The Snowden Hologram: Markets Versus The Government

[The following post is by TDV Chief Editor, Jeff Berwick]

When people look back at the Soviet Union or Mao’s China they can clearly see the misery that happens when a government is in charge of nearly everything.  Even in the now fasco-communist US soyuz you can see public housing areas that are similar.  Everything is grey, square, uncreative and devoid of any sort of color or life and the people there live mostly in misery.

The market, on the other hand, when left to its own devices, looks a lot like Hong Kong whereas the government (the opposite of the free market) looks like prisons, wars and poverty.

This is seen over and over again in real life.  Take Singapore and Cuba, as example.  In the 1950s Cuba was a rolicking, free wheeling place that people from around the world came to for amazing restaurants, culture and nightlife… and famous for world class cigars and coffee.  Singapore, on the other hand, was a poor, sleepy backwater devoid of natural resources.

In 1959, Lee Kuan Yew assumed power in Singapore with a very free market bent.  In the same year, Fidel Castro took power in Cuba with a violently anti-capitalist regime.

Fifty years later and the proof of which one works better is in the pudding.

THE SNOWDEN HOLOGRAM

The US has moved dramatically away from free markets for decades now and the effects are being felt everywhere.

The NSA is making East Germany look like a privacy paradise and even when whistle-blowers like Edward Snowden try to expose what the US federal government is doing he has to defect to the former Soviet Union for safety.

This week in Brooklyn some anonymous artists placed a bust of Edward Snowden in Fort Greene Park… a park dedicated to prisoners of war.

It was a very nice bust and actually brought a bit of life and color to the typically dreary slate granite look of a park built by the government.  And, as with all things government related, the government’s response was to throw a tarp over it!

And then, of course, the government removed it completely.

But, yet again, the market responded with innovation and as of yesterday the bust has been replaced by a luminescent hologram of Snowden!

The beautiful, glowing hologram stands in stark contrast to the government built “park” complete with a chain link fence and barbed wire!

Sadly, people today still live under the illusion that the government is a necessary evil.  It’s not.  Unless you think evil is necessary.

Just as Singapore showed, even when given a limited amount of freedom the market creates prosperity and beauty.

Unfortunately many in the US have forgotten this and don’t even recognize what freedom is anymore.  Also, unfortunately, it has now gotten to the point where there will have to be a very nasty collapse prior to any freedoms becoming vogue in the Land of the Free again.  

Recently the US federal government once again reached its debt target (they call it a debt ceiling but target is more apt as they always hit it) and has been using extraordinary measures to keep the debt under the debt target.  For 21 days now the debt has been reported at $18,112,975,000,000, which is about $25 million below the debt target.  Meanwhile, China has started up a non-dollar based international banking system called the China International Payment System (CIPS) that numerous countries have signed up for and just today Russia signed a $20 billion oil trade pact with Iran flouting the US government’s sanctions.

The world is moving away from the US dollar and that will mean massive changes in the US and in the lives of Americans.

As always, our advice is to get your ass and assets outside of the US prior to the inevitable collapse (subscribe to TDV for more specific advice and analysis).

The Dollar Vigilante is a free-market financial newsletter focused on covering all aspects of the ongoing financial collapse. The newsletter has news, information and analysis on investments for safety and for profit during the collapse including investments in gold, silver, energy and agriculture commodities and publicly traded stocks. As well, the newsletter covers other aspects including expatriation, both financially and physically and news and info on health, safety and other ways to survive the coming collapse of the US Dollar safely and comfortably. You can sign up to receive our FREE monthly newsletter, our Basic Newsletter ($15/month) or our Full Newsletter ($25/month) with specific stock recommendations and updates at our Subscriptions page on our website at DollarVigilante.com.