New Zealand Refused Entry to a Pregnant Citizen
.New Zealand Refused Entry to a Pregnant Citizen, so She Went to Afghanistan
Notes From the Field By Simon Black February 9, 2022
Charlotte Bellis is a journalist who was based in Afghanistan during the US withdrawal. She covered the Taliban’s first press conference after it took control of the country last summer, and asked, "what will you do to protect the rights of women and girls?" Now Bellis, a New Zealand citizen, could ask the same of her home country. Seriously, this story is incredible:
In November, Bellis was living in Qatar with her partner when she unexpectedly became pregnant. But in Qatar, it is illegal to be unmarried and pregnant. A doctor advised her that she should leave the country immediately to avoid punishment. Bellis went to Belgium — where her partner is from — and likely would have remained there for the duration of her pregnancy, if that was an option.
New Zealand Refused Entry to a Pregnant Citizen, so She Went to Afghanistan
Notes From the Field By Simon Black February 9, 2022
Charlotte Bellis is a journalist who was based in Afghanistan during the US withdrawal. She covered the Taliban’s first press conference after it took control of the country last summer, and asked, "what will you do to protect the rights of women and girls?" Now Bellis, a New Zealand citizen, could ask the same of her home country. Seriously, this story is incredible:
In November, Bellis was living in Qatar with her partner when she unexpectedly became pregnant. But in Qatar, it is illegal to be unmarried and pregnant. A doctor advised her that she should leave the country immediately to avoid punishment. Bellis went to Belgium — where her partner is from — and likely would have remained there for the duration of her pregnancy, if that was an option.
Unfortunately for her, without securing residency in a European Union country, New Zealanders can only stay for three months.
But she also couldn’t simply return to her home country, because in the name of COVID, New Zealand had implemented a lottery system to control the flow of citizens repatriating.
Bellis wasn’t too worried though. Despite having no luck in the lottery, the restrictions were set to expire at the end of February. That gave her plenty of time to return home well before she was due to give birth.
But then New Zealand delayed reopening, and suspended the lottery system altogether.
Bellis informed the New Zealand authorities of her situation and requested emergency authorization to return. She was denied.
This was not the stress Charlotte Bellis needed during a pregnancy.
She didn’t want to use up all of the three months she was authorized to spend in Belgium, in case she had to return in an emergency.
So she reached out to authorities in the only other country she had a visa to live in: Afghanistan.
And Taliban officials welcomed her with open arms. Seriously.
They assured Bellis that as a foreigner, her status as an unmarried pregnant woman would put her in no danger from the government.
Thanks to the Taliban being more understanding and compassionate than New Zealand’s bureaucrats, she entered Afghanistan with no problem.
However, with the poor quality medical care in Afghanistan, Bellis and her baby were at serious risk of complications, or even death.
So from Afghanistan, she once again reached out to New Zealand for an emergency authorization to re-enter the country — this time, with the help of a lawyer, and medical professionals who could vouch for her need.
And New Zealand AGAIN denied Bellis emergency entry back to her homeland.
New Zealand authorities said that she had failed to prove her pregnancy showed a time-critical need for medical treatment.
Exasperated, the only option Bellis had left was to go public, and shame the government of New Zealand into extending some basic human decency.
Only then, after the public became aware of the situation, did New Zealand reverse course and grant Bellis emergency authorization to return home to give birth.
What a bunch of pathetic sociopaths.
New Zealand is supposed to be a first-world nation that allows citizens to freely come and go.
And the Taliban are supposed to be uncivilized barbarian terrorists, right? Yet apparently they had more compassion for an unmarried pregnant woman in need.
Secondly, how shameful that New Zealand had absolutely NO PROBLEM putting Charlotte Bellis and her child in unsafe precarious conditions — as long as no one found out!
In fact, as the Taliban swept into power in August, New Zealand was among the countries which sent planes to rescue people who remained at risk in Afghanistan.
At the time, New Zealand’s Prime Minister called on the Taliban to allow safe evacuations, especially for “women and girls... because the whole world will be watching.”
Well isn’t that interesting that New Zealand had no problem being downright evil to a woman well into her pregnancy, when they thought no one was watching.
But when the public found out and became outraged, somehow the problem was easily and immediately solved.
I’m sure there are some fine people in government who really care and try to do the right thing.
But clearly there are some truly evil bureaucrats and politicians who just cannot wait to be petty tyrants and abuse their power.
And the fact that all of us are forced at times to rely on these people is truly terrifying.
This is a major reason to ensure you have plenty of options.
Think about it — Charlotte Bellis is an intelligent person. But she failed to foresee this particular bad situation. And that’s totally normal; why would anyone ever think they would be denied entry to their home country, especially under such circumstances?
If she had secured a second passport just in case, she could have avoided her only option being Afghanistan, of all places.
For example, she might have European lineage in one of many countries which award citizenship through ancestry. As part of the EU, she may have been able to stay in Belgium indefinitely.
But even a second residency would have saved her from this situation — and residencies are super easy to come by.
Mexico is a great example, because it requires a relatively low income or savings threshold to gain temporary residency. And that can lead to permanent residency and even citizenship down the road.
Last summer, my wife and I could have had our baby almost anywhere in the world, and we chose Mexico.
That’s because of the high quality medical care we found at several hospitals and clinics.
And as an added benefit, Mexico grants citizenship to babies born on its soil, and permanent residency to the child’s parents AND grandparents.
What a great gift to give a child at birth — a second passport (or in my daughter’s case a fifth passport) that can open doors, and give them a Plan B option for life.
Citizenship and residency are insurance policies that you may never have to cash in.
But if the day comes when you really need it, it makes all the difference
To your freedom, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com
Here’s Why Rising Food Prices Are Here To Stay
.Here’s Why Rising Food Prices Are Here To Stay
Notes From The Field By Simon Black January 26, 2022
On the morning of October 5, 1789, dozens of women were looking for food at an outdoor market in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine neighborhood of Paris. But the store shelves were nearly empty. Bread in particular-- a staple of the French diet-- was in critically short supply. And what little bread the shops did have available was being sold for sky-high prices. This was nothing new for French peasants; the government had mismanaged the economy so poorly that food supplies had been falling (and bread prices rising) for several years.
There had even been food riots and protests going back more than a decade to the mid 1770s. But the situation only worsened.
Here’s Why Rising Food Prices Are Here To Stay
Notes From The Field By Simon Black January 26, 2022
On the morning of October 5, 1789, dozens of women were looking for food at an outdoor market in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine neighborhood of Paris. But the store shelves were nearly empty. Bread in particular-- a staple of the French diet-- was in critically short supply. And what little bread the shops did have available was being sold for sky-high prices. This was nothing new for French peasants; the government had mismanaged the economy so poorly that food supplies had been falling (and bread prices rising) for several years.
There had even been food riots and protests going back more than a decade to the mid 1770s. But the situation only worsened.
People finally reached their breaking point that October morning in 1789, when a single young woman standing in corner of the marketplace began beating a drum, signaling the other women that it was time for another protest.
As they marched through the streets, more and more supporters joined, with some estimates as high as 10,000 people.
Their first stop was City Hall in Paris, located at the Hotel de Ville; there, officials opened grain reserves to feed the protesters. But the mob’s anger wasn’t quenched.
