Lovely. You address an important aspect of housing, namely a means for extracting wealth from society. There is however another equally important aspect, "taming", developing a culture of obedience in corporations.
Buying a house is a financially losing proposition unless you live long enough in that house. Because you have to pay real estate agent fees when buying and when selling, and the first few years you are mostly paying interest and not principal.
If you have a specialized job, odds of finding a similar job in same city are remote, finding a new job usually means relocating. Unknowingly therefore buying a house acts to "tame" you.
Shortly after starting work at a major company in the US, I was jogging with Jay, director of my department, we had a short conversation:
Jay, pointing to some nice new houses being built, says, why don't you buy a house, real estate prices here will rise.
I point to my neck, saying: what do you see?
Jay: Nothing
Me: Exactly, and I want to keep it that way. (meaning no leash on my neck) ;-)
I started the job on September 9th and decided to furnish the apartment I rented with salary of the first 21 days. So, whenever I wanted to quit there would be nothing holding me back.
At work I could observe how employees, particularly at the managerial level were tamed. Most would be desperate to keep their job, hence making sure to keep their direct boss and upper management pleased with them. Few would rock the boat. Mortgage is one of the main taming instruments.
In the long term, this has a negative effect on company performance. What Boeing is going through now, is partly to blame on this culture of obedience that has developed in corporations.
That's an excellent point, Fadi. I wonder, though, if transience is part of the script now because corporations don't want to keep people. It starts with college migration but then corporations or militaries move people around at whim. Police and firefighters don't live in the communities they serve--intentionally. To make a slave, you have to first strip them of their context: family, community, neighbors, friends. Our society does that systematically through education. So I wonder if the strategy has changed.
hhmmm how to say this without being a racist supremacist... transience is as you say did become part of the script... in non-value adding jobs... corporate lawyers, financial managers, bankers, HR managers, Sales & Marketing managers, CEOs with backgrounds in finance etc. But in value-adding activities such as in manufacturing, transience is not part of the script, because all productive staff from worker to plant manager to QA/QC and R&D staff etc., skills specific a specific to the productive activity are developed at all levels. Loss of such individuals entails loss of these specific capabilities that cannot be readily replaced by newcomers.
This explains why companies in the US today cannot produce what they could back in the 1970s including in the lavishly funded the military industrial complex:
Writing the book was a 7 yr process, including one significant rewrite. That takes a fellow researcher to notice! I glanced ahead in your book and noticed that the last 80 pp, is it?, are endnotes, references and index. Making sense of the world is quite an undertaking!
Mullein is medicinal!! The dried leaves make an excellent tea to get rid of coughs that linger. Also, the flowers soaked in Olive Oil creates a great tonic for ear aches. ❤️
Oh I knew about the tea but not the ear ache remedy. I'll harvest some and steep it!
There are some theories that medicinal plants come where and when we need them. It's been a validation that mullein started sprouting everywhere in my yard right at the start of the CovidCon.
To me this situation is a perfect example of how young and experienced are pitted against each other by simple diverging incentives. I've underestimated the "college migrant" industry's ability to manufacture local division, but we have examples here in Canada too.
The phrase "the means is the message" comes to mind as you describe how people are "educated" by removing them from community and given temporary or illusory privileges.
It is then no wonder that many grow up with severed ties to any community, then grow to prefer reaching out online, with wildly varying results.
This definitely has (and has had) policy implications when that becomes the model that generations perceive as normal..
Yes! I don't know if you read my reply to Fadi talking about how slaves had to first be ripped from their context. The movie Crash, I think it was, made that point about the police. They're shipped into other communities so that white officers are always on edge in Oakland, seeing threats everywhere. And you'll read about that with the Massachusetts militia brought in to break up Shay's rebellion. It's critical to make sure people don't see others as the neighbor who saw them grow up.
It was interesting to read in The Dawn of Everything that people have always loved travel, and that hospitality has always been expected. If there aren't artificial incentives to move, most people tend to stay where they have family and friends, and keep a 'home base' to their wanderings. Occasionally, people fall in love with a person or a people or a place, and change their home. But it's not like some places are where everyone wants to live.
