James Turk: We're Living Within A Money Bubble of Epic Proportion

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James Turk believes the time we live in now will be studied by future historians for generations to come. Just as we today marvel at the collective madness that resulted in the South Sea and Dutch Tulip manias, our age will be known as the era when society lost sight of what money really is.

And as result, the wrong kinds of wealth – today, that's mostly financial assets – are valued and pursued. And just like those bubbles from centuries ago, when the current asset boom goes bust, the value of paper wealth will vaporize. 

In contrast, those holding tangible productive assets or real money will fare much better on a relative basis.

James and co-author John Rubino (of DollarCollapse.com) have recently published a new book covering the details of this prediction called The Money Bubble: What to Do Before It Pops. Within it, they delve into the reasons for why the world is destined for what Ludwig von Mises termed a "crack-up boom":

Wealth comes in two forms.  It comes in financial assets, bonds, and T-Bills, and things of that nature, and it also comes in tangible assets: real estate, oil wells, timberland, farmland, houses and things that are tangible. And when you’re in a financial bust – and we’ve been in a financial bust since the dot-com bubble collapsed back in 2000 – what you want to do is you want to be involved with tangible assets and you want to avoid, as much as possible, your involvement in any financial assets.  So, consequently, what people should still be focusing on, even though we’re 14 years into this bust, is continuing the accumulation of tangible assets. 

Because when this bust is over, promises are going to be broken left and right.  And that means financial assets where you have counterparty risk where you own an asset, the value of which is based on someone’s promise – a lot of those financial assets are going to be diminished in value.  Now, there’s a special kind of financial asset called a stock in a company.  It’s almost like a tangible asset in the sense that if you own stock in EXXON, you’re basically owning a tangible asset, because it’s involved in oil and it owns tangible assets all over the world. 

But then, there are financial stocks, credit-card companies and banks, that are financial wealth rather than tangible wealth.  So, you don’t want to own stocks in those companies.  So, basically, own tangible assets or stocks in companies that are involved with tangible assets – those stocks, I call near-tangible – I think that’s the thing that everybody should be focusing on.

And when it comes to money and liquidity, the money, of course, would be physical gold or physical silver or a combination thereof because they will re-emerge in the historical and traditional role as money. 

Keep in mind, gold’s been money for 5,000 years.  It was made money by the market.  Money comes from the market.  It doesn’t come from the government.  Over the past century, government’s certainly usurped that authority to control money.  And over the last 40 years, they’ve gone even further afield by completely divorcing fiat currency from the gold that used to back money.  And because of the time element that’s involved, we’ve lost sight of what money really is, and that’s what’s created the money bubble, Chris.

And it’s this money bubble where people have to come back to reality as to what money really is.  It’s liquid, tangible assets being used in the economy in exchange for real goods and services.  And it’s ultimately where we’re going.  And I think it’s going to be very, very disruptive because if you look at an individual country like Weimar, Germany or Zimbabwe more recently, or what Venezuela or Argentina are going through now.  You can see the disruption to the economy when the money is no good.

We’re talking here about fiat currencies throughout the world because nobody’s tied to gold anymore.  No country’s currency is tied to gold anymore.  So this is going to be the bubble, I think, that generations from now, hundreds of years from now people are going to be talking about just like we talk today about the South Sea Bubble or the Mississippi Bubble, from those episodes in history a couple hundred years ago.

Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with James Turk (35m:26s):

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://peakprosperity.com/james-turk-were-living-within-a-money-bubble-of-epic-proportion/

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They are going to hand the reins over to a little old lady and slip out the back door. (The FED's Exit plan.)
The economy might be splitting in two. One that serves real people and one that serves pretend people (companies)…

If I am right and the economy is becoming de-coupled from the affairs of humanity then what humans value will be become less important.

Do any pretend people own gold? Yes, but only for it's utility. They value silver for its conductivity, and gold for corrosion free contacts.

Gold and silver still have value in the human economy so they should work to purchase the fruits of human labour. But who needs a sward-smith when the machine can produce them by the thousand, and deliver them with autonomous drones or over the internet to printers?

The fulcrum in this story is still energy, because without it nothing moves.

Over-unity phenomena are a dime a dozen now. The yardstick by which they are being measured is the reverse cycle heat pump which has a gain of three. Rossie did produce energy but he could not control it and has sold out to Industrial Heat.

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Will the reins be handed over to  Janet or to the newly appointed vice chair, Steven Fisher, formerly president of the Bank of Israel? This is just too convenient.

