Editor’s Note: Alex Krainer is a friend of Doug Casey. He’s a commodities trader, author, and the creator of I-System Trend Following. Alex writes one of the best trend following newsletters on the market, delivering reliable, versatile and effective daily decision support for investors and traders.
His book “Mastering Uncertainty in Commodities Trading,” was rated the #1 book on Financial Expert UK’s list of “The 5 Best Commodities Books for Investors and Traders” for 2021 and 2022.
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There can be little doubt that we are at war, except it’s not quite like in the movies. This war is unlike any others about which we learned in school where two opposed forces meet in a battlefield and fight it out until one side prevails. That kind of war is happening in Ukraine, but that’s only a part of the conflict that’s engulfed nearly all the rest of the world. It manifests in different and seemingly unrelated ways, but it is part of the same conflict.
Some analysts like to use the phrase “hybrid” or “asymmetrical” to describe it, by which they mean that in addition to shooting, the conflict has information, cultural, economic and financial dimensions. But I think that the war is still bigger than that: it is global and total – perhaps it should be called total global war. The “Trans Day of Vengeance” planned in Washington DC, is only the latest and weirdest part of it.
The clash of two systems
In his address to the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos in May 2022 George Soros explained that we are witnessing a clash between two models of governance. This was only slightly misleading: models don’t wage war on one another; it is the stakeholders in these models that are fighting. Soros characterized the two opposing sides as “open societies,” vs. “closed societies,” where open societies are liberal democracies that respect human rights, and closed societies are autocracies.
But Soros’s “open” societies are in fact oligarchies concealed behind faux democratic facades. To believe Soros, we’d have to accept that the trillionaire oligarchs in charge of open societies are die-hard defenders of democracy and human rights, willing to shed blood and treasure in their defense.
This war is as old as fractional reserve banking
But the notion that the conflict is between “two governance models” is not new: it is as old as the oldest forms of fractional reserve banking. Abraham Lincoln‘s chief economic advisor Henry C. Carey characterized it a bit better than George Soros. In his 1851 work, “The Harmony of Interests.” Carey wrote as follows:
“Two systems are before the world; the one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labour of all; while the other looks to increasing the proportion engaged in the work of production, and diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with increased return to all, giving the labourer good wages, and to the owner of capital good profits.
One looks to increasing the quantity of raw materials to be exported, and diminishing the inducements to imports of men, thus impoverishing both farmer and planter by throwing on them the burden of freight; while the other looks to increasing the import of men and diminishing the export of raw materials, thereby enriching both planter and farmer by relieving them from payment of freight.
One looks to giving the (products) of millions of acres of land and of the labour of millions of men for the (services) of hundreds of thousands of distant men; the other to bringing the distant men to consume on the land the products of the land, exchanging day’s labour for day’s labour.
One looks to compelling the farmers and planters of the Union to continue their contributions for the support of the fleets and the armies, the paupers, the nobles and the sovereigns of Europe; the other to enabling ourselves to apply the same means to the moral and intellectual improvement of the sovereigns of America.
One looks to the continuance of that freedom of trade which denies the principle of protection, yet doles it out as revenue duties; the other by extending the area of legitimate free trade by the establishment of perfect protection, followed by the annexation of individuals and communities, and ultimately by the abolition of customs-houses.
One looks to exporting men to occupy desert tracts, the sovereignty of which is obtained by aid of diplomacy or war; the other to increasing the value of an immense extent of vacant land by importing men by millions for their occupation.
One looks to the centralization of wealth and power in a great commercial city that shall rival the great cities of modern times which have been and are being supported by aid of contributions which have exhausted every nation subjected to them; the other to concentration, by aid of which a market shall be made upon the land for the products of the land, and the farmer and planter be enriched.
One looks to increasing the necessity of commerce; the other to increasing the power to maintain it.
One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level.
One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace.
One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world.”
Now, if you are like me, and perhaps you studied economics and history, you know about Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes, but you probably never heard of Henry C. Carey. I am grateful to Cynthia Chung and Matthew Ehret for bringing Carey’s work to my attention through their invaluable research. If ever you read Carey’s biography, you might wonder why one of the most important economists of his age dropped out of the curriculum.
Well, the total global war is the reason. Namely, the proponents of the “open society” governance model would prefer it if you didn’t know about Henry Carey or about the American system which had turned the United States from a number of British Empire’s disjointed colonies into the world’s most prosperous and most powerful nation. In Lincoln’s days, the United States was known as a nation of readers, many of whom understood clearly what they were up against.
The rise of the United States in fact became such a threat to the British Empire that it orchestrated a civil war in order to break the Union into two smaller, weaker client states that could be set one against one another and kept weak and easily dominated. Empires do not suffer rivals and prefer that the earth be covered by uneducated and disorganized masses whose sole worth would be as a source of cheap, or preferably free labor used to extract their countries’ resource wealth and transfer it to “the nobles and sovereigns of Europe.” These would be the very stakeholders of George Soros’ open societies, who congregate in Davos and fantasize about turning the whole of humanity into a flock of “hackable animals” with no free will.
Even if the shooting war is raging in Ukraine, the United States remains the central battlefield in this total war. The people of the US are under a seemingly unrelated barrage of attacks that have escalated for several decades now and are almost too many to enumerate, but their effects include a sustained decline in living standards, progressive collapse of the nation’s infrastructure, loss of freedoms and permanent warfare. And yes, Americans are dying, only not exactly in trenches:
They already lost!
But the occult oligarchy behind the open societies has already lost their global war. They predicated their plans on achieving total domination of the whole world. The emergence of a multi-polar order entirely collapses their plans. How can you force everyone to rely on windmills and solar panels if your rivals are happily burning oil and gas and running their steel-producing furnaces? Without steel, you can’t build modern weapons. How can you coerce the “hackable animals” to subsist on insects if people in closed societies enjoy traditional foods? How do you force 7 or 8 billion people to take up your vaccines and carry vaccine passes if other nations opt for your rivals’ vaccines? That ship had sailed – it simply cannot be done.
Raising a new Iron Curtain
The only consolation prize available to the occult oligarchy now is to carve out a geopolitical block, break all ties with the closed societies and implement their plans within a new iron curtain. Then perhaps, the open societies could regroup and rebuild their military strength (not with solar panels) for another attempt at world domination in the future.
This new iron curtain would most likely encompass the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and parts of continental Europe. But the block’s viability will depend on whether it can also include the United States which remains an extremely tough nut to crack. The uncontrolled migrations, attack on states’ rights, and the all-out assault of the Bill of Rights, including the periodic mass shootings, are all occult oligarchy’s attempts to crack it. It is all part of the total global war.
Like Henry Carey, those who understood the nature of this conflict knew that the ultimate showdown was coming. In addressing the American people, Ernesto Che Guevara invoked the coming clash: “I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all – you live in the belly of the beast.” Che got many things wrong, but I believe he did get that part right.
Editor’s Note: The truth is, we’re on the cusp of an economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. And most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming.
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