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.
