Archive for 2024

From 2017 – and getting truer

Monday, December 9th, 2024

Watching an empire crumble is a slow process. The inertia of so much money, infrastructure and so many people makes the unraveling seem to go quite slowly.

But that same inertia, once in motion, also makes the motion formidable and harder and harder to stop as times goes on.

The world’s order is changing and the United States is slowly dying as a super power. But, it is still early days and most folks haven’t gotten the news. Certainly, most of the U.S.’s public are innocent of such awareness.

Today, I read a financial newsletter I follow and I read the following:

“The Moscow stock exchange will soon issue nearly $1 billion-worth of yuan-denominated bonds. It could become the start of a new financial system not based on the US dollar, analysts say.

Russia will issue the 6 billion yuan (about $900 million) bonds with a five-year maturity in December or January. The Central Bank says it is testing the water for future investments.”

The analyst writing the newsletter went on to say that the U.S. has been bringing this situation upon itself for a long time with its relentless deficit spending.

I’ve been listening to this slowly developing story for years now and it is not hard to understand once you get past the fact that following it is like watching paint dry.

The U.S. creates and sells bonds that are treasured (no pun intended) around the world because the power of the U.S. economy backs them and the U.S. has never, never defaulted on a bond.

But, every year the U.S. goes more into debt.

And every year, the U.S. sells more bonds than last year and then uses the proceeds from the new year’s sales to pay off the bonds from earlier cycles.

Do you know the phrase, “Check Kiting”? You should look it up, if you don’t.

And as the U.S. goes more and more into debt, the probability rises that one day it will not be able to pay the bonds due from previous cycles.

This is a real and growing concern for some nation states who hold large amounts of their funds in the forms of (supposedly) safe U.S. bonds. China is certainly tangled in this web.

If the U.S. defaults, the money they hold in U.S. bonds goes ‘poof’!

The U.S. dollar is the world reference currency. Most large international transactions are done using U.S. dollars as the common medium of exchange.

As I said, the world is changing and major players are slowly initiating changes to get away from:

(1) U.S. Hegemony via its currency

(2) The growing danger that the U.S. will default

They are setting up mechanisms which allow exchanges of goods and services without using the U.S. dollar as the common medium of exchange.

Countries are working to reduce their risk through exposure to U.S. bonds.

BUT WAIT – THERE”S MORE (as they shout on infomercials)

There’s another even more insidious story running through the historical narrative developing in the U.S.

The U.S. is quite literally being looted by its own 1%’ers.

The gap between the wealthiest and the middle and lower class is growing rapidly in the U.S.

The new Tax Law that President Trump and the U.S. Republicans are so excited to be passing just now is a blatant legislative device to further disenfranchise the middle and lower classes of their slice of the American pie.

Something as large and powerful as the U.S. will not crumble quietly. Their military is still the most powerful on the planet. Their currency is still the global reference currency. Their bonds are still held by much of the world.

Sometimes, when I sit by the beach in Sumner, which is a beach town adjacent to Christchurch, New Zealand, where I live, I look out at the vast South Pacific stretching away and I think to myself that I ‘m so glad that I’m here so very far away from the conflicts and power-centers of the world.

Asymmetrical Warfare, anyone?

Sunday, December 8th, 2024

Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was assassinated on Wednesday, December 4th, in New York City.

One of the first articles I read about this event was on Reuters. Here’s a paragraph from the article:

UnitedHealth is the largest U.S. health insurer, providing benefits to tens of millions of Americans, who pay more for healthcare than people in any other country. Thompson, a father of two, joined UnitedHealth in 2004 and became the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, a unit of UnitedHealth Group, in April 2021.

A link to the article: https://www.reuters.com/…/unitedhealthcare-ceo-fatally…/

I found this paragraph notable. And it tweaked my pattern recognition sense.

You see, on my business card, I call myself a ‘futurist’. And to me what a futurist is, is a person with good predictive pattern-recognition skills. Of course, there’s a lot of room in that definition for errors and unwanted hallucinations as well; so caution is always recommended.

Regardless, the paragraph triggered something in me.

In addition to the already stated fact of the assassination, the paragraph adds three additional facts:

1. Brian Thompson is the CEO at UnitedHealthcare
2. UnitedHealthcare is the largest US health insurer
3. Americans, pay more for healthcare than people in any other country.

