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John Rubino: Taking Control Of The Time In Which We Live

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Adam Taggart via Peak Prosperity,

In what is quite possibly my favorite podcast so far this year, Chris speaks with John Rubino -- founder of DollarCollapse.com and recent author of The Money Bubble -- about the times in which we live.

The discussion waxes across the defining trends of our time, including market manipulation by central planners, monetary hijinks of the highest order, crony corporatism, clueless and complicit politicians, and the explosion of State control.

John sees us hurdling towards an increasingly certain future of banana-republic wealth disparity, currency failures, and civil strife. That is, unless we rise up to assume ownership of our own destiny. Doing so will not be easy, or pain-free.

In many ways, the most important important question concerning our collective destiny is: Will we have the courage to take control of it?

Well the way it works in reality is that the middle class gets soaked for all this stuff because high end capital is very mobile, it is really hard to keep track of and it is hard to tax.

 

Look at Apple’s finances: they have billions of dollars overseas that for them is very tax advantageous. Google does the same thing; they lower their taxes by spreading their money out around the world and governments are not able to keep track of it. To go after the 1% and say Okay, we're going to impose a wealth tax on everybody that has more than $10 million or whatever, you would see a huge decrease in the number of people with $10 million in your jurisdiction. They'll just move and send their capital to some place that you cannot track. That's always been going on, but in times of aggressive redistribution it happens on a bigger scale.

 

The ideal world is where you don't have these huge income and wealth disparities and where there is a lot of upward mobility. The question is: How do you get back to that? Because we were once that way in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s in the U.S. Wealth inequality was nothing like it is today. But once we went to a Pure Fiat Currency -- where the government can create as much of it as it wants to and give it to the big banks -- the big banks gave it to their preferred customers you saw inequality start to grow. One thing you can do is go back to sound money, which makes it harder for governments to redistribute from the middle class to the rich. Then beyond that it gets tough, because you cannot do overt redistributive policies that affect the 1% because you cannot catch them. Even if you could, you end up with a system that makes the government even more powerful, which leads to more inequality. It is not easy to see how this works and that is why Latin American countries have been such a mess for such a long time. They began basically with a few families ruling everything. And ever since they have been trying to become egalitarian society and they cannot do it. And that is why you have these recurring crises in Latin America.

 

Now, we've created a situation where we are in that boat, where our income and wealth inequality is comparable to Argentina. It is not clear that we can do a better job than Argentina or Brazil have done in the past because it's not easy to get huge amounts of money away from people who have acquired it and who can move it around the world. I don't know what the solution is; but I know sound money is part of it, and maybe the biggest piece of it. Once you go back to a sound money system that does not allow you to play all the games that the big banks and the worlds governments have been playing, you re-impose morality to an extent on a society, because sound money is really a moral issue as much as it is a financial issue. It means you have to keep your promises. And that governments have to maintain the value of their promises -- a piece of currency is basically a promise that if you hold on to it today, you will be able to exchange it for something of equal real value sometime in the future. Governments have been breaking that promise consistently since 1971 and that moral corruption has bled over into every other aspect of life. If we go back to imposing financial morality on governments, that is a start. Beyond that, I wouldn't even pretend to have a solution...

 

Again, I'm not sure what the solution is. I mean, we'll all have to take less, obviously. We've made promises or been promised things that we are never going to get. How we get from today to a general acceptance of that? It's hard to see how we do that without it being incredibly messy and full of strife. That's why governments around the world are preparing for civil unrest and they recognize that their financial policies for the last thirty years have led us to this point and that any fix is going to involve a lot of trouble. They are preparing for riots in the streets, domestic terrorism, and electoral turmoil in which every election is a 'throw the bums out' event. You always have the new people in charge and they are always failing to live up to their promises. That's what we are looking at on some scale. It doesn't seem like we can avoid it and I think governments recognize that. We were told in 2008 that we were a day away from Martial Law. Well if that is the way it was then, with all the increases in financial leverage and fragility, there is no reason why we cannot see that again. We could see something politically out of 1984 if we do not watch ourselves, and we are creating the conditions for it.

 

On the political side we should be educating ourselves so we can make the case when the time comes for sound money, limited government, individual freedom -- a return, basically, to Constitutional principles. So there need to be enough people speaking out for those things that maybe we can offset the people who are saying This is a failure of capitalism and therefore we need a dictatorship. That is going to be a hard argument to win when this all blows up, because it's going to look like it was capitalism's fault.

 

You inherit your times just as you inherit your family. You can't really do anything about it, you have to be part of your time. That argument, I think at some point, is going to be the defining trait of our time. And we need to participate in it. 

Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with John Rubino (1h:1m:28s):

 

Full Transcript

Chris Martenson: Welcome to this Peak Prosperity podcast, I am your host Chris Martenson. We talk a lot about how the markets are defining things for us in some way, shape or form. They do for me, I track the markets very closely and I will know that we are about to get onto the next stage of the story when the markets begin to signal what they did back in 2000, what they did again in 2008. I know we have another one of those moments coming and I think this will be a bigger, larger, more conclusive moment than those other ones, as traumatic as those were. Here we are though; we are in the

 

read more

 

 

 

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Sun, 07/13/2014 - 15:49 | 4953108 IridiumRebel
IridiumRebel's picture

Small Communities.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 15:51 | 4953113 COSMOS
COSMOS's picture

Guns and Ammo, Food and Water that is how you exercise control of your future...and of course Precious Metals

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 15:56 | 4953120 CH1
CH1's picture

the middle class gets soaked for all this stuff because high end capital...

... buys politicians.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:04 | 4953140 TeamDepends
TeamDepends's picture

You (not you CH1) liberals/progressives are going to have to fend for yourselves.  We tried.....

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:10 | 4953165 Headbanger
Headbanger's picture

And we KNOW who you are!

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 20:47 | 4953927 messystateofaffairs
messystateofaffairs's picture

At some point when they come for whats yours as they are accustomed to doing and you are at the point where they just can't have it, they will have to be stopped, by any means necessary

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 20:58 | 4953943 Save_America1st
Save_America1st's picture

Rubino is great whenever he's on a podcast.  Top notch insight and commentary.  Has a great way of speaking and getting the point across about what's going on.  Highly recommended whenever you see an interview out there with him. 

In facts, he just did a great interview with Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com last week.  Must listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxOOksLT9K8

And if any of you haven't heard of Greg Hunter then save his channel site on youtube.  He has great insight as well...he really "gets it", and he also gets excellent guests on nearly every day of the week as well.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:02 | 4953135 CH1
CH1's picture

This article's non-stop assumption that the state can be repaired is ridiculous.

"Please sir, if I beg you just right, will you please stop whipping me?"

Does anyone still believe in that foolishness?

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:12 | 4953174 booboo
booboo's picture

10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[a] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:18 | 4953181 maskone909
maskone909's picture

Essentially this is happening in every central banking nation. Behold a pale horse. Deception=usa

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 20:38 | 4953893 messystateofaffairs
messystateofaffairs's picture

Its called catching more flies with honey than vinegar. These flies like honey, but you have to lace it with poison or you wind up feeding the flies.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:28 | 4953200 August
August's picture

Small countries.

"Self-government" in a country of 300+ million can't work.  Or, more accurately, doesn't work.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:46 | 4953226 CH1
CH1's picture

Self-government is the opposite of a state - any type or size of a state.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 15:54 | 4953119 agent default
agent default's picture

Stop the Banana Republic references with regards to the US.  It is insulting to Banana Republics and not to mention, bananas. We need to find another fruit or vegetable to describe the situation here. 

WE ARE PAST THE BANANA STAGE.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:00 | 4953142 booboo
booboo's picture

Plastic banana republic?

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:34 | 4953204 agent default
agent default's picture

Plastic banana... DILDO REPUBLIC!!!11!! Fuck plants.  Bring in the rubber dongs.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:11 | 4953168 maskone909
maskone909's picture

Watermelon? Wait thats racist. Ok now im stumped

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 17:03 | 4953268 BobTheSlob
BobTheSlob's picture

Steinbeck had the right answer.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 17:28 | 4953312 pakled
pakled's picture

What... a bunch of grapes strung together.. and ....

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 23:53 | 4954483 Clowns on Acid
Clowns on Acid's picture

Past the O banana and onto the O bamama.

Mon, 07/14/2014 - 07:09 | 4954799 Lostinfortwalton
Lostinfortwalton's picture

Need something native to Africa. How about " The Ebola Republic"?

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:06 | 4953150 bitterwolf
bitterwolf's picture

Money and morality may indeed have strong causality inflection points but Pandora's Box is a motherfucker that no one person,religion,philosopy or law will negate.

Still I believe Norway's model for social mores and community ownership of national trasure is best,or maybe I am a Nordic chauvinist.

Cheers

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 18:08 | 4953433 Fred C Dobbs
Fred C Dobbs's picture

But you still have to trust government and everyone knows you can't trust the US government on anything. 

