The Spooky Times Have Begun
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PrintLittle did I realize just last week when I posted the article “Let the Spooky Times Begin!” they would begin in earnest before the end of the week. It also seems that when we discussed AIDS as Acquired Integrity Deficiency Syndrome on Monday’s Cult Football post, before the upload was complete from our small hut in NE Washington State, real financial leaders of China, Russia, Brazil, Germany and others were beginning to question this AIDS disease, as a real presence in US FED Chairman Ben Bernanke. World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick was even talking about some sort of gold relationship integrity existing in the world’s currencies.
Little did we know that our inclusion of a world against Quantitative Easing (QE-2) discussion, would domestically include pretty much everyone outside the direct sphere of FED influence as well. On Fox Business Art Laffer even stated that he really had no idea of what is going to happen, because this was so far outside even the extremes of modern economics, that there is really no information to make and educated guess on the QE-2 outcome.
The best guess I heard was that Ben was aware that a pending double dip recession would be catastrophic for the country, so that he thought the QE-2 risk was worth taking. That is just a little less stupendous than our thoughts about Ben not wanting to be present at the start of another Great Depression.
Let us look briefly at the way the United States and the world looks today.
If you look at the Red and Blue senate election map of the New York Times you find a North East and left coast wins for the Democrats. However if you look at the Washington State map, you find only three counties, out of thirty-nine, who significantly voted in favor of Democrat Patty Murray. A look at the national map for the House of Representatives and you see again that significant Red — Blue segregation.
This shows the great American flyover is alive and well and also illustrates the continuing political differences between urban and rural electorates. The major difference in these elections centers upon the real difference in the role of government, especially the federal government spending, to solve human problems. Put bluntly, urban people say they need government help; rural people want to be left alone.
The world, as the comments concerning the FED chairman indicate, is also becoming more conservative financially, because just as in the United States, the various economic stimulus plans have had only limited success and really have done nothing to improve national balance sheets.
What these signify is that the global community consensus is becoming much less global and much less a community. That divergence is also become significantly more pronounced in the last week, and will be seen in the G20 financial meetings in Seoul, Korea this Thursday and Friday. Compared to recent similar meetings, the government central bankers and finance ministers may see more strife and confrontations inside the conference rather than outside.
The problems stem from the reality that the western, or the developed world, has extended its prosperity for a long time essentially through debt leverage and the lack of political will to fix a once simple problem that now must face a spooky reality. Of course the so-called developing world, where they occasionally had to deal with these realities, at least on an occasional basis, would like monetary reality to set in also.
As we have stated numerous times before, our natural oceans have become models of non-energetic debt capital with no corresponding hydrologic cycle to get the liquidity where it can be used to grow something. What has changed in the last few years is that the increasing toxicity of this highly leveraged liquidity, has even become pernicious to those trying to exist within these oceans.
In Monday’s AIDS article I wrote a few brief paragraphs about a man I met during my first round of gold processing equipment development. Those lines are reproduced below:
A number of years later, when I was in the process of developing my precious metals equipment, a friend took me to meet someone, who I was told had some very important insights into the precious metals reality. At first this person was very reluctant to talk to me, but upon the insistence of my friend, this much older man began a story that he said caused him to change is line of work.
The essence of that frightening story was that he once had connections that took him to the gold vaults below the World Trade Center in New York. When he saw all the gold he asked, what was the purpose for all the gold, since the United States was no longer on the gold standard, and the dollar floated in the pool with all the other world currency exchange rates, as it still does today?
His vault guide told him that a time was coming when the world’s fiat money system would be strategically collapsed and then the gold standard would be reintroduced for all financial dealings. Then the true wealth and power of the world would consist of a new authoritarian golden rule, those who have gold make the rules for everyone.
The up front frankness of the banking individual, who this contact said was a member of one of America’s premiere banking families, so spooked this man that he basically fled from the whole scene. Our meeting took place in the man’s tacky cinderblock rancher in the Seattle lower class suburb of Mountlake Terrace. I used to drive by his place every time I went to church, once it moved out of Seattle proper into a purchased campus in this suburb.
This meeting of human potential, wasted through fear of the future still serves as my example of a squandered human life. Whenever times in my life gets really serious, the thought of a extremely gifted human being, spending his latter days sitting in a recliner watching Trinity Broadcasting and sometimes getting up to dance about his chair to Praise the Lord, is the truest example I have seen as a failure of American evangelicalism. When things got beyond his capacity to understand his world, he quit plain and simple.
1 Corinthians 10:13 states: No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
This failure to trust God in the difficult times is the reality of Jesus’ Bible parables. Dietrich Bonhoeffer basically calls this “cheap grace” in contrast with “costly grace” in his wonderful book “The Cost of Discipleship.”
These spooky times, that we have now entered, the great divide will begin to be shown, between those who are only in this life for the pursuit of ease and money and those who will begin to understand something much more eternal, the pursuit of purpose.
In precious metals, just as in the spy business, the most difficult character trait to find in potential investors and potential employees is integrity. If you find someone with integrity you can train them to do pretty much everything else.
Back when I was starting out, I sent a letter to 10 different Christian ministries stating that if they wanted to solve all the money problems that they were always asking people to help them solve, perhaps if they were more willing to adopt the Bible indicative in Haggai Chapter 2, they would not have to fleece the sheep. They would pay all prospecting and recovery expenses and they would get ninety percent of the return, we would take a tithe of ten percent.
The most pertinent part — Haggai 2:4b-9 follows: Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.'"
If I remember correctly I got about five responses, all of which basically said that there bylaws prohibited them from investing in anything other than fleecing the sheep. It seems that seed faith means you plant the seed and they harvest the fruit.
Since that time, with or without the Haggai passage I have offered this ninety – ten split to a number of others including a couple of really spooky dudes, but it seems as if the risk reward ratio, just like the gold gentleman in the earlier discussion, is too much to handle on their own. BTW: That offer still stands.
The Business Plan we are developing is a fusion of entrepreneurial training and diverse business development backed gold-based securities (not fiat securities). The current ideas are to look for between one and five million dollars. However the entrepreneurial training and our product development facilities are based upon real estate and real estate is still the basis for the cause and most of the insecurity in present markets.
We have found such facilities just on the Idaho side of the border with Washington, just some twenty miles from Spokane. Washington State is the most progressive state in the union with no income tax, either personal or business, however the “you can’t do that regulations” especially in the environmental area are short term deal killers. So we will maintain the corporate headquarters in Washington and deal with a more favorable business climate in Idaho and pay the appropriate taxes. Idaho is a mining state, Washington, especially western Washington, is one of the world centers of environmental imperialism.
Spooky times are here, and this monetary problem in the world could very well not only collapse this nation but the fiat money system of the whole world. This morning gold prices are quite volatile near $1400 per ounce fixing. That is just about 3500 tons of 1 ounce per ton gold ore to make $5 million. That is less than 100 truckloads; $1 million is twenty truckloads. Processing costs on small commercial mines is less than ten percent of that.
In a way the Promise of America still exists in a similar way as Israel did with Joshua in 24:14,15:
"Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
These spooky times will require that decision for almost everyone on earth. I have made that decision consistent with Joshua. The problem at this time is that my house is too small to pull off this present opportunity gift.