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Chris Martenson

Protecting Your Wealth

Executive Summary

Be early out the door before the Ponzi scheme collapses. How? Exchange paper investments for hard assets.
Build your financial base with diversified cash holdings and precious metals
Monitor the four key indicators most likely to presage a market collapse
Use time to your best advantage

If you have not yet read Part I: What to Do When Every Market Is Manipulated, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

One lesson here is that the system is now out of control – and sometimes lacking the necessary safeguards and trust required to have confidence that one’s wealth will not simply evaporate or be stolen with the tap of a keyboard at some dark point in the future.

Confidence happens to be one of the most important assets of a Ponzi system, and it is being steadily eroded by the cumulative failures of the Fed, the SEC, the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and every other government body that have recently tossed caution, rules and precedent to the wind in their efforts to preserve the status quo. I think this is an extraordinary mistake.

Unfortunately, as the brokerage accidents MF Global and Peregrine Financial taught us, knowing which type of firm you have your money with (e.g., prime broker vs. broker vs. fiduciary trust), as well as being confident in your specific firm's financial health and management practices are prudent financial practices. The financial advisory firms that we recommend to people know all about these differences and will be happy to explain them to you in detail. They are also exceptionally good at managing risk in these uncertain times.

We always advocate investing in yourself and your homestead as the first course of action. This quiet summer has been a real snooze-fest for those tracking the markets with the VIX volatility gauge plumbing multi-year lows. That’s the good news. Hopefully you’ve used this time to put in a garden or fine-tune your green thumb, practice one or more new skills, and/or install energy systems. This quiet period will not last…the news out of Europe should make that abundantly clear.

Protecting Your Wealth

PREVIEW

Executive Summary

Be early out the door before the Ponzi scheme collapses. How? Exchange paper investments for hard assets.
Build your financial base with diversified cash holdings and precious metals
Monitor the four key indicators most likely to presage a market collapse
Use time to your best advantage

If you have not yet read Part I: What to Do When Every Market Is Manipulated, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

What to Do When Every Market Is Manipulated

If you don't know who the sucker at the card table, is it's you.

~ old gambler's saying

What do the following have in common?

LIBOR, Bernie Madoff, MF Global, Peregrine Financial, zero-percent interest rates, the Social Security and Medicare entitlement funds, many state and municipal pension funds, mark-to-model asset values, quote stuffing and high frequency trading (HFT), and debt-based money?

The answer is that every single thing in that list is an example of market rigging, fraud, or both.

What to Do When Every Market Is Manipulated

If you don't know who the sucker at the card table, is it's you.

~ old gambler's saying

What do the following have in common?

The answer is that every single thing in that list is an example of market rigging, fraud, or both.

Fukushima, Lies, and What Comes Next

PREVIEW

Back when the Fukushima event was unfolding, we coordinated a group effort to figure out what was happening as best we could from the sparse video evidence that was available. Certainly there were the dramatic videos of the hydrogen explosion of Reactor #1 and then the far more exothermic and dramatic explosion of Reactor #3. Whatever happened to #3, it was not a hydrogen explosion as claimed at the time by TEPCO.

Along the way we also uncovered some pretty compelling evidence that Reactors #1 and #2 had melted down, and we were certain that #3 had suffered the same fate. At the time, though, the official pronouncements were still that meltdowns had not happened — and then 'partial' meltdowns were admitted, and every step of the way, quite confusingly low temperature readings, allegedly from the vessel cores, were being released.

We accepted none of that as fact, as neither the official statements nor the data comported with what we could see with our own eyes on the video evidence, nor from other tangential evidence, such as the US military preparing for full-scale evacuation of the island.

At the time, we urged our Japanese readers as far south as Tokyo to consider leaving, because if what we were seeing was true, and the winds shifted, then potentially dangerous levels of radiation could have drifted over Tokyo with no means in place to safely evacuate the city.

Fukushima, Lies, and What Comes Next

PREVIEW

Creating a World Worth Inheriting

With a new site and a number of new irons in the fire, Adam and I thought it a good time to revisit and renew the mission behind this movement.

