Journal of a Wayward Philosopher Archives - Page 31 of 34

A Look at the Modern Credit System

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
A Look at the Modern Credit System

June 22, 2015
Emerald Isle, NC

The S&P closed out Friday at $2,110. Gold closed at $1,202 per ounce. Oil checked out at $60 per barrel. The 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.27%, and bitcoin is trading around $247 per BTC.

Dear Journal,

I am writing this entry from North Carolina’s glorious Crystal Coast. My family has been making a week-long trip to Emerald Isle every summer since the 1970’s. Back then the island consisted of a small convenience store, Clyde’s Shrimp Shack, and a few dinky cottages by the beach.

The Withrow clan still rents a couple beach-front cottages each summer but the cottages have magically transformed. In the early days, the luxury cottages had a spiral staircase leading up to a second floor with an extra bedroom. The average cottages offered a few bedrooms on the ground level with no spiral staircase. You now find three story luxury homes towering over the beach where the dinky cottages or empty lots once stood.

To most eyes this looks like progress. Maybe it is. However, my eyes only see evidence of the exponential credit expansion that has been taking place for more than forty years now. I feel slightly hypocritical as I enjoy a cold beverage from the the third story balcony watching the waves crash down upon the beach below. You see, I know how this all got here. I know how this went from a dinky little cottage to a three-story luxury home with a balcony overlooking the sea. Continue reading “A Look at the Modern Credit System”

The Fragility of Modernity

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Fragility of Modernity

June 10, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $2,080. Gold closed at $1,177 per ounce. Oil checked out at $60 per barrel. The 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.42%, and bitcoin is trading around $230 per BTC.

Dear Journal,

In my last entry I brought up the concept of ‘Modernity’ and I suggested that it attempts to put life in a box by emphasizing a fear and control mindset. I felt this concept was worthy of a little more discussion this week because our society has been shaped by this fear and control paradigm.

Here’s how Nassim Taleb, author of Antifragile, views Modernity:

We are moving into a phase of modernity marked by the lobbyist, the very, very limited liability corporation, the MBA, sucker problems, secularization (or rather reinvention of new sacred values like flags to replace altars), the tax man, fear of the boss, spending the weekend in interesting places and the workweek in a putatively less interesting one, the separation of “work” and “leisure” (though the two would look identical to someone from a wiser era), the retirement plan, argumentative intellectuals who would disagree with this definition of modernity, literal thinking, inductive inference, philosophy of science, the invention of social science, smooth surfaces, and egocentric architects. Violence is transferred from individuals to states. So is financial indiscipline. At the center of all this is the denial of antifragility… Modernity starts with the state monopoly on violence, and ends with the state’s monopoly on fiscal irresponsibility.

Continue reading “The Fragility of Modernity”

How I Escaped the Rat-Race

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
How I Escaped the Rat-Race

May 28, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Wednesday at $2,123 – almost exactly where it was at the same time last week. Gold closed at $1,186 per ounce yesterday. Oil checked out at $57 per barrel. The 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.13%, and bitcoin is trading around $238 per BTC.

Dear Journal,

We are back in the serene mountains of Virginia after a week spent on the gorgeous Carolina coast. Madison’s first beach trip was a success and we enjoyed five consecutive days of low 80’s with a cool breeze. Your editor even squeezed in a half-day fishing trip towards the end of the week after building up Dad points by handling Maddie’s late morning nap time indoors for the first several days so Momma could lay in the sand.

Last week I shared with you my view of the coming monetary crisis and I promised to expand upon what I have done to prepare for it and how I managed to escape the rat-race in the process.

Career is often one of the first items up for discussion when catching up with friends. You know the process: “What are you doing now? How’s that going? Do you like it?”

I find that very few friends tell me they like their job. Most say it is okay or tolerable. Some say they are miserable for one reason or another. Even the ones who say their job is tolerable express a certain sense of anxiety on Sunday afternoons as they look forward to the grind starting back up for another week.

Despite this, most people become addicted to their paycheck because they fashion their lifestyle accordingly. A couple things tend to happen when the paycheck gets bigger: the house gets bigger, the car gets nicer, and the hobbies become a little more luxurious. The problem is many of these things come with monthly payments. The big house comes with a big mortgage and strong HOA dues. The nice car comes with a big car payment and probably a satellite radio subscription. The luxury hobbies might include membership fees of various kinds: country clubs, golf courses, dinner clubs, mega-gyms, etc.

Now there is nothing wrong with any of this unless your goal is to escape the rat-race. If so, you need your paycheck to maximize capital rather than support your lifestyle. The following is the abbreviated version of how I went about maximizing capital so I could leave the rat-race in the dust.

My first step was mental: I crafted a vision of living outside the rat-race as I became more disillusioned with corporate America. I had been working in the corporate banking world for several years by this point and I had worked my way up to a comfortable salary relative to my circumstances. I was contributing the standard 3% match rate to my 401(k) and I was maxing out my self-driven IRA each year as I had been educated to do so I had a decent financial cushion to start with.

I created a spreadsheet to track my monthly expenses and pretty soon I was able to trim the fat and start saving 75% of my net income each month. I didn’t become cheap for its own sake – I still took my fiancé (now wife) out to dinner every Friday – but I did stop all frivolous spending. Though I couldn’t see far enough ahead to envision my day of liberation, I did know that I would be able to break the employment chains in the near future if I amassed a decent pool of working capital.

As my knowledge of Austrian economics grew, so did my appreciation for the precious metals. I began to make periodic trips to the local coin shop to redirect some of my monthly savings into gold and silver bullion. I didn’t originally have an asset allocation model in place so my purchases were somewhat sporadic but I did accumulate a (relatively speaking) decent precious metals base over the course of a year.

Austrian economics also helped me see how the housing bubble was being partially re-inflated by the Fed’s quantitative easing (QE) and zero interest rate policy (ZIRP). Private equity firms like Blackstone and American Homes 4 Rent (AH4R) were taking advantage of this easy money to buy up huge quantities of single family homes in the U.S. to build their rental real estate portfolios. These private equity companies were taking the Fed’s cheap credit at near-zero rates to buy middle class homes which they rented back out to the middle class with a huge profit margin built in. Now there is nothing wrong with reaping huge profits as long as they are honestly gained but there is a major problem with a system that distorts the market economy in favor of special interest groups.