Santa Cruz felt like my lost home as soon as I arrived. But only because of the people, not the ocean--if I go to the beach once in a year, that's a lot. In SC, I was no longer the weirdest person in the room. I never thought I'd want to spend time in Cumberland once I escaped. But maybe there's a vibrational frequency to the place you were born. I'd like to see them both succeed, and do what I can to help that.
Just came across a fly in the ointment for more rural parts of Maryland. It appears the corporate nation-state is increasingly leveraging the Law of Eminent Domain for perverse incentives ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxtQfYu1GnM
Thanks for posting that, Steve, great information. Matt Ehret and Cynthia Chung write about those megawatt powerlines too. They're also an extreme fire hazard because they're bare wire. So in a high wind or storm, they can set anything ablaze. Forests are needing to be cleared to make a path for them.
Eminent domain is a piece of this but it's overall part of the destruction part of the 3D Reset, with depopulation and dispossession (and depression and demoralization). They mention Frederick County, which is where the biolabs are connected with Malone and Ft. Detrick. Just 50 min out of DC, I just drove through it on my way here last night. And yes, Virginia is just a hop skip.
Yes. I was thinking how your summary of what's happening shows how that law, the power lines, and data centers fit into the big picture. But found a funny alternative explanation for spontaneous wildfires here, at 10 seconds ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bbdMHG-kkM ... the wildfire equivalence of SADS.
Ooooh gorgeous! And I noticed the hydrangea in there. I just bought some pink ones for my table here in Cumberland. Did I ever show you my Art House? https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/868849105161693609
Free toasters? That's a downgrade! I'm sure you remember my glitter lava lamp from some episodes. I got it from Abbott Thrift, stamped Washington Mutual. They don't make promos like they used ta.
And I'm listening to one of my favorite songs that I still can't believe isn't Bonnie Riatt. I'm sure you know it and probably recommended it to me some time or other: https://youtu.be/gy5-EQ7Ae_0?si=rEharMR5En1wgrPl.
Might have been something I recommended...don't have a clear recollection of doing it. There are a number of live clips...this is the first one I previewed...the brief but tasty intro makes me wonder if Derek Trucks has a sitar back home...This one cooks...enjoy da brief whiff of Indian kitchen aromas before de blues chefs show up. www.youtube.com/watch?v=dseiXrOTXAk
Yes, our books have quite a lot in common! What a joy it is to be read by someone not afraid of numbers! You would think that it's a contradiction in terms for an economist to be afraid of numbers, but I've been listening to Richard Wolff recently--because he's been on with Michael Hudson--and I find it's not.
Really illuminating comparisons, Fadi. Linking Glass-Steagall seems logical to me. And household wealth has been further impoverished because in 2024, nearly every household has two working adults. In 1989 that was less true, and in 1970 hardly true at all. So the true wealth of the household, in owning its own labor and time, has been cut in half from this.
The ratio in oz of gold is definitely significant but the decline in value over all could be accounted for by gold inflation. Gold is still a fiat currency, unless it's calculated at its use value. As you know, I think the concentrated stored labor represented by gold is what enabled colonization, enslavement and conquest on steroids. Its mining violently destroys the health, environments and economies of communities today. It's also a speculative value since we don't trade directly in gold--it has to be exchanged into another fiat currency at whatever the going rate is. In that way, it's like a stock or share.
It would be interesting to see what these ratios would be in the median cost of housing--even looking at the cost of housing 30 yrs prior when a home would have been bought under the mortgage. I'm not suggesting you do that calculation, I'm just saying it might be even more dramatic. And that's where the true wealth of a household is, in their security.
Gold: I agree with your analysis of gold especially the 17th to 20th century.
I first decided to buy steel which I use for my business. But I realized I would need a warehouse, a guard, and need to regularly protect against corrosion. Also not easy to sell when you want. Steel comes in different profiles and sizes. Real estate is a function of affluence, and will depreciate in crises, thus cannot guarantee preserving wealth.