At this point they didn’t just want bread, or even a single meal. They wanted revolution. So from there they set out to Versailles, the King’s palace outside of Paris.
It took them about six hours to reach Versailles, where, that evening, King Louis XVI met personally with some of the protest leaders.
He made promises to give them more food, then later announced that he would voluntarily relinquish some of his power and accept a new bill of rights for the French people.
But the crowd still wasn’t satisfied.
So around 6am the following morning, the protesters decided to enter the palace. Royal guards barely resisted this insurrection; they shot one protester, and one guard was killed.
But for the most part, people were easily able to access the inside of the palace where they freely wandered the halls as if enjoying a museum tour.
By 1pm the protesters’ leadership had found the king and demanded that he accompany them back to Paris. He agreed.
The march back took roughly 9 hours, and it had the feeling of a parade. The crowd (which had grown to 60,000 by that point) was overjoyed, because it was clear that the King was at their mercy. And they were the ones in control.
There are so many similar examples throughout human history, and they all lead to the same conclusion: don’t screw up the food supply.
Politicians can get away with an astonishing level of corruption and incompetence, and their citizens will tolerate it. But if enough people struggle to put food on the table for their families, trouble is coming.
Any politician with half a brain understands this lesson. Sadly it’s not clear if the people in charge today even have half a brain.
Inflation has been rising for nearly a year. None of the so-called experts saw it coming. Even when inflation was obvious, their approach was to gaslight people and deny it.
Then they told us that inflation was “transitory”.
Then when they finally admitted it was a problem, they said they’d consider doing something about it in a few months.
After its two-day meeting this week, officials from the Federal Reserve are expected to announce that they’re FINALLY going to take some action to combat inflation… in MARCH.
So just sit tight another month and a half. Hallelujah!
Unfortunately, any action the Fed takes at this point is “too little, too late”.
Today’s inflation is the result of a number of factors-- demand, supply, and money.
On the demand side, the federal government literally deposited cash in people’s bank accounts, fueling a surge in consumer spending.
Yet on the supply side, they closed businesses, told people to stay home, and compelled companies to fire millions of heretical workers.
The end result is fewer goods and services being produced, at a time when people have more money to spend and the appetite to do so. This is what has caused rising prices.
Yet on top of this mess, the Federal Reserve has been supercharging inflation by shoveling money into the US economy by the trillion.
Now they’re promising to reduce their money printing and promise to have a few tiny, symbolic interest rate increases.
Sorry, but this won’t really move the needle, especially when it comes to food.
Most people would be surprised at how labor intensive agriculture is. Certainly there are a number of crops (especially grain) that are fully mechanized throughout the entire process-- planting, maintenance, harvest, and distribution.
But many key food products require significant manpower at some point in the chain.
Meat, for example, is very labor intensive because of the number of people required to run a pack house operation.
And many staple fruits and vegetables require an army of harvest workers to hand pick the produce.
So now, because of Covid (and the government response to Covid) pack houses in the US are struggling to maintain staff. And finding enough harvest workers in America has become borderline impossible.
There’s also a major problem in US agriculture that so many farm costs, from fertilizers to fuel to even packing materials (like cardboard and plastic containers) are soaring. And these costs are all obviously passed on to consumers.
Container ports also continue to be a major bottleneck, as meat, fruit, vegetables imported from overseas are literally rotting off the coast of California.
Increasing interest rates by 0.25% is not going to fix any of these issues. It won’t clear the ports, and it won’t bring the workers back.
Fortunately it’s not 1789 anymore. And even though capitalism is on the ropes, there’s enough of it remaining for now to prevent dire food shortages.
Talented people around the world are working very hard to ensure that quality food is being grown and delivered to consumers, despite every obstacle the government puts in their way.
So I’m not suggesting that food riots are imminent.
But rising prices? Absolutely. And that’s going to have serious implications for political leadership.
It’s interesting that the French Revolution is typically considered to have begun on July 14, 1789; that’s the day that revolutionaries stormed the Bastille armory in Paris. And its anniversary remains one of the most important national holidays in France today.
But back in 1789, the response to the storming of the Bastille was fairly tame.
Thomas Jefferson, for example, was coincidentally stationed in Paris in the summer of 1789 and witnessed everything.
He wrote to John Jay on July 19th, just five days after the storming of the Bastille, “Tranquillity is now restored to the Capital: the shops are again opened; the people resuming their labours, and, if the want of bread does not disturb our peace, we may hope a continuance of it.”
So even Jefferson, who was incredibly astute, didn’t think that the storming of the Bastille was the start of a full blown revolution.
It was only until three months later, when an angry mob had literally taken control of the King, did everyone realize the truth: people want change, and they’re not messing around.
And it all started because of the price (and scarcity) of bread.
To your freedom, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/heres-why-rising-food-prices-are-here-to-stay-34468/
Governments Have Been Screwing Up Their Supply Chains For 2,000 Years
.Governments Have Been Screwing Up Their Supply Chains For 2,000 Years
Notes From The Field By Simon Black January 18, 2022
On the evening of March 16th in the year 37 AD, one of the most controversial emperors in Roman history appeared to be dying in his bed. Friends and family gathered to pay their final respects to Emperor Tiberius, who had ruled for more than two decades. For some Romans, Tiberius was literally a god, and they worshipped him as a divinity. And many of Rome’s powerful politicians respected Tiberius for his numerous achievements.
Tiberius had managed to greatly strengthen the empire without waging costly wars. He improved civil services, cut taxes, reduced spending, and built up an astonishing surplus in the Treasury of nearly 700 million silver denarii, worth roughly $2 billion today.
Governments Have Been Screwing Up Their Supply Chains For 2,000 Years
Notes From The Field By Simon Black January 18, 2022
On the evening of March 16th in the year 37 AD, one of the most controversial emperors in Roman history appeared to be dying in his bed. Friends and family gathered to pay their final respects to Emperor Tiberius, who had ruled for more than two decades. For some Romans, Tiberius was literally a god, and they worshipped him as a divinity. And many of Rome’s powerful politicians respected Tiberius for his numerous achievements.
Tiberius had managed to greatly strengthen the empire without waging costly wars. He improved civil services, cut taxes, reduced spending, and built up an astonishing surplus in the Treasury of nearly 700 million silver denarii, worth roughly $2 billion today.
Many Romans, however, including a number of prominent Senators, utterly despised Tiberius. They viewed him as a horrible tyrant who was a major threat to Rome’s republican democracy.
For most of his reign, in fact, several Roman Senators constantly plotted against him. Some even spread false rumors about Tiberius as a sexual deviant in an effort to discredit him.
So when the Emperor was finally on his deathbed, his enemies were relieved. Hours later, though, they panicked when Tiberius appeared to be recovering from his illness.
It was at that point that a Praetorian Guard commander named Quintus Macro, who had a sacred duty to protect the emperor, allegedly smothered Tiberius with a pillow, finally ending the political chaos.
Even in death Tiberius was controversial. Some Romans cried out for his body to be thrown in the Tiber River (a common ritual for criminals), while others demanded that his body receive divine rights of a god.
The Senate refused to provide divine honors, and wasted no time moving on from Tiberius. Two days later on March 18th, they appointed a young nobleman named Gaius Germanicus as the new Emperor.
