Category: simonblack

One of my interesting friends is in town visiting Chile for a few days.

His name is Gianni– he’s originally from Croatia but lives in Vancouver, and has spent most of his career in the mining business.

Gianni is especially bullish on copper… primarily because he thinks the Age of Big Oil is coming to a rapid close.

He believes that conventional gasoline vehicles will be increasingly replaced with electric cars, which simultaneously reduces demand for oil AND increases demand for copper.

For investors, this presents an interesting opportunity.

Oil and copper prices have been strongly correlated for decades; in other words, as oil prices went up, copper prices went up.

This made sense in the past since both commodities were affected by the same macroeconomic forces.

Fast growing economies tend to consume a lot of copper and oil, pushing up prices.

But now Gianni thinks it’s time for those prices to de-couple.

You may recall that German carmaker Volkswagen is in hot water after being caught falsifying its emissions data. The press is calling it “dieselgate.”

Volkswagen has already been fined $15 billion by the US Justice Department, and roughly $2 billion of that is supposed to be earmarked to build electric vehicle charging stations across America.

This increase in EV charging infrastructure may very well create additional demand for electric vehicles… meaning that oil is going to start losing a LOT of customers, while electricity is going to gain.

Copper remains one of the most important commodities in electrical infrastructure, so prices may very well rise much higher in the future as a result of what’s starting to happen now.

Take a listen to today’s podcast, in which Gianni and I discuss the future of energy, as well as ways to profit from this long-term global trend.

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The state of Michigan is not exactly known for its balmy weather this time of year.

And residents reasonably do what they have to do to cope with often extreme winter temperatures.

Last Thursday a man named Taylor Trupiano of Roseville, Michigan did what a lot of people do in cold climates.

He walked out of his house, started his car, turned on the heat, and went back inside for a few minutes while his engine and vehicle interior warmed up.

According to Mr. Trupiano, he was only inside for about 7 or 8 minutes.

But by the time he came back to his car, there was already a parking ticket on his windshield– with a fine totaling $128.

Some local police officer had apparently driven by, noticed the vehicle was unattended, written up this heinous infraction, and left.

There are so many things wrong with this picture it’s hard to know where to begin.

First off, the citation that Mr. Trupiano received was a parking ticket. Yet his car was parked on his own private property.

Let that sink in: this man received a parking ticket while his car was parked on his own property.

You can’t even park your car on your own property anymore without being in violation of some series of laws, rules, or local ordinances.

The city government’s reasoning is that, if you leave a vehicle unattended, it may encourage car thieves to steal it.

This is pretty flimsy logic.

Sure, maybe if a car thief is standing right there he/she may take the opportunity.

But it’s not like some lowlife felon is going to turn the other cheek and stop stealing cars just because there are no unattended vehicles with the keys in the ignition.

Criminals bent on theft are going to steal no matter what, just like some murderous thug in Chicago is going to find a gun and kill people regardless of local firearm regulations.

When the story broke on local news, Roseville’s Police Chief told reporters that his department is unapologetic about issuing the citation to Mr. Trupiano.

Sounding like a man who cares more about statistics than actually catching criminals, the Chief claimed that 5-10 unattended vehicles are stolen every winter, which “drives our crime rates up.”

I looked at Roseville’s crime rates. They’re high. This is not a safe place.

With a population of less than 50,000, there are nearly 2,000 property crime incidents per year.

That includes at least a few hundred car thefts– which means that 5-10 vehicles is statistically trivial.

Clearly this issue of unattended vehicles is NOT the root of the problem.

And even if all the citizens of Roseville never again left their vehicles unattended, even on a cold winter day for just a few minutes to let the car warm up, it still wouldn’t make a dent in the larger crime rate.

But that doesn’t matter.

Roseville’s city government deals with its crime problem by establishing obscure regulations to restrict what law-abiding people are allowed to do in their own homes with their private property.

It doesn’t matter whether you are aware that these ridiculous rules even exist: ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

You’re probably in violation of half a dozen rules and regulations right now without even knowing about them.

Naturally, they’re all for your own good… to protect you against all the terrible choices that you might make as a grown adult.