Silver margins as a percent of value are 10 times higher than gold.
Most importantly war has been waged by central banks on gold since 1960 with establishment of London Gold Pool. When this crashed, and subsequent to Nixon Shock, Kissinger and Volker waged forced demonetization of gold in the 1970s & 1980s. Actual value of gold is multiples greater than COMEX spot. In a crisis it is guaranteed to preserve value.
Gold is also very practical to store value: corrosion resistant, high density. One cubic inch is $27,000. In the Levant, it is very easy to buy and sell. No tax and margins on buying less than 1% and on selling less than 0.2%. Just walk into the shop, pay cash and walk out. Or take the gold, tell him I want say $1,000, he will cut off small pieces until correct weight is obtained based on COMEX spot price. So here nearly all keep their savings in gold, especially after the 2019 bank crash which took all depositors money (3 of my friends lost a total of $8 million in the banks). I had warned friends and family 22 months in advance of the crash to withdraw money from the banks.
:-) I did the calculation years ago. What I noticed, is that raw materials preserved their value in gold. Manufactured products dropped in proportion to labor content; more labor more loss in value. The greatest drop (you write about this) was in cost of human labor!
Only the "healthcare" casino maintained its price vs. gold. "Education" was second. Housing dropped because it involves labor and affluence. As mentioned above, it will drop a lot in times of crisis. Western economies are nearing a major crisis. So my advice to friends in the West has been for a while: Get OUT of debt and all types of securities (stocks, bonds, treasuries, etc.) Savings in gold bars, outside banking system.
A core theme of his series is the rise of the (scientific) expert and in particular the control of labour – from labour policy to controlling and steering labour ‘unions’.
To navigate, you can read the ten-part series ‘Brandeis: Rise of the Expert’ and/or listen to him talk through each chapter in the podcast series “The Deep Share”.
I have now started working my way through the ’Missing Link’ series. Duane is now appearing weekly (Wednesdays) on Ba’al Busters with Daniel Kristos.
Just the other day he delivered another master class session with Daniel
• MUST SEE Bulletproof Wednesday on 11-Sep-24-11:04:54 – Daniel Kristos Ba’al Busters FTJ
(I have only just begun to learn about the Taylor System).
In short, the great Capitalist (or should that be Kabbitalist – MY word!) Karl Marx was all about Harnessing the working class, not raising it up to some level of egalitarianism.
What a delightful and informative rant. That beautiful red rose is one heck of a talented ventriloquist!
That Appalachian countryside is very inviting. I wonder how far away from the Ozarks you are, but there is a lot of off-grid community building going on there.
Here is Eric Orwoll (‘Aarvoll’ - Return to the Land Project).
Don't you be trying to one-up the Appalachians with the Ozarks! Here's a little info:
"Appalachia is made up of 423 counties across 13 states and spans 206,000 square miles, from southern New York to northern Mississippi. The Region’s 26.4 million residents live in parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, and all of West Virginia.
The Region also comprises three federally recognized and five state recognized Native American Tribal Communities, with Tribal entities in Appalachian Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, New York, and North Carolina."
What I love about California is the Big Sky. I used to get claustrophobic here hemmed in by the mountains that keep the sky overcast. But what I love about Appalachia is that deep saturated green that you get from summer thunderstorms (that haven't happened this year, something's afoot with geo-engineering).
I'll check out the Ozark playlist, I'm sure it translates from one mountain range to another ;-)
That really needed a double like. Likeydubdub. Crikey! Oh I guess that last belongs to you but they say the Queen's English could still be found in the hollers of Appalachia a couple generations ago. I'm sure they all speak like Midwesterners now.
I haven't been weighing in on this for my various stacks reporting on it, but it smells like a psyops to me. It's certainly not the first time that eating pets has been used to create outrage against a specific group. And may be true in some cases but is still being staged and amplified for maximum effect.
As an animal husbandry gal, the way in which we fetishize pets is from emotional attachment not innate morality. I talked to someone the other day who spent $400 on a vet bill for a chicken. Measured in the lives of third world children, and we could say Haitian children, that could have saved several.