Simply put, our mission is to create a world worth inheriting. By this we mean a clean, healthy living environment, a durable economy, and prosperous opportunities for all who participate with us. That's our big, lofty aim.

At heart, our view is that our policies, uses, and practices in all of the Three “E”s are unsustainable. One cannot forever grow non-renewable resource use in a finite world. The exponential nature of that growth just hastens things along.

Because of hard constraints, our exponential money and debt systems are on a collision course with reality. We will first and most immediately — and personally — experience the deleterious effects of this in what we call 'the economy' in the form of stagnant growth, rising unemployment, and various ills and maladies within the financial markets.

This is just another way of saying that very big changes are coming our way. In fact, they are here already.

The simple conclusion is that we must either change our habits and ways on our own terms — or on Nature's. We face a future that will be shaped either by disaster or design.

Here at Peak Prosperity, we are solidly behind the idea of positive change made on our own terms and that we are each responsible for whatever future is created.

There are a number of things that we absolutely have to do in order to achieve our mission. And at the top of the list is reaching and influencing a lot of people (millions upon millions) and doing so effectively.

Creating a World Worth Inheriting

With a new site and a number of new irons in the fire, Adam and I thought it a good time to revisit and renew the mission behind this movement.

This is just another way of saying that very big changes are coming our way. In fact, they are here already.

The simple conclusion is that we must either change our habits and ways on our own terms — or on Nature's. We face a future that will be shaped either by disaster or design.

Here at Peak Prosperity, we are solidly behind the idea of positive change made on our own terms and that we are each responsible for whatever future is created.

Off the Cuff: Sounding Like a Broken Record

PREVIEW

In this week's Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Mish and Chris discuss:

Europe's Deepening Recession
- The official GDP data worsens
Reckless Lending 2.0
- The Poway, CA Ponzi
Anticipating a Big Move for Gold
- After nearly a year of range-bound trading

So far the summer has been relatively dull, especially while the world has been glued to the Olympic action in London. The same risks we've been watching all year are all still in play, but there have been few newsworthy catalysts (up or down) of late. With things becalmed, it's hard not to sound like a broken record in ringing the same warning bells that we've rung all year. But despite the lack of developments (perhaps in spite of them, given that no fundamental risks are improving), Chris and Mish are very unnerved by the current doldrums. Digging under the calm waters, they find Europe's downward slide is deepening, as well as shockingly irresponsible lending practices that show we haven't departed from the nefarious behavior that caused the 2008 credit bust.

Off the Cuff: Sounding Like a Broken Record

PREVIEW

In this week's Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Mish and Chris discuss:

Europe's Deepening Recession
- The official GDP data worsens
Reckless Lending 2.0
- The Poway, CA Ponzi
Anticipating a Big Move for Gold
- After nearly a year of range-bound trading

Off the Cuff: QE Blues

PREVIEW

In this week's Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Mish and Chris discuss:

Dashed hopes
- What to expect now that the Fed and ECB have disappointed?
Growing signs of weakness in the economy
- A strong defense is critical at this point
The continuing drought
- More pain from the lack of rain

Now that the Fed has disappointed AND the ECB (after this recording) followed suit, the markets are asking where's my fresh, cheap liquidity? While Chris and Mish don't think that further quantitative easing will have any sustained or constructive impact, they do expect it is still coming. But it seems that greater pain in the financial markets is needed before action takes place. Chris, in particular, now warns of an impending market downdraft — so a defensive position is highly advised.

Off the Cuff: QE Blues

PREVIEW

In this week's Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Mish and Chris discuss:

Dashed hopes
- What to expect now that the Fed and ECB have disappointed?
Growing signs of weakness in the economy
- A strong defense is critical at this point
The continuing drought
- More pain from the lack of rain

Joel Salatin: We Are the Solution, as Well as the Problem

There is nothing inherently environmentally damaging about human participation. Yes, I admit it and repent in sackcloth and ashes for all of the human devastation that has been caused throughout history. It has been caused long before the USDA, long before America, long before a lot of things.

It does not have to be so. In fact, we are not only the most efficient at destroying it; we are also the most efficient at healing it.

So states Joel Salatin, one of the most visible and influential leaders in the organic food and sustainable farming movement. Joel returns as a guest to discuss "ecological participation" – methods by which humans can create a much more resilient landscape than current mass agricultural practices allow for.

