Practical Solutions to a Collapsing World Order

[mick silver]

Jeff Berwick on Practical Solutions to a Collapsing World Order With Anthony Wile (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2012/) - November 24, 2013

The Daily Bell is pleased to present this exclusive interview with Jeffrey Berwick

Introduction: Jeff Berwick is an anarchist, libertarian and freedom fighter against mankind's two biggest enemies, the state and the central banks. Jeff is chief editor of The Dollar Vigilante, an anarcho-capitalist, Austrian economics based newsletter focused on surviving The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI) and CEO of TDV Media and Services, which provides internationalization information and solutions for yourself and your wealth. He is also host of Anarchast, an anarchist video podcast, and is a contributing editor at many of the world's largest financial and precious metals related websites. In 1994, Jeff Berwick founded Canada's largest financial website, Stockhouse.com. A prominent speaker at many of the world's freedom, investment and gold conferences as well as regularly in the media including CNBC, CNN and Fox Business, Jeff expatriated long ago from his country of birth, Canada, and considers himself a citizen of the world. He has lived in numerous locales since including Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Bangkok and currently lives in Acapulco, Mexico and is building a home in Cafayate, Argentina. In essence, everything he writes about for TDV he has done or is doing.




Daily Bell: What's going on, Jeff?
Jeff Berwick: What isn't going on! We certainly live in interesting times and it is going to even get more interesting from here.
Daily Bell: Is the world getting crazier or is it just our imagination?
Jeff Berwick: That's exactly what I was saying. I am surprised so many people are so unaware about what is really going on in the political, economic and financial worlds. If they were aware, they'd be shocked. And, if they lack any moral philosophy and economic historical knowledge, probably dismayed. But maybe many purposely keep themselves in the dark for their own mental protection. I hear "I don't want to know" a lot. But like Ayn Rand said, "You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality."
Daily Bell: What's the biggest issue on your plate? What are you most concerned about?
Jeff Berwick: I sum it up as The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI), which is sort of an all-encompassing acronym for the fact that the political, financial and economic systems we have lived in for the last 40 years are all on the cusp of collapse. That collapse is actually a good thing, as the world has never been less free in human history thanks to the explosion in the size of the state during the last couple of centuries. But the transition from these systems to what will hopefully be a much freer system will be dangerous. And, of course, there is the possibility that when they collapse things get even worse as people panic and give governments and central banks (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2958/) even more power. In either case, this is the most dangerous time in history for capital.
Daily Bell: Give us some background, for readers who don't know you.
Jeff Berwick: I've been interviewed twice in the past by The Daily Bell so those who are interested can look at those interviews for a more detailed answer on my history. What I am really, though, is a truth-seeker. I want to know what the truth is and am not scared to dig far down the rabbit hole to find it. Secondly, I don't believe in thinking collectively when it comes to nations, but I do have a warm spot in my heart for humanity as a whole, and also for all the wondrous living things that are here on this space rock with us. And, because of that, I want to see everyone and everything living as happily as they can. It is my opinion, certainly as far as humanity is concerned, that the best way to make that happen is to spread the word of freedom and to rally against those who try to enslave and oppress others. Those people most often are the ones pulling the levers of government ... one of the worst ideas still being propagated on this planet.
Freedom from governments and the centralized violence of their laws and regulations isn't a desire to hurt or damage others or the environment; it's the only moral system and it turns out that it is has the very real side effect of constantly driving technological progress and standards of living.
Daily Bell: Are things getting worse economically for the West? For the US?
Jeff Berwick: I think it is unquestionable. I've been writing for years with proof of that. But you just have to look at numbers in recent weeks to see that is empirically the case. Unemployment in Spain is 26.6% and in Greece it's 27.6%. It's even worse for younger people who are really feeling the brunt of the socialist (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1901/) systems that have been in place for decades. Youth unemployment in Greece tops 75%! And, the real unemployment rate in the US is well over 20% when measured in the old way that doesn't try to hide realities that would cause unrest among the populace. Not to mention that 1 in 6 people in the US is on food stamps... 1 in 4 children is on food stamps. The entire Western world is already in a deep depression as bad as the 1930s depression and it is going to get much worse from here.
Daily Bell: Is the US coming out of a recession?