As you can imagine, this was one of my most unpopular arguments on the playground. I no longer make it. But for myself, I measure doing harm and doing good in terms of people, and I think that harm done indirectly is as or more culpable than those who enact it directly because those people have more choices.
On Haiti specifically, I have episodes from my radio show that were lost when I changed hosting providers, but it's always been a big issue to me. The commenters on the video are poorly informed. It's not just the enslavement but the debt repayment they were forced into after they won their 'freedom.' It's the economic measures against them. The cholera that the UN 'peacekeepers' inflicted while they were recovering from disasters. The prevention of Aristide from governing and putting in another corrupt puppet instead.
Clinton was one of the most hypocritical, and his apology is as fake as everything else. The US has SO much blood on its hands with Haiti. But you and I agree that open borders are a disruption device. But anytime something is targeted for maximum outrage--like little girls at a Taylor Swift event--you can be sure the PBI is involved. (Powers Behind Israel, for others not as up on my Appalachian lingo ;-)
meaning… mort-gage = death -gamble
the water & energy issues in CA are intentionally manufactured through decades of sinister policy decisions by the State…
https://abundanceca.com/news/
Without a doubt, kitten. But I would change 'poor' policy decisions to sinister.
Yup. Martin's Razor ... Never attribute incompetence to what can adequately be explained by corruption. 🙃
done ✅
Lovely. You address an important aspect of housing, namely a means for extracting wealth from society. There is however another equally important aspect, "taming", developing a culture of obedience in corporations.
Buying a house is a financially losing proposition unless you live long enough in that house. Because you have to pay real estate agent fees when buying and when selling, and the first few years you are mostly paying interest and not principal.
If you have a specialized job, odds of finding a similar job in same city are remote, finding a new job usually means relocating. Unknowingly therefore buying a house acts to "tame" you.
Shortly after starting work at a major company in the US, I was jogging with Jay, director of my department, we had a short conversation:
Jay, pointing to some nice new houses being built, says, why don't you buy a house, real estate prices here will rise.
I point to my neck, saying: what do you see?
Jay: Nothing
Me: Exactly, and I want to keep it that way. (meaning no leash on my neck) ;-)
I started the job on September 9th and decided to furnish the apartment I rented with salary of the first 21 days. So, whenever I wanted to quit there would be nothing holding me back.
At work I could observe how employees, particularly at the managerial level were tamed. Most would be desperate to keep their job, hence making sure to keep their direct boss and upper management pleased with them. Few would rock the boat. Mortgage is one of the main taming instruments.
In the long term, this has a negative effect on company performance. What Boeing is going through now, is partly to blame on this culture of obedience that has developed in corporations.
That's an excellent point, Fadi. I wonder, though, if transience is part of the script now because corporations don't want to keep people. It starts with college migration but then corporations or militaries move people around at whim. Police and firefighters don't live in the communities they serve--intentionally. To make a slave, you have to first strip them of their context: family, community, neighbors, friends. Our society does that systematically through education. So I wonder if the strategy has changed.
hhmmm how to say this without being a racist supremacist... transience is as you say did become part of the script... in non-value adding jobs... corporate lawyers, financial managers, bankers, HR managers, Sales & Marketing managers, CEOs with backgrounds in finance etc. But in value-adding activities such as in manufacturing, transience is not part of the script, because all productive staff from worker to plant manager to QA/QC and R&D staff etc., skills specific a specific to the productive activity are developed at all levels. Loss of such individuals entails loss of these specific capabilities that cannot be readily replaced by newcomers.
This explains why companies in the US today cannot produce what they could back in the 1970s including in the lavishly funded the military industrial complex:
Warships: https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/press-releases/inhofe-and-reed-in-proceedings-the-navy-needs-a-course-correction
Artillery shells: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-crisis-artillery/
Excellent point, Fadi.
While reading your book, I was wondering how many years of research did it take you to write it?
Writing the book was a 7 yr process, including one significant rewrite. That takes a fellow researcher to notice! I glanced ahead in your book and noticed that the last 80 pp, is it?, are endnotes, references and index. Making sense of the world is quite an undertaking!
