Introduction
The picture above is Eugene Delacroix’s painting of 1830 which depicts the goddess warrior, Liberty, triumphantly leading the hungry peasants of France in their revolt against the materialistic extravagances of the ruling classes.
Liberty symbolizes revolution against materialism in 1830 in the same manner that all humans must revolt against materialism to salvage their souls and achieve Heaven.
Storming Heaven's Gate narrates the challenges faced by humans in their quest for salvation. The message to readers is not to squander the precious opportunity to leap from life in the flesh to life in spirit form. The "essence" of each personality's life is a fragment of the Unqualified Absolute. If the personality fails to achieve salvation for the Unqualified Absolute fragment, the fragment of the Unqualified Absolute will be reborn as a new person (personality) guided again by a fragment of the Universal Father (a Thought Adjuster).
The Thought Adjuster may be perceived in the same manner as the muse "Liberty" in Delacroix's painting. Both the fragment of the Unqualified Absolute and the Universal Father are seeking a surviving human personality to complete their “trinity.” A successful personality reflects the experience of a human who with free will opted to qualify for heaven.
A person grows through experience. At death, the newly personified fragment of the Unqualified Absolute is absorbed by the soul. On the Morontia level (the first heaven midway between flesh and spirit) the trinity of the Father fragment (who indwells each human), the Unqualified Absolute fragment, and the human soul (provided by the Supreme God of Time and Space) fuse their existential and experiential realities.
This trinity of fragments (collectively with all the other trinities of fragments) has the potential of realizing the sometime future qualification of the presently Unqualified Absolute (non-deity) as a qualified deity in infinity.
Storming Heaven's Gate is about globalization. It employs an Occam's Razor approach to provide a back-to back view of secular chaos versus spiritual serenity. Part One discusses the current status of the world, which is firmly in the grip of materialistic chaos while it resists its inevitable destiny of globalization. Part Two presents the divine plan for recovery from chaos to achieve Earth's destiny of spiritual serenity while finding its unavoidable path to egalitarian globalization.
The content of the book is excerpted primarily from The Urantia Book. Some conclusions are interpretive. [Urantia is the cosmic name for Earth.]
Readers should realize that while the financial and social fears of globalization are unsettling, The Urantia Book teaches that the globalization of government is planned and necessary for the spiritual evolution of people. While our spiritual overlords cannot intrude upon individual men's personal choices, they can and do shape man's environment.
[“Occam's razor” is a problem-solving principle attributed to William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), who was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, and theologian.]
The use of Occam's Razor may help readers grow ethically, morally, and spiritually. Seeing secular reasoning side-by-side with spiritual wisdom is the fastest way to learn the truth of the worthiest explanation.
To read The Urantia Book, go to: http://www.urantia.org/urantia-book/read-urantia-book-online
To see all of the books available at Amazon books by A. Cercatore, the author of this blog, go to Amazon books and search for "finding god cercatore." Click "See all XX Results."
Liberty symbolizes revolution against materialism in 1830 in the same manner that all humans must revolt against materialism to salvage their souls and achieve Heaven.
Storming Heaven's Gate narrates the challenges faced by humans in their quest for salvation. The message to readers is not to squander the precious opportunity to leap from life in the flesh to life in spirit form. The "essence" of each personality's life is a fragment of the Unqualified Absolute. If the personality fails to achieve salvation for the Unqualified Absolute fragment, the fragment of the Unqualified Absolute will be reborn as a new person (personality) guided again by a fragment of the Universal Father (a Thought Adjuster).
The Thought Adjuster may be perceived in the same manner as the muse "Liberty" in Delacroix's painting. Both the fragment of the Unqualified Absolute and the Universal Father are seeking a surviving human personality to complete their “trinity.” A successful personality reflects the experience of a human who with free will opted to qualify for heaven.
A person grows through experience. At death, the newly personified fragment of the Unqualified Absolute is absorbed by the soul. On the Morontia level (the first heaven midway between flesh and spirit) the trinity of the Father fragment (who indwells each human), the Unqualified Absolute fragment, and the human soul (provided by the Supreme God of Time and Space) fuse their existential and experiential realities.
This trinity of fragments (collectively with all the other trinities of fragments) has the potential of realizing the sometime future qualification of the presently Unqualified Absolute (non-deity) as a qualified deity in infinity.
Storming Heaven's Gate is about globalization. It employs an Occam's Razor approach to provide a back-to back view of secular chaos versus spiritual serenity. Part One discusses the current status of the world, which is firmly in the grip of materialistic chaos while it resists its inevitable destiny of globalization. Part Two presents the divine plan for recovery from chaos to achieve Earth's destiny of spiritual serenity while finding its unavoidable path to egalitarian globalization.
The content of the book is excerpted primarily from The Urantia Book. Some conclusions are interpretive. [Urantia is the cosmic name for Earth.]
Readers should realize that while the financial and social fears of globalization are unsettling, The Urantia Book teaches that the globalization of government is planned and necessary for the spiritual evolution of people. While our spiritual overlords cannot intrude upon individual men's personal choices, they can and do shape man's environment.
[“Occam's razor” is a problem-solving principle attributed to William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), who was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, and theologian.]
The use of Occam's Razor may help readers grow ethically, morally, and spiritually. Seeing secular reasoning side-by-side with spiritual wisdom is the fastest way to learn the truth of the worthiest explanation.
To read The Urantia Book, go to: http://www.urantia.org/urantia-book/read-urantia-book-online
To see all of the books available at Amazon books by A. Cercatore, the author of this blog, go to Amazon books and search for "finding god cercatore." Click "See all XX Results."
Storming Heaven's Gate – Part One
Disclaimer
Part One of “Storming Heaven's Gate” voices the opinions of people who study the linkages between social, political, and financial global events.
The theme of this book is not primarily economic issues, which are of major consideration. Rather, the book is about individual soul survival and the spiritual survival of mankind. So, the problems of materialism must be resolved.
The Most Highs, “who rule in the lives of men,” have no nation favorites. Their interest is in the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and this must be the concern of men and their governments as well.
The intent of Part One is to identify the reasons and the mindsets that create problems in the global economy. Part Two will study the plan of the Most Highs on planet Earth, which will accomplish the higher pursuit of globalization and brotherhood.
Contemporary Man's Resistance to Cosmically Planned Evolutionary Events
Migrant Problems
Millions of Middle Eastern migrants have descended upon Europe. It is a sociological-economic crisis with far-reaching consequences for the world.
Some day, open borders will allow opportunity seekers from anywhere to move anywhere they choose. Today however, there are two critically important caveats:
1) There can be no welfare or free government services, so everyone has to pay his own way.
2) All property must be privately owned to minimize the possibility of squatter camps.
Without the attractiveness of welfare benefits, immigrants are usually the best of people because you get mobile, aggressive, opportunity-seeking people who want to leave a dead or threatening culture for a vibrant new one. The millions of immigrants who came to the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were eligible for homesteads, but they received no state support.
The Attraction of Europe for Present Day Immigrants
The migrants coming to Europe today are not being attracted by opportunity in the new land so much as the welfare benefits. For the most part, they are unskilled and poorly educated.
What is taking place is a migration of millions of people speaking different languages, different races, different religions, different cultures, and different modes of living who lack job skills.
If you are a foreigner in a country, and you are 1 out of 100, you are an interesting outsider. But an influx of millions of foreign migrants is only going to destroy the existing culture and guarantee antagonism - especially when the nationals have to support you.
Rhyming With History
There are interesting historical parallels between the ISIS uprising in the Middle East today, the Civil War in Syria, and the migrants from the East flooding into Europe. This action echoes the encroachment upon the Roman Empire by the Barbarians approximately 2000 years ago.
The Huns forced barbarian tribes to flee west, which resulted in some Germanic tribes being pushed into the Roman Empire. When the Romans did not provide food for the tribes that immigrated there, the Barbarians began rioting.
[The Huns were a nomadic and warlike Asian people who devastated or controlled large parts of eastern and central Europe. Their leader, Attila the Hun, circa 406–453 A.D., introduced the warhorse. He and his army rode across the Middle East and Europe overwhelming their opposition.]
While the Barbarians, driven out of their homelands by Attila, played a significant role in the Roman Empire falling, there were also other factors that reflect today's problems in Europe. The other factors causing the collapse of the Roman Empire included a failing economy (mirrored by the current huge Deutsche Bank losses, and the economic collapse of Greece), a splitting of the empire (Brexit), and high taxes in ancient Rome just like in Europe today. In addition, the Romans were intolerant of the new Christian religion in the Roman Empire (which echoes the non-acceptance of the Muslim religion and culture in Europe).
Peaceful Invasion
Whenever there’s an influx of “foreigners” entering a country to the degree that it changes the demographics or upsets the local economy, it will cause problems.
For example, in Zimbabwe the numbers of migrating Chinese have grown so greatly and so quickly that there are now numerous Chinese mini-cities within Zimbabwe.
Many people in Zimbabwe object to their Chinese guests and the dumping of cheap Chinese products into the country, which is upsetting the local economy.
Apparently, the Chinese plan to migrate about 300 million Chinese to Africa in the future. They’re employed in building infrastructure such as roads, mines, and railroads. This planned migration could foster racial conflicts.
Dictates of the European Bureaucracy
The European Union (EU) in Brussels generates regulations that have reduced the standard of living of average Europeans.
The regulations prescribe migrant issues. The EU has a quota system that distributes migrants across the union. Not all EU countries agree with their decisions.
For example, Hungary doesn’t want any migrants. The EU government in Brussels says Hungary is obligated to take its “fair share” of migrants.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated recently that: “Hungary does not need a single migrant for the economy to work, or the population to sustain itself, or for the country to have a future….This is why there is no need for a common European migration policy - whoever needs migrants can take them, but don’t force them on us, we don’t need them.”
The EU administrators have called for Hungary to be expelled from the EU.
Clearly, the migrant issue is fueling resentment towards the EU. It was a major factor in the Brexit vote, and the influx of migrants has also fostered the growth of anti-EU political parties.
A Self Inflicted Wound
The European Union is in a huge predicament regarding the migrant problem. The European administrators are globalists who promote policies that force the whole continent to pay for their beliefs.
All Western European governments are massive welfare states that provide free food, housing, medical care, schooling, and living expenses for citizens as well as for residents who aren’t citizens. Such benefits naturally attract poor people from poor countries.
Millions of Africans want to immigrate. Many feel entitled especially those who were colonies of the Europeans.
Effect of Military Intervention on Migration
The attraction of the welfare state plays a major role in the European migration crisis, but it is also obvious that military interventions are a factor.
The Europeans have supported U.S. military interventions in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.
Before his overthrow by NATO, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had an agreement with Italy across the Mediterranean Sea.
Gaddafi agreed to prevent African migrants heading for Europe from using Libya’s 1,100 miles of coastline as a transit point. It arrangement worked, but ended when NATO helped overthrow the Gaddafi government in 2011, opening the migrant floodgates from Africa.
If the influx of migrants through Libya is not stopped, it may soon swell to include millions more from Africa, and then millions more from Central Asia, India, and Bangladesh.
Charitable Duty
Some say, a charitable debt is owed to the migrants flowing into Europe. The world cannot let them starve because they have had some bad luck. The opposition's response is an individual, or a family, can have some bad luck. But the places these people come from have had bad luck for centuries. Their bad luck is the consequence of their political, economic, and social systems.
Further, some economists and think tanks say accepting migrants will stimulate the economy.
Rather than stimulating the economy, the think tank migration policies are creating chaos.
Predictive Analytics
Human beings behave in patterns that are predictable and resemble waves or cycles. The man who made this discovery was Nikolai Kondratieff. He wrote a book called “The Long Waves in Economic Life.”
