Wednesday
I began my first business aged fourteen, fifty-seven years ago. I’ve seen the ups and downs of the business cycles brought about by our debt-based ‘money’. I survived the recession of 1982 better than most. Prior to right now, that is the worst that I have experienced.
Now we have gone beyond the point of recession into the beginnings of a depression. Why does it not feel like it? Why are there no starving hordes on the streets?
The answer is the ability of governments to borrow from the future, with neither the means nor intent to ever repay. The borrowed ‘money’ is then doled out in ever-increasing amounts to ever-increasing numbers of recipients – those on welfare.
The unemployment figure has become meaningless in terms of gauging the health of the economy. A far more telling measure would be the number of people on welfare. It is more difficult to obscure the truth of a positive number than a negative one. In other words, how many people are on welfare is harder to hide, than how many people are not working.
The looming depression is being obscured by the ability of governments to borrow more and more ‘money’ to pay for welfare.
Instead of trudging the streets looking for work, the unemployed are dining in my restaurant. You and I are not paying for it; even the future generation will not pay for it. No one will ever pay for it, because at some unknown (to me) point, the bonds will be defaulted upon.
Then everything that has been hidden will come into plain view. It will not be pretty.
The economy is just an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.