Atlas Collapsed, by Robert Gore
The result will not be an imposed “order,” but chaos, as the dream of world government crashes on the reality of producers who cannot and will not sustain it. The most dangerous predictions of the future are straight line projections of the past. A straight line prediction that governments will continue to grow, get more powerful, and perhaps consolidate into a still bigger and more powerful government may be the most dangerous prediction of all. Imposing order requires energy, and government as an institution is already spent and exhausted. The future is not likely Orwell’s totalitarian nightmare, but rather the human entropy that has engulfed the Middle East and Northern Africa and is migrating to Europe. Say hello to the new world disorder.
This is an excerpt. For the full article, please click the link above.
This is an excerpt. For the full article, please click the link above.
I think we know well what shrugging means, but what is collapsing?
I ask these questions on a personal level. To date, I have maintained as a producer of precious metals from the ground, that mine is one of the most time honored professions across the centuries. Despite all the negative rhetoric about mining, I say that it is one of the most honorable professions in the world. Comes under the heading of "If it can't be grown, it must be mined". In the ancient Scythian tribes, the miner and the metallurgist were the highest esteemed members of society.
I have been in gold and silver mining for nearly 40 years. I have helped, as a geologist, to find and produce millions of ounces of gold and silver. I worked for a number of years at the largest gold mine in the world which was producing about 1.7 million ounces a year.
So, in the usual cyclical downturn and I got laid off, I and a very small group of professionals started our own little company and got control of some hugely prospective exploration ground in an old gold producing district here in Nevada. A year and a half of time and expenditure and the enviro-government took the project.
In the name of a species that they chose not to list as endangered, they invoked a mineral withdrawal on our project.
The irony is that in the face of the fiat currency based economic lunacy, I have now been prevented from the chance of producing real money. Gold. Do I shrug or collapse? Or both?
I have pondered this at length and just cannot fathom not producing value. It makes no sense.
There is the funny euphemism about flipping burgers. And Hugh Axton did that albeit producing the best burger around. But, it did not distract him from waxing philosophical, which was his area.
Producing gold from the ground cannot be done just anywhere. Gold is only where you find it. The geology of Nevada is such that there is a lot of gold potential in the ground. But Nevada is also 87 % "federally owned" public land. And the enviro-government, the Department of the Interior, the US Forest "Service" and the US Fish and Wildlife "Service", and the EPA are now setting the precedent of shutting down such activity pretty much anywhere they want.
The only thing I have thought of for continuing to produce value, and this is in the works, is writing about how bad this is getting. Writing about not being able to produce is productive? Perhaps so in the grand scheme of things and with the ever present question on every gulchers mind - what comes after the shrugging has done its job and the lights are out?
It would appear I am answering my own question. But input would be nice.
Also, any heads up on the sequel to "The Golden Pinacle"?
As for the next book in the Durand family saga, you may be waiting on that one for a while. I'm working on it, but it is research intensive and I have other projects, including a financial newsletter, that I'm also working on. However, when the next novel is ready to go, you'll certainly hear about on Galt's Gulch.
move to an island where it is warm so you can eat from the sea and maybe some coconuts.
My suspicion is that no citizen could amass enough precious metals 'currency' or 'value' to last very long after all... Hm?
i.e., what would an ounce of gold or silver be "worth" in, say, gallons of milk or loaves of bread?
I predict a quarter oz of gold will have roughly the same buying power in the future as it had in antiquity, to the extent we can find a good or service that hasn't changed substantially since the dawn of agriculture.
Sorry for my silliness. Seriously, though, I am confident media of exchange will come and go, but a small bag of groceries will always be about an oz of silver.
I don't believe a collapse of any sort is coming. I think the world economy will keep turning out amazing new services. I'm interested in the high-tech ones and thankfully have no need for the ancient ones.
Value is in the amazing stuff (things like music, books, shows, CAD models, and high-tech ways to view them) we create to serve one another in exchange for money. Dollars, bit coin, oz of gold are just media of exchange, not all that important. The important thing is people being able to create new things that other people like and keep what they create.