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Tangible assets with no debt is definitely the least risky way to go.  I especially liked the point that both Chris and James made about not loading up on debt and expecting inflation to eat it away - either wages won't rise because labor has no power, and/or the system will simply operate to change the rules so the little debtor doesn't end up benefiting from the (hyper)inflationary outcome.
I do have to point out that Jim's last book's title never came to pass - and that indeed, in every crisis, people outside the US have run to the dollar rather than away from it, and they continue to do so.  This enables our central bank to engage in conduct that, if done by Argentina, would result in - well, the unfortunate Argentina outcome.

The upcoming money bubble pop will be a process.  Some of the intermediate stages might be a surprise to people expecting a hyperinflationary switch to get flipped as soon as trouble starts to occur.

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Two thoughts seem to be converging here. As a credit controller for a medium sized business I can say that the search for & financialisation of tangible assets is certainly real.  And while I've been listening to this and other podcasts and what occurs to me is that the "forecasters" are surprised that loose monatery policies have been tolerated by the financial markets for so long.  And even though the "Crash" hasn't happend in a blaze & fury already.  But there are trends that I'm seeing that are trickling down to microeconomy/small & medium business :

  • writing off debt for shares of an income stream

  • claiming "real" assets to offset fictional charges.  We see this tactic being used in reverse logistic charges (like a penalty) to be deducted from the delivery of hard products.

  • European payment mirgration to SEPA (single european payments area) is reinforcing the electronisation of currency.  In other words, the perception of currency are jus debits & credits, "plusses and minusses" with an eventual balance (being in the black or in the red).

My concern here is that Government is also funding itself using its (future) working population as the collateral for its own present day funding.  And that obscure insurance policy, my future pension can be obliterated of its value by being diminished or through inflation.

My concern is that when I am of retiring age and I am willing to trade my tangible asset for a good/service, it will enter a system of financialisation that will end up skimming some unproportionate take on its value and my past labour that earned it.  So, the assumption that all other things remain equal is rather academic, but not practical.

Warm Sunday morning regards, Joanne.

PS - If the Peak Prosperity will have a retirement community that I can invest in today, I'm in! :wink:

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I'm don't care what happens to the money bubble, but I do care for my children's sake, but they don't care  because they can't afford silver and gold.  So screw the bubble.  We both plan on living well even if that means living different at some point.  If the bubble should pop let it pop loudly.  I'm sure the wailing of those who don't know how to live will be the loudest. Like death and taxes we live not fear.

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A Zerohedge reader posted a link to this the other day.  It's a fairly long article but I thought it was an interesting roll-up of several gold-related topics.
http://tocqueville.com/insights/lets-get-physical

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Good interview but as usual I take issue with some of the core tenets of Austrian Economics filtering through:
“And the only way an economy is going to improve is if you have people interacting with one another, and that comes with a greater number of people working … Increasing government intervention is not the solution to the problems that are faced today. The solution to the problem is less government, less taxes, less burden on working individuals and a sound money so that people can interact regardless where they are in the world, on a level playing field, because these interactions create commerce and it’s commerce which raises everybody’s standards of living.”

Yes I agree that the average Joe should be paying less tax but I am wondering if “improving economy” is just code-speak for “economic growth”?

I don’t understand how society will continue functioning if government is slashed.

Cut military spending? Sure, but this will ultimately lead to the rejection of the US dollar internationally which will destroy the currency – although that’s pretty much a given now, regardless. Plus all those military workers will end up jobless, which would require increased welfare.

Cut environmental regulations, privatize it all, and open up any remaining resources to full unbridled exploitation? That’s what they do up here in Canada to balance the budget but anyone who understands the first thing about where our wealth really comes from can appreciate that ruining the environment is the surest way to destroy civilization. Canada is on a path to destruction, but the thing is the rest of the world will get there first…

Cut welfare programs, to incentivize everyone off their butts and back to work “producing”? To “interact” with each other more which creates commerce and raises our standard of living? This may be Adam Smith talking, who argued that the more people there are doing something to goods along a production cycle, the more embedded value the end products will contain, and the better off we’ll all be as a result. But Adam Smith lived centuries ago before anyone understood how production processes actually work…

The Austrians argue that their “free market” policies will best foster economic activity / commerce (“growth?”) and therefore lead us into future prosperity. The Fed central planners on the other hand believe that playing with monetary and fiscal levers to use the wealth effect to get people to consume more will best lead to production and commerce and therefore future prosperity.

