“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” –Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas was a French Impressionist best known for painting ballet dancers. He was fascinated by their grace and power and tried to capture their energy on the canvas. When he couldn’t paint them anymore, because he was going blind, he started sculpting them. His life mission was to communicate something profound from the art of dance that he noticed and appreciated.
Human beings are creatures of communication. What makes us different from other living things is our ability to speak languages, read and write, and create art with purpose and passion. We are not strong like some other species; we cannot sleep like the deer, naked in snow, and expect to get up the next morning. We cannot pounce on a deer and kill it like the lion to eat and survive. We can only think, feel, communicate, and cooperate with others to survive and thrive.
While most people think of the fourfold Industrial Revolution as never-ending linear progression of the human condition into a fifth, sixth, seventh, etcetera, I see an aberration. From 1765 through today, there has been amazing evolution, unlike any recorded period in all of human history. In the beginning, steam engines were fueled by coal mined by laborers who worked long hours traveling up and down by elevator deep underground. Now the extraction of coal and all natural resources is dependent on heavy machinery like diggers, loaders, and trucks that use diesel.
I’m not going to get into details, but the oil-dependent global economic system is going kaput, especially funded by more and more credit with diminishing returns. We can only use our imagination to fathom what comes next. While global powers like NATO and the BRICS are fighting for dominance over precious energy and material resources, ordinary people are reorganizing themselves in small independent communities around the world. No one can argue with the fact that the less we are dependent on the parasitic global economic system, the better off we will be when it dies. It’s good for the health of human beings, the Earth, the animals, nature, air, oceans, lakes, soil, etc. to go back to local communities. Going local is far better than going green.
Pardon me for saying, but Green Energy is a politically-charged copout. It’s something like, “Oh gee, I’m sorry the toxic chemicals I’m putting all over my lawn are bad for bees, pollination, and nature, and that it gives you cancer, but how about we fix the DNA in the bees to make them resistant to our chemicals!” Or “Oh golly, the glyphosate for the bugs kills the wheat, but we can fix that by changing the molecular structure of the wheat.” No mention of the fact that when you eat the wheat, the glyphosate on the Frankenstein version then kills your microbiome. But who needs those pesky creatures anyway? Don’t mistake stupidity for hubris. Human beings can be like ticks on steroids.
Maybe the globaleconomonster is like a giant eternal tick, sucking out the earth’s blood for it’s survival. The big beneficiaries would like you to believe that if we all suck more blood out of the earth to make machines and products that build up a green-energy sector, that somehow it’s all gonna be okay and we can go on being blood suckers that feel good about ourselves, while we deplete the Earth’s goodness, replacing it with our trash. Other living things don’t do this, so why should we? Why do we fall for con artists who fly on private jets to Green Energy conferences? Do people not see how moronic it is? Isn’t it kind-of like an alcoholic showing up to an AA meeting with a bottle of booze?
As the Industrial Revolutions catapulted one on top of the other, the discovery of oil (1859) and the Gilded Age (1865-1898) descended upon the human race. With record pace, rapid technological advancements fueled the growth of cities and suburbs. What followed was a massive rise in age expectancy, world population and debt. There is only one problem with our debtopia, oil isn’t infinite or eternal like the gods, and long before it takes a barrel of oil to pull a barrel of oil out of the ground or sea, it’s game over. Credit with diminishing returns is the kaput I’m talking about that’s gaining speed. First there will be a sovereign debt crisis, the cost of energy will rise remarkably, and it will be clear how the good old days of the global economic system was an anomaly that defied even nature.
If you didn’t flunk your mathematics class in elementary school, you should be able to figure out that the only way out of this mess is to end the globaleconomonster before it ends us! In June, I was on the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores. If you have never been to the Azores, I highly recommend this gorgeous paradise with hydrangeas along every road, mountain tops, hot springs, volcanic craters, ocean views everywhere, breathtaking beaches, and three cows to every human. Get this, a real estate agent told me that the beef they produce is exported, while the beef from Argentina is imported. That’s the global economy, where you can earn fake money by wasting energy. And this is only one small example among millions.
Do you understand what I’m saying? Here’s some simple math…
D=Debt (The borrowing of money to trade)
G=Gold (Asset. No counter-party risk)
E=Energy (Cost of mining, producing, transporting, consuming)
M=Money (Measure used for trade)
P=Profit, or M + any number ≥ 1.10 (Just more)
In the current system, dominated by the West:
D = M (Debt = Money)
M – E = P (Money – Energy = Profit)
Note: E cannot exceed M, so its price is artificially controlled.
In the BRICS System coming out of the East:
G = M (Gold = Money)
M – E = Fair Trade (Money – Energy = Fair Trade)
Note: Since G and M are the same, there is no artificial cost of energy to maintain. The cost of M rises with the cost of E. No more games.
The latest news, which you won’t find in the mainstream media, is the BRICS met last month in South Africa. And it appears they just cornered all the major “choke points” for energy passage with new members added. As of January 1, 2024, the strategic new members (Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE) create checkmate in the game of Every-War-Is-A-Fight-For-Energy. With Egypt comes the Suez Canal. With Iran comes the Straights of Hormuz. It’s stunning to consider what the USA and NATO has lost, its people under the spell of propaganda, bread, and circuses. Add in the New Development Bank, G77 of the United Nations, to all the other things happening around us, and you get the big picture.