Thank goodness these people are here to save us from ourselves! Of course, there’s always more work to do.

Speaking of statistically trivial risks, I read recently that falling vending machines kill a handful of people each year. Let’s get rid of them.

Roller coaster malfunctions claim 4 lives each year. Maybe they should ban those too.

Sugary drinks are clearly bad for you. Perhaps they should outlaw those, at least above a certain size.

Oh wait, they’re already trying to do that.

This is what freedom means today in the United Nanny States of America.

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Yesterday on the drive back to Santiago from one of our blueberry farms, I stopped to visit some friends who lived in the area.

About a year ago they bought some land in Chile’s incredibly fertile 7th region, which boasts a rare Mediterranean climate.

It never gets too hot, and it never gets too cold. Plus, the rich, volcanic soil is packed with powerful nutrients.

As long as you’re in the right spot to ensure ample water security, the place is an agricultural paradise (our agriculture company owns two large farms in the region).

There are literally four other places on the planet with this combination– southern California, South Australia, the Western Cape of South Africa, and parts of the Mediterranean itself.

That’s it.

Yet by comparison to those other places, land in Chile is remarkably cheap.

Our agriculture company purchased several thousand acres in this prime region back in 2015 for about $1,700 per acre.

Similar property in California, especially given how much water we have, would easily sell for 10x to 20x that price.

My friends bought several acres of land for themselves as a sort of homestead, and they’re now living in a gorgeous setting surrounded by mountains and multiple rivers with cool, crystal clear water and a steady supply of fish.

They’re raising livestock and have a garden, plus I got them started with a gift of some baby trees which are already producing fruit in their first season.

It feels like lifetimes away from when they were living in New York City.

We were talking about it all yesterday, about how powerful it feels to be totally independent.

My friends purchased the land outright (again, land is inexpensive). Then they paid about $55,000 to build their home.

The house is quite nice– comfortably spacious with four bedrooms.

And it’s all wired up with the latest gadgetry and home automation, with all sorts of sensors to control appliances and conduct routine tasks.

So they now have a roof over their heads and plenty of land to do whatever they want, and they own it all outright… they don’t owe a penny on any of it.

They can feed themselves, they have their own water, and they can produce their own energy.

This is an extremely powerful feeling, knowing that, no matter what happens (or doesn’t happen), you’re always going be able to thrive.

And that’s precisely the point.

I’m not trying to convince you to rush out and buy some homestead property, or to leave the country.

(Though it doesn’t hurt to at least plant a small garden… or to look into your options to obtain a second residency or even passport.)

The larger idea is that, in the face of such obvious risks, rational people make plans and take steps that make sense no matter what happens.

My friends had concerns. They were living in New York before and didn’t like the trends they saw in their home country.

There was too much debt. Too much war. Too much money printing. Too many lies. Too much spying. Too much violence. Too much uncertainty.

They wanted to distance themselves from conditions that made them uncomfortable.

So they made a very deliberate plan and took steps that led them to where they are today– living in their own paradise. And they couldn’t be happier.

These guys aren’t hiding from the world. He’s still working in technology and she’s still producing art… exactly what they used to do.

They’re able to work from anywhere on the planet, including on their homestead in central Chile.

There’s no downside in them living in a place that makes them happy, working remotely, eating organic home-grown food, and not having any debt.

But if the risks they were concerned about turn into far bigger problems, their decision may end up being the best they ever made.

No matter what, they’re thriving.

You may share some of the same concerns that they had.

If so, it doesn’t mean you have to get on a plane.

That was the right plan for them. It might not be right plan for most people.

But there are countless other steps you can take without having to leave your living room, to ensure that, no matter what happens next, you can thrive too.

For example, you can withdraw money out of a risky financial system, take some easy steps to enhance your digital privacy, or structure a more robust retirement plan that helps ensure you don’t have to rely on a failing pension system.

These are just a few of the dozens of solutions that you can execute yourself… and quite easily.

Most of us have been programmed, practically from birth, to outsource our problems.

When we see big trends and big risks, we’re told to go to a voting booth to elect someone who promises to solve all the problems.

