Main man Doug Casey knocks it out of the park with this one! Most of my anarcho-capitalist/libertarian friends get it already, this is mainly addressed to my former life compadres, when I was raised a "liberal" and even started the "Young Socialism" club as a sophomore at Brophy. Lol!
Most of the latter group will probably totally ignore this message. They did back in 2010 and 11 when I came online to this info. But, maybe things have changed. A family member even asked me to "send me that documentary on chemtrails..." lol.
So in that spirit, I hope you read it. Maybe it will help one person get through this coming rough patch and emerge better off on the other side. Because that's what it's all about! Having as many good people lead free, happy, prosperous lives <3<3<3.
And it takes a real man/woman to say those 3 most powerful words in the English language...
I. Was. Wrong.
Some gold nugs from the article:
The problem is that for quite a while now, the U.S. and much of the Western world has been consuming more than they produce.
It’s much as though you borrowed a million dollars for consumption. You’d enjoy an artificially high standard of living… for a while. But when the time came to pay it back, with interest, you’d suffer a very real drop in your standard of living for a very long period.
Economic bankruptcy is almost always preceded by moral bankruptcy. And it’s accompanied by intellectual bankruptcy: in this case, the philosophical acceptance of economic collectivism and political statism.
What made America different was its foundation on a philosophy of freedom. That word has been so corrupted and leached of meaning—another sign of intellectual bankruptcy.
America is now economically, morally, and intellectually bankrupt.
The country has wandered so far from its founding principles that it is now no different from any of the other 200 nation-states that have spread across the face of the earth like a skin disease.
Germany and Japan were totally and absolutely bankrupt—economically, morally, and intellectually—in 1945. Following the war, should they have tried to continue with their old currencies, policies, ideas, and institutions (that is, if the Allies had allowed them to)? In a word, no.
They had reached the point where the slate needed to be wiped clean, which it was. Then, within a generation, they went from being bombed-out wrecks to two of the most prosperous economies on earth.
Acknowledging bankruptcy is the first step to moving beyond it. Denying bankruptcy when it is a fact only prolongs and worsens the fact.
Since the government produces nothing, anything it even seems to provide is at the direct expense of somebody else. This simple fact evades almost everyone, from the most ignorant voter to the most powerful officials.
Government produces nothing but wars, pogroms, confiscations, taxes, inflation, and regulation, but people still, idiotically, look to it for salvation—even though it’s the cause of their worst problems.
https://internationalman.com/articles/the-real-reasons-the-us-arrived-at-the-greater-depression/