I was bothered by what was going on in the housing market but I also understood that I was powerless to change it. Therefore I did the next best thing – I took advantage of the situation and sold my home to AH4R for a sizable gain. Some of that gain went to pay the real estate agent’s commission and I rolled the rest into a down payment on a 5-acre rural property at the end of a gravel road way up in the mountains which is where I reside today.

My goal for our mountain home was to make it as resilient as possible such that we could be totally self-sufficient for at least six months should hard times befall us. I don’t have room in this entry to go into the specifics, but we accomplished this by securing surplus water, food, provisions, and energy sources. The end result is that I am confident in my household’s ability to be self-sufficient for at least six months should the need arise which means our livelihood is not solely dependent upon consistent monthly income. The cost to maintain this self-sufficiency is pretty negligible after the initial purchases are made.

It took me roughly six months to complete these base self-sufficiency preparations and then it was time to hone in on my finances. I set up a spreadsheet to monitor my asset allocation model and I established the initial allocation ratios: 29.5% cash, 10% precious metals, 15% stocks, 0.5% bitcoin, and 45% real estate.

I was already in excess of my cash and real estate allocation because of my 75% savings habit and my 20% down payment on our 5-acre property so I used the excess cash outside of my IBC policy to bring the precious metals, stocks, and bitcoin allocations up to par.

All the while I was researching how to build location-independent income streams online in my spare time. There are more entrepreneurial opportunities today than ever before in modern history. Thanks to the internet anyone can reach millions of prospective customers with just the click of a button and there are very few barriers to entry. This means all you need to be an entrepreneur is a product that provides value to people in some capacity and a basic understanding of online marketing techniques. It requires very little capital to launch these types of products. More importantly, you can launch these products without needing to obtain permission from the government first in the form of certifications and licenses. In comparison, try to start a traditional brick & mortar business without government permission and see how that experience goes.

So to recap:

• I invested in my own education first by developing a strong understanding of Austrian free market economics.
• I purchased a rural 5 acre property with advantageous financing.
• I made ample water, food, energy, and provision preparations so as to be self-sufficient on this property for at least six months should the need arise.
• I shored up my asset allocation model to spread my capital across several asset classes: cash, precious metals, stocks, bitcoin, and real estate.
• I began to build location-independent income streams online.

I have an entire chapter dedicated to the specifics involved in this process in the 2nd edition of The Individual is Rising which I hope to launch later this summer. I will keep you posted as that progresses.

I will sum up this entry by repeating a common theme here at Zenconomics: life is meant to be lived.

It is up to you to make your life exciting and meaningful – no one else will do it for you. This requires a break from Modernity which emphasizes a fear & control mindset intended to put life in a box and stomp out any potential randomness before it happens. We are all conditioned to live within Modernity’s box so it is difficult to step outside and blaze your own path. But your life may depend on doing just that.

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and creating diversified income streams please read “The Individual is Rising: 2nd addition” which will be available later this year. Please sign up for the notifications mailing list at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/.

Who is John Galt?

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Who Is John Galt?

May 21, 2015
Topsail Island, NC

The S&P closed out Wednesday at $2,125. Gold closed at $1,209 per ounce. Oil checked out at $58 per barrel. The 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.25%, and bitcoin is trading around $234 per BTC.

Dear Journal,

It has been two months since my previous entry… sorry about that. Little Madison is now seven months old and much of your editor’s time has been spent learning about life from her.

It is simply amazing to watch an infant’s development. One day she is completely immobile and then all of a sudden she is sitting up on her own. Then she is picking up her toys and banging them together. Then she is rolling from her back to her belly and back again while stretching to reach for a toy that is just out of her grasp. And those blue eyes shine with intelligence, curiosity, and love the entire time.

The first thing Madison does when she wakes up in the morning is smile a smile that lights up the room. She is so happy simply to have the opportunity to be here for another day. It’s a shame we adults do not often have that same outlook.

Along with learning from my daughter, I have also spent considerable time over the past two months preparing for the next step of my liberation plan.

As my bio states, I began a transformational journey a few years back in which I walked away from corporate America and moved to the mountains of rural Virginia. Somehow I managed to get wife Rachel to go along with this plan… I think wine must have been strategically involved in the negotiations.

The idea was to purchase a property with a little bit of land in a rural area with a low cost of living to create a higher overall quality of life with less exposure to the fragile monetary system as captained by the Federal Reserve which will one day explode and drastically reduce the quality of life for many Americans.

No one knows when this fraudulent monetary system will crash and burn but I have no doubt that the day is coming. You just can’t create trillions of dollars from thin air and then spend them like they are real money and expect this to work indefinitely. It is a basic principle of the Universe that all actions have opposing reactions in some capacity. Try as they might, the Ivy Leaguers at the Federal Reserve do not have the power to alter reality. They only have the power to kick the can down the road.

Many people are beginning to wake up to this central banking fraud that began in America in 1913 and really ramped up in 1971, and the initial reaction is to push for reform. Some want better people running the system. Others want rules-based policy. Still others want to transfer monetary authority from the Fed back to Congress. Those of us who study Austrian Economics say the answer is to let the free market reign and End the Fed altogether – in a responsible manner if possible.

Alas, the consequences of this reckless monetary policy are now unavoidable whether or not any real change actually occurs. The Federal Reserve’s credit expansion is exponential in nature, as I touched on back in January. More and more credit must be created from nothing just to keep the system afloat. The system teeters on the edge every time the credit slows. One day the system will fall and those who are most dependent upon easy credit, monetary expansion, and the government programs they finance will be in a very unfortunate situation. This is true of individuals dependent upon government programs and it is true of the industries that benefit most from this fraudulent monetary system. The social welfare system, the military-industrial complex, and the financial system will all be decimated as benefits evaporate and jobs go up in smoke. What does the economy look like if social welfare programs, including Social Security, dissipate just as the financial sector freezes up?