They say, “I’m going to fix the system,” or “I’m going to create jobs.”

Bullshit. We’re the ones who are in control of our own lives. We can fix our own system. We can create our own jobs.

Anyone can get started with a profitable e-commerce business with a very tiny investment.

Anyone can take steps to reduce their exposure to the enormous risks in the system, ranging from insolvent pension funds to unprecedented government debts.

It’s 2017.

Compared to our ancestors who had to slog it out with their bare hands, we have unparalleled resources and enormous, global opportunities at our fingertips.

All it takes to get started is the proper education, and the will to act.

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I remember the first time I ever saw a $100 bill.

It was back in the early 80s, I must have only been 5 or 6 years old.

My parents took my sister and I to a fancy restaurant, and I distinctly remember a man dressed in a dark business suit a few tables over paying his bill with a crisp $100 note.

He pulled it out of his wallet, slid it onto the table, and walked away.

I was dumbfounded. It was more money than I had ever seen in my young life.

None of my friends had ever seen a $100 bill, and I was the big news at school the next day, regaling the whole class with stories of my proximity to such vast wealth.

Of course, back then, a $100 bill truly was a rare sighting because prices were so much lower.

A can of Campbell’s soup was 25 cents. Today it costs 4x as much.

A movie ticket ran about $3.50, according to the National Association of Theater Owners. Today it’s almost to $9.

Gasoline was 86 cents per gallon. Now it’s $2.20, and that’s after a major price collapse.

$100 could practically pay the rent in a lot of places back in the 80s.

That’s obviously no longer the case. Even a mundane trip to the grocery store can easily blow through $100 without feeling unusual.

$100 simply isn’t the awe-inspiring symbol of wealth that it used to be. And that’s because of inflation.

One measure of this trend is the average lifespan of the $100 bill.

As money changes hands during routine transactions, the constant wear and tear eventually starts to break down the paper.

You probably have a few bills in your wallet that look like they’re about to disintegrate.

The more frequently a bill is used, the faster that breakdown occurs.

According to the Federal Reserve, for example, a typical $1 bill lasts for about 5.8 years before becoming so fragile that it gets withdrawn from circulation and destroyed.

A $100 bill, on the other hand, lasts for 15.0 years.

This makes sense given that a $1 bill is used so much more frequently.

But what’s interesting is that, even as late as 2011, the average $100 bill lasted 21.6 years before becoming worn out.

So according to Federal Reserve data, the average lifespan of a $100 bill has fallen by more than 30% over the last several years.

This is primarily due to a significant increase in use, i.e. $100 bills are used more frequently in day-to-day transactions… at the gas station, grocery store, and even coffee shop.

Naturally, this increased use of the $100 bill is because prices are higher than they’ve ever been– you can’t pay the grocery bill anymore with a twenty.

Wages and salaries have also increased over time. But not as fast as living costs.

According to the US Department of Labor, most people are still earning less than they were 17-years ago when adjusted for inflation.

And that’s precisely the point: inflation is a very deliberate and sustained form of theft.

When prices rise faster than income levels, they’re ultimately stealing from your standard of living.

But not just once.

Inflation steals from you month after month, year after year. It never stops.

This has long been a common tactic for financially desperate governments throughout history.

Think about it– if they sent gun-toting police to your house demanding 2% of your wealth, there would be rioting in the streets.

But if the government and central bank engineer 2% inflation, no one cares.

And that’s the really amazing thing about inflation: governments and academia have managed to convince people that a little bit of inflation is totally normal.

They start early, even teaching students this garbage in high school economics classes.

Of course, they always forget to teach the part about how destructive inflation is over time.

2% inflation compounded year after year after year can have an explosive effect, doubling, tripling, and quadrupling prices.

The thing is, though, because inflation occurs so gradually, it feels ‘normal’.

Only when we look back to the past can we see how dramatically inflation has changed people’s lives.

The US Labor Department reports, for example, that in the late 1960s, fewer than half of households with children were dual income.

In other words, one parent supported the family on a single income.

