Useful Idiots

All times are confusing times, but some times are more confusing than others, and it appears we've entered a particularly rough patch. It's unusually  hard to figure out what's going on. In the space of a few weeks, we've had a storming of the capitol, a viral Sanders meme and an insurrection in the markets. All sorts of interpretations can be made with no one standing out as much more believable than another. In the heat of the moment, a sole event is seen as little more than a dumpster fire by some and a systemic threat by others.

Only in retrospect will it be possible to determine the true significance of current events, and even then, there will be different angles and interpretations. The reason for this is that there's always more than one motivating factor behind an event. There's no single view being expressed. Even the most coherent and honest actors will have more than one motivating factors influencing them. There's always a desire for personal gains, no matter how noble the cause may be, and there's no way to know the exact nature of the cause. No two people have the exact same view of things, and the cause as a whole is therefore a somewhat muddled idea, no matter how simple and concise the rallying calls and slogans may be.

Adding to the confusion, we have honest people with conflicting viewpoints, infiltrators that deliberately confuse issues, and individuals with less than noble intention. Sympathy with the overall cause should not blind us to this fact. Rushing into any of this without proper understanding is more likely to harm us than give us lasting gains. Our first reaction to any grand movement should therefore be caution.

Our best strategy in dealing with the uncertainties of life is to first build a coherent moral framework for ourselves so that we can quickly judge the ethical quality of things going on. Secondly, we need to understand our position in the greater scheme of things. Rather than chasing the hot trends of the moment, we should seek to find the next big thing, and position ourselves for this event. Finally, we have to be careful in picking our battles. We don't personally have to fight in every one. Leave it to others to fight the battles for which we haven't prepared.

Being carried out on a stretcher, with everything lost, doesn't make us a successful revolutionary. It simply means that someone else won. That someone may be the revolutionary leader, or it may be the opponent. Either way, it's not us. We're somebody else's useful idiot, left impotent and broke at the side line of history. That's hardly something to be proud of, no matter how noble the cause may have been. If we're not personally better off at the end of a revolution, chances are that someone else gained at our expense, and that our fight was for nothing.

Revolution

By Jean-Pierre Houël - Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public Domain, Link

Rise and Fall of Index Funds

Index funds have no price discovery. They track whatever basket of companies they're supposed to track. When money comes in, they buy according to a pre-set distribution. When money is withdrawn, the same distribution is sold. It's therefore incorrect to suggest that index funds are forced to load up with Game Stop shares due to its recent price rise. Only fresh money going into index funds containing Game Stop will have to buy this company at present prices. If no money is coming in or going out, the index fund remains passive.

However, some passive investors may have caught onto the fact that Game Stop is sending the price of certain index funds higher, and conclude from this that it may be a good idea to leave these funds for now, awaiting buying opportunities in the future or buying into something unrelated. If so, there will be an outflow of money from funds containing the Game Stop company. Game Stop will have to be sold together with whatever other companies the index holds. The meteoritic rise of Game Stop will in this way have the perverse effect of sending other companies down for no other reason than their loose affiliation with Game Stop through index funds. This will in turn affect other indexes that contain some of the same stocks, but not Game Stop. The sell off will spread beyond indexes containing this company, resulting in an overall unwind in all stocks.

This is technically different from the inclusion of Tesla into the S&P 500 index. In that case, index funds were forced to buy Tesla. They could not remain passive. They had to sell certain stocks in order to load up with Tesla. However, some may find Tesla too speculative for their taste and decide to sell the S&P 500 in favour of something less speculative. If so, the effect of Tesla's inclusion into the S&P 500 may be similar to that of Game Stop. The inclusion of Tesla and the over-representation of Game Stop are both signalling a move towards trash. It's indicative of a market top.

The prudent investor will take some chips off the table at this point. A natural safe harbour will be cash and gold as outlined in my investment thesis. If a large enough portion of small investors do this, we'll see prices drop for all stocks, especially the ones considered safe, because it's the prudent investor that will cash out first. They will sell their index funds that contain mostly conservative brands.

When speculative brands start dominating the investment scene, conservative brands suffer. This pulls the broader marked down. More people start pulling down their positions, and the process continues. As things stand at the moment, the entire market is priced at historically high levels relative to earnings. There's a scary looking trumpet formation in the charts, indicative of general instability, and some index funds are already experiencing relatively high outflows. Everything points towards an imminent market collapse. The upside potential is tiny while the down side may be a stunning 80% relative to cash or 95% relative to gold.

GameStop

By Mike Mozart from Funny YouTube, USA - GameStop, CC BY 2.0, Link

Dash for Trash

Back in 2017, when I was working on my investment thesis, I made the observation that trading in Bitcoin is a little like trading in bankrupt companies. It's all about scarcity with no regards for utility. Little did I know back then that such trades would be popular by 2020. By early 2021, trading in trash is all the rage, with Game Stop up hundreds of percent in hours, outpacing the volatility of Bitcoin by leaps and bounds. However, none of this is irrational, as some commenters appear to believe. What's going on is perfectly rational in a world where interest rates are kept artificially low.

The rational behind the dash for trash is quite simple. Institutional investors have large short positions in such stocks in the expectation that they will go to zero. Due to cheap credit, such bets are more leveraged than they used to be, but still based on conventional metrics of value. However, with cheap credit available to all traders, there's an opposite position that can be taken without much cost. This is the bet on a short squeeze. If a heavily shorted stock is suddenly pushed higher in prize, weak hands will be forced to cover their positions by buying back the stock they sold. This drives the prize higher, allowing the engineers of the short squeeze to profit.

A short squeeze has the additional effect of extending the expected life of a company in trouble. The company can issue fresh shares, and it can borrow money based on its higher share prize. This further pressures short positions that often bet on bankruptcy dates. Even prudent short positions will need to readjust for a later bankruptcy date. In extreme cases, a short squeeze can end up making the troubled company the financial victor. Instead of going bankrupt, it prospers on the back of its new valuation. It can buy up a competitor, restructure its business, and start dominating its industry, as happened in 2008 with Volkswagen when Porsche took a controlling stake in that company.

But such windfalls are difficult to turn into lasting profits. Short squeezes are not a sign of health in the economy. Rather, its a sign of serious trouble. Interest rates are too low, and long term profitability is on its way down.