Jeff Berwick: I think I can best answer that question with a question. What is a recession? What I mean by that is that the standard ways the government, media and economists calculate "a recession" make no sense. The entire West, and most of the world, is run rampant with incorrect economic thinking. GDP, as just one example, is a fallacy. It does not denote "growth" or "recession." Adding up the price of everything sold into one number for a geographic region does not say very much at all about the true economic health of the people of that region. If that were the case then, as Paul Krugman would advise, we should destroy every city in the West and rebuild it, as it would massively increase GDP as people's savings were used to just get them back to where they were before their cities were destroyed. It's a ludicrous concept.
The US is already in a depression that has just begun. There are no green shoots. There is no recovery. All that is happening is the Federal Reserve (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1855/) is printing new money (QE) and fooling people, temporarily, into thinking they are richer than they are as their existing earnings buy less and they have to take on more debt to keep their standard of living from plummeting. They'll soon find out the truth as that new money destroys their purchasing power and their lives get painfully downsized.
And so, to answer your question of whether the US is coming out a recession – where a recession or depression is a general decline in the standard of living – I think the answer is not only is the US not coming out of a recession but it is still in just the preliminary stages of a depression.
Daily Bell: What's your take on Obamacare (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/28358/) and Obama? Is his administration gradually imploding?
Jeff Berwick: Many people incorrectly state that Obama and Obamacare are socialist. Obamacare in its current form is fascist (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1902/) and part of crapitalism – crony capitalism (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1903/). It is just forcing people to use private, monopolistic insurance companies or be fined. Luckily, however, as with most things government does it is totally incompetent. This may be the fastest government program to implode in history.
Daily Bell: Will Obamacare be overturned? What will its impact be? Is the real goal a single payer system? How's that working out for Canada?
Jeff Berwick: Considering that its real results have been tens of millions of people losing their medical insurance (and having their rates increased by as much as 500%) with just a few thousand people actually receiving medical insurance, it will be interesting to see just how far the federal government can push the American sheeple until they finally have enough. As for Kanada, I have countless personal horror stories of the medical system there, as I was born and lived there until I was in my early 30s. I spend a lot of my time in Mexico now and much prefer the free-market medical system in Mexico to either of its fasco-communist (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1900/) northern neighbors.
Daily Bell: What about the Tea Party (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1878/) in the US? We think the movement is getting bigger.
Jeff Berwick: What I have found interesting is that the libertarian mindset is so foreign to the political class one-party system that Harry Reid (Communist-Nevada) called Tea Partiers anarchists! They for the most part aren't anarchists at all but constitutionalists or minarchists. What is nice, however, is that the word libertarian is finally being understood in the "land of the free" and is actually a cool thing to be now. Glenn Beck, who is a neocon (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2944/), calls himself a libertarian. Bill Maher, who is a liberal, calls himself a libertarian. And the Republican Party (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/28313/) is actually realizing that if they want a chance of winning, they will have to get the vote of the Ron Paul (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/859/) libertarians. Even better is that if libertarians form a substantial part of the Republican Party, it will destroy the Republican Party as we know it and soon after it will destroy the federal government. Because once people become libertarian it usually isn't very long until they become true anarchists and realize that government itself is an unnecessary evil. A popular Internet meme (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/654/) put it best: "What's the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist? About six months."
Daily Bell: What's going on with Chase? Why the new limits on international wires and cash transactions, both deposits and withdrawals, for small business accounts?
Jeff Berwick: Capital controls have been and are rapidly coming into effect in the US. But, they are doing it quite sneakily. The biggest thing to watch on this front is Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2916/) (FATCA), which is set to come into effect in July, 2014. FATCA essentially tries to make every bank on Earth a spy arm of the IRS (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/28213/). Most banks outside of the US are not willing to do what it takes to comply with this act and therefore, by extension, it will be nearly impossible for an American to get a foreign bank account. It already is, in fact. It's de facto capital control. That's why we urge people to make moves to get the majority of their assets outside of the US as quickly as possible. It's not easy, but we have set up many services (http://dollarvigilante.com/tdv-resources) to help people do that such as TDV Offshore, TDV Wealth Management and TDV Passports.
Daily Bell: What's going on with China? The economy there is supposed to be improving.