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:07 | 4953156 maskone909
maskone909's picture

When this shit fianally blows up, it will truely be a sight to see. There will be a tremendoua amount of scape goating amongst liberals who will claim, "nobody saw thia comming!". Cant wait. Get ur popcorn fellas. Cheers!

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 17:04 | 4953270 Bad Attitude
Bad Attitude's picture

Don't think you can just stand on the sidelines and watch. The liberals/progressives/facists will want your popcorn, too.

Forward (over the cliff)!

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:10 | 4953163 atthelake
atthelake's picture

Taking control of our time is a lot harder than it sounds and will require more bravery than I've seen.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 18:35 | 4953543 graneros
graneros's picture

So true but don't forget common sense. We are coming to a time, or it may be upon us, when exercising common sense WILL require bravery.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 20:32 | 4953866 messystateofaffairs
messystateofaffairs's picture

Until that time prepare, and take control of your own self by getting off the grid.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:10 | 4953164 atthelake
atthelake's picture

Taking control of our time is a lot harder than it sounds and will require more bravery than I've seen.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 17:30 | 4953317 pakled
pakled's picture

That's worth repeating.

 

 

(oh. Don't forget though, mother is the necessity of invention.)

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:10 | 4953166 kurt
kurt's picture

In an Oligarchical Fascist Kleptocracy it only gets worse for the non-corporate. Why? Because corporations are considered "people" who pay few taxes but simply hand the Congressional Reprehensitive a check along with a draft of the legislation they want passed, their "speech",  assuring their continued and enhanced power and wealth.

Reverse Citizens United

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:23 | 4953193 QE49er
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"We are just going to kill the dollar." - Senior Member of the Obama Administration

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:36 | 4953217 3rd Pig
3rd Pig's picture

 


Take control individually or collectively Mr Rubino?

Taking control collectively is un-merikan. We’d have to form some sort of union... and my daddy fought unions all his life. He’d say fighting the boss is above your pay scale son, and lord knows talking to other workers about taking action for pay, conditions and other forms of collective bargaining is god damned socialism. Now you gonna take that pay cut boy and you gonna tell all your friends about it...yeehaw..! Fuck yeah..! I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit – it’s the only way to be sure.


 

 

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:53 | 4953239 Talleyrand
Talleyrand's picture

There is no "we".

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 16:57 | 4953252 q99x2
q99x2's picture

In the last days perilous times will come. John Rubio will head for the hills and the ghost of General Patton will prevail.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 17:08 | 4953277 BobTheSlob
BobTheSlob's picture

This putz is pathetic with his "inequality, inequality, inequality" rant. Inequality is a fact of life, get over it. Comparing individuals to the corporation is asinine. For starters, you can't tax corporations as they will pass that tax right on to the consumer. People pay taxes, not corporations.

The real problem is the destruction of the middle class ala socialism and the exportation of manufacturing jobs. Inequality has nothing to do with it.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 17:20 | 4953293 Sean7k
Sean7k's picture

You realize if everyone just keeps waiting for someone else to save them, they will get what they deserve. The solution is rather simple:

Go to a part of the country that is extremely rural. Buy five acres. Build a house you can afford. Produce what you need to live and sell the extra. Conduct your business in cash or cash substitutes. Ignore all this trying to get you involved in the kleptocracy garbage and bug out.

Get to know your neighbors and create supportive relationships. Live simply.

The problem that arises in life is trying to have all you want and see while failing to concern the costs. There is a price for everything. The devil gets his due, etc. Hot woman, hot car, best house, best clothes, fine wine, steaks on the grill and you can't produce any of it? Get out the big bucks. 

Trying to beat the sociopaths at a game they created? Tough odds there. 

Listening to people whom are dependent on your charity for great wisdom? Pretty worthless. All the great wisdom has already been written, rent it for free at the library. Moaning and groaning will never get you anywhere. Tyrants are a fact of life, but they have a limited geography. Liberty is verrry expensive, but it is obtainable. Most of your costs are just fake luxuries foregone.

 

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 17:32 | 4953313 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

Start shooting a few finanical advisors, it will twart off USA NIRP.

Nice job Chris. Half way thru podcast. Basel III Accord is the mission.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 17:36 | 4953338 MedicalQuack
MedicalQuack's picture

Scary here too, as corporations will control how and when you die of sorts too, as now have a new profit area in health care, hospice and United Healthcare is right in there with changing their name of their subsidiary Evercare now to Optum Hospice.  Be afraid of this company as now the effort is to get you out of the hospital and over to hospice as soon they can or palliative care which crossroads with hospice too, depending on what's wrong and your health outlook for the future. 

