They might care who makes the laws now!

[9 min read]

Dear Reader,

At her old school in Melbourne, my daughter used to come home and complain that she didn’t know the answers to a regular quiz the teacher held.

My wife and I were happy about it.

Why?

Well the quiz was on current events, based on what was reported in the news.

We don’t watch ‘news’ in our house. To be blunt, it’s a joke. So we were pleased that the kid had no idea about the questions, especially the idiotic ones about which royal was doing what.

When you tune out from the ‘news’ for a few weeks and then watch it for five minutes, you realise just how ridiculous it is.

News is no longer presented objectively. There is an agenda behind it. The agenda is about keeping you fearful and obedient. And anyone who questions the narrative is attacked from all angles.

Look at Craig Kelly. Shunned from his own party and booted from Facebook for daring to challenge the narrative.

And there is, of course, the disrupter-in-chief, Donald Trump. Trump outsmarted the elites for years. But they finally got him. As he raged against a dubious electoral process in many states, and encouraged his supporters to engage in peaceful protest, things went pear-shaped.

The establishment pounced. They shut him down. And he’ll stay shut down according to this piece from Reuters:

‘Facebook’s oversight board on Wednesday upheld the company’s suspension of former US president Donald Trump in a much-awaited verdict that may signal how the company will treat rule-breaking world leaders in the future.

‘Facebook indefinitely blocked Trump’s access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts over concerns of further violent unrest following the January 6 storming of the US Capitol by supporters of the former president.’

Facebook’s ‘Oversight Board’ is made up of mostly left-wing academics. So it’s hardly a shock to see them keep the muzzle on ‘orange man bad’.

And Facebook is funding this board with a trust of US$130 million, so these guys are obviously getting a bit of coin to come up with their well-considered ‘independent’ opinions.

All this is just another attempt by the elites — those who think they know better than the plebs — to control the narrative and tell us what to think.

It’s not just Facebook. It’s mainstream media in general.

The obvious question is why is this so prevalent now?

In my view, at its core is a rotten monetary system. In our modern materialistic society, money defines everything. Even if you shun material wealth, money is still the denominator for your labour.

Ever since 2008, governments and central banks have had to pump more ‘money’ into the system to keep it going.

Those closest to the government and central banks benefit immensely from these policies. Those minding their own business and getting on with their life are the last to see the flow of ‘new money’ entering the system.

And by the time they get it, that ‘new money’ doesn’t buy (in terms of assets) what it got the elites. No wonder there is a self-interested cabal of parasites around the world desperate to keep the game going. You do that by keeping the plebs fearful and busy. And you do THAT by controlling the flow of information.

Which is why I turned the TV off years ago.

I say it’s ‘new money’, but it’s really just more of the same old dirty, corrupt, fiat money that has been washing around the system since Nixon ‘temporarily’ suspended gold convertibility in 1971.

The ones that are really getting screwed by the old money system are the kids. Those who left university saddled with debt and needing to take on lots more to buy a house and start a family.

What’s more, the poor bastards have been brought up to believe the world owes them a favour.

If you think there isn’t going to be any blowback from this, you’re kidding yourself.

I say this because the blowback has already started. You just need to know where to look.

You see, while the world’s elites have been busy pumping money into the system and telling us how to live our lives, the next generation have been building a new peer-to-peer financial system.

What does that mean?

Well, in short, it is a financial system that does not need a trusted middleman to facilitate transactions. Computer code performs the role of trust.

Add to the fact that this new money cannot be created at will (think bitcoin with its limited supply) and you have a mortal threat to the old money powers.

What is happening under the surface is the biggest threat to finance since the Medicis dominated banking in the Middle Ages.

Remember old Rothschild’s famous maxim?

‘Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!’

That’s been the bankers’ playbook for centuries. But this new money system is a massive threat to it. They might care who makes the laws now!

Which is why we’ve decided to launch a new service designed to chronicle its growth and profit from it along the way.

You can check out what it’s all about here. Please do. This is the biggest financial revolution in any of our lifetimes. You’d be mad not to get a ringside seat (for an insanely cheap ticket price).

Regards,

Greg Canavan,
Editor, The Rum Rebellion

FUBAR
By Bill Bonner

Poor Bill and Melinda. They are calling it quits. It’s all over but the long road and the sad songs.

Apparently, the COVID-19 lockdowns are responsible for a lot of marriage break-ups. After spending so much time in close quarters, Bill and Melinda may have decided that they couldn’t stand each other anymore. Maybe Bill left the cap off the toothpaste or the toilet seat up.

Hard to figure. Nice people. Spoke the same language. Both committed to world improvement. Shame they couldn’t get along.

Prepared for failure

But ours is not to wonder why it went wrong…ours is only to marvel at how easy it was to end it.