The book contained an idea so threatening to the communistic government in the Soviet Union that Stalin sentenced him to ten years of hard labor in Siberia. Later, he was executed because he predicted communism would fail and be replaced by capitalism.
Kondratieff predicted capitalism would replace communism because he discerned that everything in the universe moves in waves. Sound and light move in waves. He theorized that human economies move in the same way.
Economic Waves Predict Stock Market Moves
Kondratieff proved that economies act just like waves in the physical world. Like radio waves, they have phases, amplitudes, and frequencies.
What’s more, economic waves come in cycles that make changes in the economy easy to predict like the phases of the moon, the rise and fall of the tides, and the changing of the seasons.
Kondratieff's “Long Wave” was later named “The K-Wave” in his honor. The K-Wave shows the changing cycles of private and public forces in the economy. According to Kondratieff, the K-Wave has a frequency of 47 to 64 years. History shows the accuracy of the K-Wave.
In charting from crest to crest, one can see the dawn of the industrial revolution, the golden age of railroads and steel, the onset of electrical and chemical engineering, the age of the automobile and oil, and, most recently, the information age which peaked with the rise of Internet stocks in 2000.
One can also observe the troughs of those waves in the panic of 1819; the “Long Depression” of 1873; the “Great Depression” that began in 1929; and the stock market crash of 1973.
Predictions of Economic Transformations
As a nation, America is on the brink of a devastating, irreversible economic collapse that will fuel a depression and create unprecedented civil unrest.
Most Americans don’t understand that all the policies, the free money, the zero interest rates, and negative interest rates, have only masked the underlying problems.
We are in extreme times because the economy had a natural bubble that occurs in the autumn of a bubble boom season. This has happened throughout time – about once in the span of each human lifetime.
Europe Faces Economic Collapse
Europeans owe more than every man, woman and child in Europe can earn. The people of Spain, for example, would have to give all of their annual income in taxes just for the government to break even.
Cyprus owes 8% more than their gross domestic product (GDP). Portugal owes 30% more. Italy 32%. Greece owes 79% more money going out every year than every man, woman and child in Greece can earn.
World Bank chief economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz warns that Italy could be the cataclysmic event that leads to the fall of the EU.
Critical Event #1: BREXIT (Britain exited from the European Union, June 23, 2016.)
Critical Event #2: The total collapse of the European Union, date not yet known.
The Crisis of Governments
The existing governmental institutions were built for a world that is rapidly dissolving. Their systems no longer serve. They are too expensive. When people are living frugally, government looks too expensive. Consequently, there is an increasing disconnect between citizens' lives and their governance.
The situation is not tenable. While governments are powerful, they cannot bend reality.
An analogy for the obsolescence of current governments may be seen in the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states. Evidence of the end of the Soviet Union became obvious in 1989 with the revolution in Poland that continued in Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. When the Berlin wall was torn down, the Soviet Union itself dissolved as 14 countries declared independence.
Just like the Brexit and Trump votes, government leaders did not anticipate the Soviet collapse.
There was a seismic shift on the planet.
The Evaporation of Wealth in America
America's prosperity may be wiped out in America within two to three years, just like in 1930 to ’32.
Many businesses could go bankrupt unable to meet repayment of their low interest loans.
The middle class that got financially drained in the last few years with lower wages, will get depleted even more. The difference this time is that even the top 1%, who own most of the financial assets, are going to lose the most when the bubbles in stocks, real estate, and commodities burst.
As the economy shrivels, unemployment rises. Everyone's job, house, and net worth will be sapped.
Bleak Scenario
The coming economic crisis could start in the global bond markets as foreign investors start dumping their vulnerable low interest paying U.S. Treasury bills. The Federal Reserve will counter by raising interest rates. However, because of their dubious security of the bonds, even though interest rates rise, the bond values will drop.
The bond investments made by domestic pension funds (that millions of retirees depend on for income) including private pensions, and guaranteed annuities will vanish.
With no financial reserves and no buyers to extend credit, the government will have no choice but to begin laying off many of its 2.7 million federal employees.
Lacking any alternative, the government will be forced to reduce or stop sending out Social Security checks. There will be insufficient money for Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps, welfare checks, or disability payments.
Banks and businesses will close.
There will be no cash in the ATM machines; limited gas at the service stations; and depleted grocery shelves.
At that point, the American people will take to the streets in protest, hunger, anger, and fear.
Crime victims will get a busy signal when they dial 911.
End Result of Economic Collapse
The effect of an economic collapse is civil unrest. Even now, there is more turbulence and unrest than we have ever seen.
Democracies are being destroyed as central banks take over the capitalistic free market system (with quantitative easing, and market controls). Lobbyists and super-PAC billionaire groups are dominating demography to steer elections and political policies.
Conditions could evolve for another American revolution. Cyclically, revolutions normally occur in a 250-year cycle, so the timing is auspicious. The American Revolution in 1775 saw the birth of democracy.
The Industrial Revolution (1760 to 1840) ushered in free market capitalism. The American Revolution and the Industrial Revolution combined represent two opposing principles that surprisingly have worked in parallel since the late 1700s to increase national wealth and income more than all of history put together.
In the coming decade, there will be some long-term political reforms and changes that are going to be very good for the country, but in the immediate future, there will be political polarization and civil unrest.
Finding the Light in Life
The advanced stages of worlds settled in Light and Life represent the acme of evolutionary material development. On these cultured worlds, the frictions of the earlier primitive ages are gone. Poverty and social inequality have all but vanished, degeneracy has disappeared, and delinquency is rarely observed. Insanity has practically ceased to exist, and feeble-mindedness is a rarity.
The economic, social, and administrative status of these worlds is of a high and perfected order. Science, art, and industry flourish, and society is a smoothly working mechanism of high material, intellectual, and cultural achievement. Industry has been largely diverted to serving the higher aims of such a superb civilization.
The economic life of such a world has become ethical.
Predicting the Sequence of Economic Collapse
Attaining globalism is a painful process, but it is ultimately what the world needs. The structure of nations must be broken apart and rebuilt as states subordinated to a global government.
It appears that the European Union will break apart first. When it does, the euro will collapse. This will be an economic earthquake that will send shock waves through the global economy.
Following the European tremors, the first place the ensuing tsunami wave will hit is Japan because after the United States and China, Europe is Japan’s biggest trading partner.
When Japan exports cars, cameras, and computers to Europe, they must get paid for them. If they don’t get paid - or if they get paid in worthless euros - the fault lines in Japan’s own economy will crack open because while Japan seems like a rich country, it is actually teetering on collapse.
The national debt in Japan is worse than any country in Europe. Japan’s debt is more than 2.5 times its entire economy. And, the Japanese keep adding to their debt at a rate of 96 trillion a year.
While the Japanese have a strong manufacturing base and a healthy trade balance, when the euro falls, it will probably take the yen with it.
And the Japanese economy will fall.
Japan’s Worst Problem - Deflation
Their national debt isn’t Japan’s biggest problem. Knowing their debt is not sustainable, the Japanese also know their pension plans and social security checks are at risk. So, they have been hording money.
As a result, consumer prices are dropping precipitously. When the Japanese consumers know the price of a car will be lower next year than it is today, they save their money and wait until next year. This type of deflationary cycle turns a recession into a depression.
The Japanese have suffered four successive recessions since 2008. Essentially, Japan is in a depression now. It is likely they will ever be able to get out of debt.
Worse than Japan
Ironically, the United States is in worse financial shape than Japan; worse than the European Union; and worse even than Greece.
The United States will be amongst the last places the economic tsunami wave hits. But because it is the world’s biggest economy, it will suffer the most. Politicians argue that America’s debt is “only” $19 trillion dollars. That is just the sovereign debt. It does not include state, local, corporate, and individual debt.
But when you add all of the money the government owes to veterans, Baby Boomer retirees, Medicare and Medicaid recipients, and all the budget items called “unfunded liabilities,” the national debt is closer to $127 trillion dollars.
Only China may be in more of a credit bubble than the United States.
A wash in Debt
Never in the history of the world, have central banks created so much sovereign debt out of their “faith and thin air” paper currency.
The profligacy of fiat money printing has generated an enormous global debt bubble.
This debt bubble was formed by holding interest rates too low, for too long. In the United States, the bubble of private debt was created by giving risky loans to companies, to students, and to auto buyers in record amounts at prices that won't come close to covering the unavoidable losses.
Presently, default rates are soaring, and huge losses have begun to mount. The consequences will soon cause a record number of bankruptcies. (Bankruptcies and defaults have already broken through levels not seen since 2009.) It only took 10% of mortgages defaulting to trigger the financial crisis of 2008-09. Today, the problem is bigger and in a much larger market.
Even considering only private debts, the numbers are still staggering. There are approximately $1 trillion in student loans and $1 trillion in auto loans at risk. The U.S. corporate bond market is over $11 trillion, with nearly $2 trillion of "junk" bonds. (The corporate bond markets around the world have soared as well, reaching 17 trillion in corporate debt in other countries.)
Never has so much money been loaned to so many borrowers, at such low interest rates.
Corporate debt in America equals approximately 45% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). Every time that level has been reached in recent history, there has been a spectacular crash.
Even the fiscal status of several financial firms in America are problematic. Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley have lost their "A" rating at S&P and Moody's (two of the premier ratings agencies). If Morgan Stanley were downgraded one more notch it would immediately have to post $1.2 billion to remain open.
Managing America's National Debt
Vice President Dick Cheney once remarked that “deficits don’t matter” as he defended the spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. When he said it, he was more or less correct because the country was growing faster than the debt. Later, it turned out that deficits did matter, when the spending on everything else in addition to defense spending soared.
Soon, payments on America's national debt will become the third largest item in the federal budget.
In fiscal 2016, America's national budget showed that interest on the debt was about $250 billion. At that rate annual interest payments will grow to over $800 billion (more than tripling) in less than 10 years.
One wonders if the Federal Reserve Bank can resolve the national debt problem...
They have tried by lowering interest rates. Since 2007, the Fed Funds rate has dropped from 5.5% to just 0.26%. That’s a 95% reduction, but it hasn't help.
They tried pumping newly printed fiat money into the banking system in exchange for bonds and securities. In 2007, the Fed’s balance sheet was just $890 billion. Now it is $4.5 trillion, and they have nothing to show for it but a mountain of bogus treasury bonds.
Finally, they tried to stimulate inflation. But last year, the Consumer Price Index grew by only 0.7% and producer prices actually fell by one percent - ushering in a new era of deflation.
These issues beg the questions whether the governments of states can actually control what is happening to them in the world-economy, and whether they can control the discontent of the populace?
The Fed may have another weapon in its arsenal. They are now studying the implementation of Blockchain money based on the Bitcoin protocol.
The Central Banks' New Weapon – A Cashless Society
Cash is being phased out of the global economies. Sweden is almost a cashless economy. In France, Italy, and Spain, it is illegal to transact for more than €2,000 of cash. The €500 euro note is being phased out. India has also removed their two largest-denomination notes (the 500 and 1,000 rupee) from circulation.
One reason for going cashless is that depositors feel the banks cannot be trusted, and interest rates are zero or negative. It costs less to put cash reserves in a home safe.
Blockchain Money Will Replace Cash
In June 2016, Janet Yellen and dozens of other central bankers met with the top experts in the blockchain arena (including the people who are developing Bitcoin commercially) to discuss the implementation of a “Fedcoin.”
Project Jasper is Canada's version of Bitcoin. The Chinese have announced that they are also planning a blockchain type currency. They said that they want this to happen “as soon as possible.” The British have made a similar announcement.
Bitcoin is Seen as a Worldwide Solution to Currency Problems
Governments want to replace cash because a cash economy enables tax evasion, underground money transactions, drug activity, and terrorism.