As bleak as this is, there are individual solutions available. For me, the solution began with a question: Who is John Galt?

The idea behind my personal exodus from corporate America in a major financial center stemmed from “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. Though I fundamentally do not care for Rand’s “Objectivist” philosophy, her portrayal of John Galt in Atlas Shrugged really resonated with me.

A budding engineer in corporate America, John Galt began to see the corrupt political system for what it really was – naked force used against the population for the benefit of the politically connected. Rather than exhaust his energy fighting the corrupt system, John sidestepped it. He moved to a remote location and focused his creative energies on building a better system and he invited others of like mind to join him in this effort.

This idea jumped off the page (and screen) at me. We are all conditioned to fundamentally accept the current system as permanent and necessary therefore any dissent is directed towards either reforming or capturing the system via a political party. This has led to conflict, often violent, throughout modern history as opposing groups vie for political power.

John Galt had the wisdom to reject the use of force as a means of social order so he simply withdrew his consent from the system entirely. He didn’t try to fight the system. He didn’t try to change the system from within. He didn’t organize mass protests against the system. He worked to make the system obsolete by demonstrating a better way of engaging with others in society.

While “Atlas Shrugged” focused on big business tycoons, modern technology today can empower every individual to walk away from the System without necessarily sacrificing their quality of life. I am publishing this journal entry from the beach in Topsail Island, NC but it will be read by people in other parts of the U.S. as well as in other countries. That is a very powerful concept which is unprecedented in history. The internet enables individuals to trade goods, services, and information with anyone, anywhere, at any time. One can even use apolitical digital currency such as Bitcoin to facilitate these transactions. This opens up a whole new world for the enterprising individual!

We are currently at a crossroads where the old ways are transitioning into the new. We do not want to discard the valuable wisdom gained over the past century but we do want to move away from a system that treats individuals like milk cows.

Such a societal transformation can only be done on the individual level; it cannot be forced upon others. The Republicans thought they were leading a revolution back towards limited government in the 80’s when they got Ronald Reagan elected. Instead, deficits and debt skyrocketed under Reagan and the military-industrial complex managed to capture the Republican Party. Likewise, the Democrats thought they were leading a progressive revolution towards egalitarianism and transparency when they got Barack Obama elected in 2008. Instead, the Obama administration has expanded the wealth gap even further by catering to the special interests while being the least transparent administration in history – a very impressive feat considering George W. Bush had just set that record himself over the prior eight years.

The point is, the System is not going to reform or restrain itself. It is going to continue to engorge itself on the American middle class until it blows up. I don’t fault anyone who truly seeks to change the system via the political process, but I am convinced it cannot be done in any meaningful way. The political system can be used effectively as an educational platform, as Ron Paul demonstrated, but not as a tool to structurally restrain the System.

So, to come full circle, I advanced one more step in my personal liberation plan last Friday as I worked my final day as a W-2 employee. Then I took the next logical step – I took my family to the beach.

Next week I will expand upon how I was able to resign from my job and leave the rat race in the rear-view mirror.

Until then the Carolina coast calls…

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the paradigm shift currently in motion please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

College Alternatives

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
College Alternatives

March 20, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,090 today. Gold is up to $1,170 per ounce. Oil checks in at $46 per barrel. Bitcoin is still trading around $262 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 1.96% today.

Yesterday we opined that the proverbial needle was rapidly approaching the student loan bubble and that the American system of higher education would shrink significantly once the bubble popped. Today I feel it prudent to discuss why this is not such a bad thing.

We briefly analyzed the student loan racket yesterday and discussed how students currently graduate college with a mound of debt disproportionate to the job market and income-prospects they face. This is enough to warrant questioning, but the ills of the college system run even deeper.

We have discussed at length the problems inherent within the public school system here and we have noted how the system systematically conveys a lack of purpose to students. Students are force-fed a medley of politically correct information on various subjects and they are expected to memorize and then regurgitate this information. They are told this is important so they can get good grades which they need to get into college. This is a very vague purpose which tends to lead students away from critical thinking and introspection thus few students really discover and cultivate their individual talents and passions.

To the students’ surprise, the higher education system simply expands upon this vagueness of purpose. Students arrive at these beautiful campuses expecting to learn the secrets to success but they soon find out the college curriculum is mostly more of the same – memorize the chapters in this standardized textbook and regurgitate the information on the test. Oh, and this textbook costs $200 but don’t worry you can get a student loan to cover it. So our student quickly learns that college is not a fountain of knowledge but rather just another system to be gamed.

This model of education encourages what Napoleon Hill, in Outwitting the Devil, referred to as ‘drifting’. Hill defines ‘drift’ by saying “people who think for themselves never drift, while those who do little or no thinking for themselves are drifters”. Hill continues: “A drifter is one who permits himself to be influenced and controlled by circumstances outside of his own mind… He doesn’t know what he wants from life and spends all of his time getting just that. A drifter has lots of opinions but they are not his own.”

The habit of drifting is exactly what the American higher educational system reinforces. Just as high school students were told college acceptance is their ultimate goal, college students are told a high-paying job is the ultimate goal to be pursued. Their focus then is on building best possible ‘resume’ (with as little work as possible) so as to impress the corporate recruiters who show up at job fairs on their campus every spring. Further, the college grading system reinforces the fear of making of mistakes already deeply imbedded in the minds of the students who have completed twelve years of public education. Errors are ridiculed and scorned in college just as they were in high school so the necessity to conform is hammered home even harder.

So upon graduating college most students: lack a defining sense of purpose, have been cultured to avoid mistakes at all costs, and are knee deep in debt. Naturally, they are compelled to take the first job that offers them a decently salary and a health insurance plan regardless of their actual interest in the particular job or industry.

Welcome to the rat-race.

Hill would admonish me for focusing exclusively on the negatives so I will humbly labor to present some positive alternatives to the current model of higher education. Mind you, the current system operates under the institutional model and that is a large part of the problem. The best alternatives are individualized in nature thus they require a break from the institutional way of thinking; simply replacing one institutional model with another will never accomplish much of anything.

Where to start?

