Atlas Shrugged

By: CAPTAINHOOK / Gold Seek

It’s getting increasingly difficult to survive out there these days for everybody except the top .01% and few of their buddies, which is not what Ayn Rand had in mind when writing on the benefits and attributes of individualism, to both the individual, and society as a whole. Of course Ayn was no stranger to the vulgarities associated with cronyism and oligarchs with her Russian origins, however she would likely be dismayed at what has happened to America today, a place she loved for what it stood for, not what it has become. What’s worse, it appears the John Galt’s of the world are becoming fewer and far between as process continues to unfold, but it could be argued she saw this coming, being the forward thinker she was, a realization perhaps best captured in her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, a must read for all concerned with these ideas – a fruitful life, liberty, and freedom.

As with all extremist / fascist episodes through history however, all good things must come to an end when people can no longer live with compounding inequalities, especially when they begin to tread on the most basic of human rights and privileges. The oligarch’s and their dogs (think Animal Farm) found out about this in Nevada a few weeks back when a prominent pig was thwarted in attempting to effectively confiscate Cliven Bundy’s cattle and ranch, which still might be a problem, but at least the revolution has begun. It’s time for greedy and corrupt politicians to be put in their place. So let’s hope Alex Jones is right (this time), and this proves to be a watershed event, where formerly complicit bureaucrats begin to recognize the errors of their ways, and begin working for the people once again increasingly, not crooked oligarchs and their dogs.

A more profound (but abstract) example of this is Russia’s defiance regarding Western claims to the Ukraine (under the guise of diplomacy), where the previously vanquished evil doers (think the fall of the Berlin Wall) have also turned the tide in terms of the level of abuse and fraud present evil doers have been getting away with (think artificially low pricing of oil and gas sold to the West), as explained in detail several weeks back in my article entitled “Take That Ivan”. To summarize, the idea here, from a completely impartial perspective, is Russia woke up to the fact Western commodity markets are rigged to suppress prices so that consumers would have more disposable income in their budgets to pay bankers ever-increasing amounts of interest payments, which angered them. So, Ivan, being on the receiving end of Western oppression for some time, waited patiently until it was the right time to fight back, allowing the West to weaken itself into the debt laden stupor that now exists.

So essentially, the world has become Atlas bearing all this debt, and recent developments concerning Russia (viewed by most as a weak periphery adversary to be exploited [for its natural resources] prior to more recent events), like that recommended by d’Anconia – the shrug. And Russia, nor its allies, will cease the decentralization process now because it’s in their best interest(s) to do so, forging new alliances that will eventually bring Western living standards in line with true economy (proper market commodity prices), led by the US, which has the biggest fall coming. Here, the loss of the petrodollar, and reserve currency status for the dollar($), will cause significant price inflation in America (the world) the likes of which not witnessed in the global core economy since Rome. A weakened Anglo-American banking structure will ensure such outcome, as money printing will need to continue accelerating, which will be the catalyst for a decentralization / regionalization process (look at this item just in) that will become the new macro defining global geopolitics moving forward. 

No more will it be a one super-power world populated by a bunch of idiots running around the globe like they own it. A country, and its currency, will actually need tangible wealth to back it, recognized by trading partners as ‘hard money’, not the ‘fluffy fiat’ stuffed down throats now at gunpoint. The Chinese are definitely ‘on board’ with this thinking in accelerating the rate at which they are converting American paper to all things tangible, not to mention beefing up their military. And of course US authorities know of their weakened economic position, which will allow process to continue along these lines until the world geopolitical / economic landscape is a very different place five-years from now, whether we arrive there amenably, or not. First the economics of war heats up as budgets and the populous become strained. Then, larger scale conventional wars appear unavoidable in order to keep the mob(s) distracted. If recent events surrounding the Ukraine are any indication – stay tuned in this regard – things are getting tense. 

That being said, the question does arise, if this is all true, that East is at war with the West over economy, is there a manner to measure this in the financial markets to see who is winning? As a matter of fact, there are many different ways in which to measure this in the financial markets, and past body counts, with a plethora of ratios at our disposal. So please, let me tell you a story using a subset of these ratios, and then you can make up your own mind ‘who is winning present battles’; and, ‘who will likely win the war’. 

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