Well, I contend that they are both wrong. We aren’t going to see improved economic activity or commerce no matter what we do now. The issue is not how do we foster more economic activity, it’s how we handle less, without falling into social chaos as unemployment skyrockets. The Austrians like to criticize the unemployment problem but they don’t have a solution to technological automation throwing people out of work. Cutting back welfare payments isn’t going to solve unemployment because there aren’t enough resources left at reasonable prices to support the consumption rates that would be required to bring on the production that would suck up the unemployed. Historically, the only way to address automation unemployment has been via economic growth. That is ending.

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Mark and Hugh,
I do think the Austrians and Free Market crowd need to address the idea of how their version of economic freedom is any different from the endless growth ideology of the Big Government and Debt-Money crowds.

Unless you are going to argue that somehow private enterprise can somehow evade limits where government and statists cannot, you've got to address the issue.

Because they usually don't address the issue, I have to conclude that the core thinking that undergirds these other ideologies was also derived in earlier times when one could safely ignore limits.

I cannot fault that, but I would suggest that changing times require a re-think, and I would love to see what the output would be from that exercise.

I did get one disappointing peek at the version of the Free Market ideology espoused by the Cato institute when I got into a very weird panel 'discussion' at the Cape May forum when Jerry Taylor told me in no uncertain terms that humans create resources, so the more humans we have the more resources we'll have.

End of discussion.

Nowhere to go after that.

So I'm looking for a better 'debate' at some point with some clarification of how limits and free markets intersect.

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Hi Mark and all,I agree with your interpretation of the Austrian economics/libertarian/goldbug argument put forward here in some ways by Turk, namely that a reduction of government involvement in the economy and debt deleveraging, however painful, will eventually lead to a healthy, vibrant free market and hence we will grow our way out of our predicament.
I am currently listening to Michael Pento's new book on audio - for as long as I can stomach it - and it's the same sort of stuff.  It's also the same analysis you hear from Peter Schiff and, more or less, from John Mauldin.
I very much value the interpretations of all of the people I listed above for their criticism of the Federal Reserve, ultra loose monetary policy and the unsustainability of debt accumulation.  I also agree with them that getting out of bonds and indexed stock market funds and buying gold/silver is likely to produce better returns and to better retain wealth in the years ahead.
But, none of them seem to see past that to the deeper problems with global industrial capitalism, the core of which is that it has ridden upon the back of rapid expansion of fossil fuel production and that it is an extractive system that requires continuous growth.  
I don't know if any of these guys have any concern for the relationship between the economy and the environment, either.  One of the biggest illusions of capitalist theory is that the use of private property only concerns the owner.  When a private investor in Brazil buys a track of rainforest, cuts down most of the trees,and puts in soybean fields and cattle farms, he is imposing costs on the whole Amazon system as well as on the climate.  He is not violating anyone's property rights according to our dominant philosophy, nor is he doing anything illegal.  But, he is subtly violating the natural rights of all humans on Earth by appropriating a productive and vital aspect of the biosphere for his own profit.  Just as, in Locke's theory, it is wrong to murder in a state of nature because humans are endowed with the natural rights of life, liberty, and property, it is also wrong to undertake massive, extractive transformations of the biosphere for personal profit because it violates the natural rights of humans all over the planet.
I buy precious metals and I am aware of the very damaging, extractive, and often corrupt practices of PM mining companies, especially in developing nations, so this is not a judgment of others but rather a recognition of the ethical predicament faced by all of us who expect to live in a way that is unsustainable in the long run.  This ethical predicament should be humbling to those who excoriate the Federal Reserve and JP Morgan, as, on many levels, middle and upper class people anywhere on the planet, are participating in an environmentally corrupt system in which industrial, extractive capitalism as well as modern nation-states play a central role, and in which middle class consumers of thousands of disposable products play a vital part as well.
There is no clear answer here, at least as far as I can see, but recognition of this ethical predicament helps me to be less dualistic when I look at economic policymakers or financial executives whose decisions I don't particularly like.  To a great extent, simply by being a middle class consumer I am a junior partner in the same unsustainable and corrupt system led by those elites.  For me personally, it seems that airplane flights and precious metals purchases are the greatest ways in which I impose negative externalities upon other people.  I am aware that buying either silver or a plane flight is not a simple transaction and that the good/service purchased is more than my private property. The story is much bigger than that, which is why the whole concept of use of private property is, to some extent, a modern myth, no less deceptive than the modern myth which holds that the answer to economic downturns is simply to stimulate demand either through Keynesian deficit spending or monetary stimulus.
I don't advocate command-and-control centralization, of course, but I certainly do believe that democratic, constitutional governments should make regulations regarding the environment and the use of fossil fuels.  I certainly don't accept the assertion that free market capitalism with virtually no government at all is the most ethical system.  George Soros, a consummate capitalist and student of Karl Popper, calls this view "free market fundamentalism."
One idea I really like is Reiner Kummel's proposal to focus taxes on energy, and not labor, because, he, like other biophysical economists, believes that energy is where most of society's productivity comes from.
I'm also not claiming to have all of this figured out.  For me, the problems and predicaments are clearer than the solutions, although I am at peace with the daily choices I make.  I don't allow myself to feel guilty, because there's no use in that, but I also don't allow myself to believe that I deserve everything I've worked for, end of story.  That's because, as one example, a lot of what I've worked for has been leveraged by the transfer of ultra-cheap fossil fuels going from the ground to the atmosphere, and that process involves several types of negative externalities.
I also don't allow myself to be certain that if only they did things according to my philosophy that everything would be just and prosperous.  One of the exciting things about a major shift in civilization is that we all have new puzzles to solve and new paradigms to construct and that's one reason that I enjoy the dialog here.
Cheers,
Hugh