Life is meant to be lived. Life is about freedom. Governments and institutions infringe upon personal freedom but try to convince you they are morally justified in doing so. Despite these constant infringements, we have the ability to claim more individual freedom today than ever before in modern history. Technology is the great enabler. It is also the great decentralizer.

The college years are a time to learn how to live independently and to explore various interests and passions. As we have pointed out, college does a poor job of facilitating real learning. I would suggest that college also does a poor job of aiding students in learning to live independently. Cramming two eighteen-year-old kids into a room the size of a single office and forcing them to share a bathroom with even more eighteen-year-olds is not realistic prep for the real world unless the kids plan to live on a commune somewhere. Likewise, living with four or five other twenty-year-old kids in frat (and sorority) houses doesn’t really facilitate independent learning unless the kids want to make a career out of party planning.

At the same time, college towns are a great place to meet people with all kinds of backgrounds and cultures. They are also great places to meet people with similar passions and interests. This exposure certainly fosters a tolerance for different ideas as well as the potential to form lasting partnerships with others of like-mind.

College Alternatives Number One: What if our eighteen-year-old, instead of enrolling in college, simply moved to a college town of their choice? They could take on internships with local businesses for low (or no) pay to explore traditional career paths. They could organize or attend meet-up groups for students with similar passions to share ideas and knowledge. They could work to develop online business opportunities around those passions and interests to learn what works and what doesn’t. They could potentially sit-in on select classes of interest if they wanted to as well. Though the overall curriculum may largely be a waste of time, there are certainly individual classes that are interesting and valuable. Whether it’s art or computer programming or classic literature or astronomy or whatever, the professor would probably be thrilled to have someone in the class who is actually interested in what he has to say… everyone else is simply interested in getting a good grade and moving on within the system. And I am sure our eighteen-year-old would do all kinds of other interesting things that I have never thought of before also.

All with zero student loan debt. Sure there would be living expenses but they would pale in comparison to tuition, room, board, and textbooks. If the parents had employed the Infinite Banking Concept for our student then living expenses would already covered for several years at least.

College Alternatives Number Two: what if our hypothetical eighteen-year-old spent a year traveling internationally? They would experience all sorts of different worldviews and cultures and probably learn a foreign language or two in the process. Maybe they would observe a growing trend somewhere which could lead to a tremendous business or investment opportunity. Maybe they would become a freelance travel writer and make a career out of the experience. Maybe they would blog about their travel and build a readership that would lead to income opportunities. Maybe they would see an underserved community and start a niche charity dedicated to a singular mission.

College Alternatives Number Three: Suppose our eighteen-year-old has been homeschooled and permitted to develop skills around a particular passion already? He could go directly into his chosen field either by starting a business or by seeking out internships and mentors in the chosen industry. If he already knows what he would like his first career to be then there is no reason for him to pursue additional generalized education at this point. The beauty of this scenario is that our eighteen year old will have twenty years of experience in his industry by the young age of thirty-eight. In all likelihood financial success will have followed his career mastership and he will be free to then explore other interests or passions if he desires something new and exciting. The notion of working in a single industry for one’s entire life and then retiring to go fishing and piddle around the house all day is a New Deal relic that will die off when Social Security implodes. Mastering two or three different careers over one’s lifetime will be extremely common going forward. And following this individualized model will leave plenty of time for fishing and piddling should you so desire as well. After all, it’s not work if you are doing what interests you.

These are just three examples of many possible college alternatives. With a little vision and a little faith, anything is possible.

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

The Coming College Collapse

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Coming College Collapse

March 19, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,093 today. Gold is checking in at $1,166 per ounce. Oil is floating around $46 per barrel. Bitcoin is down to $262 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 1.94% today.

Big news this month… two colleges died! Sweet Briar College in rural Virginia recently announced its own funeral scheduled for the end of the 2014-2015 academic year. Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga also pronounced its coming death scheduled for May 1, 2015.

Sweet Briar is a small liberal arts women’s college with less than 750 students and Tennessee Temple is a small Christian university with less than 500 students so these are certainly niche schools that faced challenges not yet encountered by their larger peers. I think it would be unwise to dismiss these closures at outliers, however. Instead, this may be foreshadowing the coming student loan bubble collapse and the growing obsolescence of traditional higher education. Beware bubble, the needle approacheth.

Indeed, the Obama administration is now pushing a “student aid bill of rights” chock full of government regulations, controls, and oversight… what could be a better sign of the impending college collapse than that? And the federal government already finances or guarantees ninety-some percent of all student loans as it is.

College is still the holy grail of success in many American minds but that sentiment is gradually changing. Colleges, in most cases (specialized fields of study being the exception), are little more than glorified diploma mills. Everyone goes to college primarily to receive a degree that is seen as a ‘certification’ of sorts to work a corporate job. That’s why college graduates list their degree at the top of their resume and they mention it first thing in job interviews – having a degree demonstrates that they are qualified to hold a job.

So the system works like this:

1. Kids are told to get good grades in high school so they can get into college.

2. As high school graduation approaches, kids are hustled through the college application process. They are encouraged to apply early to as many schools as possible to give themselves the best chance of getting in. Critical thinking and introspection can wait.

3. Once accepted into college, the kids are walked through the student loan process. It is understood that they don’t have enough money to pay for tuition so someone else must lend it to them. And that someone else is probably the federal government.

4. Colleges raise tuition each year because the federal government is willing to finance or guarantee nearly all student loans sans sound underwriting guidelines.

5. Students apply for new student loans at the higher tuition rate for each subsequent year in college.

6. Students graduate with massive student loan debt and face a competitive job market because nearly all of their peers have a bachelor’s degree as well.

As you can see, the student loan racket is perpetuated by cheap money supplied by the Feds. The only reason colleges can raise tuitions significantly each and every year is because a very large percentage of the population attends college. The only reason a very large percentage of the population attends college is because the Feds supply them with cheap money to do so with few questions asked.

But there’s a catch. When we talk about this cheap “money” supplied by the Feds we are really talking about credit. This credit is created ex nihilo (out of nothing) – it only exists as an electronic record on a computer network somewhere in the “cloud”. Unlike real money, credit can vanish just as quickly as it appeared in the first place. You can’t put it in a safe. You can’t put it under your mattress for a rainy day. Credit is intangible.

