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Where Do You Go in a Hurricane?

May 1, 2017

Where Do You Go in a Hurricane?

As a West Indian, I’ve lived through quite a few hurricanes in my time. My level of responsibility in each varied quite a bit. I was eight years old in my first hurricane and I thought it was great fun, as it was so exciting during the hurricane and, afterward, the landscape had changed so much that I had lots of new places to play.

On the other end of the scale, in 2004, my country, the Cayman Islands, experienced a Category 5 hurricane, with winds up to 200 miles per hour that sat on us without moving for 36 hours. I was responsible for ensuring that safety be provided for scores of my employees prior to the hurricane. After the storm, one of my companies took on the complete rebuilding of the country’s wholesale and retail food distribution facilities in order to ensure that the country’s population would have the most essential commodities—food and water. (A big change in level of responsibility over the years.)

In addition to having spent decades planning for hurricane damage, I’ve also spent decades as an economist, planning for major economic storms. In 1999, I determined that the world would experience what Doug Casey has termed a Greater Depression that would be more devastating than any economic event the world had ever seen. I predicted that it would happen in stages and that the final stage would be the most devastating. I would have been quite pleased to have been incorrect, but unfortunately, my predictions have come to pass. I believe we’re now quite close to the final destruction stage, a period that will lead to the collapse of many of the world’s formerly strongest economies, coinciding with a period of devastating warfare. In both the economic and warfare cases, those who are the world’s major players will believe that they’ll be able to control the extent of devastation and even profit from it, but events will go beyond their control and take on a life of their own.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

So Many Triggers

April 10, 2017

So Many Triggers

So Many Triggers

It’s not a story that’s likely to appear on the evening news, but it certainly should.

Deutsche Bank has announced that it will create more shares, selling them at a 35% discount. Existing shareholders have not been pleased and, in the first four days since the offer was announced, the value of existing shares dropped by 13% as shareholders began dumping them.

So why on earth would Germany’s foremost bank do something so rash? Well, in recent years, the bank has been involved in many arbitrations, litigations, and regulatory proceedings as a result of fraudulent activities, including the manipulation of markets. Having been found guilty, they presently owe $7.2 billion to the US Department of Justice and are now facing an additional $10 billion litigation bill. Unfortunately, the bank is already broke and, should Deutsche actually be able to sell the new shares, the $8.6 billion they hope to receive will still not save them from bankruptcy.

Business has also not been so good. They’ve lost nearly $2 billion in the last two years, instituted a hiring freeze, cut bonuses by 80%, and are facing a $2.5 million civil penalty to pay to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for failure to report transactions and, not surprisingly, have been downgraded.

The German government has stated that they will not bail out Deutsche and, indeed, under the EU agreement, they cannot do so. It’s safe to say that Germany’s largest bank will soon go the way of the dodo.

For those who don’t live in Europe, this may not seem all that significant. However, Deutsche is the bank that funds the euro system, which they can now no longer do. Further, Deutsche is ten times larger than Lehman Brothers, an American bank that famously went down in 2008, heralding in that year’s economic crash. (Ninety percent of Deutsche’s revenue has been from derivative trading, which is what brought down Lehman.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Food Crisis—The Greatest Threat to Social Stability

March 6, 2017

Food Crisis—The Greatest Threat to Social Stability

Food Crisis—The Greatest Threat to Social Stability

 

Recently, I was in a pharmacy and overheard the pharmacist say to someone, “There’s so much unpleasantness on the news these days, I’ve stopped watching.” The pharmacist has my sympathy. I’d love to be able to ignore the deterioration of the First World. It is, at turns, tedious, depressing, disturbing, and infuriating.

Unfortunately, we’re now passing through what, before it’s over, will be the most life-altering period in our lifetimes. As much as we’d like to behave like ostriches right now, we’d better keep our heads out of the sand and be as honest with ourselves as we can if we’re going to lessen the impact that these events will have on us.

I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of a possible shortage of food. History is filled with examples of cultures that would endure most anything and still behave responsibly… but nothing causes greater, more unpredictable, or more violent behaviour in a people than a lack of food.

Interesting to note that whenever I converse with people on the finer points of the Great Unraveling, when I mention the words “famine” or “food riots,” even those who are otherwise quite comfortable discussing the subject tend to want to discount the possibility that these will be aspects of the troubles that are headed our way. For this very reason, I believe that we should shine a light on this eventuality.