Jeff Berwick: China is certainly a very interesting place. A massive amount of wealth has been created since they let go of the shackles of communism and replaced it with their own brand of fascist capitalism. They have many of the same problems as the US, however, with insolvent government-propped-up banks and central bank money printing. They don't have the debt levels of the US, however, so it should do much better there than in the US over the coming years. But expect it to be a wild ride.
Daily Bell: China, Germany, London – all these regions are supposedly seeing new real estate bubbles. Your opinion?
Jeff Berwick: Bubbles, bubbles everywhere. Central banks around the world, including the three just mentioned, have been printing money at unprecedented levels causing massive misallocation of capital and yes, some of that new money is going into real estate. In the US most of the money has been going into the massive bubble in government debt, which has increased from $900 billion in 1980 to over $17 trillion today... and into the stock market, which is seeing nominal new highs. But, in real terms, the Dow is still down nearly 50% from 2000.
Daily Bell: Some non-economic questions. You spoke of the militarization of the police last time. Any updates?
Jeff Berwick: Updates? Where to begin! Since we last spoke the entire city of Boston was locked down while people hid in their houses and what can only be described as a military police force broke in people's doors and terrorized people in their supposed search for a skinny 19-year-old boy with a rice cooker. The Department of Homeland InSecurity has purchased 4.5 billion hollow point bullets... more than 10 for every man, woman and child in the US. And police departments around the country have been buying tanks.
Police now are the biggest threat to your personal safety in the US. Police kill a person's dog in his home during a no-knock raid on average every 19 minutes and are regularly fingering and anally probing people if they look like they are clenching their buttocks and possibly hiding substances that violate the modern day War on People prohibition on certain recreation.
Daily Bell: You compared what was going on in the US to pre-World War II Germany. Further thoughts?
Jeff Berwick: The comparison to Germany between 1921 and 1944 is almost eerie. In 1921 Germany went through a hyperinflation ... which is in process in the US. In Germany in 1933 the Nazi government conducted a false-flag attack on the Reichstag, Germany's parliament, in order to gain national political power. This, of course, is very akin to 9-11. They then democratically elected a charismatic personality in Hitler... akin to Barack O'Bomber, the most warmongering Nobel Peace Prize (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2240/) winner in history who just this week extended the Afghanistan War to 2024 ... making it more than two decades of occupation and war in that country. Not to mention all the other wars and occupations in places like Iraq, Libya and the recent attempt in Syria. As things continue to get worse in the US the federal government is becoming more and more oppressive and across the country there are unconstitutional checkpoints checking people's papers. Many cities and counties have started making "homelessness" illegal and rounding up homeless and placing them in camps from which they are not allowed to leave. And that is on top of the US itself, which has the largest prison camp population on Earth with 5% of the population of the Earth and 25% of the worldwide prison population, most of whom never committed a crime against anyone or anyone's property.
Where does it go from here? No one knows, but the direction is clear and I removed myself from the Western world ten years ago to stay clear of the place that I consider to be ground zero for this economic collapse: the US.
Daily Bell: What about the NSA and Edward Snowden – has the surveillance society been exposed? Is that a good thing?
Jeff Berwick: It was both very exciting and at the same time very disappointing. Finally someone stepped forward to "blow the whistle" on the East Germany on steroids surveillance society in the US. This was excellent and Edward Snowden is a hero... although I wish he had contacted us to get a second passport (http://dollarvigilante.com/second-passports-and-residencies) beforehand. On the disappointing side was the malaise with which the news was greeted by the American public. It was almost a collective yawn and many people, including one of the Miss USA contestants, considered it a good thing to "make us safe." Apparently that old quote from Benjamin Franklin, "Those who give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" has been forgotten. After all, they don't teach kids in the government indoctrination centers (public schools (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2601/)) these things. Instead, they make them pledge their allegiance to the state every morning.
Daily Bell: Europe is irate. But don't all governments do this sort of thing?
Jeff Berwick: Well, I wouldn't say "Europe" is irate. The governments in Europe, and around the world, are irate. I don't recognize government as being legitimate so I don't really care what they do to each other as long as they leave us peaceful people out of it... but they rarely do.
Daily Bell: Snowden wants formal forgiveness from the US government. Will he get it?