Today in nearly 70% of households with children, BOTH parents have to work in order to make ends meet.

Just like the dramatic decline in the purchasing power of a $100 bill, this trend is a prime example of how inflation steals from people over time.

Policymakers will always downplay inflation.

Back in 2011 Federal Reserve official Bill Dudley infamously responded to soaring food prices by citing the fact that an iPad 2 was cheaper than an iPad 1.

(Prompting one reporter to say, “I can’t eat an iPad!”)

They may even reinvent the way they calculate inflation.

But despite the speeches and statistics, most of which focus on monthly or quarterly changes, the long-term effects of inflation are very much with us.

And they aren’t going away.

It would be foolish to assume that the people who are causing this problem will suddenly fix it.

If anything, they’ll make it worse.

In fact, central bankers around the world have been concerned that inflation isn’t high enough… as if a brief period of price stability is somehow a bad thing.

We should absolutely expect higher inflation.

Central bankers want inflation. Governments want inflation. And they’re the ones who have the power to make it happen.

Real assets, like precious metals, productive real estate, profitable businesses, etc. offer safety from inflation, especially if your savings is denominated in an overvalued paper currency.

More on that later in the week.

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Steve Kroft has a problem with second passports.

Specifically, the reporter and his team of producers slammed “citizenship by investment” programs in an editorial piece that aired on 60 Minutes this past Sunday night.

As we’ve discussed before, many countries around the world, including Malta, Dominica, St. Kitts, and Antigua, have Citizenship-by-Investment (CIP) programs.

The programs differ between countries, but they all provide an opportunity for foreigners to receive citizenship in exchange for making a donation or investment in the country.

In Dominica, for example, a foreign investor can qualify to apply for citizenship by making a $100,000 contribution to a fund run by the local government (it’s literally called “The Government Fund”).

Presuming the investor meets the other due diligence requirements, he or she can become a citizen and receive a passport from Dominica within a few months.

These programs are all completely legal and run by the governments’ official agencies.

In fact, in most countries it’s legal for the government to award citizenship to foreigners, typically to people who are high achievers in science, arts, or sports.

If Usain Bolt decided that he wants to move to Poland to run for their Olympic Team, the Polish government would award him citizenship in about two seconds.

Governments want to attract talented people who can make valuable contributions or bring recognition to their countries.

So what’s the difference if a Polish investor moves to Jamaica and builds a brand-new school in an impoverished area?

Or if a Canadian invests hundreds of thousands of dollars in a local charity in Antigua?

These seem like equally valuable contributions to reward foreigners with citizenship, especially in poverty-stricken countries.

In Dominica, for example, the funding provided by the CIP program was a major factor aiding the country’s recovery from the devastation of 2015’s Tropical Storm Erika.

The CIP program also helped the economy stay afloat during the worst of the Global Financial Crisis nearly a decade ago.

But Kroft doesn’t like the idea at all and apparently thinks that he should be able to decide what a foreign country is able to do with its own sovereignty.

Naturally, Kroft’s aversion against these programs is fear-based, revolving around concerns over terrorism and security.

His report goes on to showcase an Iranian attorney who obtained a passport from St. Kitts, another Caribbean island with a CIP program.

It was a no-brainer investment for the gentleman; as a global professional, he has to travel frequently to meet clients.

This is extremely difficult to do with an Iranian passport as visa requirements are quite stiff.

With a St. Kitts passport, he can travel visa-free (or obtain visa on arrival) to over 130 countries, including almost all of Latin America, Europe, and much of Asia.

Kroft thinks that Iranians should stay in Iran… and he appeared completely flummoxed upon meeting the man in Dubai, stating tersely “So you’re an Iranian living in Dubai with St. Kitts citizenship.”

“Yes.”

“That’s complicated.”

This Iranian is a man who was born in an oppressive country devoid of economic freedom; yet he worked hard and took active steps to improve his situation by moving to a better place and obtaining a less-restrictive passport.

But Kroft, who by mere accident of birth happens to have a US passport entitling him to travel around the world without a visa, finds this “complicated”.

What small-minded, 19th century thinking.