Hertz

By Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Scalable Grid Engine - Own work, CC0, Link

Forced Deleveraging

Two seemingly unrelated processes are currently coming together to produce what may end up as a perfect financial storm. On the one hand, China is continuing to push local interest rates higher, and on the other hand, there's what looks like insurrection in the US markets.

What the two processes have in common is that they forces speculators to deleverage. In China, the mechanism is immediately clear. Higher interest rates makes it more expensive to borrow money, and highly leveraged bets will therefore have to be reduced. However, the wreckage caused by the rag tag army of day traders in the US has the same effect. Margin calls forces people to abandon their leveraged bets. Only those playing with their own money, without leverage, are able to weather the sudden gusts of long and short squeezes. Those with margin are forced to abandon their positions, often at the worst possible time.

Forced deleveraging reduces in turn the money supply, making currencies even more scarce. People become more reluctant to lend, and those in debt become desperate with a crash in financial assets as the inevitable endpoint.

The only alternative to a financial crash is a coordinated debasement of all currencies. However, central banks cannot go that way on their own. Every central bank has to be on board with such a plan, or people will catch on to what's going on and rush for the exit. Without China on their side, other countries cannot very well debase their currencies. Buying the Yuan is just too much of an obvious exit. But even with China on board, the debasement option seems increasingly unlikely to work due to the loop hole that this creates for day traders to game the system.

Deleveraging appears to be where we're heading. Interest rates are going to go up, and anything depending on leverage for its current price level will return to its true level, probably overshooting fair value due to momentum. Those with ready cash can in that event pick up true bargains. Even better than cash will be gold and silver since the prices of these metals are kept low through rehypothecation, a type of leverage used to suppress prices.

Sovereign

By Heritage Auctions for image, Mary Gillick for coin - Newman Numismatic Portal, Public Domain, Link

Insurrection in the Markets?

The markets have acted strange lately, with hedge fund hates going to the moon while their darlings get battered. So much damage has been inflicted on hedge funds that the Biden administration has found it necessary to monitor the situation. However, conservative and libertarian commenters are besides themselves with glee. For every hedge fund being carried out on a stretcher, there's a hushed hurray making the rounds. It very much looks like an army of rag tag speculators ganging up against their pet hates.

Now that it has been revealed that Nancy Pelosi has put about 1 million dollars into Tesla call options, it will be interesting to see if this rag tag army will crush Tesla just for the fun (and profit) of it. The coming days will be interesting in this respect. Not least because things are poised very much in favour of a swift and effective attack. Nasdaq call option volumes are at an all time high, so there's no lack of long positions to shake out, and Tesla looks weak, making it an especially tempting target.

The only problem with Tesla is that it's very big, so it requires a lot of muscle and determination to crush it. However, if we are indeed seeing an army of speculators determined to see their political opponents cry, we may well see them band together to take down this financial giant. If so, we can assume that it's at least in part a political statement.

Nancy Pelosi

By US Department of Labor - L-15-04-14-A.569, Public Domain, Link

A Second Step Towards Secession

It took Biden less than a week in office to provoke thoughts of secession in the provinces. This is clear from the reactions to his ban on oil production on federal land. The Ute tribe of indigenous Indians have filed a protest against the ban, pointing out that oil production on federal land is how the tribe finances its activities. Others are less vocal, but no less desperate. Many communities depend on oil production on federal land for their existence. But without the leverage of tribal autonomy, most of these communities have no options but to comply or defy the ban.

Rural America is typically Republican, and therefore not particularly loyal to Biden. Many believe him to be an usurper, and his ban on activities at the periphery of his domain must be seen by many as proof positive that he is no friend of the people. Given the choice between suicide or going dark, many will seek ways to continue oil production through legal trickery. As a first step, they are likely to consult the local sheriff. Will the sheriff enforce the dictates from Washington DC?

It is the sheriffs that are tasked with the day to day handling of law and order, so it's of vital importance that they comply with orders from above. However, sheriffs are elected locally. Their main concern is therefore to serve the community. Taking orders from above is secondary. Seeing wholesale destruction of their local community, sheriffs will be inclined towards alternative solutions.

The sheriffs can turn a blind eye to oil production. They can allow miss-labeling and other trickery. There's a whole range of possibilities available to them, some of which are capable of boosting the local economy. With oil production officially turned off, no taxes need being paid to Washington. Played properly, the sheriff's office can keep oil production going while simultaneously receiving various support measures from Washington. The economic incentive for trickery and fraud is significant.

This means that Washington DC cannot rely on sheriffs to uphold Biden's ban on oil production. It must be done by federal agents in corporation with federal law enforcement. In case of irregularities, the national guard must be called in to arrest the sheriff. But Biden has already made himself unpopular with the national guard. They may not act very effectively on behalf of Washington. They too may decide to report back that all is well without actually doing anything.

The net result of this may be that Washington DC gets feedback from the periphery that conflicts with reality. They may end up subsidizing the non-compliant while hurting the compliant, further accelerating the trend towards micro-secession.

Federal land

By Bureau of Land Management - http://wilderness.org/blm-lands, Public Domain, Link

Crushed Again by China?

Geo-politics is a zero sum game. The point is not to be better off in absolute terms, but to be better off in relative terms. The winner doesn't have to be better off. All that matters is to be less badly off than the opponent, which explains why war is a popular tool in this respect. It also explains the rational behind the Wuhan flu. The pandemic has created misery all over the world, including China. But because China managed the situation better than other countries, it's now better off in relative terms. The flu has thus strengthened China's position as a global power.

With world hegemony likely to be China's ultimate goal, the next logical step after weakening its opponents would be to strengthen its grip on world trade by making its currency stronger. Doing this would hurt Chinese speculators, but that's irrelevant if it hurts foreigners even more. Especially since local consumers will benefit at the expense of foreign ones if the local currency was to rise. From a geo-political viewpoint, the gamble must look tempting.

The game-plan would be as follows:

1. Strengthen the Yuan by withdrawing liquidity
2. Use the stronger Yuan to buy scarce resources
3. Encourage local consumption by lowering taxes

The result of this will be higher interest rates in China, which will crush Chinese speculators. But foreigners will not be much affected because the increased value of the Yuan will offset much of the fall in prices of Chinese financial assets. If local consumption picks up, the assets may even continue up in value relative to foreign assets. There will be a rush of capital heading for China, propping up the markets as well as the Chinese consumer. The immediate effect will therefore be crushed Chinese speculators, happy foreign speculators, and happy Chinese consumers.