Things didn’t work out. They split. And now, Bill will load a few things in his car — a lamp…a favourite picture…his tennis racket and shaving cream — and head off to a rental unit.

One of the few advantages of getting old is that we’re prepared for things like this. We’ve seen enough businesses, investments, marriages, careers, lives, and hopes that didn’t pan out that we’re ready for failure. We even expect it.

A new crypto? Another NFT?

After all the hundreds of federal programs to make the world a better place…another one to make it even better?

Sometimes, even at a wedding, for example, we can barely help ourselves. ‘That’ll never work,’ we blurt out.

This cranky attitude does not make us the life of the party. But it leaves us in a position to say, ‘I told you so,’ when, in fact, things don’t work out.

FUBAR

We only bring this up to introduce our destination for today’s perambulation.

We stumbled upon the subject, by accident, on Monday. We were looking at how mistakes are corrected. We noticed that private life clears away its mistakes regularly — swiftly, brutally, unequivocally.

In the public sector, on the other hand…errors are much harder to correct.

Today, we go back for a more careful study.

Context: The feds are making trillions of dollars’ worth of ‘investments’. Some are bound to go bad. How will they ever be corrected?

You will not be surprised at our conclusion: Disastrously.

Divorce, default, destitution…crime and punishment…humiliation…bankruptcy…and the ledge.

The private world has its remedies. You spend too much money — you quickly run out of money to spend. You want to borrow more…but who, apart from the feds, will lend to a spendthrift?

In the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP), the Small Business Administration allegedly gave out billions in ‘loans’ without so much as looking at a photo ID.

Friends tell us they were shocked at how easily they got money. Watchdogs tell us that much of the loot went to organised and disorganised crime (not our friends, I’m sure).

The idea of the PPP was to ‘protect jobs’ in the midst of a plague. But such a desperate shambles was the lending process, that each job ‘saved’ was estimated to have cost US$377,000.

In other words, the program was a disaster. A mistake. An error.

FUBAR, as we used to say in the Navy.

Win-lose model

Of course, this is just one program. There are dozens…hundreds…thousands of agencies and programs…all making ‘investments’ in a better world.

In the real world of Main Street, as we’re becoming monotonous for saying, real goods and services are exchanged. One gives. Another takes.

And the world becomes a richer place as each person tries to please the other with better goods and services, delivered with ever bigger smiles.

Bad exchanges are quickly stopped. You don’t like the bread your baker is making for you; you go to a different baker.

Hygiene is the hidden secret of capitalism. Bad restaurants are emptied. Bad ideas are purged. Mistakes are corrected.

But governments operate on a pre-civilised, win-lose model. There is take, but no give. The feds never have to satisfy a customer or show a profit. And their ‘investments’ are almost all losers.

Funny money

From Baltimore, for example, comes news that the city will receive US$670 million from the American Rescue Plan. This, we’re told, is an investment in getting the city back on track after pulling out of the COVID swamp. WBFF has more details:

‘The bill sets some guidelines but the Mayor’s Office has a lot more leeway this time around to decide who will receive this money.’

Oh stop! Talk about FUBAR! We’re laughing so hard, we can barely sit upright.

Imagine Baltimore’s corrupt and incompetent city government deciding how to ‘invest’ US$670 million of ‘free’ money from Washington. (Will someone please call Mercedes-Benz and tell them to increase inventories!)

The spending is supposed to have something to do with COVID-19 relief. But what doesn’t these days?

Which of the mayor’s friends has not been affected by the disease? Which of his relatives doesn’t have an idea about how to make the city a better place…with the appropriate spending, of course?

Which pocket in the Baltimore political/elite class is so shallow that it can’t accept another US$1 million or so?

Zero return

You know, gentle reader, as does everyone in Baltimore, that this ‘investment’ is likely to produce zero positive return…and, by diverting people from honest business (if there’s any left)…much harm.

But who will ever know? Whether it is the billions sent to cities like Baltimore…the stimmy cheque given to businesses and individuals…the subsidies…the giveaways…no return on investment will ever be calculated.

The money will disappear in dribs and drabs…showing up in new houses…new cars…and beach pads in Ocean City.

Nobody will ever admit failure. No reckoning will ever happen. No one — in shame and regret will ever open a window of the Bank of America building and take a leap.

Nope. No scrubbing. No soap. No hygiene will happen. No divorces. No bankruptcies. And no corrections.

Never-ending wars

The war on poverty has been going on since the 1960s. No victory yet!

The war on drugs began in the 1970s.

And now, we are declaring a US$9 trillion war on viruses…on temperature changes…on recessions and stock market corrections…

And the scum, muck, and toxic sludge gets deeper and deeper.

Then what?

Stay tuned…

Regards,

Bill Bonner,
For The Rum Rebellion