The South Has Risen … Again

by Scott Causey, GWP Resource Correspondent

The citizens of the state of Texas have had enough. Thousands of people have signed a petition attempting to help the state of Texas secede from the Union. The Texas petition reads as follows:

“The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government’s neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect its citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.”

Many other states also have citizens concerned enough about the current situation in the United States to start their own petitions. Does anyone honestly think that the timing of these petitions is not related to the re-election of the current President of the United States? Of course they are. Does anyone honestly think that things would be any better with a fresh Republican face in the white house? Actually, I think the answer is yes, they do. People want to believe that the country has not sped past the “cliff ahead” sign at 100 mph with no brakes on the car.

I understand the tendency to believe that “it can be saved” is human nature. Never quit. Never give up. We all respect people in our lives that have the ability to carry on and fight the good fight. On the other hand, there was this one fellow that people thought was fairly intelligent named Einstein. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” What would Einstein think of the current economic model? Would you like to be the one that explains it to him?

“Well, you see, Mr. Einstein, we have this massive global debt problem, but we are confident if we add more debt to it and spend like a drunk Navy spouse in Singapore that just found out her husband cheated on her…then, and only then, do we think things will get markedly better. Makes perfect sense.”

The nuclear fallout of the economic abyss the world is staring into is literally all around us. You just have to be tuned in and not tuned out. I met one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life a few days ago, flying from Rotam, Spain, coming back to the USSA. She was on a trip to visit family near Jerez. I grilled her with questions for hours on everything from home foreclosures to public services like garbage pick up. The amount of distress in her voice and face as she discussed a world that sounded like something straight out of a Mad Max movie shook me to my core. Living through these kinds of things, personally, or meeting someone who has allowed a clarity and focus that is not possible on the same level when you’re just reading an internet article from the comfort of your half million dollar home in your bath robe. Talking about digging food out of a dumpster to survive is one thing, watching one of your neighbors who used to earn a comfortable living do it is quite another.

“Oh Scott, you crazy conspiracy theory nutjob. Things aren’t that bad.” Did anyone happen to notice that the country that held the world’s reserve currency 100 years ago has more officially defaulted? The Treasury in England has decided to take the accumulated interest payments on the stock of English debt and CREDIT that owed money to the English government instead of the government paying the Bank of England the owed monies. In other words, we are so damn close to total systemic economic collapse that a central bank just called timeout to try and allow a major G20 nation to get further up on the treadmill of their unpayable liabilities. My oh my, how the once mighty have fallen. Ignoring cancer only brings more of it. This latest attempt to change the rules as we go along to allow fraud and theft to continue on a scale the world has never seen is the modern day equivalent of the Trail of Tears. Only difference being, when this debt bomb finally blows, the death toll will be hundreds of millions of people.

It has been my contention for years, to people who know me best, that in the future, WWIII will be about the realization that the world’s most valuable commodities are finite. That “future” is now and you better wake the heck up to see more clearly how the chess pieces are being moved on the board. Israel and Turkey are at war with Syria. Both countries have fired munitions into Syria in recent days. Syria is a major producer of crude oil, and the country is strategically located for international trade. Libya is a major oil producing country. The United States launched a major military campaign into Libya. Libya has very significant oil reserves, and before our invasion, several hundred tonnes of gold at a time when the gold market was incredibly tight for physical delivery. Most of northern Africa has significant oil reserves at a time when North Sea production continues to plummet new depths.

The US Military currently has 3 aircraft carriers right off the coastline of our good friends, the Iranians. This is 1 more aircraft carrier than there was in the region when Desert Storm was launched. There are dozens of military bases in every geographical direction, completely surrounding Iranian borders. One of China’s largest oil companies recently started to drill for crude oil in Northern Afghnistan, and the country has the largest known ore body of untapped metals on the planet. These deposits are estimated to be worth trillions of dollars. The Chinese and Japanese are at each other’s throats as we speak over a chain of islands off their collective coastlines. Why the hell are two economic superpowers sabre rattling about war over a small piece of land? The answer to that lies in Exxon Mobil’s annual reports. The oceanic territorial waters that accompany these islands are thought to contain large oil reserves. If you like history, also consider that this piece of property being so hotly contested isn’t that far from Vietnam.

At a certain point, circumstantial evidence becomes so overwhelming that even the most “that could never happen” in the crowd starts to take notice and question things themselves. Here is the question you should be collectively asking yourselves, “If every nation on earth has unlimited ability to print paper money and compete for resources that are of finite supply, what does that mean for global stability and prices?” Do I really even need to answer that?

The military industrial complex continues to be rocked by one scandal after the next. Banking is in the news on a daily basis for fraud, and the lawsuits will continue for many years unless the collapse of the entire system makes it a moot point. One of the military’s most decorated retired 4 star generals, David Petraeus, was asked to step down as CIA director after admitting to an affair. Christopher Kubasik was slated to become the CEO of Lockheed Martin this coming January. He will never be allowed to fill that post after it was disclosed that he had a relationship with a subordinate. Come at me, bro and say “these things have always happened”. Correct. Does that make it right? Global Wealth Protection is not in the business of determining your own moral compass.

What is significant about the frequency of these events to me. from an investment dollar’s perspective, is crucially important. I have been intimately involved with these kinds of military circles for the last decade. I know firsthand what the incentives are and how you’re either a good boy and get your doggy treat, or an ousted black sheep banished to the unpromotable fringes. Playing the game is what most of us are exposed to from an incredibly young age. You’re taught, or you learn from painful experience, to say certain things only around certain people. Keep your dirty laundry out of the public’s view. Have the right perception of your honor, values, ethics, etc. That is all well and good and these decisions about what battles you choose to fight are very personal in nature. I’d just ask you to remember that just because you never acknowledge or choose to notice that you’re dancing with the devil, doesn’t mean you’re not going to get burned. Any country, company, or organization must have people of character in key leadership positions. People that will call a spade a spade, or a default a bankruptcy.

The leading edge of this hurricane was spectacular starting in October of 2008. The market went into “sell first and ask questions later” mode. Institutional money wants visibility above all else. If you already have wealth, return of and not return on capital is the highest priority. When I finished speaking to my beautiful new Spanish lady friend, and consider what it means when scandal after scandal breaks with key people in key positions across the military industrial complex, I’m not comforted by my thoughts on that. I don’t think you should be comforted by it either. We are living through a moment in time that the flash point for escalation of war and economic fallout is truly incredible. My biggest mistakes during my time being involved with markets are when I didn’t trust my instincts and I didn’t trust history.

I implore you to not fall victim to these same shortcomings. History says it’s time to grab a precious metals shield and hold it in front of your face. I don’t know about you but that sounds a lot more pleasant than taking a fiat paper bank note shotgun blast to the face. As every nation on earth scrambles to lock up future resource supply at a time when money in circulation is increasing exponentially to fund military and deficit spending, it’s never been more critical. I can’t time every dip perfectly in the prices so you’re always buying the absolute lows. But I can tell you what is playing outright before your very eyes dictates you’re either going to own the insurance of real money or watch as your paper financial house burns to the ground. Try and remember when you’re getting your daily dose of cheerleading from CNBC that, just because a stock market moves up doesn’t mean your purchasing power will. Paging Zimbabwe….