Category Archives: Economics

CBDC: How Covid Became the Path to Global Financial Surveillance

The future must be decentralized if we want to ensure our children grow up in a free world

Article by Joshua Stylman.

Excerpts:

“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.” — Henry Kissinger

It’s seemed evident for a while that the current fiat monetary system is, at best, unstable. At worst, it’s a Ponzi scheme whose time has expired. If that’s the case, I suspect the central bankers and 0.1% know this and might be prepared to usher in the new system before the old one collapses on itself – even as they loot it on the way down with the most significant wealth transfer in human history. 

To anyone who pays attention to these trends, it seems evident that Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) will be that new system.

Every indication is that CBDC’s arrival is imminent. Yesterday [i.e., 15th November 2022], several global banks announced a partnership with the NY Federal Reserve to pilot digital dollars. Given the ubiquity of credit/debit cards, payment apps, and other online payment systems, digital money has been bound to happen for some time. The risk isn’t the electronic part, that’s inevitable – it’s the fact that a central bank will oversee the digital currency.

From my vantage point, it’s impossible to overstate the risk presented by CBDC. Whether it’s a utopian vision based on good intentions or a sinister plot to crush our sovereignty, the result may be the same: control. A Central Bank Digital Currency has all the downsides of fiat money, plus the added layers of surveillance and programmability overseen by the state. 

So many people on Team Reality have likely felt like dissidents over the last few years simply for challenging anything beyond the herd mentality. Asking questions or speaking against the narrative about topics including the likely origins of the covid virus, usefulness of PCR, risk to most of the population, benefits of early treatment, advantages of natural immunity, safety and efficacy of vaccines, pros and cons of masks/lockdowns, and the utility of vax passports created an environment where people were stigmatized, alienated or outright censored. Imagine a monetary system with features baked in to socially engineer how we live.

[…]

I’m well aware this must sound insane, especially to anyone that hasn’t paid attention to this trend for a while. A few years ago, I would have thought it was preposterous, but after witnessing the government’s lies, deception, and grab for control, I’ve become fearful that this may be where we’re headed. When you consider that vaccine mandates had no medically justifiable purpose, it’s entirely plausible that they were simply an onramp to normalize a “papers please” society. In NYC, where I lived until recently, most people accepted vaxports and loved the Excelsior Pass mobile app because it was convenient. How many will feel the same about digital money, which will undoubtedly come with its share of benefits?

[…]

I’d love to be wrong about all this. However, until there is evidence, we need to be suspicious of anyone perpetuating this dangerous path, regardless of their motivations.

If you have yet to notice, a primary theme of the last three-plus years (at least) is ‘freedom vs. control’’ so it’s not hyperbole to suggest that the future must be decentralized if we want to ensure our children grow up in a free world.

They’re not altruists, they’re narcissists

Climate change activists

A 9-minute video excerpt of Paul Joseph Watson interviewing Michael Schellenberger.

From Schellenberger’s substack:

Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,” Green Book Award winner, and the best-selling author of San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities (HarperCollins 2021) and Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (HarperCollins 2020). 

He’s been called an “environmental guru,” “climate guru,” “North America’s leading public intellectual on clean energy,” and “high priest” of the pro-human environmental movement for his work.

Schellenberger became a Christian when he was researching for his book “Apocalypse Never”, as I noted here.

Economic Booms and Busts

Where do they come from?

Most “explanations” for the phases of the economic or business cycle are just descriptions of symptoms. Nobel-Prize (1974) winning economist Friedrich August von Hayek however hit the nail on the head: Government intervention is to blame. See this short video.

What this video doesn’t explain is something else Hayek pointed out. Namely that much of the money used by governments to incentivise the economy in this or that direction is created out of thin air. It’s called “fiat money”, with “fiat” being Latin for “let there be”, as in “let there be light” (“fiat lux”) in Genesis 1:3, God’s very first commandment.

And herein lies the very heart of the problem of our time. We allow governments to play God by allowing them (or rather their central banks, which essentially amounts to the same thing) to create money out of nothing. It is a huge fraud, which every now and again collides with reality and breaks down. That is what economists then call a “recession” or “depression” or “downturn” or “bust”. It also is the prime cause of inflation.

