American Civil Unrest is Starting on Schedule
We have been warning that 2014 is the beginning of a new cycle that will see a highly unusual convergence between our domestic (civil unrest & revolution) data and our international war model. Both converge for the first time since the 1700s when there were US and French Revolutions and the fall of monarchy. This was the topic at our Cycle of War Conference (see also special report).
The civil unrest will develop first outside the USA and turn up more aggressively in the USA after 2015.75. Nonetheless, it still begins in 2014 for the USA as well. We are starting to see this in the West where memories of previous events still linger deep wounds from 1992.
The confrontation in Nevada between Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management, whose Director was Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) former senior adviser, has turned into an issue of important cycle unrest. The government wants the land and demands Bundy gets his cattle off of the land his family has worked for over 140 years in order to make way for solar panel power stations. This dispute between a Nevada rancher and federal rangers over alleged illegal cattle grazing erupted into an Old West-style showdown on the open range this week, even prompting self-proclaimed members of militia groups from across the country to join the rancher in fighting what they say is U.S. “tyranny.”
This is a brewing resentment of federal government that goes back to Ruby Ridge, which was the site of a deadly confrontation and siege in northern Idaho in 1992 between Randy Weaver, his family and his friend Kevin Harris, and agents of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It resulted in the death of Weaver’s son Sammy, his wife Vicki, and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Francis Degan. The Feds simply shot his unarmed family dead and it was alleged they even shot his son in the back. This is indeed the continued militarization of the police in America. The corruption was so bad in Ukraine that when someone saw the police, they trembled in fear. In the US, this trend is also underway and demonstrated by this video where the police began shooting at a minivan driven by a woman with children in the car over a traffic violation.Hunting the Rich
This is a quest to hunt for capital to seize. The UK government has come out and stated bluntly - “we will find you”. All governments are coordinating everything so nothing will be able to hide except for multinational corporations. Individuals are to be simply exploited. There is nothing that remains yours and do not be fooled by the pretense they are after the “rich” – they now track wires over $3,000 – not billions.
This not about reform – it is about sustaining the way of life for government. They will consume an ever-growing proportion of national wealth and squander it robbing the youth of any future. This is why lawyers should be banned from government – they know how to write laws – not comprehend the consequences of those actions. SORRY – my father was a lawyer and I studied law myself. It is what it is.
It’s Not the Rich – It’s The Total Cost of Gov’t That is Killing the Economy
QUESTION: Do you believe in a fairer system where there is a minimum income cap and a maximum asset cap? We live in an age where productivity has risen through the roof due to technological advancement. Don’t you think humanity is at the stage where it can afford to offer basic income to people so better checks and balances can be set in place to thwart the exploitation of people (see the third world).
A maximum asset cap would also act as a positive filter in business ownership, don’t you think? The businessmen interested mainly in greed won’t fill those positions, but those who are driven more by other means, hopefully positive ambitions, will fill those roles (CEO,COO, managers, etc.)
Can you form a good argument against an asset cap of, say, $20mm? Can you think of a situation where 1 individual NEEDS more than 20 million, aside from using it to exploit others? If a cap isn’t set, that leads to the development of a tycoon, i.e., exploiter, of an industry. Increased capital permits the further increasing of capital at the accelerated rate. When left unchecked, greed and self-serving goals create a net loss, rather than a net gain.
Remember Martin, everything is connected. You can’t think on an individual level and expect it to not hurt evolution. This is what life is about. Evolution.
We’re headed towards doom, and the enemy is not just socialism, political cronies, and economic mobsters.
ANSWER: The standard of living has collapsed and it now takes two incomes to survive not one. That isn’t because of wages are not high enough. Do not forget, if you raise the wages you raise the cost of production and the consumer will pay that higher level in the end. There is no one-sided solution – you cannot raise wages without prices also rising. People would have more disposable income and would bid up prices by demand. If there was no 30-year mortgage, the price of houses would decline sharply because if people had to PAY CASH for a house, then the price of a house would fall to the point where the average income could afford it. Roosevelt created the 30-year mortgage to try to give people LEVERAGE to buy real estate to raise the price. That LEVERAGE has now impacted prices over the course of decades.
