By Uncle Mike
What do you think money is? Is it a paper bill in your wallet or purse. Sure. Is it one’s and zero’s that form a cryptocurrency (CC). Yeah, you can use CC’s to buy ‘stuff’. If you look up the word, you will find money is: a current medium of exchange in the form of coins and banknotes; coins and banknotes collectively or the assets, property, and resources owned by someone or something; wealth. In layman’s terms, paper that represents value that can be used to buy something or measure your wealth. That measure of wealth is being tested.
I’m older now. My parents were children of a depression (a sharp fall in growth, employment, and production). What that means is, they couldn’t buy, make, grow or create anything. The ‘system’ of economics essentially collapses. People lived day to day by scraping by, eating in food kitchens, standing in line to get a bowl of soup. Hard to imagine, right? This happened in America from 1929 to 1939. It happened after an economic boom called the “roaring 20’s”. That decade saw the use of automobiles, telephones, films, radio, and electrical appliances that was unprecedented. Less than a century ago, western civilization saw boom turn to bust overnight. That pattern is repeating itself.
So much money was out there in the 1920’s people spent with abandon. It was as if money was free (without cost or payment). In the very next decade, there was a severe cost, and a payment was due. As any student of history will tell you, history repeats itself. People had so much money, until they didn’t. The economic system crashed and no matter how much paper money they had, they couldn’t buy things. Things of value were no longer available. It took 10 years to get the system to fix itself. The depression, it can be argued, ended when the world went to War.
It was a cold war to start after 1929. Money became available again. A financial reset occurred, and items could be purchased. Items like planes and tanks. There is profit in war. Within 10 years, Hitler was on the march in Europe and World War II began. It only ended after 75 million people died.
In 1975, William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a book titled, “The Fourth Turning”. (Available here: The Fourth Turning). The book explains how roughly every four generations a cycle occurs with change happening every 20-25 years. The cycles are: High, Awakening, Unravelling, and Crisis. The book is America-centric, but applicable to many nations.
Today the USA finds itself somewhere in the later stage of the Fourth Tuning which brings me back to money. We have a government that is obsessed with giving away money during a stage of “awakening” when the nation is unravelling. The current political leadership no longer sees value in money. Conservative or liberal, the concept of money has been bastardized. When the solutions to all the questions is Trillions of dollars, the worlds’ leaders are asking the wrong questions! Of course, capitalism will fail if the system is driven to collapse. The medium of exchange, be it dollars, yuan or cc’s, increasingly hold no value. It takes more ‘money’ to buy things until things become of so much value, you cannot get them. This leads to financial collapse.
The leftist in charge of the global financial system have determined the value of money and that value will collapse. You can not put trillions of dollars into the system, you can not give money away for it eventually has no value. The US could have a nation of millionaire’s, but if you can’t buy a loaf of bread, much less find one, what good is all that money?
The US (global) financial system appears to be a driverless car, headed down the highway, unable to turn off to get much needed repairs. The government keeps putting gas in the tank. Higher interest rates and inflation lay dead ahead, but the car can’t stop. The result will most certainly be the crisis stage. This stage will be driven by the collapse of the US dollar. With luck, we can push out the arrival at the crisis destination a few more years. It just seems like America’s current leadership is determined to make the dollar worth less each day.
As the world watches, we should not be surprised when they no longer use the US dollar as the global reserve currency. China and Russia are already preparing for that day. The crisis stage is just down the road. The time to prepare is now.
In Part I, I have offered you an opinion based on a short history lesson. What I owe you in Part II is a solution.
Uncle Mike