Quote: "Once bank credits passed through the economy, it becomes impossible to separate earned income from speculative gains.
Debt monetized through housing and labor is key to a system for taking assets without any value rendered"
As many things in the book provides excellent insight into the operational mechanisms of wealth extraction.
To avoid banker exploitation on a personal level:
- Avoid debt, save until you can pay cash for education, house, car etc.
- Savings: Real liquid assets, including physical gold stored outside banks.
- Healthcare: Healthy lifestyle. No insurance. Cash payment when necessary.
PS:
1. May not be so easy in the West.
2. Healthy lifestyle: Avoid medication. Smoking 1.5 packs per day max. Motorcycles for commuting, touring and the occasional road race :-)
Hello Tereza,
Still waiting for Substack comments pages for your book. As I read, so many comments, come to mind.
One idea could be to have substack pages titled:
How to Dismantle an Empire - 1 Pieces of Slave
How to Dismantle an Empire - 2 Two Ways to Make a Slave
etc.
Thought so... not less than 5 years. This make it evergreen, stays relevant and a source of knowledge for many years to come.
Yeah I have over 1000 references (endnotes) to make it rock solid. It was like a second PhD thesis.
Mullein is medicinal!! The dried leaves make an excellent tea to get rid of coughs that linger. Also, the flowers soaked in Olive Oil creates a great tonic for ear aches. ❤️
Oh I knew about the tea but not the ear ache remedy. I'll harvest some and steep it!
There are some theories that medicinal plants come where and when we need them. It's been a validation that mullein started sprouting everywhere in my yard right at the start of the CovidCon.
I subscribe to that theory!
I'm fixated on the "students vs loclals" fight.
To me this situation is a perfect example of how young and experienced are pitted against each other by simple diverging incentives. I've underestimated the "college migrant" industry's ability to manufacture local division, but we have examples here in Canada too.
The phrase "the means is the message" comes to mind as you describe how people are "educated" by removing them from community and given temporary or illusory privileges.
It is then no wonder that many grow up with severed ties to any community, then grow to prefer reaching out online, with wildly varying results.
This definitely has (and has had) policy implications when that becomes the model that generations perceive as normal..
Yes! I don't know if you read my reply to Fadi talking about how slaves had to first be ripped from their context. The movie Crash, I think it was, made that point about the police. They're shipped into other communities so that white officers are always on edge in Oakland, seeing threats everywhere. And you'll read about that with the Massachusetts militia brought in to break up Shay's rebellion. It's critical to make sure people don't see others as the neighbor who saw them grow up.
It was interesting to read in The Dawn of Everything that people have always loved travel, and that hospitality has always been expected. If there aren't artificial incentives to move, most people tend to stay where they have family and friends, and keep a 'home base' to their wanderings. Occasionally, people fall in love with a person or a people or a place, and change their home. But it's not like some places are where everyone wants to live.
Santa Cruz felt like my lost home as soon as I arrived. But only because of the people, not the ocean--if I go to the beach once in a year, that's a lot. In SC, I was no longer the weirdest person in the room. I never thought I'd want to spend time in Cumberland once I escaped. But maybe there's a vibrational frequency to the place you were born. I'd like to see them both succeed, and do what I can to help that.
Once again, very perceptive Gabe.
Hi Tereza.
Just came across a fly in the ointment for more rural parts of Maryland. It appears the corporate nation-state is increasingly leveraging the Law of Eminent Domain for perverse incentives ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxtQfYu1GnM
Catcha later!
Thanks for posting that, Steve, great information. Matt Ehret and Cynthia Chung write about those megawatt powerlines too. They're also an extreme fire hazard because they're bare wire. So in a high wind or storm, they can set anything ablaze. Forests are needing to be cleared to make a path for them.
Eminent domain is a piece of this but it's overall part of the destruction part of the 3D Reset, with depopulation and dispossession (and depression and demoralization). They mention Frederick County, which is where the biolabs are connected with Malone and Ft. Detrick. Just 50 min out of DC, I just drove through it on my way here last night. And yes, Virginia is just a hop skip.
