The “slow burn” is my term for a centrally managed economy in which a small group of insiders covertly subsidize themselves at the expense of the outsiders through (i) monetary policy, (ii) manipulation of government resources, regulation and enforcement and (iii) manipulation of financial markets and data.
If you’d ask me which people are really ‘must-follow’ for their continuous insight into the evolving post-meltdown evolution, then the following would quickly come to mind: John Robb of Global Guerillas, Jeff Vail of the Theory of Power, Kevin Carson’s insight into decentralization of production. There are more of course, and one of them is definitely Catherine Austin Fitts.
She produces the Solari Report which focuses on preparing communities for resilience and has a keen insider’s view of the financial aspects of the meltdown.
For Catherine, however bad the situation is, and however much some social forces are profiting from the misery of others, there is always many good things we can do to prepare our own bottom-up feature.
Do check out her Solari Report.
The following excerpt shows her dire view of meltdown profiteering.
If some of the statements make you wince, don’t forget, everything she claims is well documented on her blog. The original has the links to further articles.
Catherine Austin Fitts:
“In our year-end wrap up, 2008: Looking Back, I said that the big question of 2008 was the same one I have been asking as $4 trillion went missing from the US government: “Where is the money?”
In our 1st Qtr 2009: Looking Back, with bailouts approaching $12-14 trillion and counting, I said that the importance of this question continued to grow. With the laws related to public and private financial management treated by insiders as mostly irrelevant, the global financial coup d’ etat underway was becoming more apparent.
As I prepare our wrap up for the second quarter, the importance of missing money keeps growing as unemployment rises towards Great Depression levels and an out of control financial system keeps getting wierder.
The signs are growing that the Wall Street banks have now built their war chest and are moving to ensure that Main Street is on its knees or worse as they move in for the kill.
Signals of subtle capital controls that will help to force the continued flow of capital to Wall Street are growing as well.
Legislation promoting control of food (See Food Safety Bill), health care and finance is pending; as is energy legislation to create the framework for resource taxation and, through carbon trading, create a new generation of fraud and derivatives that embroils localization efforts in businesses that depend on government engineered corporate profits.
When all of this legislation is viewed in totality, there will be no need to formally shred the U.S. Constitution since no one will be able to understand, let alone comply, with the trillions of rules related to every aspect of our lives and we certainly will not be able to pay the taxes and fees associated with staying alive anyway.
It would appear that the American people understand the legislative and appropriation wave rolling over us. I estimate that for every $1,000,000 awarded or loaned to the large banks in bailout money, Americans purchased one gun and 10,000 rounds of ammunition.
As I described in my last June Solari Report, state governments have been temporarily supported with the stimulus package. As predicted, the pain at the state and municipal levels has continued to rise with the California budget crisis serving as a bellweather.
As hopes for a last minute bailout from the federal government continue, Martin Weiss is now predicting that default is inevitable on $59 billion of California municipal bonds. This could send shockwaves through the entire muncipal market. If the Feds let California go down, more states are likely to follow. State and local land and assets, such as parks and open lands, will be ripe for the plucking.”