Once the general population has worked that out, it will be game over for interventionist governments playing God.

For more on Hayek, see here.

Wicked Globalists Are Causing Starvation and Poverty Under the Guise of Environmentalism

It's time to take up true moral responsibility instead of broadcasting unearned virtue

Video presentation by Jordan Peterson.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson examines the current energy crisis, the globalist ideology that simultaneously fuels it while calling for the sacrificial demise of the poor, and what this truly means for Europe’s future, if not the entire world.

One of the comments under this video:

The only person who makes me think that my life as an individual is precious while everyone else says my life harms the planet Earth. Protect this man at all costs. Thank you. Love from Korea.

How to make the world a better place

Another great talk with Jordan Peterson

A talk with Bjørn Lomborg and Ralph Schoellhammer

Leftist politicians and the “intellectual elite” prioritize a vague plan for saving earth over the lives of struggling people all over the world. Governments are being forced to press their citizens, straining already fragile economic and agricultural systems, in order to appease a globalist utopian vision. Bjørn Lomborg and Ralph Schoellhammer sit down with Dr Jordan B Peterson to discuss the faults in this plan, and the people who are suffering because of it.

Bjørn Lomborg is a Danish author, having written numerous books on climate change such as “False Alarm,” “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” and “How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place.” He is the president of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center that focuses on doing the most good, for the most people, with increasingly limited budgets. Previously, Lomborg was the director of the Danish government’s Environmental Assessment Institute.

Ralph Schoellhammer is a scholar and journalist operating in Europe who has diligently covered overlooked stories such as the Dutch Farmers Protest. He is also an assistant Professor of international relations at Webster Vienna Private University, and produces a podcast following political psychology and institutionalism called the Global Wire.

Superabundance

We are entering an age of plenty, say authors Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley

The video of the discussion between Dr. Jordan Peterson and the authors of the book with this title is here.

Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley are co-authors of the new book, “Super Abundance”. They sit down with Dr Jordan B Peterson to discuss their studies into overpopulation, the myths surrounding the subject, and how academia has created a new philosophy that demonizes modern man simply for existing.

Marian Tupy is the co-author of “Super Abundance”, as well as “10 Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know” and “The Simon Abundance Index”. He is the current editor of humanprogress.org, and is a senior fellow at the center for global liberty and prosperity.

Gale Pooley is the co-author of “Super Abundance,” and is also an Associate Professor of business management at Brigham Young University in Hawaii. He has taught economics all over the world, and earned his PHD from the University of Idaho. He is also well known for his role in the development of the Simon Abundance Index.

New definition of socialism

A recent Orwellian change in the Oxford English Dictionary

I’ve just learnt that at some point at or before 13th January 2019, the OED added some interesting words to its definition of the word “socialism”.

According an entry in Kristen R. Ghodsee’s blog, dated 13th January 2019, this is how the OED defines socialism (emphasis added by me, PwG):

“Frequently with capital initial. A theory or system of social organization based on state or collective ownership and regulation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange for the common benefit of all members of society; advocacy or practice of such a system, esp. as a political movement. Now also: any of various systems of liberal social democracy which retain a commitment to social justice and social reform, or feature some degree of state intervention in the running of the economy.”

When exactly did that “now” of the “now also” happen?

It’s quite obvious what has happened, and why. Believers in socialism have still not accepted that their path to paradise has failed miserably, abysmally. So they want to rescue their idea by stowing away on “liberal social democracy”. It’s no secret that left-wing types are heavily overrepresented in academia. They will have had the clout to get that change done.

Secondly, this is a great way to bring in socialism back in again through the back door. First change the definition, then have as many people as possible campaign for “social justice” and “social reform” and more “state interventionism”. In the meantime scoffing baselessly at anyone who shows that these concepts will necessarily lead to socialism. At some point in the future, when it is deemed safe to do so, declare openly that all those campaigners are really demanding socialism – just refer to the OED! And then demand its full implementation.