Without cash, there is total transparency. If citizens have to use a government version of Bitcoin, the government has complete oversight. They know exactly what citizens are earning, buying, and selling.
Blockchain Defined
Blockchain currency is different from the digital money deposited in bank accounts in two ways:
1. Dollars are a liability of the bank. Blockchain currency differs because it is not a liability of a commercial bank. It is a direct liability of the central bank (such as the Federal Reserve).
2. Central banks prefer blockchain technology because, unlike cash, it is totally traceable. Also, Blockchain is much harder to hack than conventional digital technology. In addition, Blockchain circumvents the problems and costs of printing paper money and manufacturing metal coins.
The new Federal Bitcoin can use a fingerprint for identification, or it can be loaded onto smart cards, smart phones, or even on implanted chips.
Personal Freedom Issues
With cash, people can spend it on anything they please, and no one else knows. With blockchain, people can only spend their money with someone who has a receptive smart phone or chip, and the bank knows exactly who is getting the money and what it is being spent on. Blockchain currency can be programmed so that certain transactions are restricted, or transactions with certain people or businesses can be blocked.
For example, people could be denied the purchase of guns or ammunition.
The government Bitcoin will be hyped as a convenience, safer than cash, as a weapon to fight drug sales, to enforce underage liquor laws, and to fight crime and terrorism, but there will be unintended consequences. People will barter to get around using the government Bitcoin. Bartering will enable trading for something each party wants ranging from sexual favors to guns and food.
The food stamp program already has certain prohibited transactions. People cannot use food stamps to buy liquor or use their electronic debit cards in strip clubs or to gamble.
Cash is one of the few remaining options for financial privacy that doesn’t create a permanent record of every purchase or transaction you make.
There is hope that the Federal Bitcoin could lift the nation spiritually, morally, and ethically, but that is a dubious prospect in the near future.
Debt Default
Doug Casey, the founder of Casey Research, thinks that the world’s governments should mutually agree to default on their debt. While this proposal may sound outrageous at first glance, President Trump advocated the idea during his campaign.
Casey acknowledges that there would be many unpleasant domino-like effects on today’s over leveraged and unstable financial system. But, he suggests, when a structure is about to collapse, it is better to have a controlled demolition rather than waiting for it to collapse unpredictably.
That said, governments will undoubtedly keep propping up their economic sand castles pushing the consequences further into the future.
Letting Light into Life (An Aside)
In the advancing stages of world evolution, war becomes a matter of history, and there are no more armies or police forces. Government is gradually disappearing. Self-control is slowly rendering human laws obsolete.
Schools are vastly improved and are devoted to the training of mind and the expansion of soul.
The provisions for competitive play, humor, and other phases of personal and group achievement are extensive and appropriate. A special feature of the competitive activities on a highly cultured world concerns the efforts of individuals and groups to excel in the sciences and philosophies of cosmology.
Literature and oratory flourish, and language is so improved as to be symbolic of concepts as well as to be expressive of ideas.
Life is refreshingly simple. The pursuit of happiness is an experience of joy and satisfaction.
The Flight of Capital
Investment capital always flows away from danger and towards safety and growth.
As the economies of Europe and Japan collapse, rich people in those countries will seek some place to put their money where it will be safe and grow.
Reading history, the last time the K-Wave (the predictor of every major economic rise and fall in history) hit the global economy with the kind of force that is expected soon was in 1932 - the depth of the Great Depression.
While most people know about the crash of 1929, few remember that the period between 1932 and 1937 was one of the greatest bull markets ever. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 372%. This historical fact may again attract capital flight to the U.S.
The Flight of Capital from Europe
In 1932, Europe was in worse shape than the United States. Germany was bankrupt. France, Italy, and England were facing dire financial problems.
Yet there were many wealthy people in Europe; many of them sitting on family fortunes dating back hundreds of years. The wealthy Europeans needed a place to invest their money where it would be safe, secure, and have a chance to increase. They found it in the American stock market.
America was still a lender nation then, not a borrower. The U.S. Dollar was backed by gold. Our blue-chip companies like General Motors and General Electric were strong and growing. The American stock market was the safest place in the world to invest money.
To Europeans, who were worried about their failing economies, and frightened by the threat of war, Wall Street was a sanctuary.
Making History
Today there are few safe places for European or Japanese capital to go. The so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) offer a chance of growth, but there is apprehension about the security of those markets.
Even though the United States is now heavily in debt and on the brink of economic collapse, and the dollar is no longer backed by gold, the last shelter for safety, growth, and rule of law in the world may still be The United States.
One thing is certain however, the future will be unlike anything the world has ever seen.
The Placement of Flight Capital
Flight Capital will not go into U.S. Treasury bonds because there is no return there. And with $127 trillion dollars in national debt, there isn’t total safety either.
Some of the capital fleeing from Europe and Japan will go into gold, but there isn’t enough gold in the world to accomodate this massive influx of money.
Some capital flight will go into high-end American real estate, which is already happening. The skyscrapers in New York are filled with $100 million condos.
These apartments are a place of escape or refuge for frightened Europeans, Japanese, and other Asian billionaires, but liquidity is a problem in owning a luxury condo.
For now, Wall Street has the liquidity, the safety, and the return that Japanese and European investors need.
Multinational Corporations
Multinational corporations, both foreign and domestic, must protect their cash as well.
Apple alone has more than $147 billion parked in U.S. Treasury bonds. As the U.S. Treasury bonds get more risky and yield less and less income, Apple will be looking for places to put its capital in stocks or acquisitions.
Microsoft is sitting on $80 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Google has $58 billion. Verizon has $57 billion. Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, Pfizer, and dozens of others are in the same cash-rich predicament.
Today, the stock market is highly over-valued. U.S. stocks are priced as much as 27 times their earnings, which is far higher than the historic average of 16 times earnings. Still, some analysts predict that after shrinking to 13,900, the Dow could then double by 2020 spurred by the global and corporate capital flight.
The Effect of the EU Meltdown
The end of a unified Europe means the death of the euro and the return of individual currencies. That means the end of the world’s largest consumer bloc (some 600 million buyers in the European Union).
Multinational corporations all over the world will feel the impact, especially companies in Europe.
As individual currencies replace the euro, certain currencies (notably new German marks, Dutch guilders, French francs, and Austrian schillings) will rise sharply in value.
Most of the other European currencies will plunge, which means consumers across much of Europe will not be able to afford products produced in Europe’s leading economies. Companies in the leading economies will see sales tumble meaning recession or worse in those economies, which translates into a sharp slowdown for companies in the U.S., China and Japan.
The economies that drive the world will be slowing, potentially crashing.
Revolutions upset the status quo to usher in a new order.
Seeking Economic Stability in Gold
It is the opinion of many market experts that the traditional investment vehicles of stocks and bonds are in the areas of their all-time highs and may be due for a severe correction.
Many investors are seeking alternative investments seeking risk diversification away from stocks and bonds, currently at all-time highs. One alternative is gold.
The world's holdings of gold accumulated during all recorded history to the present is only about 120,000 metric tons.
The total world's holdings of gold could be transported on a single cargo ship. The value of the cargo increases or decreases depending upon the market demand.
[The first use of gold as money is ancient. It occurred around 700 B.C., when Lydian merchants produced the first gold coins.]
Islamic Law May Impact the Price of Gold
Very little of the Islamic banks revenues are held in gold because Islamic law bans certain immoral trades (such as alcohol or tobacco stocks). It also forbids the trading of certain commodities because they can be sold by weight and measure. The six items that are sold by weight and measure are gold, silver, dates, wheat, salt and barley.
Due to this legal anomaly, gold investments have been off-limits to Muslims. But that ruling is changing. The World Gold Council is working with the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (which sets the standards for Islamic financial law) to allow Muslims to trade in gold investments.
China Is Taking Control of Pricing Gold
Early in 2016, China created the Shanghai Gold Exchange. This new gold exchange could enable the Chinese to dominate the global gold market. Meanwhile, the Chinese have been buying gold at a brisk pace.
One report shows that China may own up to 30,000 tons of gold. If the estimate is accurate, China’s gold reserves are nearly double that of many other major countries combined.
As the top importer, producer, and consumer of gold, the Chinese validly believe they should set the price of gold, not the banks in London and New York, where for the last several decades, the Libor and Comex exchanges priced gold based on futures contracts.
The Chinese also want a more favorable price for their existing gold reserves, which is why they want to set the price based on the supply and demand of actual physical gold.
Only 1 in 252 paper gold contracts today is backed by actual gold bullion. This has artificially suppressed the price of gold.
Traders buying futures on the new Shanghai gold exchange are required to deposit the equivalent of physical gold. As a result, every trade on the Shanghai fix will be backed by actual physical bullion (1 to 1, not 252 to 1).
Facilitating Trade in the Chinese Yuan
The Chinese are opening yuan “clearing banks” in Middle Eastern countries. A clearing bank is a commercial bank that is part of a network of banks that can clear checks for its clients regardless of whether or not the check originates from the same commercial bank. The Chinese yuan clearing banks promote the growing use of Chinese money in large financial transactions and trading.
Recently, China opened a new yuan bank in Dubai (the financial hub of the Middle East). Muslims can now easily trade on Shanghai’s yuan-denominated gold exchange.
Despite their slowing economy, global economic issues suggest China may offer an increasingly safe refuge for capital flight.
At the higher level of the spiritual survival of mankind, China may replace America as the next leader to assimilate Earth's races.
Peak Gold
There is another side to the equation of Chinese physical gold-back trades versus paper-backed trades - the supply side. Will there be enough gold to meet global demands?
This concept is reminiscent of the theory of peak oil. The idea was that at some point the easy-to-get oil would be gone. Extraction would get too expensive, and production would decline. This concern can be applied to all finite resources, including gold as the production of gold is shrinking as demand is soaring.
Goldman Sachs has warned that there are only 20 years of known mine-able gold reserves. This is because the costs of mining exploration have increased 10-fold, while new discoveries have diminished. Exploration has plummeted in recent years, because the cost isn’t justified.
The timing is understandable because the gold market operates in 20-year cycles. It often takes 20 years to recover the first ounce of gold from a new discovery.
While the supply of gold is shrinking, the probability of a weakening U.S. dollar, record unemployment globally, and a dangerously over-priced stock market are creating an unprecedented demand for gold.
[The problems of materialism are luring mankind into ever-deeper depths as humanity unknowingly seeks the peace of brotherhood.]
The Technology Revolution and Unemployment
The present Technology Revolution will take a high toll on employment just as the Industrial Revolution did in 1860.
A study from Citi and Oxford University says that in the very near future, nearly six of every 10 jobs in the developed-world economies will require no human activity.
The World Economic Forum predicts that in less than four years, at least 5 million developed-world jobs will vanish forever because robots automated them out of existence.
Forrester Research estimates that 12 million American office workers in the white-collar sectors (13% of today’s total U.S. workforce) will be jobless by 2025.
This is a fundamental crisis for modern capitalism and for Western politicians, regardless of their party’s platform.
An Example of the Robot Technology Effect
Twelve percent of America's population is employed driving vehicles. Self-driving vehicles are a serious risk to their jobs.
Over 1 million people are employed as taxi drivers, chauffeurs, or drivers of some description. Over 1.4 million operate delivery trucks. Almost 3.5 million are long-haul drivers. This equates to over 5.9 million workers who depend on this industry to pay their bills.
Auto factories will also feel the unemployment impact of self-driving cars. PriceWaterhouse predicts a collapse of vehicle sales with a reduction from over 245 million vehicles on the road now to just 2.4 million.