Yes. I was thinking how your summary of what's happening shows how that law, the power lines, and data centers fit into the big picture. But found a funny alternative explanation for spontaneous wildfires here, at 10 seconds ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bbdMHG-kkM ... the wildfire equivalence of SADS.
Spontaneous combustion of forests! What are those crazy conifers smoking?
😂
Brains and beauty. Plus a stunning rose. 🌹
Back atcha, Neshma! Or whatever the Bombay equivalent is of a rose, which certainly smells as sweet ;-)
Well here are some English roses for you captured last week: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_lIavWIIdJ/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Ooooh gorgeous! And I noticed the hydrangea in there. I just bought some pink ones for my table here in Cumberland. Did I ever show you my Art House? https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/868849105161693609
What a colourfu and fun place to stay! That’s where you are right now? 🏠
Yup. In my childhood home, where I've kept the kitchen cabinets the same but that's about all.
Informative
Banks got so bad, eventually they had to start giving away free toasters to suck us in the front doors. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHqceTOXXuU www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynP6_xDCTPI
Free toasters? That's a downgrade! I'm sure you remember my glitter lava lamp from some episodes. I got it from Abbott Thrift, stamped Washington Mutual. They don't make promos like they used ta.
And I'm listening to one of my favorite songs that I still can't believe isn't Bonnie Riatt. I'm sure you know it and probably recommended it to me some time or other: https://youtu.be/gy5-EQ7Ae_0?si=rEharMR5En1wgrPl.
Might have been something I recommended...don't have a clear recollection of doing it. There are a number of live clips...this is the first one I previewed...the brief but tasty intro makes me wonder if Derek Trucks has a sitar back home...This one cooks...enjoy da brief whiff of Indian kitchen aromas before de blues chefs show up. www.youtube.com/watch?v=dseiXrOTXAk
Book, comment on Median and Mean Household Net Worth 1989-2010, p214
1. Quite a bit of overlap in our books.
2. It would be interesting to compare Mean & Median pre-neoliberal economy, say from 1970 or 1975
3. Ratio was stable up to about 1998, then got worse. This could be linked to repeal of Glass-Steagall act in 1999
4. I calculated median and mean household wealth for 1989, 2010 and 2024 in oz of gold:
1989: 208 - 823
2010: 63 - 408
2024: 31 - 453
As you can note:
1. Median has been greatly impoverished since 1989, 15% of what it was
2. Mean in 2024 is about 50% of what it was in 1989
Additional info:
Mean/Median Household Wealth:
1989: 4.0
2010: 6.5
2024: 14.4
For the Mean to be in 2024 to be same as 1989 it should be: $2,115,000 (instead of $1.2M)
For the Median to be in 2024 to be same as 1989 it should be: $534,000 (instead of $81,000)
References for 2024 data:
Median income: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/12/us-median-household-income-increases.html
Number of Households: https://www.ibisworld.com/us/bed/number-of-households/31/
Household wealth Q2: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGZ1FL192090005Q
Gold price: https://goldprice.org/
Yes, our books have quite a lot in common! What a joy it is to be read by someone not afraid of numbers! You would think that it's a contradiction in terms for an economist to be afraid of numbers, but I've been listening to Richard Wolff recently--because he's been on with Michael Hudson--and I find it's not.
Really illuminating comparisons, Fadi. Linking Glass-Steagall seems logical to me. And household wealth has been further impoverished because in 2024, nearly every household has two working adults. In 1989 that was less true, and in 1970 hardly true at all. So the true wealth of the household, in owning its own labor and time, has been cut in half from this.
The ratio in oz of gold is definitely significant but the decline in value over all could be accounted for by gold inflation. Gold is still a fiat currency, unless it's calculated at its use value. As you know, I think the concentrated stored labor represented by gold is what enabled colonization, enslavement and conquest on steroids. Its mining violently destroys the health, environments and economies of communities today. It's also a speculative value since we don't trade directly in gold--it has to be exchanged into another fiat currency at whatever the going rate is. In that way, it's like a stock or share.
