51 The Real Game of Missing Money IX. Planet Equity; Planet Debt (November 2012–November 2016) “In a recent online survey asking for votes on the top story of 2014, I voted for the Alibaba IPO…. English teacher Jack Ma started Alibaba in the mid-1990s in his living room in China. Twenty years later he launched the largest IPO in the history of the world for a company that has a market valuation which is larger than the GDP of many countries. Alibaba’s story speaks to the growth of Asia, of the online market exploding in size with smartphones and mobile payment systems, and of the access and liquidity these developments offer millions of small businesses and consumers. In the process, despite running what is one of the largest companies in the world, Jack Ma spoke to a global media audience and to the largest, most influential investors in the world about the importance of serving the dreams and aspirations of the little guy.” ~ Catherine Austin Fitts, Planet Equity, 2014 Annual Wrap Up “When trade stops, war starts.” ~ Jack Ma H aving gutted our way through the fiscal crisis without a plausible explanation of what had happened, let alone why no one had been held accountable, many citizens and investors realized that something was more than amiss. It was challenging for many of us to get our minds around a full-blown financial coup d’état—despite the fact that there were financial signals everywhere. The Middle East wars and the War on Terror were on their way to spending a total of $5.9 trillion by 2019, not including the money that was going missing in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, the funding ratios on American pension funds—near fully funded in 2001—were dropping at alarming rates. New symptoms of the financial coup d’état appeared regularly. When you spend your life being disbelieved by almost everyone around you, related to something that seems fairly obvious to you, you appreciate those charming anomalies that bring hope that others may get to thinking.