6 Our 1st Quarter Wrap Up is an assessment of the first 70 days of the new US Presidential administration in the context of these deeper changes currently underway. The US Federal Budget & Your Missing Money For almost two decades, I have continued to bring my readers back to the US federal budget and the real cost of some $27 trillion in bail- outs – plus $11.5 trillion in undocumentable adjustments in federal accounts since federal fiscal year 1998. When I talk about this money, I am not thinking about ordinary “currency.” These stolen monies are the resources required to send children to college or to ensure good food and health care for families. These resources are needed to maintain the transportation networks that a modern economy needs to function and the water and sewer systems that a civilization depends on. These are the resources that stood behind our promises to pension beneficiaries, government employees, and veterans. These are reserves for a rainy day. I am also concerned about the financial in- centives we are creating for ourselves. Are we encouraged to produce junk science or to addict people to junk food, pornography, and gam- bling? Or, are we encouraged to take care of our natural environment and to provide education for our children? Unfortunately for us, crime that pays is crime that stays. I am also thinking about control. If a group of people can steal $27 trillion and $11.5 trillion without regard for the law, then these people have sufficient power and money to control just about everything and everyone. They get to be the bosses, regardless of which politicians are elected or what the laws and courts say. This truism remains if we pay our taxes and the US Congress continues to appropriate tax dollars to federal agencies that refuse to obey the Consti- tution or the laws related to financial manage- ment. Money is not simply money in your pocket or your bank account. It represents our stored time and energy and our promises to one another, including our commitment to manage and allocate resources in the future. It includes incentives to reward certain behavior and to pe- nalize other types of behavior. In amounts large enough, money confers power and possibly even control. So, I am focused on the budget and on the fed- eral accounts – which are where the real oper- ating policies come together. If the budget and our federal accounts are lawless, if they are used consistently to transfer assets to private interests that are above the law and which finance inhu- man acts, then it is only a matter of time before society itself becomes lawless and inhuman. The Central Banking Warfare Model For 500 years, the Western nations have operat- ed on an economic model that I call the central banking-warfare model. The central banks print fiat currency and the military services ensure II. Introduction: The Clash of Civilizations