But foreign consumers will be less than pleased. Chinese goods, as well as raw materials of all kinds, will go up in price. There will be rapid price inflation outside China, and the only way to escape it will be to own Yuan, gold or raw materials. The average man in the street will suffer, and so will the dollar, the main target of the strategy.

With the Yuan suddenly the strongest of all currencies, the dollar will be sold together with dollar denominated assets. Not only will the dollar go down relative to the Yuan, dollar denominated stocks and bonds will go down as well.

Artificially strengthening the Yuan will do a lot of damage. But the damage will be greater outside China than inside, and for this reason, it's likely to be China's next step in their dirty war. It's therefore worth noting that China has now taken the first tentative steps down this road. If they don't reverse direction soon, we're likely to see stock market crashes and out of control price inflation all over the world, most severe in the US and least severe in China. Just like the flu, the misery will start in China, but China will be the least affected in the end.

Xi Jinping

By Palácio do Planalto - https://www.flickr.com/photos/palaciodoplanalto/47945730807/, CC BY 2.0, Link

World's Best Place to Live

A few years back, when Norway had been ranked by the UN as the world's best place to live for the fifth year running, a funny thing happened. A bunch of Indian nationals landed in Norway in the middle of winter, ready to live the good life. However, they were ill prepared for the cold and the dark, and they knew no Norwegian. They had little savings, so they couldn't find a place to live for more than a few days, and without any skills of note, they could find no job. Desperate to avoid starvation and the freezing cold, they turned to the authorities who could do nothing more than send them back to India.

Clearly, Norway was not the best place in the world to live for the hopeful Indians. The UN had deceived them with their simplistic measure. The Indians were much better off in India than they were in Norway. However, this doesn't mean that Norway might be the best place to live for some people. There are plenty of good things to be said about Norway. It has a wonderful culture of trust. The standard of living is generally high. It's a great place for winter sports. For people with the right set of skills, a love for harsh wintery weather, and a reasonable fluency in Norwegian, Norway is as close to heaven as it's possible to get. But the number of people who fit this description is not very big. For the vast majority of us, Norway is not the best place to live.

The measures used by the UN were not very helpful for the Indians, and are just as useless for everybody else, because they don't apply to individuals. They don't even apply to individual Norwegians. There's a great number of miserable and frustrated Norwegians who are just as confused about the UN categorization as were the Indians, and the reason for this is apparent when we look into the measures used by the UN.

Until recently, the UN listed longevity, duration of schooling and gross average earnings as their only criteria for determining how good a place is to live in. The fact that Norwegian schools are notoriously slow at teaching kids stuff is therefore a plus, as is a natural tendency towards longevity and a high minimum wage. But moving to Norway does nothing to increase our longevity or extend our hours wasted at school, nor does it guarantee a job. We don't get any of the supposed benefits by moving to Norway. They apply only to those who live there for the entirety of their lives.

Once the UN added carbon footprint as one of their measures to determine how good a country is to live in, Norway fell several notches from the top, which goes to show how arbitrary the UN ranking is. It's useless nonsense, and only fools would use it to determine what place may be best for them.

Another useless index is the happiness indicator, where people are asked to rank their happiness from high to low. It's naturally skewed by culture. It's considered impolite in Scandinavian countries to rank oneself as unhappy, while the opposite is true in Latin countries. Misery is elevated to an art form in places like Portugal, so much so that there's an entire cultural scene dedicated to it, including their tradition of Fado songs. No matter how well things go for individuals in Portugal, they will hesitate to rank themselves much above misery, while things must be pretty desperate in Norway before people rank themselves miserable.

Complicating things even more is the fact that individual preferences vary. Some love winter sports, while others prefer a warm and dry climate. Law and order rank high for some while others enjoy a bit of chaos. Individual circumstances are also of importance. Wage earners have different preferences to social security recipients or rentiers. All of this must be considered before we can reasonably rank nations up against each other. However, this doesn't mean that we can't be somewhat scientific about it. While we all have personal preferences and circumstances, we all want to get as much out of our situation as we can. The list of things to look for is therefore the same for all, only the weighting varies.

As a rentier, I value low taxes and low cost of living. I also like long summers that are not too hot, and short winters with few cold days. I enjoy a bit of predictable chaos as opposed to strict law and order. I want to feel safe, but not so safe that it borders on oppression.

Using the above measures, Portugal comes out very well, so I'm happy to live in Porto. However, if I was a well qualified engineer with the intention to live form my labour, I would prefer Germany or Denmark, where salaries are the highest when measured against purchasing power. If I were to live off of my social security benefits, I would by necessity have had to stay in Norway so as not to disqualify, but I would have tried my utmost to get to Portugal with my benefits intact for the reasons stated above.

But for the vast majority of people, being close to family and friends trump all other concerns. Living abroad is out of the question. For them, there's no place like home, and no measure of any kind will make them think otherwise.

Downtown Porto

By ho visto nina volare from Italy - Portogallo 2007, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Talk of the Devil

There used to be a time when people were careful about the words they used, especially those related to bad things. Words had magic powers. Talk of the devil, and he would appear. Curse somebody with a disease of some sort, and that someone might very well get infected.

No-one today is much bothered about this, and as a consequence, people talk eagerly about the pandemic as if we've been hit by the plague. However, there are no piles of bodies in the streets, there are no mass graves and there's hardly anyone under the age of 80 dying of the flu, which gives me an eerie feeling that God may have a little surprise up his sleeve. With all this talk of a pandemic, God may give us one just to let us know what a real one looks like. Better still, he may choose to spread it through a vaccine. That would be in line with his other tricks.

God has a tendency to poke his finger in the eye of those who try to do his work, and it would be very much in line with his previous tricks to direct his message through some man made disaster.

Tower of Babel

By Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Levels adjusted from File:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_(Vienna)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg, originally from Google Art Project., Public Domain, Link

Physics as Correlation, Causation and Mechanism

What, how and why are questions constantly asked by enquiring minds. When we see things happen, we want to know the full scope of the events. This is the what part of our enquiry. Then, we want to know how one sub-event led to another sub-event. This is the how part. And finally, we want to know the mechanism behind the sub-events. In addition to knowing how sub-events are related, we want to know why they are related.

