The sun will rise. Destruction is not inevitable.

Self-destructive behaviors affect individuals, cities and nations. They include opioid addictions, alcohol abuse, excessive debt, corruption, negative interest rates, chemically poisoned food, wealth taxes, insolvent pension plans, insane spending, and hundreds more.

Narrow the focus to fiscal and monetary behaviors. The self-destructive list remains long. Many policies and behaviors on the list will result in tears.

Excessive debt: The road to economic hell for individuals is paved with easy monthly payments. Governments only pay the interest on their rapidly increasing debt. But they must borrow even more to pay the interest. Retiring the debt is seldom considered. A reasonable person will conclude:

1. This self-destructive excessive debt nonsense can’t last forever.
2. Eventually interest payments consume revenues, forcing the central bank to monetize the debt. Think “banana republic.”
3. The choices become default on the debt or hyper-inflate the currency to near zero value.
4. Do you prefer death by painful poison or shotgun blast?

Most governments rush down this self-destructive economic road to hell. Whether intentional or created by short-sighted politics, the results will damage everyone but the political and financial elite.

Welfare and warfare policies: Government sponsored welfare and warfare policies produce limited success.

• The Vietnam War: Death, destruction and more debt, but few positive results.
• The War on Poverty: What has this welfare program created besides more poverty and social misery?
• The War on Drugs: Little success here, but costs are high.
• Iraq 1.0: Expensive! Iraqi gold disappeared and Iran increased their influence in the middle-east.
• Afghanistan: Costly with few positive results, except that heroin imports into the U.S. increased.
• Iraq 2.0: No better.
• Libya: No good news here. Their gold disappeared.
• Social Security and Medicare: These programs cost $trillions and increase every year. They expand government debt and create higher profits for “Big Pharma” and the “sick care” cartel. Is there a better way?
• Global Warming: Fifty years ago people worried about global cooling, but politicians can’t tax global cooling. Now they blame global warming, climate change and demand higher taxes. NASA thinks solar radiation is declining and global cooling will result. Chicago is freezing this week and Australia is roasting. Should we blame the Russians?
• MMT and other economic nonsense: Modern Monetary Theory is neither modern nor monetary. It has the intellectual credibility of the flat-earth theory and predictive value of the “sun revolves around the earth” nonsense from the dark ages. However, politicians will promote MMT as deficits and debt become more intractable. An analogy: Give your irresponsible 16 year old son a fifth of whisky and the keys to your new Ferrari. What could go wrong?
• The Federal Reserve: Prices were stable for the century before a corrupt congress passed legislation creating the Fed. The Fed then managed money in the U.S. and prices have risen many times higher. The dollar has been devalued 95 – 99%, gold and silver no longer circulate as money, unbacked paper currency is legal, and wealthy banks control more than we imagine. The Fed destroys the “Main Street” economy.

SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIORS:

• Individuals become debt-slaves for much of their life via mortgages, credit cards, student loans, auto loans, payday loans and more. Most people support the banking cartel and self-destructive debt-slavery.
• Governments don’t control their spending, fall deeper into debt and create their eventual self-destruction. Debt, deficits, devaluation, destruction of purchasing power and inevitable inflation occur – thanks to the political and financial elite.
• Governments, encouraged by military contractors, arms dealers and special interests, engage in costly and pointless wars that accomplish little. Wealthy individuals and powerful cartels benefit and the masses pay with lives, devaluations and price inflation.
• Governments approve social legislation to enlarge their power base, buy votes, and reward those who supported the politicians. Much of this legislation is counter-productive, costly and self-destructive. When will governments and voters learn?

WHO PAYS?

The short answer is that citizens pay via taxes and currency devaluation as the cartels suck the life out of the currency and the economy.

HOW HAS THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM SURVIVED THIS LONG?

The U.S. buys real goods and raw materials from other countries and pays with debt paper. Petrodollars and trade dollars are recycled back into our financial markets. It’s good for the U.S. while it lasts.

The U.S. military backs dollar strength. Examples such as Iraq and Libya encourage others not to resist the U.S. military or the reserve currency status of the dollar.

PROGNOSIS – NOT GOOD:

• Many countries seek dollar alternatives. They want to transact business outside the dollar. A painful reset is coming.
• The U.S. military is no longer the only game in town. Russia and China have formidable offensive and defensive weapons.
• Self-destructive behaviors create a reset or destruction.

ALTERNATIVES:

• Don’t fall into the debt trap. Self-destructive financial actions and debt will create dire consequences.
• Be your own central bank and protect your financial future with real assets, such as gold, silver, platinum, and underpriced real estate.
• First slowly, then rapidly… The official dollar devaluation and price inflation have been slow for a decade but they will accelerate. Other inflation measures (John Williams – Shadow Stats and Chapwood Index) suggest consumer price inflation is much larger than the official numbers. Expect more dollar devaluation and higher consumer prices.

Silver and gold prices have languished for many years. Silver sells for $16 in late January 2019 but was higher in 2008. Expect another rally that exceeds the all-time high of $50—sometime early next decade.

Both silver and gold prices will skyrocket when the world discovers how fragile and insolvent the financial systems, banks and political systems have become. Look at global banking stocks, total debt, failing pension plans, insolvent cities and states, overpriced stocks, falling real estate prices and craziness across the political spectrum.

We need a survival plan that protects us from the self-destructive policies of governments and cartels.