Steven Yates -- Ticking Time Bombs, Part 2

TICKING TIME BOMBS
PART 2 of 2

By Professor Steven Yates
July 16, 2013
NewsWithViews.com

Since we can’t know this will happen, my opinion for whatever it is worth is that states should use the Tenth Amendment to nullify Obamacare. Activists working at the state level need to network, so that grassroots groups and state legislatures can work together. To the best of my knowledge, only South Carolina and Indiana have taken this kind of action so far. It won’t work if just one or two states do it, or even if just a few states do it. The feds will sue, or threaten to cut off federal dollars earmarked for education, highways, etc., and that will be the end of it. That was how they strangled opposition to the “motor-voter” bill a couple of decades back.

What is needed is a critical mass of states willing to pool the resources they will need to stand their ground. If Obamacare gets entrenched it will be the end of whatever is left of quality health care in the U.S., not to mention the destruction of countless jobs. Some doctors are already taking early retirement; others, too young to retire, are laying plans to change careers. Those who remain will be caught between government regulations and insurance giants. They will spend more time doing paperwork than they will seeing patients. I’ll make a prediction similar to what I made about PC: if this is not opposed and stopped, it will take over and utterly wreck public health in the U.S. The chances are very good, moreover, that via globalist agreements spreading corporatism, something akin to Obamacare will go international—wrecking flourishing health care systems in smaller nations such as Chile who I don’t think have any idea what they’ve gotten themselves into by signing pseudo “free trade” agreements with the U.S., or signing on board another globalist abomination known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The unemployment / underemployment time bomb

Virtually everyone reading this probably knows that the federal government lies openly about unemployment in America. Accounts have appeared in major media of how “official” unemployment is calculated. Yet they still release the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ U-3 rate as the “official” rate which only counts those who don’t have jobs and who have applied for work within the last four weeks as unemployed: “discouraged workers” are not technically unemployed because they are “not in the labor force”! Official unemployment tallies also make no distinction between those working full time and those working part time because they can’t find full time work.

How anyone buys this garbage is utterly beyond me!

While the BLS offers six different rates (offering no credible reason why U-3 is the “official” rate), the most comprehensive account of the extent of unemployment in the U.S. is that of John Williams, statistician, economist, and creator of the ShadowStats.com website which rips the lid off many bogus government statistics. According to Williams’ site, actual unemployment in the U.S. is between 23% and 24%—a figure that would probably provoke serious unrest were it more widely known.

Many of those who have jobs of some kind are underemployed. I define underemployment as having a college degree, perhaps more than one, and can only find work that doesn’t require any college education. Truth be known, in the era of globalism, most of what the U.S. job market offers is in categories such as domestic services and “burger-flipper jobs,” and while computer science and engineering would seem to be exceptions, many corporations prefer to hire foreigners to fill the high-tech jobs because they will work for less. There are exceptions to the generally gloomy picture of the economy in the U.S. such as North Dakota where the economy is doing reasonably well thanks to oil, but these are few and far between; many people will not want to move there because of the long and bitterly cold winters.

For most other states, a reserve army of unemployed and underemployed Americans is growing, and will become worse if 20 million or so illegal aliens are given amnesty. Many are saddled with tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt—a debt that is pretty much unpayable if you are unemployed and only payable through extensive budgeting measures if you have a burger-flipper job. Recent changes in the law render it almost impossible to discharge this debt in bankruptcy court.

This reserve army now includes veterans having returned from serving in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. These people have been largely thrown to the wolves by the government they “voluntarily” served—sometimes because they couldn’t find sustainable work back then. Let’s remember, the real economy of the Bush II years wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire. Lies about unemployment and underemployment didn’t begin in 2009; they only got worse.