This is the essence of science. However, ever since Newton wrote his masterpiece on physics, the why part of our enquiry has often been skipped. Newton wrote his book without ever proposing an underlying mechanism for his equations. His equations describe in detail how things are related, but say nothing about why things are as they are. Newton made no secret of this. He was completely open about the fact that the why part was omitted from his book. This caused a stir at the time. Some went so far as to call his book unscientific. But it's now considered highly scientific to present equations with little to no explanation as to why the equations work. Causation is sufficient. Mechanism is irrelevant.

This line of thinking has gone so far now that many confuse causation with mechanism. When asked why a steel ball starts moving in the direction that it has been hit, the standard explanation will refer to the direction of energy. Equations are then used to illustrate the relationship. However, this is not an explanation. It's an additional causation that happens to correlate to the direction of motion. It says nothing about why the ball starts moving.

On closer analysis, hardly anything in physics is explained mechanically these days. There are all sorts of measurable quantities, including exact equations binding these quantities together. But there's hardly a mechanical explanation to be found anywhere, and this is why I decided to come up with my own mechanics. I wanted to find a simple mechanical model to explain the why part of our enquiry, and what I discovered was that a strict particle model will do the trick. Everything, including time and space can be reduced to particles and motion.

Putting this model to the test, I found it capable of explaining every aspect of physics, from kinetics and optics to field forces and nuclear physics. Even quantum entanglement fitted into this model.

This doesn't mean that I claim to have the one true answer to all questions related to physics. There may be other theories that fit the what and how of physics just as well as mine. But the fact remains that the theory contained in my book is a complete one, capable of explaining the entirety of the physical world we live in.

A particle

The Shape of Things to Come

Biden has only been in office a few days, and things are already looking ugly in terms of popularity. All sorts of mistakes are being made, the latest of which being his decision to kick national guardsmen out of the Capitol where they've been sleeping rough for two weeks, supposedly to protect the Capitol against Trump supporters. Biden is also determined to go ahead with an impeachment of Trump, something that comes across as positively vindictive.

It's as if Biden is either oblivious to his lack of popularity or indifferent to it. This may be because he has the backing of every tech firm and every high ranking officer in every department and branch of government, and he can always print a few trillion dollars and dish it out to people if need be. From where he's sitting, it must look like his control is total. However, this is far from true.

Controlling the top of hierarchies is no substitute for popularity. Top managers rely on an army of middle managers who in turn rely on boots on the ground. If either of these layers stop functioning, things quickly unravel. If the army suddenly finds itself without recruits, the army stops functioning. If sheriffs stop enforcing laws, there's de-facto secession. If middle managers stop doing their jobs, things fall apart.

Popularity is vital for the functioning of a federal government. Without it, states and counties start acting autonomously. Taxes will not be forwarded to the federal government and troops will not be conscripted. The federal government will increasingly rely on money-printing. But this will weaken the dollar, and hence further reduce its grip on the federation. States may choose to scrap the federal dollar in favour of the constitutional gold based dollar.

Making this all the more difficult to avoid is the fact that none of this requires any direct confrontation with the federal government. There's no need for anyone to publically renounce the union. Once sheriffs stop enacting federal laws, and states start using their own money, secession is complete. No hostility towards Washington DC is needed for this to happen, and without hostility there's no way for an unpopular leader to muster an attack to rein in dissent.

Joe Biden

By The White House from Washington, DC - V011013DL-0556, Public Domain, Link

Mr Market's Descent Into Madness

It was back in April 2019 that I first noted a worrying development in the stock market. Starting from late 2017, the stock market has produced new all time highs as well as new lows. A 5 year chart of the S&P illustrates this clearly. This pattern is in turn inside a similar pattern that started back in 1980, with peeks in 2000, 2007 and (yet to be confirmed) 2021, and bottoms in 2002 and 2009.

If we extend the short term pattern, we find an expected low at 2100. That's down a whopping 40% from the current high of 3800. A bounce can be expected at around 2100, but the long term pattern tells us that this bounce might be short lived, only high enough to complete a head and shoulder pattern, after which S&P will go to its long term target of 600, down a stunning 80%.

The patterns we're seeing both short term and long term indicates instability. When seen in mechanical systems, such patterns indicate imminent collapse. In psychology, we'd term it deteriorating manic depressed behaviour. Mr Market looks mentally ill. There's a real danger that he may end up with a serious depression from which he will only recover very slowly.

Considering that Mr Market is a collective that reflects the mental state of society as a whole, we can conclude that things must be getting seriously weird out in the world. The trumpet-like shape of the short and long term S&P charts indicate mental instability at a massive scale, with people going from manic to depressed and back again within months, and with this madness becoming increasingly severe over time.

Looking back in time, we can ask ourselves whether this may be at least partially correct. Have things become increasingly strange since the 1980s? I'd say that it has. There was little in the way of hysteria back in the 80s. There was no scare related to man made global warming. There were no lockdowns. There was little magic thinking in which riches can be made from nothing. There was no crypto, no negative interest rates, no trillion dollar rescue packages. All of this, and a lot more like it, have come about since then. Mr Market is descending into madness because society as a whole is descending into madness.

By Dan Aasland - Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

The Significance of the Latest Bernie Sanders Meme

Bernie Sanders has once again managed to become the star of a popular meme on the internet. However, this time, the meme is without any comments. It's merely a funny meme, and the mainstream conclusion from this is that there's no political message contained in it. However, this ignores the fact that the picture of Bernie was captured at Joe Biden's inauguration. Bernie is not merely sitting in a chair. He's attending the inauguration of a rival who many believe to have defrauded Sanders of the Democrat nomination.

Sanders is not just anybody. He's the man who could have been president, and the fact that his mere presence at the inauguration generates more excitement and good humour than the president elect himself is a clear message and an omen of things to come. It's not only the Republicans that see Joe Biden as a soulless crook. Many Democrats see him the same way.

Joe Biden is #notmypresident. However, no-one is taking to the streets. No-one is organizing into groups. The president is so soulless that he cannot even muster a proper protest. Instead, he's being ridiculed by a meme that shows his inauguration as an empty and cold affair. Going forward, Biden is going to see more of this. It will be subtle and indirect. People are turning away from politics, not in anger, but in disgust. Hardly anyone sees Joe Biden as their representative, and the consequence of this will be that all sorts of things will become difficult to keep together, including the union itself.