The current model of higher education depends on constant credit expansion. Students don’t pay for college up front; they finance it as they go by obtaining multiple loans over time. Their continued enrollment depends upon their ability to get the next loan. It is assumed by pretty much everyone – parents, students, guidance counselors, professors, university presidents, Wall Street CEOs, government officials – that this system of constant credit expansion can continue into the future.

The word credit is derived from the Latin credere which means “to believe”. Credit depends on trust; it’s all a confidence game. And we are starting to see the trust in American higher education teeter. This trust will continue to degenerate as student loan debt continues to pile up and the job market continues to be flooded with bachelor’s degrees. This process is accentuated by the mountain of debt being accumulated by the federal government – the same group that finances the student loan bubble.

When the trust disappears, so does the credit… probably to the tune of trillions of dollars overnight. What happens then? Common sense suggests that colleges would be forced to reduce tuition drastically if students actually had to pay for college themselves. But have you been to a college campus recently? The campuses are pristine, the buildings are luxurious, and the amenities are plentiful. Have you looked at your alma mater’s annual financial statements recently? What does its long-term debt look like? How about its pension liabilities?

The fact is most American colleges would be insolvent if it weren’t for the Fed’s exponential credit expansion. If you think the credit can expand forever then this fact doesn’t really matter. But if you think the credit will eventually dry up then we are likely to see many more Sweet Briars and Tennessee Temple’s to come.

So do not despair, dear Vixens and Crusaders, you will not be the only alma mater-less Americans for long.

Until the morrow,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

Non-intervention is Comprehensive

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Non-intervention is Comprehensive

February 27, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,110 today. Gold is checking in at $1,216 per ounce. Oil is floating around $49 per barrel. Bitcoin is up to $253 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 2.02% today.

Yesterday we discussed the merits of the non-intervention philosophy specifically as it relates to natural childbirth. We realized what is true about non-intervention in childbirth is just a true about non-intervention in the rest of health care. Non-intervention is just as applicable to the fields of personal finance, economics, education, and the role of government as well. Let’s examine this in a little more detail today.

To start with, think long and hard about what you value in this life. Clear your mind and think about what’s important to you.

Notice the clutter and the conflict?

We are constantly assaulted with polarized messages on a daily basis competing for our support. Every single advertisement you see or read is designed by very skilled people to convince you that you want that particular product or service. The corporate media constantly inundates you with messages designed to drum up your support for a particular idea, policy, or position. The various institutions you are a part of (school/work/church/community service/political party/etc.) all convey different expectations for how you should live and what you should spend your time doing.

When we accept and identify with these external expectations we shift away from self-reference and end up with a piecemeal system of values and a hodgepodge of beliefs. Then we say things like:

-This religion is absolutely right and that religion is absolutely evil.

-People should spend their time doing these things but they shouldn’t be allowed to do those other things.

-Government should force everyone to comply with these policies and it should stop people from engaging in alternatives.

Why do we say these things? Because that’s what our institutions say; we substitute our own values for the values of our chosen institutions when we identify with external expectations.

The non-intervention philosophy is about getting back to what’s best for you. It’s about a self-referential reawakening. Modern society tells us that self-reference is selfish but nothing could be further from the truth. If we look within and decide it is acceptable to stand on our own values and pursue our own wants regardless of what modern culture says then we necessarily recognize that others are free to do the same. This understanding sparks a respect for non-aggression and tolerance in a world that has seemingly forgotten these ideals.

”Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” “Hurt not others.” “Live and let live.” “Laissez-faire.” Moral thinkers have come and gone throughout history and they each arrived at some variation of this same message. Let’s apply this message to our world today.

Non-intervention in personal finance is about thinking a lot but doing very little. Contrast this with mainstream personal finance which is frantic and disorganized. Jim Cramer epitomizes this on his television show where he runs around screaming “buy, buy, buy” or “sell, sell, sell”. We are sold the idea that a sophisticated financial portfolio involves moving in and out of the right stocks and that this is the key to reaching a retirement “number”. If we don’t want to do the stock picking for ourselves then we can purchase target date mutual funds that are actively managed by professionals who move in and out of stocks for us.

All of this buying and selling churns up commissions and fees and, if we follow mainstream analysis, likely gets us into stocks when they are popular and expensive and out of stocks when they are unpopular and cheap. That is to say we buy high and sell low. The rationale behind this is simple – if a stock is popular enough to warrant coverage on CNBC or in the Wall Street Journal then it is popular enough to draw a lot of attention. It would be far better to buy the stock when it is obscure, hated, and cheap then sell it to someone else if it becomes popular enough for mainstream financial publications.

When it comes to investing in equities, studies suggest it is the beta – the big picture idea – that is more important than the alpha – the individual security. In other words identifying sectors that have been beaten up but are beginning to trend higher, buying those sectors while they are cheap, and then sitting on your hands until the trend changes is the application of non-intervention in personal finance. Of course, stocks should only make up a small percentage of your asset allocation model as we have touched on numerous times here at Zenconomics.

We have also harped on the importance of non-intervention in economics on many occasions. The ‘free market’ is an incredibly complex web of exchanges created by individuals who, by acting of their own free will, engage in production and commerce. The free market sets price levels based on individual activity and these prices fluctuate in response to continued individual activity. This economic system is self-regulating and to intervene in any capacity is to distort the entire free market system.

Simply put, free markets require absolute non-intervention by definition. The moment you intervene is the moment the market ceases to be free. Somehow, however, we have accepted the idea that Ivy League graduates should be pulling strings and pushing levers to manage the economy. We put these “experts” in front of expensive computers in big government buildings and tell them to keep unemployment low and prices stable as if the economy were a simple child’s game of connect the dots. And we pretend like this is still a capitalist system.

