The global economy isn’t finished with its economic shenanigans as we transition from pandemic to war, the question is how can people navigate these interesting times?
February 28, 2022
By: Bobby Casey, Managing Director GWP
True to its nature, governments were very delayed in matching the sentiments of the people. People in general are not keen on restrictions or prohibitions, much less protracted ones. People will start off generous in their willingness to cooperate and help if they know it’s for a limited time.
Two weeks to flatten the curve turned into two years to eliminate the virus, and people aren’t having it. They want their lives and liberties back, and to be otherwise left alone.
Two years of businesses shutting their doors and children being cooped up or masked up, the bromides have grown tiresome. Parents are standing up to school boards that insist upon remote learning and masks still.
The trucker convoy in Canada demonstrated how fed up people were with mandates and pandemic related restrictions. It also showed how reticent some politicians are to relinquish their power and loosen their grip.
No sooner does the trucker convoy ease up — along with PM Justin Trudeau — does Russia launch an attack on Ukraine. If you recall, Trudeau used the Emergency Act to freeze the accounts of individuals who dared to even contribute to the trucker convoy.
The US, UK, Canada, and Europe are now blocking Russia from SWIFT, which basically cuts off financial ties with other countries.
This is a blow to an already exhausted global economy. US inflation in particular is the highest it’s been since 1982:
Last January 2020, the US Federal Reserve had around $4 trillion dollars, which is around 40% of US dollars in existence were printed in the last 12 months. Past forward to this day, things have changed drastically as the Fed has accelerated money printing, bringing it to nearly 80% of all US dollars in existence. What began as a precautionary financial measure to protect the economy from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has resulted in further depreciation of the US currency.
The Federal Reserve has been buying $80 billion in Treasuries and $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities each month since March 15, 2020, bringing the Fed’s balance sheet to $8.66 trillion as of December 7, 2021. Meanwhile, the Fed’s rampant money production is starting to wreak havoc on the economy and people’s buying power. In November 2021, for instance, the yearly growth rate in the United States reached 6.8%, the highest level since 1982.
The US is your run-of-the-mill degenerate debt addict. It can’t help but pull out the People’s Card at the mention of anything.
Compounding that, COVID restrictions were causing supply chain delays already at many international ports in the US (including two ports in California as well as ports between the US and Canada and US and Mexico).
Countries around the world have chosen to saddle themselves with some iteration of a Green Agenda policy that ultimately drives toward an end goal of Net Zero emissions. This albatross has political leaders like Joe Biden putting the kibosh on more fuel pipelines and drilling in the US.
This has the supply straggling behind demand in much of the Western world. The situation between Ukraine and Russia is only further exacerbating those effects.
Despite all this, 25 nations, including the US have offered up some sort of support to Ukraine in particular. President Joe Biden has even asked congress for $6.4 billion to support Ukraine.
The request included $2.9 billion in security and humanitarian assistance and $3.5 billion for the Department of Defense.
Congress, which is controlled by President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats, would consider the $2.9 billion in funding for the State Department and USAID as an emergency bill, with funding for the Pentagon considered later, congressional aides said.
The US has already been supporting the Ukraine to date:
The newly requested funds would augment the $650 million in security assistance and $52 million in humanitarian assistance the United States has already committed to Ukraine over the past year, as well as the $1 billion sovereign loan guarantee announced last week.
I know for a fact the US cannot afford another war. Which means the world cannot afford another war. Another war, with billions in funding ensnared in foreign entanglements, will not lead any one of the participants to a recovery.
But let’s say all the governments are just running off the same cliff, despite the reality of their respective economies. Individuals cannot afford to wait around for them to come to their senses. They have none to come to.
You are not required to go down with the ship. There are things you can do to avoid the catastrophes ahead. With inflation here for the long term, and stagflation on the horizon, and with countries that once seemed like beacons of freedom dabbling in tyranny, how do people around the world navigate these interesting times?
Perhaps it will be to varying degrees. If everyone had a digital job, there would be no restaurants or plumbers. I don’t think it’s reasonable to think that everyone would just gravitate toward a location independent occupation, even thought that is indeed an option for some.
Small things like shifting toward smaller even localized businesses so you have more accountability from a business that can value your patronage.
Perhaps you start a small garden no matter where you are. Whether you’re in a city or the country, there are ways to start your own self-sustaining garden. Just look on Pinterest for urban gardens and you’ll find a bunch of ways to do exactly that.
Diversify your holdings and get them out of countries and banks you can’t trust. Canada has demonstrated what it can and will do to people even retroactively! How does anyone trust a government willing to do that to donors ex post facto?
When I say diversify, I mean mix it up. Don’t just take it all out of one basket and put it all into another basket. Maybe get a little Bitcoin? Maybe get a little gold and silver or even a basket of trace minerals?
Build passive forms of income like real estate or options trading.
Most importantly: protect your privacy by any means necessary. Dr. Robert Epstein drafted a pretty simple list of things anyone can do to get started called Seven Simple Steps Toward Online Privacy. Avoiding spaces where you can be shut down, tracked, controlled, frozen, or seized, is key. It’s not that you can’t be online, it’s that you can lead a safer and more private online existence.
This doesn’t require you to uproot your life, change your career, or make any drastic changes.
Whatever it is you do, make it so that everything you worked hard to build isn’t in the direct line of sight of a political whim.
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