I also just learned that the U.S. bought 416 tons of uranium from Russia in the first half of the year, more than double the amount for the same period in 2022 and the highest level since 2005. So if the U.S. is buying energy fuels from Russia, why did they freeze my Russian energy ETFs and stocks? I was invested heavily before the war started, and lost everything. Why did they freeze Russian assets when they continued trading with Russia? Sounds like a fake war to me, just sayin. Sorry to get off track, but it pisses me off to say the least. I will probably never get my money back, but the U.S. can resume trade with Russia? What gives? It seems more like a war against us ordinary people with hyperbole and propaganda!
Actually, a new and important market of energy is fast growing and creates a new basis of a multi-polar world.
China and Saudi Arabia have the potential to re-write the rules of the global energy market leading the way in diversifying currencies and embracing new models of economic collaboration. This partnership can also inspire the Global South to expand the intra and extra regional trade, offering greater possibilities for countries that are marginalized by the traditional international financial system.”
When it comes to fair global trade, money is simply energy. We trade something we have (measured by money) for something else (with measurably the same energy value). The measure has to be the same across the world. Fact is, if we can create dollars out of thin air, and the dollar is the world reserve currency, it’s not an equal measure for goods or fair global trade. It is a global con that exploits people and nations for profit, creating a greater and greater gap between the rich and poor, a modern-day version of global slavery. Those on top don’t really work; they “collect” from those below them and live leisurely. Meanwhile, those on the bottom work their asses off, unless appeased by welfare.
There are four legs holding up the table of the globaleconomonster:
- Credit of the U.S. Government (their ability to borrow evermore money from the world)
- Real Estate (backed by loads and loads of debt)
- Financial Assets (stocks and bonds leveraged to the hilt)
- Price of Oil (managed with shady deals and what used to be the petrodollar)
Cotton exchange in New Orleans by Edgar Degas
All it takes is for one leg to really break in half, and the monster will crash into the sea like the Kraken did when it looked into the eyes of the head of Medusa and turned into stone! (Wait a minute… Medusa? Med-USA? Hmmmm) While known mostly as a master of movement in painting, Edgar Degas painted A Cotton Office in New Orleans in 1873, depicting his uncle Michel Musson’s cotton financing business going bankrupt from a “monetary accident.” During the Reconstruction period, and the Banking Panic of 1873, the Factors’ and Traders’ Insurance Company lost business to middlemen who started working directly with black cotton farmers. This led to the company’s profits dropping sharply and ultimately to business failure. It has happened an awfully lot throughout history.
Just for kicks, I edited the text of the U.S. Treasury Department page describing the banking panic of 1873. Not to change history, but to place strong emphasis on Mark Twain’s quote: “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.” My changes are in non-italic bold.
After the Civil War War on Covid, the US banking system money supply grew rapidly and seemed by many to be set on solid ground. But the country was hit by many banking crises.
The panic started with a problem in Europe in the global monetary system when the stock market crashed the U.S. dollar skyrocketed. Investors began to sell off the investments they had in American projects, particularly railroads the FANGS and Cryptos. Back in those days, railroads tech and cryptos were a new invention, and companies had been borrowing money to get the cash they needed to build new lines buy back their own stocks, and people did the same with stocks and crypto. Railroad companies borrowed using The world started dumping treasury bonds, which were debt securities specifying how much a company the U.S. government was borrowing and how much interest it would pay. This drove the interest rates up further, causing instability in the banking sector.
When Europeans the USA started selling their railroad bonds printing money again, on top of $35 Trillion in debt, there were soon more bonds for sale than anyone wanted. Railroad companies The US Government could no longer find anyone who would lend them cash. Many railroads The USA went bankrupt.
One of the biggest international banks in New York City NOT YET KNOWN was Jay Cooke & Company NOT YET KNOWN. It had invested a lot of money in the railroads U.S. Treasuries and when the railroads bond market started having problems, Jay Cooke & Company the bank went bankrupt. When people saw that such a big bank failed, they began to run to their banks, demanding all of their money back.
The panic spread to banks in Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and Georgia, as well as to banks in the Midwest, including those in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. Nationwide, at least 100 ? banks failed.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Source: AndroidMarsExpress / Wikimedia Commons
How did I do? As we know, the current monetary system, and its obligations, is woefully ill-equipped to handle a debt crisis, as energy becomes more scarce and the cost rises. Lest we forget, the borrower is always slave to the lender. The BRICS offers a temporary but longer-term solution that discourages energy inefficiency and flat out waste, while encouraging fair trade among the nations. Under the BRICS system, the Azores won’t export beef, to import beef, to turn a profit artificially, because the system won’t allow for games to make a buck. Despite any smear campaigns you may hear about the so-called “evil” BRICS or Putin, they’re just trying to stop our dollar-rocking meth party, which is a sane and good thing to do in a system that’s on life support. When will they pull the plug?
Go local. Do it now, or do it later, but if you don’t get into a local self-sufficient community before things escalate downward, you’ll pay a hefty price getting there after. “Feed the ducks while they are quacking.” In other words, “Remember to sell your investments when they are fully valued and the market is ravenous for them. Then go buy what the market has abandoned.” Get yourself some gold and silver, too. Unfortunately, I need to wait for my investments to work before I can go off into yonder. Hopefully I don’t miss the chance. If you’re confused about any of this, get off TikTok and go paint something real like Edgar Degas did of his uncle’s business going bankrupt, or on happier strokes, a beautiful ballet dancer in motion. Note: artistry and artificial intelligence don’t mix.