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Germanicus was better known by his nickname— Caligula.
Caligula was supposed to be the anti-Tiberius. And that was essentially the reason they appointed him—to simply NOT be Tiberius.
And at first many Romans, especially those who hated Tiberius, were overjoyed with their new emperor.
Even foreign leaders were happy; the writer Philo, who lived in Egypt at the time, said that “everyone in all the world, from the rising sun to the setting sun” respected Caligula.
And initially Caligula delivered on his reputation; he revoked the tax cuts that Tiberius had passed, increased welfare payments to the poor, and made efforts to reform the election process.
But it wouldn’t be long before Caligula proved to be an epic disaster.
Within a few years Caligula was spending money at an alarming rate. He had nearly blown through the massive, record surplus left to him by Tiberius, and soon began to confiscate the properties of wealthy Roman citizens in order to make end meet.
Anyone who crossed him or questioned his methods was harassed, arrested, or even executed by the Praetorian Guard.
We also know now that Caligula suffered from a serious mental disorder, which historians today believe could have been encephalitis, temporal lobe epilepsy, or dementia.
That certainly accounts for his bizarre decision-making, like one of his more infamous exploits in AD 39.
Caligula came up with the genius idea of building a bridge between the coastal cities of Puteoli and Baiae.
Inspired by the Persian Emperor Xerxes’ approach of crossing the Hellespont in 480 BC while at war with the Greeks, Caligula commandeered nearly every merchant ship in the Roman Empire for his ambitious project.
He then had all the ships line up side-by-side, forming a continuous path across the bay between the two cities.
The ships were then mounted with planks and covered with dirt, essentially creating a floating, artificial land bridge.
Caligula’s bridge was certainly a marvel of Roman engineering. The problem, of course, is that there were virtually no remaining merchant ships left in the empire to transport goods.
Rome at the time was by far the world’s largest economy, and the largest consumer market. The city of Rome boasted a population of more than 1 million people—a record that would not be surpassed for more than 18 centuries.
And coupled with Rome’s significant engineering advances in roads and shipping, ancient Romans enjoyed a global supply chain that was unprecedented in its efficiency.
Roman markets boasted beef and wine from Sicily; oils from North Africa; ivory and spices from Ethiopia; fish and ham from Spain; clothing and cheese from Gaul (France); leather and oysters from Britain; goose liver from Belgium; amber and fur from Germany; silk and honey from Greece; wool and parchment from Turkey; figs and dates from Arabia…
The list goes on and on. As the ancient Greek author Aelius Aristides wrote, “Whoever wishes to see all the goods of the world must either journey throughout the world, or stay in Rome.”
Then Caligula decided to commandeer all the merchant vessels… and wouldn’t you know it? Poof. Supply chain disruption.
Suddenly there were no ships available to transport goods, including food, to the Empire. And as a result there was widespread famine in Rome.
Caligula, of course, refused to accept any responsibility for the famine. Instead he blamed several political opponents and had them killed. But the famine continued to rage.
History screams so many of these lessons at us, yet we continue to see the similar episodes repeat over and over again.
Today we have our own supply chain disruption.
The people in charge have forcibly shut down businesses and prevented workers from working. They have passed anti-competitive, anti-business regulations. They have created huge incentives for people to stay home and not work.
And yet they can’t seem to understand why companies are having such a hard time producing and shipping their products.
Like Caligula, they created the problem. And like Caligula they refuse to accept responsibility.
The leadership today is blaming “greed”, and they’re even sending their Praetorian Guard to harass productive businesses.
They are in no way looking at their own stupidity as the cause of the problems. And, similar to ancient Rome, it is for this reason that we should expect the supply chain dysfunction to continue.
PS: If you can see what is happening, and where this is all going, you understand why it is so important to have a Plan B. That’s why we published our 31-page, fully updated Perfect Plan B Guide, which you can download here.
Governments have been screwing up their supply chains for 2,000 years | Sovereign Man
America’s Attila the Hun Moment
.America’s Attila the Hun Moment
Notes From The Field By Simon Black January 11, 2022
In the year 435 AD, after several years of endless menacing from the nomadic Hun tribe, the Roman Empire was ready to make a deal.
The Huns were fairly new on the continent; they had originally come from central Eurasia as recently as 370 AD. Yet in the span of a few short decades, they quickly established themselves as the dominant tribe in Eastern Europe, conquering vast territories and threatening the Roman Empire.
America’s Attila the Hun Moment
Notes From The Field By Simon Black January 11, 2022
In the year 435 AD, after several years of endless menacing from the nomadic Hun tribe, the Roman Empire was ready to make a deal.
The Huns were fairly new on the continent; they had originally come from central Eurasia as recently as 370 AD. Yet in the span of a few short decades, they quickly established themselves as the dominant tribe in Eastern Europe, conquering vast territories and threatening the Roman Empire.
The Empire was a pitiful shell of its former self at that point. So Emperor Theodosius II sent one of his generals to meet with the Huns in the city of Margus, now called Pozarevac in modern day Serbia.
The leader of the Huns was a short, flat-nosed warrior in his mid 30s named Attila who famously remained on his horse during the entire meeting with the Roman envoys.
Attila was cunning, and he knew the Romans were weak. So he intentionally made ridiculous demands.
Among them, he told the Romans he would leave them alone if they paid a tribute of 700 pounds of gold per year (worth about $13.3 million in today’s money).
This was a significant sum back then, especially given that the Roman Empire had lost its most productive gold mines in Hispania to the Visigoths and Vandals in the early 400s.
(The region of Andalusia in modern Spain is actually named for the Vandal tribe, derived from the Arabic word al-Andalus.)
In addition to the money, though, Attila also demanded that the Romans could not enter into any alliance with any other tribes if the Huns deemed them to be a threat.
In making this demand, Attila was essentially giving himself control of Rome’s foreign policy and military affairs.
But the Romans were not in a position to negotiate. They were weak… and terrified of what Attila might do. So they agreed. And Roman Consul Flavius Plinta signed the Treaty of Margus with Attila the Hun in 435 AD.
The peace didn’t last long. In 440, just five years later, Attila massed his forces on the Roman border once again and declared that the Empire had violated the Treaty of Margus.
Emperor Theodosius initially refused Attila’s demands, believing he could defeat the Huns. But at the same time he was busy fighting off other barbarian tribes, including the Vandals that had just conquered Roman provinces in North Africa, which happened to be the Empire’s main source of food.
Theodosius put up a fight, and he tried to negotiate. But after a few years he capitulated to Attila once again, and signed a new treaty in 443 AD.
This new treaty was nothing short of absurd. Attila required that his annual tribute-- already a debilitating cost for Rome-- be TRIPLED to 2,100 pounds of gold per year.
Plus he demanded an astonishing 6,000 pounds of gold, up front. That was an unimaginable sum of money, and a humiliating embarrassment for the empire.
Theodosius and his bureaucrats tried to save face by hiding the payments, or having the imperial accountants write off the money as “services rendered” by the Huns.
But everyone knew the truth-- Rome was a shattered shell of its former greatness, and only signed the deal because they were too weak to stand up to Attila.
This is a simple point that doesn’t require a PhD in International Relations: dominant superpowers don’t need to grovel to their enemies. Dominant superpowers don’t get humiliated in front of the world.