In Kroft’s worldview, you live in the country where you were born, and you travel with its passport, and that’s that.

If you happen to be, by accident of birth, from another country with less opportunity or more restrictions, then tough shit.

But perhaps the most ridiculous part of the broadcast was that Kroft completely missed the point of a second passport altogether.

Kroft believes that second passports are only for criminals and terrorists.

In fact he lists the names of 10 suspected criminals who obtained CIP passports, conveniently skipping over the thousands upon thousands of law-abiding investors who have gone through the same programs.

In reality a second passport is an ideal part of any rational individual’s Plan B.

A second passport means that if your home country ever deteriorates to the point that you need to leave, you’ll always have a place to go… a safe place where you and your family are welcome to live, work, invest, and do business.

That, of course, is a worst-case scenario.

Yet even if nothing like that ever happens, you’ll still be able to enjoy benefits, like additional visa-free travel options which, in many cases, your children and grandchildren may be able to inherit.

Candidly, citizenship-by-investment isn’t right for most people simply because of the price tag.

I’m sure most of us can find better uses for $100,000 to $1 million, especially when there are MUCH easier ways to obtain a second passport.

For example, you can obtain citizenship in a number of places like Ireland or Italy if you have documented ancestry.

You can also obtain citizenship in countries like Panama, Chile, or Argentina after a few years of legal residency (which you don’t necessarily have to spend in-country).

But the bottom line is that a second passport is a fantastic insurance policy. And this is something that makes sense for anyone.

What’s funny is that the 60 Minutes broadcast on Sunday showcased two other reports.

The first was about the extraordinary murder crisis in Chicago, where casualties have “surged to a level more in line with a war zone than one of America’s great cities.”

The second story was about a company in Cuba that was taken over by the communist government in 1959, and its owners were left with absolutely nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Ironically, both of these stories highlight the importance of having a second passport… of having a Plan B.

What’s yours?

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According to the latest statement issued yesterday afternoon by the Department of Treasury, the US national debt has reached $19,976,826,951,047.80.

That’s $19.976 trillion, as of the close of business on Friday December 30, 2016.

(The government is typically a day or two behind when it sends out these reports.)

That number itself is obviously remarkable, just shy of $20 trillion.

But what’s even more astounding is that, according to the Treasury Department’s own figures, they STARTED the day with a debt level of ‘just’ $19.879 trillion.

So literally in the span of a single 8-hour workday, the US government amassed an astonishing $97 billion in debt.

That’s simply incredible– $97 billion is larger than the entire GDP of New Mexico or Luxembourg. In 8 hours.

I review these reports every single day. Needless to say, an increase of this magnitude occurs… almost never.

And when I saw it yesterday afternoon, the “Holy Shit!” that came out of my mouth caused a rush of staff into my office asking “What happened?!?”

As I recovered from my shock, I explained that the US federal government had increased its debt by nearly $100 billion in a single day, to which one of them asked,

“What did they buy?”

I thought it a brilliant question, almost child-like in its simplicity. Indeed. What did they buy?

How many aircraft carriers did they purchase?

How many colonies on Mars did they build?

Did President $20,000,000,000,000BAMA acquire a controlling stake in the Walt Disney corporation on behalf of the taxpayers of the United States?

Did Congress suddenly recapitalize the FDIC, or any one of the half-dozen insolvent US trust funds?

Perhaps they fixed a decent portion of the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

Or maybe they just decided to send a check for almost $1,000 to every household in America.

Nope. None of the above.

The reality is that these people indebted every single taxpayer, including future generations of taxpayers who won’t even be born for decades, with a massive bill that has almost no mathematical probability of ever being paid down.

And despite this prodigious debt, the government has absolutely nothing to show for it.

What’s really amazing is that this isn’t even unusual anymore.

The national debt in the United States is already much larger, and is growing much more quickly, than the US economy.

Plus, interest rates are rising from their historic lows.

In fiscal year 2016 (which ran from October 1, 2015 through September 30, 2016), the government’s total interest bill was $432,649,652,901.12.

This works out to be an average interest rate of 2.204%, according to the Treasury Department’s most recent data from November 2016.