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Thanks Hugh.
The maths was a bit rushed, but he argues that economic output is more dependent on energy than labour.

High energy throughput (entropy)= high economic growth.

Labour = expensive and poor economic output. (Or words to that effect.)

Combine the two and we end up with pressure to automate.

Take home message: Humans are becoming less and less relevant to the economy.

I consider the owners of this concentrated wealth to be a part of their own machine because there are so few of them. Edit: I see a time when they are replaced by algorithms, and then even they will become irrelevant.

I take aim at the assertion that the first two laws of thermodynamics are sacrosanct- No product of the Model making Left hemisphere is off limits.

I take comfort in Einstein's observation that Nature is not malicious but it is subtle.

I am referring of cause to virtual particles. Tomorrows technology is todays magic.

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I take it that they believe these "limits" will drive the free market forces to change as the limits change.  So, if there's less oil, the free market will take affect, and force less use of that resource, and force the use of other resources.  I think most can see the flaw in this thinking (life style change being the least of these flaws, starvation, mass die offs, etc…being the most).  Any economic system based on "Survival of the fittest/smartest/sneakiest/etc…" is flawed IMO.  
 
 
 

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There was nothing humanity could have done differently. We were the first species to develop tool-use and to adapt to quick and rich energy solutions  that brought us to this point. It was inevitable and nothing short of spectacular for humanity to get here.Unfortunately with a single resource-based relationships, which is what we have with quick energy resources, the decline is as impressive as the incline. There was no control that a government could have done to change this outcome in my opinion.
Oak trees go through mast (acorn) cycles where they stop producing to control squirrel populations (when this happens squirrels become cannibalistic and isolated), and over-browsed plants will start to produce toxins to control hare populations, in combination with their specialist predator, the lynx which follows suite. 
Humanity found a way to surpass every natural control the system offers whether it was disease, crop failures, etc. because of quick and rich energy and it created the biggest population bubble the planet has ever seen. Based on evidence presented by Art Berman and others regarding our energy position, we are sitting at the tip of a boom period, and the only thing going for us is our adaptability.

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I'm not an Austrian (or any other kind of) economist by any means so I don't pretend to speak for them. In fact I hardly feel qualified to be taken seriously, but I thought I'd hang this pinata out there for anyone to take a whack at: i) The Austrian economic theory as I understand it is not so much of a systematic approach as say Keynesianism, socialism or any other -ism or the status quo. It's basically a description of the cumulative effect of individuals being left alone to make free and unfettered choices of how to conduct their economic transactions.
ii) One result (of many) would be that people would be free to use whatever is their choosing as money, therefore rendering a Central Bank unnecessary which would eliminate the need for the Grow or Die template necessitated by the interest on a debt based currency.
iii) A multitude of individuals making individual decisions would result in a greater efficiency of the allocation of resources than would a centralized systematic ideology imposed on society by fiat which is prone to undue influence and miscalculation. I don't see Austrian economic theory so much as a means of evading the limits imposed on the dwindling availability of resources, it's more of a way to best deal with the reality of what's left.
That's all I got.

