submitted by jwithrow.
Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Individual is Rising: 2nd Edition
September 4, 2015
Hot Springs, VA
The S&P closed out Thursday at $1,946. Gold closed at $1,124 per ounce. Oil closed up at $46.75 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.19%. Bitcoin is trading around $230 per BTC today.
Dear Journal,
Wife Rachel took it upon herself to berate me for my past few journal entries. She said they were too gloomy. She also berated me for failing to provide any light-hearted family updates. As any good husband would, I flipped the selective hearing switch on and pretended not to hear her.
After a couple years of marriage I have learned that there are times to trust her judgment and times to ignore it. Choosing what to order from a restaurant is a good time to discount her judgment, for example. Despite my unwelcomed reminders, she has a tendency to order a meal completely unrelated to the theme of the restaurant. I am quite sure the chef is shaking his head when her order comes in. “Hamburger and french fries, are you kidding me? This is an authentic Italian joint!”, he exclaims in the kitchen. I just chuckle to myself: At least she ordered a glass of Chianti.
Relating to and connecting with other people is her forte, however, so despite outward appearances I listen carefully when she advises me on such matters. Her emotional intelligence never ceases to amaze me. Maybe it’s just a woman thing, but I suspect years of studying finance and economics hasn’t help improve my own EI much, either. So if Rachel says I should incorporate more light-hearted matters into my writing then I feel compelled to talk about her poor menu choices. Thanks honey!
Moving on to another fun topic; I launched the second edition of The Individual is Rising this week. The Kindle format will be free on Amazon all day today, and then will be discounted at $2.99 all next week.
So far the reception has been good, and the Kindle is ranked #1 in two economics categories on Amazon. If you find the book worthwhile, please consider leaving a review for it on Amazon as they are an integral part of the ranking algorithm. The beauty of independent publishing is there are no gatekeepers or P.C. censors. The downside is there’s no marketing support so ranking on Amazon is especially important. To help get the word out about The Individual is Rising we are sponsoring The Sovereign BTC podcast this month which is a great show for anyone interested in learning more about Bitcoin and the ideas of Liberty.
The Individual is Rising: Second Edition is the culmination of more than three years worth of study, research, contemplation, and focused writing.
I began writing the book back in 2012 as my eyes were opened to how the monetary system has been systematically corrupted over the past one hundred years. This is a topic that is completely ignored throughout the entire educational system thus very few even realize there is a ‘monetary system’, much less understand it. Money is glorified in modern pop culture yet very few people can actually define what it is. I was awarded a finance degree from a public university and not once did my curriculum critically examine the monetary system or the nature of money itself. Instead, the finance curriculum presented these topics as permanent, unchanging fixtures, and then it moved on to feeding us incoherent Keynesian theories.
Originally I was driven by a desire to communicate what I had learned about the monetary system, and I published a short eBook on Amazon titled “The Great Reset”. My knowledge grew as I continued to study finance, economics, and philosophy, and I gradually fleshed out an entire book around this “Great Reset” thesis using it as the first chapter. The Individual is Rising was born and it seeks to not only communicate the major economic problems we face, but also to offer practical solutions anyone can implement in their own life. The book also unapologetically advocates the primacy of the individual over the State and similar power institutions. Thus the book is both practical and philosophical. The core theme is practical individual solutions to macroeconomic problems, but the ideas of Liberty, decentralization, and voluntaryism are held up as the requisite tenets for a peaceful, prosperous, and just civilization.
The book also takes a critical look at several well-established systems that many people accept unconditionally. Three of these systems – government, the banking system, and the education system – serve as employers to a huge swath of the population. I understand that and I publish this book knowing that there will likely be friends and family offended by my critical examinations. But I firmly believe that these institutions have become so large, centralized, and corrupt that they actively suppress human freedom and serve as a major drain upon individual creativity and ingenuity. So I feel compelled to publish The Individual is Rising regardless of any hardships or negative attention that may come my way.
I will conclude this journal entry by emphasizing the fragility present within the current economic climate. The fiat monetary system has enabled massive debt, unfunded liabilities, and false promises to accumulate over the past forty years. The governments of most western nations are now buried in debt – well in excess of 100% GDP is some cases. Most of these governments have accumulated huge liabilities for which they have no asset backing or revenue support. The political promises were made during times when the demographics allowed these governments to plunder most of the population to give to the few. Life expectancy has since increased just as birth rates have fallen which means the political Ponzi schemes will soon hit the fan.
In addition to all of the government debt, the fiat monetary system has enabled bubbles to form in the stock market, real estate market, student loan “market”, auto loan market, and the derivative market. In most cases (real estate outside of major metropolitan areas being the exception) these bubbles are now bigger than they were in 2008. There has been no real recovery. There have been no structural reforms. There has only been the creation of trillions of dollars from thin air. Most of this funny-money was used to prop up the cronies at the expense of the populace which has incentivized even more centralization and more cronyism.
All of the 2016 presidential candidates will trot around on stage and portray themselves as the solution, but they aren’t. You are the solution. You can take action now to insulate yourself from the major risks you face – I present specific strategies for doing this in the book. I also suggest, and firmly believe, that we can leave all of this political injustice, financial chicanery, and monetary manipulations behind in one generation if we choose to do so at the individual level. There are specific strategies in the book for doing this as well. Paradigm shifts are never facilitated by government; they are always driven by the dedicated minority.
So I implore you to check out The Individual is Rising with an open mind. It doesn’t contain all of the answers, but it does have some. You have the rest.
Watch closely. The Individual is Rising.
More to come,
Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher
The Individual is Rising: 2nd Edition is available through Amazon and at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. Please sign up for the mailing list to be notified of other projects as they come to fruition.