The answer lies in the consumption of wealth not that someone has more assets than another. Eliminate taxation and you will reduce the cost of labor, bring back jobs, and you will also eliminate the lobbying to escape taxes. Henry Ford invented the assembly line and brought the cost of cars down to the middle class at $240. He made a lot of money and expanded his business with it. If there was a cap on assets, you would destroy job creation. It REQUIRED the concentration of wealth to create innovation. If wealth is evenly distributed, you will not get enough people to agree to risk it all. Most small businesses fail after start-up. Some make it while a few really strike it big. That is the risk reward.
Big corporations die because they become eventually run by lawyers not entrepreneurs. I have been called in to many board meetings and watched the process first hand. As soon as a new company becomes public, the bureaucrats enter and the creativity vanishes. This is why they pay huge money for start-ups because they create what the big companies cannot – innovation.
It is not what an individual needs that is the issue. Take all the money away from Bill Gates. How will this improve your life at all? The issue is HOW MUCH is government consuming. But as long as they point to the “rich” they get to waste your money.
Social Security has altered society in ways people do not respect. Previously, family units were stronger because the system was the young took care of the old. Introducing Social Security changed everything. What children today save to take care of their parents? That’s the state’s job. Welfare altered the system by rewarding women not to get get married. New Zealand nearly went bust on its program that sounded nice that if a woman had no idea who the father of the child was, the state took care of everything and gave her a house. They ended up with the highest percentage of women who had NO IDEA who the father of their child was. What woman does not know that except victims of rape?
China’s one child rule has seriously altered society there as well. Couples are now offering their estate to females to come in from SE Asia if they will take care of them. You cannot create these types of changes without seriously impacting society.
Pictured above at the beginning is the tax burden upon society back in 1988. Even currently, the top 1% pay about 33% of all income taxes. At the start of 2000, the total amount of revenue collected by federal and state government in the USA exceeded 40% of GDP. This is outrageous and this is why the economy is slowing declining. This has nothing to do if somebody earned $100 million or $50 million as a CEO. That has ZERO impact upon your life – but what government takes out of your pocket REDUCES your standard of living –DIRECTLY.
The solution is NOT to raise taxes on the rich, for government will still spend more than it takes in regardless of who pays. This is like fining your wife because the guy next door did not sort his trash for recycling. This is indirect. It is taxes that we must address – not how much someone else makes.
European Banks cut 80,000 jobs
Spain’s Bankia headquarters in Madrid
Europe’s top banks cut 80,000 more staff in post-crisis overhaul reportedReuters. The economic implosion in Europe from the destructive design of the Euro is just unbelievable. The politicians will not admit any mistake and still seek to just grab money from depositors to firm-up a mess they created.
Update on the Sovereign Debt Crisis
The theme of the conference seems to be spot on. Besides both civil unrest rising, international war potential in Korea and Eastern Europe, then there is the sovereign debt crisis that is brewing. For those who though the dollar would collapse and we would all be using yuan and rubles, well the Chinese government was not able to sell all government bonds in the recent issue. The ongoing credit crunch in China and poor economic data pushed the demand of investors away from the table.
The Chinese government has a real shot here of moving forward to the 21st century economics if it is ready to show the west how to really run a government and economy. China is in a position to appropriately manage its contracting economy if it is willing to really abandon the Western ideas that are not working in the West and should not be followed by China. Time will tell if they are ready to be real world leaders and show both the USA and Europe the way to the future. They were the FIRST with paper money – it is now time to lead the next step in the evolutionary process. My passport is ready.
European Civil Unrest on the Rise – Rome & Paris this Weekend
Putin just has to sit back and watch for with two months before the European elections, the season for protests has begun. Literally, tens of thousands in Paris and Rome have taken to the streets demonstrating against the austerity policies of their governments that line their pockets and the bankers. Masked demonstrators fought before the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Rome on Saturday as street battles with the police erupted. And the IMF want to impose austerity on Ukraine?
There has to be a complete revision of economic policy or there is going to be massive civil war that erupts on a worldwide scale. You simply cannot keep borrowing with no intention of paying anyone back and then extract from the people more and more taxes to pay absurd debts that should NEVER have been obligated anyway. And according to politicians and people like Piketty, we needMORE social justice because it works so well. We cannot hide under the covers and hope the monster goes away.
Sorry – he really is hiding in the closet.