Jeff Berwick: Of course not. Information is the enemy of the state. I would advise Snowden not to even request forgiveness. He did nothing wrong.

- See more at: http://www.thedailybell.com/exclusive-interviews/34772/Anthony-Wile-Jeff-Berwick-on-Practical-Solutions-to-a-Collapsing-World-Order/#sthash.GXnRzzcF.dpuf

[mick silver]

Daily Bell: Will he end up staying in Russia?
Jeff Berwick: I am quite surprised and a little disappointed that some of the billionaire freedom-lovers haven't flown him out discretely on a private jet while avoiding any US or US-ally airspace. Of course, however, it'd likely still get shot down. There are no real rules when it comes to government. Snowden was smart to run to, of all places, China and Russia to defect from the US but he should have been even smarter and garnered himself a non-US passport first to make things easier and moved to a country which is not a US ally and who doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US. But I do enjoy seeing a world where someone from the US has to defect for speaking the truth and runs to places that would have been considered insane 30 years ago, like Russia. Things are changing fast.
Daily Bell: Is Putin a defender of freedom and an adversary of Western corporatism (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1889/)? Or is he merely advancing his own interests?
Jeff Berwick: Putin is a thug and a despot just like every other president or prime minister on this planet. Only sick people seek power that is undeserved. But I do like his moxie for sticking it to the US government. But your suggestion that he is just using it to advance his own interests is correct. In a perfect world people would realize that government and collectivism (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1952/) is evil and just ignore it all. But we aren't there yet.
Daily Bell: Are China and Russia really enemies of the West or is this overblown? We think it is.
Jeff Berwick: Again, it isn't Russians or Chinese people who are enemies of people who live in the US. Their governments create wars and look to impede the voluntary trade of goods and human travel. I've never met a Russian or Chinese person who hates Americans. Almost universally, however, people around the world hate the US government. People want freedom and the ability to trade and travel unrestricted. That said, many governments around the world are turning away from the wants of the US government and the US dollar itself. This has major implications for the near future and is what I write about at The Dollar Vigilante and in my upcoming book, Escape from Amerika.
Daily Bell: What about the BRICs (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1971/)? Are they setting up a separate currency system? Will it really work?
Jeff Berwick: Nope. This idea of unbacked government fiat paper money (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/803/) is a barbarous relic. The free market has created the next super currency, Bitcoin. Fiat paper currency likely still has a few years left before its long overdue extinction, but the world will continue to move to digital currencies ... and, in a weird twist, back to precious metals (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/804/). China has been hoarding gold and now the reason for Bitcoin's recent rise from $200 to $900 was mostly because of Chinese awareness of the currency. I've been an advocate of Bitcoin since 2011 when it was at $3 and the uptake in the last few years has been breathtaking. The best part? Governments can't stop it.
Daily Bell: How's Canada doing these days? Still worried about a housing bubble there?
Jeff Berwick: I don't worry about anything, but I do research as much as I can. The Bank of Canada has been inflating even more than the Federal Reserve. In January of 2012 the money supply, as measured by M3, was less than $1.4 trillion. In January of 2013 it was over $1.6 trillion, making a YOY increase of over 14%. Today it stands well over $1.7 trillion. A lot of the new money has, like in other markets, made its way into the real estate market.
The Economist recently stated that Canadian real estate is 30% overvalued compared to incomes and 74% overvalued compared to rental prices.
This is unsustainable and will revert to the mean at some point. In the meantime, money printing is causing the usual misallocation of capital and, in the end, destroying capital as consumers and investors are confused by price signals.
Daily Bell: We asked you this before. The Dollar Vigilante's tagline is, "Survive and Prosper During and After the Dollar Collapse." What do people need to do now to secure themselves in the face of coming difficulties?
Jeff Berwick: I rarely agree with that crony insider George Soros but he said, in 2009, that the financial system had collapsed but is just being kept alive, temporarily, with money printing. This is the last stage of any fiat money and banking system. Whenever governments are faced with the two choices faced today – defaulting and reducing the size of government massively or printing money until the monetary system collapses – they always choose the latter.