I suspect we put up with intervention in our economy largely because our educational system conditions us to accept intervention every step of the way. Public education in the United States very clearly emphasizes invasive authoritarianism. Instead of allowing children to learn naturally by pursuing their interests, discovering their passions, and cooperating with one another, the public school system segregates children by age and lumps them into a classroom where they are told to be quiet and listen to the teacher. In school students are told what they will learn, when they will learn it, and they are permitted very little free time during the day. Then they are loaded with homework that eats up their free time after school and prevents them from pursuing their own interests. Their textbooks are homogenous, boring, and designed to be read and memorized unquestioningly. The textbooks have also been scrubbed by the Department of Education to ensure no politically incorrect material can be found on the pages. In this environment learning is seen as something to be forced on students – such is the interventionist approach.

Intervention in education promotes group-think and dependency. Non-intervention promotes self-education and self-responsibility. There is a reason why many wise and ‘successful’ people prior to the 20th century never went to school at all and it is the same reason that numerous prominent people since the 20th century dropped out of school before becoming ‘successful’ in their own way. Even Albert Einstein loathed the interventionist approach to education: ”Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school”, said he.

Which brings us to the role of government. Regulatory democracy works hand in hand with coerced collectivism to convince people that government is some type of benevolent service organization. People have been sold the notion that the U.S. government should take care of everyone from cradle to grave, regulate all aspects of the economy, prohibit immoral or unhealthy behavior, maintain a military empire with 300 bases in 170 countries, and fight wars on poverty, drugs, and terror.

Government is more than happy to oblige by intervening in virtually every aspect of your life and the lives of those living in foreign nations that become a “strategic interest” for the military-industrial complex. The corporate news stations (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News) work diligently to promote public support for all of this government intervention and their success is nothing short of amazing. The corporate media’s marketing genius is the promotion of the left-right paradigm. These stations divide the public into a “blue” team and a “red” team and they promote the idea that the other team is the enemy. The fact is each “team” supports government intervention on a massive scale; they differ only in the prescription and distribution of this intervention.

The predictable result of all this government intervention is poverty and misery as the economy is wrecked and the currency is destroyed. F.A. Hayek pointed this out way back in 1944 in ”The Road to Serfdom” as central planning and government intervention really began to rise in popularity.

How different is this from that which is truly American? The American vision was a divergence from the mercantilist statism and bureaucratic despotism of the ancien régime. The best of the American revolutionaries envisioned a society free from politics and indeed free from any visible signs of government. They called this Liberty.

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force”, said Washington. “Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

Sure the American experiment wasn’t perfect – there were prejudices and inconsistencies – but there was a vibrant and healthy respect for non-intervention. We would be wise to rekindle this understanding and respect.

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the paradigm shift underway please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Non-intervention: Don’t Just Do Something; Stand There!

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Non-intervention: Don’t Just Do Something; Stand There!

February 26, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,114 today. Gold is up to $1,215 per ounce. Oil is back up to $50 per barrel. Bitcoin is up slightly at $237 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 1.94% today.

Don’t just do something; stand there!

I chuckled when I heard this spin on the popular cliché in regards to the proper approach to natural childbirth. Then it occurred to me that this call for non-intervention is applicable for pretty much every other subject we take interest in here at Zenconomics: finance, economics, health care, education, government, all of them. Modern culture has taken a hyper-invasive approach in each of these areas to most everyone’s detriment.

Non-intervention in childbirth is based on the understanding that the mother is perfectly capable of delivering her child without any external ‘help’ save the support of her partner and her health care team. Non-intervention in childbirth operates on the firm belief that the mother’s body is perfectly designed for the task at hand and we have a lot of historical evidence to support this position.

We don’t know for sure how long the human race has been around. History textbooks tend to start the timeline around 10,000 B.C. and they say we were all cavemen for about 25,000 years prior to that. I have seen compelling alternative studies that suggest the caveman story is largely false and that humans existed at least 100,000 years ago with relatively the same genetic structure and cognitive ability. Regardless of the timeline, what we do know is that children have been born naturally according to the non-intervention principle for 99.9% of human history. Modern hospitals did not take shape until the turn of the 20th century and 95% of all children in the U.S. were still born at home in 1910. The number of homebirths plummeted to 3% by 1960 and looks to have bottomed at 1% in 1980. Approximately 5% of all births in the U.S. are currently homebirths outside of the hospital.

The data shows that complications do occur during natural labor about 10% of the time and the vast majority of these cases are minor but best addressed in a hospital setting. This is the primary risk when doing a homebirth but the risk can be mitigated with an emergency back-up plan. Fortunately, the possible complications are well-documented and they can be detected early simply by monitoring the baby’s heartbeat during labor which is now very easy to do thanks to the advancement of technology.

U.S. hospitals are extraordinarily good at handling emergency complications but this has led to a hyper-invasive approach. U.S. hospitals view childbirth as an emergency situation and employ all manner of invasive interventions during every birth whether or not a complication arises. This interventionist approach actually increases both the probability of a complication occurring as well as the severity of that complication because invasive interventions have unintended consequences. This is why you hear about so many birth horror stories in the U.S. Standard interventions like planned inductions, synthetic labor enhancing drugs, drugs for pain relief, and the restriction of free-movement disrupt normal physiology which can have undesirable effects on both mother and baby.

Non-intervention in childbirth is about trust. We must trust in the magnificent creative power that permeates the Universe. We must trust in the chaotic order and balance of the natural world. We must trust in the innate strength and wisdom of the mother. And we must trust in the majesty of childbirth.

The non-intervention philosophy is simple, holistic, and comprehensive. This applies to natural childbirth just as it applies to holistic wellness practices, free market economics, sound personal finance, childhood education, and the role of government which we will look at tomorrow.

Non-intervention requires a commitment to research, knowledge, and understanding which will cut through unsubstantiated fear and propaganda. It requires strength of will and a calmness of mind capable of tuning out the noise while tapping in to the inner wisdom we all possess. Perhaps most of all non-intervention requires an acceptance of personal responsibility: we are each personally responsible for every choice we make.

Non-intervention is not complicated but it does fly in the face of modern culture. We are constantly inundated with messages of insecurity, materialism, conformity, status, fear, intolerance, and hate from mainstream media sources – especially from the television “news” programming. These messages almost exclusively hold intervention as the solution to any problem and this outlook has shaped modern culture as most people buy right in to this way of thinking. But an amazing internal transformation occurs within those who tune out the noise and embrace the philosophy of non-intervention.