And most importantly, when you’re forced to negotiate and make huge concessions-- especially military concessions-- you cease being a dominant superpower.
We’ve seen this now several times with the United States. Some have been major events, like the disgraceful, shameful debacle in Afghanistan several months ago.
(And similar to Theodosius, Hunter Biden’s dad acted like the humiliation in Afghanistan didn’t actually happen; his people even tried to dress it up as a logistical success!)
Other incidents have been more subtle, like the US submitting to China’s demands and reaffirming America’s commitment to the “one China” policy, i.e. pretending that Taiwan doesn’t exist.
(It’s also noteworthy that Hunter Biden’s dad was the one who was inconvenienced and stayed up until midnight talking to his Chinese counterpart during a recent call, due to the time zone differences between Washington and Beijing…)
Earlier this year, Hunter Biden’s dad also referred to the Chinese government’s genocide against its Uighur ethnic minority as “different cultural norms”.
These are all clear signs of waning dominance.
The world’s premier superpower doesn’t leave behind $83 billion worth of military equipment to its sworn enemy in Afghanistan.
The world’s premier superpower doesn’t refer to genocide as “different cultural norms”.
The world’s premier superpower doesn’t sit up at midnight, smiling politely to the people who have routinely cyberattacked some of your most critical national security infrastructure.
But if this point weren’t already completely obvious, just look at what’s happening with Russia right now.
Officials from the US State Department are meeting with Russian representatives this week to request that Russia withdraw its troops from the Ukrainian border.
Personally I think the whole thing is a joke; from a military tactics perspective, if Putin were going to invade Ukraine, he most likely would have done it already.
The fact that he still has troops massed on the border is nothing more than an attempt to make the West look weak. And job well done.
While they’re not quite as ridiculous as the Huns… yet… Russia is making all sorts of wild demands, many of which the US has already indicated it is willing to accept.
One of those demands is that the US limit joint military exercises with its European allies. And this one actually is quite similar to what Attila required of the Roman Empire in 435 AD.
And just like Rome, once you start groveling to your adversary and allowing them to dictate your foreign policy and military affairs, it seems clear that you’re no longer the dominant superpower.
To your freedom, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/americas-attila-the-hun-moment-34262/
The Imbecile King Who Put His Foot On The Gas Pedal
.The Imbecile King Who Put His Foot On The Gas Pedal
January 3, 2022 Notes From The Field By Simon Black
Charles II was only three years old when he became the supreme ruler of the Spanish Empire in 1665. But anyone who took just one look at the child knew they were all doomed.
Charles had come from a long line of prominent European nobles known as the Habsburgs-- a family so exclusive that they frequently married one another in order to keep their blood line ‘pure’.
Genetic defects abounded at as result.
The Imbecile King Who Put His Foot On The Gas Pedal
January 3, 2022 Notes From The Field By Simon Black
Charles II was only three years old when he became the supreme ruler of the Spanish Empire in 1665. But anyone who took just one look at the child knew they were all doomed.
Charles had come from a long line of prominent European nobles known as the Habsburgs-- a family so exclusive that they frequently married one another in order to keep their blood line ‘pure’.
Genetic defects abounded at as result.
Charles II inherited some of the worst of these genetic defects; his father and mother were uncle/niece. And his grandparents were first cousins.
So it comes as no surprise that Charles II was deformed, spindly, weak, constantly sick, and partially paralyzed. He was also referred to by his contemporaries as the ‘imbecile king’ for his slow-witted stupidity.
Spain had been the dominant European superpower only a century prior to Charles II. It had vast colonies all over the world, a terrifying army and navy, and unimaginable wealth.
But history proves that an Empire’s wealth and power never last forever.
And even well before Charles II took the throne, Spanish rulers were already running everything into the ground.
One clear lesson from history is that empires tend to be extremely expensive… especially when you’re the dominant superpower, and all of your rivals are constantly waging war against you.
Spain was no exception. Their empire was extremely expensive to administer, and they were routinely engaged in costly wars.
The emperors were forced to borrow a lot of money to pay for these wars. And Spain’s debt became so vast that the government defaulted at least SEVEN TIMES between the mid 1500s and mid 1600s.
Desperate to make ends meet, the government also hiked taxes to exorbitant levels, including imposing a 14% sales tax. (Somewhere the governor of California is taking notes…)
The government also predictably began rapidly expanding the money supply and debasing its own currency… resulting in one of the worst long-term episodes of inflation in all of human history up to that point.
Spain’s Emperors also began interfering heavily in trade and commerce; they passed rules granting special monopolies to favored businesses, essentially killing off competition, and they inserted extreme government bureaucracy into some of the most important industries like shipping and mining.
It wasn’t long before economic and trade activity began to shrink as a result of these policies.
Between 1600 and 1700, in fact, Spanish shipping volume from the New World had declined by an astonishing 75%.
Part of this decline was because of emerging social trends.
In the early 1400s and early 1500s, the seas were teeming with Spanish explorers-- Cortes, Pizarro, de Soto, Ponce de Leon, etc. These men were regarded as national heroes in Spain, and international trade was considered a highly respected industry.
By the mid 1600s, however, trade, commerce, and production had all fallen out of favor. Traders and industrialists were viewed with suspicion instead of esteem.
The economies in cities like Valencia, which had once been famous for its factories and high quality products, quickly decayed. And suddenly Spain found itself importing most of its goods and services from its chief rivals-- France, England, and the Netherlands.
Meanwhile the Spanish Inquisition was busy killing off thousands of intellectuals… and condemning tens of thousands more to life imprisonment.
Their crime? Expressing independent thought that differed from the official narrative.
Spain’s message to the world was clear: freedom of thought had no place in the Empire. So anyone capable of innovation stayed as far away as possible.
And as a final point, Spain had suffered a series of embarrassing military defeats from the late 1500s through the mid 1600s, including the Spanish Armada’s humiliating loss to the English in 1588.
Suddenly the rest of Europe realized that Spain was not invincible. The Empire was bankrupt, economically weak, socially decayed. And its military had been embarrassed.
Remember-- this was already the situation BEFORE 1665.
And that’s when Charles II took the throne.
In other words, a weak, mentally incompetent fool was put in charge of an Empire that was already in serious decline… and whose chief rivals were rising rapidly.
You don’t need a PhD in European History to figure out how that movie ended: the situation became much worse under Charles II.
And within a few decades, Spain would go on to lose a major war against its rivals that struck the final blow to its dominance.
That’s when the torch was passed, and France became the dominant superpower. Eventually the UK surpassed France, then the United States surpassed the UK.
This cycle has been taking place for more than 5,000 years. Empires rise and fall. Economies rise and fall. And no nation holds the top spot forever.
It’s not hard to understand why.
When an economy is on the rise, people are hungry. They work hard. They save money. They’re focused on the future.
Governments run lean budgets and spend responsibly. They maintain a sound currency.
Once an economy has reached its peak, however, priorities change. Hard work and saving are no longer prized social values. People become more focused on consuming in the present, rather than investing in the future.
Debt levels skyrocket. Government spending balloons. Regulations soar. Prices rise.
Little by little, a nation chips away at the very values and institutions that made them powerful to begin with.
