Recently I re-read this superb article written almost 4 years ago by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg, a blog I was following at the time, and realized I shared the exact thinking trajectory and feelings.
Like him, slowly I have seen the subjects of my blog drift from what I intended originally, a data driven analysis of current events, i.e. looking at statistics to corroborate or contradict news to an almost permanent outflow of negative energy and shrill warning of what's coming.
But likewise, I was also horrified to witness the rapid weaponization of information and to realize that what I had seen implemented in China was being rolled out in the West with almost no opposition.
Well, so be it then. In 2024, our world, the one we have known in Western countries for the last 70 years is about to crash. This is the very predictable result of a long term credit cycle which cannot be undone at this stage. The indicators on which I base this prediction are public information issued by the IMF and other central banks, and governments just as controlling bodies in the shadow such as the WEF can easily draw the same conclusions.
Consequently, it is very likely that they will do "something" in the coming months to throw the whole game up in the air and regain the initiative. This is THE event of 2024 that many pundits on the Internet are warning us about. Will it be a complete disruption of the Internet or a major war? No one can tell. My personal guess is that it depends. I do not believe there is a "plan" for these things. The real conspiracy is far more insidious and flexible than most conspiracy theorists believe. There are plans A, B, C on the shelves which can be implemented as the opportunities arise. The "plans" of the elites are long term, almost transparent in their goals since these are openly discussed in think tanks and forums. The only things which are not openly discussed are the "Shock Doctrines" used to accelerate their implementation.
Once you understand this, then what's the point of discussing these issues with people who by and large do not grasp what is happening and maybe could not understand most of it if they were reading it in a history book 100 years after the facts?
An so, from now on, like Michael Krieger, I will spend less time on the Internet to enjoy the few months, (hopefully years but I doubt it!) of relative freedom left to us.
Soon, very soon now, the sun will set on our civilization. It won't be the end of the world, but it will be the end of OUR world. More than an event, it will be a process with a series of events, some of them shocking which slowly but relentlessly will mark the advent of a very different world. As I see it, a second Middle Age. Very different from the first one since the technological level will be different, but a similar age of technological, economic and social stagnation. Probably a dystopian age of AI surveillance and control if the current elites have it their way. But maybe not, I just don't know. At this stage, the future is truly unknowable.
What is certain is that the disruption of trade and society will necessarily engender a far more simple life for most people where almost everything we have known for the past 50 years will soon be old memories.
I wish I was wrong but I know I'm not. In 1972 the Club of Rome made a very crude simulation (Computers were simpler then!) with very few basic but important variables which predicted that the world economy would peak per capita (energy, food and land) in 2020. This is almost exactly what we have seen. Since, their successors at the World Economic Forum have had 50 years to refine their models. Although more data is not necessarily useful for such models, what was useful was the time. Now they could see how things developed in the recent past and with Bayesian adjusted models could certainly predict more accurately the coming years. Not the black swans, wars and pestilences although most will be man-made, but certainly the resources available which do constrain the choices.
In this context, I will probably post from time to time interesting texts and interviews, but I won't try to "warn" people anymore. It is a useless and thankless task. Most people are in any case completely passive and are not interested by oracles, especially if they predict doom and gloom which are outside their immediate field of view and often beyond their intellectual grasp. How many people truly understand Money, the economy or even events provided the complexity is not visible which is almost always the case? And then among the very few that could, how many have the time to really think about it to grasp the consequences? More than I think? Maybe. But still not enough to make a difference.
So as my mother who is now 94 and had a good life would say: Inch'Allah!
Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it.
Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it.
Fate. How small a role you play in it.
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
For the past ten years, I’ve spent most of my waking hours learning how the systems we live under function and how wealth and power operate and consolidate in the U.S. as well as globally. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve shared a lot. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would.
I dedicated all that time and energy to writing and engaging on the big issues of our era for two main reasons. First, I felt there was a window of opportunity to turn the ship around and reform the system to avoid needless additional widespread suffering and upheaval, which to me was guaranteed given the destructive path to which our ruling class was obstinately committed. Second, my decade on Wall Street offered some valuable insight into the inner workings of financial feudalism and how it systematically and intentionally enriches certain small segments of the populace while enslaving the masses via perpetual colossal debt issuance coupled with reoccurring central bank bailouts for the creditor and financial asset speculator class. This wasn’t widely appreciated when I first started writing about it, so it became a personal mission to inform as many people as possible.