Our midwife made a profound statement to wife Rachel and I during our initial informational interview and the wisdom of her words still echoes in my head:

”A good midwife knows when to sit on her hands.”

I am convinced that this ability to sit patiently on one’s hands with a calm mind while the crowd screams for action is the peak of self-discipline.

Until the morrow,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

Individual Solutions: Building Home Resiliency

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Individual Solutions: Building Home Resiliency

February 13, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,089 today. Gold is checking in at $1,229 per ounce. Oil is floating around $53 per barrel. Bitcoin is priced at $237 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 2.01% today.

Yesterday we examined the massive credit expansion that has been ongoing for four decades now and we noted that Austrian Economics tells us this won’t end well. We discussed building financial resiliency via a logical asset allocation model as an individual solution to the economic problems we face. But there is more to life than just personal finance.

Home resiliency is about building a self-reliant homestead, no matter the size. This entails having secure shelter with back-up energy sources and access to a reasonable supply of food, water, and basic necessities. The greater your home resiliency, the less you have to worry about external factors; be they natural disasters, financial disruptions, or simple power outages.

We are not talking about doomsday bunkers or expensive power generators; we are talking about simple and reasonable emergency back-up preparations. This is considered weird and looked down upon in modern society today but that is a recent phenomenon. The spirit of self-reliance and rugged individualism permeated American culture from the colonial days on up to the turn of the 20th century.

We see home resiliency simply as a matter of getting back to our individualist roots but it is especially important given current macroeconomic trends as we discussed yesterday. The eventual mass liquidation of debt and malinvestment resulting from four decades of fiat-fueled credit expansion will inevitably lead to disruptions within the financial system. Who knows what other dislocations this will cause in daily life? It would be far better to weather such a storm from within the comforts of your own home with adequate food, water, and energy than to risk being dependent upon external factors for these necessities.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Water Resiliency

Store as much bottled water as you can. The rule of thumb is that households require one gallon of water per day for each member of the family.

Exposure to sunlight will cause problems for water over time so either store water in opaque containers or away from sunlight if possible.

It is advisable to employ a ‘rotating’ system whereby you drink your stored water and replace it constantly as you go while maintaining adequate storage.

Consider a gravity water filter. These systems fit on your kitchen counter and are capable of filtering water from any source into clean drinking water. We recommend Doulton’s Big Berkey system with ceramic filters, but there are other quality systems available also.

Consider setting up a system to catch rain water. Rain water can be used to bathe, water plants, or to filter through your gravity water filter system for drinking.

Food Resiliency

Maintain a deep pantry. Analyze what you are currently eating and keep two or three times as much in the pantry and freezer. Replace meals consistently so your pantry does not diminish.

Supplement your pantry with items possessing a long shelf life like canned goods, beans and rice.

Consider investing in pre-packaged food specifically designed for storage. Many of these foods have a shelf life of up to 25 years and are surprisingly appetizing. Some long-term storage items are even certified organic and certified GMO free.

Consider planting a small vegetable garden, fruit trees, and/or nut trees depending on your location. Supplementing meals with home grown food is a great way to cut expenses and maintain health.

If you do plant vegetables or fruit trees it may be worthwhile to take up canning to store your own food for future consumption.

Consider investing in alternative cooking/water boiling sources. Propane grills are a popular option – just be sure to keep an extra propane tank or two on hand.

Consider investing in a solar compatible power source. These systems consist of batteries and solar panels. The batteries can be charged via a standard wall outlet or by the solar panels. Any household item can be powered for a period of time by simply plugging it into an inverter which is powered by the batteries. This is a great way to run your refrigerator during a power outage. A portable generator large enough to run the refrigerator/freezer, a few lights and a power strip to charge phones and laptop computers might also be a good option to consider.

Seek out local food vendors in your area – butchers, meat markets, farmer’s markets, etc. These are places where you can buy local food that is not as dependent upon the corporate ‘just in time’ process. Not only will this food not be as affected by macro disruptions, but it is also more nutritious as it has not gone through intensive corporate processing.

Basic Necessities

Make sure you have several alternate heating sources – wood-burning fireplace/stove, propane heater, kerosene heater, etc.

Stock up on candles for lighting the home during power outages and consider purchasing a few LED lanterns or oil lamps for lighting as well.

Keep a generous supply of lighters and matches on hand.

Keep several flashlights handy and maintain a supply of batteries.

Store several first aid kits and any medicines your family relies on.

Store extra paper towels, toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, dental floss, hand sanitizer, saline, contacts, and any other household item you use frequently.

Taking these simple actions will increase your home resiliency immensely. Once these action items are implemented you will:

Have drinking water stored for a reasonable period of time.

Have the ability to purify water from external sources.

Have a deep pantry and the ability to run your fridge/freezer for periods of time during power outages.

Have long term food stored away for use if your deep pantry were to be exhausted.

Have access to home grown vegetables, fruits, and/or nuts to supplement food storage.

Have access to several modern cooking sources in the event of a power outage.

Have alternate heating and lighting sources for use in the event of a power outage.

Have sufficient household items and cosmetics stored for use if needed.

Taking simple steps to build home resiliency does not require a change in lifestyle, and it does not require a tremendous financial commitment. Recent history shows that the majority of people in a given population are nearly 0% self-sufficient and thus experience unfortunate anxiety and discomfort when a major disaster occurs. History also shows that major disasters do occur periodically no matter where you live. It is far better to prepare ahead of time than to be one of the unsuspecting victims who find themselves completely incapable of coping with a disaster in a self-sufficient manner.

Home resiliency is another individual solution that can help mitigate collective problems. Pair home resiliency with a resilient financial portfolio as we discussed yesterday and you will be more self-reliant than 99% of the population. Then you will be free from worry to focus on those things in life that truly matter.

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

Individual Solutions: Building Financial Resiliency

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Individual Solutions: Building Financial Resiliency

February 12, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,071 today. Gold is down to $1,226 per ounce. Oil is floating around $49 per barrel. Bitcoin is hanging around $221 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 2.03% today.