It will be much easier and more cost-efficient for people to travel without the costs of vehicle ownership such as purchase, insurance and maintenance, which will affect employment in those sectors as well.
In total, the self-driving vehicle technology will put about 10,000,000 people out of work.
The Crisis of Meaningful Personal Existence
People need work to afford meaningful life experiences. Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence do not allow for that need. Robots eliminate jobs with no concern for human consequences.
Politicians must heed their constituent's employment status not just their financial subsistence, or they will face increasing civil violence.
Some of the proposed solutions are:
1. Limit the number of jobs technology can replace by forbidding companies from implementing certain types of technology. (That has never worked before.)
2. Pay every American a “universal income,” a basic monthly stipend to live on. That might work temporarily, but it raises much bigger challenges such as how the government will pay for this when there are fewer consumer and business taxes. And how will people living on a universal income afford satisfying learning experiences?
3. The government can tax the technology corporations to pay the cost of a universal income, but there is a catch in this approach. If the only income people have is a universal income, they can’t afford much in the way of new consumer goods, which limits the income of the tech companies, which limits the taxes they pay to fund the universal basic income.
4. The government could get rid of money and replace it with some other means of commerce such as nationalizing (or globalizing) the private ownership of the earth's resources. While this is possible, it is socially, politically and structurally disruptive in the immediate future.
None of the proposed solutions enhances the life experiences of people.
Protection against the Technology Upheaval
Technological changes are coming at warp speed. What can mankind do to cope with the loss of jobs caused by the new technologies?
Taxation must go much higher. Lawmakers will grapple with raising the highest income-tax rates on individuals and businesses. Capital-gains rates need to double or triple and most deductions will be eliminated.
Eventually, we will very likely reach the point where there is no longer a tax form to fill out and no IRS. All money will be electronic, and the government will simply deduct its share from every bit of income that flows into every tax payer's life.
Individuals will increasingly have to rely on each other and help one another to survive the economic storm.
War - The Economic Imperative
Foreign war, if you ignore the cost of lives, is probably the best business prospect for the United States.
War helped turn World Wars I and II into cash machines that spurred economic and industrial growth, leading to two golden eras for American society in the 1920's and 50's.
Of course, using war to fix our current economic state of affairs is precarious, immoral, and expedient.
Still, the United States is $20 trillion in debt. More than half of the $20 trillion debt was incurred during the Obama administration paying entitlements, making the President Trump's budget problems daunting.
As hot-spots around the world, including traditional favorites like the Middle East and Eastern Europe, grow hotter, the time-tested economic solution of war is going to look more and more attractive to a new administration that has inherited the biggest mountain of debt ever.
Consequently, it is likely that there will be a major armed conflict in the next four to eight years (such as the fabricated Iraq War, which provided huge profit and employment for the oil, arms and reconstruction industries).
Public spending like Franklin Roosevelt's infrastructure public works projects simply can not solve the enormous economic problems of the United States.
In the new war the U.S., Russia, and China will sit on the sidelines while orchestrating and supplying the arsenals.
War, technological change, migration, civil unrest, broken governments, economic collapse, and even national bankruptcies may be the tripwires leading to morality, more efficient governments and spirituality in the world.
China's Yuan Now a World Currency
The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Executive Board has included China's yuan, or renminbi as it's also known, in an exclusive group of currencies that make up the basket of the IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDR).
The yuan will be officially recognized as a reserve currency, in a reflection of the changing dynamic of the world's economy.
Central banks use their reserves of foreign currencies to buy their own currency or pay international debts. The inclusion of the yuan means central banks who tend to hold their foreign exchange reserves in dollars or euros will have an alternative. For many emerging markets, trade linkages with China are already strong and now their yuan reserves could feed this relationship.
Demise of the Dollar
The International Money Fund (IMF) has 189 member countries. And many of these countries want to move away from the main thing that has made the American empire so powerful for the last 70 years.
That main thing is the current world wide dependence on the U.S. Dollar. Presently, the dollar is used for just about every large-scale transaction between nations.
But, dollar reserves now come with baggage - namely, the $19 trillion debt of the United States.
Eventually, the IMF may print its own currency. Member countries look at the IMF as a haven. The IMF has no wars or roads to pay for, no welfare recipients, and no social security checks to write, and nothing close to America's level of debt. For the rest of the world, the IMF has the last clean balance sheet.
With centralized money, a centralized market, and a potential centralized government, many countries feel that the IMF, not the United States, should hold the strings to the world's purse.
For now, however, the inclusion of the Chinese yuan as an additional currency for world trade is probably enough to dethrone the dollar for trade transactions. The trigger for this event is January 1st, 2017.
The Justification for the Chinese Currency
Up until now, only the United States among the IMF's 189 member countries has had enough power to veto a vote against the dollar. The way the IMF works is that each country gets a certain percentage of voting weight based broadly on its relative position in the world economy. The U.S. is the only country with an IMF voting percentage over 15%. And 15% is the amount of voting power required to veto any IMF proposal.
However, beginning in 2017, the IMF quotas are set to "re-balance.” They're going to re-balance away from U.S. interests such as keeping the dollar as the world's #1 reserve currency.
The "BRICS" countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) banded together, and in 2017, their coalition will have IMF veto power.
The U.S. is now producing just 25% of the wealth in the world each year. Meanwhile, the BRICS have soared in size, with a combined economic might that is bigger than that of the European Union, and nearly equal to the U.S.
The BRICS Are Coming
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) now possess 22.4% of the world Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And they have 14.9% of the vote in world financial decisions. They only require .1% more to get veto power. (It is likely they will get 16% or 17%.)
At a recent G-20 meeting, Vladimir Putin said, "[We're] a step away from 15% blocking threshold. Without a doubt, we have to move forward to carry out an IMF reform...."
Putin's “move forward” will trigger in 2017.
The BRICS are so opposed to United States control that they launched their $100 billion "BRICS New Development Bank" in July 2015. To avoid U.S. wiretaps the BRICS launched a plan to build their own undersea Internet cable network in September 2013. And the BRICS group had a mini-summit of their own to figure out how to force the vote reformat at a recent G-20 meeting.
Comeuppance
Both enemies and close U.S. allies have just formed a 57-nation trade "alliance." Their purpose is to dethrone America as the world's financial controller.
Singapore, Australia, China, Austria, New Zealand, South Korea, Pakistan, India, and Israel, are a few of the members of this 57-nation alliance.
The 57 nations represent 62% of the global economy. That's 3 times the economic power of the United States.
More countries are lined up to join the alliance. Twenty-seven are scheduled to be ratified. The new alliances will accommodate trade without using the U.S. Dollar.
The U.S. Can only blame itself for the world's loss of confidence in the dollar, due to the financial recklessness of the United States.
Goodbye Dollar Power
Major foreign economies, including China, Japan, Russia, and others (including Canada), have already sealed bilateral trade agreements to do business in currencies other than the U.S. dollar.
They have taken these steps because they see and understand the slipping condition of the U.S. economy, and they have no interest in sharing in any eventual collapse of the dollar.
Once the dollar is largely supplanted in trade deals by the new reserve currency - the Chinese yuan, which, unlike our dollar, has a very strong gold backing - the last domino in this procession will fall.
History of Dollar's Demise
U.S. President Lyndon Johnson began the devaluation of U.S. currency in 1965 when he ordered silver removed from U.S. coinage.
Because of the fiscal strain of federal expenditures for the Vietnam War and the persistent balance of payments deficits, President Richard Nixon ended international convertibility of the U.S. dollar to gold in 1971.
However, the U.S. dollar gained world dominance when former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger arranged with Saudi Arabia to accept only dollars for its oil sales in exchange for U.S. Military protection in 1973.
Paper Dollar Value Decline
The U.S. government can mandate that trillions of dollars can be printed and distributed to whomever it favors.
President George H. W. Bush began the practice of bailing out corporations in 1989. Since their deposits were insured by the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), Saving and Loans (S&Ls) confidently engaged in very risky activities such as commercial real estate lending and investing in junk bonds. In rescuing insolvent S&L's, the FSLIC itself became insolvent, and the government spent over $124 billion in taxpayer dollars to end the money crisis.
Another example of the government's rescue of corporate entities was the government orchestrated bailout of Wall Street in 2008: $400 billion bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; $280 billion saved Citigroup; and $142 billion rescued Bank of America.
There was no special income tax assessed to save these firms from bankruptcy. Instead, Congress asked the Federal Reserve to print fiat cash to cover the debts of the banks, thereby protecting the public from the knowledge of the bankers' behavior in selling worthless mortgages as derivatives. [Derivatives are complex contracts that one financial institution owes another who sells it on to another institution who resells it. If one of these institutions can't make a payment, the daisy chain breaks.]
It seems unimaginable that the dollar could lose value. But, the loss is subtle, a stealthier loss through dollar devaluation. Consumers lose purchasing power in the form of inflated prices as the value of the dollar cheapens. Any loss in the purchasing power of the dollar is the same as a cut in wages for workers.
Regarding fiat paper money, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chairman, wrote: "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation."
Fiat Money
Fiat money is currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, but it is not backed by a physical commodity. The value of fiat money is derived from the relationship between supply and demand rather than the value of the material (the paper or cheap metals) that the money is made of. Historically, most currencies were based on physical commodities such as gold or silver, but fiat money is based solely on faith in the government and the credit of the economy.
Because fiat money is not linked to physical reserves, it risks becoming worthless due to hyperinflation. If people lose faith in a nation's currency, the money will no longer hold any value. This differs from gold, which because of its rarity, is used as a storehouse of value, as well as in jewelry and in manufacturing.
In addition to currency only having “paper” value, the Fractional Reserve System requires commercial banks to keep only a fraction of its bank deposits in actual cash on hand available for withdrawal.
[Effective March 16, 1967, the reserve requirement of all member banks against savings deposits and the first $5 million of time deposits was reduced to 3 percent. The reserve is kept in another bank.]
Impact of the New World Currencies
The effects of the switch away from the dollar as the dominant world currency could be dramatic.
The world stock markets could fall precipitously - faster even than in 2008 - as governments and Wall Street scramble to adjust to the new global currency that will replace the dollar.
An event like the replacement of the dollar for world trade could impact Americans' savings accounts, and raise the prices that Americans pay for everything.
America's global borrowing credibility could be severely damaged.
U.S. negotiators will lose their leverage in trade pact negotiations.
U.S. tax rates may soar as Washington loses its sway at global Treasury auctions, and strives to find other sources of credit or new taxes.
The switch away from the dollar will likely slash government social programs such as Social Security and Medicare and cut spending on infrastructure such as highways.
Other countries, especially China, have been prepping for this currency power shift for years. Much of the staggering U.S. debt is owed to the Chinese. This fact gives China significant leverage over American policy in forcing a global power transference.
Predicting Economic Collapse
An economic collapse and resultant civil unrest are predictable because we now have information that didn’t exist before. The Information Revolution has provided a huge field of demographic data.
Studies of four cycles (the Generational Spending Wave Cycle, the 34 Year Geopolitical Cycle, the 45 Year Innovation Cycle and the 10 Year Boom & Bust Cycle) are all presently reading negative. All these cyclical charts reading negative has happened only twice - during the mid-1970s (the last great financial inflation crisis), and in the early 30s, during the greatest deflationary depression crisis in U.S. History.
The Geopolitical Cycle
A cycle can predict geopolitical events, like the incidents happening now, because of the the different time spans - long like revolutions (the powerful 250-year cycle), or short such as the Geopolitical Cycle that covers only about 35 years, which is more predictive.
The Geopolitical Cycle from 2001 forward reflects the 9/11 attack, rising terrorism, two major failed wars that totally disrupted the Middle East, and one civil war after another around the world (such as the Arab Spring). Meanwhile, in America, there are more police shootings, racial discrimination accusations, and protests.