Each of those are, indeed, facts. But it is the possibility of a causal relationship among them that draws one’s attention.

The assassination could have been a crime of anger or passion.

And, if so, we’ll probably soon know enough because those who commit crimes under such duress are seldom good and planning and covering their tracks.

But then, it might also not have been crime of anger or passion.

And, if it was a meticulously and well planned assassination, then I think we need to consider if it is a harbinger of things to come.

To get some insight into that question, we need to ask ourselves what viable remedies are available to the poor and middle classes of the United States as they wrestle against the ever growing power and control of the very wealthy over their lives?

Well, they can vote. They can make signs and go out and march and protest. And and they can write letters to the Editor.

Meanwhile, the wealthy have used their wealth and influence to ensure the passage of laws like “Citizens United”; which effectively gives corporations the rights of people and allows them to donate as much as they want to the individuals and political parties they favor.

And the size of those donations has, in turn, brought a significant number of law-makers around to seeing things the way that their donors see them. In other words, they’ve effectively bought control of our legislative processes.

And so, as wealth more and more flows upwards in a rigged and controlled system, what viable recourses do lesser mortals actually have?

In 2014, a billionaire, by the name of Nick Hanauer, issued a warning to his fellow billionaires. He said, “No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history were wealth accumulated like this, and the pitchfork didn’t eventually come out.

Link: https://www.politico.com/…/the-pitchforks-are-coming…/

It would seem that the fellow who killed Brian Thompson in NYC was concerned about greed in the US medical insurance industry.

The bullet casings he left behind at the murder scene had “Delay”, “Deny”and “Depose” written on them. A clear reference to a major criticism often voiced about the medical insurance industry’s efforts to avoid paying claims.

When I read the three facts cited in the paragraph, above, I couldn’t help but wonder if the writer put them together like that intentionally as a bit of subliminal editorializing.

Was he suggesting a cause and effect relationship among the three facts? Consider them again:

1. Brian Thompson is the CEO at UnitedHealthcare
2. UnitedHealthcare is the largest US health insurer
3. Americans, pay more for healthcare than people in any other country.

So, back to the question of what options do the people on the wrong end of the power and money equation have?

Have you heard of Asymmetrical Warfare?

Asymmetrical Warfare refers to conflicts between belligerents with significantly different capabilities. In such conflicts, the weaker side will often employ unconventional methods to offset their disadvantages.

As the rich and powerful continue to increase their wealth, to the detriment of the rest of us, those who are looking into how to effectively oppose them may be beginning to think asymmetrically.

Consider the situation:,

The locations of the wealthy and powerful are often well known.

But the reverse is generally not true. There are literally millions and millions of us poorer people.

In an asymmetrical conflict, a defender has to guard against every possible attack vector whereas an attacker only has to find one avenue that works.

And ask yourself what is the most valuable thing that the wealthy and powerful have?

The one thing that lets them enjoy their wealth and power?

The answer is their LIFE.

And no matter how much wealth and power one might have, none of it matters – if you are dead.

And is there a better way to signal to the wealthy and powerful that there are limits to how far they can push the rest of us into a corner?

When Brian Thompson was killed the other day, I found myself wondered if I was seeing the first instance of Calculated Asymmetrical Warfare writ-large.

But, maybe not. Information, so far, indicates that Brian Thomson’s killer left quite a few traces behind himself and that he may be tracked down soon.

—–

Now, least anyone thinks I’m writing all of this to advocate calculated asymmetrical resistance through assassination, I want to say that I am NOT.

Consider that I could have just as easily written a crime or a spy novel in which all of the same ideas were spelled out in huge detail.

And if I had, no one would have thought that I was advocating for violence.

If this wasn’t so, then we’d have to begin now to arrest at least half the novelist and screenplay writers working today.

No, I am simply describing a pattern that I see – that very well might manifest.

There is, undeniably, a large and increasing gap between the wealth of the rich and powerful and the rest of us.

In the past, such over-the-top inequality has finally resulted in mass violence. Just think about the French Revolution.

No, at some point the obscenity of wealth beyond all reason or need and the resulting poverty of the rest of us will create its own calculus.