Every subsidiary of a big corporation has to put money to the bottom line and United sees this as no exception even to the point of asking people to volunteer at their "for profit" hospice centers and obviously wants to keep the payroll down and run lean.

It's coming at us from every angle to where hospice efficiencies will be the next thing and we know what that means, those old algorithmic death panels once again.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/07/optumunited-healthcare-opening-ne...

Now we have this hospital and their new data program to buy all the MasterCard records of patients as well as Axciom and rummage through and find where you bought a candy bar, let your gym membership expire and so on.  So they do this first and score you, maybe even sell some data and off you go to hospice with a "score" that will help determine what kind of care you get.  This post, by the way last week I saw being read by the US Senate, but don't hold your breath as that doesn't mean action, it's just that some hospital might be rummaging through their MasterCard records if they were a patient so it got a little attention. 

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/06/oh-crap-now-hospitals-are-now-buy...

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 17:54 | 4953380 world_debt_slave
world_debt_slave's picture

the time to take control was 1860 but sadly centralized power beat states rights and has been downhill eversince.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 21:52 | 4954048 gallistic
gallistic's picture

Yeah, that little thing called the Civil War was really inconvenient wasn't it?

"States Rights" were lost elsewhere. A good place to start is looking at historical US Supreme Court decisions. You clearly cannot properly identify where and when they were lost.

Dig into the historical record  and understand that what you lament "losing" was the argument used during that time period to justify an absolute abomination. 

If people like you would have "taken control" back then, we would still have what you understand to be "State's Rights". All would be hunky-dory, and slaves would still work the fields...

 

 

 

 

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 18:15 | 4953461 g speed
g speed's picture

The reason "they"have control is cause they will do murder-- will you do murder to get it back is the "defining question"--

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 19:56 | 4953790 Son of Captain Nemo
Son of Captain Nemo's picture

.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 19:30 | 4953721 NoWayJose
NoWayJose's picture

Too late to fix this mess. Prep now and we'll try on the other side of the collapse.

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 19:41 | 4953740 Son of Captain Nemo
Son of Captain Nemo's picture

"Once you go back to a sound money system that does not allow you to play all the games that the big banks and the worlds governments have been playing, you re-impose morality to an extent on a society, because sound money is really a moral issue as much as it is a financial issue."...

What a wondeful quote and a great read!

Thx

P.S.

I'd like to be delusional and believe that collectively we would come to our senses most important among us in a Republic our Leaders -but alas...  Our Leaders are all psychopaths that have the largest nuclear arsenals in the World thanks in large part to the U.S. citizen allowing those to be in control to "print" out of thin air to obtain that power all of these years!

Mon, 07/14/2014 - 03:05 | 4954664 Victor999
Victor999's picture

The article is naive.  You can neither change the system, nor can you prepare for a future collapse by collecting guns, food and gold.  The government is owned by the rich.  The preparations you make for the coming collapse will result in the mob taking your guns, killing you and your family, stealing your gold and eating your food. 

The only way to certain change proven over the long history of mankind is change brought about by the spilling of blood.

The rich know this and they are preparing now for war.  The writer of this article does not know and his advice is based upon some continuance of the status quo - collapse comes, monetary adjustments are mad during a short period of chaos, and the system corrects itself and those who prepare for this adjustment now will survive then.  When the time comes, the rich will be prepared.  The people will not.  Though they will at last rise up, it will be too late for them as martial law, military executions and FEMA camps await await them.

Mon, 07/14/2014 - 08:49 | 4954994 sam site
sam site's picture

You suggest that we prepare to "make the case when the time comes for sound money, limited government, individual freedom -- a return, basically, to Constitutional principles"

The public is resisting this "case" because their health is disabled by toxic injury.  The high level organized crime Jesuit banker cabal has made patients out of formerly healthy independent citizens through a hidden poisoning campaign inserting toxins into our air, water, food and medicine in a chemical dumbing down and capturing of the public. 

Our public needs help because they have been toxically injured and they don't even realize it.  Don't expect them to embrace the indepedence of libertarianism because they've been injured.  Healthy people are independent - no wonder Ron Paul gets enthusiasm from healthy young college students.  Sick, injured people tend to vote for more government help because they need it.

The only way to recover from this massive poisoning is through body detoxification.  But the sick people I see are far from enduring that ordeal considering they are already anxious and depressed from their toxicity and have little motivation.  It may be best that they die off in the first few months of the meltdown as they tend to obstruct rational libertarian measures.

  

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