The Storm Before the Calm: America’s Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond by George Friedman


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“I had a son in 1976. When I went to Europe, I met an Italian and we became friends. We would talk about what we would tell our families to do if the balloon went up. The conversation — strange and perhaps pathological as it was — bound us together. It was not war, it was not peace, but it was a place in the mind where the preparation for war and the anxiety that it generated created strange forms, such as plans for the movement of children in order to avoid a nuclear holocaust.” ~ George Friedman

By Catherine Austin Fitts

I like to read George Friedman’s books. I always find new and useful insights reading them. This often comes as a result of Friedman’s level-headed approach to war and the application of military force and its relationship to geography and politics. Friedman’s forthrightness is rarely found in the American media and think tank bubble.

That said, I rarely recommend Friedman’s books. Grossly oversimplified, in his view, the U.S. empire is always doing well, and the black budget is conveniently invisible. Who exactly Mr. Global is should not be of concern as Mr. Global clearly has the situation in hand. That makes it difficult to ensure the book is useful to our subscribers—they may not be able to separate useful information from the official story.

This time, I decided to make an exception and to comment. In Friedman’s latest, he implies that the technocrats are going to remain ascendent and drive us all crazy until we kick them out, which we will by the end of the decade. In the long run, he suggests, the American Constitution and the Republic are strong and flexible.

I have a slightly different take on what he is saying based on what we are watching. My read (not what he says in this book—I am injecting between the lines) is that Friedman expects the technocrats to provide a regulatory wave that continues to drive Main Street and the independent producers into bankruptcy. As the vulture capitalists and private equity firms aligned with the New York Fed fan out across the country buying up assets with $21 trillion stolen from U.S. government accounts and Fed-printed and Treasury stimulus money, new domestic terrorism laws will be used to cleanse anyone who objects to Antifa et al. burning down their businesses or financial insiders picking up local real estate for pennies on the dollar. (The defense of human and property rights is now being relabeled “white supremacism” and “domestic terrorism,” aka an “insurrection,” which is terminology constructed to ensure the best possible prices and the least risk to the private equity establishment and their bankers and the build-out of the “smart cities.”)

In my read, once the vulture capitalists own everything and the smart grid is installed, the vulture capitalists will kick out the technocrats and declare morning in America. Wave after wave of new immigrants will be given “free market opportunities,” which will allow the freshly minted assets of the vulture capitalists and private equity firms to rise in value quickly, including with a sea of government spending and subsidy. Yes, markets work!

The question, then, is how to navigate through the vulture capitalists and technocrats, as the leveraged buyout of the USA, financed with our money, will be at best frustrating and at worst life-threatening—a lawless, venal business. If you watch Putin’s speech at last week’s Davos meeting, you can tell he is as frustrated as the rest of us. However, he has a nuclear arsenal.

Which is to say that we run the risk that the backlash to the central bankers’ reset may include the risk of a nuclear reset. It is a reminder of the old adage, “Bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get you killed.”

Related reading:

George Friedman on Wikipedia

George Friedman Twitter

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