Among other topics covered in this podcast, Joel and Chris focus the current drought gripping much of the US (and other countries). How unusual is it in its severity? What's causing it? What can be done to reduce our vulnerability in the future?

Joel's basic point is that there is a wide set of solutions that are possible to implement today, at scale, that can have an enormously restorative impact on our ecology without sacrificing crop production yields. Some of these involve returning to practices common in past generations before modern factory farming, others arise from new innovative thinking and technologies.

The only obstacle to implementing these solutions is our own intransigence. Our politics and economy are deeply wed to the heavily depleting and input-dependent practices of modern mega-farms. So there are big interests concerned with protecting the status quo, even though it is simply not sustainable in the long term.

Which is why Joel is a big believer in action at the individual level. The more households and local communities begin implementing these sustainable solutions, more momentum will build to change perception and thinking at the state and national level. Plus, our local foodsheds and watersheds will be better off from these efforts – so why not get started now?

Joel Salatin: We Are the Solution, as Well as the Problem

There is nothing inherently environmentally damaging about human participation. Yes, I admit it and repent in sackcloth and ashes for all of the human devastation that has been caused throughout history. It has been caused long before the USDA, long before America, long before a lot of things.

It does not have to be so. In fact, we are not only the most efficient at destroying it; we are also the most efficient at healing it.

Japan Is Struggling

PREVIEW

In a prior piece this year, I proclaimed Japan to be my favored candidate to be the black swan of 2012. By this I mean that a financial accident in Japan that would create massive havoc in the world markets seems even more likely to me than something originating in Europe.

The reason is precisely because all eyes (and efforts) are focused on Europe, leaving Japan out of focus and unattended, so to speak. This is practically a requirement for a crisis spot; crises never seem to arise in the place everybody is already watching. Japan is nicely out of focus and therefore a good place for us to keep our eyes trained upon.

In the most recent podcast with Mish, we discussed the fact that Japan had recently posted its largest first half trade deficit in history. Then Mish asked if Japan's current account had slipped into negative territory yet, as that event will accelerate the pace at which Japan's looming structural insolvency will arrive.

While discussing the current account, a normally obscure economic term, seems a bit wonkish, it is really quite important. So let's start there, with a definition as a refresher for myself and perhaps an introduction for others.

Japan Is Struggling

PREVIEW

Off the Cuff: Time for Precious Metals to Shine?

PREVIEW

In this week's Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Mish and Chris reunite to discuss:

Dwindling options for capital
- Growth is slowing everywhere and more QE looks increasingly certain
Mathematical disasters everywhere
- More bad news from Europe and Japan
Housing market overhang
- We may see a 'lost decade' before prices truly recover

There's much to talk about as Chris and Mish reconnect after two weeks. Signs for new global liquidity measures are burning brighter than ever and sovereign risk in Europe and Asia is mounting. Stewards of wealth are finding it harder and harder to protect it, let alone grow it. Are we finally at the stage where the world wakes up to the relative sanctuary the precious metals offer?

Off the Cuff: Time for Precious Metals to Shine?

PREVIEW

In this week's Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Mish and Chris reunite to discuss:

Dwindling options for capital
- Growth is slowing everywhere and more QE looks increasingly certain
Mathematical disasters everywhere
- More bad news from Europe and Japan
Housing market overhang
- We may see a 'lost decade' before prices truly recover

James Howard Kunstler: It’s Too Late for Solutions

Author and social critic James Howard Kunstler has been one of the earliest, most direct, and most articulate voices to warn of the consequences — economic and otherwise — of modern society's profligate wasting of the resources that underlie its growth.

In his new book, Too Much Magic, Jim attacks the wishful thinking dominant today that with a little more growth, a little more energy, a little more technology — a little more magic — we'll somehow sail past our current tribulations without having to change our behavior.

Such self-delusion is particularly dangerous because it is preventing us from taking intelligent, constructive action at the national level when the clock is fast ticking out of our favor. In fact, Jim claims that we are past the state where solutions are possible. Instead, we need a response plan to help us best brace for the impact of the coming consequences. And we need it fast.