Happy Labor Day!

On Work
By Kahlil Gibran

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,
and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

(more…)

The Real Rate of Inflation with Charles Hugh Smith

“I can track the real-world inflation of the Burrito Index with great accuracy: the cost of a regular burrito from our local taco truck has gone up from $2.50 in 2001 to $5 in 2010 to $6.50 in 2016. That’s a $160% increase since 2001; 15 years in which the official inflation rate reports that what $1 bought in 2001 can supposedly be bought with $1.35 today.” ~ Charles Hugh Smith

By Catherine Austin Fitts

Author Charles Hugh Smith will join me this week on the Solari Report to discuss the real rate of inflation.  We will talk about his recent comments on inflation — The Burrito Index and Revealing the Real Rate of Inflation Would Crash The System.  He notes:

“Unbiased private-sector efforts to calculate the real rate of inflation have yielded a rate of around 7% to 13% per year, depending on the locale–many multiples of the official rate of around 1% per year.”

When managing your household finances, you must develop strategies to address the real rate of inflation that applies to your time and expenses and degrades the products and services that you use.  Charles addresses strategies for personal success in this environment in his recent books:

• Why Our Status Quo Failed and is Beyond Reform.
• A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology and Creating Jobs for All: The Future Belongs to Work That Is Meaningful.
• Get a Job, Build a Career, Defy a Bewildering Economy.

You can access Charles’ books and writings at his excellent website Of Two Minds

Speaking of inflating expense, in Let’s Go to the Movies I will review Divorce Corp, a sobering documentary on the extraordinary financial and emotional expense of the US divorce machinery.  Every family should educate itself about managing the risks to family life and finances — of involving lawyers, of formal legal actions and of family courts.

I will cover the latest events in Money & Markets. Please make sure to post or e-mail your questions by Wednesday.

Talk to you Thursday!

Sweet Jean "Shiver & Shake"

Related reading:

Sweet Jean

Sime Nugent

Alice Keath

On the Road in Las Vegas

By Catherine Austin Fitts

Well, I’m on the road again. On this trip, I am spending five days in Las Vegas. There was someone I wanted to meet. So I took some time to hang out, to get to know them better. I have not been in Las Vegas since I gave a keynote address as Assistant Secretary of Housing – Federal Housing Commissioner to the National Association of Homebuilders in 1990.

My favorite book on Las Vegas is the one Sally Denton co-authored in 2002 – The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and its Hold on America. One of the great insights was that the Mormon church was one of the initial financiers behind Las Vegas. In the deep state, patterns of investment always lead to fascinating connections.

My favorite movie is The Godfather series which encompasses the entire Nevada scene – from Las Vegas to Reno to Tahoe.  Of course, I love Elvis so I must give a nod to Viva Las Vegas!

While here, I took a road trip to see the Hoover Dam at Lake Mead, Nevada, a project featured in Sally Denton’s book on Bechtel, The Profiteers: Bechtel and the Men who Built the World.  If you pull out a map, you can imagine the strategic impact of asserting control of the Colorado river in a separate state legal jurisdiction before it gets to California and Arizona. The Hoover dam is a giant spigot sitting atop Southern California. That’s real power.

As of 2012, Las Vegas had 152,275 hotel rooms spread across a total of 355 hotels. With a population of approximately 2 million people, Las Vegas bills itself as the “Entertainment Capital of the World.” When I reviewed the casino stocks in 2012-13, my assessment was that building and operating casinos in Asia was essential to success. The squeeze on the American middle class is not good for Las Vegas.

The Trump International Hotel towers over Las Vegas. It makes economic sense that a casino developer wants to “Make America Great Again.”

Related reading

Las Vegas on Wikipedia

Hoover Dam on Wikipedia

Colorado River on Wikipedia

Precious Metals Market Report with Franklin Sanders

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality.” ~Lao Tsu

By Catherine Austin Fitts

Franklin Sanders will join me next week for the precious metals market report. Franklin will walk us through what has happened in the gold and silver markets this year. We will discuss the current correction and how gold and silver prices may be impacted by the Fed decision in September.

We will also discuss the end of the debt-financed growth model and what it means to the outlook for precious metals.  Whether the fury at the Fed, the high disapproval ratings of the Presidential candidates, the growing concern about falling productivity growth, what appears to be an unraveling of Obamacare and the growing pressure to reengineer government budgets in the United States and worldwide — all of these matters make it clear that the costs of centralization, secrecy and privilege have become unbearable.

Franklin recently published a joke that I just have to share.

“It reminds me of the two old boys, Willie & Earl, who used to drive trucks together. Willie was being tested to renew his license, & the inspector asked him, “Suppose you are going down the long steep grade of Monteagle Mountain, and suppose further that your brakes went out. Now suppose that you look at the foot of the mountain and see 35 cars in front of you waiting for a railroad train to pass. What would you do next?” Willie never hesitated. “I’d wake up Earl.” Inspector said, “Wake up Earl? Why on earth would you wake up Earl?” Willie shot back, “Cause he ain’t never seen a wreck like this!”

We have never quite seen a wreck like the one into which we are headed. A recent report in Tennessee where Franklin and I live concludes that 50 percent of the current jobs will be replaced with automation. It really is time to rebuild our local economies, centralization be damned!

In Let’s Go to the Movies I will discuss the controversial autism documentary Vaxxed – what it is about, why the controversy, and why it is important to you to understand the issues. Essentially, if autism continues to grow at current rates, it will overwhelm the educational and health care system and have a devastating human and economic impact. It is essential that we figure out what causes autism and reverse the trends.

I will cover the latest developments in markets and geopolitics in Money & Market. Make sure to post your questions for Ask Catherine.

Talk to you Thursday!

Conquering Cancer Volume One by Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez

We are pleased to announce the launch of the late Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez’s book entitled “Conquering Cancer Volume One: 50 Pancreatic and Breast Cancer Patients on the Gonzalez Nutritional Protocol.“.This new book is 8 1/2 x 11, hardcover and over 390 pages long.

Dr. Gonzalez was finishing this book at the time of his unexpected death in July 2015. It has been edited for clarity with a few patient updates from his patient files.

Conquering Cancer Volume Two will include an additional 50 patients with 16 different types of cancer treated successfully on The Gonzalez Nutritional Protocol and is expected to be available at the end of 2016.

Catherine will order her copy today and will post a review as soon as she has read it!

Conquering Cancer Volume 1 (pdf)

Catalog

PRE-ORDER HERE: Web Page

Can Global Capitalism and Liberal Democracy Survive?

Oswald Mosley,leader of the British Union of Fascists, being saluted at a fascist parade.
The 1930s saw the rise of authoritarianism as citizens lost faith in liberal democracy.

[CAF Note: Bravo to Martin Wolf!]

by Martin Wolf

The symbiotic relationship is under strain, last seen during rise of fascism in the 1930s

Is the marriage between liberal democracy and global capitalism an enduring one? Political developments across the west – particularly the candidacy of an authoritarian populist for the presidency of the most important democracy – heighten the importance of this question. One cannot take for granted the success of the political and economic systems that guide the western world and have been a force of attraction for much of the rest for four decades. The question then arises: if not these, what?

A natural connection exists between liberal democracy – the combination of universal suffrage with entrenched civil and personal rights – and capitalism, the right to buy and sell goods, services, capital and one’s own labour freely. They share the belief that people should make their own choices as individuals and as citizens. Democracy and capitalism share the assumption that people are entitled to exercise agency. Humans must be viewed as agents, not just as objects of other people’s power.

Continue reading