The Present State of the Industry

In America, the food industry is not in good shape. Normally, the food industry relies on a low-profit/high-volume basis, leaving little room for error. Add to this fact that many business owners and managers in the food industry have given in to the temptation to build up debt over the years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Sinking of the Lord Clive

February 28, 2017

The Sinking of the Lord Clive

The Sinking of the Lord Clive

 

The image above is of the 18th-century home of friends in Colonia, Uruguay. Today, sitting on their back patio on the Rio de la Plata, I looked out at a small yellow buoy in the harbour that marks the final resting place of the Lord Clive, a large, 60-gun British warship from the 18th century.

In 1763, we British, already at war with Spain, decided to expand the venture to the New World. The Lord Clive arrived in Colonia, Uruguay, and began firing into the tiny town. With her heavy contingent of cannon, her captain was confident that he could do enough damage to make the Spanish inhabitants surrender. After extensive bombardment, the Spanish had still not raised the white flag; however, the crew of the Lord Clive had managed to set fire to their own ship. The crew abandoned ship.

Local accounts of the event have it that, swimming ashore, the English crew apologized for bombarding the town and asked for mercy. Not surprisingly, the Spanish killed them.

Of course, this is not the outcome that’s described in English history books. Although the defeat of the British on that day is acknowledged, the folly is not. Although historians will generally acknowledge a defeat, they’re often reluctant to mention any idiocy on the part of their own military. And so any English-language version of the story tells a different tale from the account above.

This is a great pity, as much can be learned from historical idiocy. Since it’s rarely taught, military leaders often make the same idiotic mistakes that their predecessors made.

As an example, we can look at the adventures of the US today and observe their serial invasions over the last fifteen years in the Middle East and elsewhere. These adventures are being pursued ostensibly “to make the world safe for democracy.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

February 22, 2017

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”   –Alice in Wonderland

We live in an age when the level of deceit and propaganda is at an all-time high. Joseph Goebbels, Vladimir Lenin, and others did their best to force-feed propaganda to the masses, but they were rank amateurs compared to the spin doctors employed by the political leaders of today. They’re masters at convincing people of impossible things.

Whenever I listen to Americans discuss their country, I find people that are eager for more news and information, yet most, without even knowing it, accept much of the dogma they’ve been fed on a daily basis by their government and the media, even if, to outsiders, the assumptions are preposterous. Only those who make a concerted, ongoing effort to see through the smokescreen seem to keep clear.

Here are six impossible things that many seem to have little trouble accepting as reality.

Yes, the country’s in a mess, but that’s because of opposition-party meddling. If the party I favour could get a majority, they’d sort things out.

This seems to have been a popular belief for decades. It’s believed by Democrats and Republicans alike. But, in 2001, the Republicans held both houses of Congress, plus the presidency, yet even then they failed to deliver on what they claimed were their party’s fundamental goals. Between 2009 and 2011, the Democrats controlled all three, yet they, too, failed to deliver.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fight of the Century

February 20, 2017

Fight of the Century

Fight of the Century

 

In March 1933, the Enabling Act was passed by the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament. Its purpose was to provide Chancellor Adolf Hitler with the ability to bypass the Reichstag. It allowed him (amongst other measures) emergency powers to legally wage pre-emptive war without any further parliamentary or presidential approval, or even discussion.

In January 2017, H.J. Res 10 was introduced to the US House of Representatives. Its intent was simple and straightforward:

This joint resolution authorizes the President to use the U.S. Armed Forces as necessary in order to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Introduced by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), the bill seeks to give the president unilateral authority to legally wage pre-emptive war without any further Congressional approval, or even discussion.

So, is it possible that the US is following a similar path to that of 1930’s Germany? Well, let’s look a bit closer and see.

During his campaign, Mister Trump was very vocal with regard to his sentiments toward Iran and, since his inauguration, has famously put Iran “on notice.”

He has the full support of his chief advisers on this issue. His national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and his defence secretary, Gen. James Mattis, have both recently accused Iran of being the world’s leading “state sponsor of terrorism.” New head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, also favours invading Iran.

On the other side of the fence, Ayatollah Khamenei has behaved with traditional Iranian braggadocio, saying of Mister Trump,

We actually thank this new president… What we have been saying for more than 30 years about the political, economic, moral, and social corruption within the US ruling establishment, he revealed during the election campaign and after the elections.