Bernie Sanders

By Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America - Bernie Sanders, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

How Gold Cures Socialism

Socialism is based on the false belief that the state can provide for us in much the same way that a loving parent cares for their children. It appeals to feminine instincts related to care and security. Promoters of socialism are therefore keen to subvert the family, especially bread-winners, so as to put themselves in the driving seat. Welfare provided internally in families is replaced by welfare provided by the state. Bread-winners are encouraged to go into debt. Their savings, eroded by inflation. The state becomes in this way the anchor, superior to the pitiful bread-winner, indebted and impoverished.

This process has been so successful that most people today are socialists in some way. Hardly anyone want to dismantle the welfare state. The belief is that families are inferior to the state when it comes to welfare, a belief that is correct to the extent that many people now are so impoverished that they really can't take care of themselves. The process of continued impoverishment is therefore likely to continue. If we're not careful, even the most prudent among us will end up dependent on the state. However, there is a way to revert this process. It requires no central organization, no banding together in groups, and no protests. It can be done separately by individual families, and the rewards are immediate. I know this because I've done this myself.

Recognizing the erosive nature of monetary inflation, I decided to sell my house in Norway, pay down all debt, and put my savings into gold rather than a savings account. This had the immediate effect of reducing my taxable wealth to zero. My cash-flow flipped from negative to positive. Without the fees and taxes associated with the house, I was able to turn my finances around. I had escaped the real-estate trap. I was once again in control of my finances.

Then, something unexpected happened. The mere sight of the physical gold made my wife far less socialist in her views. Her tenderness towards the state was re-directed towards me, and this process has continued to this day. The decisive moment was the day she got to see the gold and hold it in her hands. What had been mere numbers and abstract talk was all of a sudden real, and the psychological impact of this was immediate. This ability of gold to flip people from socialist to libertarian is no doubt known to the state and the reason the state is so eager to demonize gold.

A further concern for the state is the fact that gold is scarce. There's only 20 grams of above ground gold per person. To own an average share of this, a family of five needs no more than 100 grams. It's easy for a family to amass sufficient gold to become independent of the banking system and its fiat currency. Gold can be used as security internally in the family. Family members with access to cheap credit can in this way provide the entire family with cheap credit. The gold circulates internally in the family without ever being sold. This non-binary approach can thus benefit everyone. The power of the banking system is greatly reduced, reducing in turn the grip of the state over the family.

Gold's anchor to the physical world is of great psychological value, probably because this link is intuitively understood to give gold stability in terms of purchasing power. Gold will always be more valuable than silver, which in turn is more valuable than eggs, butter and milk. My wife's reaction to seeing our gold was therefore natural and immediate. She could literally see and feel our riches.

This is not true for fiat or crypto, which have little to no physical existence. They don't have the same psychological impact because numbers don't relate to things in the same way that things relate to things. The number 100 is bigger than 10 and less than 1000, but none of this tells us how many eggs we can get for it. The abstraction renders fiat and crypto worthless as long term stores of value. There's no way of telling what 100 Bitcoin may buy in the future because Bitcoin lacks any physical properties that we can relate to. The cure to socialism is therefore not Bitcoin, but gold and silver.

Gold gives us immediate control of our finances, it provides security for the family, and it bypasses the banking system. It renders us sovereign, with loyalties directed towards family members rather than the state. Gold cures socialism wherever it's adopted. It's therefore an important tool in spreading liberty. Liberty minded people should own gold for themselves and encourage others to do the same. Safe in the knowledge that gold cures socialism, we can focus our narrative on the immediate benefits of owning gold. No-one needs to be told that gold ownership is in the end a strong political force on the side of liberty. 

Sovereign

By Heritage Auctions for image, Mary Gillick for coin - Newman Numismatic Portal, Public Domain, Link

Politics as Narrative-control and Deception

Party politics is based on a lie. It professes that we need coercively inclined people to take control of our lives for our own safety and wellbeing. The more overreaching the state becomes, the more it professes this idea. It's promoted through all available channels and at all times. Under tyranny, there's no let up.

Most people become in this way victims to the state. They take sides in a battle of colours, where each team present its own flavour of control. However, no team is without an agenda. By engaging in the battle of colours, we subsume the idea of control and need to subjugate dissent. Blinded by superficial arguments relating to the exact nature of various phenomena, people become dupes to the political elite who toss upon us all sorts of emotional nonsense.

This has become especially apparent over the last twelve months. There's been a torrent of facts related to Covid, as well as the climate and the virtue of democracy, all with a clear and singular message. Only by blind obedience to authority can we expect to ever become both free and safe. The narrative has been strictly controlled. So much so that it has revealed itself for what it is.

Impressed by my ability to predict the early developments related to the Covid pandemic, my stepdaughter wanted to learn more about my predictions. She was open to whatever thoughts I had on the subject, and I told her then that politics is best viewed as narrative-control and deception. From that angle, all sorts of things can be predicted and tested for validity. Case in point was the repeated mentioning of a second wave of Covid. I asked her what she made of it, and she replied that it might mean that there would be a second lock down after summer. Then, I asked her how many victims to Covid she would personally know by then, to which she replied a handful at most. As it turned out, she was right on both counts. There's currently a lockdown in place, and the only death in the family due to Covid was that of aunt Augusta.

This has been an eye-opening experience for my stepdaughter. Armed with a simple model of the state, all sorts of things become clear. Not only is she able to make fairly accurate predictions, she's also able to analyse the nature of political fads, such as the ever-present climate scare. The climate has not in fact changed over time. Every prediction of imminent disaster has come to nothing. Yet, the narrative is still in full force, revealing to her all the more clearly that politics really is about deception and narrative-control.

Not only has my stepdaughter taken my model to heart, my wife is similarly impressed by its power of prediction. She's gone from being a mindless consumer of news to a sceptic, always looking for the narrative and its likely implications. Even my nine year old son is catching on to this. When a politician complained the other day about people coming together in public parks, talking face to face, without a face-mask, I exclaimed: "Oh, the horror. People having fun, talking to each other. Without a face-mask!" my son rolled over laughing.

This general scepticism and model of analysis is now spreading through the social network of my stepdaughter and wife. They mention my model in various ways, influencing in turn their circle of friends. The fact that the model works well as a tool for predictions reveals the lie of the state while at the same time empowering those who adopt it. It spreads through the network because it works.