In the Geopolitical Cycle, as stock valuations begin to spiral lower and unemployment rises, civil unrest tends higher. Going deeper into a financial downturn threatens everything people own. The civil unrest we’ve already seen will likely intensify for the next three to four years.
History to Prophecy
The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny William Strauss and Neil Howe.
The Strauss–Howe generational theory, created by authors William Strauss and Neil Howe, identifies a recurring generational cycle in American history. Strauss and Howe laid the groundwork for the theory in their 1991 book Generations, which retells the history of America as a series of generational biographies. In their 1997 book, The Fourth Turning, the authors expanded the theory to focus on a fourfold cycle of generational types and recurring “mood eras” in American history.
Strauss and Howe vaulted from history to prophecy. After researching the historical patterns, the authors are predicting that America is on the verge of crisis.
They believe we are headed toward "events on a par with the Revolution, the Civil War, or World War II in the next 20 years.
The Repetition of Generational Trends
The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny William Strauss and Neil Howe.
The theory Strauss and Howe developed describes the history of the United States, including the 13 colonies and their British antecedents.
The basic length of both generations and “turnings” - about twenty years - derives from longstanding socially and biologically determined phases of life. This is the reason the pattern has remained relatively constant over centuries.
As long as the transition to adulthood occurs around age 20, the transition to midlife around age 40, and the transition to old age around age 60 with an overall lifetime of 80 years, the basic length of both generations and turnings will remain the same.
In their book, The Fourth Turning, Strauss and Howe emphasize that the precise boundaries of generations and turnings are erratic. The generational rhythm is not like certain simple, inorganic cycles in physics or astronomy, where time and periodicity can be predicted to the second. Instead, the boundaries resemble the complex, organic cycles of biology, where basic intervals endure but precise timing is difficult to predict. Strauss and Howe compare the 80 year rhythm to the four seasons, which inevitably occur in the same order, but with slightly varying timing. Just as winter may come sooner or later, and be more or less severe in any given year, the same is true of a Fourth Turning (four generational cycles).
America's Current Position in the 80 Year Turning
The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny William Strauss and Neil Howe.
According to Strauss and Howe, there are many potential threats that could feed a growing sense of public urgency as the Fourth Turning progresses, including financial collapse, a protracted war on terror, a crisis of weapons proliferation, an environmental crisis, an energy shortage, or new civil wars.
The generational cycle cannot explain the role or timing of these individual threats. Nor can it account for the great events of history, like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Kennedy’s assassination, or 9/11.
What the generational cycle can do, however, is explain how society is likely to respond to these events in different eras. It is the response, not the initial event, that defines an era.
Publications of Storming Heaven's Gate are available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions. The price covers only Amazon production costs.
https://www.amazon.com/Storming-Heavens-Gate-Finding-Book-ebook/dp/B06XJWRRMS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1489522411&sr=8-2&keywords=storming+heaven%27s+gate
Disclaimer
Part One of “Storming Heaven's Gate” voices the opinions of people who study the linkages between social, political, and financial global events.
The theme of this book is not primarily economic issues, which are of major consideration. Rather, the book is about individual soul survival and the spiritual survival of mankind. So, the problems of materialism must be resolved.
The Most Highs, “who rule in the lives of men,” have no nation favorites. Their interest is in the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and this must be the concern of men and their governments as well.
The intent of Part One is to identify the reasons and the mindsets that create problems in the global economy. Part Two will study the plan of the Most Highs on planet Earth, which will accomplish the higher pursuit of globalization and brotherhood.
Contemporary Man's Resistance to Cosmically Planned Evolutionary Events
Migrant Problems
Millions of Middle Eastern migrants have descended upon Europe. It is a sociological-economic crisis with far-reaching consequences for the world.
Some day, open borders will allow opportunity seekers from anywhere to move anywhere they choose. Today however, there are two critically important caveats:
1) There can be no welfare or free government services, so everyone has to pay his own way.
2) All property must be privately owned to minimize the possibility of squatter camps.
Without the attractiveness of welfare benefits, immigrants are usually the best of people because you get mobile, aggressive, opportunity-seeking people who want to leave a dead or threatening culture for a vibrant new one. The millions of immigrants who came to the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were eligible for homesteads, but they received no state support.
The Attraction of Europe for Present Day Immigrants
The migrants coming to Europe today are not being attracted by opportunity in the new land so much as the welfare benefits. For the most part, they are unskilled and poorly educated.
What is taking place is a migration of millions of people speaking different languages, different races, different religions, different cultures, and different modes of living who lack job skills.
If you are a foreigner in a country, and you are 1 out of 100, you are an interesting outsider. But an influx of millions of foreign migrants is only going to destroy the existing culture and guarantee antagonism - especially when the nationals have to support you.
Rhyming With History
There are interesting historical parallels between the ISIS uprising in the Middle East today, the Civil War in Syria, and the migrants from the East flooding into Europe. This action echoes the encroachment upon the Roman Empire by the Barbarians approximately 2000 years ago.
The Huns forced barbarian tribes to flee west, which resulted in some Germanic tribes being pushed into the Roman Empire. When the Romans did not provide food for the tribes that immigrated there, the Barbarians began rioting.
[The Huns were a nomadic and warlike Asian people who devastated or controlled large parts of eastern and central Europe. Their leader, Attila the Hun, circa 406–453 A.D., introduced the warhorse. He and his army rode across the Middle East and Europe overwhelming their opposition.]
While the Barbarians, driven out of their homelands by Attila, played a significant role in the Roman Empire falling, there were also other factors that reflect today's problems in Europe. The other factors causing the collapse of the Roman Empire included a failing economy (mirrored by the current huge Deutsche Bank losses, and the economic collapse of Greece), a splitting of the empire (Brexit), and high taxes in ancient Rome just like in Europe today. In addition, the Romans were intolerant of the new Christian religion in the Roman Empire (which echoes the non-acceptance of the Muslim religion and culture in Europe).
Peaceful Invasion
Whenever there’s an influx of “foreigners” entering a country to the degree that it changes the demographics or upsets the local economy, it will cause problems.
For example, in Zimbabwe the numbers of migrating Chinese have grown so greatly and so quickly that there are now numerous Chinese mini-cities within Zimbabwe.
Many people in Zimbabwe object to their Chinese guests and the dumping of cheap Chinese products into the country, which is upsetting the local economy.
Apparently, the Chinese plan to migrate about 300 million Chinese to Africa in the future. They’re employed in building infrastructure such as roads, mines, and railroads. This planned migration could foster racial conflicts.
Dictates of the European Bureaucracy
The European Union (EU) in Brussels generates regulations that have reduced the standard of living of average Europeans.
The regulations prescribe migrant issues. The EU has a quota system that distributes migrants across the union. Not all EU countries agree with their decisions.
For example, Hungary doesn’t want any migrants. The EU government in Brussels says Hungary is obligated to take its “fair share” of migrants.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated recently that: “Hungary does not need a single migrant for the economy to work, or the population to sustain itself, or for the country to have a future….This is why there is no need for a common European migration policy - whoever needs migrants can take them, but don’t force them on us, we don’t need them.”
The EU administrators have called for Hungary to be expelled from the EU.
Clearly, the migrant issue is fueling resentment towards the EU. It was a major factor in the Brexit vote, and the influx of migrants has also fostered the growth of anti-EU political parties.
A Self Inflicted Wound
The European Union is in a huge predicament regarding the migrant problem. The European administrators are globalists who promote policies that force the whole continent to pay for their beliefs.
All Western European governments are massive welfare states that provide free food, housing, medical care, schooling, and living expenses for citizens as well as for residents who aren’t citizens. Such benefits naturally attract poor people from poor countries.
Millions of Africans want to immigrate. Many feel entitled especially those who were colonies of the Europeans.
Effect of Military Intervention on Migration
The attraction of the welfare state plays a major role in the European migration crisis, but it is also obvious that military interventions are a factor.
The Europeans have supported U.S. military interventions in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.
Before his overthrow by NATO, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had an agreement with Italy across the Mediterranean Sea.
Gaddafi agreed to prevent African migrants heading for Europe from using Libya’s 1,100 miles of coastline as a transit point. It arrangement worked, but ended when NATO helped overthrow the Gaddafi government in 2011, opening the migrant floodgates from Africa.
If the influx of migrants through Libya is not stopped, it may soon swell to include millions more from Africa, and then millions more from Central Asia, India, and Bangladesh.
Charitable Duty
Some say, a charitable debt is owed to the migrants flowing into Europe. The world cannot let them starve because they have had some bad luck. The opposition's response is an individual, or a family, can have some bad luck. But the places these people come from have had bad luck for centuries. Their bad luck is the consequence of their political, economic, and social systems.
Further, some economists and think tanks say accepting migrants will stimulate the economy.
Rather than stimulating the economy, the think tank migration policies are creating chaos.
Predictive Analytics
Human beings behave in patterns that are predictable and resemble waves or cycles. The man who made this discovery was Nikolai Kondratieff. He wrote a book called “The Long Waves in Economic Life.”
The book contained an idea so threatening to the communistic government in the Soviet Union that Stalin sentenced him to ten years of hard labor in Siberia. Later, he was executed because he predicted communism would fail and be replaced by capitalism.
Kondratieff predicted capitalism would replace communism because he discerned that everything in the universe moves in waves. Sound and light move in waves. He theorized that human economies move in the same way.
Economic Waves Predict Stock Market Moves
Kondratieff proved that economies act just like waves in the physical world. Like radio waves, they have phases, amplitudes, and frequencies.
What’s more, economic waves come in cycles that make changes in the economy easy to predict like the phases of the moon, the rise and fall of the tides, and the changing of the seasons.
Kondratieff's “Long Wave” was later named “The K-Wave” in his honor. The K-Wave shows the changing cycles of private and public forces in the economy. According to Kondratieff, the K-Wave has a frequency of 47 to 64 years. History shows the accuracy of the K-Wave.
In charting from crest to crest, one can see the dawn of the industrial revolution, the golden age of railroads and steel, the onset of electrical and chemical engineering, the age of the automobile and oil, and, most recently, the information age which peaked with the rise of Internet stocks in 2000.
One can also observe the troughs of those waves in the panic of 1819; the “Long Depression” of 1873; the “Great Depression” that began in 1929; and the stock market crash of 1973.
Predictions of Economic Transformations
As a nation, America is on the brink of a devastating, irreversible economic collapse that will fuel a depression and create unprecedented civil unrest.
Most Americans don’t understand that all the policies, the free money, the zero interest rates, and negative interest rates, have only masked the underlying problems.
We are in extreme times because the economy had a natural bubble that occurs in the autumn of a bubble boom season. This has happened throughout time – about once in the span of each human lifetime.
Europe Faces Economic Collapse
Europeans owe more than every man, woman and child in Europe can earn. The people of Spain, for example, would have to give all of their annual income in taxes just for the government to break even.
Cyprus owes 8% more than their gross domestic product (GDP). Portugal owes 30% more. Italy 32%. Greece owes 79% more money going out every year than every man, woman and child in Greece can earn.
World Bank chief economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz warns that Italy could be the cataclysmic event that leads to the fall of the EU.
Critical Event #1: BREXIT (Britain exited from the European Union, June 23, 2016.)
Critical Event #2: The total collapse of the European Union, date not yet known.
The Crisis of Governments
The existing governmental institutions were built for a world that is rapidly dissolving. Their systems no longer serve. They are too expensive. When people are living frugally, government looks too expensive. Consequently, there is an increasing disconnect between citizens' lives and their governance.
The situation is not tenable. While governments are powerful, they cannot bend reality.
