We are amid a storm, yet all is calm and quiet. It is a strange eerie feeling. The kind when you are walking very quickly, almost a run, down a side street in NYC in the evening because you just have that sense that you are being watched and need to get to safety. Then you get to the end of the street, out in the open with the crowd to safety. You know you just escaped something you don’t know what, but it is still there. All that matters now is that you are safe.
This is the way the world looks to almost everyone. We know in the shadowy meeting rooms of politicians and other narcissist-self-proclaimed globalist influencers, there are bad things happening. Constantly they berate the public at large. They look at us as cattle from their utilitarian viewpoint. There are too many of us, we are too dirty, we are destroying the environment, as if we are not part of the environment and deserve to be here as much as any other creature.
The machinations are to brand human life as disposable, to make people forget that each human life is special and has something to contribute to this world. They are loved by their creator. Their objective just like any totalitarian power’s is to weaken the family and make people believe that some entity will take care of them. Taking away their self-respect in the process. If a person has no responsibility for their wellbeing, they will feel powerless and dejected. Then finally they will succumb and have no voice at all.
The boogey-man is brought out every time people dare to speak up to unjust authority. If we don’t do as they say we will certainly die. When it appears to be the opposite. The news is manipulated to instill fear and the government no longer works for the people but seems to be taking cues from powerful more nefarious persons. Truth is denied at every juncture and falsehoods are promoted as reality. As stated in Kurt Vonnegut’s book Welcome to the Monkey House, 'A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.' It seems to me we are reaching this point.
I am so often amazed at how stupid the people that control power believe the public to be. Or is it simply that they have such confidence in their control of the spin of the media that any silly thing they say with seriousness will be taken intelligent comment. For instance how can the following statement be believed: NATO Will Be Drawn Into War With Russia if Ukraine Loses: Lloyd Austin states a headline from Newsweek.
Listen folks, just a little intelligence would tell you that this statement is false. They are trying to tell us Russia, which has been struggling for years to overwhelm Ukraine (a small country), is suddenly going to grow strong enough to contend with all the western powers at once?! Does the U.S. government really believe we are that stupid? Yes. Why did they make this statement? Simply to garner support for their existing war efforts in the Ukraine.
Could you imagine if two lightweight boxers went 15 rounds, then the winner of the fight turns around and tells everyone he now believes he can take on the World Heavy Weight Champion of the World. No one would be able to stop laughing, and that is the same thing that should have happened when Mr. Austin made this statement.
This is one insanity, but let’s not forget that we currently have two ongoing wars in the world where the regular people always suffer at the hands of those in power. In the year 2024 you would think we have advanced as human beings away from the barbarous act of war. But we haven’t, instead of seeking peaceful resolutions the politicians want to press on instead of seeking a solution without bloodshed. Likely, until the big industrial weapons complex completes its economic boom cycle. Most of the major manufacturers of military weapons and crafts are here in the USA. Hence, this is a factor supporting the US economy. Is this how we want to survive in this world on blood money? Is this progress?
The Commercial Real Estate market has a jump to 17% default rate in the month of February. A very high number. The Federal Reserve Chairman Powel states that this risk is manageable. Meanwhile, on the back of the higher interest rates, commercial real estate defaults and an overall weakness in real estate and other loan business we see banks like New York Community Bank about to fail. Incidentally, this bank is one that helped stave off systemic risk by taking over $38 billion of Signature Bank’s assets after it failed last March. Luckily for them they have been thrown a billion dollar lifeline that has at this moment held off the wolves. But this does not mean it will stop other problems that are on the horizon such as US Bancorp. KeyBank, Zions Bank and small regional banks including First Foundation Inc which are under major pressure. There is a real liquidity crisis in the banking system. Was last year’s event just a taste of what is to come this year?
On the international political spectrum, the third largest trading partner of the USA is also fast becoming its most significant threat from outside and within. China is currently involved not only in spying within the US but also of political interference and cyber-attacks. Currently US domestic efforts to combat this have been effective. However, their actions threaten happy relations.
But most concerning is their one China policy. Essentially claiming that Taiwan, a thriving democracy, which operates as an independent state, belongs to the motherland. More persons watching this political theater sense that China has its eyes on this prize and will be moving on it at some point in the near future.
Then we come to the ongoing war in the Middle East, the Israeli-Hamas Conflict. It’s far away and yet it is a bitter reminder of the strange balance of powers and meddlers in the region. Would this war ever had started, if Hamas instead of receiving weapons from benefactors such as Iran, had instead received humanitarian aid? If the United Nations (which is not united) were more concerned with caring for the Palestinian poor instead of supporting the totalitarian efforts of Hamas? No, it wouldn’t have. But we are here now, after Israel is done destroying the Hamas infrastructure, necessary for the security of their nation, only then will the world be able to begin the healing necessary to save the Palestinian and Israelis from future wars.
Finally, we have the political destabilization of the United States of America. The country has never been more divided, and it is primarily along the lines of who supports the constitution and who wants to use it only loosely. In a situation where the FBI and other authorities have done nothing but try to incarcerate a former president, and any individuals that support him, which has all the markings of political persecution, they have actually increased his popularity to unprecedented levels. Meanwhile, the current president of the United States who is not sure where he is or what day it is, rides into the primaries with 97% of the vote on Super Tuesday with no challenger?
People live and die on all these political machinations that are but theater and while not noticing that our rights and security are slowly being eliminated. Essentially there is no privacy any longer and the Federal Government is amassing a towering database on people and their businesses even though they have not ever committed a crime. All this in the war against money laundering, supposedly to stop illegal drugs, which since the “war on drugs” began in the 1970s has only escalated to epidemic proportions. The reason is, that it fails because it pays to seize assets, not drugs that will be destroyed.
If you sum up all these occurrences, and I didn’t even speak about the issue of inflation, it is easy to see why people are uncomfortable. The world is in shambles, no one trusts the media or governments any longer. This confluence of concerns creates the sense of being under siege. It’s like an invisible war, where anyone with assets must constantly ascertain where to put them and where it is safest in the event of a calamity. In case the next bomb hits their back yard.
There is one asset that has over 5,000 years of staying power, it is agnostic to politics, and it is not easily destroyed. That one asset is gold and that is where everyone is turning to and why we are seeing the current rally. Oh, there may be short term corrections, but at this stage of the game they will certainly be buying opportunities.