If fiscal responsibility has made the nation wealthy, they begin printing record sums of money, engineering inflation, and taking on mountains of debt.
If capitalism has made the economy prosperous, they cheer socialism.
If personal freedom and self-reliance have created a strong society, they embrace totalitarianism, intolerance, and censorship.
Not to mention, there always seems to be some rival, rising power lurking, ready to take advantage of the situation… and some weak leadership like Charles II who hits the gas pedal on the way towards the precipice.
This story is as old as human civilization. And while the exact circumstances today are different, the themes are very similar.
To your freedom,
Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com
The Imbecile King who put his foot on the gas pedal | Sovereign Man
Some Common Sense Advice From Two Billionaires
.Some Common Sense Advice From Two Billionaires
Notes From The Field By Simon Black December 13, 2021
Elon Musk didn’t have a care in the world last week as he hilariously mocked questions in a live interview with the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal’s reporter had essentially prepared a number of softball questions designed for Elon to praise the US government’s new ‘Build Back Better’ bill.
If you haven’t heard, the legislation contains a number of provisions which should greatly benefit Tesla, including major subsidies to build electric vehicle charging stations across the US.
But Elon had no interest in the puff piece.
Some Common Sense Advice From Two Billionaires
Notes From The Field By Simon Black December 13, 2021
Elon Musk didn’t have a care in the world last week as he hilariously mocked questions in a live interview with the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal’s reporter had essentially prepared a number of softball questions designed for Elon to praise the US government’s new ‘Build Back Better’ bill.
If you haven’t heard, the legislation contains a number of provisions which should greatly benefit Tesla, including major subsidies to build electric vehicle charging stations across the US.
But Elon had no interest in the puff piece.
“Unnecessary,” he interjected when the reporter started to ask what he thought of the subsidies.
“Do we need support for gas stations? We don’t. So there’s no need for support for a charging network. I’d delete it. Delete.”
This left the reporter flummoxed... how could Elon possibly not be excited about “free” government money that would support his business?
But Elon’s point seemed completely lost on her.
“Seriously we shouldn’t pass it,” Elon continued, almost exasperated.
“If we don’t cut government spending, something really bad is going to happen. This is crazy. Our spending is so far in excess of revenue its insane. You could zero out all billionaires in the country... you still wouldn’t solve the deficit.”
So the reporter said, well, let’s change the subject.
Elon then sounded-off on issues like the rise of China and corresponding decline of the US. He also called declining birth rates “one of the biggest risks to civilization.”
Now, Elon Musk is a famously eccentric character.
But another more ‘traditional’ billionaire is also on board with this ethos.
Ray Dalio founded and runs the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater Associates.
He has been very vocal over the past several years about the pathetic state of US government finances, and obvious shift of wealth and power away from the US.
For example, last year he published an article which asks, why in the world would you own bonds?
Dalio points out that, buying US Treasury bonds (which is tantamount to loaning money to the federal government) USED TO BE a good investment, back when America was actually creditworthy.
But now when you buy bonds, you’re loaning money to the largest debtor that has ever existed in the history of the world... and in exchange you are receiving return that is well below the rate of inflation.
Dalio points out that people still value US government bonds because of “the ‘exorbitant privilege’ the US has had being the world’s leading reserve currency, which has allowed the US to overborrow for decades.”
But there are signs of the changing global wealth and power dynamic, as international investors are starting to shift to Chinese bonds.
That’s a major theme in Dalio’s new book, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail.
Dalio has made it his life’s work to understand debt and political cycles, in order to foresee risks that others miss, and better serve his clients.
He makes a lot of the same assertions that Elon makes; for example, Dalio explains that economies, governments, and civilizations move in cycles. And in simple terms, there are good parts of the cycle, and there are bad parts.
The good part of the cycle is characterized by peace, prosperity, and production. The bad part includes recession, depression, inflation, social conflict, and war.
If you think about US history, we can see that the 1920s were a ‘good’ part of the cycle. The 1930s and 1940s were bad— the Great Depression, World War II, etc.
Then the 1950s and early 1960s were good again. The late 1960s through the early 1980s were bad, marked by extreme social turmoil, geopolitical conflict, and stagflation.
The mid 1990s through the mid 2010s were generally quite good, especially from an economic perspective.
Now we seem to be in transition once again to a bad part of the cycle— social conflict, inflation, geopolitical tensions, and more.
Dalio’s book, which I highly recommend reading, lays out a very clear case of what is happening right now, and why.
His ideas are quite similar to much of what we have been writing about for so long here at Sovereign Man.
And Dalio has suggested some of the same solutions that we’ve discussed in these pages.
First, education is critical: it’s imperative to understand how these cycles work in order to be prepared for what’s coming.
Mindset is also key: There’s no reason to panic. The world is not coming to an end. But it IS changing. Rapidly.
Dalio writes that the transition from the good part of the cycle to the bad part are rarely smooth or peaceful. And they often coincide with a shift of wealth and power.
And the United States, while still strong, is clearly losing its wealth and power thanks to its historical debt, massive deficits, an utter embarrassment in Afghanistan, the rise of Marxism, ridiculous ‘woke’ national priorities, etc.
For these reasons, it makes sense to take rational steps to mitigate these long-term risks.
Investors frequently diversify their portfolios to reduce risk; they spread their assets around different companies, different sectors, and even different asset classes, in order to ensure that they’re not over-exposed to a single set of risks.
Similarly, our approach at Sovereign Man is to diversify your geographic/country risk as well.
Give serious thought to the long-term risks where you live. Will your home country experience social conflict, inflation, capital controls, or war?
The good news is that not all countries are going through the same part of their cycles. By taking a global view, you can avoid the worst of the economic shifts that Elon Musk and Ray Dalio are talking about... and what we’ve been writing about for years at Sovereign Man.
This could mean securing foreign citizenship or residency, to ensure you always have another place to go, just in case you ever need the option.
It could mean using alternative assets like crypto or precious metals as a hedge against inflation. Or investing internationally to reduce exposure to your home currency.
The key idea is— don’t put all of your eggs in one basket... especially when that basket is the largest debtor in world history that’s blindly racing as fast as it can into a fiscal abyss.
To your freedom, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/some-common-sense-advice-from-two-billionaires-34097/
“We Are Here To Guide Public Opinion, Not To Discuss It.”
.“We Are Here To Guide Public Opinion, Not To Discuss It.”
Notes From the Field By Simon Black November 15, 2021
In the year 1804, only a few months before he proclaimed himself Emperor of France, 35-year old Napoleon Bonaparte stood before the State Council to discuss war with Great Britain. By then Napoleon had already become the most powerful person in France; he had led the Coup d’etat against the previous government in 1799, rigged the approval of the new French Constitution, and fixed his own election to become ‘First Consul’.
And as First Consul of France, Napoleon was essentially a dictator… and one who lusted for conflict.
“We Are Here To Guide Public Opinion, Not To Discuss It.”
Notes From the Field By Simon Black November 15, 2021
In the year 1804, only a few months before he proclaimed himself Emperor of France, 35-year old Napoleon Bonaparte stood before the State Council to discuss war with Great Britain. By then Napoleon had already become the most powerful person in France; he had led the Coup d’etat against the previous government in 1799, rigged the approval of the new French Constitution, and fixed his own election to become ‘First Consul’.