But it wasn’t that long ago that interest rates were MUCH higher.

Back in January 2008, for example, the average interest rate on US government debt was 4.785%.

And even that was considered quite low by historical standards.

Today’s rates are less than half that level. And it’s reasonable to expect rates to increase. In fact, that’s already happening.

In late December, the Treasury Department sold $28 billion worth of 7-year Treasury notes at a yield of 2.24%.

2.24% is still pretty cheap. But it’s nearly double the rate from just six months ago.

Back in July, the 3-month T-bill rate was just 0.02%. Now it’s more than 25 TIMES greater at 0.51%.

This is a significant increase in a short period of time.

If the government’s average interest rate returned to 2007 levels, they would be spending nearly $1 trillion each year just to pay interest.

That’s more than they currently spend on Medicare or the US military.

So as you can see, the US government is not only increasing the debt level at an astonishing rate (with absolutely nothing to show for it), but they’re going to have to start paying a LOT more interest.

Remember that they already borrow money just to pay interest on the money they’ve already borrowed.

So higher interest rates mean that they’ll have to borrow even more money to pay interest, which will cause the debt to go up even higher, requiring them to borrow even more money to pay interest.

It’s a never-ending cycle that only ends one way: default.

The idea of ‘growing their way out’ of debt is a total fantasy.

The debt level is growing much faster than the economy, so each year the hole becomes even deeper.

They’ll either have to default on their creditors, causing a massive catastrophe across the global financial system…

… or they’ll have to default on the promises they’ve made to taxpayers.

You might be thinking– “Can’t they just cut government spending?”

No. Again, not without defaulting on taxpayers.

The three biggest line items in the budget that mop up almost ALL government spending are:

– Debt interest
– Social Security & Medicare
– Military

Everything else COMBINED is trivial by comparison.

So cutting spending quite literally requires a default on the promises they’ve made to taxpayers.

This includes everything from Social Security to maintaining a stable financial system without resorting to major inflation or capital controls.

None of this means there’s going to be some spectacular collapse tomorrow morning.

The sky is not falling.

In fact, despite this debt madness, we’re living in a world full of incredible business, investment, technological, and lifestyle opportunities.

It’s truly an incredible time to be alive.

But the rapid rise in interest rates coupled with an astonishing increase in the debt creates an obvious long-term trend with major consequences that anyone would be foolish to ignore.

What’s your Plan B?

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It’s amazing what can happen in a week.

Before this publication went on hiatus last week, one of the last letters I wrote to you in 2016 was about the National Defense Authorization Act and its treasure trove of freedom-killing provisions.

Section 1287, for example, creates a new agency called the “Global Engagement Center”, aka Ministry of Truth.

It has one purpose: to combat fake news.

The Global Engagement Center will fund and train journalists around the world to push a never-ending flow of US propaganda and cripple any independent outlet that doesn’t conform to the official government narrative.

Sadly, this is not unusual.

Each year, Congress creates a new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is essentially the military budget for the following year.

But without fail, each year’s NDAA is crammed full of horrific provisions which either waste taxpayer funds on corrupt pet projects, or destroy Americans’ civil liberties.

You may remember the 2012 NDAA, for example, which President Obama signed into law on New Years Eve 2011.

That year’s NDAA contained a section authorizing the military detention of US citizens on US soil.

Now we’re getting the Ministry of Truth.

President Obama signed this year’s NDAA into law on Christmas Day, which means that the Global Engagement Center will be live and operational within six months.

Four days later on December 29th, he issued an executive order intended to punish the Russian government for manipulating the US election.

The order contains some incredibly vague language targeting anyone engaged in “cyber-related activities” that are “reasonably likely” to pose some threat, including “activities to undermine democratic processes or institutions”.

The order also threatens anyone who provides “goods or services” to those engaged in the aforementioned cyber-related activities.

Anyone deemed by the US government to fit those incredibly broad definitions can have their assets frozen instantly.

Now, the spirit of the order is to go after all the Russians and Chinese they think are complicit in hacking the US government and US corporations.

