As the world continues to move into uncharted territory, today a 40-year market veteran sent King World News a tremendous piece which warns about a global ticking time bomb, economic war, and World War III. He also covers the gold and silver smash. Below is what Robert Fitzwilson, founder of The Portola Group, had to say in this exclusive piece for King World News.
September 15 (King World News) – The Global Ticking Time Bomb, Economic War & World War III
“Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.” ― Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology
Joseph Campbell was an American mythologist, athlete, lecturer and writer. Before his death in 1987, he had taught for 38 years at Sarah Lawrence College. One of the characters buried deep in history that Campbell studied was a man named Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus known to most as simply “Cincinnatus.” Campbell was intrigued by both the mythology surrounding Cincinnatus as well as the hero. Campbell wrote extensively about the concept and role of the hero, and Cincinnatus certainly was that both to the Romans of 2,500 years ago as well as to relatively contemporary figures such as George Washington and Harry Truman.
Cincinnatus was the archetype of the citizen soldier. The Roman system of government during his day relied upon power sharing between the senate and two appointed consuls. The consuls shared power for one year, dividing decision making every other day. Each consul had the power to nullify the others proclamations. The system was designed to minimize the chance of a return to the hated monarchies leading up to this era.
The one exception was in time of threats to the state. In such cases, a dictator would be appointed. The dictator had absolute power. Cincinnatus was given such powers on two occasions. Recruited from his modest farm, he abandoned crops in the field to defeat Rome’s enemies. At the end of each period, he relinquished his power and returned to his farm.
During the period leading up to the Revolutionary War in the United States, classicism was undergoing a revival among those with formal educations stimulated by amazing archaeological discoveries made on the Italian peninsula. The arts were most definitely impacted, but a renewed interest in the Roman forms of government played a significant role in the documents, symbolism and postwar transition that grew out of the Revolution.
George Washington found himself, as did Cincinnatus, with de facto dictatorial power at the end of the Revolutionary War. Using the example of the Roman hero, Washington relinquished his power and went home to his estate as did Cincinnatus. The name of Cincinnati, Ohio has its roots in the Society of Cincinnatus that emerged after the war. The Society was set up to broaden the citizen soldier concept to the troops and officers being decommissioned after the War.
But right now there appear to be no heroes on our horizon. The post-WWII and post-Cold War eras are devolving before our eyes. Centuries-old political alliances are breaking apart in Spain and the United Kingdom. The markets continue to be more brazenly and openly manipulated with no regulatory or legal responses, as we have seen with the most recent moves in the oil and precious metals markets. Even the Pope came out over the weekend to state what we all know or should know, that World War III is upon us.
We see war physically in places such as Ukraine and the Middle East. We see it monetarily in the war over the reserve currency played out in the precious metals and fiat currency markets. We see political war in the manipulation of the price of oil.
We hear that the price of oil is down due to weakening economies and increasing production in the United States. The increased production is a good thing for the United States, but the increased production represents less than 2% of global demand. The global demand is actually increasing, after a slowdown for a month earlier this year. The budgets for the key oil producing countries require a triple-digit price to make ends meet, Russia in particular. Saudi Arabia requires a third of their production just for domestic needs that cannot be exported. We suspect that the decline in the price of oil is not supply or demand related, but simply a form of warfare to hobble Russia’s economy. So we remain very bullish on the long-term price of oil.
As for precious metals, the recent smash could also be aimed at the currency antagonists of the West, particularly Russia and China. Those two nations, along with India, own the lion’s share of the world’s stock of gold and silver. Driving the price down to tarnish the role of precious metals makes perfect sense if you want to keep printing money out of thin air without constraints. As with oil, there is no economic basis for the price of precious metals being this low. It is simply collateral damage from war between the major powers.
Oil and precious metals should continue to be accumulated for the day when prices reflect economic reality.As Campbell says in his quote above, we are all just trying to figure this out, and hoping to be around when the answers are known. In the meantime, don’t fall prey to the meme that there is a rationale for existing stock, bond, energy and precious metals prices. The central planners have created a ticking time bomb through market manipulation that could ignite at any moment.”