You can see it today; with stock markets at nominal all-time highs the printing press is still running. Interest rates are still price-fixed to zero and Bernanke recently said that even if unemployment, as defined by the government's numbers, hits his target of 6.5%, it still won't mean an end to the ZIRP and money printing.
This is because there is now no other option if they want to keep the current statist system alive. With $17 trillion in debt, if interest rates were to rise to even 10% it would mean $1.7 trillion per year in interest payments alone. Once you take Socialist InSecurity out of the government's theft (tax) income that would mean more than all their tax receipts combined.
This system is dead ... only many don't know it yet ... which creates opportunities and risks.
Number one in my mind is to internationally diversify your assets and put them in things that Ben Bernanke, or Janet Yellen, can't counterfeit. Precious metals and foreign real estate, particularly productive real estate such as agriculture and farming, top the list.
We wrote a 100-page report called Getting Your Gold Out Of Dodge (http://goldoutofdodge.com/) to help people navigate the waters of internationalizing their precious metals. Also, to help internationalize your assets I recommend opening an offshore company and bank account... again, something we have provided a solution for with TDV Offshore (http://tdvoffshore.com/). And if you have serious assets within the US, I would recommend consulting with TDV Wealth Management (http://tdvwealthmanagement.com/) to internationalize those assets and get them into a charitable trust structure. We'll be holding a conference/workshop in Panama this coming January to help people do that.
For offshore real estate with an agricultural foundation we have identified Chile as being one of the most libertarian, growing economies on Earth in which to help nourish Galt's Gulch Chile. (http://galtsgulchchile.com/) Many free-market types are making the move to Chile much like many people moved to the US over prior centuries, including the founding fathers (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2824/), to escape tyranny and oppression in their place of birth.
The coming collapse will be so bad, in my opinion, that those who lose the least will win. By internationalizing your assets out of the country/government that purports to own you and putting assets into hard assets you stand the best chance of being liquid at a time when capital is in high demand. If you retain most of your current assets you will be ahead of the game in the coming years as most of the Western world gets "Cyprussed" and coming out on the other side with assets in which to rebuild.
Daily Bell: Will we end up back on a gold standard (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2453/)?
Jeff Berwick: I hope not because if we do that means governments and their evil twin, the central banks, will still exist. I do hope that electronic-based, gold-backed currencies come more into their own, however. There are many leading the way on this, including James Turk (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2186/)'s Goldmoney.com, Peter Schiff (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2005/)'s Europac Bank (not available to Americans, of course) and others.
For me, gold and silver is for storage of wealth and Bitcoin will hopefully become the standard way of transferring and transacting in that wealth.
Daily Bell: Gold and silver – what's your take? Still headed down?
Jeff Berwick: We have two main analysts on this in our crew and both generally agree. Ed Bugos has been bullish on gold since 2000 at $250 and is our Senior Analyst at The Dollar Vigilante (http://dollarvigilante.com/) newsletter. Vin Maru heads up the TDV Golden Trader (http://tdvgoldentrader.com/) trading newsletter.
Vin has been more accurate in the last year in having advised his subscribers to sell gold and gold stocks at much higher levels. He received a lot of wrath from subscribers, but he has been vindicated and those who heeded his advice were not hurt in this ongoing decline in both gold and gold stocks. In Ed Bugos´s defense, the TDV newsletter is not a trading newsletter but a positioning letter and he also has been fairly correct in expecting a withdrawal in precious metals and stock prices over the last year but could not outright issue a "sell," as we are trying to position TDV subscribers for safety and preservation of wealth rather than trading. Neither Ed nor I would have recommended people sell precious metals or precious metals stocks to go completely into fiat currencies in this environment.
Both seem to agree now that the next few months may still have some downside. As for me, I think it is close enough to the bottom for those who do not have a sufficient allocation in precious metals or stocks to get in now.
Most of the crowd has once again been fooled by money printing into thinking everything is okay. It's not okay and it is going to be worse than most can imagine so I recommend holding what you have or buying now if you currently don't hold.
I don't like playing around near the end of a total collapse with the majority of my assets to eke out gains. Come back to me two years from now and tell me if I was right.
Daily Bell: Manipulation or just a market correction?