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HughK, I don't think there's much for me to add to your post! You "took the words out of my mouth".
Regarding your concerns about the implications of PM mining, that is the big problem with PM’s and the main response I get from my friend whom I was trying to convince to buy PM’s. She is passionate about South American nature (as I am) and hates everything the gold miners do down there. I had to agree. My response was that the alternative, Fed paper money, is even worse because of the more indirect things it facilitates. I said that, “it’s a Malthusian Collapse. It ain’t pretty”. In a way I can rationalize my purchase of PM’s because I will have bought when they’re cheap and will sell when they’re expensive, which will alleviate the extreme price spike and therefore in some way satiate future demand for them. We are essentially conserving them.

That was an interesting talk by Reimer Kummel. At first the math had me worried he was going the way of Keynesian Economics but he pulled it together. I noticed that all his charts have to do with measuring production, (i.e. "productivity"). I have never heard anyone explain to me what production actually is. The story goes that production requires energy conversion and that all energy conversion results in production of entropy ("disorder") and a reduction of exergy (useful energy). This is an oversimplified explanation, as Tom Murphy pointed out in Do the Math. There is a lot of confusion about the different kinds of "entropies" and what they mean, and I've been guilty of misrepresentation as has almost everyone.

I've been working on a big treatise trying to explain what economic production actually is, rather than just measuring it via productivity functions, from a sound understanding of "what thermodynamic entropy is". It's a huge task but I'm trying to push myself to get it done.

And then I see from Wildlife Tracker, "There was nothing humanity could have done differently… Unfortunately with a single resource-based relationships, which is what we have with quick energy resources, the decline is as impressive as the incline.", which I unfortunately agree with. Then I wonder what's the point.

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Aloha! Yes, tangible wealth, but you cannot eat oil. Four basics are food, water, clothes and shelter. Anyone who visits any of the slums in the Third World sees how little of those four tangibles is required for basic life full of hardships. The US government is only at this status quo due to reserve currency and that status was only achieved with military supremacy after WW2 via Bretton Woods. Even Keynes himself was upset at the outcome of Bretton Woods as it was based on a singular currency rather than a basket of currencies which is what Keynes preferred. Still Keynes did not have the US military backing him and after WW2 most countries in Europe and Asia were still mopping up owing the US government plenty from the Marshal Plan. The world has had to suffer the whims of the US Fed and its government creator ever since.
Since the petro dollar America has gone from this … http://tinyurl.com/kz6ybso

To this … http://tinyurl.com/outhm5d

 

At one time we had to actually see and breath and swim in the tangibles we were consuming. Now we consume ever more yet never have to live with the eye sores and pollution it takes to consume, but just because it is out of sight-out of mind does not mean it does not exist. It does though in the Third World where a lot of these resources are drilled and mined. It is therefore hypocritical for a college kid who owns an iPhone to claim they are environmental conscious. Move to China and say that! At least US consumers in the 1930s literally lived with their consumer choices.

Right now a bank CEO has more FDIC backing him than his depositors. In other words the bank CEO has much more options for the protection of his wealth than his unwashed clients who save their dollars at his holding facilities. Whether it is a depository bank like Bank America branches or a Morgan Stanley investment bank. Both bail-in and bail-out loom large on the horizon. This is the quality that gold offers in that there is no liability attached, except that of an FDRish government.

Those who will escape the next trial by fire as so in the past are all those who are closest to those who govern. Even with the FDR gold confiscation and criminalization you could own gold if you had the permission of Congress/Treasury. FDR admonished US citizens for hoarding gold yet who now is the largest single hoarder of gold on the planet. It is the same government in FDR days who took the people's gold. At least you knew where you stood with Hitler. The monetary status-quo does not like the equalizer effect gold has for the masses. Lets face it the ruling elite of any era has never liked the masses period! By ruling elite you can use any form of dictatorship or governance whether it be Communism, Democracy, Monarchy or Nationalist Socialism. Every form of governance has its legalized "monopolies".

