The World Financial Condition Is a House of Cards

It is no secret that stock exchanges around the world are reflecting a very unstable financial climate. The reasons for this appear to be varied. Money analysts are busy these days, pontificating on our television screens about the causes of the unexpected market fluctuations and trying to assure the public that all is well.

Yet there is a general feeling among the people that all is not well. It is not hard to understand why; with more and more good paying jobs disappearing, the number of homeless Americans on the increase, yet the price of food, clothing and housing rising through the roof. The instability has been spreading into the streets. From occupy movements to violent street rioting like those occurring in Ferguson, Missouri to Hong Kong, China, there is growing unrest all over the world.

Notice the way big business has beefed up the Christmas season promotions, pushing the appearance of Santa Claus to as early as Halloween and shoving the Black Friday sales into Thanksgiving Day and in some cases even earlier. The promotions for new cars, home appliances and electronic gadgets that we don't need are dominating our television screens. The Federal Reserve has dropped interest rates on loaned "money" and credit card promotions are flooding everybody's mailbox. Yet people are not spending as readily as they once did. The reason is simple. They are broke and they have no expectations for a better year ahead.

Indeed, something dark is in the wind and most folks are thinking that it may be time to batten down the hatches.

Indeed, something interesting is occurring this winter in Europe and on the Far Eastern front. There appears to be a growing financial alliance developing between the banks of Germany, Russia and China. There is a conversion of U.S. Treasury Bonds into Gold bullion on a massive scale. U.S. economist Stephen Leep recently concluded that "the German-Russian-Chinese connection is getting stronger, and the U.S. is becoming more distant. It feels like the world is changing in front of us. Do not be surprised to see Gold and Silver being the ultimate safe havens, but also Gold being sure to play a part in the new reserve currency in the East."

While the economists are speaking in the jargon of their own kind . . . a system carefully designed to make it impossible for the average citizen to understand what is going on . . . by reading between the lines it appears that there is a move afoot on the other side of the world to regenerate a currency backed by a gold standard. If they pull it off, expect the value of the U.S. dollar to plummit. It will no longer hold the position as the stable currency for world trade.

If this is happening, we have only ourselves (the greedy bankers and politicians) to blame. America destroyed the foundations of the nation's monetary system about a century ago when the nation secretly did away with the gold standard.

There was a time when people were issued dollar bills in lieu of an equal amount of gold kept in reserve in a mighty vault, carefully guarded by the U. S. military, at Fort Knox, Kentucky. There was an unstated promise that each "green back" could be exchanged, on demand, for gold, so the piece of paper in our pocket had value.

There used to be a popular phrase that wealth was reflected by "all the gold at Fort Knox." You don't hear that saying anymore because the gold in Fort Knox isn't stockpiled like it used to be. In fact, we must wonder if there is any gold left there at all. There also has been a story that a lot of the world's gold was kept in a secret storage vault deep under New York City's World Trade Center. If this was true, no one knows if that gold is still there, or where it went after the 9-11 attack.

Coins in the old days were minted in real gold and silver. People could carry these precious metals around in their pockets as assurance that our monetary system was intact. This way of doing business probably had a lot to do with the stability of the American dollar on the world financial market for so many years.

Eventually, however, the U.S. bankers and money brokers discovered that people would still trust their printed paper money, even after it was no longer backed up by gold. That was bound to happen. Inflation and a fast growing population created a need for more and more printed money. Also there was a limit on the amount of gold available to back up our currency. After a while the decision was made to sell much of our gold stock. If we remember correctly, a lot of gold was sold to pay off some of the national debt.

At about that same time we began issuing plastic credit cards, which got misconstrued as a form of money. We have been operating on a plastic and paper monetary standard now for at least 50 years. We have used oil reserves in exchange for gold in an attempt to keep the value of the dollar somewhat stable. This may have had a lot to do with our government's close alliance with Saudi Arabia. But with the world oil reserves dropping, and our ties with the Saudi government on shaky grounds, the value of the dollar is now under question.

What this means is that the value of the dollar bill is no better than the people's faith in it's ability to purchase goods and services. Once that faith begins to slip, and people understand just how flimsy the monetary system really is, the whole thing is capable of collapsing like a house of cards.

We are surprised that the system remained as stable as long as it did.

Money, like a lot of other things we worship, is an illusion. It is a big lie. All a dollar bill really is, is a piece of paper issued by the government. As long as people believe it has value, then we can trade it for goods and services. After we lose faith in its value, we might as well use it for compost.

As the ranks of the poverty stricken grow, more and more people are beginning to understand just how corrupt our monetary system is. The middle class is almost completely erased. And the split between those who have wealth and those who have nothing is growing wider and wider. A recent study indicates that there are an estimated 100 million homeless people in the world. There are over 600,000 homeless people in the United States. I think these are conservative numbers based on statistics collected by government agencies dealing with the homeless. Not all end up in long lines seeking assistance and they are not being counted.

We now live in a world of invented fantasy, designed to keep us pacified. Under the influence of our daily dose of Prozac, we sit in our modest little dwellings, deep in debt, watching carefully orchestrated television game shows that turn ordinary people into instant millionaires. We play the lottery. We watch sports figures sign contracts that earn them multi-millions of dollars. We hear stories about political figures, from local levels all the way to the White House, who take big "payoffs" for political favors. The American dream has shifted from having a steady job, owning our own home and parking a car in the garage, to rising up from poverty like Cinderella. But for most of us, that is all it can ever be. It is only a dream. It is not reality.

If America's paper money system is teetering on the edge of collapse. it may be a good thing in the long run. People have too long worshipped money. We are sick of all the scalping, cheating and downright robbery that has become our way of life.