(Mr. Obama also expelled a multitude of Russian diplomats that the FBI suspects of being spies, raising the question of why these people were in the US to begin with.)

Yet such broad and vague language can easily be applied to ensnare just about anyone they want.

If you just happen to have sold a used mobile phone over Craigslist to someone who ends up being a hacker, you can be targeted under this order.

Same with anyone who uses the Internet (engages in “cyber-related activities”) to express strong anti-government opinions (“undermine democratic . . . institutions”).

Now, clearly that’s not the intention with this order.

But when enough time passes, rules and regulations have a strong tendency to be used in ways that dramatically diverge from their original intent.

Case in point: the US government has wrongfully seized billions of dollars worth of cash and property over the years through what’s known as Civil Asset Forfeiture.

Civil Asset Forfeiture is essentially a form of theft.

But it’s perfectly legal for local, state, and federal police agencies to steal from you because of technicalities that were written in laws passed decades ago.

For example, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act was passed in 1979 with the intention of helping to preserve historic sites.

Buried in the law is some vague language authorizing the recovery of any property that was stolen from historic sites.

Now, decades later, police agencies abuse the vague language from that law, as well as dozens of other laws, to give themselves the authority to seize your property.
Their theft of your property has nothing to do with protecting archaeological sites, but they still have the legal authority thanks to a 37-year old law.

So no matter how good the intentions behind a law or executive order, there’s always strong potential for nasty, unforeseen consequences down the road.

And between the NDAA’s Global Engagement Center and the President’s incredibly vague executive order, there’s some serious anti-free speech potential.

By the way, this is NOT just a US phenomenon.

Israel’s government is close to passing a bill that authorizes them to demand Facebook (and other social media platforms) to remove content that they deem threatening.

Germany’s government is talking about passing a similar bill to stop “fake news” during the election cycle, even suggesting that Facebook could be fined if it does not remove certain content within 24 hours of being told by the government to do so.

Yeah, clearly there’s a lot of garbage on the Internet.

Someone can write a post that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is running a child prostitution ring, and it gets retweeted by mindless automatons who believe everything they read.

But at the same time, there’s a lot of independent, boutique journalism out there, and many of these sites are being labeled “fake” because they don’t conform to the official government narrative.

After a terrible year for the status quo, between Brexit and the Trump election, politicians are clearly terrified of any dissent that threatens their position.

And now they’re putting together all the tools they need to stamp it out and keep you in line.

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Last week during a long overdue vacation, a close friend of mine recommended reading the autobiography of Rich DeVos called Simply Rich.

DeVos is a billionaire entrepreneur who started countless ventures during his nine decades on this earth.

Back in the 1946, for example, DeVos started an airline… virtually overnight.

He just bought an airplane and started flying people around. No rules. No regulations.

They didn’t even have an airport. The local airfield north of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they were based, hadn’t been completed yet.

As DeVos recounts in his book, “We put pontoon floats on our plane and took off and landed on the Grand River, which ran along the airfield.”

His first office at the airfield was an old chicken coop that he found, washed in the river, and re-painted.

The following year he and his partner opened up one of Michigan’s first “Drive Through” restaurants at the airfield, catering to passengers, workers, flight students, and spectators who came by in the evenings just to marvel at the planes.

Again, no rules. No regulations.

They just saw an opportunity and went for it.

DeVos started another business selling ice cream; another offering fishing excursions on Lake Superior; and another delivering trucks cross-country.

The truck delivery business was one of the more interesting ones; it started when he was just a kid– someone asked him to drive two pickups from Grand Rapids to Bozeman, Montana.

There were no hotels or motels… or even interstates back then.

So DeVos and his friend had to zig-zag their way across corn fields to get there, sleeping on haystacks each night along the way.

The book is a hell of an adventure– a reminder of how free and unencumbered things used to be.

Back in America’s heyday, people succeeded based on their hard work, ingenuity, and willingness to take action.

They didn’t have to spend three years filling out paperwork so that some government bureaucracy could justify its existence.

It was an environment that created unparalleled opportunity and prosperity which, candidly, have long since faded.

