“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.”
~ Buddha
By Catherine Austin Fitts
Ray Dalio’s was quoted in Business Week this week:
“People – from a business point of view – are machines that do things. And now they can not only physically but intellectually be replicated with technologies.”
The article referred to Dalio’s video contribution to explain the economy in 30 minutes, How the Economic Machine Works.
What Dalio’s video describes is the credit cycle. He does not explain the economy. He gives simple, sound advice on how to personally deal with the nature of the credit cycle.
Describing the credit cycle could approximate to describing the economy if:
(I) what is happening on the asset side of the balance sheet is relatively static;
(II) there was no violence and force involved – no covert operations, invasive surveillance systems, and armies.
That is to say, the presentation describes the theoretical market economy I learned about in macroeconomics in college.
There is no mention of groups that are permitted to kill with impunity. There is no mention of how institutionalized violence facilitates predatory financial practices and financial fraud using NSA–type surveillance systems and government enforcement. There is no mention of the fact that the resulting fraud has to be cleaned up through bailouts and debasement, which drains those who are productive and save. There is no mention of organized crime and how it intersects with government financing and local politics.
That is to say, the presentation does not describe the economy I worked in on Wall Street and Washington.
Franklin Sanders often says that wealth comes from what men take from the ground. Upon reflection, I disagree. Wealth comes from what women bring forth from the womb. The reality is that human labor, including slavery, and imagination, have created far more wealth than the entire mining industry since the beginning of time.
Clearly humans are not machines. However, if we want to think about ourselves that way, it is best to remember that we are self-replicating. It is that value that the debt cycle was created to harvest by those who have the force to install and maintain it against the will of the majority of the population.
If you want to understand that cycle, watch Dalio’s video and take his advice to heart.
