The Future And Your Family
We're on the Titanic. The iceberg has been visible for over fifty years. Governments have done little to avoid the collision. Do
you have a lifeboat for your children?
The World Economy Is An Illusion
Governments manipulate the economy to achieve short-term political stability. For instance, most Government statistics have a strong bias in
favor of leaving the populace with a favorable view of the present economy.
While special interest groups and many politicians may disproportionately benefit from the ongoing economic manipulation, the goal
is to keep the electorate content. In general, Government manipulation has succeeded since the 1930s. However, the short term illusion has
deferred long term problems. It hasn't solved them.
Fiscal conservatives argue that U.S. Government debt financing of over $5.7 trillion isn't in the public interest because it creates currency
inflation. Over time, inflation destroys the populace's faith in the currency and the economy fails.
What these fiscal conservatives fail to realize is that the trillions in debt financing creates jobs today in both the
Government's growing bureaucracy and in the private sector that supplies whatever goods and services the government seeks. It creates a
rosy now for a dark future.
At the end of WWII, the Bank of America introduced the first VISA credit card. The credit card industry has evolved into a
multi-trillion dollar consumer-lending program. If you combine credit card debt and mortgages in the U.S, consumer debt is greater than
Government debt. You can borrow your way to temporary happiness. You can't borrow your way to solvency.
Built upon this unstable Public/Private multi-trillion dollar debt structure is the multi-quadrillion dollar Derivative's Market. It puts at risk
more than thirty-six times the value of all the currencies in the world. Banks and Hedge Funds are betting that governments can maintain their
economies against growing debt. It's a bad bet.
In The Great Contraction by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, they argue that the Great Depression was the result of monetary forces. Applying
this thesis the results are the Depression started when one Austrian bank failed.
Within months, ten thousand banks failed. Unemployment was rampant for years. Extremists rose to power. WWII resulted. The
Depression ended when debit spending for WWII created sufficient jobs. The success of debit spending paved the policy path for governments
after 1945.
Today, the Public/Private debt structure is far worse. Derivatives put the world banking system at extreme risk. National economies are
integrated. The first time a major government stumbles, the Mother of All Depressions will result. It will be global.
The Environmental Danger
Environmental issues are long term economic issues. From the Paleolithic to the present, technological advancement usually means increased
population and reduced biodiversity. As any observant caver or aquarium owner realizes, the simpler the ecosystem, the more likely it is to
fail.
The Industrial Revolution gave mankind the ability to destroy the global ecosystem. Most scientific research supports the fact that we are doing
a very efficient job in increasing the world's population while reducing the ability to sustain that population over time. The results will be a
multi-century Depression of unbelievable hardship.
Consider the Romans. Their technology produced no more than a quarter horsepower of power. Using their limited technology, they converted
Southern Europe and the Mediterranean into arid agricultural land.
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