36 The Solari Report / 2018 Annual Wrap Up / Part Two don’t understand. It’s too late. They have given up on the country. They are moving all the money out in the fall [of 1997]. They are moving it to Asia.” Sure enough, that fall, significant amounts of money started leaving the U.S., in- cluding illegally. Over $4 trillion went missing from the U.S. government (https:// library.solari.com/will-defense-run-the-real-stimulus-package/). No one seemed to notice. Misled into thinking we were in a boom economy by a fraudu- lent debt bubble engineered with force and intention from the highest levels of the financial system, Americans were engaging in an orgy of consumption that was liquidating the real financial equity we needed urgently to reposition ourselves for the times ahead. The mood that afternoon in London was quite sober. The question hung in the air, unspoken: once the bubble was over, was the time coming when we, too, would be “de-modernized”? In 2009—more than seven years later—this is a question that many of us are ask- ing ourselves. The explosion in size and scope of the budget for the national security state led me to focus more attention on the black budget and to follow reports of extensive underground bases and a secret space program. In part, this was inspired by an effort of the U.S. Navy and an affiliated think tank in 1997-1999 to try to persuade me that “aliens exist and live among us.” See 2015 Secret Space Program Panel (story from 1:48-1:56) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cydtragHNy8 The general theory involved is a theme that runs through many justifications for government secrecy. The idea is that the U.S. and other global militaries are dealing with unusual and danger- ous phenomena. Consequently, the proponents of this premise call for secrecy, making it essential to centralize control over all aspects of the government and economy, with no expense spared and no questions asked. However, they never offer any explanation for why this has to come with trillions of dollars of waste and destructive corruption by insiders. Allowed to grow for decades, secrecy misused accumulates significant legal liabilities while generating huge and hideous profits. This is why I often say that secrecy has become a financial addiction. It is a very similar dynamic to the one being used currently for climate change. “There is a terrible threat. Be afraid, be very afraid. Turn over more money to us, and we can fix it. Don’t ask ques- tions—you don’t want to know. This is an emergency—just give us your money.” I attended a speech in my community given by a Tennessee Republican Congressman running for Governor during the 2002 campaign. He was on the budget and defense appropriations commit- tee. He admitted that he knew that there was $3.3 trillion missing from HUD, but stated there was nothing he could do about it. That led me to organize a local group to support me in sending detailed information to his office about what he could do—along with launching a letter-writing campaign to all Tennessee media outlets. The story about the missing money started to get traction because a group of veterans in the Knoxville area who were supporting themselves, they said, by finding and returning soda pop bottles, realized the story’s import and started to blanket their email