An analogy for the obsolescence of current governments may be seen in the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states. Evidence of the end of the Soviet Union became obvious in 1989 with the revolution in Poland that continued in Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. When the Berlin wall was torn down, the Soviet Union itself dissolved as 14 countries declared independence.
Just like the Brexit and Trump votes, government leaders did not anticipate the Soviet collapse.
There was a seismic shift on the planet.
The Evaporation of Wealth in America
America's prosperity may be wiped out in America within two to three years, just like in 1930 to ’32.
Many businesses could go bankrupt unable to meet repayment of their low interest loans.
The middle class that got financially drained in the last few years with lower wages, will get depleted even more. The difference this time is that even the top 1%, who own most of the financial assets, are going to lose the most when the bubbles in stocks, real estate, and commodities burst.
As the economy shrivels, unemployment rises. Everyone's job, house, and net worth will be sapped.
Bleak Scenario
The coming economic crisis could start in the global bond markets as foreign investors start dumping their vulnerable low interest paying U.S. Treasury bills. The Federal Reserve will counter by raising interest rates. However, because of their dubious security of the bonds, even though interest rates rise, the bond values will drop.
The bond investments made by domestic pension funds (that millions of retirees depend on for income) including private pensions, and guaranteed annuities will vanish.
With no financial reserves and no buyers to extend credit, the government will have no choice but to begin laying off many of its 2.7 million federal employees.
Lacking any alternative, the government will be forced to reduce or stop sending out Social Security checks. There will be insufficient money for Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps, welfare checks, or disability payments.
Banks and businesses will close.
There will be no cash in the ATM machines; limited gas at the service stations; and depleted grocery shelves.
At that point, the American people will take to the streets in protest, hunger, anger, and fear.
Crime victims will get a busy signal when they dial 911.
End Result of Economic Collapse
The effect of an economic collapse is civil unrest. Even now, there is more turbulence and unrest than we have ever seen.
Democracies are being destroyed as central banks take over the capitalistic free market system (with quantitative easing, and market controls). Lobbyists and super-PAC billionaire groups are dominating demography to steer elections and political policies.
Conditions could evolve for another American revolution. Cyclically, revolutions normally occur in a 250-year cycle, so the timing is auspicious. The American Revolution in 1775 saw the birth of democracy.
The Industrial Revolution (1760 to 1840) ushered in free market capitalism. The American Revolution and the Industrial Revolution combined represent two opposing principles that surprisingly have worked in parallel since the late 1700s to increase national wealth and income more than all of history put together.
In the coming decade, there will be some long-term political reforms and changes that are going to be very good for the country, but in the immediate future, there will be political polarization and civil unrest.
Finding the Light in Life
The advanced stages of worlds settled in Light and Life represent the acme of evolutionary material development. On these cultured worlds, the frictions of the earlier primitive ages are gone. Poverty and social inequality have all but vanished, degeneracy has disappeared, and delinquency is rarely observed. Insanity has practically ceased to exist, and feeble-mindedness is a rarity.
The economic, social, and administrative status of these worlds is of a high and perfected order. Science, art, and industry flourish, and society is a smoothly working mechanism of high material, intellectual, and cultural achievement. Industry has been largely diverted to serving the higher aims of such a superb civilization.
The economic life of such a world has become ethical.
Predicting the Sequence of Economic Collapse
Attaining globalism is a painful process, but it is ultimately what the world needs. The structure of nations must be broken apart and rebuilt as states subordinated to a global government.
It appears that the European Union will break apart first. When it does, the euro will collapse. This will be an economic earthquake that will send shock waves through the global economy.
Following the European tremors, the first place the ensuing tsunami wave will hit is Japan because after the United States and China, Europe is Japan’s biggest trading partner.
When Japan exports cars, cameras, and computers to Europe, they must get paid for them. If they don’t get paid - or if they get paid in worthless euros - the fault lines in Japan’s own economy will crack open because while Japan seems like a rich country, it is actually teetering on collapse.
The national debt in Japan is worse than any country in Europe. Japan’s debt is more than 2.5 times its entire economy. And, the Japanese keep adding to their debt at a rate of 96 trillion a year.
While the Japanese have a strong manufacturing base and a healthy trade balance, when the euro falls, it will probably take the yen with it.
And the Japanese economy will fall.
Japan’s Worst Problem - Deflation
Their national debt isn’t Japan’s biggest problem. Knowing their debt is not sustainable, the Japanese also know their pension plans and social security checks are at risk. So, they have been hording money.
As a result, consumer prices are dropping precipitously. When the Japanese consumers know the price of a car will be lower next year than it is today, they save their money and wait until next year. This type of deflationary cycle turns a recession into a depression.
The Japanese have suffered four successive recessions since 2008. Essentially, Japan is in a depression now. It is likely they will ever be able to get out of debt.
Worse than Japan
Ironically, the United States is in worse financial shape than Japan; worse than the European Union; and worse even than Greece.
The United States will be amongst the last places the economic tsunami wave hits. But because it is the world’s biggest economy, it will suffer the most. Politicians argue that America’s debt is “only” $19 trillion dollars. That is just the sovereign debt. It does not include state, local, corporate, and individual debt.
But when you add all of the money the government owes to veterans, Baby Boomer retirees, Medicare and Medicaid recipients, and all the budget items called “unfunded liabilities,” the national debt is closer to $127 trillion dollars.
Only China may be in more of a credit bubble than the United States.
A wash in Debt
Never in the history of the world, have central banks created so much sovereign debt out of their “faith and thin air” paper currency.
The profligacy of fiat money printing has generated an enormous global debt bubble.
This debt bubble was formed by holding interest rates too low, for too long. In the United States, the bubble of private debt was created by giving risky loans to companies, to students, and to auto buyers in record amounts at prices that won't come close to covering the unavoidable losses.
Presently, default rates are soaring, and huge losses have begun to mount. The consequences will soon cause a record number of bankruptcies. (Bankruptcies and defaults have already broken through levels not seen since 2009.) It only took 10% of mortgages defaulting to trigger the financial crisis of 2008-09. Today, the problem is bigger and in a much larger market.
Even considering only private debts, the numbers are still staggering. There are approximately $1 trillion in student loans and $1 trillion in auto loans at risk. The U.S. corporate bond market is over $11 trillion, with nearly $2 trillion of "junk" bonds. (The corporate bond markets around the world have soared as well, reaching 17 trillion in corporate debt in other countries.)
Never has so much money been loaned to so many borrowers, at such low interest rates.
Corporate debt in America equals approximately 45% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). Every time that level has been reached in recent history, there has been a spectacular crash.
Even the fiscal status of several financial firms in America are problematic. Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley have lost their "A" rating at S&P and Moody's (two of the premier ratings agencies). If Morgan Stanley were downgraded one more notch it would immediately have to post $1.2 billion to remain open.
Managing America's National Debt
Vice President Dick Cheney once remarked that “deficits don’t matter” as he defended the spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. When he said it, he was more or less correct because the country was growing faster than the debt. Later, it turned out that deficits did matter, when the spending on everything else in addition to defense spending soared.
Soon, payments on America's national debt will become the third largest item in the federal budget.
In fiscal 2016, America's national budget showed that interest on the debt was about $250 billion. At that rate annual interest payments will grow to over $800 billion (more than tripling) in less than 10 years.
One wonders if the Federal Reserve Bank can resolve the national debt problem...
They have tried by lowering interest rates. Since 2007, the Fed Funds rate has dropped from 5.5% to just 0.26%. That’s a 95% reduction, but it hasn't help.
They tried pumping newly printed fiat money into the banking system in exchange for bonds and securities. In 2007, the Fed’s balance sheet was just $890 billion. Now it is $4.5 trillion, and they have nothing to show for it but a mountain of bogus treasury bonds.
Finally, they tried to stimulate inflation. But last year, the Consumer Price Index grew by only 0.7% and producer prices actually fell by one percent - ushering in a new era of deflation.
These issues beg the questions whether the governments of states can actually control what is happening to them in the world-economy, and whether they can control the discontent of the populace?
The Fed may have another weapon in its arsenal. They are now studying the implementation of Blockchain money based on the Bitcoin protocol.
The Central Banks' New Weapon – A Cashless Society
Cash is being phased out of the global economies. Sweden is almost a cashless economy. In France, Italy, and Spain, it is illegal to transact for more than €2,000 of cash. The €500 euro note is being phased out. India has also removed their two largest-denomination notes (the 500 and 1,000 rupee) from circulation.
One reason for going cashless is that depositors feel the banks cannot be trusted, and interest rates are zero or negative. It costs less to put cash reserves in a home safe.
Blockchain Money Will Replace Cash
In June 2016, Janet Yellen and dozens of other central bankers met with the top experts in the blockchain arena (including the people who are developing Bitcoin commercially) to discuss the implementation of a “Fedcoin.”
Project Jasper is Canada's version of Bitcoin. The Chinese have announced that they are also planning a blockchain type currency. They said that they want this to happen “as soon as possible.” The British have made a similar announcement.
Bitcoin is Seen as a Worldwide Solution to Currency Problems
Governments want to replace cash because a cash economy enables tax evasion, underground money transactions, drug activity, and terrorism.
Without cash, there is total transparency. If citizens have to use a government version of Bitcoin, the government has complete oversight. They know exactly what citizens are earning, buying, and selling.
Blockchain Defined
Blockchain currency is different from the digital money deposited in bank accounts in two ways:
1. Dollars are a liability of the bank. Blockchain currency differs because it is not a liability of a commercial bank. It is a direct liability of the central bank (such as the Federal Reserve).
2. Central banks prefer blockchain technology because, unlike cash, it is totally traceable. Also, Blockchain is much harder to hack than conventional digital technology. In addition, Blockchain circumvents the problems and costs of printing paper money and manufacturing metal coins.
The new Federal Bitcoin can use a fingerprint for identification, or it can be loaded onto smart cards, smart phones, or even on implanted chips.
Personal Freedom Issues
With cash, people can spend it on anything they please, and no one else knows. With blockchain, people can only spend their money with someone who has a receptive smart phone or chip, and the bank knows exactly who is getting the money and what it is being spent on. Blockchain currency can be programmed so that certain transactions are restricted, or transactions with certain people or businesses can be blocked.
For example, people could be denied the purchase of guns or ammunition.
The government Bitcoin will be hyped as a convenience, safer than cash, as a weapon to fight drug sales, to enforce underage liquor laws, and to fight crime and terrorism, but there will be unintended consequences. People will barter to get around using the government Bitcoin. Bartering will enable trading for something each party wants ranging from sexual favors to guns and food.
The food stamp program already has certain prohibited transactions. People cannot use food stamps to buy liquor or use their electronic debit cards in strip clubs or to gamble.
Cash is one of the few remaining options for financial privacy that doesn’t create a permanent record of every purchase or transaction you make.
There is hope that the Federal Bitcoin could lift the nation spiritually, morally, and ethically, but that is a dubious prospect in the near future.
Debt Default
Doug Casey, the founder of Casey Research, thinks that the world’s governments should mutually agree to default on their debt. While this proposal may sound outrageous at first glance, President Trump advocated the idea during his campaign.
Casey acknowledges that there would be many unpleasant domino-like effects on today’s over leveraged and unstable financial system. But, he suggests, when a structure is about to collapse, it is better to have a controlled demolition rather than waiting for it to collapse unpredictably.
That said, governments will undoubtedly keep propping up their economic sand castles pushing the consequences further into the future.
Letting Light into Life (An Aside)
In the advancing stages of world evolution, war becomes a matter of history, and there are no more armies or police forces. Government is gradually disappearing. Self-control is slowly rendering human laws obsolete.
Schools are vastly improved and are devoted to the training of mind and the expansion of soul.