There are suggestions afoot that unemployed and underemployed people can escape their plight by becoming entrepreneurs. There is some truth to this. However, it is also true that the vast majority of entrepreneurial ventures fail within their first year—often because the would-be entrepreneur hasn’t done his/her homework. You don’t just wake up one day and decide you’re going to start a business any more than you wake up one day and decide you’re going to become an astronaut or engineer or novelist. I’d wager, only a tiny fraction of the population has the necessary skills, motivation, and self-discipline necessary for successful entrepreneurship, especially online. If you don’t have these or can’t develop them in a reasonable length of time again without going massively into debt, entrepreneurship is no less a pipe dream than the idea of writing the Next Great American Novel. (This doesn’t cover the tax issues would-be entrepreneurs potentially face, or the regulatory and zoning issues created by meddlesome local bureaucrats.)

Other things being equal—again, unless one of the other time bombs goes off first—it might be just a matter of time until a demagogue appears who can rally the reserve army of unemployed and underemployed. Many are essentially idle, after all; some are getting angrier and angrier (especially if they are intelligent, have college degrees, and are indeed sending out dozens of resumes each month). It shouldn’t take a great deal of effort to appeal to their resentments, especially given the obvious decoupling of Wall Street and Main Street. Occupy Wall Street was relatively leaderless at the grassroots level. The next such movement might not be. Such a person could rocket to visibility on Main Street on the basis of promises he has no intention of keeping—any more than Obama has kept any of his—and America will have failed to get off its present road towards tyranny.

Financial markets Time Bomb

This time bomb is the most difficult to write about, because it is the most complex, and to the ordinary joe, utterly mysterious. Only a handful of people in the world really understand derivatives, for example—or know what lies behind phrases like bundled securities and credit default swaps. The elites like it that way! How does one explain hedge funds to those who haven’t used them to become billionaires?

All we really need to understand for our purposes are two things: first, these “financial instruments” amount to wealth that doesn’t really exist except as data entered into a computer or moved around electronically. None of it was earned by creating value for others, as legitimate businesses in a real capitalistic system have to do. Second, we’re talking about not “mere” trillions, not “mere” hundreds of trillions, but well over a quadrillion! The current American national debt is approaching 17 trillion—an astronomical figure difficult for most of us just to imagine. This figure only counts “on-the-books” commitments, of course. Now think of a number that could be as much as 75 times higher (I don’t think anybody knows for sure!), and you’ll have an idea of what is tied up in derivatives!

There isn’t that much real wealth on the planet, which means that if the derivatives bubble pops, we’re all toast (except for those who can grow their own food and have kept their heads down)!

One of the things that almost brought down the economy in 2008 was how leviathan banks had been able to turn the investment world into a gambling casino. What allowed them to do this was the repeal of Glass-Steagall near the end of the Clinton years. Glass-Steagall, passed near the start of the Great Depression, was a government regulation that was good and appropriate as it separated commercial banks from investment banks and thus controlled private greed. Once that separation was gone, the superelite leviathans could do as they pleased with the full backing of the Federal Reserve. The results weren’t sustainable, and in 2008, the system almost went down in flames. The federal government bailed out the leviathan banks at taxpayer expense. The Federal Reserve began its massive money creation scheme (“quantitative easing”) which has helped Wall Street but no one else. The Dow has soared back into the stratosphere; this fact, coupled with the obvious struggles on Main Street, ought to provide clues even to a person of average intelligence that something is really, really wrong—that there has been a huge decoupling of the “economy” of the former with the real economy.

In fact, none of the fundamentals that brought about the Meltdown of 2008 have changed, except for U.S. economic health being more precarious now than it was then. Some, such as John Williams—and economist David Wiedemer (author of Aftershock) predict that the Meltdown of 2008 was just the beginning. Williams recently predicted continued stagnation through the remainder of this year and next year; then, near the end of 2014 the wheels will come off. Other nations will have begun dumping dollars and dollar-denominated assets, and hyperinflation will hit. For consumers, prices of food, gasoline, and other necessities will shoot up, provoking civil disturbances (again, unless a different time bomb has gone off first). Some argue that the superelite are planning this, and see the collapse of the U.S. financial system as their final gambit opening the door to world government.