With each side goading the other, both sides seem to be as eager to “get into the ring” as Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were in 1971’s “Fight of the Century.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Looking Forward

August 16, 2016

Looking Forward

Looking Forward

 

Since its inception, International Man has offered prognostications about what the future will bring – economically, politically and socially. The principle writers of the publication have been at this for decades. Each one began by studying world economics and politics in order to make the best choices as to where to live, where to invest, where to store wealth, etc. Over the years, each one got better at researching, better at reading the signs and, ultimately, better at predicting future events.

But, today, we’re approaching a worldwide crisis point and the study that we undertook decades ago has become important for literally hundreds of millions of people who, whether they realise it or not, will soon be impacted by events in a major way.

The foremost concern for readers of this publication is that the world’s leading governments have become decidedly fascist and are rapidly heading in a totalitarian direction. There are a number of facets to this development, all of them disturbing: The elimination of personal privacy, the creation of capital controls, confiscation of wealth, the conversion to electronic banking as the sole form of currency, international taxation standards and the creation of a police state. (There are many, many more facets, but these few tend to be at the core of concern.)

We can expect to see all of these concerns come closer to reality in the near future. The events that bring them about will increase in bothfrequency and magnitude as we get closer. (Historically, this is always the case, as governments that are in trouble race to get controls in place, as their continued ability to control events unravels.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Inevitability of Dramatic Inflation

February 15, 2016

The Inevitability of Dramatic Inflation

The Inevitability of Dramatic Inflation

No one is very concerned about inflation right now and that’s understandable.

Although inflation exists in some sectors of the economy, the present subject of discussion is deflation. Any depression is inherently deflationary since spending is curtailed, which drives prices down.

Since 2008, despite all the fudged reports emanating from governments, much of the world has been in a depression since 2008 and remains in one. This will continue until such time as there is a true cleansing of the system – a step the leaders of each jurisdiction have avoided as much as possible, choosing instead to extend the party as long as possible before the inevitable collapse occurs.

Since deflation is the problem that’s staring us in the face now, most economic discussion deals with it. But, historically, when deflation occurs, governments do everything they can do reverse the problem and return to inflation.

To the average person, one type of ‘flation is as bad as another type of ‘flation – he merely hopes for economic stability. And so the effort by governments to not only accept inflation but to recommend its existence as policy seems odd. But then, governments (and banks) benefit from inflation.

People can only be taxed so much before they rebel, but inflation acts as a hidden tax and most people don’t recognise that it’s not the number of currency units one possesses that matters, but what level of purchasing power they have. Inflation allows the individual to retain his currency notes, but devalues them so they buy him less in goods and services. Inflation is the unperceived tax.

The US Federal Reserve has done a sterling job of exacting wealth from US citizens. Since it was created in 1913, it has devalued the dollar by roughly 97% and the dollar is now due for replacement.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The International War on Cash

January 12, 2016

The International War on Cash

The International War on Cash

Back in 2008, I began warning of increasing capital controls that we would see in the future, as a component in the decline of Western economies (Western in the broad sense, including Japan, Australia, etc.)

Along the way, it occurred to me that, at some point, governments might collectively attempt to eliminate paper currency in favour of an electronic currency – transferred from party to party solely through licensed banks. Sound farfetched? Well, maybe, but what if the U.S. and EU agreed on an overall plan, then suggested it to other governments? On the face of it, this smacks of conspiracy theory, yet certainly, all governments would benefit from this control and would be likely to get on board. In fact, it might prove to be the only way out of their present economic problems.

So, how would it play out? Here’s roughly how I saw Phase I:

  • Link the free movement of cash to terrorism (Create a consciousness that any movement of large sums suggests criminal activity.);
  • Establish upper limits on the amount of money that can be moved without reporting to some government investigatory agency;
  • Periodically lower those limits;
  • Accustom people to making all purchases, however small or large, through a bank card;
  • Create a consciousness that the mere possession of cash is suspect, since it’s no longer “necessary”.

When I first wrote on the subject, there was considerable criticism as to the possibility that such a programme would ever be attempted, let alone succeed. And, granted, it was so Orwellian that it was understandably seen as a crackpot idea. But since that time, the programme has been developing extremely rapidly. In the last six months alone, it has become so visible that it has even garnered a name – “the War on Cash”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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