Jeff Berwick: I am a big fan of people like Bill Murphy (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2062/) of GATA and others like him who press governments and central banks to be honest about their involvement in the markets. I have no doubt there is significant manipulation in the market – in every market, in fact. But, I don't see the manipulation of gold as being the main factor in its price. I think that is mostly explained by normal market movements and the fact that so many people have bought into the recovery story.
I like to use the price of gold from 1960 to 1980 as a road map and when you look at it that way this most recent decline is not all that different from the decline in the early to mid '70s... and we all know what happened after that, as gold and silver rose dramatically. I think that is where we currently are on the precious metals. And I also think the economic problems are so much larger this time around that we will see a precious metals bubble that will shock the world.
Daily Bell: Are you hopeful about Janet Yellen? We think she's going to be a disaster.
Jeff Berwick: What's to be hopeful about? There is absolutely nothing that can be done at this point that will end in anything but tears, one way or another. There will be a major systemic event no matter what happens at this point, thanks to 42 years of unrestrained governments and central banks. Just as with Rome, where eventually every Caesar was worse than the last, the same is happening with the US federal government and the Federal Reserve. The system is in terminal decline and I recently heard that the Democratic ticket for 2016, if there is even an election, will be Hillary Clinton/Michelle Obama! And, with the Federal Reserve, they just need to install in place a puppet who will promote never-ending money printing at that point. And it appears they have found their stooge in Yellen.
Daily Bell: Why would they put a Yellen in as head of the Fed when they know she's going to stimulate? Is it that they simply don't know what else to do?
Jeff Berwick: What else can they do? If the Federal Reserve, which is run by the same people who run the federal government, stops printing money and allows interest rates to go to their natural market level it would mean that the US government not only couldn't run deficits anymore but would have to immediately downside by 80+ percent. You saw the panic involved with the "sequester" which was just a 3 percent proposed "cut" of an already increased budget from the prior year. It was just a cut in the rate of increase of spending. A stop in money printing and a natural interest rate – which I think would be upward of 20 percent – would make the US federal government insolvent, treasuries (which are held by countless banks, corporations and individuals worldwide) would become worthless, all banks would go under, taking their depositors' money with them and it would be a depression that would be written about in the bibles of the future.
The powers that be want to stave off this inevitability for as long as possible and the only way to do that is to keep printing money until all fiat currencies reach their intrinsic value (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2451/) and an even worse outcome... a complete, 100% economic collapse. If Bitcoin hasn't reached general acceptance by that point, the chaos that would ensue would be beyond biblical proportions.
In other words, this system is at the rock-and-a-hard-place stage. No matter what they do, Obama's "Hope and Chains" will happen and no one wants to be the face of that so they will continue to avoid the hard decisions until it is completely out of their hands.
Then they'll probably blame capitalism on the collapse. Hopefully, by that point alternative currencies like Bitcoin are already well into circulation and the message of true freedom and true capitalism, not government-powered crapitalism, are embedded into enough of the world's population that we don't all end up eating each other.
Daily Bell: What about the US stock market? We believe it may be headed higher in the short term. Seems like they're trying to get a lot of climate change (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1919/) companies funded.
Jeff Berwick: Nominally the US stock market can head to 100,000 on the Dow in the next few years. In real terms, it is headed to zero. And, don't get me started on "climate change."
Daily Bell: We can't resist. Is it real in your estimation or is it a kind of scam, designed mostly to raise revenue and scare people?
Jeff Berwick: Of course climate change is real. New York just a few millennia ago was under a mile of ice. Before that there were palm trees at the North Pole. But the idea that we 7 billion ants in just the last hundred years of industrialization are dramatically affecting the Earth is ludicrous, to say the least.
In the '70s there was widespread fear of a coming ice age. Then, Al Gore, of all people, did a ridiculous little movie with a bunch of incorrect information and all of a sudden global warming was the fear for those who buy into this stuff. He then proposed that we tax people around the world on the air they breathe out of their mouths (CO2 (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1868/)) ... the ultimate in statist/socialist hubris. The world, however, has been in a cooling trend that appears to be continuing for decades to come, though, and countless "global warming" conferences were canceled after extreme cold temperatures, which are now called the "Gore effect," so they had to change their story and renamed it "climate change."