While no one knows except them, I am personally not convinced. To be sure, they want world government, but they aren’t gods, and they don’t control everything. Moreover, given that the ringleaders of the superelite (Rockefeller, Kissinger, Brzezinski, Soros, etc.) are all in their 80s and 90s, they are probably feeling hurried as they want to live to see the results of their lifetime of effort. Their policies have destroyed much of the U.S. middle class, but they probably want the U.S. war machine to remain a potential global police force, effective at destroying regimes that show recalcitrance (Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria—with Iran and possibly eventually Venezuela on the radar screen for future assaults). Moreover and finally, with decent paying, full-time work unavailable on Main Street, one can foresee a flood of young recruits into the military as a means of avoiding starvation wages!

Some will doubtless read this and want to ask: what can we do?! Sadly, it should have been done decades ago! But there are things you can do to improve your chances now. One, obviously, is to get yourself and your assets out of the U.S. before limits on travel or currency controls are put in place. Assuming moving overseas is not an option because of financial considerations, acquiring self-reliance skills is your best bet. In other words, become a “prepper.” If you live in the U.S. you should plan for life in an environment of long-term deterioration. It has happened to every overextended empire in history as it collapsed. Learn to grow food (take up square-foot gardening to start) and raise chickens, as much of the country will return to an agrarian base. This won’t necessarily be a bad thing. The air will be cleaner, your food will be healthier, and there will be something for everyone to do. Your children won’t grow up to be mall rats or government-schooled illiterates; perhaps extended families will even make a much-welcomed comeback, making education easier. But life will have added dangers, as pre-industrial existence did. Obtain firearms and learn to use them for protection of self and loved ones. Begin obtaining goods now that will be in short supply once the trucks quit running, such as toilet paper and other such hygienic necessities which can be bartered. Do this in such as way as to not attract attention (i.e., do not buy two 24-packs at a time at the same store for ten straight Saturdays).

People who are good at using their hands and fixing things will have an advantage during the Greater Depression. It might be a good idea to pick up some skill such as carpentry or woodworking or cross-stitching to make clothing for family and to barter for other goods until a new currency is established. There will also be a need for people who can keep generators up and running, especially in colder climates. Do whatever else you can to reduce your need for an employer—which seems like good common horse sense regardless whether any predictions of a future meltdown come true or not.

I would (again gradually) pull my money out of banks and safety deposit boxes, except for what is needed for immediate expenses; obtain precious metals; do not trust paper certificates. The point is, get your assets out of the system. What the elite learned from that nasty little affair in Cyprus: as long as they tip off their friends in advance, they can get away with legal robbery. The masses will growl and grouse, but take no action. A portion of their money is, however, gone. A Cyprus-style “bail-in” is being talked about as a live option in Europe. Does anyone really believe such a measure won’t be used in the U.S. if the banks have their backs to the wall?

The long and the short of it: prospects for turning the U.S. around economically, politically, culturally, and spiritually, are getting dimmer with each new Obama caper, each new legislative atrocity, each new irrational Supreme Court decision, each new scandal about which nothing is done. Is there a chance that all this will be wrong, and that the West will be able to turn itself around? Obviously, there’s always a chance. Pundits have predicted hyperinflation before.

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Predicting the future has never been and never can be an exact science; there are too many variables involved. If you take the advice offered here and nothing worse happens than continued economic stagnation, you’ll be more self-reliant; so if I’m all wet, you don’t lose! Besides—again, one of the other time bombs may go off first. So I wouldn’t waste time. If things do go to pieces, after all, you and your family could end up entirely on your own. My guess is, the remnant who will build the next civilization are preparing to flee, in the process of fleeing, or have already fled the U.S. along with their assets, meaning that at present, things aren’t looking too good on the home front. Act accordingly. For part one click below.

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