The big difference between a lie and truth is that a lie has no power of prediction, while truth has great power of prediction. This is how we identify man made global warming as a lie. Truth reveals party politics as a system of manipulation. It reveals the manipulative nature of media, including social media. We recognize the lie. We find ways to stay away from it. When we analyse data in light of truth, we see things coming, and we're able to avoid much suffering that would otherwise strike us without warning.

This is not to say that we can go lightly through the chaos, undisturbed by the nonsense tossed upon us. When the prime minister of Portugal publically pronounces anyone not wearing the face-mask correctly as an enemy of the state, it's clear that we cannot simply ignore it. We must wear the mask of the beast. To do otherwise would be to put ourselves and our family in danger of the mob who gladly take on the job as voluntary enforcers of the prime minister's will.

The mask of the beast

The Bitcoin Kill Switch: Ports 8333 and 18333

Bitcoin has a kill switch hidden in plain sight. I wasn't aware of it myself before I read Looney's comments on this article. Instead of me paraphrasing him, I'll simply cut and paste his comment here:

“Bitcoin and other Cryptos CAN be easily blocked by the Dot-Gov, BECAUSE it is a distributed network. Here’s why…

All Internet-based applications use specific ports. For example, email (SMTP) requires ports 25, 26, 465, and 587.

All browsers need at least two ports: 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS).

If you want to be able to upload and download files, port 21 (FTP) must be open.

All these “well-known” or “system ports” are usually open on all routers, firewalls, and Telecom switches.

If the Dot-Gov wants to outlaw Bitcoin, they can simply enact a law requiring all Internet Service Providers to block two Bitcoin Ports: 8333 and 18333. That will stop all communications between all Bitcoin Nodes! Heck, I ain’t no constitutional scholar, but they can do it via an Executive Order and the SCOTUS, as always, will play possum…   ;-)

The same goes for all other “coins” – Ethereum, for example, uses port 30303 (and 8545 for JSON-RPC).

Now… When two computers or nodes communicate with each other, they can be set to use different ports.

However, it cannot be done on a “distributed consensus network” such as BitCoin, because port 8333 is a part of that consensus and all nodes must use the same port!

So, guys, be very careful with your Cryptos – one day you may wake up and find that your Cold Wallet ain’t worth shīt.  ;-)”

Looney

Then he adds:

BTW… Cryptos are an existential threat to ALL governments, central banks, and the banking system as a whole. Don’t think for a moment that if it gets blocked here at home, you will take your Cold Wallet to another country.

If/when they outlaw Cryptos, it will happen everywhere, practically overnight. Even our so called “adversaries” will gladly join the Crypto Massacre (CryptoNacht ?).   ;-)

Looney

In short, ports 8333 and 18333 constitute the Bitcoin kill switch. All that's required in order to kill Bitcoin is to make it illegal to use these ports. Government can then have a company like Google sniff out all the computers that violate this and send them the list of violators.

This illustrates once again how important it is to be physically in possession of assets in times of tyranny. If you don't hold it, you don't own it. For most of us, this means that we cannot expect to own more than the house we live in and the gold and silver we've stashed away in some secret location. Only deep state insiders like Bill Gates can own acres of land and huge corporations without any great concern. However, even he may find one day that all is taken away from him, which explains his obsession with control over his fellow men.

 

By Marco Krohn - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

The Corporate Trap

Home schooling allows for a more personalized angle to history. Instead of learning about our rulers, we can see things from the perspective of our own family. This makes everything more relatable. We can explain things more directly, making it easier to understand our situation and even our own psyche. Madness and obsessions, good habits and bad habits, personality traits of all sorts come to the forefront of history, and we become as a consequence the progression of this. We see more clearly where everything came from and where it may be heading.

An interesting story in this respect is the story of my Norwegian great grandfather on my grandmother's side. He lived during the second industrial revolution, when chemistry, electricity and telecommunication took off in a big way. His name was Harald and his wife's name was Vally. He was gifted with a fine mind for engineering. At the age of 19, he was fully educated as a chemical engineer with top marks. He had no trouble getting a good job in the rapidly expanding chemical industry. He became a chief engineer in what was to become the corporate chemical industry we know today.

With the corporation providing the young man with health insurance, a pension plan and a house to live in, he could spend his entire salary on himself and his wife. The corporation become his life long provider, allowing him to live without savings, something that was unheard of in his branch of the family until then. Harald and Vally became the archetypical upper middle class couple of the day, living in the now with no worry about the future.

Previous generations had been obsessive savers. Not only were they determined to have some gold for their old days, they were determined to give their children enough capital to either buy a farm or start some other undertaking. Life was a struggle for survival. Capital had to be amassed over time. To live without savings would mean utter poverty and the risk of starvation or early death from cold or diseases. The spend thrift lifestyle of Harald and Vally must have come across as reckless to their parents and other people still stuck in the pre-corporate era. However, today we see them as almost prudent. Unlike people of today, they had no debt.

The corporate lifestyle is now the norm. Few people save for themselves. We trust in our pension plans and in government and corporations to take care of us. We're all like Harald and Vally these days, and it's likely to end in much the same way as it ended for them.

When Harald died unexpectedly at age 64, he had no savings. All that there was for Vally was a meagre widow's pension. Utter poverty would have been her end if it wasn't for her son in law who stepped in to buy her a place to live. Had it not been for the fact that my grand father was a wealthy man, Vally would have ended up in a small room somewhere, completely unable to keep up her old ways, and this is likely to be the end of many people today. Our pensions are unlikely to keep us afloat. Without savings, we will have to seek support from our children. Without children, we will face utter poverty.

Many people are currently making the same mistake as Harald and Vally did back in their days. We trust too much in corporations and the state. We have no savings of our own. We're completely dependent on the system. If the system fails, we're lost.

Remnants of the 2nd industrial revolution at Vemork, Rjukan

By I, Skotten, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

The Non-Binary Approach to Revolutions

Most people think of revolutions as binary events where people have to go all in, either with one team or another. However, this requires so much passion and self sacrifice that it's hard to imagine more than a handful of people doing this today. Many are therefore left with a sense that revolution is impossible in modern times, and that tyranny is a foregone conclusion. But this ignores the fact that most sustainable revolutions are non-binary events. They require no banding together. They just happen, and there's nothing the political elite can do to stop them.