Even though Arctic and Antarctic ice have grown tremendously in the last few years (despite the global warming crowd saying that both would be without ice by 2013) they still continue to say CO2 is a major problem. But that goes against their initial story of how CO2 levels would warm the Earth and cause catastrophic damage. So, if the world is now cooling, shouldn't we tax people if they don't create enough CO2, by their logic? Where is the call to tax people who don't buy SUVs and leave them running day and night?
My favorite is when a major hurricane or natural event happens and the news says, "It was the largest storm in the last 80 years!" and the alarmists all point and say, "See! We need to tax people to stop this!"
Well, my question is, what caused the previous storm of a larger magnitude 80 years ago? The Earth has been the scene of countless massive natural events for billions of years. And, not to mention, with population growth around the world and massive, immediate news coverage, these storms are bound to hit more populated areas and be reported on a much larger scale.
There are much, much larger problems than manmade pollution in the world today and they are all caused by governments and central banks. I prefer to focus on those more serious, verifiable dangers than whether human activity contributed to possibly increasing the size of a hurricane by a small percentage ... which it likely didn't.
Daily Bell: Agreed. Let's change the topic. You live as a permanent tourist. Explain.
Jeff Berwick: This is a lifestyle choice that I had been living for the last decade but didn't realize had been codified decades ago, in the '60s, by Harry Schultz (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/2134/). It is called the Permanent Tourist/Perpetual Traveler/Prior Taxpayer (PT) theory.
The underpinnings of the theory are the recognition that there is no truly free place on Earth, at the moment, with the possible exception of Antarctica. And, I don't like cold weather. So if you are going to live in today's world, with an intricate network of government criminals constantly aggressing against your life and your wealth, you should try to find every way around the system possible.
Daily Bell: Why do you say government criminals?
Jeff Berwick: Well, you know the difference between the mafia and government, right? Size. There is no other important differentiation between the two with the exception that many people still believe in the validity of government. But that is changing fast. In any case, with the PT theory you try to never live in a place where you are a citizen. I have been doing that for the last decade. Wherever I do spend most of my time, such as now in Mexico and Chile, I make sure to live there as a tourist, all legally, under their inane laws about where I can and cannot go before they own me. I also make sure I have more than one passport to give me options. It may sound illogical, coming from an anarcho-capitalist like me to want to be "owned" by more than one country. But, to the contrary, the more passports/citizenships you have the less any one government can purport to own you since not one can claim exclusive ownership. You get the benefit of two or three devils fighting each other for you, so to speak. Worst case scenario, if one of them gets overly egregious and comes after me, I just light the passport on fire and never go there again. If you do this properly, you do not have to pay tax in any country – if you choose your alternative citizenship properly.
Secondly, I keep all my business ventures in alternate, non-tax jurisdictions. So, with my personal life and business life I am not required to pay any tax ... all legally. I can go deeper into PT theory, as it can go much deeper, if you really want to diversify your entire life in such a way that no one government has control over you and your assets. But, that would take a book ...which I am working on. In the meantime, I talk regularly about it at the free Dollar Vigilante blog and the subscription newsletter.
Daily Bell: Any new ventures on the horizon?
Jeff Berwick: I'm a serial entrepreneur, so yes. I think I may have started four new businesses in the last month. Being an entrepreneur and traveling so regularly – I have been to over a hundred countries now – you can't help but see opportunities.
Probably the one with the most potential that I started this month is a Medical Tourism venture that was created to take advantage of the Obamacare debacle and offer ways for Americans to get first class healthcare for a fraction of the price of the US in places like Mexico and Chile. That hasn't been announced publicly yet, however.
I also plan on offering a related business where we supply cutting-edge natural nutritional supplements that are really taking advantage of the daily breakthroughs in science to provide people with natural solutions to their problems rather than the medical/chemical "solutions" offered by the Western medical-industrial complex that mostly treats symptoms and not the root cause, which eventually just makes people sicker. That also is yet to be announced.
Daily Bell: Tell us about your Bitcoin adventure. Any chance of doing something there?
Jeff Berwick: I have entered into many Bitcoin ventures. I see Bitcoin as a revolution in money and banking the way the Internet was a revolution in communication (and in which I also participated, starting Stockhouse.com in Canada, which was worth $240 million by 2000 after founding it in 1993).