"Why?" (would gold be worth so much more than paper dollars issued by the government?)
They're lighter, easier to carry, harder to counterfeit (you don't need some old teeth and a furnace and stamping press just to make more "money"...) :)
Help me understand this!
Daniel took out a double eagle--a twenty-dollar gold piece--and a twenty-dollar bill and laid them side by side on the table before him. He held up the gleaming coin. "For centuries gold has served as a store of value and a medium of exchange. An ounce of gold bought a man's suit in 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800, and now in 1913. It takes real resources to find, mine, smelter, and mint gold. It's divisible, portable, storable, assayable, industructible, and, I might add, beautiful." Daniel put the coin down and picked up the bill. "This is a twenty-dollar bill. It can be torn to shreds and thrown to the wind. Its cost of production is virtually nothing. It depends for its value not on any instrinsic quality, but on the willingness of people to accept it as payment and the promise of politicians not to print too many of them. That promise has been broken every time it's been made. Mr. Talbott, the law says they must be regarded as equivalent. I'll offer you a choice. Which would you prefer?"
There was no answer.
Creating false information as in genetic modification of a cell, disrupts order; so to on up the line to the culmination of all those modified cells representing the whole organism...lets call it a Conscious Human Being, but it matters not whether we start at the cellular level, with knowledge, a thought or ideology...it creates disorder known as Max Entropy. It might not be heat related but creates the same effect.
The moral/political argument you present here - individual rights - is the root issue.
And, from a purely transactional perspective, imagine having the choice to join (or not) the USA as a taxpayer. Would anyone choose a system in which the debt is 5 times the yearly income, and negative every year for as long as the eye can see? Where many choices that are individual in nature are cause of imprisonment? Where the harder and smarter you work, the more you owe?
Or would you insist on firing those people?
They have the size, power, training, ability, planning, and leadership with all the tools of the trade needed. It's about a 24 hour exercise over a weekend with business as usual by Monday morning. No tanks in the street needed but if shots are fired they are returned with ...how does that go? Shock and Awe. At that point there is no one to accept a complaint verbal or written. Total martial law.
They also have the legal authority under their oath of office assuming a complete collapse of government or even if they, and they alone have this right and responsibility, determine the Constitution needs supporting and defending.
Properly done the only 'violence' would be against the usual rioters, stupid students and the like burning down their neighborhoods for free booze and television sets.
Which brings up an interesting point. The majority of male students signed a little piece of paper at at age 18 in order to get student loans and government jobs. Women still being second class citizens have not yet been added to that list. The men can be activated at any time. Once they signed that document they are no longer potential draftees but volunteers and potential selectees. Any problems the loudspeakers order all mail students on student loan programs to report to the stadium. In one gate out the other as conscripts...legally.
I doubt that would be needed but one never knows. An Obama, Clinton or Trump might use that considerable power to staff the protective echelon's military formations or as a way of exerting control.
In any case the military having the final ultimate legal authority changes the practicality of the other suggestions for discussion purposes. There job is to support and defend the constitution. They take no other oath and unlike a President have no escape hatch. Dump the Constitution by the definition of the military it's a duty and a responsibility to drag the country back under the Constitution by any means necessary..
In such a scenario, the only metal that's a reliable form of currency is lead. Ammunition and arms will become the measure of who's worthy, and who becomes nothing but a subject.
Listening to Pamela Geller on Fox News, she states that Islam is a complete culture. It's a religion, gov't, military, justice system and cultural web. That is why it mustn't be tolerated in the West. These people will not be assimilated.
Robert your conclusion is incomplete, the US and foreign countries will be embroiled in internal wars probably for years. Maybe, there will come out of this chaos smaller individual countries with smaller governments.
If such a fate awaits us, I'm glad I'm an old fa -er, person.
Should there be such a collapse and you live near a big city (like me), expect roaming gangs of looters and home invaders.
Arm yourself with more than one firearm and stock up on ammo.
Note to self: I need to do more in that department.
Another note to self: Enough will never be enough about that.