And as First Consul of France, Napoleon was essentially a dictator… and one who lusted for conflict.
Napoleon had actually threatened to invade Britain when he first came to power in 1799; plus he had spent the last several years deliberately provoking the British by diminishing their influence on the European continent.
Britain finally took the bait and declared war on France in 1803 as a way to preemptively safeguard their own security; they weren’t willing to sit by and wait for Napoleon to invade.
Napoleon was ready. But he was smart enough to know that he couldn’t do it alone-- he would need support. And that meant having the people on his side.
Napoleon had famously little regard for politicians, bureaucrats, clergy, and merchants. But he understood very well that it was the peasants who had risen up against the monarchy in 1789, plunging France into a decade of chaos and revolution.
So, standing in front of the State Council in 1804, Napoleon made his case for war… and selling it to the public. As he told the members of the council quite bluntly, “We are here to guide public opinion, not to discuss it.”
Napoleon was a master of censorship and propaganda. And throughout his career he meticulously oversaw every detail of what was communicated to the people.
He commissioned music, theater, and artwork that portrayed him exactly as he wanted to be seen-- powerful, heroic, victorious, and unstoppable.
He tightly controlled the press and dictated what they were allowed and not allowed to say.
(The number of newspapers in France actually fell from several dozen in 1799 when he became First Consul, to just four by 1814.)
And he completely made up whatever facts he saw fit, especially as they related to his military campaigns.
For example, Napoleon routinely issued ‘military bulletins’ which grossly exaggerated the number of enemies killed and captured, and downplayed France’s own casualties.
It is from these dispatches that the phrase, “lie like a bulletin” entered the French lexicon.
To continue reading, please go to the original article here:
Without Rule Of Law You’re Just A Banana Republic
.Without Rule Of Law You’re Just A Banana Republic
November 10, 2021 Notes From the Field By Simon Black
In the year 552 BC in the province of Persis in modern day Iran, a local sheepherder started a revolt against his ruler, King Astyages of the Median Empire. The sheepherder’s name was Cyrus, though he would become known to history as Cyrus the Great. Cyrus led the rebellion against Astyages for three years, winning the decisive battle in 549 BC; and with Astyages defeated, Cyrus went on to found his own kingdom that would quickly become one of the largest empires in the history of the world.
Without Rule Of Law You’re Just A Banana Republic
November 10, 2021 Notes From the Field By Simon Black
In the year 552 BC in the province of Persis in modern day Iran, a local sheepherder started a revolt against his ruler, King Astyages of the Median Empire. The sheepherder’s name was Cyrus, though he would become known to history as Cyrus the Great. Cyrus led the rebellion against Astyages for three years, winning the decisive battle in 549 BC; and with Astyages defeated, Cyrus went on to found his own kingdom that would quickly become one of the largest empires in the history of the world.
Cyrus’s new Persian Empire became vast and powerful. And Cyrus himself was revered by his subjects who believed he had been ordained by the god Ahura Mazda to rule over them.
But despite Cyrus’s autocratic power, the Persian Empire still had a very strong ‘rule of law’.
Whatever Cyrus decreed became supreme law of the land. Yet his rules were straightforward, fair, and stable.
He was not whimsical or petty. He did not change the rules at a moment’s notice, and he was very respectful of people’s individual freedoms.
Corruption was a capital offense. Any of Cyrus’s government officials who were found accepting bribes were put to death.
Lying also became a capital offense, which compelled politicians and bureaucrats to always tell the truth.
The court system was also highly revered; the king established the law, but judges settled disputes to ensure fairness across the board. Anyone who refused to accept the decision of a judge was put to death.
And dishonest judges were flayed alive, with their skin used to upholster courtroom furniture as a warning to the next judge who filled the bench.
His punishments may have been harsh. But Cyrus’s goal was to establish a strong rule of law where everyone could have trust and confidence in the system, and everyone had to follow the rules.
Rule of Law is incredibly important; throughout history, societies with a strong rule of law flourished.
When laws are fair, predictable, and evenly applied, businesses can plan and prosper. People can confidently invest in the future. Economies grow and everyone wins.
Where the Rule of Law is weak and corrupt, the opposite happens. Businesses can’t plan anything because the rules are constantly changing. No one wants to invest because they feel like everything is going to be taken from them. This is the sort of thing we’re seeing now in the Land of the Free.
Several weeks ago when Hunter Biden’s dad issued his royal OSHA decree, it was almost immediately met with a number of lawsuits.
Now, even beyond the obvious Constitutional and human rights issues, the nationwide mandate is extremely anti-democratic.
In a well-functioning representative democracy, there should have been a national conversation about a mandate. It should have been an election issue and essentially appear on the ballot. Voters should have had their say.
Yet that never happened. There was no national conversation. And any hint of discussion was shut down by the media and big tech companies. Any opposition was censored.
This is seriously supposed to be the world’s most advanced democracy?
Well it certainly took a while. But a US federal appeals court finally ruled a few days ago to temporarily block this nationwide mandate.
In a society where the Rule of Law is strong, the court order would be respected by all, including the federal government.
But that’s no longer the world we live in.
In fact, despite the clear and obvious judicial ruling which cites “grave statutory and constitutional issues”, the administration is still telling business to proceed with the mandate.
They’re flat out ignoring the court ruling. It’s extraordinary.
Sadly this is not an isolated event.
Recently a number of federal authorities raided the homes of journalists for supposedly being implicated in the ‘theft’ of the Ashley Biden’s diary.
If someone wants to report the theft of their personal property, this would ordinarily be a matter handled by the local police.
Only in a country without any rule of law would something so trivial involve federal authorities and the Justice Department. This is political persecution, plain and simple.
The list goes on and on. Several weeks ago, for example, the head of the CDC simply invented special authority for herself to take control of the entire $10+ trillion US national housing market.
This is all the stuff of banana republics. And it’s amazing how the people in charge cannot understand why no one trusts the system.
The bottom line here is that a weak rule of law is just another indicator of serious rot. History is very clear on this point. And when you see that even the government refuses to respect its own system, it’s really time to get your Plan B in order.
To your freedom, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com
Without Rule of Law you’re just a banana republic | Sovereign Man
4,000+ Years Later And They Still Haven’t Figured It Out
.4,000+ Years Later And They Still Haven’t Figured It Out
November 8, 2021 Notes From The Field By Simon Black
More than four thousand years ago around 2112 BC, King Ur-Nammu of ancient Sumeria gathered his scribes together to dictate a series of royal decrees, all of which were chiseled onto cuneiform tablets. A handful of these tablets were discovered and translated in the 20th century, making the Code of Ur-Nammu the oldest known set of laws in the world.
While most of the King’s laws dealt with criminal matters (i.e. requiring the death penalty for both murder and robbery), some of the rules were actually a very early form of price controls.
4,000+ Years Later And They Still Haven’t Figured It Out
November 8, 2021 Notes From The Field By Simon Black
More than four thousand years ago around 2112 BC, King Ur-Nammu of ancient Sumeria gathered his scribes together to dictate a series of royal decrees, all of which were chiseled onto cuneiform tablets. A handful of these tablets were discovered and translated in the 20th century, making the Code of Ur-Nammu the oldest known set of laws in the world.
