"The US and British forces are preparing to leave Afghanistan for good (officially, by the end of 2014), and my time in the country over the last six years has convinced me that our legacy will be the exact opposite of what Allen posits—not a stable Afghanistan, but one at war with itself yet again. Here are a few encapsulated snapshots of what I’ve seen and what we’re leaving behind." Continue reading →
"The situation in Syria has always been a proxy war between the United States and Russia. But that all changed when Israel directly attacked a Russian missile depot, launching what amounts to a direct attack on the Russian forces. Russia ultimately called upon a ‘combat readiness’ drill following this attack. More than 160,000 Russian troops from across the nation met with naval ships, aerial bombers and fighters, and other assorted military wings in order to attain ‘immediate combat readiness’. And it was back during his appearance on the Jay Leno show, the part which was entirely ignored in the US, where Obama and Jay directly compared Putin to Hitler. That’s right, Hitler." Continue reading →
"In a way, a belief in the value, transparency, trust and reciprocity of the System is like a religious belief. The converts, the true believers, are the ones who work like crazy for the company or the service. And when the veil of illusion is tugged from their eyes, then the Believer does a reversal, and becomes a devout non-believer in the System. He or she drops out, moves to a lower position, or 'retires' to some lower level of employment. At what point do people choose to opt out of debt/tax-serfdom? What triggers their decision to renounce debt, go off the financial grid, and escape serfdom by fashioning a low-cost lifestyle in the cash economy?" Continue reading →
"We previously warned of what can transpire when desperate governments are no longer able to shoulder unbearable debts. As one can see in the chart above, total public debt in the United States recently crossed the proverbial Rubicon and now equals 104.95% of GDP. As if this weren't alarming enough, the Fed's official figures – which were used to create the chart above – do not include the nation's swelling, yet politically untouchable unfunded liabilities, namely Medicare and Social Security. When these figures are plugged in to the equation, the US's public debt level skyrockets to astronomical heights." Continue reading →
"The boom times enabled animals called bankers grow to massive size. Nature selected those who were the fittest for that environment. When the environment changed, these animals were like dinosaurs staring at the glaciers. The interest rate policy of the Federal Reserve today is designed to keep those dinosaurs warm and well fed. The people who run our country were largely selected by Economic Darwinism from a pool of people who owe their success to cheap interest. It is no surprise that these people see cheap interest as the only solution to our economic woes. This policy is about rebuilding their past rather than improving your future." Continue reading →
"It is a sorrowful reality that for the past century or more, people in the West have for the most part turned increasingly away from the economic system whose creativity redeems it and embraced instead systems whose hallmarks are economic irrationality, resource waste, bureaucratic tyranny, and ultimately mass impoverishment. Perhaps the great economic advances in Asia, where the market has been given wider scope in recent decades, will serve as a lesson to Westerners, pulling them back before they allow their governments to plunge them into the mass poverty from which their ancestors pulled themselves by means of the market system in earlier centuries." Continue reading →
"It’s clear from the stories I read that Burger Nation doesn’t realize the predicament it’s in, nor does it understand the law of unintended consequences. Push on a balloon in one spot, a bulge appears elsewhere … which is to say that the status quo with consumer prices today will not be the status quo tomorrow when wages are $15 an hour. Salaries will go up, but so too will consumer prices, and the spending power of $15 will feel exactly like the spending power of $7 to $10 – and workers will have essentially gone nowhere economically, though America could find herself hamstrung by a new financial crisis — runaway inflation." Continue reading →
"A local McDonald’s restaurant was forced to close after its employees walked out and hundreds gathered outside to protest for higher wages. The restaurant on 8 Mile and Lahser roads along the Detroit/Southfield city line was just one location locally where fast food workers are participating in a nationwide 'walkout for better wages.' Over 200 protestors crowded the restaurant, carrying signs that read 'We are worth more. Strike for 15,' as in $15 an hour. The National Restaurant Association says the low wages reflect the fact that most fast-food workers tend to be younger and have little work experience." Continue reading →
"A super bank run by super economists? How long would it take for them to blow up the whole world's financial system? But don't worry about it. The system will blow up anyway. No paper money system has ever survived a full credit cycle. That - and not a lack of international monetary reform - is why there are so many bubbles now. When interest rates are falling - often pushed to artificially low levels...and held there for an extremely long time - credit expands and the burden of debt. That has been happening for the last 3 decades. And now, the whole economy depends on something that can't possibly continue. Debt can't grow forever." Continue reading →
"The only thing we can do is manage our risks. We can stick to undervalued stocks. We can focus on strong balance sheets, which, for businesses are a lot like foundations for buildings. They can be the difference between surviving a crisis and succumbing to it. We also aim to align ourselves with owner-operators — people who have a vested interest in survival. Now, portfolios are like pirate ships. They are made to sail the open seas in search of treasure. You don’t raise a pirate ship and crew and have them waste away in a harbor somewhere. You send them out and realize that you’ll take some damage from time to time, but that you’ll make it up with the treasures you haul in. The key is not to lose the ship." Continue reading →