One such monopoly. I note that since last year a Class 2 Laborer under prevailing wage law(legal labor wage monopoly) has risen $2000 from $89,000 annual wage to $91,000. What is a Class 2 Laborer? An uneducated ditch digger. This Davis Bacon Act started in 1931 during the emergency of the Great Depression. This shows you that once a law-always law! Where's the emergency been the last 60 years? We can agree this is legalized built-in wage inflation and if you add in the cronyistic public works procurement of materials then you get multi-trillions of added tax and debt liabilities to the US citizen since Nixon days and beyond. Yet the benefits of this monopolistic law is for the few who are union, which begs the question then shouldn't unions be part of the 1%? It is a monopoly, which has nothing to do with democracy. Union workers are thereby exempt from real work wages/benefits at Congress behest. However none of us, not even the 1%, are exempt from the ravages of a monopolistic monetary regime like we have now. Running to the US Dollar will continue until the rest of the world demands an end to Bretton Woods, for in a very real sense Bretton Woods is still here. I think QE and its unintended consequences will hasten that outcome. Soon Bernanke will be laughing in a hot tub in Vail while Yellen will be crying on the hot seat. Yet the world turns no matter what is reserve currency and what isn't … no matter who is Fed Chairman … no matter who ruins the worlds economy. And we are back to the four basics I started with … food, water, clothes and shelter. Permanently provide those assets for your family year round and that becomes better than gold … it becomes priceless in a pricey world!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[quote=Wildlife Tracker]There was nothing humanity could have done differently.
[/quote]
We could have used the same intelligence we used to extract and exploit planetary resources to fashion a society and economy that controls procreation and consumption.  We did not have to act, as a species, the same way an algae bloom does.
The fact that we still torture and kill one another over differences in 2,000 year old religions, is a perfect indication of our inability to abandon poor ideologies and behaviors.
Just about everything we are doing today has been tried before, just not on a global scale. Clearly, we do not learn from our past.
I think everyone on this website can envision what the future is likely to look like.  A large reduction in population is inevitable.  Jobs will move away from consumer manufacturing and back to food and necessity manufacturing.  Elbow grease will in part replace oil as an energy source.  These are not necessarily bad things, but there are issues.  Working folk will no longer be able to support as many idle folk as they do today.
One of the wild cards is who will try to exert control over us in the future and how they will do it.  Here again, the past does not paint a very nice picture.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDXuPQ9ML9E

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This is such a great thread.  I like particularly  the biological perspective that "Wildlife Tracker" graphically presents wherein oak tree growth and squirrel populations cycle such that at some time, the stored up value: (nuts) disappears and the squirrels "become cannabalistic."  
In this same vein, please note James Turk's comment :

" In 2010, the population of Japan was 128 million. Best-case trend is that in 2100 they’ll have 65 million. Worst case, they’ll have 38 million people.The question that was asked on that: Who pays back all the public debt again?"

Answer: The squirrels.

The Japanese debt  is owed to the old squirrels who socked away their savings in the post office administered public debt system.  Not to the Chinese and not to the European or other banksters.   All the old squirrels WILL die (this is happening rapidly now) attrition is by natural causes, cannabalism not needed here.  A Japanese government minister (commenting on debt) last year actually publicaly stated his wish that the "old people would just die."  

If the US debt were owed to 70 year old (average age)  squirrels (instead of to banksters) and the population of such squirrels decreased by 5% a year continuously, what would happen to the effects of the vanishing  squirrels?  No one has considered this basic important factor.

Biology is based on reality, is a useful model to understand humans, yet is overlooked.  "economics" in contrast, is pure fantasy land.  Most economics  analysis is unmoored from reality.  The most important concepts on this blog are reality (PM, real  wealth) based, from the viewpoint of what this species  really needs. We are the squirrels.  By saving real wealth as PM, learning how to produce wealth (food  energy, communications, real friendships) we at this web site are focusing  on reality.   All this other  "financial analysis" in contrast is primarily entertaining nonsense.  What are the squirrels doing?  The banksters are merely using tricks, mostly based on their fractional reserve game, to steal nuts from the squirrels.   Lets not get too lost in ephemeral trick details.  We need to follow possession (physical and contractual) of real wealth (the nuts), and pay less attention to the toilet paper that the banksters have taught us to worship.  

thanks Wildlife Tracker

lol

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I think the group of folks here are way ahead of the curve here when it comes the population correction, but we cant go at it alone. Certain rural, well-educated, resourceful communities, have a lot of potential to rebuild something worth keeping. The problem is that there are not many of those around. I don't think it will be easy going forward as an individual or as a creature on this planet, but as a community there is a lot of potential. That is what this website is about after all!
I can't tell you how grateful I am to have resources like the one here at peak prosperity to share insights and to learn from the experience of others. Chris has done such a nice job. Thank you Mots for that squirrel analogy. Very clever.