The provisions for competitive play, humor, and other phases of personal and group achievement are extensive and appropriate. A special feature of the competitive activities on a highly cultured world concerns the efforts of individuals and groups to excel in the sciences and philosophies of cosmology.
Literature and oratory flourish, and language is so improved as to be symbolic of concepts as well as to be expressive of ideas.
Life is refreshingly simple. The pursuit of happiness is an experience of joy and satisfaction.
The Flight of Capital
Investment capital always flows away from danger and towards safety and growth.
As the economies of Europe and Japan collapse, rich people in those countries will seek some place to put their money where it will be safe and grow.
Reading history, the last time the K-Wave (the predictor of every major economic rise and fall in history) hit the global economy with the kind of force that is expected soon was in 1932 - the depth of the Great Depression.
While most people know about the crash of 1929, few remember that the period between 1932 and 1937 was one of the greatest bull markets ever. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 372%. This historical fact may again attract capital flight to the U.S.
The Flight of Capital from Europe
In 1932, Europe was in worse shape than the United States. Germany was bankrupt. France, Italy, and England were facing dire financial problems.
Yet there were many wealthy people in Europe; many of them sitting on family fortunes dating back hundreds of years. The wealthy Europeans needed a place to invest their money where it would be safe, secure, and have a chance to increase. They found it in the American stock market.
America was still a lender nation then, not a borrower. The U.S. Dollar was backed by gold. Our blue-chip companies like General Motors and General Electric were strong and growing. The American stock market was the safest place in the world to invest money.
To Europeans, who were worried about their failing economies, and frightened by the threat of war, Wall Street was a sanctuary.
Making History
Today there are few safe places for European or Japanese capital to go. The so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) offer a chance of growth, but there is apprehension about the security of those markets.
Even though the United States is now heavily in debt and on the brink of economic collapse, and the dollar is no longer backed by gold, the last shelter for safety, growth, and rule of law in the world may still be The United States.
One thing is certain however, the future will be unlike anything the world has ever seen.
The Placement of Flight Capital
Flight Capital will not go into U.S. Treasury bonds because there is no return there. And with $127 trillion dollars in national debt, there isn’t total safety either.
Some of the capital fleeing from Europe and Japan will go into gold, but there isn’t enough gold in the world to accomodate this massive influx of money.
Some capital flight will go into high-end American real estate, which is already happening. The skyscrapers in New York are filled with $100 million condos.
These apartments are a place of escape or refuge for frightened Europeans, Japanese, and other Asian billionaires, but liquidity is a problem in owning a luxury condo.
For now, Wall Street has the liquidity, the safety, and the return that Japanese and European investors need.
Multinational Corporations
Multinational corporations, both foreign and domestic, must protect their cash as well.
Apple alone has more than $147 billion parked in U.S. Treasury bonds. As the U.S. Treasury bonds get more risky and yield less and less income, Apple will be looking for places to put its capital in stocks or acquisitions.
Microsoft is sitting on $80 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Google has $58 billion. Verizon has $57 billion. Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, Pfizer, and dozens of others are in the same cash-rich predicament.
Today, the stock market is highly over-valued. U.S. stocks are priced as much as 27 times their earnings, which is far higher than the historic average of 16 times earnings. Still, some analysts predict that after shrinking to 13,900, the Dow could then double by 2020 spurred by the global and corporate capital flight.
The Effect of the EU Meltdown
The end of a unified Europe means the death of the euro and the return of individual currencies. That means the end of the world’s largest consumer bloc (some 600 million buyers in the European Union).
Multinational corporations all over the world will feel the impact, especially companies in Europe.
As individual currencies replace the euro, certain currencies (notably new German marks, Dutch guilders, French francs, and Austrian schillings) will rise sharply in value.
Most of the other European currencies will plunge, which means consumers across much of Europe will not be able to afford products produced in Europe’s leading economies. Companies in the leading economies will see sales tumble meaning recession or worse in those economies, which translates into a sharp slowdown for companies in the U.S., China and Japan.
The economies that drive the world will be slowing, potentially crashing.
Revolutions upset the status quo to usher in a new order.
Seeking Economic Stability in Gold
It is the opinion of many market experts that the traditional investment vehicles of stocks and bonds are in the areas of their all-time highs and may be due for a severe correction.
Many investors are seeking alternative investments seeking risk diversification away from stocks and bonds, currently at all-time highs. One alternative is gold.
The world's holdings of gold accumulated during all recorded history to the present is only about 120,000 metric tons.
The total world's holdings of gold could be transported on a single cargo ship. The value of the cargo increases or decreases depending upon the market demand.
[The first use of gold as money is ancient. It occurred around 700 B.C., when Lydian merchants produced the first gold coins.]
Islamic Law May Impact the Price of Gold
Very little of the Islamic banks revenues are held in gold because Islamic law bans certain immoral trades (such as alcohol or tobacco stocks). It also forbids the trading of certain commodities because they can be sold by weight and measure. The six items that are sold by weight and measure are gold, silver, dates, wheat, salt and barley.
Due to this legal anomaly, gold investments have been off-limits to Muslims. But that ruling is changing. The World Gold Council is working with the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (which sets the standards for Islamic financial law) to allow Muslims to trade in gold investments.
China Is Taking Control of Pricing Gold
Early in 2016, China created the Shanghai Gold Exchange. This new gold exchange could enable the Chinese to dominate the global gold market. Meanwhile, the Chinese have been buying gold at a brisk pace.
One report shows that China may own up to 30,000 tons of gold. If the estimate is accurate, China’s gold reserves are nearly double that of many other major countries combined.
As the top importer, producer, and consumer of gold, the Chinese validly believe they should set the price of gold, not the banks in London and New York, where for the last several decades, the Libor and Comex exchanges priced gold based on futures contracts.
The Chinese also want a more favorable price for their existing gold reserves, which is why they want to set the price based on the supply and demand of actual physical gold.
Only 1 in 252 paper gold contracts today is backed by actual gold bullion. This has artificially suppressed the price of gold.
Traders buying futures on the new Shanghai gold exchange are required to deposit the equivalent of physical gold. As a result, every trade on the Shanghai fix will be backed by actual physical bullion (1 to 1, not 252 to 1).
Facilitating Trade in the Chinese Yuan
The Chinese are opening yuan “clearing banks” in Middle Eastern countries. A clearing bank is a commercial bank that is part of a network of banks that can clear checks for its clients regardless of whether or not the check originates from the same commercial bank. The Chinese yuan clearing banks promote the growing use of Chinese money in large financial transactions and trading.
Recently, China opened a new yuan bank in Dubai (the financial hub of the Middle East). Muslims can now easily trade on Shanghai’s yuan-denominated gold exchange.
Despite their slowing economy, global economic issues suggest China may offer an increasingly safe refuge for capital flight.
At the higher level of the spiritual survival of mankind, China may replace America as the next leader to assimilate Earth's races.
Peak Gold
There is another side to the equation of Chinese physical gold-back trades versus paper-backed trades - the supply side. Will there be enough gold to meet global demands?
This concept is reminiscent of the theory of peak oil. The idea was that at some point the easy-to-get oil would be gone. Extraction would get too expensive, and production would decline. This concern can be applied to all finite resources, including gold as the production of gold is shrinking as demand is soaring.
Goldman Sachs has warned that there are only 20 years of known mine-able gold reserves. This is because the costs of mining exploration have increased 10-fold, while new discoveries have diminished. Exploration has plummeted in recent years, because the cost isn’t justified.
The timing is understandable because the gold market operates in 20-year cycles. It often takes 20 years to recover the first ounce of gold from a new discovery.
While the supply of gold is shrinking, the probability of a weakening U.S. dollar, record unemployment globally, and a dangerously over-priced stock market are creating an unprecedented demand for gold.
[The problems of materialism are luring mankind into ever-deeper depths as humanity unknowingly seeks the peace of brotherhood.]
The Technology Revolution and Unemployment
The present Technology Revolution will take a high toll on employment just as the Industrial Revolution did in 1860.
A study from Citi and Oxford University says that in the very near future, nearly six of every 10 jobs in the developed-world economies will require no human activity.
The World Economic Forum predicts that in less than four years, at least 5 million developed-world jobs will vanish forever because robots automated them out of existence.
Forrester Research estimates that 12 million American office workers in the white-collar sectors (13% of today’s total U.S. workforce) will be jobless by 2025.
This is a fundamental crisis for modern capitalism and for Western politicians, regardless of their party’s platform.
An Example of the Robot Technology Effect
Twelve percent of America's population is employed driving vehicles. Self-driving vehicles are a serious risk to their jobs.
Over 1 million people are employed as taxi drivers, chauffeurs, or drivers of some description. Over 1.4 million operate delivery trucks. Almost 3.5 million are long-haul drivers. This equates to over 5.9 million workers who depend on this industry to pay their bills.
Auto factories will also feel the unemployment impact of self-driving cars. PriceWaterhouse predicts a collapse of vehicle sales with a reduction from over 245 million vehicles on the road now to just 2.4 million.
It will be much easier and more cost-efficient for people to travel without the costs of vehicle ownership such as purchase, insurance and maintenance, which will affect employment in those sectors as well.
In total, the self-driving vehicle technology will put about 10,000,000 people out of work.
The Crisis of Meaningful Personal Existence
People need work to afford meaningful life experiences. Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence do not allow for that need. Robots eliminate jobs with no concern for human consequences.
Politicians must heed their constituent's employment status not just their financial subsistence, or they will face increasing civil violence.
Some of the proposed solutions are:
1. Limit the number of jobs technology can replace by forbidding companies from implementing certain types of technology. (That has never worked before.)
2. Pay every American a “universal income,” a basic monthly stipend to live on. That might work temporarily, but it raises much bigger challenges such as how the government will pay for this when there are fewer consumer and business taxes. And how will people living on a universal income afford satisfying learning experiences?
3. The government can tax the technology corporations to pay the cost of a universal income, but there is a catch in this approach. If the only income people have is a universal income, they can’t afford much in the way of new consumer goods, which limits the income of the tech companies, which limits the taxes they pay to fund the universal basic income.
4. The government could get rid of money and replace it with some other means of commerce such as nationalizing (or globalizing) the private ownership of the earth's resources. While this is possible, it is socially, politically and structurally disruptive in the immediate future.
None of the proposed solutions enhances the life experiences of people.
Protection against the Technology Upheaval
Technological changes are coming at warp speed. What can mankind do to cope with the loss of jobs caused by the new technologies?
Taxation must go much higher. Lawmakers will grapple with raising the highest income-tax rates on individuals and businesses. Capital-gains rates need to double or triple and most deductions will be eliminated.
Eventually, we will very likely reach the point where there is no longer a tax form to fill out and no IRS. All money will be electronic, and the government will simply deduct its share from every bit of income that flows into every tax payer's life.
Individuals will increasingly have to rely on each other and help one another to survive the economic storm.
War - The Economic Imperative
Foreign war, if you ignore the cost of lives, is probably the best business prospect for the United States.
War helped turn World Wars I and II into cash machines that spurred economic and industrial growth, leading to two golden eras for American society in the 1920's and 50's.
Of course, using war to fix our current economic state of affairs is precarious, immoral, and expedient.
Still, the United States is $20 trillion in debt. More than half of the $20 trillion debt was incurred during the Obama administration paying entitlements, making the President Trump's budget problems daunting.
As hot-spots around the world, including traditional favorites like the Middle East and Eastern Europe, grow hotter, the time-tested economic solution of war is going to look more and more attractive to a new administration that has inherited the biggest mountain of debt ever.
Consequently, it is likely that there will be a major armed conflict in the next four to eight years (such as the fabricated Iraq War, which provided huge profit and employment for the oil, arms and reconstruction industries).
