the anount of wealth a person can really use. It's measured in millions not billions. Above that level accumulating assets is purely about power and prestige. Not even the elites have figured out how to stop death. Each will succombe to age and find that their raping and pillaging came at a dreadful price (my opinion and that of many others). Psychopaths make horrible parents so those blue bloodlines are producing sub-functional excuses for human beings and only their hired technocrats are able to keep the empires going. When the reset comes what prevents the hired help from taking control? I don't envy the elites, they will not last. A hundred thousand years from now I won't give a fig about how much power the Rothschilds had in their day.
Didn't the Govt outlaw the private ownership of gold in 1913 requiring all gold to be sold to the Govt for $25/oz under penalty of 10 years imprisonment? How do you think the gold got to Fort Knox? Think about moving to another country? Turkey just turned against its old friends in Syria because the USA/EU can engineer a change in leadership anywhere in the world. Get over it, the world's elite superrich will take your gold (all assets over time) and make the rules. Lay back and enjoy what you have while they let you have it.
Based upon what I know of various South African gold miners, it is one of the very prime elites who is a major owner....along with many of the lesser elites.
That being the case, why would the elites wish to cut off the demand for pm's? Perhaps the paper trading elites might, but there are many other elites out there whose wealth is based upon mining.
great so far, these little imagination trips worked for einsten maybe they can help us see more clearly too.