"All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once fraud is exposed, they must rely exclusively on force." — George Orwell
With markets in turmoil, it's becoming increasingly obvious that systemic economic risk is rising. What's less obvious – at least to most conventional analysts – is that unsound monetary policy is to blame.
A Summary of the Problem
- Federal debt is "guesstimated" to amount to $31.29 trillion.
- Unfunded liabilities (social security and Medicare) are over $167 trillion.
- State and Municipal debt is approaching $5 trillion.
- U.S. debt to GDP ratio is 130%
- The U.S. dollar has lost over 97% of its purchasing power since the Federal Reserve's creation.
- The U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency is under attack.
- Inflation is at a 45-year high.
- Cold wars are turning hot.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, at present, wants us to think he intends to beat inflation with rate hikes as Paul Volcker did in the early 1980s.
The problem is that rates can't go to the Volcker levels because the U.S. doesn't have the tax revenue to service a $31 trillion debt at high interest rates.
Volcker could raise interest rates above inflation numbers because the U.S. could be considered a creditor nation at the time.
However, as a massive debtor nation today, this tool is broken.
So now the global economy is in crisis mode, and the Fed is trapped. "Desperate times call for desperate measures."
A Digital Dollar Is Washington's Pathological Solution
In recent weeks, President Joe Biden handed down Executive Order #14067, instructing the Treasury Department to plan for a Central Bank Digital Currency which some have reported may have the following characteristics:
- GPS technology, WE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE
- Facial recognition, WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE
- Instantaneous credits and debits, PAY YOUR TAXES NOW
- Social credit merit system, DO NOT SPEAK OUT
Is the warning of the risks in this CBDC paranoid or delusional? I don't think so.
CBDCs are part of the World Economic Forum's "Great Reset" agenda. COVID lockdowns, social distancing, contact tracing, masks, and vaccines could be considered a "test" to see how the villagers will tolerate state control of their lives.
Case in point here, The WEF calls for a mandatory app tracking "social responsibility" and "personal carbon emissions."
If they show you who they are... Believe them.
We've recently seen how partisans at the FBI go after their political rivals, harkening back to the J. Edgar Hoover days. So it's not a reach to see how anyone could be in the crosshairs.
Statistics are subject to interpretation, and numbers are crunched to tell stories. In our system, the economist's primary role is acting as a "legitimizer" for the political class.
In physics, it is much harder to "fudge numbers" because laws like gravity help discover the truth. The Federal Reserve Board employs just over 400 Ph. D. economists making the Fed an ivory tower packed with high-falutin economists to keep things intentionally complicated.
Unfortunately, the Fed's dirty tricks have eroded the Federal Reserve Note's purchasing power since the early 20th century. Now the global economy is held hostage by political animals armed with confusing math formulas and algorithms.
The best practice to escape STATE CONTROL is to hold sound money.
This notion is best summarized by the following quote.
"If you are standing on a train track and you see the train heading your way then YOU GOTTA GET OFF THE TRACK."
Gold has been the best form of money for over 2,500 years. Gold is fungible, consistent, portable, scarce, and most importantly, the "hardest" of all physical commodities.
Gold is considered the "hardest to produce" commodity (relative to existing stockpiles) and the most resistant to inflation.
Gold is indestructible. Almost every ounce ever mined is still in existence, and stockpiles built up over thousands of years are not compromised by new mining activity. Moreover, the new annual gold supply growth is only 1.5% per year.
THEY CAN PRINT PAPER BUT CAN'T PRINT GOLD OR SILVER
We are seeing a volatile global economic environment where supply chains are breaking down and geopolitical tensions are rising.
This means nations are becoming increasingly skeptical of each other's paper money products. Gold's worth doesn't depend on any government or any counterparty. Gold is used to settle trades in these environments because of the legacy trust.
Gold has always been an inherently international and politically neutral asset. This is why different civilizations around the world have used gold as money for thousands of years and will for thousands more. In contrast, the unbacked Federal Reserve Note version of the U.S. dollar will eventually go the way of other failed fiat currencies.
Final Thoughts
Nations worldwide (both citizens and their central banks) are buying gold for several reasons:
- To protect against the threat of a sovereign debt crisis.
- All fiat currencies are debased by money printing.
- Fear of being sanctioned as part of the East/West economic war.
- New alliances and trade partners are emerging. Nations don't trust each other's currency, and they value the option to settle transactions in gold.
If central banks worldwide are moving into gold, do you think you should follow their lead?
Jon Forrest Little graduated from the University of New Mexico and attended Georgetown University's Institute for Comparative Political and Economic Systems. Jon began his career in mining industry and now publishes "The PickAxe" which covers topics surrounding precious metals, energy, history, and politics.