Ten central banks have cut interest rates so far in 2015. The list includes: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, India, Egypt, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, and Turkey. Additionally, both the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank are actively buying sovereign debt… with counterfeited currency created from thin air. The Federal Reserve is taking a break from this exercise after nearly six years of creating currency to shop at the U.S. Treasury and go yard-saling on Wall Street. Of course the $4.5 trillion worth of sovereign debt and mortgage-backed securities still sits on the Fed’s balance sheet in the interim.

All of this economic intervention is a concerted effort to stave off a major credit contraction. The central bankers talk about hitting certain GDP and unemployment rate metrics but that is all part of their dog and pony show. If creating currency out of thin air could actually grow an economy and create jobs then we would already live in a utopian paradise. But that’s just not how the world works.

Try as they may to avoid it, the coming credit contraction is inevitable. You see, the global monetary system has been fraudulent for a little more than four decades now. Gold officially anchored the global monetary system for two centuries prior to 1971. Then, in 1971, President Nixon’s administration acted to break away from two hundred years of tradition and the U.S. ended direct convertibility of the dollar to gold. Of course the “Great Society” welfare programs and the Vietnam War had a lot to do with this decision.

“Your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today,” Nixon proclaimed on television with a straight face. “The effect of this action, in other words, will be to stabilize the dollar.”

Of course the exact opposite happened: the U.S. dollar fell off a cliff. Anyone living during the 70’s can attest to this. What was the price of a new home back then? A new car? A hamburger? The difference between what those items cost in 1971 and what they cost today represents how far the U.S. dollar has fallen in purchasing power.

How did this happen?

Well, with all ties to gold removed governments and central banks discovered they could conjure currency into existence to pay for anything they wanted. Tanks, fighter jets, food stamps, Medicare part D, $800 trash cans… no problem! So they embarked upon this historic credit expansion armed with a magical monetary system that provided them with money for nothing.

But governments weren’t the only beneficiaries. The companies making the tanks and the bombs made out like bandits. So did all of the bureaucrats who were hired as government expanded. And the people receiving welfare benefits found the system quite palatable as well. Pretty soon smart people learned that the best business in the world was to sell something to the U.S. government because it had unlimited money to spend. So they descended upon K Street like buzzards on road-kill and pretty soon the suburbs surrounding D.C. claimed home to six of the wealthiest ten counties in the U.S.

The champagne has been flowing up on the Hill and in the lobbyist offices on K Street for four decades now thanks mostly to the fraudulent fiat monetary system in place since 1971. The establishment hails their elastic currency system as a major success but theirs is a self-serving and short term view. Credit has been constantly expanding since 1971 but do we really think this can go on forever? Can we continue to run up debt, print money to pay interest on that debt, and then buy all of the fighter jets, disability checks, politicians, and cheap junk from China without ever having to think twice about it? If not, what happens when the credit contracts and we can no longer afford all of these expenditures?

The Austrian School of Economics tells us what the result of this madness will be: a “crack-up boom” followed by a monstrous bust as all of the bad debt and malinvestments are finally liquidated.

The crack-up boom occurs as the prices of assets and real goods are driven up to the moon by enormous amounts of excess currency conjured into existence in an attempt to perpetuate the credit expansion. After all, that new currency has to go somewhere. This scheme will work to stave off the credit contraction… until it doesn’t. Then cometh the bust.

While Austrian Economics can make the diagnosis, the timing of the bust cannot be predicted. There are too many interconnected factors at play. What’s important is that there is still time to build financial resiliency in advance. The cornerstone of financial resiliency is knowledge and understanding. Understand fiat money is an illusion. Understand the difference between money and wealth. Study Austrian Economics to get a feel for what’s really going on in the economy.

Once you understand how the monetary system actually works you can formulate a customized asset allocation model based upon your personal circumstances.

A resilient asset allocation model will consist of cash (20-30%), precious metals (10-30%), real estate (30-60%), and strategic equities (10-15%).

At minimum you should carry enough cash to cover at least 6-12 months of expenses. Distressed assets will go on sale when then bust hits so any cash in excess of your reserve fund can be used to acquire these distressed assets (real estate, stocks, businesses, etc.) when they are cheap.

Your precious metals allocation should consist of physical gold and silver bullion stored at home or in a legal segregated account overseas. Never store precious metals in a domestic bank vault – Americans learned this the hard way back in the 30’s when the banks closed and FDR raided the vaults to confiscate gold. Remember, precious metals are insurance not speculation. The price of gold (and silver) will skyrocket in terms of fiat currency, but its purchasing power will remain relatively constant just as it has for thousands of years. Those who save in fiat currency will see their wealth evaporate as the credit contraction unfolds while those who hold precious metals will weather the storm. J.P Morgan testified before Congress in 1912: “Gold is money. Everything else is credit.” Don’t be fooled.

Real estate presents a unique opportunity currently as we are living during a period of historically low interest rates and lenders are willing to offer long term mortgages at these low rates. This provides a tremendous opportunity to lock in these low rates on real estate for thirty years during which time interest rates will inevitably rise significantly.

We firmly believe stocks should make up the smallest percentage of a resilient portfolio under current economic conditions. Stockholders have been the primary beneficiaries of the massive credit expansion and all of the easy-money chicanery over the past several years. Financial institutions have poured new money into the equities markets and publicly-traded companies have used a ton of excess cash to buy back shares of their own stock. As a result current stock valuations do not reflect the underlying health of the economy. Though stocks will run for a bit longer, we are closer to the end than the beginning of the bull cycle. We think the exception is in the resource and commodity sector, however. The stocks of well-managed companies in this sector could do extremely well over the next few years as the global financial system continues to falter.

Nobody can control macroeconomic conditions but we can each control our individual response to them. Building financial resiliency by constructing a diversified portfolio across several asset classes is an individual solution to a collective problem. Financial resiliency is just half of the picture, however. Tomorrow we will look at what we call home resiliency.

Until the morrow,

Joe Withrow

Wayward Philosopher