...we have entered a time where predicting the future with any certainty about what 'should' happen is clouded over by the most blatant of lies, manipulations, frauds, fake data, and misdirections ever seen.
If you really want to humble yourself, try writing a newsletter that is read by thousands and then try and predict the future. You’ll find it to be a frustrating career. Yet, in a way that is exactly what I try and do.
Fortune tellers always have their gimmick. A crystal ball, a deck of cards, a board, a book of ancient sayings. Well, we don’t have any of those things. Our crystal ball was always at the shop for a tune up, our cards weren’t marked right, our book of ancient sayings was a plagiarism. What we have to rely on is information. If we get enough information, which we’ll call “dots”, then at some point we’ll have enough “dots” that we can connect them. Just like the children’s book of “connect the dots” and a picture emerges. More times than not, the picture is pretty darned clear.
Well that sounds simple enough, right? Sure it is, and it has served us well for almost 20 years. Take in the info, connect dot “a” to dot “b” to dot “c” and in time what emerges is a faint picture of what all those bits of information are pointing to. By connecting those dots over the years, we were able to predict golds run to over a thousand when it was just 290 dollars. We were able to predict the Iraq war, the housing bubble, the credit bubble, the banking system collapse and a handful of other big ticket items.
But we’ve entered a time where predicting the future with any certainty about what “should” happen is clouded over by the most blatant of lies, manipulations, frauds, fake data, and misdirection’s we’ve ever seen. That makes the integrity of the “dots” come into question. Consider the fraud that is indeed in our White House. He told us 28 times that if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Yet it was a complete and utter lie and he knew that. He knew that if he told the truth even the most idiot of his followers might not vote for his program. So, he lied.
Well, a LOT of people made plans based on his lie. Some percentage of people that were wondering if they should be on board with this Obama care thing were swayed by his lie. Now they regret what they’ve done. Well the same issue confronts us in the economic sphere. We get “dots” of information that we try and connect, but then we find that the information is fabricated. Well the old computer saying is “garbage in, then garbage out has to follow”. Same thing in predicting the future. If we make our assumptions based on information, then… if the info is distorted, so then will be the prediction.
Consider what we’ve had to “deal with” over the past decade now. The NSA said they don’t spy on us. Then we find out they spy on every single thing we do. Then of course there was the LIBOR fraud where the price fixing banks were found to be in collusion. We saw many of the “too big to fail” banks get slapped with enormous fines for money laundering drug money for killer cartels. We saw Bernie Madoff scam folks out of billions. We saw our IRS hunt down anyone that questioned Obama.
We were told that sub prime mortgages, made up of part time McDonalds workers buying 800K dollar homes, were AAA rated. We were told Lance Armstrong was a super human athlete, only to find that indeed he had doped his way to glory. We were told by scientists that global warming was undeniable fact, only to see the scientists had hidden and distorted the facts. We’ve had World com and Enron. We’ve been told by no less than 5 Presidents there’d be no new taxes. Taxes were imposed.
We are told that our unemployment is 7% when it is clearly around 15%. We are told that housing is strong, while permits, and applications hit multi year lows. We are told that gold and silver are worthless trinkets, while demand for the physical metal broke ALL NEW HIGHS once again. Can you tell me one other item where in the price falls despite ever rising demand and a contained supply? Just one?
Look at the madness that is indeed “global warming”. On the VERY day that a boat load of global warming worshippers that were on their way to the south pole to prove global warming … they had to be rescued by helicopter because their ship was completely encased in sea ice, the Telegraph’s headline of the day was “World's climate warming faster than feared, scientists say” I couldn’t even make up such a bizarre coincidence.
But again, the whole point of this little lecture is that when determined people put out a big enough, bold enough lie… a LOT of the masses will make decisions based on the lie, decisions that effect not only themselves but society in general. That my friends is the ugly danger of all this. For instance Al Gore, who is on video over 5 years ago stating as FACT that the arctic would be ice free by 2013, is still jetting around the globe preaching his “doom by baking” baloney, despite RECORD Antarctic ice and the fastest growth of arctic ice ever seen since records began. Oh and don’t forget the past 17 years where his supposed rampant warming….just stopped. Just Friday we learned that John Kerry says his most vital role will be to help implement a “global climate change treaty”. Their madness never ends. Their wish to control your lives never ends.
How many young people were indoctrinated into his cult of BS? How many billions have companies had to spend on worthless technologies to combat a problem that doesn’t exist? How many YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN were NOT hired last year, because companies had to spend their money to comply with a corrupt EPA and global warming laws instead of expanding the workforce?
Do you see my point? While they spew lies that might fog up the prediction crystal ball and make short term predictions hard, real tangible “things” do take place in response to their lies. Money is misallocated. Energies are misspent. Wrong decisions are made.
The problem going forward is that these lies and distortions will become greater. Bigger. Louder. Like Hitler’s propaganda minister taught him so many years ago, make the lie big enough, bold enough and loud enough and people will believe it. My prayer is that I am able to dig deep enough beneath the garbage to expose the truth. Just like in the Bible, the truth will set you free….if we can find it. That’s my job, trying to distill piles of garbage to find the nuggets of truth. If I find enough of them, we can still connect them and determine what “should” happen.
Next week we’ll try and lay out some ideas of what we think the new year is going to bring us. While I want to tell you all that finally the world is healing, the economy is really sound and we’re on the path to greatness, I’m afraid that isn’t what we see. I want to leave off with this one little remark by Sun Zhaoxue, the most influential leader in the Chinese gold industry. He is the president of the China Gold Association and president of China Gold Group, China’s largest gold mining company. What did he have to say?
“The United States Intends To Suppress Gold To Ensure The Dollar’s Dominance”
Wouldn’t suppressing the gold price be a global manipulation? It would. Wouldn’t that be illegal? It would. Is Uncle Sam going to admit to doing it? He won’t. Does the average “man in the street” know that our Government is secretly beating down gold in the paper market? Of course not. Why? Will CNBC tell you we’re manipulating gold? No. The NY Times? No. The Wall Street Journal? No. No folks, just little newsletter writers like me get burdened by telling you what’s really going on. The mainstream press NEVER tells you the important truths. How sad.
2014 has the ability to witness some very exciting times. Stay tuned and we’ll ride them out together.