As an example, consider Twitter and its decision to ban Trump from their platform. Binary reactions to this would be to protest this with a rally outside Twitter's headquarter, and to encourage people to delete their Twitter accounts. The non-binary reaction would be to use Twitter less.

The same goes for Facebook. Why not reduce our time on Facebook? Why spend so much time and energy on something as silly as a social network app? Reduce it to a simple messaging platform with short announcements as a feature. The time saved can be used to nurture a simpler, more harmonic lifestyle.

Used correctly, social media is a great way to maintain a network, even when the platform owners work actively to promote their own agenda. It's silly to give up this tool just because we disagree with its owners. I for one, have reduced my Facebook time to just a few minutes a day. That's enough to check for messages and look at a few announcements. I've lost nothing in doing this. However, if I decided to close my Facebook account, I'd severely reduce my ability to stay in touch with family and friends.

The non-binary approach to social media has the advantage of reducing revenues to those that we disagree with, while doing nothing in way of harm or sacrifice to ourselves. The same can be said about banks and banking. These are institutions with great power over us. But if we reduce our use of their services to a minimum, we reduce this power while profiting from it ourselves. My wife and I share a single bank account. We have no loan, and we keep most of our savings in gold. As a result, we're better off. Our private finances have improved greatly. However, had we fully disconnected from the banking system by closing all accounts, we would have severely damage ourselves.

Finally, there's taxation. This too can be reduced greatly through non-binary measures. We don't have to go full blown parallel economy. Even a small step in that direction will help in our fight against the state. There's no need to disconnect completely. There are all sorts of options. Many small steps can be made. Nothing very dramatic needs to happen.

Done correctly, revolutions are made through a change in lifestyle that benefits ourselves at the expense of the state. The only sacrifice is the loss of a lifestyle that might not have been all that healthy in the first place. What's gained is a sense of control and awareness, as well as affluence. We see the economy of the world for what it is. We see how we are constantly tempted into debt and wasteful use of time. We also see how we can avoid these traps, and how to navigate in order to prosper.

Hardly ever, is the answer a binary one. The answer lies almost always in finding the right balance, and to avoid temptations laid out by those who seek to control us. Once this is understood and internalized, we profit from this ourselves. The network around us picks up on this fact. Friends and relatives learn from our example, and the revolution evolves naturally without any other driver than our individual success stories. There's no sacrifice. Liberty grows not out of strife, but out of successful and peaceful living, semi-detached from the controlling structures of the state.

Liberty as affluence and simplicity

Burning Down the House

When it comes to current events in the US, they seem to follow a pattern eerily similar to those that took place in Berlin some 88 years ago. It may therefore be a good idea to read up on these events, and do some reflections related to them, before going out strongly in favour of any side.

The Reichstag fire of 1933 took place some 4 weeks into Hitler's first year in office, and was used by him to come down hard on all opposition and dissent. It proved in an instance that Hitler was no statesman, out to calm things down after a long period of unrest. Rather, he was a tyrant, hell bent on the permanent suppression of dissenting voices.

Given the relative insignificance of the fire, it would have been an easy task to make amends, call for unity and repair the damages. But this was not the path Hitler chose. He used the event as an excuse to go after every political adversary in sight. There was a purge of the media as well as the opposition. There could be no open discussion about the event, and entire political factions were silenced, banned, and ultimately rounded up an put into prison camps.

The actual events on the day of the fire are in this respect of only secondary importance. It doesn't matter whether the fire was an act of political arson. It doesn't matter who did it or why. All that matters is what the politicians of the day chose to do about it afterwards. Similarly today, we don't have to know precisely what happened and why. What's of interest is what the politicians are doing in response. Is the president elect calling for calm and forgiveness, or is he unleashing an army of thugs to suppress, humiliate and chase out the opposition? Is he repairing the damage, or setting up a permanent monument? Is he a statesman or a tyrant?

So far, there's been little in way of consolation and much in way of agitation. The purge has been swift and relentless. The opposition has come under heavy and relentless fire. Voices have been silenced. There's no room for dissent. A path seems to have been staked out. However, we may soon see some interesting deviations from the original plot, because history has a tendency to repeat itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.

The Reichstag fire

By Unknown author - This media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 535790., Public Domain, Link

Earth's Irregular Rotation

Earth days vary ever so slightly in length form one day to another. The irregularity is so tiny that it was not discovered before the advent of super-precise atomic clocks. We're talking fractions of a millisecond per 24 hours. All sorts of things might be behind this irregularity. However, there appears to be a long term trend towards shorter day. Something is causing Earth to rotate faster over time. The phenomenon can be summarized as subtle, irregular and trending. Any explanation for it must therefore account for these three aspects.

While most people seek an explanation in Earth's geology and its relationship to the Moon, there is an alternative view that seeks to explain this in terms of Earth's electric connection to our Sun and the universe. Gerald Pollack does an excellent job in this respect in his one hour lecture about weather and EZ water. Also of interest is the origin of prevailing winds, such as the jet stream, which Donald Scott proves to be external to Earth in this video.

When put together, the lectures leave us with an impression that our planet is connected to an external current that keeps it rotating at a relatively steady rate. This current is again affected by the magnetic poles of our planet, which leads us to an interesting correlation. Earth's rotation has trended faster in parallel with the migration of the magnetic north pole from Canada to true north. With the magnetic pole more in line with true north, the mechanical input to Earth's rotation can be assumed to be somewhat more optimal.

Another correlation can be found with the phenomenon of global terrestrial stilling. Near surface winds have reduced in strength in parallel with the migration of the magnetic north pole and the speeding up of our plant's rotation. This can again be explained by a better mechanical connection to external currents. A bad mechanical connection would have the atmosphere spinning without the Earth spinning with it. A perfect mechanical connection would have our planet move at the speed of prevailing winds, making it seem like there's no wind at all. What we have is an imperfect connection that has improved somewhat, speeding up the planet's rotation, while making winds a little less intense. Additionally, there's the fact that the exact location of the magnetic poles differ greatly from one day to the other. The northward migration is in no way a steady process. It jumps about in much the same way that the precise duration of our Earth days differ from day to day.

There might also be a change in the external current itself. However, there's no relatable data for this, so this would be pure speculation, on par with speculations related to Earth's geology and our planet's relation to the Moon.