Today there are rules for everything; in fact, just this morning, the US federal government published an astonishing 709 pages of new regulations.

And that’s just for today. They publish new regulations every single business day. So tomorrow there will be even more.

These rules make it more difficult to produce, to start a business, to sell a product or service to a willing consumer.

And these rules carry costs, whether it’s in paying a fee, filling out paperwork, etc.

So just imagine the effect that literally decades worth of rules and regulations has had on US productivity (which is now noticeably contracting, even according to government data.)

It’s also worth noting that roughly 30% of occupations in the Land of the Free now require some sort of government license.

In its study “License to Work”, the Institute for Justice reports that 45 out of 50 of the largest cities in the United States have put up substantial obstacles to prevent budding entrepreneurs from selling food from street carts.

A manicurist in Alabama requires 163 days of training, while a shampoo specialist at a Tennessee hair salon must undergo 70 days of training, take two exams, and pay $140 in fees to obtain a license.

Hawaii requires fire alarm installers to undergo a whopping four years of training, pass two exams, and pay $380 in fees to obtain a license.

And a tree trimmer in California must also undergo four years of training, pass two exams, and pay $851 in fees to obtain a license.

It’s absurd.

Nothing that Rich DeVos his partner accomplished in their teens and 20s is even legal anymore.

It makes me think about all the people today who will never have the chance to realize their full potential thanks to the mountain of regulations blocking their way.

This is an important point to understand.

Looking at the data– the incredible overregulation, $20 trillion in debt, insolvent pension funds, etc., it’s painfully obvious that the US is past its prime and holding back millions of people from achieving greater prosperity.

Rich DeVos started so many businesses back in the 1940s because the government stayed out of the way and enabled hard-working risk takers to succeed.

Today the government spends $2 billion to build a website and churns out hundreds of pages of regulations each day.

And this trend gets worse each year.

Understanding this simple reality doesn’t mean that you’re pessimistic, unpatriotic, or expecting the end of the world.

It just makes you rational.

Things change. That’s the bottom line.

The US is still a fantastic place. But it’s no longer the same Land of Opportunity it was when Rich DeVos was getting started.

As I’ve summarized before, the US is a great place to consume… but an increasingly difficult place to PRODUCE.

That imbalance has serious long-term consequences, which we are only starting to experience.

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What I’m about to tell you is a true story.

And by the end of it, I hope it will be pretty clear that we’ve been programmed to put far, far too much trust in the banking system.

We’re told that banks are supposedly “risk free”.

And yet every scrap of publicly available evidence shows that banks take every opportunity to prove that they cannot be trusted with other people’s money.

They have been caught colluding to fix interest rates, exchange rates, and commodities prices to the detriment of their own customers.

They make insanely stupid bets with their depositors’ savings… and then when the bets go wrong, they go to the taxpayer with hat in hand claiming that they’re too important to go bust.

But most importantly, as my story will show you, they act with a sanctimonious sense of self-entitlement… that it’s no longer YOUR money in the bank. It’s their money.

And they’re going to do whatever they damn well please with it.

Take a listen in today’s podcast… the first I’ve put out in a very long five months.

from Sovereign Man http://ift.tt/2ifMM3P
via IFTTT

What I’m about to tell you is a true story.

And by the end of it, I hope it will be pretty clear that we’ve been programmed to put far, far too much trust in the banking system.

We’re told that banks are supposedly “risk free”.

And yet every scrap of publicly available evidence shows that banks take every opportunity to prove that they cannot be trusted with other people’s money.

They have been caught colluding to fix interest rates, exchange rates, and commodities prices to the detriment of their own customers.

They make insanely stupid bets with their depositors’ savings… and then when the bets go wrong, they go to the taxpayer with hat in hand claiming that they’re too important to go bust.

But most importantly, as my story will show you, they act with a sanctimonious sense of self-entitlement… that it’s no longer YOUR money in the bank. It’s their money.

And they’re going to do whatever they damn well please with it.

Take a listen in today’s podcast… the first I’ve put out in a very long five months.

from Sovereign Man http://ift.tt/2hgyHmx
via IFTTT