While most of the King’s laws dealt with criminal matters (i.e. requiring the death penalty for both murder and robbery), some of the rules were actually a very early form of price controls.
Hundreds of years later, King Hammurabi of Babylon created his own set of laws, known to history as the Code of Hammurabi.
And while his code is famously known for its principle of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’, much of Hammurabi’s code also fixed wages, prices, finance, and commerce.
For example, the King decreed that any man who defaults on his debts could pay off his creditors by subjecting his wife, son, or daughter to forced labor for three years… regardless of the size of the loan.
Hammurabi also fixed the price of wholesale grain storage, shipping, divorce, livestock, and even drinks at the local tavern.
There are also several sections devoted to wage controls; Hammurabi saw fit, for example, that a home builder be paid a certain fee that depended only on the size of the house.
Similarly, occupations ranging from farm laborers, ox drivers, shipbuilders, herdsmen, skilled artisans, etc. all had their wages fixed by the Code.
There is also strong historical evidence of price controls in ancient Egypt. The ancient Indian philosopher Vishnugupta advised kings to not only fix prices, but fix the maximum profit for traders and businesses.
And the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s infamous Edict on Wages and Prices in the early 300s AD was a complete disaster.
Wage controls, price controls, financial controls, and commercial controls have been vainly imposed by governments for thousands of years. We’ve learned from history that they simply do not work.
And yet, rather insanely, politicians keep trying these same tactics over and over again, expecting a different result.
Recently I was visited by a close friend of mine from Argentina who often tells me the grim economic tales of his home country.
Argentina is in a perennial state of economic chaos; like Venezuela, it went from being one of the most prosperous countries in the world in the 20th century, to one of the most chaotic.
They’ve confiscated assets, imposed wealth taxes, defaulted on their debt, banned exports, and utterly destroyed their currency.
In local currency terms, inflation in Argentina is 50%… though no one in their right minds actually holds their savings in Argentine pesos.
Inflation is now so bad in Argentina that the government recently imposed a set of price controls.
And my friend informed me that a number of producers, especially in the agricultural sector, have stopped delivering because the government’s price mandate is below their cost of production.
Last but not least, my friend told me that Argentina’s government is also planning to forbid businesses from laying off workers.
Even when a company cannot afford to keep employees because the economic situation is so pitiful, they somehow have to keep paying workers with money they don’t have.
It’s like that old Soviet adage-- “we pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.”
These types of measures would almost be comical if they didn’t cause such widespread suffering.
And yet even rich, advanced nations are susceptible to this way of thinking. In fact we’ve seen so much of it over the past 18 months, disguised as public health protocols.
They spent hundreds of billions of dollars to give businesses free “PPP” loans so that workers could continue to be paid to NOT work.
Then the government simply took on that responsibility themselves, paying people directly to stay home and NOT work.
Now they’re trying to force businesses to fire tens of millions of people, even in critical sectors like healthcare and transportation, because of their vaccine status.
Each of these measures is a way for the government to direct the supply and free flow of labor. In other words, they’re essentially wage controls.
We’ve also seen endless examples of other controls.
They forced certain places to close (churches, bars) but allowed others to operate (liquor stores, marijuana dispensaries, social justice riots).
They unilaterally suspended evictions and foreclosures, creating incentives for people to stop paying rent/interest.
And through the central bank, they’ve pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into financial markets, inflating stocks, bonds, housing, etc. to essentially create asset price controls.
The specific tactics are different. But conceptually, this idea of imposing extreme control over economic resources is quite similar to what Argentina has been doing… and what Hammurabihttps://www.sovereignman.com/trends/4000-years-later-and-they-still-havent-figured-it-out-33955/, Ur-Nammu, and Diocletian tried thousands of years ago.
This isn’t rocket science, it’s basic high school economics. Price controls don’t work. Central planning doesn’t work. There’s a reason the Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore.
Price controls create shortages and inefficiencies. Everyone loses.
Inflation and supply chain dysfunction didn’t happen by accident. They’re the result of fanatical crusaders who never bothered to perform an objective cost/benefit analysis of their wage, price, and commercial controls.
And the more these people try to save the world, the more likely they are to keep wrecking it.
To your freedom, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/4000-years-later-and-they-still-havent-figured-it-out-33955/
Three Bizarre Reasons Why Inflation Is Here To Stay
.Three Bizarre Reasons Why Inflation Is Here To Stay
Notes From the Field By Simon Black October 11, 2021
When I was about five years old in the early 1980s, my dad brought home our first computer. I’ll never forget it-- it was an clunky IBM with a tiny, orange, monochromatic monitor, and dual floppy disks. It had 640 kilobytes of RAM, and no hard disk. I loved it. With that computer I learned how to program, how to navigate a command-line interface, how to design algorithms, and how to solve constant problems… because it was ridiculously buggy and would break down all the time. It was also painfully slow. The boot-up process could easily take an hour, from the time I flipped on the power switch, to the time I saw the ‘DOS prompt’.
Sometimes I think that computer is a great metaphor for the global economy. Turning it off is nothing; you flip the switch and the power goes off. But starting it back up again takes a long time. And the process isn’t so smooth-- sometimes it crashes during bootup.
Three Bizarre Reasons Why Inflation Is Here To Stay
Notes From the Field By Simon Black October 11, 2021
When I was about five years old in the early 1980s, my dad brought home our first computer. I’ll never forget it-- it was an clunky IBM with a tiny, orange, monochromatic monitor, and dual floppy disks. It had 640 kilobytes of RAM, and no hard disk. I loved it. With that computer I learned how to program, how to navigate a command-line interface, how to design algorithms, and how to solve constant problems… because it was ridiculously buggy and would break down all the time. It was also painfully slow. The boot-up process could easily take an hour, from the time I flipped on the power switch, to the time I saw the ‘DOS prompt’.
Sometimes I think that computer is a great metaphor for the global economy. Turning it off is nothing; you flip the switch and the power goes off. But starting it back up again takes a long time. And the process isn’t so smooth-- sometimes it crashes during bootup.
Last March when the Great Plague was upon us, nearly every industry, in nearly every country in the world, practically shut down. And many businesses went bust, never to return.
Eighteen months later businesses have largely reopened. But like my old computer, the reboot process has been riddled with critical errors and system failures.
For example, right now there are countless businesses in industries from retail to manufacturing that are experiencing severe labor shortages. Supply chains around the world are breaking down, resulting in product shortages and major transportation bottlenecks.
The end result of this dumpster fire is that prices are soaring. And I wanted to spend some time today connecting the dots to help explain some of these important trends.
Let’s go back to last March again when everything shut down. You probably recall that dozens of large companies declared bankruptcy, like Nieman Marcus, GNC, JC Penny, etc.
But there were other companies that went bust which most people have probably never heard of. They were in more mundane, less sexy industries… like corrugated paper and wood pulp.
Yet while their demise was hardly noticed, it turns out they would have a significant impact on the global economy.
Global shipping demand surged last year in ways that had never been seen before. Suddenly, instead of efficient supply chains shipping goods to large marketplaces (like retail and grocery stores), consumers wanted everything delivered to them.
While the total volume of shipping was largely the same (or even less) than previous years, the number of individual shipments increased dramatically.