Migration of the magnetic north pole

By Cavit - Own work Observed pole positions taken from Newitt et al., "Location of the North Magnetic Pole in April 2007", Earth Planets Space, 61, 703–710, 2009 Modelled pole positions taken from the National Geophysical Data Center, "Wandering of the Geomagnetic Poles" Map created with GMT, CC BY 4.0, Link

Dr Neckelmann and the Horizon Problem

With the sudden and tragic death of Dr Gregory Michael Neckelmann, it now appears that the nightmare scenario outlined in my post about Sonia Azevedo's sudden death has a real chance of coming true. Vaccinated on December 18, Dr Neckelmann died 16 days later after a short fight with a mysterious and intense illness.

Dr Neckelmann was a healthy and fit 56 year old man, so there's little doubt that the illness and subsequent death was related to the vaccine. While it remains to be seen if there will be a wave of vaccine related deaths starting two weeks from now, Dr Neckelmann's death illustrates an important point when it comes to risk-benefit assessments.

While most uncertainties are limited to a known range of possible outcomes, some are limitless. This depends on empirical data available to us. With years of experience, we know very well what sort of weather we're likely to have next summer, and we can calculate risk accordingly. That's why we can plan our summer vacations months in advance. However, in the case of a vaccine that has not been tested for long term effects, anything is possible. There simply isn't any empirical data to base any kind of assumption on. There's a horizon beyond which things are completely unknown, and Dr Neckelmann found out the hard way what that might mean when it comes to substances injected into our body. Once injected, there's no way of un-injecting them. When Dr Neckelmann realized that he was getting seriously ill from the vaccine, there was no way back.

The lesson from this is that we must never risk our health on anything truly unknown. If there's no empirical data, we are best advised to abstain for as long as it takes to assess long term effects.

Smallpox vaccine

By Photo Credit: James Gathany Content Providers(s): CDC - This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #2674. Note: Not all PHIL images are public domain; be sure to check copyright status and credit authors and content providers. Deutsch | English | македонски | slovenščina | +/−, Public Domain, Link

Cup and Handle Formation in the Gold Chart

As a long term investor, I limit myself to trades that last years, or even decades. I'm therefore more interested in long term charts than short term ones, and I don't trade on technical signals. At best, I use such signals to time entry and exit at the limits of a mega trend. However, it's nevertheless encouraging to see patterns develop, especially when they confirm my thesis.

At present, there's a cup and handle formation developing in the daily gold chart as well as one in the monthly chart. The pattern in the daily chart has developed since late November. It has a bit of a V shape, which makes it less convincing than a smooth U shape, but is so far holding up, with the handle on track to complete within a week from now. If it completes, the price of gold will be 2160 dollars for an ounce within a few months from now, in which case we'll see a confirmation of the enormous cup and handle formation in the monthly chart as well.

The monthly chart exhibits a deep U shaped cup dating back to late 2011, with a relatively shallow handle dating back to August 2020. Confirmation of this pattern kicks in at a point somewhere between 2075 and 2100, with a price target at about 3000 dollars.

It remains to be seen whether any of this will play out over the coming weeks and months, but it's certainly encouraging to see the pattern develop. With strong fundamentals supporting the gold price at present levels, there's even more reasons to be hopeful. Gold may well see a whopping 50% rise in its dollar price this year, going from less than 2000 at present to about 3000 before it takes another pause in its upward journey.

Rococo Cup with handle

By Vincennes Porcelain (France, circa 1739–1756), Francois Binet (France, active 1750-1775, born 1731) - Image: http://collections.lacma.org/sites/default/files/remote_images/piction/ma-31852871-O3.jpg Gallery: http://collections.lacma.org/node/229367 archive copy, Public Domain, Link

Supply, Demand, and a Society in Crisis

September 2019 saw some brutal moves in interest rates. There was a shortage of US dollars, and the Fed was forced to either buy assets directly from the market, or let interest rates float to their natural levels. Predictably, the Fed chose to buy assets in the open market, and this has been its policy ever since. However, the Fed is again trying the impossible. It is signalling an intent to reduce its direct purchases while keeping interest rates down.

This means that the Fed is either ignorant of basic economic laws or lying. There's no way to keep both the supply and price of money down at the same time without slamming demand for money lower as well. With the Fed powerless to lower demand, their stated intent is doomed to failure, as explained here. The only way to succeed is to create some event that lowers demand for money, and that can only be done through political means, which a supposedly independent Fed is prohibited from doing.

One way to keep a lid on demand for money would be to create a societal crisis. The pandemic that came shortly after the spike in interest rates in September 2019, was in this respect convenient for the Fed. Something similar will have to be engineered for the Fed to mop up excess liquidity without sending interest rates higher. But this too is likely to fail. People have already cut back on consumption. Demand for money cannot easily be managed any lower.

Making things worse for the Fed is the fact that much of the money currently being sent into the economy is going towards debt repayments. People are fearful of the future, and therefore eager to get out of debt. This has the effect of lowering the money supply. Money becomes scarce, and the price of money goes up, exactly as it did back in 2019. Even with free money being handed out to people, the total money supply is likely to remain steady.

Without free money being handed out, things will be even more difficult to manage. Desperation will make people extremely reluctant to lend at the current low rates. People will want to pay down debt even more than now, and those lending money to people will demand much higher rates.

While the pandemic was able to temporarily suppress demand for money, a similar crisis today is unlikely to work. Destroying people's livelihoods is a trick that can only work once. There's a limit to how low demand can be managed lower through destruction. Once that limit is reached there's no longer any way to keep supply down without seeing prices rise. The Fed must either increase the money supply or let interest rates go higher. It cannot both reduce its direct purchases and keep interest rates down. Its stated intent is doomed to failure. It may even fail spectacularly, with both interest rates and money supply going up simultaneously, because a failure of the Fed to make good on its intent to keep money supply down will signal impotence. There will be a realization that all US debt will be inflated away, and that a dollar lent to the US today will be paid back in dollars of less value in the future. Interest rates will have to go up in order to entice lenders. But that will in turn force the Fed to print more money in order to keep interest rates from exploding higher. A vicious circle is thus created, and this will end either with the Fed giving up on keeping interest rates low or the Fed destroying the dollar completely.

By U.S. Government - Extracted from PDF version of the Federal Reserve's Purposes & Functions document (direct PDF URL [1])., Public Domain, Link