It would be interesting to see what these ratios would be in the median cost of housing--even looking at the cost of housing 30 yrs prior when a home would have been bought under the mortgage. I'm not suggesting you do that calculation, I'm just saying it might be even more dramatic. And that's where the true wealth of a household is, in their security.
Thanks for doing this great analysis!
Be wary of "economists". I have no doubt, that you have a better understanding of economics than 98% of "economists".
I expressed my opinion about "economists" in an interview with Andrei Martyanov:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ANJPdkJAZQ.
Gold: I agree with your analysis of gold especially the 17th to 20th century.
I first decided to buy steel which I use for my business. But I realized I would need a warehouse, a guard, and need to regularly protect against corrosion. Also not easy to sell when you want. Steel comes in different profiles and sizes. Real estate is a function of affluence, and will depreciate in crises, thus cannot guarantee preserving wealth.
Silver margins as a percent of value are 10 times higher than gold.
Most importantly war has been waged by central banks on gold since 1960 with establishment of London Gold Pool. When this crashed, and subsequent to Nixon Shock, Kissinger and Volker waged forced demonetization of gold in the 1970s & 1980s. Actual value of gold is multiples greater than COMEX spot. In a crisis it is guaranteed to preserve value.
Gold is also very practical to store value: corrosion resistant, high density. One cubic inch is $27,000. In the Levant, it is very easy to buy and sell. No tax and margins on buying less than 1% and on selling less than 0.2%. Just walk into the shop, pay cash and walk out. Or take the gold, tell him I want say $1,000, he will cut off small pieces until correct weight is obtained based on COMEX spot price. So here nearly all keep their savings in gold, especially after the 2019 bank crash which took all depositors money (3 of my friends lost a total of $8 million in the banks). I had warned friends and family 22 months in advance of the crash to withdraw money from the banks.
:-) I did the calculation years ago. What I noticed, is that raw materials preserved their value in gold. Manufactured products dropped in proportion to labor content; more labor more loss in value. The greatest drop (you write about this) was in cost of human labor!
Only the "healthcare" casino maintained its price vs. gold. "Education" was second. Housing dropped because it involves labor and affluence. As mentioned above, it will drop a lot in times of crisis. Western economies are nearing a major crisis. So my advice to friends in the West has been for a while: Get OUT of debt and all types of securities (stocks, bonds, treasuries, etc.) Savings in gold bars, outside banking system.
Labour – key trigger word. I don’t know where to begin other than introduce Duane Hayes (aka ‘Diego Garcia’) at Bullet Proof Publishing here:
https://bulletproofpub.com/
A core theme of his series is the rise of the (scientific) expert and in particular the control of labour – from labour policy to controlling and steering labour ‘unions’.
I Mentioned the series here.
https://juliusskoolafish.substack.com/p/brandeis-the-rise-of-the-expert
To navigate, you can read the ten-part series ‘Brandeis: Rise of the Expert’ and/or listen to him talk through each chapter in the podcast series “The Deep Share”.
I have now started working my way through the ’Missing Link’ series. Duane is now appearing weekly (Wednesdays) on Ba’al Busters with Daniel Kristos.
Just the other day he delivered another master class session with Daniel
• MUST SEE Bulletproof Wednesday on 11-Sep-24-11:04:54 – Daniel Kristos Ba’al Busters FTJ
https://ftjmedia.com/channel/BaalBusters/video/.fCkv1e8sM_ISisFyd4IQjw/must-see-bulletproof-wednesday-on-11-sep-24-11-04-54
Starts at around 17:00.
At 45:40 Duane features the 1865 “Address of the International Workingmen’s Association” by Karl Marx https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/second/en213/syllabus2017-18/marx_address_of_the_international_working_men.pdf
He later goes on to highlight the following
• V. I. Lenin - The Taylor System—Man’s Enslavement by the Machine
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/13.htm
(I have only just begun to learn about the Taylor System).
In short, the great Capitalist (or should that be Kabbitalist – MY word!) Karl Marx was all about Harnessing the working class, not raising it up to some level of egalitarianism.
