What’s It Mean to You and Me?
There is little question that the vast majority of the public is ignorant or apathetic, or both, to the pervasive corruption of the political classes and their financiers.
But even if they were paying attention and outraged, the fact of the matter is that things have degraded to the point where there is next to nothing John Q. can do about it. Sure, you can write your Congressman; just be sure to be extra polite, or your letter will end up in the hands of zee Homeland Security.
Ditto if you write angry emails and send them to all your friends. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking there is still such a thing as privacy or the right of free speech in the Anglosphere.
And heavens forbid you try to organize a physical protest. Next thing you know, you’ll end up wearing a pair of these bad boys coming to your friendly police officer’s belt soon.
(Not only do these next-gen cuffs restrain you, but they allow the arresting officer to remotely deliver electric shocks and, if that doesn’t do the trick, even inject drugs into you.)
Of course, if your company or industry wants to fight it out in the courts, you have to be ready and able to spend millions in legal fees fighting a government with unlimited funds (provided, of course, by your taxes and money borrowed from the Chinese or ginned up by the Fed).
What I’m trying to say is that, regardless of what the popular corruption indexes show – and those are typically based on fairly suspect surveys on matters such as transparency in corporate reporting or whether bribes are required to do business – when you take into account the systematic skewing of the judicial and electoral systems to favor the entrenched politicos and their friends in high places, the level of corruption in the Anglosphere would make an African despot blush.
It’s not an accident that the Republicans and the Democrats, two sides of the same coin despite all the rhetoric, are never remotely at risk of losing their collective grip on power – the system has been carefully and thoroughly rigged to prevent that from happening.
Logically, if there is virtually nothing the public at large can do about the rigged game they are forced to live with, then it comes down to decisions we make as individuals.
Some general approaches for your consideration.
- Suck it up. The Stoic approach is to recognize there are certain things you can’t do anything about, so put the hypocrisy and self-dealing of officialdom and their enablers out of mind and live your life the best you know how.
- Profit from it. While it may seem counterintuitive, the more challenging the environment for business creation, the more money an especially hard-charging entrepreneur can make. This is why Asian shop owners open up in ghettos and why the margins for “war profiteers” are so high – because they literally have to risk life and limb to collect them.A successful acquaintance recently told me that, as the head of the Argentine branch of a major international electronics brand, his division was regularly able to pull down margins in excess of 40% while his counterparts in less volatile political environments were happy with less than 10%.It just takes an extra measure of patience and fortitude to overcome the challenges that scare less determined individuals away.
- Move West… or South, but probably not North. A combination of #1 and 2 above, the brave minority might want to consider taking the show on the road.
- If you can’t beat them, join them. As Doug Casey has often pointed out, the effect of Pareto’s Law operating over time on the large democracies has resulted in the worst sort of people controlling the levers of government at the federal, state and local level. If you happen to be a sociopath with control issues, then you might want to hop on the gravy train and worm your way into government, or into one of the many parasitic enterprises sucking the life from the body politic.
- Go outlaw. Yesterday, a flash mob gathered in the southern Argentine city of Bariloche for the sole purpose of looting a large store of electronics, food and booze, and sundry other items that will make the Christmas holidays all the more festive.When I heard of the incident, I mentioned to my wife that this could very well be the proverbial first shot in the breakdown of civil society in cities around the world. And sure enough, as I was writing, the news broke that spontaneous mobs have formed in a number of cities around Argentina for the sole purpose of looting stores.This is precisely the sort of thing one can expect in an economy laid low by political corruption, malfeasance and self-serving meddling. When people lose hope, and lose faith that the judicial system will protect them from the entrenched interests, then it is well within the range of some of those people to just say screw it and go outlaw.
I could be wrong, but I think what happened in Bariloche yesterday has the potential to be just as seminal as the self-immolation in Tunisia that set off the Arab Spring.
The implications of mobs deciding to come together to just take what they want are potentially huge. In the Anglo-Saxon world, it could provide exactly the excuse needed to bring down the stainless-steel curtain built with hundreds of billions of homeland security expenditures over the past decade.
In fact, while I am probably overstating it, the action of the mob in Bariloche yesterday could be the missing link between Neil Howe’s Third and Fourth Turning, ushering in the next and most troubled era.
It’s ironic that it’s happening in here in my new retreat in Argentina, but it’s of no personal import because our new hometown of Cafayate is rural, small and very successful, and the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else. And, besides, there are no large supermarkets to raid.
In addition, despite the dark era of military rule (or perhaps because of it), Argentina is not a violent culture, and the big cities are few and far between. The same can’t be said of places like Chicago and Detroit, where flash mobs have been increasingly cropping up with the primary intention of committing violence.
How fast and how far things will spread from here is only a matter of conjecture, but the range of possibilities is wide.
Regardless of whether the rule of law continues to be diminished through the acts of corrupt politicians or a mob – or through the militarized arm of the politicos trying to control the mob – I fear the knock-on consequences on the economy and on society at large.
I really don’t want to be a Chicken Little, but taking some basic precautions to protect yourself and your assets is only commonsense at this juncture.
Trend hunters see the writing on the wall and can prepare themselves accordingly for the coming shifts. Those who do so successfully in the investment world can realize life-changing gains… such as David Galland’s highly successful contrarian speculator friend and business partner, Doug Casey. Being able to get inside the mind of someone like this is a rare treat… a window into the thought processes of a self-made millionaire offers insights that can stimulate, entertain, and even educate others.
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“Gold Scales Of Justice” courtesy of Kittisak / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