In other words, instead of a single large shipment to a store or supermarket, companies were making thousands of tiny shipments to individual consumers.
This meant more trips… and more packaging. More cardboard boxes. More plastic wrap. More plastic containers. More Styrofoam.
And the prices for all of these materials has spiked.
The price for polyethylene, for example, which is used extensively in shipping, has increased from $820 per ton to $1,850 per ton. Polypropylene prices are also up from $1,100 per ton to $1,770 per ton.
It’s a similar trend with cardboard and corrugated paper. And these price increases aren’t simply due to high demand either.
Supply has fallen. Last March when a number of wood pulp producers went out of business, no one noticed and no one cared. But it turned out that more than 10% of all North American paper capacity vanished, practically overnight, just before demand started to surge.
And this capacity cannot be simply turned on again with a flip of a switch. It takes a lot of effort to resurrect a bankrupt factory, to re-hire and re-train workers. (We’ll get to the worker issue in a moment.)
It’s a similar trend around the world-- foreign factories have closed, and those that remain open are struggling to retain workers and operate under strict COVID protocols. Manufacturing efficiency is way down as a result, so they’re not producing enough supply to keep up with demand.
Then there are the actual shipping problems-- the crazy delays, especially on the West Coast of the United States, that prevent container ships from delivering their cargo.
It’s not that there aren’t enough ships in the world; in fact, the total global capacity in terms of TEUs, or 20-foot Equivalent Units, is slightly higher than pre-pandemic.
But a range of factors, including COVID rules and union regulations, means there’s a shortage of maritime crew to operate the vessels. There’s also a shortage of dockworkers, truck drivers, forklift operators, etc. at the ports.
This is especially true in California, whose regulatory environment makes port operations extremely difficult and inefficient.
Yet sadly for the United States, California’s ports are the busiest and most important in the country; most of the seafreight from China is offloaded at the Port of Long Beach or Port of Los Angeles, so bottlenecks there cause a major ripple effect across the country.
Right now there is a backlog of literally hundreds of thousands of ships waiting to unload their cargo in southern California.
This makes the COVID policies of California especially important for the rest of the United States; whatever Gavin Newsome decides has a huge impact on the national economy.
Labor is obviously another major issue in this messy economic reboot.
Thanks to a steady digest of mass media Covid hysteria, there are still plenty of people who are terrified to leave their homes and go to work.
Moreover, there are so many people who got used to being home over the past 18-months, that now they only want a job where they can work from home.
This is a major problem for businesses… and why it’s so hard for restaurant companies, fast food joints, retail shops, factories, etc. to find workers. People would rather stay home.
The government hasn’t exactly been helpful in this department when they were paying outsized unemployment benefits to encourage everyone to stay home. That effect is lingering.
There’s another trend at work here, though.
For the last several years, politicians have been fighting hard to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. It turns out that no one really wanted those jobs to begin with.
Younger people in particular don’t have as much interest in those sorts of traditional jobs; they’d rather be ‘influencers’ and make their money posting butt selfies and snapshots of their contrived lifestyle.
This was already becoming an issue prior to COVID; large companies-- especially those in industries that were considered unappealing to Gen Z-- were complaining how difficult it was to hire, train, and retain young workers. Now it’s borderline impossible.
Businesses also have to compete with the government for labor, which has gobbled up workers and put them to work as ‘contact tracers’.
And retail companies that are lucky enough to find employees are forced to misallocate those scarce resources to do unproductive tasks, like checking everyone’s ‘papers’ when customers walk through the door.
And then, of course, if a business has been able to navigate all of those crazy obstacles, Hunter Biden’s dad is now forcing you to fire any worker who hasn’t been [unmentionable word-- thanks Google].
On top of all of the above is the Federal Reserve’s monetary blowout. They’ve printed trillions of dollars over the past 18 months to ‘support the economy’. Yet even though the unemployment rate is down to 4.8%, they’re STILL printing at least $120 billion per month in new money.
All that new money has helped fuel giant asset bubbles in stocks, bonds, property, and commodities. Energy prices in particular have risen sharply, and this tends to cause all other prices to rise.
The result of all of this insanity is inflation. Lots of it.
The problem is that most of these trends are not going away anytime soon. The Fed may start to taper its money printing. But they have very little room to raise interest rates meaningfully to combat inflation.
Plus the labor issues, government policy, shipping, manufacturing shortages, etc. are going to last for a while.
In fact, you’d think the correct government policy right now would be to create incentives for people to work, to create new businesses, and to invest in new technology that could automate and clean up the bottlenecks.
At a minimum you’d think they’d stay the hell away and let capitalism do its job.
After all, free market competition is one of the greatest tools to fix any economic woes, especially inefficiencies and resource misallocation.
Yet all of the policies they’re proposing are anti-competitive and anti-market. They want to create DISINCENTIVES to form businesses and make investments.
It’s the exact opposite of what they should be doing.
(This is what happens when you put a socialist in charge of writing the budget.)
So the next time one of these politicians or central bankers say that inflation is ‘transitory’, you can be certain they’re completely clueless about what’s happening in the real world.
To your freedom, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/three-bizarre-reasons-why-inflation-is-here-to-stay-33595/
How To Become A Billionaire… Even If It Takes 200 Years
.How To Become A Billionaire… Even If It Takes 200 Years
Notes From The Field By Simon Black October 6, 2021
It’s a simple question of arithmetic. Imagine you could go back in time to 1871 and ask one of your long lost ancestors to invest $2,500 for the benefit of future generations.
That amount of money wasn’t insignificant… but certainly not a major fortune; it would be worth roughly $50,000 in today’s money.
When placed in the right structure, and benefiting from compounding returns over the next 150 years, that $2,500 initial investment would be worth an astounding $1.4 BILLION today.
How To Become A Billionaire… Even If It Takes 200 Years
Notes From The Field By Simon Black October 6, 2021
It’s a simple question of arithmetic. Imagine you could go back in time to 1871 and ask one of your long lost ancestors to invest $2,500 for the benefit of future generations.
That amount of money wasn’t insignificant… but certainly not a major fortune; it would be worth roughly $50,000 in today’s money.
When placed in the right structure, and benefiting from compounding returns over the next 150 years, that $2,500 initial investment would be worth an astounding $1.4 BILLION today.
Now, sadly none of us owns a time machine. But we do have the power to be that long lost ancestor to future generations.
In other words, there’s little stopping you from setting aside some savings in a long-term structure-- like a trust, or even a smart contract-- that could have an enormous impact on the future.
$50,000 invested in the right structure today at, say, a 10% compounding return, will be worth $73 billion in 150 years.
Granted we’ll all most likely be long gone by then. And inflation will definitely have eaten up a large chunk of that return.
But it’s still going to be an enormous amount of money. And with the right planning, you have the power to decide, today, how that money will be spent and allocated in the future.
If you wanted to, you could leave behind strict instructions (which are legally binding) to have the assets liquidated at a certain point in the future, and donated to your favorite charity.
Or you could provide future trustees the discretion to make certain donations based on causes that are important to you today.
The point is that it’s possible to continue growing your wealth long after you’re gone, and to still exercise significant control over how it can impact the world and future generations.
This is the topic for today’s Freedom Podcast, which you can listen to here.
To your freedom, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com