Kabbitalist!!! I'm dubdubbing you an honorary Appalachian!
What a delightful and informative rant. That beautiful red rose is one heck of a talented ventriloquist!
That Appalachian countryside is very inviting. I wonder how far away from the Ozarks you are, but there is a lot of off-grid community building going on there.
Here is Eric Orwoll (‘Aarvoll’ - Return to the Land Project).
• Ozark Community + School Big Updates - Aarvoll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX-I16JGf6E
Eric is clearly very well read on history and in particular philosophy, as you can see from his playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/@ericorwoll/videos
and here is Scott, also from the RTTL Project
• Return to the Land Ozarks Land Clearing and Infrastructure - RTTL Scott
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOQdsgRYqnY
And here is an introduction to Billy Roper (Ozarkia) – he talks about employment
• Ozarkia Weekly Update with Billy Roper (PT3) – Observant
https://goyimtv.com/v/3088316563/Ozarkia-Weekly-Update-with-Billy-Roper--PT3-
Billy was interviewed by Tonitrus here …
• Ozarkia - an interview with Billy Roper - Tonitrus
https://odysee.com/@Tonitrvs:5/Ozarkia-interview-with-Billy-Roper:3
Just don’t tell the Haitians!!
Don't you be trying to one-up the Appalachians with the Ozarks! Here's a little info:
"Appalachia is made up of 423 counties across 13 states and spans 206,000 square miles, from southern New York to northern Mississippi. The Region’s 26.4 million residents live in parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, and all of West Virginia.
The Region also comprises three federally recognized and five state recognized Native American Tribal Communities, with Tribal entities in Appalachian Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, New York, and North Carolina."
What I love about California is the Big Sky. I used to get claustrophobic here hemmed in by the mountains that keep the sky overcast. But what I love about Appalachia is that deep saturated green that you get from summer thunderstorms (that haven't happened this year, something's afoot with geo-engineering).
I'll check out the Ozark playlist, I'm sure it translates from one mountain range to another ;-)
Don't you be going all OffNarr and si gogglin the dictionary on me now .. .
I see where you get your word creative skills
• Appalachian English - si gogglin
https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZIONorHScMsm
That really needed a double like. Likeydubdub. Crikey! Oh I guess that last belongs to you but they say the Queen's English could still be found in the hollers of Appalachia a couple generations ago. I'm sure they all speak like Midwesterners now.
Speaking of the Haitians …
• The History of Haiti... And Now It's Here – Peter S Quinones
https://petequinones.substack.com/p/the-history-of-haiti-and-now-its
I haven't been weighing in on this for my various stacks reporting on it, but it smells like a psyops to me. It's certainly not the first time that eating pets has been used to create outrage against a specific group. And may be true in some cases but is still being staged and amplified for maximum effect.
As an animal husbandry gal, the way in which we fetishize pets is from emotional attachment not innate morality. I talked to someone the other day who spent $400 on a vet bill for a chicken. Measured in the lives of third world children, and we could say Haitian children, that could have saved several.
As you can imagine, this was one of my most unpopular arguments on the playground. I no longer make it. But for myself, I measure doing harm and doing good in terms of people, and I think that harm done indirectly is as or more culpable than those who enact it directly because those people have more choices.
On Haiti specifically, I have episodes from my radio show that were lost when I changed hosting providers, but it's always been a big issue to me. The commenters on the video are poorly informed. It's not just the enslavement but the debt repayment they were forced into after they won their 'freedom.' It's the economic measures against them. The cholera that the UN 'peacekeepers' inflicted while they were recovering from disasters. The prevention of Aristide from governing and putting in another corrupt puppet instead.
Clinton was one of the most hypocritical, and his apology is as fake as everything else. The US has SO much blood on its hands with Haiti. But you and I agree that open borders are a disruption device. But anytime something is targeted for maximum outrage--like little girls at a Taylor Swift event--you can be sure the PBI is involved. (Powers Behind Israel, for others not as up on my Appalachian lingo ;-)