We have recently partnered to help found GoldSilverBitcoin.com, which is the first exchange directly between precious metals and Bitcoin, among many other ventures I am dabbling in.
Daily Bell: What's the next big challenge people are facing who wish to secure their livelihoods and independence in this difficult time? What should people be doing generally?
Jeff Berwick: Aside from everything I have said above, the most important thing is to stop listening to the mainstream media (http://www.thedailybell.com/definitions/params/id/1861/) and the government and think for yourself. Do your own research ... don't even depend on anything I say. Look it up and dig deeper. The truth is out there and you can find it. Your government-registered financial adviser likely has no idea about what is really going on. This is the most dangerous time in human history for capital and it is up to you to guide your own ship to survive... and prosper.
And if you don't have capital, make it. Outside of the overtaxed and overregulated West there is nothing but opportunity. Get outside of thinking within your national borders like a serf and do what your forefathers did – take a chance and go somewhere else where the opportunities currently lie. I write regularly about this at The Dollar Vigilante and we have TDV Groups as part of our newsletter, which is a network of liberty-loving expats around the world who have gone to a new region and made a life for themselves.
It has never been easier, thanks to air travel, the Internet, ATM machines, mobile phones and countless other technologies. But soon, as Western governments continue to close the doors, it will never be harder. Mark my words.
Daily Bell: Any other thoughts?
Jeff Berwick: A lot of what I talk about sounds very scary to most people. I want to finish by saying that what I am talking about is hopeless but it's not serious, to paraphrase the Robert Redford movie from 1965. There will be massive change in the coming years but don't let it worry you. Just take action to be aware of those changes and prepare for them. After that, enjoy every moment you can with loved ones and enjoy life. Humankind has been through worse times before. And there is a lot of hope that once this collapse happens we will move on to a world more free, peaceful and prosperous than anyone can imagine. And, if not, enjoy what you've got while you've got it and live your life in such a way that when it is over you don't regret any of it.
While the future seems dire I am expecting countless heroes to come out of nowhere, like Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, Edward Snowden and perhaps even you! Create the change you want to see in life. We will need all the help we can get.
Daily Bell: Thanks!
- See more at: http://www.thedailybell.com/exclusive-interviews/34772/Anthony-Wile-Jeff-Berwick-on-Practical-Solutions-to-a-Collapsing-World-Order/#sthash.GXnRzzcF.dpuf

[mick silver]

The Daily Bell
After Thoughts "What's the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist? About six months."
This is a great aphorism, surely capable of being included in dictionaries, etc. But it won't be for the same reason that most of what Jeff Berwick describes for us here is not being reported by the mainstream media.
What Jeff describes here is, in fact, a well thought-out visualization of the Way the World Works. It is in line with much of our thinking, though we tend to describe causation while Jeff seems more or less focused on offering practical solutions to a collapsing world order.
Though he likely wouldn't describe it this way, Jeff sees what we see, that the power elite that dominated the 20th century is stumbling in the 21st. We think we know why, too: It's because of the Internet.
It is the Internet Reformation that is causing the failure of overarching memes and their results. Directed history, the creation of justification for action, in the 20th century and indeed for the past 300 years is failing now, exposed by electronic communications and the use of the airwaves for authoritative debunking.
We are children huddled at the fire and listening to the teachings of wise men. When we grow up we still believe what we are told but substitute the teachings of our sociopolitical system for our parents.
The top elites know this and have deliberately created "government" with a caring guise. Over and over we are promoted on the idea that "officials" are popularly elected to care for their electoral charges.
Of course, it is not so. There is nothing, ultimately, so ruthless or murderous as government, especially as modern government works for banking interests controlled by a few and intent on further internationalism.
Read this interview and see how Jeff is building a practical panoply of solutions for those who want to provide their loved ones, colleagues and communities with an alternative to Leviathan's ever more restrictive choices.
It is the work of courage and imagination by a man who sees clearly what is in store and has the vision to offer practical alternatives. We try to do it our own way. Jeff does it in his.
There is room for all of us and more ... much more. Let the rebuilding begin.
- See more at: http://www.thedailybell.com/exclusive-interviews/34772/Anthony-Wile-Jeff-Berwick-on-Practical-Solutions-to-a-Collapsing-World-Order/#sthash.GXnRzzcF.dpuf