For a decade straight, I wrote incessantly about oligarchy, empire, endless war, an erosion of civil liberties, Wall Street criminality, unaccountable central bank power and much more. I figured if enough people understood how real power functions we could rein in its perniciousness. Sometimes I got it right, sometimes I got it wrong, but I always put forth my best effort. I’m proud of the work I did and the overall mission, but the unfortunate truth is it didn’t have the impact I had hoped for. Although I certainly helped and inspired people along the way, the macro situation we find ourselves in today is even more unstable and dangerous than it was a decade ago.
Despite fleeting moments of awareness when it appeared large numbers were waking up to how the ruling class actually rules, such waves of inspired energy were almost always quickly repurposed and redirected by mass media, dishonest pundits and others into typical red/blue manufactured political squabbles generally centered around the “culture war.” The imperial oligarchy wants us fighting amongst each other about race, geography, abortion, gendered bathrooms, sports team names, two hundred year old statues, or any other similar issue they don’t really care about.
As long as we’re fighting about that stuff instead of focusing on their wealth, power and criminality, they win. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen countless times over the past decade, and the general public seems to fall for it every time. If mass media wants to distract or make some ridiculous narrative the center of our attention, it’s a trivial task provided it triggers the culture war hysteria switch embedded in so many across the ideological spectrum.
After watching the first half of 2020 play out, I’ve finally seen enough. I’ve concluded and admitted to myself that the general public is simply unwilling or unable to put aside petty differences to unite and effectively challenge the ruling class on the really big issues of the day. If it didn’t happen this year, it’s not going to — or more accurately — time has probably run out at this point for grassroots movements to coalesce and force this decadent and destructive paradigm to fundamentally transform. Rather, it seems far more likely that the social and economic fabric we live under will simply collapse under the weight of its own corruption, depravity, violence and sociopathic greed before “the people” at a national level do anything particularly productive.
As such, continuing to write articles about what’s happening and how power, empire and oligarchy function has started to feel pointless. I feel like I’ve said nearly everything I wanted to say on these subjects and I’d just be repeating myself by carrying on. I’m simply not inspired to keep engaging and creating content in the same way, so I’m not going to.
Over the past ten years of public writing, I’ve undergone many changes, both in how I see the world and in my personal circumstances. When my emailed notes first started appearing on Zerohedge in early 2010 before I even had a blog, I was still single and living in New York City. I’m now married with three children in Colorado. Ten years ago, I had perhaps taken care of one tomato plant in my entire life, yet these days I’m spending several hours per day in our garden learning how to grow food. The things I’m passionate about and love most are different today than they were, and my work needs to reflect this change.
Going forward, I want to interact with readers in a distinct way than I have previously. I want more philosophy in my life, and less outrage. I want my words and my message to inspire rather than discourage. I want to promote resiliency and wisdom in the face of uncertainty and craziness. I want to increasingly focus on the things I love and the things I can control, rather than the things I despise and cannot easily influence.
Liberty Blitzkrieg has been an important part of my life and a useful medium, but it’s now time for a different canvas. I’ve had the idea of starting a new website with a distinct kind of mission and perspective for several years, and it finally feels like the right time to dive in. As such, I’ll be taking the next several months off from writing as I get some projects done around the house and think about exactly how I want to proceed.
I do know there will be a new website and that my writing will be going in a more expansive direction. In the meantime, I will continue to be active on Twitter in my usual way commenting on all sorts of issues, and if for some reason I become particularly inspired to publish a post in the interim, I won’t hesitate to come out of hibernation. I will continue to put together and distribute my weekly “Liberty Links” post to those who support my work during the transition. Liberty Blitzkrieg and all of its posts will remain online and available as a resource for those who are interested, or may become curious in the future.
Thanks for coming along on this journey thus far, and I look forward to reconnecting again on the other side.
Michael Krieger
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