Public spending like Franklin Roosevelt's infrastructure public works projects simply can not solve the enormous economic problems of the United States.
In the new war the U.S., Russia, and China will sit on the sidelines while orchestrating and supplying the arsenals.
War, technological change, migration, civil unrest, broken governments, economic collapse, and even national bankruptcies may be the tripwires leading to morality, more efficient governments and spirituality in the world.
China's Yuan Now a World Currency
The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Executive Board has included China's yuan, or renminbi as it's also known, in an exclusive group of currencies that make up the basket of the IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDR).
The yuan will be officially recognized as a reserve currency, in a reflection of the changing dynamic of the world's economy.
Central banks use their reserves of foreign currencies to buy their own currency or pay international debts. The inclusion of the yuan means central banks who tend to hold their foreign exchange reserves in dollars or euros will have an alternative. For many emerging markets, trade linkages with China are already strong and now their yuan reserves could feed this relationship.
Demise of the Dollar
The International Money Fund (IMF) has 189 member countries. And many of these countries want to move away from the main thing that has made the American empire so powerful for the last 70 years.
That main thing is the current world wide dependence on the U.S. Dollar. Presently, the dollar is used for just about every large-scale transaction between nations.
But, dollar reserves now come with baggage - namely, the $19 trillion debt of the United States.
Eventually, the IMF may print its own currency. Member countries look at the IMF as a haven. The IMF has no wars or roads to pay for, no welfare recipients, and no social security checks to write, and nothing close to America's level of debt. For the rest of the world, the IMF has the last clean balance sheet.
With centralized money, a centralized market, and a potential centralized government, many countries feel that the IMF, not the United States, should hold the strings to the world's purse.
For now, however, the inclusion of the Chinese yuan as an additional currency for world trade is probably enough to dethrone the dollar for trade transactions. The trigger for this event is January 1st, 2017.
The Justification for the Chinese Currency
Up until now, only the United States among the IMF's 189 member countries has had enough power to veto a vote against the dollar. The way the IMF works is that each country gets a certain percentage of voting weight based broadly on its relative position in the world economy. The U.S. is the only country with an IMF voting percentage over 15%. And 15% is the amount of voting power required to veto any IMF proposal.
However, beginning in 2017, the IMF quotas are set to "re-balance.” They're going to re-balance away from U.S. interests such as keeping the dollar as the world's #1 reserve currency.
The "BRICS" countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) banded together, and in 2017, their coalition will have IMF veto power.
The U.S. is now producing just 25% of the wealth in the world each year. Meanwhile, the BRICS have soared in size, with a combined economic might that is bigger than that of the European Union, and nearly equal to the U.S.
The BRICS Are Coming
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) now possess 22.4% of the world Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And they have 14.9% of the vote in world financial decisions. They only require .1% more to get veto power. (It is likely they will get 16% or 17%.)
At a recent G-20 meeting, Vladimir Putin said, "[We're] a step away from 15% blocking threshold. Without a doubt, we have to move forward to carry out an IMF reform...."
Putin's “move forward” will trigger in 2017.
The BRICS are so opposed to United States control that they launched their $100 billion "BRICS New Development Bank" in July 2015. To avoid U.S. wiretaps the BRICS launched a plan to build their own undersea Internet cable network in September 2013. And the BRICS group had a mini-summit of their own to figure out how to force the vote reformat at a recent G-20 meeting.
Comeuppance
Both enemies and close U.S. allies have just formed a 57-nation trade "alliance." Their purpose is to dethrone America as the world's financial controller.
Singapore, Australia, China, Austria, New Zealand, South Korea, Pakistan, India, and Israel, are a few of the members of this 57-nation alliance.
The 57 nations represent 62% of the global economy. That's 3 times the economic power of the United States.
More countries are lined up to join the alliance. Twenty-seven are scheduled to be ratified. The new alliances will accommodate trade without using the U.S. Dollar.
The U.S. Can only blame itself for the world's loss of confidence in the dollar, due to the financial recklessness of the United States.
Goodbye Dollar Power
Major foreign economies, including China, Japan, Russia, and others (including Canada), have already sealed bilateral trade agreements to do business in currencies other than the U.S. dollar.
They have taken these steps because they see and understand the slipping condition of the U.S. economy, and they have no interest in sharing in any eventual collapse of the dollar.
Once the dollar is largely supplanted in trade deals by the new reserve currency - the Chinese yuan, which, unlike our dollar, has a very strong gold backing - the last domino in this procession will fall.
History of Dollar's Demise
U.S. President Lyndon Johnson began the devaluation of U.S. currency in 1965 when he ordered silver removed from U.S. coinage.
Because of the fiscal strain of federal expenditures for the Vietnam War and the persistent balance of payments deficits, President Richard Nixon ended international convertibility of the U.S. dollar to gold in 1971.
However, the U.S. dollar gained world dominance when former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger arranged with Saudi Arabia to accept only dollars for its oil sales in exchange for U.S. Military protection in 1973.
Paper Dollar Value Decline
The U.S. government can mandate that trillions of dollars can be printed and distributed to whomever it favors.
President George H. W. Bush began the practice of bailing out corporations in 1989. Since their deposits were insured by the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), Saving and Loans (S&Ls) confidently engaged in very risky activities such as commercial real estate lending and investing in junk bonds. In rescuing insolvent S&L's, the FSLIC itself became insolvent, and the government spent over $124 billion in taxpayer dollars to end the money crisis.
Another example of the government's rescue of corporate entities was the government orchestrated bailout of Wall Street in 2008: $400 billion bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; $280 billion saved Citigroup; and $142 billion rescued Bank of America.
There was no special income tax assessed to save these firms from bankruptcy. Instead, Congress asked the Federal Reserve to print fiat cash to cover the debts of the banks, thereby protecting the public from the knowledge of the bankers' behavior in selling worthless mortgages as derivatives. [Derivatives are complex contracts that one financial institution owes another who sells it on to another institution who resells it. If one of these institutions can't make a payment, the daisy chain breaks.]
It seems unimaginable that the dollar could lose value. But, the loss is subtle, a stealthier loss through dollar devaluation. Consumers lose purchasing power in the form of inflated prices as the value of the dollar cheapens. Any loss in the purchasing power of the dollar is the same as a cut in wages for workers.
Regarding fiat paper money, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chairman, wrote: "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation."
Fiat Money
Fiat money is currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, but it is not backed by a physical commodity. The value of fiat money is derived from the relationship between supply and demand rather than the value of the material (the paper or cheap metals) that the money is made of. Historically, most currencies were based on physical commodities such as gold or silver, but fiat money is based solely on faith in the government and the credit of the economy.
Because fiat money is not linked to physical reserves, it risks becoming worthless due to hyperinflation. If people lose faith in a nation's currency, the money will no longer hold any value. This differs from gold, which because of its rarity, is used as a storehouse of value, as well as in jewelry and in manufacturing.
In addition to currency only having “paper” value, the Fractional Reserve System requires commercial banks to keep only a fraction of its bank deposits in actual cash on hand available for withdrawal.
[Effective March 16, 1967, the reserve requirement of all member banks against savings deposits and the first $5 million of time deposits was reduced to 3 percent. The reserve is kept in another bank.]
Impact of the New World Currencies
The effects of the switch away from the dollar as the dominant world currency could be dramatic.
The world stock markets could fall precipitously - faster even than in 2008 - as governments and Wall Street scramble to adjust to the new global currency that will replace the dollar.
An event like the replacement of the dollar for world trade could impact Americans' savings accounts, and raise the prices that Americans pay for everything.
America's global borrowing credibility could be severely damaged.
U.S. negotiators will lose their leverage in trade pact negotiations.
U.S. tax rates may soar as Washington loses its sway at global Treasury auctions, and strives to find other sources of credit or new taxes.
The switch away from the dollar will likely slash government social programs such as Social Security and Medicare and cut spending on infrastructure such as highways.
Other countries, especially China, have been prepping for this currency power shift for years. Much of the staggering U.S. debt is owed to the Chinese. This fact gives China significant leverage over American policy in forcing a global power transference.
Predicting Economic Collapse
An economic collapse and resultant civil unrest are predictable because we now have information that didn’t exist before. The Information Revolution has provided a huge field of demographic data.
Studies of four cycles (the Generational Spending Wave Cycle, the 34 Year Geopolitical Cycle, the 45 Year Innovation Cycle and the 10 Year Boom & Bust Cycle) are all presently reading negative. All these cyclical charts reading negative has happened only twice - during the mid-1970s (the last great financial inflation crisis), and in the early 30s, during the greatest deflationary depression crisis in U.S. History.
The Geopolitical Cycle
A cycle can predict geopolitical events, like the incidents happening now, because of the the different time spans - long like revolutions (the powerful 250-year cycle), or short such as the Geopolitical Cycle that covers only about 35 years, which is more predictive.
The Geopolitical Cycle from 2001 forward reflects the 9/11 attack, rising terrorism, two major failed wars that totally disrupted the Middle East, and one civil war after another around the world (such as the Arab Spring). Meanwhile, in America, there are more police shootings, racial discrimination accusations, and protests.
In the Geopolitical Cycle, as stock valuations begin to spiral lower and unemployment rises, civil unrest tends higher. Going deeper into a financial downturn threatens everything people own. The civil unrest we’ve already seen will likely intensify for the next three to four years.
History to Prophecy
The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny William Strauss and Neil Howe.
The Strauss–Howe generational theory, created by authors William Strauss and Neil Howe, identifies a recurring generational cycle in American history. Strauss and Howe laid the groundwork for the theory in their 1991 book Generations, which retells the history of America as a series of generational biographies. In their 1997 book, The Fourth Turning, the authors expanded the theory to focus on a fourfold cycle of generational types and recurring “mood eras” in American history.
Strauss and Howe vaulted from history to prophecy. After researching the historical patterns, the authors are predicting that America is on the verge of crisis.
They believe we are headed toward "events on a par with the Revolution, the Civil War, or World War II in the next 20 years.
The Repetition of Generational Trends
The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny William Strauss and Neil Howe.
The theory Strauss and Howe developed describes the history of the United States, including the 13 colonies and their British antecedents.
The basic length of both generations and “turnings” - about twenty years - derives from longstanding socially and biologically determined phases of life. This is the reason the pattern has remained relatively constant over centuries.
As long as the transition to adulthood occurs around age 20, the transition to midlife around age 40, and the transition to old age around age 60 with an overall lifetime of 80 years, the basic length of both generations and turnings will remain the same.
In their book, The Fourth Turning, Strauss and Howe emphasize that the precise boundaries of generations and turnings are erratic. The generational rhythm is not like certain simple, inorganic cycles in physics or astronomy, where time and periodicity can be predicted to the second. Instead, the boundaries resemble the complex, organic cycles of biology, where basic intervals endure but precise timing is difficult to predict. Strauss and Howe compare the 80 year rhythm to the four seasons, which inevitably occur in the same order, but with slightly varying timing. Just as winter may come sooner or later, and be more or less severe in any given year, the same is true of a Fourth Turning (four generational cycles).
America's Current Position in the 80 Year Turning
The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny William Strauss and Neil Howe.
According to Strauss and Howe, there are many potential threats that could feed a growing sense of public urgency as the Fourth Turning progresses, including financial collapse, a protracted war on terror, a crisis of weapons proliferation, an environmental crisis, an energy shortage, or new civil wars.
The generational cycle cannot explain the role or timing of these individual threats. Nor can it account for the great events of history, like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Kennedy’s assassination, or 9/11.
What the generational cycle can do, however, is explain how society is likely to respond to these events in different eras. It is the response, not the initial event, that defines an era.
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